making external information...

Making External Information ManageablePresented by:

Joeanne ThomsonVP of Business DevelopmentShift Central

Meredith L. Williams, Esq. Director of Knowledge ManagementBaker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell, & Berkowitz

The Benefits of Tracking External Information

• Creates a common knowledge base across the organization

• Supports strategic initiatives

• Informs and provides background for executive‐level activities

• Supports and enhances traditional market research activities

• Positions the firm as knowledgable about their clients business

Objectives for Tracking External Information

1. To keep the firm abreast of  the industries and its clients’ business environments

• Industry Trends and issues • Government/legislation • Industry reports and surveys• Speeches by industry leaders

2. To support your key strategic priorities with evidence‐based research and analysis

• Analysis based on new market developments

• Ongoing tracking of potential new products, services, tools

• Ongoing tracking of competitors in local and global markets

• Ongoing refresh of the key issues affecting business strategies

Objectives cont.

3.To support your growth efforts

• Retaining existing clients and attracting prospects• Developing new innovations• Strategic Partnerships• Benchmarking and global best practices

4.To build an online repository of market intelligence

• Web‐based, secure and easy to access

• Allows staff to easily search for relevant competitive intelligence

• Monitors best practice marketing and business development activities

• Tracks industry trends over time

• Allows staff to share files, tips, etc.

How does a firm track and manage external information?

Firm hosted client portals, Firm intranet, or Firm KMS•News Alerts•News Feeds•RSS Feeds from a content supplier•RSS Feeds from custom briefings

Vendor hosted and managed client portals or internal information portal•Aggregation and management of external market information•RSS Feeds•News Alerts•News Feeds•RSS Feeds from a content supplier•RSS Feeds from custom briefings

Vendors should be technology agnostic and integrate well with any firms’existing systems, through simple links, alerts and/or RSS feeds, etc.

Google Search, Google AlertsYahoo Search, Yahoo Alerts

Dialogue

Reuters Thomson:  West Monitor Suite

Lexis‐Nexis

Hoovers

OneSource

Dunn & Bradstreet

Moody’s  (credit ratings, risk analysis)

Experian (credit reports)

Skyminder

EDGAR/SEC Filings

SEDAR (Canadian EDGAR)

Patent Applications

Some Sources for External Information

Too many ‘hits’ or ‘results’

Editorial review and selection of most relevant market activity

Succinct, relevant, custom market intelligence briefing

Aggregators, news feeds, alerts, web tracking, etc

Emailed to user list

Sent via RSS feed to firm KMS public website, newsletter template, etc

Custom Briefing of Relevant Market Activity

Archived on custom market intelligence portal

Baker Donelson Bearman Caldwell & Berkowitz

• 550 + attorneys

• 16 offices in Alabama, Georgia, District of Columbia, Louisiana,Tennessee and representative offices in London, UK and Beijing, China.

• 5 practice groups: – Advocacy– Business– Health Law/ Public Policy– Labor & Employment – Tax

Information Overload

• We are a full service firm. We must develop and build a way to deal with all types of information. This information comes fromevery source possible, including both internal & externalsources. We will focus on the external sources for this presentation.

• How do you decipher this information and turn it into something that can aid in decision making?

• Must look for the business purpose of the information and deliver it in different formats.

Why is this important?

• Internal Information is not enough. Looking at external information can give a 360 degree view of what is occurring with a client, industry, practice area, etc.

• Efficiency. Easier to stay abreast of changes in the law, positive and negative occurrences in the world that could affect clients.

• Better Sharing of Information.

• Better Client Service.

• Save the Firm money by delivering information instead of the user wasting time trying to locate what they need.

• Faster dissemination of critical information to key personnel for decision making.

KM Team

• The job of the KM team is to

1. Develop a system that will aid in parsing the information down to the key pieces &

2. Automatically deliver that information to the team members when needed so better business decisions can be made for clients and potential clients.

Types of Information?

• Lexis CourtLink (Dockets)

• RSS (News; Blogs)

• BNA & CCH (Newsletters)

• Firm360 (SEC Filings, Lawsuit Filings, Patent & Trademark Filings, etc.)

Practice & Industry Teams

• We currently support over 30 Practice & Industry Teams.

