Nick Denton's Startup kit. Nick shares the tools he uses to run his company. You’ll see a trend here: cheap, free, and flexible. And when you’re starting up those are important words. Keep your utility and flexibility as high as possible while keeping your costs as low as possible. It’s all part of having less [...]

Tasks From E-mails. I’m surprised at how useful I’m finding the new “create task from e-mail” feature in the upcoming release of Tasks Pro™ and Tasks. This was a frequently requested feature, but not one that I thought I’d use that much myself. Turns out, I was wrong. I haven’t yet set up any automatic [...]

Authority Control in Library Thing. I love this.  Library Thing is offering authority control at the user level–users can combine multiple listings for the same author, basically putting this aspect of cataloging into the users' hands.  In fact, the computer guesses pretty well, presenting a list of likely aliases for in the “Also known as…” [...]

How many IT staff does your library need?. Do you feel like your library is under-IT-staffed?  Probably.  Most of the rest of us do too, so you're not alone.  If you're writing a technology plan or want to advocate for more IT staff, check out Lori Bowen Ayre's IT Staff Calculator.  It considers factors like [...]

Using BI to Improve Leverage. Yesterday I suggested that improving the process of assigning associates could improve partner profits. In fact, Bryan Cave, with its deep commitment to business intelligence, appears to have done so. I asked John Alber, the firm’s technology partner and author of several recent excellent articles on BI, to comment on [...]

Easily Increase PPP by $27k?. Is there an easy way to increase per partner profits by $27,000? I previously reported that IBM’s global consulting business built a system to match consultants with the right job. Business Week (11/21/05) reports that using it, IBM “with 36,000 consultants in its system… saved $500 million in the first [...]

Practice and Process Improvement in Law Firms. US corporations invest a lot in process improvements. And now law firms show signs of doing the same. Two recent ILTA white paper excellent articles (Don’t Support the Practice of Law – Support the Business of Practicing Law and The Value Proposition of the Business Analyst Role) describe [...]

Susskind on Lack of Innovation in US Law Firms. Are you an innovation proponent in a large law firm? Ever wonder why life is hard? Richard Susskind, a leading legal technology thinker and consultant, writes an excellent article in the Financial Times Online: Backroom boys lead ‘positive disruption’ (free registration required; spotted on DennisKennedy.blog). Susskind [...]

Buying a license. I have a box of Windows XP in my office. It's a retail blue box. And if [heaven forbid] the office burns down, I've lost that license. I have to rebuy it. The other day for our Business Insurance renewal I was asked to write down all the software licenses that I [...]

Ev Williams: Achieving balance with GTD. evhead: Ten Rules for Web Startups Ev’s ten rules for a startup are all strong, but #10 particularly caught my eye: #10: Be Balanced What is a startup without bleary-eyed, junk-food-fueled, balls-to-the-wall days and sleepless, caffeine-fueled, relationship-stressing nights? Answer?: A lot more enjoyable place to work. Yes, high levels [...]