About Iken blogs

9 Things To Tell Trainee Lawyers About IT

Elizabeth Miles — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This blog has been inspired by my Twitter friend @BrianInkster of Inksters Solicitors, who recently sent out the following tweet to people in his legal network:

“A word of wisdom please for Trainee Summer School. Preparing talk on IT use by Trainee Solicitors. What would you tell them ?”

So here are a few things that I would say to new legal trainees. The early ones focus on personal areas of work, with the later ones broadening out to a wider business perspective.

Should Fee Earners Type ?

Elizabeth Miles — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The objective is high quality professional composition

When my son was studying for his GCSE English Literature he would regularly achieve ‘A’ grades for his coursework. His teacher was somewhat perplexed that his mock exam grade was lower – the quality of composition was poorer than expected.

As we explored this with my son’s teacher, we realised that he had composed his coursework on a computer, whereas in the exam he had to resort simply to pen and paper and had very little experience of using this technique. We surmised that the process of composition was, for him, most effectively achieved with a word processor, and that the skill of composition with pen and paper had not been well enough rehearsed.

Efficiencies in Central Government? How SME's can help

Elizabeth Miles — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:00:00 GMT

During the UK leadership debate on 29th April 2010, David Cameron said that, if elected, he would make it easier for SME’s to get on government tender programmes and that he would make sure that a quarter of government contracts went to smaller companies . Nick Clegg concurred that more needed to be done for smaller firms.

Hear, hear.

Paper-less? Or is it really paper-light?

Elizabeth Miles — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Often the first step that any organisation will take in becoming more environmentally friendly will be to reduce its paper consumption. And rightly so, as there are many benefits in adopting a digital solution such as Case Management where emails, documents and scanned physical materials can all be stored electronically.

Challenges of Shared Services

Elizabeth Miles — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

While shared services has been on the agenda for a number of years, and indeed our client Connect Law (Kettering & Wellingborough) has operated shared services for over three years, the pace of shared service implementation appears to be increasing. Over the past few months, a number of other clients have begun their shared services journey.

Securing Information: it's not Rocket Science...

Elizabeth Miles — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

If I were to mention the phrase “information breach” you’d be forgiven for thinking that I was talking about the high profile news items concerning computer hackers, theft or loss of laptops and other mobile equipment that contained sensitive data.

Are 'Eternal Goals' a possibility?

Elizabeth Miles — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

A recent interchange on Twitter referred to ‘Eternal Goals’. Instinctively I felt that eternal goals would (by definition) be unachievable and I began to wonder whether there was a rational basis for my gut reaction. I also began to ponder the qualitative differences between concepts involving ‘eternity’ and those involving the ‘infinite’. Here are some of my thoughts.

#PoetryTuesdays

Elizabeth Miles — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Shortly after I joined Twitter I started #PoetryTuesday so that people could share their favourite published poems. If you would like to contribute one, first find a legitimate published copy of it on the internet, then copy and shorten the url (using www.bit.ly or similar) then tweet the link on a Tuesday and add #PoetryTuesday to the tweet.

Here are the poems submitted during the first month ...

Social Networking - Useful Business Tool or a Waste of Time?

Elizabeth Miles — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I have been exploring multiple dimensions of Twitter and LinkedIn. I am following news relevant to my industry. I am in closer touch with some of my clients. I have made contact with professionals in my business area from different parts of the world. It’s been fascinating to hear news directly from students in Iran. I see that my daughter tweets early in the morning so we can enjoy short exchanges as we both prepare for the day.

My objective is to explore how social networking can be applied to driving real business improvements. Forget marketing for the moment (the media is swamped with advice about this). My clients and I share management challenges in running our respective businesses. We want to know whether we can use the new tools to: