Moving from Idea to Action

Episode Notes

Transcript

The Kennedy-Mighell Report

Moving from Idea to Action

06/05/2020

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Intro: Web 2.0, Innovation, Trend, Collaboration, Software, Metadata… Got the world turning as fast as it can, hear how technology can help, legally speaking with two of the top legal technology experts, authors and lawyers, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Welcome to The Kennedy-Mighell Report here on the Legal Talk Network.

[Music]

Dennis Kennedy: And welcome to Episode 262 of The Kennedy-Mighell Report. I am Dennis Kennedy in Ann Arbor.

Tom Mighell: And I am Tom Mighell in Dallas. Before we get started we would like to thank our sponsors.

First of all, we would like to thank Colonial Surety Company Bonds & Insurance for bringing you this podcast. Whatever court bond you need get a quote and purchase online at colonialsurety.com/podcast.

Dennis Kennedy: And we would also like to thank ServeNow, a nationwide network of trusted, prescreened process servers, work with the most professional process servers who have experience with high-volume serves, embrace technology, and understand the litigation process. Visit serve-now.com to learn more.

Tom Mighell: And we want to remind you that the second edition of our book, ‘The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies’ is available on Amazon. Everyone agrees that collaboration is essential in today’s world, but now more than ever knowing the right tools will make all the difference.

Dennis Kennedy: As I like to say at the start of our recent episodes, what a difference another week or two of pandemic and everything else makes these days. In our last episode we shared some of our best tips on presenting online. In this episode we want to talk about new ideas and ways to capture, share and develop them to enhance your chances that they will actually turn into actions.

Tom, what’s all on our agenda for this episode?

Tom Mighell: Well, Dennis, in this edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report we will indeed be discussing ways to move from idea to action. In our second segment I plan on schooling Dennis on why he needs a large monitor. And as usual we will finish up with our parting shots, that one tip, website, or observation that you can start to use the second that this podcast is over.

But first up, how to move your ideas to action. There is an idea that’s been bouncing around in my head the past couple of weeks, I reached out to Dennis about it and I was asking for his advice on the best ways to capture and share that idea initially with him. His initial response left me totally confused, somewhat frustrated, but it got me thinking that this might be a good topic for the podcast.

So here we are, Dennis, we aren’t going to revisit the entire conversation, but I thought my initial question was pretty straightforward, I had an idea, I wanted to tell you about it, I wanted to ask some questions about it. I looked back on our conversation and I counted 30 different back and forth responses in our online chat before I was satisfied with an answer and to me it seems like it should have been easier. Shouldn’t it have been easier than I found it?

Dennis Kennedy: Well, I think so, but I think when we go to the B segment, if we go back and count all the exchanges we have had about large monitors on Microsoft Teams back and forth, there is probably like 300 of those. So sometimes it just takes a little bit of time.

But I think — so I would say yes, it definitely should be easier, but I also think it’s very personal and so part of it was just trying to figure out what it was that you wanted to do and what you were most comfortable working with.

And also I think when you come up with new ideas and kind of want to develop them, you really need to kind of think about the frameworks that are out there and for me I think the big thing is reducing friction and getting the idea out of your head and making it easier to work with people, and that’s a lot more important than specific tools, because the tools, I can work with a lot of different tools, I work with different software tools and cloud services with a lot of people and sometimes the quest to find the right tools is actually a way of procrastinating on getting to the idea.

So that’s sort of one of my learnings from that conversation and it’s something that’s been really, really crystallizing for me lately is that I think it’s best not to start with the tool. And it’s kind of that trap we often talk about in technology when somebody says to you, what’s the best tool for X, you are actually kind of in a losing kind of game, because I think you need to step back and say okay, what is it that I want to accomplish here and what approach actually makes sense.

(00:04:53)

Tom Mighell: So my push back on this is going to be, and we are going to get into this a little bit more as you outline kind of the process, but my push back is going to be that — and I totally get why you shouldn’t make the tool the focus, but I also would say that if you are not considering the tool, one of the risks that I see and you have kind of laid it out here in the outline that we are talking about today, one of the risks that I see is that you could wind up using three or four tools throughout the whole course of it if you don’t think about things ahead of time, because you haven’t really clearly thought out how do we want to accomplish this and it could wind up in my mind and what I want to talk about is, doesn’t more tools equal more friction, because I feel like the more ways that we have to deal with things, the harder and more complicated it becomes.

