Dennis & Tom’s 2022 Tech Resolutions

Episode Notes

Transcript

Tom Mighell:  Before we get started, we’d like to thank our sponsors.

Dennis Kennedy:  First of all, we’d like to thank Nota, powered by M&T Bank. Nota is banking built for lawyers and provides smart, no-cost IOLTA account management. Visit trustnota.com/legal to learn more. That’s N-O-T-A, Nota. Terms and conditions may apply.

Tom Mighell:  Next, we’d like to thank Colonial Surety Company Bonds and Insurance for bringing you this podcast. Whatever court bonds you need, get a quote and purchase online at Colonial Surety.com/podcast.

Dennis Kennedy: And of course, we’d like to thank ServeNow. A nationwide network of trusted, pre-screened process servers. Work with the most professional process servers who have experience with high volume serves, embrace technology and understand the litigation process litigation process. Visit Servenow.com to learn more.

[Music]

Intro: Web 2.0. Innovation, trends, 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 304 of The Kennedy-Mighell  Report, I’m Dennis Kennedy in Ann Arbor.

Tom Mighell:  And I’m Tom Mighell in Dallas. 

Dennis Kennedy:  In our last episode, we and our friend, Debbie Foster join us for a look back at legal technology in 2021. It was a great show. I highly recommend it. Now, we look to 2022. We aren’t believers in predictions on the show, especially me. And especially after all the unpredictability of well, the last two years. But we do have instead an annual tradition of sharing our own technology, New Year’s resolutions every year, and it’s that time of year, again. Tom, what’s on our agenda for this episode?

Tom Mighell:  Well, Dennis, in this edition of The Kennedy-Mighell Report, we will indeed be sharing our 2022 technology resolutions. In our second segment, we will again, as be our habit, talk about our 2022 resolutions for this podcast. And as usual, we’ll finish up with our parting shots that Onetip website or observation you can start to use a second that this podcast is over. But first up, New Year’s technology resolution, a longtime tradition on the show. This time of year, we see a lot of prediction shows. We are not going to do that here, at least partly, because as I have mentioned in previous episodes, I’m lousy at predicting anything. Instead, we prefer to offer our technology resolutions for the coming year in part, to give a peek into how we think about our own technology use. And part also, to help maybe give you some inspiration, get you started on your own technology goals, and objective, because really, that’s what this podcast has been about for all of these 304 episodes. It’s hopefully showing you that, if two old guys like us can figure out how this stuff works, and why it’s important to us as lawyers that we understand it. That you’ll see that it’s really not all that hard. As usual, I think, I suspect, Dennis is going to gloat about how well he did on his resolutions this past year, and being semi-retired should surprise no one. I am on the other hand will once again, lament my poor resolution performance. Dennis, do you want to get this party started?  How did you do on your resolutions the past year?

Dennis Kennedy:  Well, first off, there was a pandemic Tom. So, we’re in this wacky world. And if I can complain about the whole prediction things like at the end of the year, I’ve seen other people with all these predictions. And basically, everybody has an opinion everybody has a prediction. They don’t have accountability to what they did in the past. They don’t track each year what they’ve done. And basically, predictions have become really predictable. Like, isn’t this year going to be the death of The Billable Hour once again? And that’s why, I like the resolution approach, because we do go back, and we take a look, and we try to base things on evidence, and not just pull things out of the air. So, my last year’s three resolutions were, to make major progress on my second brain project, to level up my video and online teaching skills, and to take a look at virtual reality. And Tom, I think you’re right. Oh, my God, I rocked my resolutions. How about you?

Tom Mighell:  Well, here’s the part where I lament. I did maybe one out of three. I also had a second brain project, that’s what we’ve been talking about on the podcast at various times this year. Those of you who didn’t get a chance to listen to it. We had several episodes; go and look at the archives on, “The Different Phases of Putting Together Our Second Brain.” I think I did a pretty good job on getting that foundation together, more on that later. I wanted to increase my online presence and really, I just took a break this year. I took a break from my online presence. 

(00:05:03)

And yeah, that was not a good outcome there in that resolution. And then finally, what I wanted to learn more about was, to do better on workplace workflows, and/or Excel expertise where at least, I’m choosing to consider that it was and/or Excel expertise, because I really didn’t become much more of an expert on Excel. I did as part of work with many clients get better on workflow, and getting that better within the organization, and in the clients that we deal with. And to a certain extent within our own consulting group. But not to the extent that I would really call that, that I “rocked” the resolution. So, I had some, and I’m looking forward to recommitting to resolutions this year, and hoping that I can get them done.

