Friday's Cocktail Leadership

We've got nothing uplifting for you in this Friday Cocktail Leadership posting. Sad isn't it.

Oh...what we can say though is that if you're after a Friday cocktail this week to dull the pain caused by embracing a life of pessimism or from thinking that this is as good as it gets and that nothing (particularly your own happiness, or those who contribute to it) is worth fighting for, then we recommend anything which is served in a glass that is half empty.

The glasses which were normally half full just looked out of place and a little bit too optimistic for our liking...so we smashed them.

We're off to tell the first kid we see that there is no such thing as Santa just to see what it feels like. Enjoy your weekend.



* The authors wish to state that no animals (except one loyal but unlucky puppy) were injured during the drafting of this post. A significant number of Bombay Sapphires were unfortunately (and unavoidably) drowned in quinine though for which we do not apologise...

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

Hello.

Simple word isn't it, but it hasn't been around for long. The first entry of the word 'hello' in an English dictionary is not until 1883. Although credited by some to Thomas Edison when he invented the telephone, according to the Oxford Dictionary (and the old faithful Wikipedia), it is an alteration of hallo, hollo, which came from the Old High German "halâ, holâ, emphatic imperative of halôn, holôn to fetch, used especially in hailing a ferryman."

It also connects the development of hello to the influence of an earlier form, holla, whose origin is in the French holà (roughly, 'whoa there!', from French là 'there').

We've been told by HM that the above is far too much information on one single word to include in this Friday posting, so here is some other things to distract you and make you look like you're working in case the people from HR walk past.

Welcome to the regular Friday posting that has nothing to do with law firms, technology, knowledge management, or anything really. It is simply designed to give you five minutes of meaningless information that you may one day find useful. Oh come on...you've got five minutes don't you?

Mouse in your house? As the cold winds blow in Europe, this is the time of year when little visitors sneak into your house to find warmth and comfort from the elements. Yep, we're talking that cute little mouse that visits. If you're not a fan of the furry little fella, consider a trap like this one. Don't say we didn't warn you though.

We have a special mention to Ms K from DLA who we caught up with at Tart Bar this week, and another shout out to Baps and Bob's gardening gal who joined us. We were also lucky enough to catch up with old Grumpy Barr, his patient other half and Barr2.0 at Detroit Bar, and Insead's newest student at Kong in Paris.

You know how we feel about Innovation - if you're looking to show the firm just how clever and innovative you are, why not tell them how you've single handily been able to invent the transparent computer screen, then demonstrate it to them to see the reaction. We've not thought of how you can tell the partners this will make them money, but we're sure you've got time to think of something before April 1st.

Still confused about what to do while counting your redundancy cash?

We think sitting at Sydney airport and counting the number of returning Australian lawyers who have been let go from London firms is always a good idea, as is keeping a tally of the number of 'guru' support staff who'll think about hanging their shingle out.

More satisfying perhaps is spending your time (and sharing your expertise and skills) volunteering. This link and this one should help.

If you're bored, read Sway by Ori & Ron Brafman and try to see how fast you can think of a project you've been involved in which could have been a case study for them.

We're off now - final hello to Mr Milford, Mr White, Mr Northcott and the new/tall Miss Tikit who we saw time with this week. Congrats to TressCox's new head of marketing, and also to the sparkling new global head of everything in London.

Goodbye. Simple word isn't it. It originally had its origins.....

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

You look a little sad and down this Friday? What's the matter? The global financial crisis bugging you? Oh stop it. Here is something we've picked out of the bottom drawer to show you again just to cheer you up today (and to make you whistle while you work).

Remember this - if life seems jolly rotten, then there's something you've forgotten, and that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing!

We're not letting it get us down. What did you think we would do - change the name of the Friday posting from "Friday's Cocktail Leadership" to "Friday's Shared Can of Pre-Mixed Homebrand Spirits & Cola"?!?

Anyway...Happy New Year everyone! Welcome back to work! What did Santa (that's "Father Christmas" to all you posh folk) bring you?

In 2009 we pinky promise to continue being your optimistic and bouncy little pups in the world of law firm IT and KM. We'll keep serving our clients as best we know how - with experience, trust and expertise.

Our next Friday Cocktail Leadership posting will have lots of information about how we spent our time at the end of 2008, and tips to help you look on the bright side of life. Now go and have a cocktail and feel good about the fact that your spending is improving the economy.

We're thinking of buying a tank...

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

Friday has come early this week, and as soon as we woke up (well actually every night and every day)...we knew that it is you we need, to take the blues away...good morning to all the Janders Dean sparkling clients and friends. Does it feel like Santa is coming?

Anyway...what an exhausting week at Janders Dean! Combined project and presentation work at four of our top clients has kept our heads busy and our feet sore. We're actually almost too exhausted for our regular Friday Cocktail Leadership posting.....yeah right.... so here we go (with a glass of the good stuff, and the resulting green fairy on our shoulder):

We've been busy with our friends up at King & Wood this week, and send a great thank you to Kim for her assistance with our trip. We've also spent time with the team at Freehills - who are making phenomenal progress on their development, design, testing and content streams. Big rewards are coming from Janders Dean in the form of a dedicated milestone cocktail event just for you!

You'll have noticed some rapid postings this week including an exclusive guest posting from David Fitch, news from G+T's practice floors on their blog, mention of an article on the evolution of managing knowledge and the knowledge department itself from Allen & Overy, and the promise of more guest postings.

