Gosh! not ‘act of god’ but ghosts.. Ingenuous or ingenious reporting and/or responses from the Financial Crisis Inquiry stuff?!

Both companies – ‘lock, stock and barrel’ -have joined their ghosts but luckily I am still around .

p.s. I have worked with both in the past, I must be the lucky ghost

I was stranded for nearly one and half hour in a no power train yesterday and couldn’t help hearing several angry and frustrated mobile exchanges between couple of businessmen with the South East HQ customer services. The angry exchanges were mainly triggered because there were no communications (appeared to be no guard on the train either!) to the passengers on what was happening. The lack of visible actions on the train and the lack of reassurance from the HQ certainly did not help to calm the nerves of the passengers in a hot, broken down train in busy Waterloo tracks.

Is it difficult to relay basic information to passengers (who are entitled to be informed) the behind the scenes activities between the train driver, the engineers and HQ? I guess ‘the need to know’ (or walkabout alerting services?) by/to the passengers is not high on the HQ customer services list. No wonder train fares increases every year to pay for ‘unnecessary or avoidable’ situations – just a thought – but a rather annoying thought when one missed several business appointments!

In this age of ‘speedy and accessible’ communication (mobile connectivity etc.), customer’s expectation and fulfilment still pose challenges.

Is it also the same in the ediscovery/edisclosure world? I hazard a guess – a doubtless assertion (with the assumption that access to power/data is obtainable) – that the behind the scenes activities between the technical folks and legal and management team are exchanged too late to avoid aggros and costs. (Hence early confer/meet if this is available to parties).

In ediscovery/edisclosure, one of the behind the scene and less talk about (or blogged or written about) is evidence. This is highlighted by the use of generic term such as ‘information exchange’ in international disputes. The ‘e-words’ including ‘evidence’ are potentially culturally sensitive to use. Imagine having to describe the ‘e-evidence’ to all parties without getting cross-wired or inflicting cross-eyed to reviewers?!

For me, the term and usage of evidence in the context of international disputes requires behind the scenes re-assessment to make sense to me when dealing with ediscovery/edisclosure.

I guess evidence is also being re-assessed by folks in Asia. The ADR in Asia Conference 2009 in Hong Kong on 15th September has a topic: Interim Measures and Evidence – Emerging practices and movements.

Will e-disclosure surface under this topic?
I certainly would love to hear from folks who will be attending the Conference in Hong Kong this September. I will be in Peking University and may not be able to do the trip.

Enjoy!

In my role as an IT manager or project manager, I will never say to my team ‘we must get along with so and so to build this system’ or ‘we should try to talk to each other’. Who relishes to be ‘told’ or talk to on what to do? Definitely not want that directed at/to me and so why do it to my fellow workmates/colleague? It’s simply counterproductive and easily generate towards an ‘I told you so’ culture which ultimately leads to ‘a blaming culture’. In a blaming culture, creating a meaningful or ‘good stuff’ outcomes gets circuited.

I have recently come across several articles/postings highlighting that ‘IT folks and lawyers are still not talking or failure to co-operate’ in ediscovery activities. This is the posting which got me to blog. BTW, a catchy title ‘Legal and IT Are Still Not Communicating’. The posting ended by stating that ‘Only dialog between legal and IT will change that’. (i.e. the respective responsibilities of legal and IT still are not being carried out by many because they don’t understand them). Understanding starts somewhere and dialog is great if both parties are willing to have a dialog. Even building bridges between IT folks and lawyers have surfaced elsewhere.

Let it be known that it is not that IT folks are not talking to lawyers; it is most likely that ‘the talk’ is directed from lawyers to IT folks. (I am assuming in most organizations, lawyers initiate or announce the litigation hold and other ediscovery requests to the IT department). IT folks are used to receiving requests from other departments (including lawyers). However what is unusual in ediscovery is that most IT folks (unless they are trained on ediscovery terms and have exposure to ediscovery activities or have been fully briefly beforehand by legal staff) will treat the request as an IT request rather than an ediscovery requests. It’s not that ‘we are not talking’, it’s more like ‘what are we talking about?’ and ‘how do we start to get to the ‘same starting page?’. Now, how to get both parties to turn ‘talking’ into meaningful dialogue?

