Surviving Digital Darwinism: Keeping Pace With Technology Change in The Practice of Law

"It's a simple but often forgotten principle - how does technology add value to the advice you provide? Successful technology for lawyers will allow you to make better decisions that ultimately benefit your client."

Good Morning Foks, 

Information technology is the backbone of the modern organization.

For organizations to remain credible in today’s world, you need an innovative partner like FSO to look to the future and help to constantly improve IT and software capabilities. FSO helps you meet this challenge with an integrated, holistic view of technology that combines infrastructure support, application development and strategic.

Competing for relevance is now a mission of every business and as such, it should be relentlessly pursued. The future of business is not about technology, greed, or short-term deals. It’s about people, purpose, and experiences.

It takes vision.

It takes empathy.

It takes courage.

The future of business lies in the shift from a culture of management to that of leadership and it begins with you.

Blogs Brian Sollis, "We live in an era of "digital Darwinism," a time when technology and society are evolving faster than the ability of many organizations to adapt. It is for this reason (along with a myriad of other problems of course) that in fact killed Borders, Blockbuster, Polaroid and the like. Not only did digital Darwinism cost us close to a half billion job, it's only accelerating. As Leon C. Megginson once said in paraphrasing Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Over the years, Brian's studied how disruptive technology affects consumer behavior and decision-making. He's also researched how businesses react (or don’t) to these changes. What he learned is that barring a few exceptional instances of complete ignorance, organizations are open to adaptation if there’s indeed a case made for it and a path outlined to safely and cost-effectively navigate change.

Without vision or direction, businesses will always miss the true opportunity...

Here's what you need to know...

• Digital Darwinism is already here and it's only going to accelerate.
• Business as usual doesn't stand a chance.
• You're not too big to fail, you're not too small to succeed.

There is no shortage of technologies available to the legal community. The need for change is widely recognized, but many firms don’t yet have a framework with which to evaluate ‘solutions’.

According to Tanya Gleeson's "Legal Technology Buyer’s Guide", these three questions very quickly distill the merit of new technologies and the impact it will have on you, your firm and your clients:

1. Who really benefits?

The recent surge of automation and practice management solutions has meant that many support staff hours are saved... but what is the real value of this time saving? Is your firm measuring where these savings are occurring?

It's critical to understand who the time and cost savings are realised by; the two hours saved for a support person are significantly different to the two hours saved for a practitioner.

2. What is the problem being fixed?

Speak to your people. What are their frustrations, annoyances or pains experienced trying to achieve their goals? It can be as small as having to turn a light on or as big as understanding massive corporate structure in large scale M&A transactions. 

Solving a problem by looking into the business is far more effective than waiting to be approached by providers solving problems you never even knew about.

3. How will your client benefit?

The pressure for legal practices to remain competitive is higher than ever, which means as a legal management professional, you need to be the advocate for your client in the evaluation of a new technology.

It's a simple but often forgotten principle - how does technology add value to the advice you provide? Successful technology for lawyers will allow you to make better decisions that ultimately benefit your client. 

FSO has invested millions of dollars to date in the development and utilization of cutting edge CRM, operational and cloud based software and technology and we will continue to do so in our commitment to keep our clients ahead of the curve.

Our FSO Tech Center – a dedicated team lead by our CIO – Thomas Pategas provides comprehensive IT services. Whether your support needs are contract or on-demand based, FSO can provide professional onsite and offsite certified technicians to service all your Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 service needs.

Call me for a free evaluation of your current technologies, and ideas for new products and services to drive efficiency and profitability in the future.

Thanks to Brian Sollis and Tanya Gleeson for inspiring me today and to you, for listening,

Call me personally at 212.204.1193 and I’ll show you how to take technology headaches off your mind and plate, put the fun back into work and a smile on your face.

Have a GREAT DAY as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer

   
...............................................................................
Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them.

...............................................................................

On Cyber Monday FSO Salutes TECHNOLOGY i.e. "Better Service and Support, At Lower Cost"

"Listen closely and you too will hear the thumping, pulsing heart of a new economy. And now creativity, "the ability to create meaningful new forms," as The Random House Webster's Dictionary puts it--has become both the driving force of economic progress and the decisive source of competitive advantage."

Good Morning Folks,

Welcome to December. I hope you enjoyed the holidays. But the season of joy is just beginning.

Have you noticed that people everywhere at the holidays seem nicer, except at FSO where we serve to please and aim for daily smiles every day of the year, in everything we do, wherever you find us.

But while our people shine, people alone can not rise to the tough challenges facing businesses everywhere to compete successfully and profitably into the 21st Century and beyond.

