I was surprised to hear my dinner date say "happy new year" to our server last night. Seems to me that the acceptable use policy on that phrase expired around the 7th. Then I thought, well, better take advantage of it while people still know what you're talking about. So I'll say it and trust your new year is off to a good start! It's been a while since I posted so I have lots to talk about and hope (read: resolved) to post more often. Where to start? With last year, of course.
Last fall I received an email titled "WE NEED HELP." I almost didn't open it - it
smelled of spam - like one of those stupid emails I've seen from a widow in Cameroon seeking a dumb ass to pose as next of kin so she can collect some "inheritance" somewhere. But since I really don't get a lot of spam and it did pass thru two spam filters, I figured it better take a look. And I'm glad I did as from it came some of the coolest clients I've ever had - a small firm in Nebraska who wanted to start using technology better. They are two partners and a legal assistant with a very busy general practice who are looking to increase their mobility, collaborate better and shuffle less paper. Much of their motivation came from what they learned at TECHSHOW. Having attended two years in a row, they got home all pumped up to "get tech" but just never knew where or how to start. (That's where they found me, btw.)
So we starting talking - over the phone and over email. I asked them lots of questions about what they have in place and what they wanted to do. Having spent nearly 10 years in law offices of all shapes and sizes - I was scared. I had visions of floppy disks, Windows98 and stacks of paper so yellow that you'd swear a dog had lifted his leg to them. But I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they had fairly new computers, were networked with a printer and running Office 2002. They were even using TABS for billing. Didn't sound like too bad a place to start.
It's not unusual for an attorney (or any person, for that matter) to be unaware of what version of this application or that utility they are running. And short of sitting physically at the PC, it's impossible for me to get that information over the phone. But of course, there's help. Check out a great little program called Belarc Advisor that runs an audit on your PC and spits out a report of everything you have installed.
So that's where we started and that's all I have time to write about now. Am I leaving you on the edge of your seat or what? To be continued...