So I think that to me anyway you have got to at least think about a tool, you can’t premise the whole process on finding the perfect tool for it, but my question really was, Dennis, I have an idea, what’s my best way of getting that idea down to you, and here is where my problem is going to be is, to me it doesn’t seem like it’s as simple as just getting that question down, it’s about what do we do after that. And I don’t want to hop to another tool to do that, I want to find a tool that does all of it, and if I am wrong about that, then I want to hear about it.

But that’s kind of where I am rubbing up against the idea, I get the idea of not starting with the tool first, but it also feels like we are in for a whole lot of work down the road if we don’t at least consider it initially.

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah, I mean this is a point where if I weren’t talking to you I would say, you should check out our Collaboration Tools book and we have this notion of co-collaboration, where really there is going to be tools that work really well for you, but when you start to interact with people, those will change.

And so part of when you asked me the question, I think, okay, here is what I would do, Tom doesn’t have the same approach so we kind of need to — and I need to figure out what stage of the process he is at and what makes sense, and I think in a lot of cases I am working in ideas, especially where there is a number of people involved with maybe like three tools easily, it’s not ideal, but you kind of have to go with what people have and what’s available and what their comfort is. So you know, for me —

Tom Mighell: We will come back to that in a minute, but you just said it’s not ideal and I will say that to me sounds like friction, so we will come back to that in a minute, but maybe the best place to start really is to kind of outline the process, because I think you have got a specific set of steps that we need to follow to accomplish this process. Do you want to kind of describe it and then maybe we can break it down?

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah. So I think there are four sort of key steps. So when you brought the question to me I said — when I am talking to people about innovation and ideas, there are sort of four key steps.

This is not rocket science. So you need to capture the idea, you need to shape the idea, you need to share the idea, and you need to validate it. And there is probably some degree of iteration that’s involved there and in a lot of cases it’s not necessarily sequential, so it’s not like oh, boom, 1, 2, 3, 4, depending on who the people you work with.

So if I was working with you I would say it’s totally going to be sequential because that’s the way you operate; for some people I work with it’s going to be a little bit all over the place. And as you know working with me on the scripts and the podcast and stuff that sequential is probably not the thing I am best known for in the creative process. 

And this framework kind of touches on some of the things — I am involved with my friends at FoundationLab and our friend Gwynne Monahan about creating something we call the Exponential Law Community and we did a webcast recently where we kind of walked through the idea of a validation process.

So there are some different things. So in innovation and ideas there is sort of a process that you follow and the tools will make sense. But those steps Tom, capture, shape, share, validate. So I suppose — I am guessing you are going to have questions about each of these and we will break it down. 

Tom Mighell: That would be logical to assume. So let’s break it down; capture, I mean I assume that means capturing the idea or does it mean capturing more than the idea?

Dennis Kennedy: I think it means — for me it just means capturing the idea, to say okay, so what is this idea that’s rattling around in my head, what do I remember of it, how do I actually put it into a form where I can find it again so I don’t forget it? So I say oh, this actually makes the list of ideas.

(00:10:09)

So some people have like a journal, an idea notebook. I typically put things down into mind maps, but there are a number of tools, some people might do an audio recording, but I just like a really simple approach and I think this is the one that you can really over-think.

So for me, that’s like pencil and paper, mind map, get it down, minimize the friction, maximize my creativity. So when you said hey, I have this idea, what tools should I use? I am kind of like well, if you are capturing it, the main thing is not to forget it.

I mean I used to do this thing when I was younger especially to say hey, if I have this idea, I don’t necessarily need to write it down because if it’s a great idea I will remember it, because I will kind of keep thinking about it. Now as I get older it’s just kind of better to write it down.

So I wasn’t sure if you were at this stage where you were just saying hey, what’s the best place to capture this to start? I don’t worry so much about that, it’s sort of like in the next step, shape, where I focus more on the actual tool that you might use.

Tom Mighell: And I think this is where part of my hesitation comes, because to me it seems inefficient not to capture it in the same place where you want to shape it. I want to do it all at the same place, because otherwise if I am moving it to where I captured it into where I am going to shape it, to me that’s the definition of friction. So let’s get there, we have captured it, to me shaping it is part two of capturing it. I mean it’s taking what you have got in its raw form and enhancing it or bringing it into more of its fullness of realization. I am not sure if those are the right words to use, but that’s how I feel.