As you know, the Executive Leadership team and I and more specifically our IT team are always thinking about how technology can drive out costs and cycles, making possible what was not before. This includes new products and methodologies to identify opportunities for improvements and help resolve critical IT issues that affect business performance for greater efficiency and productivity.

On this day, the first Monday in December otherwise known as "Cyber Monday" — Online commerce gets a lot of headlines. 

Many people talk about it as a very exciting element of what is happening on the Internet, and clearly it is. 

But I think one area that doesn't get enough recognition is service and support. Look at Dell, as an example. They get 100 million visitors every year to their Website. If you imagine the physical infrastructure that a company would have to have to support 100 million customer contacts, you can begin to see the efficiency that comes from working online with customers in the way the Internet does. Customer service will be a key differentiator in the future of e-commerce, and one of the most sure-fire methods of acknowledging customer queries is by answering e-mails.

This was high-tech in 1867— the innovation that drove Wall Street. The inventor Edward A Calahan unveiled the world's first stock price ticker system in 1867, but it used morse code and was essentially a glorified telegraph receiver. Two years later, Thomas Edison launched the Univeral Stock Ticker machine (pictured). It used alphanumeric numbers and printed one character per second. (Picture from the Museum of American Finance)

In his book titled "Creativity Is the New Economy" economist Richard Florida argues that "it's common to say we are now living in a post-industrial information or knowledge economy. And now creativity, "the ability to create meaningful new forms," as The Random House Webster's Dictionary puts it--has become both the driving force of economic progress and the decisive source of competitive advantage. He writes:

The Creative Age has been distinguished by the rise of two great social classes. The first is the Creative Class, workers in science and technology, arts, culture and entertainment, healthcare, law and management, whose occupations are based on mental or creative labor.

The second and larger one is the Service Class, whose members prepare and serve food, carry out routine clerical and administrative tasks, provide home and personal health assistance, do janitorial work, and the like. The Service Class has grown alongside the Creative Class, rising from twenty percent of the workforce in the late nineteenth century and thirty percent in the 1950s to almost half of the workforce, 60 million plus workers, today. 

The Creative Class, which comprised less than ten percent of the workforce in the late nineteenth century and no more than 15 percent for much of the twentieth, began to surge in the 1980s. Since that time more than twenty million new Creative Class jobs were created in the United States. 

This epoch-defining class now numbers more than forty million workers, a third of the workforce, and it generates more than $2 trillion in wages and salaries--more than two thirds of the total US payroll. An additional seven million or so Creative Class jobs will be created over the next decade, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics projections.

Members of the Creative Class engage in complex problem solving that involves a great deal of independent judgment and requires high levels of education. Interestingly enough, however, the Creative Class is not simply another name for the college educated.

While nearly three quarters of college graduates belong to the Creative Class, four in ten of its members do not have college degrees, but still engage in work that is creative by definition. 

At the worst of the crisis, in the first half of 2009, the rate of unemployment for the Creative Class barely topped five percent, even as the rate of unemployment for the nation crested over ten percent and the unemployment rate for blue-collar production workers surged above 15 percent or more. Creative Class unemployment is roughly four percent today, a little less than half the rate for the nation as a whole."

In helping our clients meet the changing demands of business, FSO has and will be launching innovative technologies and hiring and training personal so that your team is comprised of both service and creative-class minds. The best example of this is that only FSO gives you the white glove onsite service backed by the creative-class staffed (re) imagination team. It's all built around a strategy customized to the needs and opportunities of your business.

My friend Jay Turo at GrowThink.com blogs about Jessica Simpson, Renée Zellweger, and Bold Predictions.

As we usher out the present and get ready to usher in the new his ideas and predictions from when FSO was just getting started are worthy of reexamination. IHe predicted...

"The prototype of a breakout technology company will continue to evolve from “geeks in a garage tinkering with transistors” to loosely - coupled gangs of media - savvy trendsetters that get the game of viral and cross - platform brand and buzz-building. 

According to Jay, America is getting its mojo back. Once one quiets the mind to the drumbeat of negativity that passes as business and economic news, one can hear the sound of the nation’s entrepreneurial and risk-taking wheels turning.  

He predicted: It Will Be the Year of the Young (and the Young at Heart).
The best qualities of youth – enthusiasm, flexibility of mind and spirit, and the over-riding desire to be inspired will continue to shape the brave new economic world order. 

From youth by the millions leaving the countryside (smart phones in hand) to find their dreams in Shanghai, in Mumbai, in Sao Paulo, in Nairobi, to the young technocratic of Palo Alto, of Manhattan, of Santa Monica, of Moscow, the youth like Renée Zellweger’s unforgettable character in the movie Jerry Maguire, are not so much looking for jobs as they are looking to be inspired.  