• Must find a mix of storage and automatic delivery for updating.

Practice Group Example

Basic External Information. RSS Feed of Legal Industry News

Basic External Information. RSS Feed of Legal Industry News

Basic External Information. Legal Industry Docket Information.

Basic External Information. Legal Industry Docket Information.

Key Internal Information.Blogs, Documents, Website Links, Team Members, Seminar Materials, Library Research Services, Newsletters, etc.

Key Internal Information.Blogs, Documents, Website Links, Team Members, Seminar Materials, Library Research Services, Newsletters, etc.

Practice Group Example

Key Internal Information.Blogs, Documents, Website Links, Team Members, Seminar Materials, Library Research Services, Newsletters, etc.

Key Internal Information.Blogs, Documents, Website Links, Team Members, Seminar Materials, Library Research Services, Newsletters, etc.

Basic External Information. West Monitor News, Alerts, Trending Profile for top practice group related clients.

Basic External Information. West Monitor News, Alerts, Trending Profile for top practice group related clients.

Other Key Internal Information. Automatic WestKM Searches of firm work product. Basically an automatically created forms bank.

Other Key Internal Information. Automatic WestKM Searches of firm work product. Basically an automatically created forms bank.

Other Key Internal Information. Automatic hourly updated Client & Matter Information related to the practice group. Links provided will jump to Client & Matter Service Team Sites. (See CST slides below.)

Other Key Internal Information. Automatic hourly updated Client & Matter Information related to the practice group. Links provided will jump to Client & Matter Service Team Sites. (See CST slides below.)

Basic External Information. RSS Feed of Legal Industry News

Basic External Information. RSS Feed of Legal Industry News

Industry Service Team Example

Key Internal Information.Blogs, Documents, Website Links, Team Members, Seminar Materials, Library Research Services, Newsletters, etc.

Key Internal Information.Blogs, Documents, Website Links, Team Members, Seminar Materials, Library Research Services, Newsletters, etc.

Basic External Information. West Monitor News, Alerts, Trending Profile for the industry.

Basic External Information. West Monitor News, Alerts, Trending Profile for the industry.

Basic External Information. RSS Feed of Legal Industry News.

Basic External Information. RSS Feed of Legal Industry News.

Basic External Information. RSS Feed of Legal Industry Blogs.

Basic External Information. RSS Feed of Legal Industry Blogs.

West Monitor Industry Related Report

West Monitor Industry Related Report

West Monitor Industry Related Report

West Monitor Industry Related Report

West Monitor Industry Related Report

West Monitor Industry Related Report

West Monitor Industry Related Report

Client Service Teams

• System to Automatically generate CST sites on intranet with the opening of a new file.

• Standard items auto generated on the pages. – Financials– Documents– Emails

• Additional Features added by the KM Team.– Team Calendars– Research– Filings– RSS Feeds– Docket Watches– Blogs

Client Service Team Example

Basic Internal Information. Financial Information pulled live.

Basic Internal Information. Financial Information pulled live.

Client Service Team Example

Basic Internal Information. Timekeeper Information

Basic Internal Information. Timekeeper Information

Basic Internal Information. Matter Drill Downs.

Basic Internal Information. Matter Drill Downs.

Client Service Team Example

Basic Internal Information. PDF Copies of Bills.

Basic Internal Information. PDF Copies of Bills.

Client Service Team Example

Basic Internal Information. All DMS documents & emails saved to the client & matter number.

Basic Internal Information. All DMS documents & emails saved to the client & matter number.

Client Service Team Example

All open files from the financial system.

All open files from the financial system.

Basic Information about the Client. (Financials, DM Documents, Emails, Team Calendar, etc.)

Basic Information about the Client. (Financials, DM Documents, Emails, Team Calendar, etc.)

All closed files from the financial system.

All closed files from the financial system.

Links directly into WestMonitor for the target client profiles.

Links directly into WestMonitor for the target client profiles.

Client Service Team Example

Client Service Team Example

Case Law Monitoring via Westlaw Watch.

Case Law Monitoring via Westlaw Watch.

Client Service Team (Other Pieces)

• RSS Feeds for News

• Dockets for Client

• Press Releases

• Subsidiary Company Monitoring

• Missing Piece: Filtering & Archiving

Questions?