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TECH SUPPORT In the past, some of this information, such as collective agreements and ar- bitration awards, was stored on shared drives on the firm's network but wasn't always readily accessible. "One of the biggest challenges was for other lawyers to find these documents afterwards," Colman explains. "[It] was usually accomplished via an e-mail re- quest or by searching the shared drive. The wiki resolved this by providing di- rect links to documents if they were housed on client sites or by creating a document library on the wiki." Hicks Morley does not have a formal docu- ment-management system, she notes, so in this case wikis are also performing some of the functions of a DMS. Another wiki was created for articling students with all the firm's electronic training materials in one place, along with a forum for students to post ques- tions and partners and associates to re- spond with answers. The firm started by experimenting with free DominoWiki software, based on IBM's Lotus Notes, and open-source programming tools and standards. Last summer, it assigned Colman to find a platform it could use for the future. There are two ways to implement wikis: install software on an internal server or use a software-as-a-service (SaaS) that provides browser-based software and hosting on a remote server. Many SaaS providers offer a free version with lim- ited functionality and storage space. The free wikis are a great place to start, Crosby says. She cites two: PBwiki from PBwiki Inc. (www.pbwiki.com) and Wet- paint from wetpaint.com Inc. (www. wetpaint.com). A third to consider is Clearspace X from Jive Software (www. jivesoftware.com/products/clearspace/ clearspacex.jsp). SaaS products are usually easy to set up, require little or no management by IT staff, and involve no capital outlay. But they are not fully under firm control and would be unavailable in the event of an internet service outage or problem with the host system. Service providers all promise ironclad security and reliability, but some firms will prefer to use internal server-based solutions. Hicks Morley is one. After looking at six or eight products last summer, it settled on ThoughtFarmer (www.thoughtfarmer.com), server-based software from Vancouver's OpenRoad Communications Ltd. Colman is pleased with the decision. "One of the lessons we've learned is that it's really important to select a tool that's very easy to use. We did look at some products that had tons of features but we thought they would be too overwhelm- ing [for users]. That's why we picked ThoughtFarmer — it's intuitive, it has a nice clean look, and it's easy to pick up." Colman also liked the Web 2.0 features that some other products didn't have, such as RSS (really simple syndication) as a mechanism for notifying partici- pants of changes, and tagging, a simple way to group pages by subject or theme making it easier to browse a document base. ThoughtFarmer also lets individu- al Hicks Morley users set up their own personal wikis to store links and docu- ments they use all the time. It also lets them search for documents across all of the firm's wikis. After running a six-week Thought- Farmer pilot project with one small practice group, the firm gave Colman the go-ahead to roll the product out across the firm. She is now helping transfer al- ready-built wikis from DominoWiki to ThoughtFarmer, and to build new ones. More and more practice groups are getting interested in wikis. But they are no panacea, Colman and Crosby warn. And the build-it-and-they-will-come ap- proach is unlikely to ensure success. One challenge in some firms will be overcom- ing lawyers' disinclination to collaborate and their unwillingness to publicly air work in progress, says Crosby. Wikis, af- ter all, are designed to foster collabora- tion. Firms need to consider how good a fit they will be, given their culture. Colman says it takes at least two cham- pions to push the concept forward. One U.S. firm offered employees a chance to win a lottery prize for every contribu- tion they made to the new firm wiki. Concern about irresponsible or in- flammatory contributors sabotaging entries or posting the equivalent of graf- fiti — something that has happened on Wikipedia — are probably unfounded in the corporate environment, Crosby www. C ANADIAN ntitled-3 1 mag.com M AY 2008 27 4/4/08 10:02:41 AM Business