We're also excited by the rapid increase in membership to the two new LinkedIn groups created last week with the assistance of Janders Dean - the APAC Law Firm Technology Group, and the APAC Law Firm Knowledge Management Group. Peter Campbell (CIO at Sparke Helmore) has kicked off the first discussion in the technology group with a topic on "Green IT" and his actions for the firm in this area. The thread has comments from Philip Scorgie at Deacons, Dylan James at DLA Phillips Fox and Richard Figar of Moray & Agnew, who all provide feedback on their actions.

The Janders Dean green innovation tip for this week is to get your hands on these groovy little batteries. They rock! Thanks to our friends at Innocent for putting us on to these. Now go grab some. Although Bevan doesn't know it yet (whoops) Janders Dean has just agreed to off-set all our international and domestic flights for the 2008/09 year which (for those of you who know our travel schedules) is not a small number of bad meals and plastic cutlery. Don't worry...Bevan will say yes to this if Justin finally gets that spreadsheet to him that he's been promising for many weeks.

The sun is about to set on the latest two day LawTech Awards & Legal Technology Conference event at Byron Bay today, with winners of the awards about to be released. We wish the team at Chilli all the best for this event, and thank them for their continued interest and energy in the APAC market. Oh....speaking of fun events....after our successful event at Zeta, the next exclusive Janders Dean client event is the ElBulli evening with Ferran Adrià in Sydney. Don't say we don't love you!

Finally on the work related front, we wish Adam, Jennifer, Bernadette and the gang at TressCox all the very best as they go into their pre-migration 'black-out' period, and send a bravo out to Peter, Helen, Linda and the Sparke Helmore gang for their awesome focus group and persona work. Bravo! We also say 'buy some new clothes' to the big NYC birthday man from LNG.

So, what have you been up to? Did you enjoy last Friday's international "talk like a pirate day"? True. It was. This Friday is "walk to work" day. True. It is. So did you? Speaking of good causes, Pink Ribbon Day is coming up very soon. We send a massive hello to Cat and the original '07 Kokoda Chicks, and urge everyone to visit this link to learn more about the National Breast Cancer Foundation and Pink Ribbon Day (October 27th).

Did anyone notice that this Friday morning there seemed to be a bright, golden haze on the meadow? More like a Spark than a haze...we're off next week to live the life we imagined for a while. You should try it. Enjoy the weekend. Enjoy life. Enjoy dreams. Enjoy imagination.

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

Well good morning (or afternoon) everyone, and welcome to Friday! Yet another busy week for the team at Janders Dean, but we still have all our teeth.

This week we say a special Romper Room Magic Mirror hello to the Freehills team who have been busy rolling out their matter centric Interwoven design with the help of the team from Alphawest, while also being busy little beavers planning out their next fun event. The teams in KM and IS are doing excellent work together under pressure, and we're awe struck. Rock on.

Hello to our new client team in Beijing who are exceptionally busy planning out the next few weeks and collating materials!

What a massive first birthday party we had - thanks to every one of our lovely clients and pals for an excellent evening of celebrations. Sorry that Sparky couldn't be there...we're all looking forward to our next fun client event when we have an evening with Ferran Adria from elBulli. Yum!

We also say hi to the ReedSmith crew, and thank Guru Tom for his mention on the blog, and his ILTA List recommendation of the Janders Dean team. Speaking of ILTA, welcome home to the APAC law firm representatives.

This year's events witnessed a massive concentration on the Knowledge Management space, and some great sessions on SharePoint, Office 2007, Enterprise Search, and Web2.0 technologies. It is interesting to see (in our opinion) that the Web2.0 presentation content and discussion forums indicated that the US may still be slightly behind the UK and the APAC region on their analysis of this area.

For copies of any of the ILTA 2008 presentations, simply go to this link and check them out. A massive range of resources to review - and if you are not a member yet, you should be. Janders Dean was proud this year to bring you the first Knowledge Management for Law Firms conference in Sydney, and we were happy to have ILTA there to spread the good word.

What are you up to this weekend?

If you are playing ball games, have you ever thought about what happened when the ball you were playing with in the back yard went over the neighbour's fence (or roof if it was a big hit) and was subsequently lost? No? Haven't thought about that for a while huh...OK....well imagine you were from another planet or universe (oh come on...play along) and then think about the fact that you might be really really big....now what would happen if you smashed it hard and your ball went flying then? Answer here.

Anyway...we're off at the end of an exhausting week now to grab some well deserved cocktails...and we'll see you later on with some news. Be good. Oh by the way...why don't you treat yourself to a spa day this weekend? Go on, you know you deserve it. Wrap it up!

A last thought....Christmas is 15 weeks away. A special delivery from Korea is only 2 weeks away. Bleasdale's 30th is 3 weeks away....and Golden Week is just around the corner!

P.S. We've noticed that our "posting hosting" for the blog is a little out of whack recently, so a few of you may have received some strange old versions this morning at a weird time - apologies for that, but hey, you were just happy to hear from us right?

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

Well hello strangers...you're looking wonderful today for a Friday...yep, it is Friday finally, and you're the best thing on the bus. We had another busy week this week...but we won't complain, as none of you care.

For this week's cocktail leadership, we're not going to bore you with work - who worries about all that at this stage of the week anyway? Why don't we share with you some of our favourite things (just like Julie Andrews did so many years before us)...unlike her we don't like kittens (unless they're tied up with brown paper packages and string..or if they're Tinks).

