Google Apps and the Collaborative Cloud - Does Law Firm Size Matter?

22
Mar
2011

Eric Hunter

Here’s an assertion - law firm size does not matter when it comes to the collaborative cloud. One of the most common themes with collaborative cloud roll-outs is that they are “only” for small law firms. Let me go out on a limb and state that it just simply isn’t true. In fact, large law firms have much more to benefit from collaborative cloud, both from a change management and behavioral change standpoint.

Collaborative cloud is built on social media driven technology. It’s built to be intuitive, easy to adapt and easy to roll-out. Does Facebook care about it’s global size? A strategic advantage global law firms will have when rolling out collaborative cloud environments is transparency to all offices, and no need to support/develop the given environment as the platform evolves.

Social media driven technology is designed to bring individuals together, communicate together, knowledge share together. My question is, why would large firms step away from this opportunity?

Collaboration knows no boundaries or size limits
Take our environment at Bradford & Barthel. We’re creating a knowledge management environment with 12 offices, so small potatoes right? Perhaps. For argument’s sake, keep our 12 offices, but now expand our attorney count through rapid growth to 580 attorneys. Now scatter our 12 offices across the globe and ask me and senior management at Bradford & Barthel if we would move in a different direction. The answer is no for all the same reasons.

Collaborative cloud environments allow us freedom from licensing upgrades tied to product upgrades. Our KM library being built by our KM associate Alec Bradford utilizes Google Sites in a way that enables transparency for all users, regardless of where we are.  Where are the developers we hire to develop our intranet to expand to such growth? None, they’re all on Google’s side. How do we budget this from a training standpoint? We deploy training through our Google video platform that is part of Google Apps. How do we expand people finder tools, expanding areas of practice, and Enterprise search to accommodate this growth? It’s already deployed through Google Apps social media tools, Google Search, and Google Sites. Our analysts and strategists create their own path forward, targeted and directly.

How are third party apps integrated into the platform? Whether it’s Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online, Google Apps or others, legal is all about third party vendors that integrate business intelligence, automation, and client/matter solutions into their tools. We’re currently working on business intelligence integration and the goal upon completion is an evolving, vendor agnostic, business intelligence environment. Third party vendor applications deployed through media like the Google Apps Marketplace allow adaptability with your cloud hosted vendor’s evolving platform.

Large firms … tailor made for the collaborative cloud
In my opinion, the complexities within a large firm and the differing cultures from region to region would actually demand a cloud hosted collaboration platform to assist in their change management roll-out. So much focus is on the cloud, but if cloud is taken out of the equation, and the change management benefits of a social media driven platform are taken into account, what better platform to bridge cultures together? The intuitive and ease of use available through social media driven technology is what’s already driving consumer adaption across the globe and rapidly compelling the enterprise to replicate these environments within their own.

The most strategic decision an organization can make is in tying their business model to that of their hosted vendors’. Both entities integrate to such an extent, that this relationship also extends to the clients through shared extranets, portals and knowledge collaboration. As the collaborative provider evolves, so does your firm. And over the past year, B&B has learned first-hand that the platform does evolve, and fast, far faster than we could hope to replicate with internal resources. What we do in turn is anticipate, capitalize and drive this solution in our line of business.

Tenants of change
A portion of our firm’s business model is aligned with Google (connected through our KM Department) based on three primary tenants; posture, positioning and timing.

Posture is representative of a firm’s culture. How primed is your organization for a culture of change? How ready is your organization to move forward with an entirely new way to think about, process, and share information? In the case of Google, if you could deploy an enterprise search tool so powerful you no longer had to think about folder structure, how would it drive change on your users behalf and create efficiencies? B&B maintains weekly training sessions to always ensure we’re on top of the latest developments at the firm, among our clients, but also our evolving collaborative cloud vendor. This, first and foremost, positions us for change.

Why is positioning important? Think of the systems dispersed throughout your firm. How many are there? How many require license upgrades? How many integrate with others to the extent that you cannot roll out new releases for fear of compatibility issues? How many resources will you have to deploy to affect the necessary change required for each roll-out? Now consider an environment that enables your firm to solely focus on strategic and change management features because the hardware, software, and development resources are all outsourced. Your organization will be primed to take advantage of the most cutting edge evolving software out there, with a third party integrated environment that is moving with you. What better positioning than to offer your clients the latest in knowledge sharing resources.

And timing? You need the first two to take advantage of timing. By moving to the collaborative cloud now, your organization, regardless of size, has the most to offer your clients, in technological and behavioral innovation, adaptation and timing. If you choose to push through a behavioral change initiative at the drop of a dime, you can do it, regardless of size. This is where large organizations achieve the most benefit. Just as Facebook can roll-out changes on a global scale for all users, so will your organization be able to make changes, champion initiatives and practice change management, seamlessly.

Seize the day
With this insight at your fingertips, what’s holding back such an initiative from a large firm? Is it that the collaborative hosted environments of say Google or Microsoft are not robust enough? I think the easy answer there is no. It’s the firm. It’s the perception of change. It’s the perception of cloud as a technological entity for infrastructure as opposed to an evolution in the consumer market that is driving a new paradigm in knowledge sharing and change management. It’s the perception that existing investments and existing ROI outweigh the costs savings in licensing, outsourcing, and streamlined solutions through an evolving platform.

My background is in corporate, but I’ve noticed law firms tend to focus on the number of attorneys within a firm as an indicator for technological and knowledge sharing solutions. Something to consider, when we look at the Googles, Facebooks, Microsofts, Intels and Oracles... do we cross compare the number of engineers within their organizations? Or do we look at how competitive they are quarter by quarter, year by year relative to their markets? Do we care how many individuals work for each organization or instead their ability to innovate, shape and affect the marketplace? How competitive is any given law firm run relative to their competing areas of practice, and what are their opportunities for expansion? Will the inevitable move to collaborative cloud solutions cut costs, streamline process, engage your clients, and out compete your competitors? I think the answer is becoming clearer every day, and it is one for all firms to consider, regardless of size.