MOST lawyers are pathologically late adopters of IT. Despite promising, early successes, until the worth of an emerging technology is proven beyond reasonable doubt it will not generally be embraced by the legal world. A case in point is RSS, an abbreviation that is generally taken to stand for really simple syndication. Ignoring the unhelpful terminology, RSS is a powerful way of publishing and receiving online materials that avoids various hassles of e-mail (filters and spam) and the hit-and-miss experience of web searching. RSS feeds (or web feeds) notify subscribers when new content (an article, blog or webcast, for example) is available. This technology enables law firms to alert their clients when they publish something new online, and allows practitioners themselves to be similarly notified when websites relevant for them are updated. While this appears to be ideal for lawyers, many have not heard of RSS. There are said to be more than 30 million RSS feeds available, recognisable on websites by the display of little orange buttons. One drawback is that users need to have a “reader” to subscribe to RSS feeds (obtainable, for example, at www.newsgator.com). Nonetheless, within 18 months, any lawyer not using RSS will be badly out of step.

WRITING a book need no longer be a solitary pursuit. Consider Charles Leadbeater. He is an expert on innovation and, well in advance of the publication of his latest book We-think: the Power of Mass Creativity, he has placed a draft on his website (www.wethinkthebook.net). There, visitors can download it, print it off, share it with others and offer comments (favourable and otherwise). He regards this open approach as an experiment in collaborative creativity and idea sharing.

Self-referentially, Leadbeater’s book itself argues that new forms of mass, creative collaboration, such as wikipedia (www.wikipedia.com) and youtube (www.youtube.com) herald a society in which people prefer to participate than spectate. Writing thus becomes a communal activity, inspired and reflected by the author; but the input from others is wildly greater than normally provided by those thanked in the acknowledgements. This idea was applied in law at http://codebook.jot.com/WikiHome where Lawrence Lessig evolved the second edition of Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. While tomorrow’s authors may well come to regret the avalanche of comments they invite, there will be little excuse for writer’s block.

The author lectures and consults internationally (his clients include Pinsent Masons). He is IT adviser to the Lord Chief Justice and Honorary Professor at Gresham College. Contact: www.susskind.com

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