Say Goodbye to Email

According to a story by Lesley Ciarula Taylor published today in the Toronto Star’s Business section, Atos Origin, a global information technology company, is giving its employees three years to abolish the use of all internal emails.

A shocking prospect?  Consider this:

Hearing reports that employees were spending hours each evening to manage their email, and that middle managers spend 25% of their time just searching for information, and estimating that only 10% of all emails are corporately useful, the company has taken the position that email “pollutes the work environment and encroaches into personal lives.” 

The CEO, Thierry Breton, notes that email has been largely substituted by social media solutions – leaving only 11% of young people (age 11-19) using email. In his view, this renders email “outdated”. Breton estimates that within two years, updates to and editing of existing digital information will create more than half of all new digital content.

To replace the email, Atos Origin is piloting a variety of social network solutions, most of which allow sharing and updating of information by employees.

What’s next? We’ll keep you posted.

Wortzman Nickle – All Now Equipped With iPad 2s

Wortzman Nickle recently equipped all staff with iPad 2s. These data consumption tools will help to further streamline and enhance the services Wortzman Nickle provides to our clients.

Apart from reading the Globe or playing Angry Birds, the iPad is revolutionizing the way we access digital information. This is especially true for information junkies. Compared to other tablet devices, the quality iPad design is unsurpassed, and it simply works better – its faster, less glitchy, and far more intuitive than the competition. Even our kids love it.

The usefulness of the iPad is directly related to how well it’s wielded. This is exemplified by the “Apps” that are installed. There are currently over 350,000 official, Apple-approved apps that can be installed on the iPad. While all of these have been vetted by Apple to ensure they do not contain viruses, Apple does not scrutinize Apps for usefulness or usability. No question, there are some real stinkers out there as well as some gems. To separate the wheat from the chaff, and help you to use your iPad to the fullest, we’ve listed some easy to implement tips:

• Security – although the iPad is relatively insulated from threats such as viruses and trojans, due to its portability and popularity, it is a frequent target of theft. To ensure that the valuable and confidential information you access from your iPad is secure, there are simple steps to implement.

1. Set up a passcode. The iPad allows you to configure either a 4-digit simple passcode or a more secure, alphanumeric passcode. Just like the password you use on your computer, for maximum security, your passcode should be alphanumeric and include both upper and lower case characters, as well as numbers and punctuation. A passcode of at least 8 characters is recommended.

2. Once you set up the passcode, you’ll also want to set the AutoLock time. We’ve found that 15 minutes is a good compromise between usability and security.

3. Finally, in case your iPad does go missing, Apple has create a useful little app called “Find My iPad”. Once installed and configured, you can log into Apple’s website from any computer, enter your username and password, and locate the exact position of your iPad. You can also remotely lock the iPad, or, in a worst case scenario, remotely wipe the iPad’s entire contents.

• File Sharing – There are a number of ways to move files between your iPad and your other digital devices. We’ve found two of the best are DropBox and Evernote. Dropbox is a cloud based storage repository. On your PC, it appears as a folder that you can drag files into and out of. On your iPad, the files appear within a foldered list, and can easily be transferred to other Apps for markup.

  Evernote is a note-taking App on steroids. It lets your photograph a document using the iPads camera, and will automatically OCR it. You can transfer text and pictures directly from websites, and use it to take notes.

  iAnnotate and Goodreader are PDF readers that are extremely popular with legal types. Both apps allow the user to enter fully integrated notes, highlights, sketches, drawings and more into PDFs. Both apps also work well with Dropbox. You may consider purchasing a stylus for your iPad to make the most of these apps.

• One obvious use for the iPad is as an e-Reader. Apple makes the iBooks App, but there are several others that outshine iBooks. If you have an account with Amazon, you can install the free Kindle App, essentially turning you iPad into a Kindle device. If, on the other hand, you obtain your eBooks from multiple sources, the app of choice should be Stanza. This is by far the most highly rated eBook reader for the iPad.

• Finally, the iPad is a superb email device. It will let you simultaneous view your email from multiple accounts, and will optionally group email threads together. The interface is very simple and easy to use. However, with that simplicity comes a danger – the trash can button is very easy to accidently push. To avoid deleting emails that you didn’t really want to delete, make sure you turn on the feature to prompt you before deletion – its located in the mail configuration section of the settings App.

It’s important to remember that the iPad is really “just” information consumption (rather than creation) device. In the context of document creation and manipulation, a laptop or netbook provide superior functionality. The iPad does not replace your computer or smartphone, but it is an amazing supplement and complement to those devices.

How Smart is your Smartphone?