But we do like the fact that downstairs at The Regent on Liverpool Street there is PacMan....and hours of fun for all cheeky summer drinkers (every hour on the hour). We don't like Freddy Eynsford-Hill but we do love slippers.

We also like The Royal Berkshire Shooting School (bang bang), Liz and Phil, and pig heads. We like having the Tube map on our iPod (http://www.isubwaymaps.com/). We like laughing at the lone guy who lined up for 11 hours to be the first person in Australia to own an iPhone (OK, so a few people joined the queue after him, but we think they were just stray British tourist who saw the line and joined it because that is what they do). We like horse number 4 in the 3rd (you pick the location). We also like laughing at people who don't deserve cameras and/or Internet access - where do these people come from?

Oh...and we just love the difference between 105 and 107.

Finally today we'll let you in on three facts (ones that you'll forget by tomorrow - regardless of it you go drinking this evening or not) about recently discovered new species. Yep, new species are being found every day all over the place...

• Xerocomus silwoodensis is a new species of mushroom that was discovered on Silwood Campus of Imperial College, London. This guy didn't have to go far for his field work did he?!
• Malo kingi got its name from an American tourist, Robert King, who was stung to death off Queeensland, Australia, by the second known species of the box jellyfish genus Malo. High price to pay.
• Tecticornia bibenda is called the "Michelin Man" plant and is one of many new species noted during environmental impact studies for mining companies. Mining companies are good for the environment...obviously.

Have great weekends people - remember that Balsamic is for grown ups, and butter is for toast. We'll see you all bright and sparky again on Monday morning.

Cheese (and wine).

Friday (Mourning) Cocktail Leadership

No, it is not a typo...

Hello all. Friday's Cocktail Leadership is making a special guest return since our recent break. This is of course due to your constant emails asking questions about where we are and where the Friday Cocktail Leadership postings have gone. We told you before that we were taking a break after a busy six months, and (having reluctantly returned), we feel like another is in order.

Since our return from London we have been busy working with our friends at Gilbert+Tobin as they successfully complete their major document management and matter centric upgrade. Well done to the team and the entire firm on such a great project. We were proud and privileged to work with you in the past few months. You should be more chuffed with how well you all worked on this massive initiative.

We could regale you with tales of our trip, the places we went, the people we met with, the topics we covered, the applications we saw, the cheese we never baked, the stylish jackets we bought, the chicken that never cooked, Jimmy's gold tassles, and the odd smack in the nose...just not today if that is OK with you all.

We've collated some interesting law firm management, technology, and knowledge management links and articles which we will share in the coming weeks, and we'll also news about our upcoming Knowledge Management University (KMU) conference series...just not today.

We could also share some cute links with you as we normally do each Friday so as to lighten your mood...but again, just not today.

The sun is setting on the week and we have a date with a KitKat, an avocado, and the lyrics to one of the best B-sides we've discovered this last week (which of course will no doubt result in "a fall that breaks this very smug mug of mine"...).

So really it is just a quick 'hello' to you all as we close our eyes on another week and concentrate on the clip clop which plays constantly in our heads. Enjoy the sunshine you tiny sparkle people, and live the life you imagined this weekend.

Douse the houselights...

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

It's time to play the music. It's time to light the lights. Its time to fly the fly spray...on floor 37 tonight. What a cracking year 2007 was...and we've had an equally cracking start to 2008!!

First up as always - how are you? Happy to be back at work? Tired from shopping? Did you get a sparkly new frock and a pair of Jimmy's? Glad it is Friday and you have some time to escape and read some cheeky gibberish from Janders Dean? Well....here are some useless facts from us for you to share at cocktails tonight:

1. For those of you who are nervous flyers, we've discovered that there are over six million parts in a Boeing 747-700. How many of these (or maybe just one?) do you think would need to be faulty in order for the plane to cr.....whoops....

2. The largest diamond ever found was 3,106 carots. The first were found over 4,000 years ago in the Golconda region of India. What else...ummmm....oh, we know...

3. After much debate here we've discovered that the first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com

By the way...seriously everyone...you need to let some things go...people are laughing at you. Here is why (and here). Need more?

Well, the song we are currently listening to would be known to those younger kids as the soundtrack to this ad. The latest article we have (re)read is The Kingmaker. We've also been following Chad's story and eating too much sugar (but no peppermint frogs this year - no food parcels at all - none - zip). We also dig Tonka.

For those boring ones out there who like to talk about work on a Friday, here is something for you.

While we were all in the festive mood over December and January, the software vendors were busy finding things to do. LexisNexis moved to purchase Redwood Analytics (the business intelligence specialists), and as we all are aware, "the other bunch" have been after Redwood for numerous years as a way to strengthen their "stretched" practice management BI offering. This may turn into a nice little move for LexisNexis if the next generation of Redwood Analytics turns out to be as good as the plans we've seen. As posted previously, LexisNexis also placed chips on the table for the Asia Pacific small firm practice management organisation Locus. The war chest has obviously not had the surface scratched yet, as two more acquisitions (not in the practice management space) are expected in the coming months.

Other consolidation moves included Microsoft making a pitch for the enterprise search vendor FAST (reported earlier this month), Solcara (another enterprise search vendor with less of a footprint) being taken by ArgentVive, and Seagate snapping up e-Discovery leader Metalincs.

