Janders Dean Update

Hello all - how is your 2008 going?

After finishing some wonderful projects with our (even more wonderful) clients, Janders Dean is going to take some of our own advice and finally take a well deserved break. Don't panic, we'll catch up again soon.

Enjoy your February friends!

Blake Dawson Shortlisted for Legal Technology Awards (UK)

Congratulations are due to the team at Australian client Blake Dawson after it was announced that they have been shortlisted in two categories ("Commoditised legal service of the year" and "Training initiative of the year") at the annual Legal Technology Awards to be held later this month in London.

Janders Dean are privileged to currently be working with some of the senior management at Blake Dawson, and can confidently note from our experience with them, that the firm is indeed deserving of this recognition - especially in the areas of legal technology and knowledge management innovation and thought leadership. We wish them all the best in the coming weeks as the event draws closer.

A full list of the award categories and shortlist can be found here.

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!

Enterprise Search - Microsoft Bids $1.2 Billion US for FAST

A few little birds were quick on the draw to highlight this piece of news in the enterprise search market. It is less likely to impact those few law firms around the globe who have (or are currently piloting) the FAST product as an Enterprise Search engine, and is of more interest to those who are interested in Microsoft's Sharepoint solution strategy.

More analysis to come as further news comes out.

A New Year at Janders Dean

Welcome to a wonderful 2008 - what were your resolutions? Our resolution is to wear more fancy pants. We will see you all very soon as the festive season comes to a close and you all start back at work (excited by that prospect?).....

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......

Tribute to Tony Angel of Linklaters

LegalWeek today has this video tribute to Tony Angel, Linklaters managing partner from 1998-2007, the recipient of the 2007 City of London Law Society Lifetime Achievement Award. Video was directed and produced by Amanda Anderson of Cardamom.