And that inspiration, and it is a credit to their more open-minded than ever parents, is found in BOTH making a difference AND making a buck (and/or a rupee or a ruble).
Anti - business do-gooders they are surely not, but nor are they faceless and dreamless company men. Rather, their spirit is raised by big ideas.  

By clean energy for all. By friendship and professional networks not limited by nationality, race, and creed. 

By eliminating hunger in the world not via charity but via a combination of venture philanthropy, technology, and always - on global communication and awareness. 

By healthcare breakthroughs of all types - diagnostic, prescriptive, and in cost and efficiency so that everyone gets great care when and where they need it. 

And it will be the young and the young at heart that will move all of the above and more from dream to reality.  

Not all of it without setbacks and heartaches along the way. But a lot of it.  

This will be the REAL story of the decade- listen closely and you too will hear the thumping, pulsing heart of a new economy."

Not only do these life-changing inventions benefit all of humanity, they promise high employment at good salaries contributing to the economy. And that's why I recently decided to get more involved as I joined the Board of Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools who operates one of the largest Research & Development and Training centers for science and technology education in the world. It develops innovative curricula for robotics, nanotechnology, biomedical engineering, teaching-learning methodologies and online pedagogy for implementation in Israel and export to education systems and hundreds of schools around the world.

On this Cyber Monday, as we shop and pay by mobile phone with applications and possibilities we never dreamed possible, let's give homage to these "Anti-business do-gooders they are surely not, but nor are they faceless and dreamless company men. Rather, their spirit is raised by big ideas." For they have made possible all that we are realizing on our smart phones, and smart TVs today.

The Internet is changing the way business is conducted, at a speed unprecedented in human history. As interconnectivity and information flow increase exponentially, the old "rules of the game" no longer apply. Geographic proximity and established name-brands no longer assure sales or customer loyalty. The ability to instantly compare prices and features empowers buyers and puts new pressure on suppliers to compete on other levels. Business ethics become more important than ever before, as do service and the ability to integrate inputs from a multitude of sources around the globe.

Opportunities to globalize, engage customers and suppliers in real time and facilitate knowledge sharing and best practices can now be achieved in much less time than anyone could have imagined, thanks to the emergence of the Internet.

This New Economy is being driven by a profound development: Individuals and companies worldwide are being electronically linked, a process as significant as an organism developing a nervous system. It's the new platform for business, with the power to trim costs and create sales opportunities by connecting every corner of the corporation with partners and customers.

So it's no surprise that the rules of the game are changing. Many of these principles have been stated before. But taken together they constitute a revolution in the rules of business. Companies that recognize and harness these trends will profit. Companies that do not will shrink or disappear.

FSO has been prepared from the beginning. Readying for 2015 brighter minds, better ideas and breakthrough technology to drive them.

If you aren't familiar with what FSO is up to lately, I hope you'll give us a fresh look.

Have a GREAT Cyber-Monday and a wonderful week!

Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 
"Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning"
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

*(Now to my sales team please stop shopping and get back to work!)

Inspire ME Friday: Be Inspired By Israel Sci-Tech Schools and My Appointment to Their Board of Friends

"Not only do these life-changing inventions benefit all of humanity, they promise high employment at good salaries contributing to the economy of Israel. I couldn’t be happier to be part of such a noble effort.”

Good Morning Folks.

It's an exciting day for me as news spreads across the US and beyond of my recent appointment to The Board of Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools.

The job-creating Israel Sci-Tech Schools, as you'll read in the press release that follows, is a perfect fit for FSO and my own passion to create opportunities for the underserved. 

Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools is the new North American non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and strengthening Israel Sci-Tech Schools network - the largest network of independent science and technology schools in Israel. This network includes 212 schools and colleges and 100,000 Israeli students as well as 500,000 alumni. The school network that the Friends organization supports was originally founded in Russia in 1880 and was established in Israel in 1949.  Funds raised by the Friends organization are designated for a variety of educational programs to keep pace with the ever-changing fields of science and technology and for special social and volunteer programs. Donations can also be earmarked to update existing classrooms and labs, or to build new schools. 

Here are some of the highlights about the initiative:

• Focusing on science and technology; essential skills for gaining sustainable employment and making important contributions to society in the 21st Century and beyond
• Offers opportunities to lower social communities with a vision to upgrade those communities, resulting in bigger potential for getting employment and earning a good salary
• 60% students study subjects mechanic to nano technology versus 35% Israel average
• Curriculum being developed and spread to schools throughout the US and Europe
• Volunteering in community- 20,000 students volunteering as part of studies
• Identifying Holocaust survivors, buying them computers, installing Internet connecrtions and teaching surveyors communicate with the world and share their life stories online
• Student volunteers dispatched to children's hospitals- teach and play with cancer-striken kids on computers across ten hospitals across Israel

 Here is the press release:

Mitchell D. Weiner— Entrepreneur, Business Transformation Pioneer and Founder and CEO of one of INC 5000’s Fastest Growing Companies, Appointed to 

The Board of Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools

Tel Aviv, Israel and New York, New York, November 4, 2014— 

Israel Sci-Tech Schools, Israel's largest independent educational network of schools and colleges, and FSO, the USA’s fastest growing onsite outsourcing company, announce the appointment of Mitchell D. Weiner, CEO and Chief Happiness Officer of FSO to the board of directors at Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools.