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah, so you can do a couple of different things there. So you would say I might have written it down on pencil and paper. So I might, depending on what my preference is, I might put it into a Word document, I might put it into Google Docs if I knew that the person I was working with preferred to work in Google Docs, because that would help with the sharing right away.

For me, since I am going to do mind mapping, I can just start my mind map with that idea. So I am just moving that idea from wherever I jotted it down into a mind map or I might just start with the idea in a mind map. That’s typically going to be pencil and paper for me. So that’s just the way I work. Somebody else might put it into a mind mapping program, they might put it into a Post-It note program, there’s a bunch of tools out there.

And here is where you start to think, because you say basically that idea is something that I could — it’s not a big deal to retype or to copy and paste or do something like that to get it into the next stage and start to work with it. And again, I am just saying like how do I build things out, is it going to be an outline, what’s my typical way of working, and I need to just get it to the point probably where somebody else can look at it and that’s what I would think about.

One of the things I really like these days is the Value Proposition Canvas and almost every idea I am putting it into that and I think that’s a great format for me, but when I told you about that you were like oh my God, this is the most confusing thing ever.

Tom Mighell: It’s incredibly confusing.

Dennis Kennedy: But this is something I work with. And that’s where you sort of say well, if I am collaborating with somebody then I need to say if they like working with a Value Proposition Canvas, Business Model Canvas, other things, Post-It note type thing like MURAL, those sorts of things, then I know I can go there, otherwise if I don’t know that, then it becomes harder to do that.

And so the sharing is really like — the shaping, then I would say okay, so what do I need because now I know that the sharing is coming, so how do I move that along and that involves the people you are working with. So do I need to — is an outline the way to go, is some kind of narrative, some sort of one page with bullet points, some sort of drawing, that sort of thing and that’s where you start to think of who is it that I am working with. So I don’t know whether that totally helps, but that’s how I think about it.

(00:14:48)

Tom Mighell: Well so we are now going — we are now getting closer into the next phase, which is sharing and this is where you claim to know that I would prefer the sequential model. But for me anyway when it came to this specific instance I wanted to share before shaping. I mean I wanted to say here is my idea, I have captured it, I am sharing it with you because I want to go further with it and frankly to me that’s going to be what people will do more often, then capture, then shape, then share, at least my inclination, my instinct would be to share before shaping and shaping in a collaborative way rather than doing something like that on my own. I would think about it that way.

Dennis Kennedy: I would say capture, light shaping, share, back to shape, more sophisticated shaping, maybe a couple of rounds of that is how I would think of it.

So you would say I have this idea and it’s — whatever the idea is, then you would say well, before I actually want to show that to Dennis, I kind of need to at least make it grammatical and make it less confusing as to what I have in mind.

Tom Mighell: I did that, I did that, yeah.

Dennis Kennedy: So that first thing is — and so then you put it into MURAL which surprised me, but it worked pretty well. And then at that point I am able to share, but I could have shared that — if you would have shared that as an outline in Google Docs, any number of ways, but it’s just kind of like how could I work with you on that.

Then I can start to say things like oh, I see this, what are the missing steps, and for me typically what I find these days is, somebody gives me an idea, I kind of shape it a little bit, I start to understand it and I am starting to say okay, so who is the customer, what are the assumptions you are making about this that we need to surface and then I just need a way to react to you and you need to wait to do that or we can respond.

So using MURAL with these POST-IT notes, we could have done that, we could have done it as an outline, it’s just sort of how — that’s why I say with friction for me the easiest thing is that you stay in the tool that you like using because I can adjust to that, but that’s me.

Tom Mighell: So before we go any further, for the people who are listening who may not be familiar with it, can you just give a quick description of MURAL, because I would say I didn’t use it because it was the best tool for the process; I used it because I was interested in learning about using it and seeing how it worked for this particular activity. I don’t know that I would recommend going straight to that for what I was doing in this case, but can you kind of give a kind of a high level overview of what MURAL is and what it does, what purpose it is, because I think calling it a sticky note app is not probably doing it justice.

