Looks like there is now a forum setup to spearhead the open source (code engine) for ediscovery. The FreeEed.org invites folks to join in the movement. I guess even law firms (not sure about lawyers themselves) are welcome, as noted that DLA Piper is supporting open source software.

See you there!

Even for customers who can afford commercial e-discovery, “There is no tool that fits what lawyers want. The only one you like is the one you’ve never seen and don’t use, because they are just all bad.”
..one of the cyncial things the [commercial] e-discovery people have done for quite a while is they will charge the lawyers a lot of money for all the message files they could construct from all those database entries. You’ve created all these duplicates that the database existed to manage in the first place. Then they’ll turn around and charge you to de-duplicate it…

Another news – Nuxeo and Hippo Team Up to Provide Seamless ECM / WCM Solution – coming from Open Source folks which could potentially change the way enterprises, big and small, deal with E-Discovery challenges.

Also, my blog is linked from there. It’s the only blog I requested a link to.

Go and ask a lawyer to collaborate and see what kind of respond you get. I have done this couple of times and the responses I have received so far are fearful (non-collaborative) responses. Rather than seek collaboration, I am asked questions which are geared towards providing them with information so that they can compete with me or put me in a less favorable position. I have also been challenged in other non-collaborative ways.

Saying so, I have also met some wonderful people who understand the meaning of collaboration and have acted collaboratively, not just saying they want to collaborate. The word collaboration has become a buzzy word in the world of ediscovery. Buzzy word gets attention! Just yesterday (or was it Friday?) I was invited to collaborate on producing a Glossary on ediscovery. I jumped at the idea as it was something I wanted to do when I first started this blog. More to come on this wonderful collaboration….

For me, sharing information takes more courage than talk of collaboration. On the buzzy use or talk of collaboration, read the article ‘Time to Work Together on Electronic Discovery’ posted by Clearwellsystem. I like the video blog: Information Security and eDiscovery.  Why? Mr. Ron Hedges covered confidentiality and privilege which are both non buzzy words but are the hide and seek in ediscovery actions. What is collaboration in ediscovery? Lawyers collaborating with IT people?  Is that it?

In the world of IT and wearing my project manager hat on, ediscovery/edisclosure is another ‘activity’ to add to the list of items to consider. In the past (before ediscovery/edisclosure is coined) and in projects I have been involved in, I will do ‘cultural sensitivity’ sensing and ‘who is who’ and ‘who knows what or their role etc’ (the word coined is stakeholder analysis). I have held workshops (e.g. internet banking projects) whereby lawyers were invited as ‘key stakeholders’ and IT people were doing ‘who knows what’. Guess what were the outcomes? Lawyers may know a lot but they generally don’t want to reveal or share ‘openly’ in a workshop. If they do reveal or share, there will be more meetings with several paper memo type exchanges.

What can be done to improve collaboration between lawyers and IT people?  Before attempting collaboration, both teams need to sense ‘who is who’ (not only the IT people) and whether they can deal with whatever the outcomes and learn to accept whatever the consequences.  (fear of being open?) I don’t know any rule books or processes to do this. It’s beyond reckoning… Like some people just can’t ride a bike no matter how many books they have read or seen. This is just my sudden reckoning!

I like the word, protodigital. I would like it better if this word can be a mantra for lawyers and IT folks to get to know ‘who is who’ to reach to ‘who knows what’.

My article “Electronic Discovery/Disclosure: From Litigation to International Commercial Arbitration” appeared in The International Journal of Arbitration, Mediation and Dispute Management, V 74, N 4, Nov 2008 (The Arbitration Journal by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators).

Just want to pass on my acknowledgement here (which appeared in the footnote in my article):

The author (me) would like to thank Martin Goodman and Roger Clough for their individual reviews. This essay is based on the author’s dissertation for a post-graduate diploma in International Commercial Arbitration. The author also wishes to thank Angie Raymond and Stavros Brekoulakis, Queen Mary College, London for their support. Also, many thanks to those who kindly provided access to their articles on their websites/blogs, e.g. Ken Withers.

However, the source of the inspiration for doing my dissertation on ediscovery/edisclosure started when I was involved in a document management programme with a major subprime mortgage company, a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers (yeah!). Companies and all the system documentation (many versions/iterations – which I considered unnecessary but then…that’s another story) disintegrated and perished.

Well, nothing beats experience and I’ve certainly been fortunate to have the opportunity to be involved in exciting software/technological projects. Experience itself though is rather like a piece of paper stored in a cupboard (or rather in the mind). By writing my dissertation and having my article published (reviewed and critic) serves to remind myself the power of sharing/collaborating one’s experience with others. A piece of paper written (like the many documentation I’ve produced) and never opened and shared with others is akin to creating and building junk instead of building one’s knowledge with self and others.

I hope I will continue to learn more by sharing with others. I also hope that others will open up and share their experience.  Many thanks to others who have shared their experience with me in many unconscious and conscious ways.

Soon the site will be just www.adrtribunals.com.

There is also an iADRt (international ADR tribunals) ‘badge’ located on this blog right hand side menu.

Do visit and join for free and welcome any views/comments.

I was notified of the BarCamp event just two days before the planned event. Before the actual day, it seems to be a momentous event for the BCS as reported in the BCS blog.

Having attended the event and even run a session, I am indeed surprised that the BCS actually held a BarCamp and hoorah for taking the first step to break away from the conventional meetings and talks (which I tend to avoid these days, unless I have nothing else better to do).

By the way, for those interested in the session I run (or loosely facilitated and participated) and want to read what others discussed and got out from the session, please do check out Conrad’s blog conradiator. Also, please check out another blogger, Arjun’s blog gigogeek.

