As expected, we didn’t see the legal domain making a mad rush to Microsoft Office 2007 in the first quarter of 2008 and I don’t expect the spigot to open any more for the second and third quarters. What I predict is that the conversion to Office 2007 will begin to happen towards the end of this year and the flood gates will open in 2008 and go strong all year. Why? The new internationally approved XML file format will be the driver.

“After removing and managing the metadata in my document I want to automatically place it back into the DMS (Document Management System)”

This statement came from a peer and sparked a full-on metadata policy discussion within Esquire Innovations.

My question…why?

It’s really been Esquire Innovations philosophy to purposely stay away from doing that. I see two types of documents in a law firm - “organic” documents and “inorganic” documents. You want to have the organic document in your DMS, and then send out published copies of that document (inorganic) for outside consumption (based on the firm’s enterprise metadata policy).

If a firm starts putting multiple versions of a document (based solely on the metadata managed within it) on the DMS, where does that stop? You would have 10, 20, 30 clean versions of the same document there. For what purpose? Wouldn’t there be concerns about outside requests for clean documents, as well as original documents, and having to answer questions about why there is metadata in this version, and not in that version, and how about these other 20 versions?

Just something to think about.

A law firm needs a firm-wide metadata policy and the software you choose should enforce it. iScrub certainly can.

Here’s a great white paper from Judye Carter Reynolds that talks-just-about this very thing - Managing Your Metadata

I love iCreate, not just because from the inception I have so much personally invested, but also because it is simply so powerful…and very cool. iCreate is the stalwart in our iOffice System software suite for MS Office 2003 and 2007. iCreate is a template and document production application that’s geared-up for legal.

We recently won a big iCreate deal. From a business standpoint I love big deal wins (…and yes I hate deal losses too.) This win is a big deal for me because it was a head to head evaluation (with our competitors) with a law firm back east. What’s great about this… is that we beat out two competitors… strong competitors…once again.

Here’s a quote from the new client:

“I love the function that allows you to take a document with manual numbering and covert it. I did this on someone’s document, and it worked well”.

They’re talking about one small aspect of iCreate and there’s so much more. Trust me, with iCreate you could easily replace several applications on your desktop you’re using for document clean-up, templates, and macros.

When and how does iCreate get implemented as part of a firm’s work product workflow?

1. When the firm truly looks at the all the Template and Document production application alternatives objectively. If you’re using a so called “objective consultant” or “objective consulting firm” be careful because they may make more implementation money off more complicated and costly products. High Cost and complexity is not better. It’s crazy what some of these products require - especially at the server level.
2. When the firm takes out “who you know”… the relationships involved. This is hard.
3. Let your users use it in a 30 day pilot.
4. I coined and trade marked a term called ENA (Enhanced Native Architecture). ENA promotes the best use of Microsoft Office by building upon the user interface and features of the existing parent software application whenever possible. ENA keeps custom applications consistent with parent software native functionality. All documents are “round-trip-able”. The cost of ownership is much lower in the long run.

With this win, 1-3 above were assured and then ENA and functionality was the kicker for this client. This is fun!

This means that the new Office 2007 file format we’re all freaking out about has now been approved as an international standard Tuesday (3/25/08), a step Microsoft says its proof it is willing to make once-proprietary technology work openly with competing programs. Good riddance - the old binary format was a mess. Of course you can still use the old format… and I still see some important uses for it… but that’s another blog.

What does this mean for my company Esquire Innovations, Inc? Well for one, I can take a deep breath and relax. I was betting our future on this standard. For instance, with the next version iScrub v5.1 we’re taking advantage of this format to manage metadata outside of Word. Templates for iCreate can be pure XML and much more easily managed and we’re using XSLT big time. Even for iRedline with OpenXML the speed and features significantly improve and enrich. OpenXML is a wonder thing.

We prevailed in a dispute over ISCRUB.com. We won control of the domain name from Vertical Axis, Inc., located in Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea.

The WIPO arbitration panel’s ruling now ensures that we (Esquire Innovations) retain ownership of our iScrub® brand as embodied in the ISCRUB.com domain name. We are fortunate to have trade marked the name early on.

There is no way we could’ve won this dispute if it weren’t for the fortitude and expertise of Richard Gurak an attorney with Welsh & Katz (our IP firm). Seriously, Richard is one of those guys who just doesn’t give up… he is passionate in his work and great at his craft.

And a special thanks to Gene D’Aversa who is Richard’s in-house domain name technical expert. Gene you’re the man!