On the enterprise search front, Recommind have had a cracking year end in the UK with a number of major law firm signings (most of which are expected in the press soon). Our pals at Simmons & Simmons (Hi Fitchy!) are one of these. This further strengthens Recommind's standing in the market.

Traditional names such as Aderant, Axxia, BigHand and Interwoven all had wins across the globe at the end of 2007, whereas some of the more traditional "big name" vendors apparently had a less than joyous year. We've sent them all a copy of the Big Issue just to make ourselves smile.

The continued innovation of Gilbert+Tobin was demonstrated in the BigHand story. Speaking of our friends at Gilbert+Tobin - five weeks to go people!!

Outside of vendor land, other individuals have had busy festive breaks including our friends Tommy "I didn't start the LA fires" Baldwin who leaves Sheppard Mullen to join Reed Smith as their new global head of knowledge management, the wiki wizard Matthew Parsons who starts a new adventure in 2008, and also Sally "Guru" Gonzalez who does the same. We'll see a majority of you in New York later this year and toast your success. Speaking of New York....we like comfortable T-shirts.

Enough of the work related spam, and back to the other stuff.

Because we love our clients, this Friday we say happy birthday to the merry Mrs Meek and to Cathy (my surf life saving club is better than your surf life saving club) from G+T. We also say hello to Tiger Frketic because he always feels left out.

A 6:50am g'day to Tony "I have a new toy" B (Janders Dean's local ice, tonic and lime supplier).

Best wishes to Wildfire O'Reily from LDM in London who joined us for drinks while in Sydney this week, hello to Jeremy H and Jason H in London, and "thanks" to Chris at Ashurst. Congrats to Kate on the birth of mini-wiki and welcome back to work! Have we missed anyone?

We must run away now - the early Eurostar to Paris is warming up. Have wonderful weekends everyone. Take off your shoes and socks for the rest of the afternoon and find some grass to walk across. Seriously. Why not? We plan to....you don't know what you're missing. We promise to (help) lead your cocktails in 2008 if you do.

Now wasn't that the ...[dramatic pause]... most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, muppetational...back to work please!

Friday's (Christmas) Cocktail Leadership

Well well well....welcome to (probably) the last Friday Cocktail Leadership posting for the year (and what a wonderful year it has been).

As you know by now, Friday's postings are all about things not really related to law firms, knowledge management, legal technology, or anything serious really. Just an excuse for us all to share and giggle as the weekend starts...how are you feeling about your year? How are you feeling generally? Need a shoulder rub perhaps? Cup of tea?

To make a start, we would like to say a huge 'thank you' to our wonderful client teams for their involvement in our successes of 2007.

We've spent the year racing between firms in Australia and London and in doing so we have been fortunate to work with some of the most amazing project groups from some the world's greatest firms. This year we made new friends and caught up with many many old ones on our travels.

We planted trees in Sydney, continued to support our community (which we intend to continue lifting the bar on - and challenge our peers to do the same), and we also introduced a way to support the causes close to the hearts of our clients.

In 2007 we smiled, we complimented strangers (did you Mrs Meek), we hosted a widely praised series of Knowledge Management Thought Leadership Roundtables in Sydney, we convinced you all to never buy an average candle again, we shared our thoughts on innovation strategies, adopted an endangered vegetable, and listened to Pachelbel's Canon in D far too many times to count. We even lamented about our girl in the comic shop.

This year we also stood fast to protect and champion our vendor independence so we can continue to best serve our clients as their trusted advisors in this space. We politely declined offers for direct and "value-add" reseller agreements, strategic partnerships, sponsorship dollars and brown paper packages tied up with string.

We collaborated with, contributed to discussions, and commented on, thought leadership areas with some people far more intelligent than ourselves, including Maister, Susskind, Baldwin and Parsons (who we send best wishes to as his new adventure begins).

On a personal note, we've listened to the beautiful sounds of Barnsbury Street each morning and evening, built up millions of frequent flyer points, cuddled V, called Frenchy once in a while, had coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee with you all, tried to keep up with Toddy, spent far too much time with Mutley (the "other" Simon), blessed Jen & Tony with our presence, relaxed at Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons, lined the pockets of Becasse, Zetta and Maisys, flirted with Mel (how you do'n Mel?), predicted (just now) that Bumba would punch us over the comment re flirting with Mel, introduced ourselves to a few conceirge staff from hotels all across Europe - all of who helped with our strange requests for cheese deliveries - and was placed on speaker phone while mascara was applied.

Golly gosh it has been a busy and memorable year now we think of it.....we've bought conifers in London, lost the wonderfully cheeky AJ, been supported by Bumba, sent random faxes to bank tellers, created meaningful pieces of art on Silk Street, placed puppies under office desks on Bunhill Row, shopped at Angel's on Upper Street, skipped down Madison, met evil squirrels in New York, racist squirrels in London, consumed daytime cocktails in Canonbury (and done so many more things in that neighbourhood), consumed many a free kit kat at Twickenham, advised on the dangers of clip clopping down the alley at night, watched the new sport of mad duck fighting and were impressed by branding at Subtle Tea.

We tried our hand at taking up a hobby by making movies in New York and spent six months of Tuesdays viewing the results to determine if the whole thing should simply just be re-shot.

We left left overs at cocktail bars, picnicked in Paris, held suspicions about Spider's mirrors, tried to fix basement flat bulbs, had the most amazing meal with our best friend Charlotte, and gave charcoal as birthday gifts.