Failure starts when both wants to start building bridges to bridge with each other and failed to recognize that the simplest bridge is defining a raft to get to a bridge. There is always a bridge somewhere already waiting for us, just finding a raft is the first hurdle.

Remember the story of building a bridge? Let’s start by learning to define a raft and not focus on building bridges as there’re already bridges (i.e. ediscovery models, tools/systems) waiting to be used.

Finding willing raft designers from both parties is probably the first hurdle

I wish I can trace my friends and ex-colleagues in Zurich so that we can re-visit and re-craft the tales in the light of recent changes in banking secrecy in Switzerland. According to the recent BBC news: “The Swiss government confirmed that in line with OECD rules, it would now respond to overseas requests for information in cases of suspected tax evasion, and not just tax fraud”. Indeed the secrets are getting out and perhaps the gold vaults will also soon be opened for inspection, if my friends’ stories are indeed real.

I love stories especially when they stretches my imagination or lack of imagination (shock, surprises?!) and touches on my real life experiences. Well..Imaging walking above gold vaults just underneath your feet and at the same time being harassed by youngsters begging for money or small change. ‘Are They A Changing’ too in this non-secretive age or rather in this age of no more small changes in times of depression? I do hope so…

I just opened an e-mail alerting me on ‘10 Steps to Manage E-Discovery Projects’. Ah! Something just don’t change ; more steps and guidelines and this time instructing (‘like it or not’ ?!) lawyers to become project managers. Now that is a mighty call.

Having glanced the 10 Steps, I have only one observation (with lots of other reasons which I will not list here as they’re my secrets) that is – Project managers are not ruled by 10 steps activities nor can the ediscovery activities be codified into neat steps.

Imagine (now this is not lack of imagination) a lawyer (with all due respect) having to obey the code of ethics and work product or privileges stuff and then ‘like it or not’ being called to act as a project manager. Performing and/or switching role does not mean roles and responsibilities are clear or executable. In fact the multi-roles may create more mayhem when what one needs in ediscovery are clear roles and responsibilities. Also, imagine what the IT department will think of the Legal department?! Conflict all round I should think.

So I thank Bob Dylan for the imagination to ‘get real’ (lawyer acting as lawyer and project manager?!) and at the same time to imagine the impossible possible (like the change in banking secrecy).

Many worlds colliding in facebook judging by the number of groups. Oh imagine if (or when) facebook gets meshed up with Google. Just before these two worlds collide, I’ll leave the facebook warning message to me here for future proofing:

Please Read This!
Warning! Your account could be disabled.

Your behaviour indicates that you may be in violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. Continued misuse of Facebook’s features could result in your account being disabled. If you have any questions or concerns, you can visit our FAQ page.

How cool !

Want to know the heart of the issue in ediscovery? It’s not about the ediscovery rules/laws or about judges. To hear one world view, see the interview conducted by IT Business Edge. Like in facebook, people enjoy creating different world views and the real fun starts when two worlds collide like me and the facebook creator/owner.

I dread to imagine my world when Google and facebook becomes ONE.

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.

Well…I’m reporting yesterday’s news as I’m still suffering from jet lag or rather the time zone (& sunshine) differences from being up and down from East-West (Hawaii in the zone between East-West). One lesson which I just can’t fathom or learn is that my body–mind-spirit (wholeness?) just can’t recognise or register or adjust to the different time zone as required by where I am now. This doesn’t stop me from travelling to far flung places. Mmm do we need a meltdown to learn from our experiences? Good job my memories are still ‘fresh’

I spotted one large advertisement board (marketing board) as I was walking towards the international airport concourse in Toronto Pearson airport. (I flew from Vancouver to Toronto – this is just one lag). Guess what a saw! A marketing board (from one Ediscovery Company) with a one liner ‘e-mails are now legal’. I wondered how many people really understand the one liner. Does it concern me? Still…I had a phone call from a friend (yesterday) about his e-mails access and problems with Internet Service Providers. Memories still fresh; I said to him ‘e-mails are now legal’! Arghhh.

Lots of legal and non legal e-mails to ponder through.

