Reprinted with the permission of the Association of Corporate Counsel. Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved. www.acc.com. Available at: http://www.accdigitaldocket.com/accdocket/201104?pg=18#pg18.

A WORLDWIDE WIKI by Frank Fletcher

“The Times They Are a-Changin’,” or so wrote Bob Dylan. I am notsure he was writing about in-house legal counsel then, but the words ring true for us today. The biggest changes are brought by technologies, one of which I have used successfully over the past three-plus years: the wiki.

I have often thought about how I could establish a successful global legal department for a company with offices in Germany, the United States and Asia — a company that never sleeps. I wanted to develop a system that was user-friendly and would encourage involvement. After some consultations and discussions, I settled on developing an information source through a wiki. For those who are only partly familiar with the term, a wiki is software that allows you to make a site of internally linked webpages that can be easily edited. The best example is Wikipedia.

A wiki is not as wide open as some would think. The administrator can set the rules and be informed of changes. For example, access can be limited to certain groups such as senior management. A wiki is also relatively easy to use. The tutorial we developed is only one page. A primary reason I selected the wiki was because it allows contributions to be made directly by users without involvement of IT. Not that I have anything against IT (in case someone from our IT department ever reads this), but the more steps you add to a process, the more complicated it becomes, and the less likely the process will be successful.

As for what to post on a wiki, the sky is the limit. Our legal group is a particularly good looking group (just in case someone from the legal group reads this), so we started out with photos of ourselves and then listed our areas of responsibility — a list of who to approach when you need legal support. Each section is assigned to a different person within the legal group, and where appropriate, a business partner is listed. The wiki covers basics such as template agreements and attendant rules of use, directions on how to work effectively with legal, and when it is necessary to get finance or the technical approvals beforehand.

The wiki is a good place to post information on the company’s intellectual properties and what needs to occur to protect the company’s rights. We listed our company trademarks and instructions on how to use the marks, training materials and procedures for how to involve legal in the trademark selection process. The same works in the patent area as you can post issued patents and patent applications in process, training materials and blank invention disclosures. Another good topic for a wiki is your company’s export compliance rules and product classifications. If you have open source and/or new product release approval processes, this is a great place to post these materials.

Such processes can be complex and it can be difficult to get internal buy in. A set of clear procedures helps to simplify the processes. You know you have done this job right when people start quoting your own procedures back to you. One area I found particularly useful is posting our copyright registration procedures. The overall policy is posted along with the reasoning behind the policy. Having the policy and procedures posted makes it all the more efficient to collect the necessary pages of source code from extremely busy engineers.

Another benefit of a well-planned wiki is that you have a ready-made presentation for new employee orientation. All you have to do is boot up your laptop, go to the wiki and walk through the sections of interest. If a situation arises such that you need to create a new internal presentation or training module, you can post it on the wiki. This also applies to an email that summarizes policy. After you draft the email, you can cut and paste into a memo template, and then post on the wiki. No reason to reinvent the wheel, or in this situation invent the wheel and then lose the wheel. Individuals who want to grow have a resource they can access. As long as the rules of use are followed, the employees can go forward and in such a way that they are empowered.  Or at least they have someone to blame if they follow the rules and get in trouble.

A wiki isn’t the solution for every company but it makes for a userfriendly, collaborative, cost effective solution for some companies. With a bit of daring, it is a process that a legal group can set up and own.

Have a comment on this article? Visit ACC’s blog at www.inhouseaccess.com/articles/acc-docket.

FRANK FLETCHER is general counsel for Nero AG headquartered in Karlsbad, Germany with subsidiaries in Hangzhou, China; Tokyo, Japan; and Glendale, California, where he usually can be found. Fletcher is always glad to share a travel story and can be contacted at ffletcher@nero.com.

About two weeks ago I had lunch with a friend and mentioned that I had two articles about to be published. My friend immediately replied “You need to start a Blog” and sent me to Tumblr.com, a site which allows you to build a Blog for free. I was so charged up that I immediately went to Tumblr.com and registered a Blog name. That night I started dumping material onto the site. Over the weekend I finished my first Blog and sent it to my friend. His feedback? You have nothing compelling, you need a theme, the name is wrong, etc. My reply, “OK, how do I do it better?” This is what I learned.

Start at the end and work to the beginning. Ask yourself some questions. What do you want the site to be? Remember it is about content. Who is your anticipated audience? Why should they go to your site? Brainstorm some topics. Write them out. If you only make it to three or four topics then maybe you should just post these ideas on Facebook. If you get to twenty or thirty ideas then you may have a Blog worth pursuing.

Now that you have a general idea about the theme and what you would like to do with your Blog, start checking out Blog names. I strongly recommend choosing a name for which you are able to obtain a dot com domain. In this way your Blog will not be tied to your Blog host and your address will be simpler to communicate. There are many places to get a domain. I went to GoDaddy.com because it offered the lowest prices. With GoDaddy I was allowed to forward my domain to another address. So instead of “LegallyFrank.tumblr.com” I could remove the “tumblr” and go with “LegallyFrank.com”. Much cleaner. Also with my GoDaddy account I can forward one email address for no extra cost. I signed up for Frank@LegallyFrank.com and have the email forwarded to my hotmail account. Again less confusion and all for $12.95 for the first year. To cover all bases I grabbed the “LegallyFrank” Twitter address.

As for hosting the Blog, I went back to Tumblr.com as I now have some familiarity with how the tools work. There are many sites that allow you to develop and post a Blog for free. I didn’t research the alternatives as I was happy with what Tumblr.com offered. If I decide to change later I can do so and keep my address. I just have to change the forward link at GoDaddy.