Dennis Kennedy: Right, I would call it a collaborative whiteboard tool that makes it really easy for you to do Post-It notes, super easy for that. I think you can do some drawings and things like that. But we are in the world of — the legal world, so you sort of see much less drawing and the Post-It note things I think work well.

So it’s a standard tool out there. Like I said, you could go any number of approaches. I think people are comfortable in Google Docs, OneNote, MURAL is kind of interesting these days, especially in the design world. There is a program called Notion, which is another easy way; to me it’s similar to OneNote, very collaborative way of kind of free forming some things.

I think you could actually do something where your sharing gets done in Zoom and then you might do like a shared document or a MURAL or something like that. So it’s just sort of the way you work, because otherwise there comes a point I think where probably you are going to be talking to the other person. So something that will work in that environment.

Tom Mighell: Okay, all right. So this is still my biggest issue and I am not sure that I have been satisfied on it and I may not be at the end of this, because technically it’s possible that we could have used three potential tools to do all of this. There could have been a tool that I used to capture it, I could have written it down with a pen and paper. There could have been another tool that I used to shape it and then a third tool to share it with you. And it feels to me like that’s the opposite of frictionless. It feels like it’s mostly friction. And so I would say probably go to where you said before, which is don’t feel like you have to use a separate tool for each process, use what is comfortable for you in the context of whatever it is you are trying to do.

(00:19:58)

Dennis Kennedy: Right, because I would say in most of the things that I would do where I — and then we can do what we did when we wrote the book is that we plan in advance what the sharing tool is going to be, and that drives a lot of what we are doing.

So I would say my typical process would be it’s pencil and paper, it’s mind map, and if I had an idea and I said Tom, I have this idea say for an online course or in the new edition of our book or whatever, I would say Tom, I mind mapped this, I have this outline, do you want it as a Google Doc, do you want it in some other form, and then I would turn it into an outline because I think that is kind of an easier way for people to do markup and add things and to comment and that sort of thing.

So for me, I am not looking at a specific software tool because the first couple of steps for me, the software tools would I feel get in my way still. So I don’t mind taking the extra work to pull it into something more formal to share with someone.

But I think it is a little bit hard because you don’t know that — inside an organization might say everybody is using the same tool and that makes it a little bit easier, but most of the time I am working with people and I go like oh, I am working with this person, that means it’s going to be MURAL, with these people they really like Notion now, this person is a Google Doc, that sort of thing. You have to make adjustments to people which is why the best tool — the best tool for collaboration that we often get asked is kind of like well, you have got to figure out who you are working with, right?

Tom Mighell: Yeah. Okay, let’s get to the last step, that last step seems obvious to me, validate, which means get feedback that your idea is worthwhile, tested out, is that right, is there more to it than that?

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah. There actually is some — well, I think conceptually there, but this to me is a lot more structured and almost scientific in the approach. And so working with Mike Cappucci and Dean Khialani at FoundationLab and looking at David Bland’s new book called ‘Testing Business Ideas‘, there is really a scientific process to that.

And so the validation to me says okay, so once I figured out what this idea actually is, who the customer is, what I want to do, then we are looking for evidence. So you are going to say, what are my most — what are the assumptions that I am making here about whether this will work or not and do I have evidence for these.

And it’s sort of a quadrant approach that you take where you say how important is this and then how much evidence I have. And you are trying to figure out in a lot of ways what is the most important assumption you are making for which you have the least evidence. And it could be that the customer you are thinking of has any interest in this at all, but you are going to kind of refine that and you can then say, can I — knowing that I need to know that to go forward, how can I test out that hypothesis to see whether it’s sound or not or that I need to make changes to it.

So in the video, the live stream we just did we were looking at something that we thought would help recent law school graduates, and our first assumption because we had somebody who is a student of mine actually kind of shot our main assumption right out of the water right off the bat and so we had to make some changes to that.

But the good thing is in the validation process you are figuring that out ahead of time and you have not created this whole product and then find out that your customers don’t want it at all, that they want something else or that you are making a big mistake. So that’s innovation.

So Tom, with your idea, that’s going to be one of the things where you say, if I do this, who is going to be the buyer and do they have the ability to buy it, I think is one thing, and are they willing to replace what they are currently using, whether it works or not at all. So there is going to be a number of things around there.

(00:24:46)

And then to simplify this because I know we are going to wrap up here, but there is this notion of desirability, does somebody want it; feasibility, can you actually do it; and viability, I sometimes think of, can you do it profitably, does it make sense economically to do your idea? So you can have this great idea, all right.

