Document Assembly & Case Management Blog

Honesty by Computer.  There is one aspect of Dragon NaturallySpeaking that might end up being quite beloved by executive management types.  Having to speak out loud into a computer tends to cut down on non-work Internet surfing!  There are few employees who would have the guts to say out loud “Seach web for beach houses available in June 2010”.

John Heckman in his recent blog post, When Is Ease of Use Counterproductive? raised an interesting issue and one I have struggled with in designing advanced interview systems for document automation.  He posits that making something too easy encourages foolish and stupid behavior.  There is a balance between “constraints on behavior” and making something too simple.

Working with Dragon NaturallySpeaking reminds me very much of one of those old movies in which you see an executive dictating to a secretary. I am now gaining a good deal respect for both executive and secretary. 

Can Dragon Naturally Speaking enable you to throw away your keyboard and control your computer with just your voice?  Basha consultant, Rose Rowland, a newly certified Dragon Naturally Speaking reseller, tries a week without her keyboard to see how far the limits of spoken technology can go.

Some have asked why I don’t enable comments for this blog.  The answer is two fold. First, moderating and filtering the “spam” wasn’t worth the benefit.  The second reason is that there are better and more effective forums for these discussions.  They include “The Virtual Lawyer” group on LinkedIn.com and my new group “Future Automation (Documents, Data and the Cloud)” also on LinkedIn.  I am also managing a group for HotDocs Wizards, Amicus Attorney Wizards, and “The Time Matters Connection”.  So if you find anything I write provocative enough to comment on, I hope you go to one of those groups and have your say.

Early Days of Automobiles
In the early days of the auto industry, a team of mechanics would put together a car in a week.  This was no mean feat of engineering.  In many cases, the car would have “custom parts”.  There would be “user” preferences.  And there was the inevitable unintended variation.  To achieve efficiencies (and thereby profits which was the ultimate goal), the engineers would create a template (a master design) with instructions to be “manually” completed by the engineers.  Further efficiencies were achieved by laying out he workspace; adding labeled shelves with all the key auto parts.  Some items were “pre-assembled” or partially assembled, leaving a few remaining steps that could be used for customization.  Nevertheless, it required a team of skilled engineers to put together a car.  Quality control was a matter of “experience” and not something that could be measured.  Each car had a unique character.  And of course, cars were expensive; in fact, too expensive for most people to afford.

Every other year I assess our firm’s web-presence and look at the state of technology.  My goal is to build a website that is informative, describes the products we support, and gives useful comparative and illustrative information about those products. Two years ago my interests were wide ranging, but the core of our business was HotDocs, GhostFill and Time Matters.  Since that time, our skill set and product offerings have expanded, as well as our staff.  We now have significant programming and database management capabilities by virtue of the inclusion of Steve Stockstill and Marc Wexler in our virtual offerings, and have engaged our partner Holly Humphreys in several billing engagements. 

We have entered into the web-development business with a new offering coming out in the 4th quarter through our partner businesswebsitedesigners.com.au that addresses the needs of lawyers interested in both social media and document automation. We have diversified our offerings of practice management solutions to include AdvologixPM and Amicus Attorney Premium Edition.  We have built solutions with Exari document assembly and DealBuilder, now offered on a SaaS model as ContractExpress.  And we have partnered with NetDocuments to provide cloud-based document management.  And so, our website, as comprehensive as it is, is hopelessly out of date.

What is the role of the “independent consultant”?  And should the “independent consultant” be allowed to benefit from a “sale” based on his/her independent recommendation?  Software vendors with “reseller” programs have always wanted a “free sales force” of consultants who offer their software “exclusively”; no salary, no benefits, no costs. These consultants are “paid” by the vendor in the form of commissions on sales (often narrowly defined) or referral fees and access to NFR copies of the software.  And yet, the questions arises, when one vendor demands exclusivity, what is the “price” for independence.  This article looks at the price and the benefits of an in independent non-exclusive consulting program to clients.  Some of the arguments are obvious, but they bear restating.

Imagine a world where the “digital world” merged with the “physical world”.  Combine a mini-lcd projector, a ccd camera, a cell phone, and a micro-processor in a device the size of an iTouch.  And then add software that support “multi-touch gestures”.  What you get is the vision of Pranav Mistry (a MIT professor) for what he calls a “sixth sense” device.  Check out the video presentation on TED.com (or click on the link below in the article). 

If you use OUTLOOK or EXCHANGE, you must get XOBNI.  That is inbox backwards.  And it works that way.  It turns your inbox upside down.  From a morass of emails and other crap, XOBNI brings order.  And it does this without you providing any organizing principle.  No need for folders and rules etc.  Rather, there is a simple search box.  It indexes your inbox.  It creates profiles of all your senders and recipients.  It pulls their data automatically from LinkedIn, Twitter, Hoovers, Facebook and other social networking services.  It shows the relationships between that person and ALL your other contacts.  It takes your emails and threads them together in conversations (remember GMAIL).  And it exposes and makes searchable ALL attached documents.