As for working with Tumblr, I provide the following suggestions:

(1) When you go to Tumblr.com and open an account, in the URL space fill in the address you want for your Blog. It will end in“.tumblr.com”, unless you have another domain that forwards to the Blog address you set up.

(2) Find the “Customize” button and it will take you to a workspace with the tools to build your Blog.

(3) Note that your workspace does not show your changes as they will appear. Therefore open a link to your Blog in a second window and then hit refresh (F5) each time you want to see what your Blog will look like to a visitor.

(4) After every change on your workspace, click “Save and Close” to make sure your changes are captured,

(5) If you are having trouble posting, close tumblr and open again using a different browser. For example if you can’t post when you are using Internet Explorer, try doing the same posting using Firefox.

(6) If you need help, I have found the Tumblr support staff is very responsive.

Once you get your ideas organized you can set up a Blog is a matter of hours. Worst case is that you spend some to time to get acquainted with what is happening on the internet. For example another friend mentioned that I should add a QR code to my site so I did this. I have my QR code posted on my Blog as well as the door to my office. There are many sites that allow you to generate a QR code at no cost, so you can have some fun with this idea.

The bottom line is that you have something to say, a forum is ready and waiting. No need to sit back and watch. I pass this recommendation along to my friend the Blog expert who suggested I write a Blog. What I learned only a few days ago is that this friend has yet to set up his own Blog.

Happy Blogging,

Frank

Reprinted with the permission of the Association of Corporate Counsel. Copyright © 2011. All rights reserved. www.acc.com. Available at: http://www.accdigitaldocket.com/accdocket/201012/?pg=18&pm=1&u1=friend. 

TALKING TRAVEL by Frank Fletcher

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS TRAVEL STORIES AND MAY BE FOUND TEDIOUS. PLEASE CONTINUE AT YOUR OWN RISK.

I have traveled on business for many years. I worked one summer while in college in the garment industry in Hong Kong, five years for a law firm in Tokyo, and now I work for a German-based software company, which requires travel to Deutschland. I live outside of Los Angeles proper near Pasadena, home of the Tournament of Roses parade. There are many gardens in my neighborhood, and when walking with my children, I do stop and smell the roses. This is the view I try to keep when it is necessary that I get on an airplane for business.

When flying over Alaska, I am the guy who keeps his window open while you try to sleep, because I am admiring the mountain ranges and looking for Mount McKinley. I once got the pilots on a flight from Tokyo to Taiwan to bank the airplane so we could look for the volcano in Kagoshima. In my world, travel is not punishment. It is not necessarily wrong to enjoy the little things. I was reminded of this recently during a dentist appointment when the dental hygienist asked if I had anything special on my calendar. I replied that in a few days I was traveling to Germany for two weeks with a side trip to Paris. Her reply, “It has always been my dream to go to Europe.” I try to remember that the travel we may look at as drudgery can be seen as the fulfillment of a dream for others.

While there is not time for a side excursion on every business trip, you can try to schedule something fun while you are in a certain area. For example, try the natural hot spring in the middle of Taroko Gorge in Taiwan, or a walk around the peak in Hong Kong. How about a quick weekend in Hawaii on the way back from Asia, or an overnight ferry from Hong Kong to Guangzhou? How about a trip on the Glacier Express in Switzerland? Attend a Premier League football match in England. Ask the ticket broker in Piccadilly Circus for tickets to one of the less popular games and have a pint of ale in a local pub before the game. You can visit a mosque in Turkey, a shrine in Tokyo or a temple in Bangkok, as long as you are respectful — I have found myself welcome at each. If you want a truly memorable (or is that miserable) experience in Japan in July or August, you can climb Mount Fuji. It is an easy deal from Tokyo. There is an Express bus from Shinjuku that will take you there one day and back the next. You can climb to the top and back overnight, but budget one week for recovery. On the flight to Tokyo, you can read the “Tale of the 47 Ronin” and when you get to Japan, visit the actual shrine in Shinagawa in the southern part of Tokyo. I am not saying to journey to the lunatic fringe in your side travel, like an attorney friend who took a side trip to Palestine and nearly crossed the line of sanity by asking to hold a guard’s machine gun.

If you are traveling alone, send an invite to your friends on LinkedIn. You never know who might meet you for a beer. Worst case: take your camera and take many photos. With the internet, you can do a great deal of planning yourself and not inconvenience your local colleagues. Do you really think your coworkers want to spend a weekend entertaining you? Some of these trips are a bit daring. For example, if you miss the bus to Taroko Gorge, you might be hitchhiking. Then again, if you do find yourself hitchhiking, you might get a lift from a fighter pilot in the Taiwan Air Force who has stories to tell.

I am not saying it is as easy as it sounds to make a short side trip, nor that it is always possible — try to convince your wife that you spending a weekend in Paris is a good idea while she stays home alone watching the kids. But with an investment of time, a business trip can provide a lifetime of memories that may carry over as you sit in your office after a 14-hour day sending your 111th email. When all is said and done and you look back at your work life, you will not recall 99.9 percent of your work days, but almost certainly you will recall the time you walked through a blue bamboo forest in Hangzhou, China.

I wouldn’t interpret any of this as saying business travel is better than spending time with family and loved ones, but business travel is a necessary component of some jobs. So take a moment to do some research on how to make the trip a bit more positive.

As for those who are bored by travel stories, don’t blame me. I warned you.

Have a comment on this article? Visit ACC’s blog at www.inhouseaccess.com/articles/acc-docket.

FRANK FLETCHER is general counsel for Nero AG headquartered in Karlsbad, Germany with subsidiaries in Hangzhou, China; Tokyo, Japan; and Glendale, California, where he usually can be found. Fletcher is always glad to share a travel story and can be contacted at ffletcher@nero.com.