Speak to most IT people, and they will tell you the way people use their Smartphones make these devices the weakest link in the data security fence. A recent survey conducted by Anti-Virus company AVG and research and consulting firm The Ponemon Institute reinforce this perception.

According to the report, 84% of the respondents use their mobile device for both work and personal uses, and a majority (66%) admit that they keep a lot of personal information on their phone, such as email address, name, contact lists, photos, videos, anniversary and personal dates and music. However, only about half use a keypad lock or password to protect access to the information. We find this shocking given how easy it is to password protect a Smartphone.

Further, although two-thirds of the respondents have paid at least once for an item using their Smartphone, only 6% say they check their mobile bill regularly. This isn’t that surprising, considering 57% said that security on a Smartphone is not an important feature when deciding which model to use.

What does this mean? Well, unless you’re planning a life of crime, you should probably consider some of the following simple things to help make your Smartphone live up to its name:

1. Set a password or keypad lock on your phone
2. Always keep an eye on your phone while traveling – treat it like your wallet
3. Install and enable remote services, such as remote lock, remote wipe, and/or GPS location (for finding where your phone went when you forget number 2).
4. Keep Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off when you aren’t using them
5. Back up your data
6. Apply software/firmware updates from your carrier or phone vendor
7. Only download applications from reputable sources
8. Use encryption where available
9. Don’t respond (or even open) text messages if don’t recognize the number it’s sent from

If you want more information on data security, speak to your IT person – they would be more than willing to help you ensure your device is protected.

Live from the Georgetown Advanced e-Discovery Institute – Part 2

As expected, the second day of the Georgetown University Law Center’s 7th Annual Advanced e-Discovery Institute contained as compelling topics as the first day.

Craig Ball led an informative session on databases, explaining what relational databases are, how information is retrieved from these storage systems, and most importantly from an e-Discovery point of view, how the data within a relational database can be preserved and produced. The importance of this issue was highlighted through an interesting statistic Craig presented – in enterprises, 47% of all ESI is stored in a structured manner. A lot of emphasis is placed on the 31% of unstructured information (documents, spreadsheets, etc) and the 22% of semi-structured information (emails, instant messages), but almost half of all ESI in an organization is routinely ignored.

The afternoon was highlighted by discussing the cloud and associated technologies (social media, multi-tenancy, interactive websites, Wikis, virtualization and avatars). It was generally agreed that this is both a misunderstood area and of great concern to the legal community. Issues surrounding this arena run the gamut of e-Discovery, including preservation, collection, authenticity, control of content, and privacy. Circumstances that have never been addressed before are now moving to the forefront. For example, when an organization is using cloud storage that is co-mingled with other organizations’ data (a common occurrence in the cloud) and a litigation hold is place on the data, does this mean unrelated organizations’ data is also preserved by association? Or when someone is using an alias identity (an avatar) on the internet, how does one go about attributing an act to a person or authenticate what was carried out?

While the future is definitely going to see an evolution in the way discovery is carried out, the good news is that the e-Discovery legal community is being very proactive in reviewing and analysing emerging IT trends. New cloud computing guidelines are already on the way to address at least some of the anticipated issues.

Social media not just for teenagers anymore

It used to be that when lawyers turned their minds to the use of social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.) it was at the request of a client looking for help with a corporate policy. Times have changed. Now lawyers themselves are turning to social media due to its extraordinary power as a marketing tool.

Not convinced?

This week, in an effort to teach lawyers how to effectively utilize this “emerging new media” the Canadian Bar Association hosted a webinar called “Social Media for Lawyers”.

Consider the following:

-          the emergence of law-targeted sites such as Legal OnRamp, JDSupra, MH Connected, and others;

-          the decision of Ontario’s Chief Justice to allow live blogging and “twittering” from the courtroom of the Ottawa mayor’s bribery trial;

-          court decisions which take note of, or actually rely on, evidence from Facebook;

-          numerous law schools (Harvard, U of T) and Canadian law firms (the “seven sisters” are represented) are engaged in the use of social media, including Twitter and Facebook;

-          the prevalence of large Canadian corporations on various social media sites – business development anyone?

Still not convinced?  During the webinar, the following statistics were provided:

Facebook: the #5 top global website boasts 132 million unique visitors per month and 300 million active users

Twitter: the fastest growing social network

LinkedIn: 43 million strongly business-oriented users

With targeted, consistent, appropriate use (lawyers must ensure they are compliant with their Rules of Professional Conduct), social media is an invaluable marketing tool – particularly for those practicing in a niche legal market (like Wortzman Nickle!).