I have this idea to do this and completely change the world and you go, well, I need to kind of shape that, I need to get some reaction to that, but I can actually validate that, test it and a word I like to use these days I can de-risk what I am doing, the action that I am doing by identifying the most important hypothesis that I actually don’t have any evidence for and then getting the evidence for that because otherwise I am taking a big risk because I am just assuming. Most of time I am assuming that there’s a buyer for this.

So I think conceptually you are there. I just think I love this because it’s so much more scientific to me.

Tom Mighell: Okay, once you validated, I know this is not within the bounds of this, but what’s the next step, what happens after validation, where do we go then, and that’s not the topic of this podcast, but how do we tie that all off?

Dennis Kennedy: Typically this could be something like a prototyping. Okay, so now we think we have an audience, we have tested it in some way, so if you’re in a lean startup world sort of what’s the Minimum Viable Product, like what can I put out there, what can I prototype, can I actually see whether it will work and get that out there, then it becomes sort of — then how — once you have that, how do you launch it and then how do you actually kind of support and build it out overtime, so kind of those steps.

I think the big thing for me as I look at innovation is that there’s so much focus on the brainstorming and ideation and you go, okay, so I have the ideas but where in the heck does that go, and if you say, if I go past ideas there’s this next thing that’s called validation. Then I am to a prototyping sort of thing or Minimum Viable Product range, then I know that there’s a structure to what it is I am doing and you are more likely to have an idea. You have stronger ideas go forward and more — in ways that are more likely to be successful. I don’t really know, so your chances might improve.

So maybe you have less than 10% of your ideas or the products that you would launch are going to be successful and you are learning from failures and that’s the nature of the scientific method, but if you do this de-risking and you do the testing and validation then maybe you enhance your chances that not to a 100%, but you are going to be more likely than to say, some of the things I have seen that law firms have done recently where I go like, oh my god, they spent all this time and they have recreated like a version of doodle like the online appointments scheduler, and you go like, I wonder why they decided that was a good use of everybody’s time internally?

Tom Mighell: All right. We have got to get out of this segment. What’s your best tips in your best way to close this out, Dennis? How do lawyers move forward with thinking about this?

Dennis Kennedy: Well, I think, you look at each part of it, and this is what I do in my law school classes where I have learned from the students, they have kind of really come up with some great ideas and figured out how to put them through this process to turn them into really potentially great business ideas or service offerings. So you want to get this stuff out of your head, you want to get somebody else looking at it and then you want to test it. And there actually is a methodology that works pretty well, and I still think if you kind of over-focus on tools, you go on like, tools, tools, tools, that’s probably a form of procrastination.

Tom Mighell: All right, there it is. So before we move on to our next segment, let’s take a quick break for a message from our sponsors.

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(00:30:11)

Tom Mighell: And now let’s get back to The Kennedy-Mighell Report. I am Tom Mighell.

Dennis Kennedy: And I am Dennis Kennedy. So we love to get questions from you, our listeners at our voicemail line, it’s 720-441-6820. And in this episode we have a question, it’s from me for Tom and Tom has almost convinced me that I need a very large monitor, I mean, very large. I’m not quite there, so we thought we let Tom talk me through the benefits, the cost, curved versus non-curved monitors and try to convince me.

So Tom, I’m ready.

Tom Mighell: Well, first let’s define what we’re talking about. So for years — I can’t count how many times our law practice management friends would just praise the virtues of having dual monitors, about how we needed to have two monitors. You can keep two programs open at once, you can work on a Word document while you keep your research open on another screen, you can keep your email open on one screen while you work on another, it’s amazing, two monitors!

Well, now over the past four to five years we’ve started to see the size of the monitors really increase in a width fashion. They’ve kept this kind of 21×9 inch ratio and right, right now I have a 27-inch surface studio — 28-inch, which is pretty darn big. But I’ve started to notice that it’s hard to keep multiple things open the way that I really want to and there are some ultrawide monitors that are out there that are now between 29 inches all the way up to 49 inches, which is a monitor that it’s four feet wide is pretty darn big.

The general arguments for ultrawide versus dual monitors are one, ultrawide gives you a better use of real estate. You don’t have two separate devices, the space in between, lots of bezels, it’s just one unbroken field of vision.

