This past summer, I was asked to submit my favorite blawg post from Compujurist for consideration to be included in an eBook being assembled by Neil Squillante of Technolawyer . The ebook was to be called “BlawgWorld” and would feature favorite posts from the best legal blawgs and published this fall. I was honored to find out that my post on the need to backup computer data would be one of the 51 posts included in the BlawgWorld eBook.

The authors read like a “Who’s Who” of the legal blogging world including contributions from my friends Jim Calloway, Dennis Kennedy, Jeff Beard and Reid Trautz, as well as many others. Topics include tips and tricks, to sucesion planning and other topics of interests to lawyers and their staff. If you’ve ever wondered how to find legal blogging sites, this is a great place to start. I’m also impressed with the quality of the eBook. Each article includes an image of the blawg site (which is also a hyperlink to that site), a brief author bio and site bio. Neil and his staff obviuolsy put a lot of effort into this publication and it’s a great resource to have.

While available to the over 11,000 members of the Technolawyer community. If you aren’t a member of the Technolawyer community, you should be: it’s a terrific resource and the cost can’t be beat - its free. For anyone interested in obtaining this publication, you can visit the BlawgWorld eBook site and get your free membership to Technolawyer and a copy of a BlawgWorld.

BlawgThink 2005 is over and done and I predict that we will see BlagThink 2006. I’ll be thinking about what was covered for quite a while to come. Many things contributed to make this a truly unique event including the non-standard format, the all star list of presenters; and the use of MindJet’s MindManager software.

Day 1 was structured presentations by a veritable who’s who in the blogging community: Dennis Kennedy, Ernie Svenson, Sabrina Pacifici, Jack Vinson, Jim McGee, Jeff Beard, Fred Faulkner and Peter Flaschner just to name a few. Sessions covered the gamut from blogging basics to advance topics such as podcasting and more. The day ended with open sessions which were created by the attendees themselves. These open sessions continued through Day 2. The concept behind these sessions was amazingly simple: after a day of structured sessions, attendees could seek discussions on topics they thought were important or on which they wanted more information.

Each person who wanted to do this had to place their topic on a piece of paper and also put their name on it – this was to make them the “owner” of this item. They then announced who they were and their selected topic. After selecting a timeslot, they placed there sheet on the wall with the others. The attendees, who didn’t create an item, were free to move from session to session if they wanted to or stay at just one. I followed Peter Flaschner throughout Day 2 as he covered a range of topics including How to design a blog, and a discussion on the major software packages available for blogging such as WordPress, Movable Type and others.

While the format won’t replace or supplant traditional CLE, I think it will make a good addition to how CLE is presented. Blogging isn’t for everyone, but a basic understanding of the concepts and technology behind blogs can help you when considering how to apporach content management solutions and web sites. I think you would see things in a whole new way.

One of the best parts of this 2 day event was meeting the other attendees and getting to share ideas and get advice from them as well. Bonnie Shucha of Wisblog (who I am looking forward to working with as I take on my new position as Practice Management Advisor for the State Bar of Wisconsin), Tom Collins of morepartnerincome.com, and many others too numerous to meniton.

Dennis Kennedy and Matt Homann of LexThink should take great pride in creating this unique event. While I can’t speak for everyone there, I want to say thanks to both ofthem for having the vision to make this event a reality.