Before we leave 2007 behind us - Caldow (that is Mandy - MANDY - for all those out there who like first names) just sent us this - a must see for all those who feel that they've lost brain cells because of the festive drinking period. And a final laugh for the year.

The most important thing is that we have all remained immensely "happy and healthy" (as the wise one always advises, and the Tiny one always checks in on).

Enough about all that now.....remember that Christmas is "tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace".

Please take time to consider those around you, and also those that are not close by. We've been moved by the recent UNICEF photography awards, and recommend that before you leave the office today to spend time with your loved ones or your drinks, you take a few minutes with these images.

To end the year - to all our wonderful friends and family - we would be nothing without you and for this we thank you. We hope we've been able to provide you with some good content, a few smirks, and excellent service in 2007. Have a fantastic Friday and all the best for the festive season.

Janders Dean is back first thing in the New Year with our January predictions on the trends for the year ahead, and we'll continue to share with you our plans for continued growth in London and Australia, and our exciting plans for New York and China.

We'll see you all bright and sparky in 2008. Be safe and bumble beehive yourselves......

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

Good morning everyone - we're not as young as we used to be. Christmas drinks take a long time to recover from these days! This week was tough.....real tough.....not only were we busy with our ever wonderful clients, we are all of 45 days away from being happy!

This week with owe our thanks to Matthew for the original link to the CommonCraft video. We're having a beer for Tommy this weekend. We send hot lemon and honey to Susan W from Liberated Small Mountains. We wish Chrissy B a happy 30th birthday and say a special "hello" to Uncle Buck. By the way - check out the content from Baker Robbins' website as there is some great new presentations there.

Hello to the Eurostar girl!

So have you done alll your shopping? The last thing you want is to hit Bond Street this weekend - isn't that right Bumba? Lots of awesome stuff to talk about next week probably...so we'll keep today's news short and sweet. We want Sophia's mother.

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

Welcome to the silly season! There you go, we've said it - it is officially the time of year when none of you will actually do a full day's worth of work on any Friday between now and the second week of January. Don't feel bad (we know you don't)...just embrace it and go with the flow. Our only piece of advice this festive period is to avoid tacky Christmas decorations and plastic trees (both in the office and at home). Come on....splash out and buy some decent decorations this year!!

So it is Friday morning, and before we have breakfast with our favourite people from Liberated Small Mountains (we love changing our client and contact firm names - it gives others something to think about) we thought we would give you all something to read (especially those from Blake Dawson - we couldn't think of a clever way to change your firm name - suffering a headache from last night's function).

As you know by now, Friday's Cocktail Leadership is all about those things that don't relate to work, so if you're feeling nerdy this Friday morning and want to hear about law firm management, knowledge management, or thought leadership in legal technology - then you may as well close this window now. However if you do, know that we are ashamed of you! It is Friday afterall - give yourself a break for a while....seriously.

If you really want something "law firm" related to read - here are some interesting reading links for you to review. New information on the Australian Federal Court some frank thoughts on succeeding as an M&A lawyer from David Cheyne of Linklaters, and an interesting overview of the commerical litigation reforms in the UK

Is that enough for you...when (seriously) will you take time today to relax?

For those Germans reading this morning, Frohe Weihnachten! We hope that Nikolaus (or der Weihnachtsmann) filled your shoes this week with lots of lovely nuts and treats (or a puppy for those who have been very good), and that Knecht Ruprecht didn't get in first with a bunch of twigs.

Speaking of twigs - Janders Dean is an active supporter of the underground movement known as Guerilla Gardening, and have been since our Innocent friends put us onto the idea. Go and plant a tree...

Speaking of doing good - we are also currently supporting Tonic and suggest that you take a quick look. The team also put us onto this clever little pic which we thought was cute.

Today we say hello to Mel in London and her third kite - "Hi Mel and your third kite" and note that we look forward to the press release. We also say hello to our favourite Australian Irish Englishman Mr O'Reilly, and our favourite English Kiwi Mr Cowan. One other point to note is that we remember that if we can make it there, we'll make it anywhere....it's up to you New York New York. Thank you Frank.

Don't forget the Aeroguard and 'aveagoodweekend...oh, and only one person knows that what we're thinking this Friday is only fit for Tuesday.

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

The single most important thing to us here at Janders Dean this Friday (and all days really) is that our loved ones are happy and healthy...and that their clip clop can be heard. We're starting the planning process this weekend for Project Sparky...collaboratively of course!

We've had a very interesting week this week - we're learning lots about China, lots about Kokoda, lots about stress mitigation tactics, and lots about who not to be in an elevator with (this guy obviously worked on a project that didn't involve Janders Dean). We're also learning lots from those who like learning with us.

How has your week been?

To all our dragon boat crews - enjoy your Friday (especially V the giver of Kit Kats and cuddles....oh calm down Tiny). To all mobile phone/PDA repair companies - don't enjoy your Friday (or your Saturday or Sunday for that mattter). Oh how we long for the sweet sounds of "you have mail". To our new friends at Blakes - good morning... to our new friends at Fidal - bonne nuit...

Nice and short this week as our Kent Street Clients need sweets for this morning's meeting. We're off to play with Lego. Now go away.