Two, you only have to set one resolution. The colors are always going to be consistent. You only have one set of settings, you’re not having to set two different monitors for the settings.

Three, this is less important for working, but if you like to watch movies you get more of a cinematic experience obviously with the ultrawide monitor.

So those are the kinds of things that have generally persuaded me that I would prefer to have an ultrawide monitor.

Now the next question becomes curved versus plain ultrawide. I have decided and I’ve actually already purchased a curved monitor. I think it gives a more immersive experience than a flat monitor. I think also and I don’t have scientific proof of this yet, but I believe that it takes up slightly less space than a flat monitor of the same size, it just makes sense it’s going to not quite take up the same room.

I purchased for myself a Dell UltraSharp 38-inch screen, although frankly if my desk were big enough I might have been tempted to go for the 49-inch version. I’m waiting for a new computer to arrive so I will let you know in our future episode and maybe a blog post how it all works out.

In terms of cost, you can find an ultrawide monitor for as cheap as I think maybe $300 or $400 and you can go all the way up to $1500, $2000 for a monitor. So it depends on the monitor that you want to get in how much, but you’ve got a bunch of different options there and I pretty much I’m sold that I think ultrawide is the way to go versus dual monitors, that just seems so 2015.

Dennis Kennedy: So we’ve talked about like the how large is large. So we know that there’s 49, which is extreme, like almost breathtaking when you see a setup like that, because I saw somebody tweeted a picture of their setup with the 49-inch thing and I reached out to you right away and said, oh my god, I think I need this, which is kind of funny because I mainly work off a 12-inch MacBook, so this is a big step for me.

So there’s this sort of large 27-inch, there is sort of the large, maybe like 30 would be like the next 31 and then there’s 34 and then you go to 38. So what’s your — you ended up with the 38, but can people get away with less?

Tom Mighell: Well, so I think that you shouldn’t get away, you shouldn’t go with just 29 or 31 inches because the difference between that and getting an iMac or a Surface Studio which are 27 inches or 28 inches, I think that’s just a marginal difference so I wouldn’t go. If you’re going to really going for ultrawide, I would start at 34 and up. I think that’s the only way to make it worth your while, otherwise I would just stick with an all-in-one.

(00:35:01)

Dennis Kennedy: So for me the big thing — so I’m mainly going to be doing writing and where I noticed a big problem, you know what, the screen size is starting to matter to me is actually on the Zoom. So I’m on a Zoom call, somebody shares the screen, I may — for using something like Mural at the same time, there’s a kind of a lot going on in a small amount of space, you’re switching between windows. So your feeling is that ultrawide will be the answer to my issue there?

Tom Mighell: I think it will be and the other thing that you’ll want to explore is there are a couple of different tools. I mean, Windows has something built into it, but there are other tools out there that will allow you to snap windows together to wide up your screen, you can actually customize your screen and so I want to have this part of my screen be for this real estate and this part be for this, and it will snap those windows to that particular area. So you might want to take a look at some of those different options that are out there, but there’s a couple of different ways to configure that.

Dennis Kennedy: And then a friend of mine was showing me his setup where he has I think a 30 — either a 31 or 34 and he has a docking station in his laptop setup basically in front of it, and he says it’s amazing, but he’s like a multiple monitor, but actually the thing you were saying about eliminating the gap between the monitors and kind of focusing/refocusing from monitor to monitor is kind of compelling to me. Is that you are feeling, are you —

Tom Mighell: Oh no, that’s totally it for me. I like it being one continuous monitor, in fact, I’m trying to decide whether I want to hook it up to my laptop and use that monitor. I probably will, I probably will put it to a dock, but I won’t use the monitor on my laptop. I’ll probably just use the widescreen monitor to do work on in addition to any personal stuff I’m going to do on the computer.

Dennis Kennedy: And then my last question for you is the curved versus non-curved. So I understand that the curved is immersive and gives you this great peripheral view, but with my glasses I don’t have much of a peripheral vision anyway. So is that curved screen wasted on me, should I save a little money by just going to a flat screen or ultimately it doesn’t matter these days because it’s newer technology or just better quality monitor in the curved once these days?