Dennis Kennedy:  You know, when I looked at last year’s episodes, I also noted, I had a couple of small resolutions: one was learning enough about Microsoft Teams, and the whole Microsoft 365 to actually impress Tom. And then, I wanted to develop an online course on personal quarterly offsites. And I used to make “LinkedIn Work For You” book. And I want to ask Tom to judge. The first one, I will only say, “You can’t win everything”, but I did the courses and I’m excited about those. And you really can’t win everything on this stuff. And failure is important for me. Last year again, it demonstrated the importance of experimentation, adjustments, and pivots. So, those are my typical learnings from the year. But at that time, what have you learned, either this past year or over the years as we do these tech resolutions?

Tom Mighell:  So, what I’ve learned, and what I’m going to try to demonstrate from my resolutions this year that I need to think more about how to actually frame that, because I can say something like, “improve my online presence.”  I need to start smaller. And so, if I were to do that this year, I would say, “I want to post to my blog once a month or something like that.”  I need to make it more of a bite-sized steps than actually say, “I want to improve my presence”, because I could post once and say, “Well, that was improving my presence for the month.”  So, I think that rather than have these big goals, I kind of want to take it in terms of bite-sized, achievable steps, instead is really what I want to do. I looked back to what my small resolutions are, and they didn’t do much better. I, as we will see from my resolutions shortly, I didn’t finally set up video. 2021, was kind of a waste on that. I did look at my tools and subscriptions. I took a look at what I was subscribing to. I made a lot of cancellations. I got rid of a lot of things that I’m not using that I was just subscribing to just because, but I still think there’s more I can do there. I still think there is more trimming that I can do to get it down to a more manageable, reasonable tech stack. But I really think that the way that I’m going to approach it this year, is more from the, “What small wins can I take that might lead to an overall big win?” But still, something that’s achievable.

Dennis Kennedy:  So, I think Tom that that takes us to what we’ve talked about in the past, the smart goals method: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound, where you’re really starting to put some precision to what it is you’re going to do, and making them measurable. So, as you said, if you say, “I want to improve my blog”, you know, that one’s a hard one to kind of tackle on a regular basis. But if you say your goal is, “to write or to post, or publish 52 blog posts in 52 weeks”, then you have something that might be too much, but it gives you something to shoot for. And that bridges to us, I think to what I’m starting to shift to is, the Notion of, OKR” So, Objectives, and Key Results, where I would say something like, “I’m going to do 52 blog posts in 52 weeks.” And then that would become one of my OKRs. And I would actually track to that, and give myself a percentage of completion so, I can see like, what’s red, yellow green, and to see whether I’m on track or not. And so, that to me has become an interesting approach. And in time, that’s something that we discussed in our previous episode. I don’t know whether you’re looking at smart goals, which you kind of touched on or going OKR approach yourself.

Tom Mighell:  I’m not decided on OKRs or whatever I would call the metrics I’m going to use to decide kind of how I am working on to my goals.

(00:10:03)

I probably am, and we’ll talk about that more when we get to our resolutions for this year. But I feel like, I’m going to take the smart goals approach, and I’m going to take it to the micro level. And I’m going to look at it super small and say, “Things are awful busy. I’m doing things with day job. I want to focus on things that I can actually do, and want to do, and can do.” And really lock on to that. I keep saying the word, achievable, which is right smack dab in the middle of that word smart. And that’s really where I want to be is to make it that it’s realistic and achievable, and that’s where I’m going to stick with. We’ll talk a little bit about how I’m going to plan to track it when we get to resolutions.

Dennis Kennedy:  So, I’ve been using a three-part approach on tech resolutions. And if you go back to older episodes where we talk about tech resolutions, you’ll hear that there as well. So, number one, is there a specific technology pain point that I’d like to alleviate or remove? Two, is there a new technology, a new skill or a more advanced use of a technology that I like to learn? And three, is there something I can do to advance by career, accomplish more with technologies, improve processes or enhance client service?  And that’s the three-part approach I always use. Tom, do you use a theme or if I kind of nudged you over to my approach?

