Does It Compute?

Mark Twain on Thanksgiving

I’ve just finished volume 2 of Mark Twain’s “Autobiography.”  Not as interesting as the first volume, except when he goes on extended rants about his two favorite bugaboos:  politicians and religion.

Consciously or not, he echos Montaigne (“Every man bears the whole stamp of the human condition”): “The last quarter of a century of my life has been pretty constantly and faithfully devoted to the study of the human race--that is to say, the study of myself, for, in my individual person, I am the entire human race compacted together.”  

Here’s what he has to say about Thanksgiving (when he wrote, Thanksgiving had not yet been given a fixed date and was renewed every year by Proclamation):

“Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for– annually, not oftener – if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man’s side, consequently on the Lord’s side, consequently it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments. The original reason for a Thanksgiving Day has long ago ceased to exist–the Indians have long ago been comprehensively and satisfactorily exterminated and the account closed with Heaven, with the thanks due. But, from old habit, Thanksgiving Day has remained with us, and every year the President of the United States and the Governors of all the several States and the territories set themselves the task, every November, to advertise for something to be thankful for, and then they put those thanks into a few crisp and referent phrases, inthe form of a Proclamation, and this is read from all the pulpits in the land, the national consciences is wiped clean with one swipe, and sin is resumed at the old stand.”

Moving Emails into Worldox from Your Smartphone

In the past, smartphone users have not been able to copy or move their emails from Outlook to their document management system, they had to wait until they were back in the office to do so.

Now, however, Worldox has come up with a partial solution. If you have Worldox QuickProfile folders enabled, you can drag and drop emails from Outlook to Worldox (assuming you have ActiveSync enabled). First create a number of QuickProfiles for your email. They will show up under the “Worldox” folder in Outloook. You can then move selected emails to Worldox via the Quick Profiles.

This still uses the user’s personal outlook, so messages will be moved only if Outlook is running or when it is started.

Note that this applies only to emails in your inbox or sent mail, it does not change the fact that there is no notification when you are send emails. But it’s a start.

Using Less Paper with Worldox

I recently saw a very useful article by John Gilbert with tips for moving toward using less paper in your office. Realistically, offices are not going to go completely “paperless” but it is possible to dramatically increase efficiency by routinely scanning incoming documents starting from the present going forward. Less paper is a real option. Processing the backlog is a separate issue.

A major sticking point has to do with routing incoming documents. At present, the receptionist or a secretary processes incoming mail and routes it to the appropriate attorney. If the mail is scanned, how does this take place?

If the firm is using a document management system such as Worldox, it is possible to create a variety of canned searches that will at least partially meet this requirement. For example, you could create a search for all new documents assigned to attorney X in the last three days. However, this assumes that the attorney in question is proactive and reliable in checking their documents. This may not work very well with extremely busy attorneys: it is too easy for things to get lost in the shuffle. In addition, inevitably this mixes new mail with other documents and doesn’t provide a mechanism for checking off what documents have been reviewed.

One solution for a firm wishing to head in this direction would be Worldox’s Productivity Suite. This enables the person processing the mail to create templates for routing mail to specific attorneys. Thus all the mail scanned on a given date that needs to be routed to one (or more) attorneys could be collected in a workflow routed to the given attorney. They would then be notified that they should review the specified documents. Reminding them they should do something is likely to be more effective than relying on busy attorneys to remember that they should do something.

Dave Eggers "The Circle" -- Dystopia or Reality?

Dave Eggers new dystopian novel, The Circle, concerns an internet company that seems to be a combination of Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook all rolled into one – so that’s already a scary thought, right?

The company is famous for its campus, benefits, friendliness, and sharing. So when the protagonist Mae is hired by company honcho Annie, she initially has trouble being sufficiently collaborative and responsive (read: doesn’t do 16-hour days responding to every tweet imaginable). As she adapts, however, something interesting happens, and therein lies one of the book’s cores: Mae loses any sense of self-identity and becomes totally depending on the ratio of smiles to frowns in response to what she does. She has an identity crisis when one of her presentations received only 97% smile rate (“why do 3% of the people hate me?”).

A second theme of the book is “openness.” “Secrets are Lies” and “Privacy is Theft” are company mottos. Sounds like a good idea, right– no more secrets. Based on technological advances that abolish any bandwidth considerations, the Circle develops streaming video that you can wear around your neck and broadcast every second of every day without exception (although it is possible to turn the sound off when you go to the bathroom). Politicians (and their staffs) take to wearing them as evidence that they are not corrupt. It will improve democracy if the government is totally open about what it is doing, right? It turns out that this has some embarrassing side-effects as when Mae stumbles in on her parents (her father is ill with MS) having oral sex. Please, please delete that scene -- no can do. The Circle never deletes anything. It’s a basic principle.

Democracy is marred by low voter turnout. Over 92% of the population subscribes to The Circle. People  can register to vote when they get a drivers license, so why not let them register to vote when they sign up with the Circle?  And while you’re at it, why not make voting mandatory? It is all on line. Then there would be perfect democracy.

Sound far-fetched or cartoon-like?  With the recent revelations by courageous whistle-blowers like Chelsea (Bradley) Manning and Ed Snowden, maybe not so much. Hardly a day goes by when some new expansion of NSA spying is revealed (do they really think Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, is a terrorist?)  Snowden documents recently published by the NY Times show that the real goal is simply to ensure American political and economic supremacy. In a similar vein are recent changes by Google and Facebook aimed at making it increasingly difficult to prevent everything you have ever posted anywhere from being reproduced at will (is this “openness?).

Dystopia–or reality?