I certainly didn’t expect mobile interfaces and languages to emerge from the very loose question topic (question without buzzy words). Isn’t this exciting?! That’s the power of collaboration and interaction and dialogue. The challenge though is to do this intuitively and with gusto and fun! My own observation is that our abilities to tune in to our basic communication skills have been lost or rather brain washed with tools and technologies. The style (or non style) of BarCamp breaks the conventional rhythm of one person doing all the talk/lecturing and usually relying on using IT tools to communicate IT solutions/problems.

I went to BarCamp because I was curious who will turn up and whether the BCS office will be attractive (fun?) enough for people looking to experience something ‘bar’ and/or ‘camp’ erish. Well lots signed up but only a handful (less than 20) turned up. I am sure there are lots of reasons why people failed to turn up. For those who turned up, I will say to them ‘great showing!’
I am blogging this event here as I am pondering on doing a Camp type event (based on OST) with the overall theme on IT-Law-Fun. Well.. can we make ediscovery/disclosure event fun? One thing for sure, I will certainly learn a bit about myself.

Web Science: Studying the Internet to Protect Our Future
Studying the Web will reveal better ways to exploit information, prevent identity theft, revolutionize industry and manage our ever growing online lives.
By Nigel Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee

I am aware that there are couple of ‘closed’ networks (i.e. closed as they not operated like Open Source groups or like a social network of like-minded open groups of community) that have been setup to define various protocols for ediscovery related issues. I am not against closed networks as their output/contribution will be beneficial to their network.

If we are going to define protocols for ediscovery where do we start?
If we know where to start, do we really know how to define the protocols such that the protocols make sense to people who need to use/interpret them?

I guess protocols are just protocols and not to be confused with finding solutions or finding the appropriate questions to ask to lead to the desired outcome. I remembered a lawyer struggling to phrase his questions or needs at a brown bag discussion group during the DESI II workshop held in London back in July. What I remembered was that he was frustrated that he has not found the ‘search solutions’ to help him (and his client) to perform ediscovery searches. He mentioned keyword search when asked to elaborate further.

Let’s hope that Web Science will also reveal simple and better ways to make sense of our information intensive lives.

Furthermore, there are technology vendors/suppliers providing various forensics and investigations related tools and software for ediscovery/disclosure. Also, this year there are several organisations providing trainings/seminars on ediscovery/disclosure. Not surprisingly, lots of trainings/seminars have been conducted focusing on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of ediscovery/disclosure. When the ‘how to do…’ is encapsulated or prescribed in process models or in cookbook approaches like ‘tips and traps’, the application or rather the act of performing the ediscovery/disclosure activities will still need to be carry out by people and team of people. Process models and ‘tips and trap’ will add to the heap of processes and procedures for organisations. Also, people generally trump or ignore procedures especially if there are too many to chew.

From my own real-world lessons, having worked with several major organisations in large projects/programmes involving software development/implementation, ediscovery/disclosure activities will require not only tools, process models and procedures. Like software development projects, ediscovery activities involve many stakeholders with competing needs and interests, many dependencies all requiring resources to be used effectively. Why not utilise a project management approach to manage the resources?

As far as I am aware, most or practically all commercial strength project management approaches and methodologies do not provide any framework for dealing with the people aspects in managing projects.

For example, PRINCE2 has detailed description of managing product deliverables and also steps for managing risks. I recalled in a PRINCE2 Practitioner training course, the instructor said something along the lines: ‘For effective project management, the people skills are crucial and are not covered under PRINCE2 trainings or in the manuals’.

Moreover, even if ‘best practice’ guidelines such as the IT Infractructure Library (ITIL) is adopted by organisation, the challenges of co-ordinating and working with diverse teams of people as when in an ediscovery scenario will be even more pressing. People cannot be certified against guidelines or even standards e.g. BS 15000, the IT Service Management Standard.

Individuals and team dynamics are what make an organisation ‘tick’. It is also common to hear other phrases such as ‘people matters’ or ‘we value people’. However, when it comes to tapping into (or the buzzword –empowering) individual to deliver the required value, the ‘tick’ becomes more like a loud bang. Loud bangs are generally not welcomed (unlike in Chinese celebration where the loud bang from fire crackers are said to drive away demons/back luck etc) as noises are deemed as unpleasant causing discomfort and unanticipated consequences. Is this why people avoid or simply fail to cope with the dynamics of people interaction?

Perhaps I have lost touch with my own abilities to do what comes naturally. How to get back in touch with my own abilities? How to get in touch and stay in touch with my own abilities especially when I am faced with chaos or in chaos situation whereby I have to interact with others.

Looking back to the heydays of the 80s, where there were less processes or tools and less rules and regulations, I was better equipped (by being less equipped with choices) to get any job (mainly building great systems and running a family) done with lots of ticks and banging. Nowadays there are way too many processes/tools and every actions I take there are rules/regulations to catch me out or trap me. So much so, I dread the thought of walking into an office, especially in an organisation where people, process and technology (what else is there in a 21^st office?) actually restrict and hinder my abilities to feel, think and act. So far, I have been mostly fortunate to work for/with companies whereby the people makes it worthwhile going into office to work.

Do I have an alternative to escape the 21^st organisational trap? Well, I have been busy re-training and re-visiting my long held interests and most importantly reflecting on my life and how I want to live my life. I am taking small steps each day and learning to cope with needing less and reaching out into my inner strengths.

One realisation is that when I am in chaos, I will find a frame of reference to make me feel good again. This frame of reference can be anything or nothing. When I find my frame of reference I get the ‘tick’ and this makes me feel good. Feeling good enable me to make sense of what I need to do. Doing then becomes second nature, effortless work or task.

When in Chao, find a frame of reference!

In collaboration with others why not find a frame of reference too?!