Mr. Weiner’s appointment strengthens and expands awareness and support in the United States, ensuring the security and vitality of Israel through the advancement of a strong science and technology education for all its citizens. Israel Sci-Tech Schools' graduates are among Israel’s most productive citizens: a workforce of engineers, senior military personnel, high tech entrepreneurs and scientists who are the backbone and the future of Israel.

Said Zvi Peleg, Israel Sci-Tech Schools' Director General, “There was an immediate warm connection between Mitch and us and Israel Sci-Tech Schools. Our schools are known for outside the box thinking and in Weiner’s case there is not even a box! We look forward to working with Mitch on strengthening the bond between Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools in the US and our network of schools in Israel.”

Commented Weiner, “Israel Sci-Tech Schools operates one of the largest Research & Development and Training centers for science and technology education in the world. It develops innovative curricula for robotics, nanotechnology, biomedical engineering, teaching-learning methodologies and online pedagogy for implementation in Israel and export to education systems and hundreds of schools around the world. Not only do these life-changing inventions benefit all of humanity, they promise high employment at good salaries contributing to the economy of Israel. I couldn’t be happier to be part of such a noble effort.”

Adds Peleg, “In high school, did you ever see sparks fly off the sun through a state-of-the-art telescope or build a military vehicle for the IDF Armaments Corps? For nearly 1,200 students at Tzimbaum Israel Sci-Tech High School this is part of their daily learning. Tzimbaum is one of two aerospace schools in Israel – both belonging to the Israel Sci-Tech network. It caters to the full range of high school students and prepares its students to think creatively with innovative curricula including aviation, aerospace, physics, mathematics, computer programming, social studies and theater.”

“The business value of technology is limitless in this rapidly growing field. Humans already depend on robots in many spheres – robot-assisted search and rescue teams, surgeons making smaller incisions and enabling better prognoses, unmanned vehicles and airplanes, spray-painting cars,” says Weiner. “From creating food for astronauts, turning plastic into paper, to preventing tanker oil spills - Israel's accomplishments in science and technology continue to amaze all of us. Many of these life-changing inventions come from students.“

In addition to traditional learning, students of the Israel Sci-Tech Schools supplement their education with active participation in community service. “Mechubarim” (Connected) is an example of a program connecting hundreds of Holocaust Survivor to Cyberspace. 400 dedicated, tech-savvy teens put in the time to make a real, personal ‘connection’ with survivors.

Says Weiner, “It’s amazing, the students teach their elder partner how to use computers and explore the Internet. After they have learned basic skills, the seniors write their life stories on the computer bringing their past to life for their grandchildren and generations to come. This project helps the young and old bridge the generation gap. Together they learn to see beyond stereotypes and discover the value of each person.”

Mrs. Edith Everett – Chairman of the Board of Friends of Israel Sci-Tech school congratulated Mitch on joining the board and said “Thanks to the interest and support of Directors like Mitch Weiner, we are training teens with vision, a creative spirit and a desire to make a difference to Israel and the world.

The Israel Sci-Tech Schools network was established in Israel at 1949 and to date, has over 500,000 graduates.”

About 20 years ago, incoming Israel Sci-Tech Schools Director, Weiner, co-founded Archer Management. The company pioneered mailroom outsourcing – essentially bringing his employees into law firms and other companies to manage all aspects of the mailroom. After growing the company, Weiner was part of the sale of Archer to Oce  (now Canon) in the mid-1990s. He then repeated the success with a startup, rapid growth and sale of another outsourcing company, his third business success. With each, he’s laid a bit more of the foundation for FSO – and the acceptance of onsite outsourcing within multi-billion dollar companies. Like Israel Sci-Tech Schools, Weiner’s firm creates jobs and opportunities for the underserved which he believes, will be his corporate legacy.

I couldn't be more proud and honored to be part of this great organization. I look forward to spreading the word within the United States and to working with other great American organizations and their CEOs as they come aboard.

I will keep you posted in the months ahead.

Meanwhile there are times to work, rest and play. To fully enjoy your weekend let go of the working week. 

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! 

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

.................................................................

"Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken"
 —Oscar Wilde

........................................................