Does Automation Diminish Our Basic Skills?

Photo Credit: Rui Caldeira

Pilot Patrick Smith has another interesting article on cockpit automation and flight safety, something this blog has considered before.

Has automation reduced pilots' basic "stick and rudder" skills?  His answer:  "Probably, yes."

But the more interesting discussion is how automation has grafted a new technological skill set onto basic flying:

[A]utomation is merely a tool. You still need to tell the airplane what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. There are, for example, no fewer than six different ways that I can program in a simple climb or descent on my 757, depending on preference or circumstances. The automation is not flying the plane. The pilots are flying the plane through this automation.

A fitting metaphor for other knowledge work.  Technology hasn't changed what we do, as much as changed how we interface with machines to get it done.  The tools have changed.  The work, fundamentally, has not.

Of course, interfaces are complicated and can even add to our overall workload:

If you ask me, the modern cockpit hasn't sapped away a pilot's skills so much as overloaded and overburdened them, in rare instances leading to a dangerous loss of situational awareness.

A danger for all of us.  Alarms, notifications, badges, and our ever-expanding landscape of electronic inputs, distract us from real work.  Whether that's landing a plane, or delivering a project.

This has given birth to a meta-skill: the ability to sift, filter, and organize the elements of our work.  Our first challenge, then, is to maintain situational awareness in a complicated world.

Update:  Interesting post on maintaining situational awareness in e-discovery.

A Little Perspective On Technology

Credit: Flickr - Eénwielige motorfiets /Nationaal Archief

[/caption] Forty years ago, the most advanced piece of technology in a law office -- or most any office -- was an electric typewriter.  That's a useful anchor when contemplating whether to buy an iPad now or wait for the next generation in -- God forbid -- April 2011.   Patrick Lindsey provides some useful historical perspective:

• in the mid-1970s, the modern telephonic fax machine goes on the market;

• in the late 1970s, Lexis (now LexisNexis) and Westlaw develop the first electronic research databases;

• in 1980, WordPerfect 1.0 is released; the first IBM PC goes on sale the next year;

• in the mid-1980s, a first-generation cellular telephone network is established in the United States;

• in 1990, an international consortium launches the World Wide Web;

• in 1993, Adobe Systems unveils the Portable Document Format (which you probably know as the PDF). By the early 2000s, many federal district courts allow electronic filing and state courts follow suit.

For many lawyers now, of course, our biggest challenge isn't implementing new technology. That's the fun part. Rather it's dealing with the enormous amount of data these technologies have created.

Presenting on Ethics and E-Discovery at U.S. Open

(updated) I'll be presenting at the U.S. Open golf tournament today.  The topic is ethics and electronic discovery.  My thesis is that lawyers need to adapt in two ways in the age of electronic discovery:

1. Better understand technology, because evidence today is likely to be in electronic form. (the duty of Competence)
2. De-emphasize the adversarial duties of Diligence and Confidentiality and re-emphasize the cooperative duties to Expedite Litigation, Candor Toward the Tribunal, and Fairness to Opposing Party and Counsel.

(cross-posted at California E-Discovery Law)

Update: Monica Bay over at EDD Update (Electronic data discovery news and analysis) and The Common Scold read my post and writes:  "OK, I guess I'm clueless but what's the nexis between golf and EDD? Perhaps he'll jump into the comments and 'splain it all to us."  My attempt at an explanation in comments over at her sites here and here.

Why Process Improvement Should Matter To All Lawyers

One thing is now clear: for serial litigants, developing efficient processes for handling e-discovery is critical. Joan Goodchild at Computerworld sings a common refrain heard at the The Sedona Conference Institute e-discovery conference I attended last week:

NBC Universal is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. Chief Information Security Officer Jonathan Chow and his team manage information security for several business lines within NBCU, including its broadcast and cable television to film production, online ventures and its two theme parks in Hollywood, California and Orlando, Florida. Among one of the biggest challenges in the last few years has been the incredible explosion in demand for e-discovery services, according to Chow.

Since different legal teams handle the needs of each line of business, the workflows associated with managing electronic discovery vary as well, adding another layer of complexity. And because of the growing number of cases, and increases in both the amount of electronically stored information and hours spent supporting the process, demand for e-discovery services has increased 30 to 50 percent annually. The costs were spiraling out of control and this sent Chow looking for a way to manage the process internally.

Chow . . . tackled the costly and time-consuming process and turned it into a cost-effective and more efficient system that has seen a 40-45 percent gain efficiency since its implementation.

I spoke with several in-house teams who've done a remarkable job developing standardized workflow for handling e-discovery. In doing this, they've discovered how wasteful the processes were when handled by outside counsel.

But the lesson isn't that in-house teams are necessarily more cost effective than outside lawyers. Outside counsel can do this too. The lesson is that process matters. Efficient processes allow in-house teams to save money for their companies. And outside counsel can give their clients the service they deserve.

Back From The Sedona Conference On E-Discovery

I apologize for the dearth of recent posts. I was traveling last week to attend the Fourth Annual Getting Ahead of the eDiscovery Curve Program presented by The Sedona Conference Institute. I had the honor of sharing notes with dozens of thought leaders in e-discovery, which by extension, means leaders in designing efficient legal processes.

I'm still in the process of catching up, but back to a normal posting schedule and promise to share some of the interesting ideas I've learned.