Tom Mighell:  Well, if anybody’s listening to the resolution podcast the past three or four years, you know, that I basically just adopt your approach whole hug, because I can’t think of a better approach to you. So yup, I’m in with the way that you’re doing it, and my resolutions loosely follow that thread.

Dennis Kennedy:  So, let’s go to my first resolution, which is, addressing a specific technology pain point. Where I think I can either remove the pain point or greatly alleviate it. And that I’m going back to second brain, and why I’m calling the second brain “next edition” and it’s really to become to really level up my expertise with Notion, which I think has really felt like home for my second brain project. And I’m looking to add both more things into the second brain as it already stands. Do more with databases, use more the features of Notion. And to really start to see how much I can get into the second brain project. And then to look at things like, automation and other things to make things actionable. Actually, I think this is going to be “knock on wood” here. But I think this is going to be fairly straightforward resolution for me to get, because it something I’m looking forward to working on.

Tom Mighell:  I hate to keep copying you, but I think that second brain building it out further is going to be mine. I have taken a slightly different approach than you have. Although, I want to say different is that, I have maybe taken a shortcut to getting to a place. I think we have mentioned before on this podcast, one of the kinds of Notion experts out there is a guy named, August Bradley. And he offers a course that I purchased this year where he where he has a process that he calls, “pillars, pipelines and vaults.” Where you take a look at all the different areas of your life, where you want to do certain things in. And it connects them all together, and it really matches. I didn’t think that it would. I didn’t think it would match the way that I would want to organize my life, and organize everything. But in looking at it, I realized, it really does have a lot of great qualities. And probably to me, the best part of buying it is, you get the template for free, and the template is just brilliantly organized, and connected. And once you build, and so, I’m going to basically be making that template my own over the course of the year, and having everything connect together, so that I have everything that surfaces at the right time. I’m in the process now of adding in all of the articles, and books, and things that I’ve been reading over the past couple of years, and tagging them to the right knowledge vault, and the right projects that I’m working on, so that it all surfaces at the right time. I’m really excited to be working on it this year. And part of that coming back to your OKR question is that, there are multiple ways to track progress that are built into the template that I’m going to be using. I need to figure out what makes the most sense for me, because I’m tempted to use that. But I also need to get better at tracking myself in that way.

(00:15:02)

So, that’s kind of how I’m going to be doing it. I’m going to be building it out too. I didn’t want to take the time to create it myself, so I’m cheating and using someone else’s template, which is made me very happy.

Dennis Kennedy:  TI read a great book called, “Designing Your New Work Life” by Bill°Burnett, and Dave Evans. And it’s a newest brand-new version of book, which they did called, “Designing Your New Work Life”. But one of the quotes there, I’m sort of taking as one of my pillars for 202, is they say, “Good enough is good enough for now.”  And I think that your approach Tom just reminds me of that. It’s like, you can kind of really try to overthink this. And this is kind of a breakthrough, but for me with my second brain as well as like, “Hey, look, I don’t have to get this stuff perfect. It didn’t have every feature. Let me find the easy stuff that I could can work with, and let’s kind of build on it.” And then, once I got the hang of it, then a lot of things kind of fall together for me. So, resolution number two; for me, is there a new technology that I like to learn? And the answer, so there are two of these here, and they kind of go together. But the big one for me definitely on learning is brand-new Web3, which bring together blockchain decentralization. You know, all the creator economy, NFTs, all of that stuff together in one place. That’s just something I need to know more about and learn more about, and actually be teaching some of it in my course set at Michigan State. And then the second piece is, I will be, because of my focus on productization. This is almost like a “Back to the Future” type of resolution. But I’m going to be choosing one document automation tool. I think it’s going to be Bryter. It could be another one, but it could be two of them, but one will be Bryter. And I want to go back to what I did in the past of like, to do document automation, and to figure out ways to turn that into a product. So, those Web3 very, very new. I have a good background for this, but I just want to go deep on that. And document automation is this kind of use of technology or technology skillset that I’d like to develop.

Tom Mighell:  For the skillset for me, I am for better or for worse going to look, explore more about this whole Metaverse that we keep hearing about, and see whether there’s a there-there. I mean, Microsoft has talked about a work environment where we all go to work as avatars, and we’re all sitting around a table as a cartoon character, apparently. And Facebook has a different idea for it. And every company has come out and say that, “We are in the metaverse. We will all be in the metaverse at some point in time.”  And I want to figure out what that means, how lawyers can benefit from it, what they need to be aware of, whether there is a there-there. I mean, I think that, I will want to dent this at some point during the coming year, have a podcast both on Web3, and on the Metaverse to talk about what we’ve learned, where things are going, where things are headed, because I think that these are topics that lawyers both need to be interested in. And so, I’m going to be taking a close look at what the Metaverse might mean, and whether it’s going to affect any of us sooner or later.

