Did you see the #trafigura storm on twitter yesterday? It was down to the “Guardian gagged” story in the press (Go over the editors blog post for a good synopsis of what went on or if you want a shorter version take a look at Peninsulawyer’s post)
Now I’m not going to get into political commentary (if you want to read the political blogosphere’s take on the story try Iain Dale or Guido Fawkes blogs) or touch on the legal ramifications, I wanted to do a quick post on it from a Legal IT point of view.
In fact one twitter post stood out for me yesterday and this kind of sums up my thoughts:
The Carter-Ruck/Guardian/Trafigura press censorship story is classic example of what happens when old time lawyers meet Web 2.0 media
It’s not about actually using web 2.0. I really don’t believe that every lawyer should have a blog, be on facebook or linked in, update twitter, use instant messaging (IM). To me these are all just tools, just as the old telephone is. In fact think about it, you wouldn’t evangelise about the telephone and how everyone really must use it would you? People either use it or they don’t. The key point is that they know what it is and what it is useful for (and as important what it’s useless for).
The same goes with blogs, micro blogs, wikis, social networking, IM etc. Lawyers need to know what it is, how it is used and how it is now mainstream (don’t believe me? Read “Youth can’t live without web” and “Finland makes broadband legal right“). If they choose to use it great, but it doesn’t matter as long as they know and understand what it is.
And this is where I believe Legal IT departments can help.
I remember, back in the late 90’s when the Internet was still fairly new, doing a series of presentations with a colleague around our firms UK offices. The aim was to talk to lawyers about the technology behind the web. This was mainly for technology and media lawyers, but it was giving them an insight into the technologies that their clients would be talking about. This is what law firm IT people need to be doing now. Not necessarily advocating they use it, but talking to lawyers and helping them to understand the web 2.0 technologies, how they are used and in this case how it is impossible to “gag” a story anymore (the “Streisand effect”).
Final thought, the term “web 2.0” or “new media”. Is it me or does this seem really dated? Surely it’s just “web” and “media” now?
I am always amazed by how many lawyers will happily write about Twitter and social networking whilst clearly having no first hand experience themselves. I agree that there is no reason to expect all lawyers to Tweet, but like anything else I would expect to have at least a working knowledge before claiming to understand (or dismiss) it!
I agree too that they key is knowing which communication tools to use for what. A lot of people still haven’t really mastered this for email to be honest… great tool for lots of things, but terrible for the kind of tricky, contentious conversations that it is tempting to use it for (presumably because it avoids having the awkward conversation face to face!).
On the subject of web 2.0 – why is it the only thing which seems to leap whole versions? What happened to web 1.6?
I do think that a lot of the terminology floating around could use a second look. Social networking? Is there any other kind? Just need to think of something better to describe it…
I agree that alot of the terminology in use is beginning to appear a bit dated. Some tech bloggers are already referring to “Web 3.0”.
However, the terms are useful hooks onto which to hook a discussion, but I doubt that they mean anything whatsover to your average lawyer.
What to replace them with though? Is there a danger of further dumbing down (God help us – please no!!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
The above You Tube link isn’t spam, it’s a pretty good video on web 2.0