The Many Faces of Mike McBride Links

Thats good news (both that you're moving to Wo...

2010-01-26T12:42:42.723-05:00

Thats good news (both that you're moving to Wordpress) and that you are busy at work. Hopefully the transition goes smoothly - I know it took me a while to get mine moved when I went from MovableType.

Louis, I can see what they're trying to do, bu...

2010-01-23T22:24:23.915-05:00

Louis, I can see what they're trying to do, but as someone who has always hosted my own site elsewhere, I'm not really interested in moving my site to Google and living with the limitations of that, and despite Rick Klau's example of having your own site and just using a redirect to a subdomain, I like having all my website stuff in one place, and have no interest in moving the address of my blog and all of the archives after all this time. Besides, Wordpress really does blow Blogger away feature wise, even with the improvements Blogger is making, so if I'm going to go to the trouble of moving, that's where I'm going to move, IMHO. ;)

Doug, I use Wordpress on my Child Abuse Survivor site, so I know I could get it setup, my fear lies in the format of the 8 plus years worth of archives. I'm not real sure I want to figure out how to get all the archived posts properly addressed to not break links to old posts. I suppose the solution to that might be to simply leave all those old Blogger HTML pages and just turn off comments, so the links would still be there, but none of the template things would get updated either, which I'm not thrilled with. On top of that, I'd have to move the site to a new server on my hosting account to get the proper Linux/MySQL setup. Again, something I've done before, but it takes time to do!

Mike - I moved my stuff from blogger over to a se...

2010-01-23T07:57:50.835-05:00

Mike -

I moved my stuff from blogger over to a self-hosted Wordpress account last year. It does not take long. The import/export feature from Blogger to Wordpress is very straight forward and did not take long. (Most of the time was just waiting for the files to move.) Setting up WordPress is incredibly easy on most hosts. There is a script that installs the software and creates the databases. Literally takes five minutes.

And WordPress has features that blow Blogger out of the water.

Mike, I see where you are coming from, but I don&#...

2010-01-23T02:48:18.151-05:00

Mike, I see where you are coming from, but I don't see the situation as so dire. I first chose Blogger because of its FTP support, but moved off FTP for page hosting at the end of 2009 after years of having "a system" I knew worked. But, as you mention, the new platform and features were not available for FTP users, and now that I have migrated, I get all the new stuff, and it publishes instantly. 100x better, after always "Uploading to FTP". I am sure you know the process.

Blogger should get some kudos for explaining the situation well in advance, and they have built tools to make the move relatively painless. Ask me any questions if you're curious. I was a longtime FTP Blogger user, and I continue to be a Blogger user, even after having upgraded.

Kyle, I can appreciate the tension. On the other h...

2010-01-20T17:44:01.000-05:00

Kyle, I can appreciate the tension. On the other hand I think to myself, isn't privacy on Facebook a bit of an illusion anyway? Even if I decided to keep my groups private, on the group page it identifies you, doesn't it? And friends are always capable of sharing any information that you limit to them sharing with the rest of the world. Like I said, even if they put in place very strict privacy defaults, anything you post on a social networking site is going to be seen by someone, and that leaves the potential for it to be passed on, thus losing your privacy.

Seems to me that the decision to make friends and profile photos public was a direct response to Twitter, which shows all your followers and who you follow, and your profile photo by default. Even if you lock your twitter account everyone can still see those things, it just takes a little more work to identify people you're interested in on Twitter than it does on FB.

Ultimately, I look at it this way. I may identify with a religious or political group personally, but wouldn't necessarily share that information with certain groups of people. (Coworkers, clients, professional peers, etc.) If I want to be part of a group to talk about religion, for example, I'll go to church, not Facebook. That part of my life can stay private simply by keeping it off the internet.

Everyone has to identify if, and how, they want to use social networking tools and what they want to share. There's no right answer.

Privacy (like trust) isn't a binary propositio...

2010-01-20T15:57:25.003-05:00

Privacy (like trust) isn't a binary proposition, though. Sure, I probably don't mind my profile pic being public, but my friends list and all my group memberships? No thanks. I dropped Facebook a few weeks ago (inactivated, not deleted, at least for now). I had enough trouble with every page or group getting suggested to one's friends, but finally had it with the December changes.

But I do recognize your point, as a long-time preacher of the "information wants to be free" gospel. I recognize the inherent tension between these points; I'm not done thinking about this.

From the IT perspective yes, there's always mo...