Dennis Kennedy:  And we all be learning about the Metaverse even more quickly if as COVID sort of turns are real-life into a kind of a “metaverse” form these days as we speak at the beginning of 2022. So, my third resolution is, “What might I do to advance my career, accomplish more, and kind of enhance what I’m doing?”  And one of my focus this year is creativity. So, I want to kind of produce more, Tom. And I have a book coming out. There are some other things that will be happening. I’m experimenting with TikTok, and some other things. But I’m looking at really experimenting with the short video format. And maybe, some new creative outlets that I haven’t tried before. But I short video is really exciting to me. And by short, I mean, as short as TikTok, but sort of, in no more than sort of seven-minute range. So, it could be a longer Instagram or what they could call short YouTube. But I really want to play in that space. And that’s just a build from, you know, teaching online, doing Zoom presentations, all those sorts of things, playing with TikTok.

(00:20:04)

I just think the video is where the audience that I’m interested in is ad these days. And I need to reach that. And as much as I love writing, and podcasting and stuff, it just feels like, I want to find a new creative outlet, and I think that the short video world is where that’s going to be.

Tom Mighell:  Well, I think that video, I agree with you, that video is really the place that lawyers should be going to more, and more often these days. But I’m going to take a more granular approach at it. And I have decided that what I’m going to commit to first is, to get really good at video. I want to get a better camera, I want to get better lighting, I want to have better effects. I think I’ve got a good enough camera right now, where I could record something, and it would make a perfectly acceptable video for TikTok or Instagram, or any of those things. But it doesn’t match some of the things that I see out there from a lot of really good content creators. So, I want to get good at that. I want to get good at the editing part of it. I’ve seen people who have been able to edit things that just look fantastic. There’s a new tool that I will be likely mentioning as a parting shot or something here, that allows you to basically, upload your video, and you can edit it by the text. It will turn all of your words into text, and you can edit it by just editing the text, and that edits the video for you. And I’m totally into that. I’m really intrigued by it. It will actually even learn your voice. And if you just type in some text, it will create voice overs of your voice. And I am so in for that, and that’s part of what I’m going to pay attention to is, I want to get really good at video by the end of the year from having the right equipment, all the way to editing, and producing a quality video.

Dennis Kennedy:  It almost sounds like, we’re going to be making deep fakes of ourselves so, that we kind of create these better versions of ourselves on video. A kind of an interesting concept there. We usually also talk about some small things. So, I had two that I wanted to mention. So, I’ve just noticed lately that there’s like, these really small technology annoyances that I have, and they’re just small ones. And so, one of the things I’m going to do in the second brain is, I have this thing, I’m going to have this database, I just call smalls. And I’m just going to keep track of these things and say, “Hey, I got 15 minutes here, let me figure out how to do this, or to change this setting or, you know, to reset where the default folder is on something.”  It just kind of take care of these small things to just kind of knock them out, and I think that will improve my experience. And then, the other thing I want to do is to try to improve my day-to-day focus, because at time like stuck about being semi-retired. And my friends all tell me that, my retirement sounds like, three full-time jobs for other people. But part of the things is that, as I try to work on things, I really need to figure out ways to get focused, and routines. And I’m looking at the reminders and alerts. So, like, Amazon Echo would be one thing. Apple reminders or iPhone reminders or another to say, “Can I use those things maybe to help reinforce routines or to give me time of specific focus?” It could be Pomodoro, it could be Soundscapes, it could be number of things. But I’ll try to use technology to deal with what for me seems to be like, a focus issue.

Tom Mighell:  All right, so for my little small resolutions, I’m going to come back to the online presence piece to a certain extent. And I’m going to take small steps towards getting my online presence back. The first is, I’m going to restart the newsletter. What’s very interesting to me is that, during the last year or so since I started my what I call the “Extra Mighell” Newsletter, I’ve had maybe 10 or 15 new subscribers. Despite the fact that, I haven’t published in over a year. So, it’s proved to me, that people subscribed to anything, and so, I need to take advantage of that. I need to restart the newsletter. I’m going to start committing back to blog posts. Now, that we’re finishing up our latest version of the collaboration tools book, I really want to write some more. And I need to express myself, and doing it in a blog post, I think is a good way to do it. The other thing that I’ve been doing is, as we’ve been riding the collaboration tools book, as I’ve been learning about new tools, I’ve kept a list, and I’ve kept folder in my Raindrop.IO bookmark tool that’s called “software to test.”

