Social media in a Law Firm: Allen & Overy’s journey

Mart van de Kerkhof, Allen & Overy LLP Amsterdam

About us? www.allenovery.com

hard to miss in 2006

  weblog - tags - social bookmarking - wiki - - social software - the writing web - web 2.0 - collaboration tools - sharing and collaboration - podcast - web services

  Wikipedia - YouTube - Basecamp -Flicker - Linked In - Social Text - Confluence - Facebook - MySpace - BitTorrent - Lime - slideshare

  blogsphere - the end of email- wikinomics - disruptive technology - new business models - the end of billing by the hour - revolution

48 months ago

  A&O's web 2.0 project began, as a 3-month pilot for three groups 1.  weblog & wiki for global Know-How staff to support

communication and collaboration 2.  weblog & wiki for environmental lawyers to support

creation and sharing of knowledge (EU directives) 3.  weblogs (ezines) for internal news provision of

Amsterdam office   blended solution: Confluence wikis, Movable type

webblogs, CMS style sheets in pilot environments   expert support from Headshift (UK) and iLLumion (NL)

Allen & Overy's social stack

newsfeeds

social bookmarking & tags

wiki (group space)

weblog

social network

RSS

E-mail alerts

and many flowers blossomed

  capturing and sharing of know-how   special interest group communication   staff communication   project group communication   internal news provision   client communication   blogs on A&O's recruitment site

  deliberately not (yet):   personal blogs   matter-related blogs and wikis

the secret of its success

  tools instantaneously available   ease of use   power to publish   personalization and precision   the end of email?   because it's all about communication!

How we made sense of social software – our 10 steps to success

1.  Sought expert advice 2.  Started small 3.  Worked with ‘trusted communities’ 4.  Focused on easy but important groups and objectives 5.  Emphasised experiment not pilot 6.  Took the lead (with internal IT support) 7.  Spread the word 8.  Supported our ‘growing phase’ 9.  Created a market 10.  Applied ‘hard’ business principles to ‘soft’ software

Our social software roadmap

Phase 1 3 sites

Standard template Member specific

Email alert Group blog

Wiki (Group Space) Shared bookmarks

Newsfeeds Social tagging

Phase 2 50+ sites for: legal teams

support teams clients

Communication News provision collaboration

project management thought leadership

know-how enquiries operations manuals

courses

Phase 3 planned On demand

Enterprise wide RSS

Subscription Integrated Flexible

Social media in a Law Firm: Allen & Overy’s journey

Mart van de Kerkhof, Allen & Overy LLP Amsterdam