City firm Allen & Overy has been using blogs and wikis to share information and ideas, internally and with clients. Ruth Ward explains how they did it, and offers ten tips on how to achieve social success




Traditionally, lawyers have adopted a formal, document-based model for their internal knowledge sharing and communication - and support staff have mirrored their lawyer colleagues' approach with agendas, minutes, reports, newsletters, databases and the like. The advent of email has brought its own challenges, as anyone regularly receiving department or office-wide emails knows.



These might be generalisations but they will resonate with law firms concerned that their legal know-how initiatives fail to capture the know-how and developing ideas in people's heads, or worried that their department and work teams struggle to communicate as often or as effectively as they should.



It was exactly this kind of frustration that inspired Allen & Overy (A&O) to explore how social software might help us make communications dialogue, not just documents, the heart of our internal knowledge sharing.



Our experience shows that law firms are well placed to exploit the human value of social software to help link teams divided by geography, time zones or culture, and to harness the power of a team's shared expertise - all without increasing the size of our inboxes.



Why are more firms not doing it?

Two years on from our initial experimentation with just three social software systems, we now have around 50 sites (all based on our initial experimental site template), supporting internal and client communities globally. The tools available to users through these sites are - a group blog and wiki, categorisation and social tagging, and shared newsfeeds and bookmarks.



Different legal, support and project teams develop and use the tools on the sites in different ways to meet their own particular needs, and their success is as visible as the use of the tools is varied. In just two years, social software has moved from small-scale experimentation at A&O to become an accepted part of our systems infrastructure, used by a quarter of our staff and with strong management support.



We have sought to share our ideas and early-adopter experience with our clients and with colleagues at other law firms and businesses, but we have been surprised that take-up elsewhere has not been faster.



To us, now, it seems such an obvious fit: people-focused software for a people-centric business. It cannot be the cost - blog and wiki tools are freely available on the Internet - and social software lends itself to small, easily managed and funded 'organic' development. So what is holding law firms back?



Stay business-focused

For a start, there is too much jargon involved. Though the legal profession is good at dealing with legalese, the buzzwords of social software and other Web 2.0 developments put people off. The solution was to get some sites up and running, so that we could show the different tools actually working in an A&O setting.



Second, media coverage has focused almost entirely on Internet horror stories - from the reputational perils of vanity publishing to the threat of legal liability. We separated the use of social software for internal and other trusted communities from its use on the wider Internet, reflecting the different issues and risks.



Third, it may be hard to decide where a social software project should start and who should lead it, because the tools are so flexible and potentially of such wide application. Our central knowledge management team led our project from the outset to suggest and facilitate sites for other business areas, combining central experience with local ownership.



The role and attitude of a firm's internal IT team and existing systems and projects will always be important, and our IT department has been onside from day one.



Finally and unsurprisingly, there are cultural considerations at the firm, group and individual level. You cannot simply plug in a group blog and wiki and expect it to create a team of inclusive managers and collaborative workers. Lawyers, in particular, tend towards cautious and formal communication, so we have encouraged groups to ask questions and share ideas and opinions and move out of their comfort zone of emails and Word drafts. I feel that A&O's collegiate approach and openness to trial new technology and ways of working, and the enthusiasm of our managing partner, have also had a big cultural impact.



Ruth Ward is head of knowledge systems and development at Allen & Overy





Top tips for social success

How can other law firms make sense of social software and realise the same business benefits as A&O?



Here are our top ten tips for social software success, listed as how the roadmap would move forward.

lOne: seek expert advice, either from other businesses or good consultants.

l Two: start small.

l Three: work with internal, trusted communities first to build experience and confidence in a 'safe' environment.

l Four: choose initial working groups carefully - work with

naturally networked groups, and also target groups and objectives that are relevant to the firm's wider business strategy.

l Five: ensure your initial work is seen as an experiment, not a pilot - it should be OK for it to fail.

l Six: nominate an enthusiastic and networked team or manager to take the lead with IT support - at A&O, this was our central knowledge team.

l Seven: spread the word as soon as you have something to show.

l Eight: support your growing phase. Our central knowledge team worked closely with groups as we continued to develop our sites, because many people were not familiar with social software (beyond Wikipedia) beforehand.

l Nine: create an internal market to stimulate interest, enthusiasm, shared ownership and commitment.

l Ten: apply 'hard' business principles to 'soft' software. Systems usage does not equal business value - we resisted calls

for a success criteria based purely on readership and participation. Instead, we clarify each group's business objectives up front and review them on a regular basis.