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And right now, I’m ashamed to say, it has like, 80 different tools in it that I’m interested in testing. And so, I’m going to commit to doing little trial subscriptions with lots of different tools that I can then start to bring them may be more to this podcast, maybe more to the blog. But learning about the different tools that are out there to see what’s valuable what’s not valuable, what’s fully baked? What still has ways to go? But I really want to learn about new tools, and there are so many out there that offer some interesting features that lawyers could take advantage of. That’s where I want to focus some of my time in the coming year.

Dennis Kennedy:  So, let’s talk a little bit briefly about our chances. And I sort of think Tom, that we were talking before the podcast that, we’ve got a peer review comments back on the manuscript for a book, and reception was fabulous in a word. And I think, it’s great work. But I’m really looking forward to getting it done, Tom. I mean writing a book, is one of the biggest blockers that you have, because you feel that it’s hard to write articles, and other things, because you’re just thinking about the book, and the book is always hanging over it. So, I think that, the fact that this book is going to be off our shoulders is really going to help us in meeting the resolutions. And I also take time, that for you, I want to recommend that when you talk about the blog post of month, I think if you kind of reframe that as 12 posts in 12 months, that might make that a lot more achievable for you. So, that’s just my suggestion. And something that our listeners might think of when you look at something, “Is there a way you can reframe it?” So, it sort of seems a lot easier. And maybe it’s having like, a little more positive, just a slightly more positive spin. It just feels a little bit more attainable.

Tom Mighell:  The reason why I’m not that worried about one post a month is, because what I have been posting about lately, and what I’m interested in posting about, is keeping lawyers up to date on what’s going on in the world of technology. And if I don’t do it once a month, then stuff gets out of date, and then there might be stuff I want to talk about. So, that’s kind of what I’m using to keep me honest is, seeing all this great content that’s out there that I want to talk about. If I wait on it, then I’ve lost the opportunity. So, you know framing it as 12 in a year might help me out in some, but I’m hoping that the press of good news, and new technology, and interesting things to tell lawyers will also be a driver.

Dennis Kennedy:  To wrap up. I would say, the challenges for our listeners, you’ve heard, “What we’re going to do?”  So, we invite, and in fact, we challenge you to go through the same exercise, and see what you’re willing to commit to do for yourself. I mean, it’s impossible for anyone these days to keep up with old technology. So, you really have to have some focus, and be willing to learn some things. And I think our framework, and maybe are examples with luck, will be an inspiration to you. So, that’s your challenge after listening to this podcast is; you can do it on technology or you can take out a piece of paper, but come up with three technology resolutions of your own.

Tom Mighell:  Well, and I’m the only thing I would add to that is that, a lot of the resolutions we talked about are, a little more personal to us. They’re related to legal technology, but they’re not totally in the realm of legal technology. If you are a lawyer in a firm, and you feel like you’re behind in what your firm is doing, or what you’re doing technology-wise. Make that a goal. Look at what you’re doing, and making a set of resolution for this year to say, “I want to get better at like Dennis said, document automation or —

Dennis Kennedy:  Just Zoom.

Tom Mighell:  — or Zoom or task managers, or password managers. Sorry, that’s what I really meant to say. Please, learn about password managers. But anything that your firm can get better at, focus on that. And I think you’ll be headed in the right direction. All right, before we move on to our next segment, let’s take a quick break for a message from our sponsors.