I wish I can go to the Beijing Olympics…oh well…

Today, I heard over the radio (most likely BBC 3) advising visitors to the Beijing Olympic on what not to do?!

One ‘not to do’ is ‘not to ask what they do’ (i.e. avoid asking the Chinese what they do for living or their work).

Gosh! I have lived in Shanghai and Kunming (& have travelled to Beijing and other parts of China) and my advice to anyone going to the Olympics is not to avoid anything especially asking questions?! I guess it’s just radio commentary and not to be taken too seriously.

How about this ‘East meets West style of psychological integration’?

Professor Mok from the National University of Singapore gave a speech, titled “Ancient Chinese thoughts and modern leadership” at the Fudan University . Professor Mok’s suggestions are interesting. If his suggestions are adopted by the Chinese scholars in Fudan, soon all MBA students around the world (for the integration to be meaningful) will also have to study the ancient Chinese thoughts, i.e. Confucianism, Mohism, Taoism, Legalism, Military Arts .Whether future leaders will be able to grasp these ancient Chinese thoughts and think like Confucius etc. will be something I won’t be interested in.

What I am interested is how and why Professor Mok makes the connection between corporate decision-making with Taoism. This is indeed worth checking out. Would Taoism thinking helps with ediscovery/disclosure decision-making?

Maybe I ought to find a way to return or to Go East

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?!

Last week I went to the infosecurity Europe event in London as I was attracted by the keynotes titles and the interactive theatre. Besides returning home with three different caps/hats, one even has a battery attached to it (stress balls seems to be out of fashion for the security nerds and herd, which is good for me because I love hats), I also found that security is no longer confined to ‘security policies’ or even ‘communications policies’. Information security is an industry itself even though having a secured information system/network is still a myth.

On the panel discussion: ‘Which is more important – Compliance, Security or Operability?’, the question then is Compliance or Operability?. ‘Compliance’ is compliance with an array of rules/regulations/standards and no debates there and since ‘Operability’ (the intended meaning here is that the system is functional/operable/available) is also one interesting ‘ilities’ (others are ‘traceability and trackability’) for ediscovery; I was hoping to hear more debates on ‘operability’. No debates whatsoever on operability, instead couple of enlightening questions were raised around ‘information asset’. Ah! back to security in terms of protecting assets. Questions raised are ‘How to identify information assets including assets in the ‘cloud’? ‘How to put information asset at appropriate risks to achieve maximum value?’ These questions are also relevant for ediscovery. Worth pointing out that asset identification is one key activity of risks management. How many organisations perform risks management on a regular or even a sporadic basis? How many organisations have security policies or communications policies in place? In place or not, policies are considered ‘given’ if organisation is not to be burdened with ediscovery.

Interestingly, the shift seems to be on the monitoring of systems/networks/e-mails etc (any conceivable ESI ) otherwise also referred to as ‘vulnerability management’ (replacing risk management?).

Monitoring of electronic communications was recently reported in the article, ‘E-Discovery Keeps an Eye on the Job’ by A. Michael Weber New York Law Journal April 25, 2008. Here, the assets (also potential sources of ESI) are not just e-mails but also physical assets. Now imagine working in an organisation whereby such assets are ‘classified as company secrets’?! Mmm I wonder what Bruce Schneier will write after ‘Beyond Fear’. I have not read the book, just what’s on http://www.schneier.com/book-beyondfear.html. How about ‘Beyond Reason’?

Before I get too carried away, back to the infosecurity show…

A striking reminder comes from the chair of ‘The Hacker’s Panel’ (which I also attended out of curiosity as I was attracted by the lack of disclosure on the topic which said ‘ for legal reasons the panellists will not be revealed) was the old adage, ‘you can’t control what you can’t measure’. The theatre (non interactive, capacity 100-200) was pretty full. I remembered having to queue to enter.

So the reminder further re-inforced that information security is a myth. Can’t measure, can’t control. Can’t measure because no (reliable/operable?) information is available on cybercrime. Some mumbling on human factors, change behaviour, ‘hacker’ mindset gaps all revealing that security is not just related to policies, codes, printers, e-mails or networks.

Also a good reminder for ediscovery/disclosure