Canadian Lawyer

www.canadianlawyermag.com 19 pect needs to see or hear a message at least seven times before they internalize that mes- sage and do something about it. A marketing campaign that creates awareness and inter- est must form a central role in your change management program. Where and how that is started depends on the tool or system. But communication, repetition and the medium you choose will be key. The need for a particular lawyer to know about or use the tool may not happen at the time of your first (or followup) email or when you put on that training session or when you mention it at a practice group meeting or when it appears on the intranet's homep- age. But if a process breaks down or a client wants a different way of doing things or an associate thinks "there must be a better way," then you have a receptive audience. As for many things in life, "timing is everything" for your messages. Is it easy? "When technology precedes requirements and user needs, the UX [user experience] suffers — it leads to solutions in search of problems." – Peter Morville, Semantic Studios The technology we use in our firms will always be compared to the shiny consumer technology and interactions we use at home. Even without those kinds of budgets, we must get as close as we can to a useful, usable and engaging interface for busy knowledge work- ers to use. It is this principle that is one of the hardest to meet for legal technology vendors. Making a tool intuitive and easy to use for all lawyers and their myriad ways of working is hard, and what seems intuitive to one can often be the opposite for another. Without deep integration with the other workflow tools that lawyers use, making it easy for adoption at the right time, in a deal or file, is even harder. Again, though, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. It starts with understanding how lawyers work, and then designing inter- faces and tools that tame the complexity of these workflows. Of course, even if you are guided by the recommendation insights above, neither engagement nor change is guaranteed. It's an ongoing process that will require sustained leadership, as well as some clever nudges to influence behaviour in the right direction at your firm. But reorienting technology around the people using it is exactly what drives our knowledge management teams to gather the insights and try different things with different audiences for greater adoption. Kate Simpson is national director of knowledge management at Bennett Jones LLP, and is responsible for developing the firm's KM strategy and initiatives. Opinions expressed are her own. Proud member of the PIA Toronto | 1-866-685-3311 | www.mcleishorlando.com Consultation Offices in: Barrie | Hamilton | Kitchener | St. Catharines oping

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