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

Dennis Kennedy:  And I’m Dennis Kennedy. We also wanted to create some resolutions for the podcast, our show time. Tom, we literally could repurpose our podcasts goals from last year. We didn’t do so well on those. So, let’s start with a fresh slate. I’ve put together a few starter ideas to throw out, and Tom, you can react to those, and maybe add to the list. And then I’ll turn things over to you, and let you choose the top three as our actual podcast resolutions, and see if you’re up to that challenge. So, actually this one is sort of easy, because the first one is that, I think one of our goals for the podcast is to get this collaboration tools book out. And to start talking about that topic, and to kind of free us up to do things, so that would be one. Two, is that, to do even more guests. We haven’t really done that well on the regular guest thing. But we’ve added a few guests, friends of ours, and experts from time to time. So, that even more guests resolution, which seems to be an ad wall for us. I think the audience questions in the B segment is something we’ve always wanted to do, and we really encourage people to do that. You know, this comes from me, of course, Tom, but talking to Legal Talk Network about getting some Kennedy-Mighell swag that we can get out to our listeners would be totally cool. And then, one that you’ve mentioned in different ways Tom, but I’ve been thinking about is, can we put together some kind of The Kennedy-Mighell Report community. And you know, would that be a Discord server? Would it be some new approach? But can we have like an ongoing community where listeners are able to have interactions with us, and others about topics on the show, and other things. And I guess, the more I talk about it, I sort of feel that should be one of our resolutions. But at time I wanted to have you react to those, and then maybe pick the top three for us.

Tom Mighell:  Okay, so I’m struggling with how getting our book published is a resolution for the podcast. But I’m also getting book published. So, I’m happy to have that. Although, I’m not sure that’s should be a resolution for the show. I will come back again, and again, and again, and again, and again and say, “Oh my gosh, we need more guests for the show.”  We did such a great job, I think at the beginning of last year, getting some guests on getting some authors, some people who had done some really interesting things. We are talking about some really interesting topics. And then, we just fell down on the job there. We just haven’t, we just didn’t have time, other stuff got in the way, we had more other things to talk about, I really want more guests. So, to me, that should be resolution number one, and that should be resolution number one every year as far as I’m concerned. Audience questions in the B segment, of course, we want them, but to me, that seems more like an aspiration that we would like. We can’t influence that unless, we want to go, and make some fake messages on the hotline, and try to get people thinking that it’s others. 

Dennis Kennedy:  We can practice our voice.

Tom Mighell:  We can do some deep fakes of other people’s voices if we want to try that. But I mean, for those of you who are listening, we really want questions. We love to get your questions. It’s a lot of fun for us. So please, do that. Please, help us make that dream come true. I will only agree to swag after a certain point. I don’t think, we’re at the point where swag is important. So, here’s what I’d say is, I’m all in on the TKMOR Community. I’m all in on doing something on Discord, some group where we can all get together, and have conversations, and talk about some of the stuff on a more regular basis. The podcast is very one way, and we’d like to make it more of a bidirectional type of thing. But what I would say is that, maybe the swag comes after the community; is make the community successful, and then that drives the desire for swag so, let’s maybe hold up on that. The only thing I would add to the list, Dennis is when we vetted this idea around a couple of times is, whether or not we want to offer up either a book or some other resource on what we would call the “best of our parting shots.”

(00:35:10)

And we’ve been doing parting shots now, for 304 episodes. We’ve got a lot of great tips in there. Some have held up to the test of time, not all of them have, and maybe, we want to make that resource available. So, to me, that might be an interesting resolution to think about.

Dennis Kennedy:  Yeah, I mean, I was thinking the only other thing I thought about, but it doesn’t make sense to mem because we recorded such an unusual time, is that, I know some podcasts do this live thing. And I was actually part of a pride cast recording. It was done on Clubhouse. So, it was done live, and I asked a question on the podcast. So, I guess, technically, I’m on the recording of that podcast when it comes out. But to do the show in front of a live audience, still feels a little bit weird to me. But I’d be curious if people were interested in that, I would do that. But then, we’ve had to reveal what a bizarrely weird time we actually record the podcast, so maybe that’s not a good thing. So now, it’s time for a parting shot. At Onetip website, or observation, you can use the second till this podcast ends. Tom, take it away.