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

Wakey wakey....and welcome to the start of a new weekend! It is with great excitement and glee that we say "hello" to you this wonderful Friday afternoon. As per every single week in the land of Janders Dean, we've had yet another wonderful wonderful week! Big coffee collaboration call outs to those we spent time with this week.

A big thank you to everyone for your support of our Friday Cocktail Leadership rambling too - we've now got a huge readership in our three major regions of UK, US and APAC from all our old and new friends, and we've been getting wonderful feedback from you all...so again, we thank you and promise we'll always try to keep in touch.

The books we are reading this week (in eager preparation for two weeks of fabulous cooking which will be expected of us in January 2008) include French Lessons by the "other" Justin North, and Foolproof French Cookery by the fabulous Raymond Blanc. We are certainly NOT reading the as yet unreleased Jamie Oliver book which may or may not have found it's way to us, as reading this before it is actually released would be unethical of course....honest!

In addition to reading (well....looking at the pictures while eating yogurt mainly) we are very excited about the release of our old friend the limited edition Lemon Honey & Ginger smoothie from our good friends at Innocent. We thank them once again for their amazing gift to the Freshfields team a while back - bravo Innocent.

Speaking of Freshfields - Bruce...we hope you enjoyed your stay in London. Speaking of London - Pricey...good to spend the first 20 minutes of the England game with you this week. We would love to say we were upset about the result, but the thought of the suffering did bring an evil smile to our faces here. Speaking of evil smiles (well laughter anyway) - Gilchrist....you laugh like Mutley.

When in Paris, we recommend buying black Acqua di Parma cube candles, and doing so at any cost. Now, based on experience and information provided by the ever groovy Acqua di Parma, "these are gently scented with amber, and are a striking addition to any home's decor. The larger size (are you still with us here?) will burn for around 60 hours, the smaller size for about 30". We would say that the scent of these entices floods of memories, but we would say that wouldn't we. So there you have it. Your irrelevant tip for the day....now go and do some work....but before you do...

By the way, in case you are wondering, this week, if we were to be reincarnated, we would like to come back as a peppermint frog.

We're off on Monday to Blake Dawson to support the last push of the Kokoda Chics as they entertain us with tales of their trek. We ask you all to dig one more time for Cat and her crew to help them get further past their fund raising goal. We'll keep you posted. Dig deep - we dare you.

Enough (as always) from us. We're off to have a quick Friday Cocktail Leadership drink with (one of) our favourite client teams to show them the bouncing raisin in the champaign trick.

One last point....clip, clop, clip, clop......

Friday's Leadership Cocktails

More work we hear you say? Yes...more work for Janders Dean! This week we added CanTeen (an organisation for young people dealing with cancer) and the CP Foundation who fund research to prevent Cerebral Palsy (CP), cure CP and improve the lives of people who have this condition to our list from last friday's post, and so we thank our new client teams for their nominations!

Today we would like to say a big hello to Friday's 5:21am Eurostar from London to Paris. Why? Well think about all those poor people with puffy eyes who had to get out of bed early to catch it - that's why!! What silly questions you sometimes ask....

Please remember that this week is National Pro Bono week in the UK this week, and also National Recycling Awareness week in Australia. We're not sure what 'week' it is in Azerbaijan or Guinea-Bissau but we'll try to find out.

We also have some interesting reading for all you out there in law firm land which is linked to one of our previous posts. The feedback and comments on Susskinds new book is coming and thick and fast from his exposure at The Times in London. Take a look at some of the comments here. There is another article of interest (although unlikely to be a trend) from Legal Week this week which we found amusing given that the annual NY pay hike war has commenced. Read it (if you're bored) here.

So how has your week been? See...we do have a concern that you're all working too hard and not taking enough time out. We'll tell you what - why don't you take the next two days off. Seriously. On us. No joke. We insist! You can thank us on Monday.

We're off now. Cheese (with wine)....

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

OK kids, don't blame us but this week's Friday Cocktail Leadership posting is a brief one because well, we've been busy and continue to get more so as we add to our list of wonderful wonderful clients and engagements. We've also been working hard on our KM/IT Investment Thought Leadership Survey results and with our new friends at Microsoft.

But as this is Friday, and no work talk can leak into the Friday Cocktail Leadership update, let's cover off first things first.

Last week we were feeling sad about the fact that we slightly neglected our social responsibilities in October, and as a result we moved our project work aside and concentrated on introducing an idea we've had since Janders Dean was born. We're not going to shout about the details too loudly (because that is not why we do the things we do, and also because it would damage our voices and hence our chances in the next Pop Idol competition), but we will say that we thank our existing clients for their nominations, and that Medecins Sans Frontieres, Clothing Can Make A Difference and the Australian Royal Flying Doctors Service will all be hearing from us this coming Monday. We're always aiming to do more in these areas, and we will. As a related aside, for those of you who are keeping up, we also received our Black Sugarsweet Turnip information this week!

For cocktails this week, we're going back to the tried and tested Manhattan. Our thoughts are well and truly in New York both this week and next - especially given the lovely rate of the GBP to the USD. The thought of Tiny shopping in tiny shops gives us great pleasure.

Now just because we are busy, doesn't mean you are, and so here are some things to ponder on during your Friday afternoon before you join us at the Zeta.

A group of larks is called an exaltation, a group of owls is called a parliament, and due to gravitational effects, you weigh slightly less when the moon is directly over head....and here is one you can try when you join us tonight for our weekly client and friend de-brief - a raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champange will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top. We dare you to prove it not be true!