Tom Mighell: That’s a really good question. I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t think you can go wrong with either one of those. I mean, the reviews that I see generally tend to prefer curved, and it’s mostly because of the immersive experience, I personally think that the curve is not significant enough to affect your peripheral vision. I think that it’s not quite that big to have that big of an effect on it, but I think frankly you can’t go wrong with either one of them. I think you’ll do well with either one and I kind of — I am embracing the cool factor of the curve, it just looks cool, I like it, I will let you know how it works out.

Dennis Kennedy: And so I guess the last thing we have is just a request for our listeners to donate to the Tom and Dennis large monitor fund and that will kind of help us with our decisions.

So now it’s time, Tom, for our parting shots, that one-tip website or observation you can use the second this podcast ends. So Tom, take it away.

Tom Mighell: So my parting shot this week is a site or a tool actually called Readwise, and what Readwise does is it connects to the services that you may use to save notes. You can connect it to your Kindle, you can connect it to services like Instapaper or Pocket. If you’ve got iBooks you can do that. You can actually save your favorite tweets and threads from Twitter as well.

And what it does is it works on the premise of basically creating a reading workflow where you’re capturing information, you’re going back and reviewing it later and you’re integrating it, so you’re actually learning from the stuff that you’re reading. I mean, you’re taking it and it’s not just going away, it’s to a certain extent going back to school again but it’s a different way of learning.

And so, what happens is once you’ve highlighted stuff in your Kindle book, for example, you can click in the Readwise app and it will do what they call your daily readwise and it will show you kind of essentially little flashcards of the highlights from different books that you’ve taken and you can further add notes to those, you can highlight them more to say, you know what, I highlighted this paragraph, but I really think that this part of it is more important and I want to pay attention to this. Like I said you can annotate it, you can do other things about it.

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But it’s designed to resurface information to you that you might have learned in the past when you read the book, but you may have forgotten. I mean those are things that — how long after we read a book do we really remember everything that we read? And I like the idea that this is part of what I am starting to look at is keeping a second brain and this is one way of doing it with the information that you have that you read and that you collect and the fact that it automatically syncs from these services is great.

There is a free trial, it’s a subscription to use, there’s a $4.49 a month or a $7.99 a month depending on what you want, but I am in the middle of my trial, I am really enjoying it and I am probably going to subscribe to it when my trial ends, readwise.io. Dennis.

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah, Tom we talked about that before recording and we are so both kind of gravitating toward this notion a second brand. So I think we will probably return to that topic.

So I am doing this new thing called the Exponential Law Community and I just wanted to direct people there. So the easiest way to find this is, you need to go to my blog denniskennedy.blog and I did a recent post which probably will be the one of the top items, top couple of items if you are listening to this when it comes out on my blog, which is look for Exponential Law Community.

The idea is that we wanted to create a community for really innovative lawyers who are probably in that part of a community or they are kind of alone in what they do in their firm or organization, and the focus is actually meant to be on the individual rather than the organization because I think a lot of the innovative lawyers are probably going to find throughout the rest of the year that the loyalty that their current firm or organization has to them is maybe a bit less than they hoped.

So I think this is a group that needs a community. We are doing this challenge of a month thing and this will also be in a blog post, but we did a live unrehearsed idea of validation exercise with something we call the Challenge of the Month and that’s available, but I encourage any of you, our innovators who just want to see how you can further your own career individually not necessarily your organizations, we are trying to create a community and see what happens. So look for that in my blog and hope to see you joining that.

Tom Mighell: And so that wraps it up for this edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report. Thanks for joining us on the podcast. You can find show notes for this episode on the Legal Tart Network’s page for our podcast.

If you like what you hear please subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or on the Legal Talk Network site or you can also find archives of all of our previous podcasts along with transcripts.

If you would like to get in touch with us, reach out to us on LinkedIn, or as Dennis said, you can leave us a voicemail, that number is 720-441-6820.

So until the next podcast, I am Tom Mighell.

Dennis Kennedy: And I am Dennis Kennedy and you have been listening to The Kennedy-Mighell Report, a podcast on legal technology with an Internet focus. If you liked what you heard today, please rate us in Apple podcasts. We will see you next time for another episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report on the Legal Talk Network.

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Outro: Thanks for listening to The Kennedy-Mighell Report. Check out Dennis and Tom’s book, ‘The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together’ from ABA Books or Amazon, and join us every other week for another edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, only on the Legal Talk Network.

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