2010-01-19T15:55:49.594-05:00

From the IT perspective yes, there's always more churn in lower positions, as opposed to director level positions. The higher up you get, the more your career is defined by what you know about the legal world, so you'd expect that. Network gurus, web developers, tech support folks, etc. can work in any industry, their skills translate. CIO's have spent a long time understanding the legal industry and applying technology to it, so they become more specialized. (Lit Support folks, like myself have even fewer choices really, outside of the legal world, or corp. legal dept. what good does my expertise do?)

Outside of IT though, when it comes to legal secretaries, paralegals, marketing folks, associates, etc. I can see a lot of turnover. Some will be moving out of the legal market altogether, others will move to other firms or different areas of the legal industry (courts, corporations, etc.). When opportunities start to come to them, how much loyalty are they going to feel after watching peers get laid off, being forced to pick up the slack with a smaller staff, getting their pay and benefits cut, and other ways firms have managed expenses through this? Like I said, what are people doing to fight this and keep their best performers engaged, or do they even see it coming?

Thinking from a legal IT point of view I think you...

2010-01-19T04:26:40.319-05:00

Thinking from a legal IT point of view I think you're probably right. And from a UK perspective I think London law firms will probably be hit hardest as I guess the opportunities for better paid positions will be greater.

It'll be intersting to see if the "churn" is just at the lower positions or whether senior managers and directors in IT will start to move away from legal?

Thanks Mike - I hadn't seen this app. Like you...

2010-01-04T19:38:36.717-05:00

Thanks Mike - I hadn't seen this app. Like you I'm sure there are tweets that I'm missing as I haven't checked my twitter feed for a while/days!

Thanks Marv, I'll check that out and see if an...

2009-12-26T18:47:14.550-05:00

Thanks Marv, I'll check that out and see if anything in there sparks some ideas. My fear is that I've become so accustomed to being interrupted, that I wind up interrupting myself even when doing something like writing a blog post or replying to personal emails in the evening by looking around at other things. I can't do too much about the work interruptions without altering the expectations of an entire law firm, so that's not going to be a quick fix, but may be one worth making! On the personal time front, it is going to e a matter of identifying Task A, Task B, and making sure they get done before moving on to other things. Maybe taking some of those same tools and applying them outside of the office? That might be a good start! :)

Without getting too deep into a rabbit hole, the t...

2009-12-26T17:28:54.653-05:00

Without getting too deep into a rabbit hole, the trick to time management is not about time, but about priorities. It sounds like you could use a refresh on the Time Management eppys from Manager Tools, http://www.manager-tools.com/2006/05/time-management.

I actually ran the Drucker time analysis a couple of times just to see if my actual time spent aligned with my perception of my time spent. I think you should give it a try too. There were no big surprises for me but it was still well worth the effort. I'm guessing the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is true even outside of quantum physics. The act of observing how much time I spent on Task A, Task B, etc. made me more aware of how I managed my time. Therefore I adjusted my behaviors to affect the outcome of the Drucker analysis.

It may seem like cheating, but if this makes you manage your time more effectively...well it works.

Thanks for sharing the info Leonard!

2009-12-15T14:32:19.206-05:00

Thanks for sharing the info Leonard!

Hi Mike, finally found some info. Their web site...

2009-12-15T13:24:15.914-05:00

Hi Mike, finally found some info. Their web site is www.nxtgenlaw.com

Leonard Lee
Merrill Corp.
leonardwl@perfectense.com

Marv, I have seen some mentions of Gowalla but h...

2009-12-15T08:22:42.575-05:00

Marv,

I have seen some mentions of Gowalla but haven't really looked at what the differences are. I can see where that would be kind of fun along the same lines as geocaching.

Just to clarify, I'm not really saying that I like to keep relationships online and not offline, just that I'm not sure I don't already do quite a bit of meeting people without the help of Foursquare, so why use another service? Besides, if that was really the point, why do I see so many people "checking in" from home, work, a grocery store, the gas station, etc. Those aren't places to meet up, so what exactly are you trying to accomplish? Or maybe I'm just underestimating the amount of free time other people have to randomly meet up with people. ;-)

Just to muddy the waters even more, have you tried...

2009-12-15T05:03:36.855-05:00

Just to muddy the waters even more, have you tried Gowalla? It's like geocaching except you drop virtual trinkets at certain physical locations. The next time a Gowalla player visits that location IRL they can pick up the virtual goodie and leave their own treasure. In my own circle of friends, Gowalla seems to have more appeal than Foursquare.