We're off now to celebrate some awesome project wins with one of our client teams before the rest of the night begins...be good to your families, your friends, and your feet.

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

This week we start our Friday Cocktail Leadership with a festive note - the Janders Dean "Family & Friends" corporate Christmas gift order was placed this week, and we think that you'll all be chuffed with your prickly pressies this year. All you special people who we love to bits should be keeping your eye on the post or the reception desk in greedy anticipation. If you have not joined our circle of special friends yet, you can do so just by subscribing to our blog - you may even be in time to get on our Santa's list!

Last week we asked you to do some homework for us - don't you remember? So who did you give a spontaneous compliment to then? Shame on you....but, we'll give you an extension until next Monday (a big and exciting day for Janders Dean we think.....)

The Janders Dean team have been busy again this week with our wonderful clients, and have spent the past few days in Melbourne with our latest one - and preparing for the Janders Dean Derby Day Picnic (that is the JDDDP - pronounced "the J triple d P " - for those who have a desire to do such things with words) this Saturday.

While in Melbourne we managed to see old friends and new, and also celebrated the ACLA conference with the funny talking British duo from the VisualFiles team and Tom from the increasingly successful BigHand team. Hats (or caps) off to both vendors for kindly sponsoring the bar at the Longroom on Bourke Street while the team from Wisewoulds and Russell Kennedy talked wikis and blogs with Megan Gale.

This week we received an introduction to a funny little fellow named Kiwi from our friends at Deacons, and also received an invitation from our old friends at Deloitte to come out and play. We were presented with a virtual visit by our old pals Johnny and Steve as they head to Canada, and also from the talented David Fitch from Simmons & Simmons in London (who did indeed complete last week's homework by providing spontaneous compliments - to us!). Speaking of London, we thank the Trident girls this week for supplying the sparkle to our good friend Sparky.

We send a caffeine collaboration to our friends at ABL and their amazing BlackBerry KPI kit, the Melbourne partners at TressCox for their "first girlfriend" reminders, Kate from Headshift (the only vendors in the global legal technology and KM space to actually be legitimately groovy enough to pull off a client meeting on Brunswick Street), of course the wonderful Chrissy Burns, and all the KM Leadership Roundtable attendees for their amazing feedback and support....oh...and the partridge in that pear tree over there. One of our beautiful clients (Gilbert+Tobin) also deserve a special mention today for their recent announcement.

Our Friday Cocktail Leadership advice today is that more of us should drink with little people in tuxedos who point at the sky repeating the words "the plane" while calling you "boss", but be careful when they start talking dirty...

We have to admit that our work consumed us a little more than usual this week, and we've been guilty of neglecting our open commitment to saving the world and supporting our local communities - so....after we give ourselves a jolly good talking to and perhaps even a spank (calm down Panda)....we're all off down to the pub (knowing that walking there reduced our carbon footprint) to think about more ways Janders Dean can make a difference. We'll report back next Friday, but in the interim we urge all our friends to support our friends at The Thin Green Line.

We wish you all (as always) a merry weekend and a happy new week.

Friday Cocktail Leadership

Welcome to the next Friday Cocktail Leadership posting, where Janders Dean scribbles about our week, rather than giving you tips, hints and information on leadership within KM and IT practices across the law firm world....phew...

Today we congratulate the beautiful Cat Wirth, Marketing Director from Blake Dawson Waldron (soon to be Blake Dawson) and all the Kokoda Chicks for completing the trek to Kokoda and raising huge funds for Australian breast cancer charities. The group reached their target destination this Tuesday night and spent the evening in the village before preparing to fly back to Australia later this week. For those of you who still wish to congratulate cat – say it with cash, and contribute to the fund raising here.

We’ve been very busy here as usual, but we’ve not forgotten to have fun and celebrate. We’re all off to Derby Day in Melbourne next week to do just that, and then London to celebrate our latest project win and host a Friday Cocktail Leadership event with our new friends (oh…and finally finish our London office planning).

For Cocktails this week we like anything Parisian.

Our thought leadership this week extends to the new scientific fact that one of the only single pieces of music where it is clinically proven (and not in the same clinic where they prove that jojoba extract strengthens your hair) that you cannot get stressed if you listen to it is Pachelbel's Canon in D. We took time this week to take a fresh listen to this and must indeed agree. We also took the time to find one person on the globe (as there always is) who bucks the trend.

Thanks to those who crowded in for the first Janders Dean KM Leadership Roundtable this morning - Australia's senior Knowledge Management thought leaders representing firms such as Freehills, Blake Dawson Waldron, Gilbert+Tobin, Baker McKenzie, DLA Phillips Fox, Minter Ellison, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Clayton Utz, Ebsworth & Ebsworth and Sparke Helmore gathered for breakfast and an open discussion on the issues around Enterprise Search and how/if there is a current problem within knowledge management working practices in this country that such a product and subsequent investment can address.

A shout out to our new pals at Deacons, to Jason Newman of TressCox (Captain Smash Sparrow) for the Derby Day treasure hunt, David at Suncorp, and to our new friend Kate from Headshift as she prepares to welcome her own Kate2.0. There is one last person who needs a special mention, and without her we could not have survived this week – she is the maker of muffins, the bringer of coffee, the giver of spontaneous hugs (and left overs) when she thinks we look stressed. Varvara rocks our world!!