This is probably more than you want to know, but the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center is a substitute for a court hearing and can only transfer domain names if three criteria are met. (1) The domain name must be identical or confusingly similar to the complainant’s trademark or service mark. (2) The registrant of the domain name must have no rights or legitimate interests in the domain name. (3) The domain name must have been registered and used in bad faith. In this matter, the WIPO arbitration panel found that all three criteria had been fulfilled and ordered a transfer of the ISCRUB.com domain name.

Get all the drama here…WIPO Decision

I use Words “Word Count Toolbar” (ENA) all the time. For proper web page content the rule is at least 125 words and each paragraph should be no longer than 4 sentences (for easier on-screen reading). Word doesn’t tell you the number of sentences so I created another button on Word’s built-in toolbar that shows the number of sentences in the active paragraph. The code below does that.

Public Sub NumberOfSentences()

Dim sNumberOfSentences As Long

sNumberOfSentences = Selection.Paragraphs(1).Range.Sentences.Count

MsgBox sNumberOfSentences & “Sentences”, vbInformation, “Number of Sentences”

End Sub

Strategic Partners are very important to my company and me. They’re our advocates and support in the areas of the market we can’t reach or reach as well by ourselves. They train for us, they resell our products and can be great cigar smoking bud’s at ILTA.

One such partner is Envision. Envision is a FANTASTIC marketing company that helps us with our marketing strategy and they’re worth every penny we pay them. WOW is all I can say.

We’re a software company; we create software solutions (that we support) for our clients. As tempting as it is we don’t provide (as a business model) training and consulting services outside of our products. Envision has helped us focus on that strategy and to project that message out into the market place in some VERY creative ways.

WE DO SOFTWARE… that’s it.

About Envision

JoAnna Forshee is the CEO of Envision, and it’s a privilege to work with her and count her as a friend.

Jobst Elster is the Vice President of Envision, and the guy who we work with directly. Jobst is my brilliant friend and sounding board.

PLUS Jobst is a “running junkie”. Get this:
Jobst participated in his first Ironman Challenge in Panama City Beach, Florida last week. Ironman begins with a 2.4 mile swim, then a 112 mile bike race, followed by a 26.2 mile marathon. In addition to finishing (which is a huge accomplishment on its own), Jobst beat his goal time of 12 hours with a finish time of 11:37, and placed 5th in his group!

Who in their right mind would run, swim, and bike for 11 hours straight?! Let me tell you who… it’s Jobst Elster who’s helping Esquire Innovations succeed in our Ironman… the market place.

Thank you Envision!

He is my business sage, guru, and mentor. Tom Peters has done more to help me define our company culture than anyone has. I wonder if I can get him to come to our year end bowling party.

[Note: in the early years, Esquire Innovations was…lets say… “cash challenged” and we could only afford the local bowling alley for our year end dinner (beer, bread and chicken wings). We still do it to remind us of where we came from and its FUN! We also have the fancy eloquent dinners that spouses and significant others attend – I have to shave for that.]

Tom Peters helped me realize its ok to be way out of control and a little on the crazy side.

His blog is great too and I’ll be referring to “Tom” quite often.

“UAC sucks!” this is a quote from my lead developer. He also says, “It forces developers to be more disciplined.” Wait!!!?? Isn’t “disciplined-developer” an oxymoron?

I mean UAC is causing divorce, getting people fired and deported!

Question: Will you have UAC turned on for your implementation of Vista?

• If you have no idea what UAC is then add 3 months to your implementation of Vista… and beef up your resume.
• If you know what it is and you answered, “You don’t know” then, add 6 months to your implementation of Vista… and start professional counseling.
• If you answered “Yes” then you better add 6 months or a year for all your vendors to catch up on getting their stuff right… and invest in a commercial grade coffee maker.

Hint: leave it” On” because in a year we’ll finally “get” why Microsoft thinks it’s a good idea.

We saw this UAC pain in the ass coming a while ago and made a conscious effort to develop with it “on” (not easy) and ASSUME it’s “on” when we install our software (your investment). You’re going to be really irritated when a vendor tells you that you have to install their software with UAC turned off… seriously irritated.

Here’s a fun thing to do, Google “Vista UAC” nightmares

Great bedtime reading.

Webette - Here’s a white paper I wrote that builds on what we started in 2005 to add value to our services by providing our clients with additional training on our products. Its been very successful!

Check our current Webette calendar.