I think Foursquare may be trying to do something like Gowalla, but failing upward. They are trying to make socializing around a specific location cool, except they can't come up with a good reason for people to go to any particular spot. In spite of that, they are getting popular because of all the buzz around accidental connections people make through Foursquare. If you are into Tweetups and meetups in general, this can be a useful toy. If you like to keep relationships unphysical, then Foursquare is pointless.

I had the same experience at Epcot, and a similar ...

2009-12-14T22:07:13.978-05:00

I had the same experience at Epcot, and a similar one at the Coca-Cola store in Vegas this year, where they were happy to take a photo of us with the Polar Bear, but ours just had the green screen, as opposed to the one's they were selling which had backgrounds. So, to me, they understand it's a losing proposition trying to prevent everyone from snapping a quick photo and sell the value-add. In this case, whatever photo I was going to get with a cell phone from 20 feet away, as good as the iPhone camera is, wasn't going to be the same value as what they were taking. So they would have been just as well off to spend more time on getting their photos to be high value, and less policing the perimeter to prevent people from taking photos that don't really compare. Focus on the value add. :)

I understand why they do that, but they could take...

2009-12-13T20:15:54.801-05:00

I understand why they do that, but they could take a lesson from the photographers at Disney World. When we were there this summer they not only let us take all the pictures we wanted while they also took pictures, I even saw a few Disney photographers take a picture of guests with the guests' camera!

It had quite an affect on me, I even ordered some pictures after we got back.

Jay, I agree 100%. I've been spending a lot of...

2009-12-12T21:17:47.649-05:00

Jay, I agree 100%. I've been spending a lot of time telling people that the things that scare them about social networking shouldn't scare them if they've hired the right people, and if they haven't, they should have been scared of the reputation damage those people have already been doing outside of the office. People have always talked about their work, and given others an impression of the organization, now they can just do it more efficiently!

Mike, the key point here is that everyone in the f...

2009-12-10T00:35:16.934-05:00

Mike, the key point here is that everyone in the firm - from the head partner to the receptionist - should be there because they believe in the firm's mission and point of view. Assuming that to be the case, why not give each person the opportunity to tell his or her story in an unfiltered manner? Microsoft did it with Robert Scoble, Google does it with Matt Cutts - and in both cases there was (and remains) tremendous benefit to the company and the public. In an era of transparency, any attempt to stifle the personalities of those working in a particular firm is a bad idea.

Thanks Jenn, that was sweet. :) Yes, that's a...

2009-11-27T11:18:33.344-05:00

Thanks Jenn, that was sweet. :)

Yes, that's a perfect example of how social networks online can help people stay in touch even when things change and might normally drift apart. You might not be working in Legal IT anymore, but you're still someone I want to keep "talking" to an a regular basis!

It was an honor and privilege to speak with you at...

2009-11-26T10:31:37.716-05:00

It was an honor and privilege to speak with you at ILTA '09, and I loved meeting you in person.

I think it's awesome that, even though I've left legal, we can still stay in touch pretty much daily.

Totally agree Mike! After all if its a link the or...

2009-11-18T11:59:50.207-05:00

Totally agree Mike! After all if its a link the original author will get credit. The point about adding your own comment to the RT is key though as this is the most powerful point in the RT IMHO.

Although won't be continuing in Tweetdeck, I prefer Seesmic Desktop myself!

So far I haven't seen any LR only or LR centri...

2009-11-06T02:14:52.846-05:00

So far I haven't seen any LR only or LR centric podcasts except for Adobe's LR Killer tips (http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/archives/videos). I see the occasional segment on general photography podcasts but they usually don't cover things like their favorite custom presets or plug-ins.

I just noticed that LR3 beta has a blog, http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/

If you're just starting to learn how to edit photos seriously and heavily, I recommend getting your monitor calibrated. You will inevitably notice that your photos will look different from one monitor to the next. There's nothing worse than to edit a hundred photos on you laptop and then realize that the saturation is way overdone because you edited on your laptop monitor and it is a POS. But, there's no reason to install LR on another computer, just plug in an external monitor.

Just last week "someone" on my team said...

2009-11-04T19:56:21.847-05:00

Just last week "someone" on my team said "this isn't rocket science". Well, no, I'm not sending anyone to the moon but I sure am saving some from all kinds of messes with my handywork and I guarantee that not everyone can do what I do. :)

Try SplitView2009. One of our attorneys use it to...

2009-10-23T13:22:45.908-04:00

Try SplitView2009. One of our attorneys use it to control how the desktop displays.