We also say a great big Janders Dean “how you do’n” to the CC&T Practice Group at Gilbert+Tobin who invited us to share their Thursday evening this week – if you are reading this CC&T members, then funky Jamiroquai hats off to you for joining the revolution. Remember, as your very own leader told me this week, “in any revolution you have to eventually choose a side and pick up a gun”. We’re glad that you chose our side, but we would rather you pick up a flower or maybe some litter instead (sorry Peter). Wiki wiki wiki ning ning ning…. wiki wiki....

Those in the know keep a regular eye on our email disclaimers – and to those of you who asked about our current buns this week ,you can be safe in the knowledge that they are hard as steel, and reserved for the middle of the matrix.

Have wonderful weekends friends, and please do us one small favour over the coming days – spontaneously compliment someone for something. It makes them (and you) feel wonderful, and is not done nearly enough. Try it, you’ll see what we mean…..by the way, you look awesome in that outfit. Is it new?

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

Another week, another Friday Cocktail Leadership.

Our London friends are still feeling the effects of the first Legal IT Forum to be held in Turnberry (the old Gleneagles event which eveyone is having trouble referring to as anything but Gleneagles), and yet good reports of the presentations and roundtables have managed to come through the whiskey fog. For those of you who want to see what you missed (from the point of view of the agenda) check it out here.

Our Sydney cocktail consumers have been eagerly attending client sites this week impressing all with their dramatic pauses, hair tossing, and clever use of jazz hands to convey the business processes around knowledge collaboration within law firms - oh...and their imput into some of the most innovative legal IT projects currently underway should also probably be noted. All this while also preparing for the next two weeks of conferences and roundtables in their spare time.

We also paid a virtual visit to our new favorite hotel - the Hotel Amigo in Brussels. Thanks to Hamlet and the concierge team for their assistance this week.

In our ever present desire to think and be green (just like our friend The Hulk) we've adopted a vegetable - the Black Sugarsweet Turnip to be exact - did you know that traditional organic vegetables are dying out and need your support? True!

As an example, in the United Kingdom, the Victorians grew over 120 different varieties of tall garden pea providing a continuous picking of freshly shelled peas throughout the summer months. A century later, frozen peas reign supreme. Food processors require varieties where all the peas ripen at once. Consequently, only one tall pea variety remains....sad we know...especially for the cute little peas. Forget smelly pandas and smart arse dolphins for a moment and adopt a veg.

By adopting a veg you will be directly contributing to its conservation. With your donation you will be helping to pay for the seed handling, storage and propagation facilities, as well as the staff needed to look after the ever-expanding collection.

You can even chose your own from the list - we were thinking of the "Red Elephant" carrot or the "Mortgage Lifter" runner bean, but the Black Sugarsweet Turnip ended up as ours. Click here for things to do with turnips.

Today we will leave you with one thought courtesy of Australia's High Court Justice Michael Kirby who recently presentated at the 25th anniversary dinner for the NSW Society of Computers & Law. "It's a strange thing the human being. It can have these wonderful mental explosions, it can dream of the farthest planet and distant galaxies, it can send new technologies and vehicles out there to explore, and it can plumb down to the depths of the ocean, it can analyse the genome, break up the gene, split the atom, and yet here on earth we can still do unkind things to each other and still be unequal and unjust".

That is it from us this week - we're all off to Zeta for some turnip cocktails before the next week grabs us...enjoy the weekend friends.

Friday's Cocktail Leadership

We here at Janders Dean love Fridays - it is all we think about on Saturday mornings, plus it gives us a chance to take our beloved friends and clients out on the town to one of the now infamous CLE sessions (Cocktail Leadership Education).

This week has been a busy one for us here - we've been busy supporting our most beloved Cat Wirth (Marketing Director of Blake Dawson Waldron) as a formal corporate sponsor for the Kokoda Chicks trek to raise funds for breast cancer research.

Check out www.kokodachicks.com and keep yourself posted on the events and the training regime.

We have also planted four new trees this week - for the nerds out there, you'll understand that each tree planted ‘offsets’ your environmental impact by ‘breathing’ in about 730 kg CO2 emissions over its lifetime of 100 years. It is estimated that the average person needs to save about 7,000 kg of CO2 per year. So planting just 10 trees each year is one strategy for achieving this......or you could simply let all that mumbo jumbo go over your head as you prepare yourself for Friday night drinks but promise us that you will think about planting a tree before the end of the month - we dare you.

By the way - if you don't have space, go here and they'll plant it for you http://w.plant-a-tree-today.org/

Not only were we busy being good, we even got a little mention again out there in cyber space. For any of those who subscribe to Australiasian Legal Technology (a free newsletter resource run by Chris McLean at Sparke Helmore to collate news from around the region on legal IT announcements - similar to Charles' Orange Rag), you would have seen a piece announcing the arrival of Janders Dean in Australia (link below).

We love seeing our own name - it makes us feel all warm and fuzzy, but alas, the "first street, first pet" theory isn't correct.

http://www.auslegal.com/news/industry-news/janders-dean-born.html

Some of our friends are apparantly are also playing away at Turnberry - news on the conference to follow when they have sobered up and reported back to base (the country code is 61 people - and it is not big or clever to see the sun rise two mornings in a row).

Oh...and we also did some phenominal work with our existing clients, and added two new ones! Welcome to those two, and get ready for your initiation into the Janders Dean CLE hall of fame.