Tom Mighell:  So, I’m not sure if it’s going to be part of any of the resolutions that I just mentioned. But I just purchased a stream deck that I want to use. And I am very intrigued about how this might be used for lawyers. And I think I want to talk about it more on an upcoming podcast. There are some resources that I can share with people. But basically, a stream deck is, it was originally designed, I think for streamers. That’s why it’s called a stream deck. It was designed for people who are live streaming on YouTube or on Twitch, or on other services, and they needed a way to switch between camera and computer, and microphone, and do a lot of automation with just a little keyboard that you press a button, and it would do a lot of actions. It turns out the stream deck is much more versatile than that. So, you know, I could sit down here for example, just before Dennis and I record, I can press a button, and it would bring up our recording too, so I could record it. It would bring up Zoom and automatically connect me to the meeting. And it would bring up the script that we use for this episode, all with the press of one button. So, I’m going to be exploring the best ways to use stream deck for both, me personally, and maybe, as how lawyers might use it, but it’s going to be kind of an “experimentation” automation. Because that’s really what stream deck is about; it’s how to automate what you do on your computer, how to make things easier for you to do the things you want to do. I’m looking forward to it. There are a couple of different versions. There’s one that only has six buttons on it. That’s about, I don’t know, 50 to $95.00. Probably somewhere in between 90 and $95.00. There’s a 15-button version, that’s about 150. And then there is a 32-button version, that is $250.00. So, you’ve got, depending on how many processes or things you want to set up, you’ve got a bunch of different options. If you go put the link in the show notes, it’s Elgato stream deck.

Dennis Kennedy:  Yeah, and I was looking on Amazon, the 32 one, which seems like too much for me. Frankly, it’s $30.00 off. So, that’s interesting. So, Tom, I think this could be a B segment. I’m looking at this, because there’s a lag going on. And I’m going to be doing some online teaching at least in January this year. So, I’m thinking about the stream deck also, because when you teach on Zoom, certainly a lot of things happening that if you’re doing it all yourself, it would be nice to just be pushing buttons, and having things happened, rather than to try to mouse through Zoom, while you’re lecturing, while you’re answering questions, looking at the chat, all those sorts of things. So, I think the Elgato, we should maybe put on that our list as a potential B segment somewhere along the line, because I would like to talk about our experiences on that. So, my parting shots, there’s this temptation that I just want to plug. Some of some of my projects; the online courses, the stuff. I’m doing at the Kennedy Idea Propulsion Laboratory community on Mighty Networks. The upcoming book, you know, other things like that, and you can find those all on my website. So, I guess, my parting shot is to invite you to take a look at some of the stuff I’m doing at social media, blog, elsewhere, because it’s a good time to do that, because there are going to be some new things coming. But the new technology I got for Christmas from my daughter, and maybe this is a comment on her parent’s getting a little older or she got us AirTags.  And so, this are Apple little devices you attach to your key ring, and you can put it in your wallet, and then if you can’t find it, you can use your phone, and it will beep at you, and help you locate it. So, this is not necessary a comment on Edge, because a lot of people like, can’t find their keys, and other things. 

(00:40:06)

But I’m really excited about getting this. And I think there, was one of these really interesting “little technologies”, you don’t think you really need, but if somebody gives it to you as a gift or you get one, I think you see the benefit of it. So, AirTags about $29.00 each. I think you get four of them for $99.00. But you know, if you still have some money that you got as a present that you like to spend, not a bad way to do it with the cool little technology that’s useful.

Tom Mighell:  And if you’re interested there is an Android app that will allow you to see whether or not someone has placed an AirTag on your car, or on your person, without your permission, and is tracking you. So just so you’re aware, Apple AirTags are so useful, they can be used to track people. I’m being a little extremist there. But yeah, there was a story there about it.

Dennis Kennedy:  It’s especially since, yeah, somebody checked into those stories, and found out that the AirTags that people thought car thieves are putting in their cars were actually being put on the cars by the dealers, and the who forgot to take them off. So, it’s like one of these horrifying criminal privacy violation stories that turns out to be something completely different than what people thought.

Tom Mighell:  It’s still good that there is an Android app that will help you to see where certain AirTags are. So, not a bad thing for people who are security-minded.  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 Talk Networks’ Page for the show. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or on the Legal Talk Network site where you can find archives of all of our previous podcasts along with transcripts.  If you’d like to get in touch with us, remember, reach out to us on LinkedIn or Twitter, @DennisKennedy, @TomMighell. Or remember, we love to get voicemail, that voicemail number is (720) 441-6820. Please give us a call or leave us a message. So, until the next podcast, I’m Tom Mighell.

Dennis Kennedy: And I’m Dennis Kennedy. And you’ve been listening to the Kennedy-Mighell Report, a podcast on legal technology with an internet focus. If you like what you heard today, please rate us in Apple podcast, and we’ll see you next time for another episode with 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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“The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network, its officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders, and subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer.”

 

Podcast transcription by Tech-Synergy.com

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