Many years ago, early in my career, I worked at software powerhouse, Symantec. As they recently announced their intent to acquire Clearwell, I thought I would pass along my insider’s 2 cents on the topic. I became a "Symantian" in 1996 after they acquired a smaller company with a very hot product in a growing market. At the time the company was called Delrina and they made WinFax. You likely had a copy at some point. It was the innovator in using modems to send faxes and make VOIP calls. (I worked on the telephony end - the cooler part!)
In retrospect, the CW deal sounds very similar to the Delrina one and a good example of how Symantec operates. They bought Delrina at the height of its popularity, paying top dollar. Then they decimated the division, laying off more than half the workforce. (I was not laid off, but asked instead to become GM of a division.) They basically never put another dime into development, QA or marketing and rode the product's margins all the way into the sunset until it was obsolete. I suspect they made a fortune as there were few costs beyond the initial acquisition. They picked up the entire user base and locked out all competition. Within 3 years WinFax as a product was gone and it was completely embedded with other Symantec suite products.
Within 12 months, no one will be charging $300/GB to cull with Clearwell. Every client will have it embedded in their enterprise suite and simply perform the culling themselves. 3rd party vendors beware. The Clearwell party is over and the Relativity party is next.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Monday, January 4, 2010
All Aboard the ALSP Train!
Next year I will have the distinct pleasure of serving on the national board of the Association of Litigation Support Professionals (ALSP). Although I have been on several boards in the past (including Valora’s, of course) and I have been involved in countless litigation industry associations, I have never had the option to combine those two, and I am eager to give it a go.
Serving on a board is a strange mix of honor and stress, much like parenting. You give your best ideas, efforts (and often money) to the organization on whose board you sit and you represent that honorable group to the community. You are a walking embodiment of the organization itself. Its goals become your badges of honor and its achievements become your glories.
At the same time, you absorb the pain and stress that comes from non-profit organizations struggling to achieve impossible things, with impossible budgets and ever-competing mindshare among constituents. Just like above, the organization’s troubles become your troubles and you come to represent its unseen drama and turmoil.
As for the litigation industry, ALSP holds a unique position. There are lots of regional and job classification groups, but none that span the gamut like ALSP. ALSP includes anyone involved in litigation, be they vendors, attorneys, paralegals, litigation support personnel, government agencies and corporate GC’s. All it takes to be a part of ALSP is a willingness to belong and to contribute to the common good. There is no exclusivity and no hierarchy. Simply an egalitarian group aiming to better the profession.
I look forward to serving on the board of such an honorable and class-free institution. Here’s to you, ALSP! Thanks for having me aboard.
Serving on a board is a strange mix of honor and stress, much like parenting. You give your best ideas, efforts (and often money) to the organization on whose board you sit and you represent that honorable group to the community. You are a walking embodiment of the organization itself. Its goals become your badges of honor and its achievements become your glories.
At the same time, you absorb the pain and stress that comes from non-profit organizations struggling to achieve impossible things, with impossible budgets and ever-competing mindshare among constituents. Just like above, the organization’s troubles become your troubles and you come to represent its unseen drama and turmoil.
As for the litigation industry, ALSP holds a unique position. There are lots of regional and job classification groups, but none that span the gamut like ALSP. ALSP includes anyone involved in litigation, be they vendors, attorneys, paralegals, litigation support personnel, government agencies and corporate GC’s. All it takes to be a part of ALSP is a willingness to belong and to contribute to the common good. There is no exclusivity and no hierarchy. Simply an egalitarian group aiming to better the profession.
I look forward to serving on the board of such an honorable and class-free institution. Here’s to you, ALSP! Thanks for having me aboard.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Stuck in the Past
Remember rotary phones? Black & white tv? Vinyl albums? While these have all been long ago replaced by better solutions, there are still many of them in actual use today. It’s hard to imagine, but did you know that the old touch phone (last updated in 1968) is still being produced and sold today1?
I am mentioning this because it is analogous to what is going on with electronic discovery and duplicate files. Up to 10% of electronic discovery populations are never de-duped at all, according to a recent survey of top EDD providers. Valora was fortunate to participate in the survey and see early access to its results, but they weren’t pretty. It seems that nearly half of all electronic discovery populations get, at best, a simple within custodian de-dupe effort, while the results of cross-custodian de-duping are clearly spelled out in financial terms.
Why is this? Is it just that some customers are obstinate and refuse to try anything new? I doubt it. I think it is the same reason that people still use their rotary phones and listen to records. They are comfortable, familiar, safe and well understood. Simple removal of duplicates inside a single custodian, or no removal of duplicates is comfortable and easy to understand. Furthermore, it cements the idea that all files or documents need to be assessed individually – a belief that the legal community seems terrified to let go, even though all signs point to its eventual demise. Those who would cling to no de-duping or inferior de-duping are the same people who will avoid population analytics and automated review. Be glad they practice law and not medicine.
PS. In case you were wondering: Almost 1 billion vinyl albums were sold in 2007, up 15% from 20062.
-Sandy
I am mentioning this because it is analogous to what is going on with electronic discovery and duplicate files. Up to 10% of electronic discovery populations are never de-duped at all, according to a recent survey of top EDD providers. Valora was fortunate to participate in the survey and see early access to its results, but they weren’t pretty. It seems that nearly half of all electronic discovery populations get, at best, a simple within custodian de-dupe effort, while the results of cross-custodian de-duping are clearly spelled out in financial terms.
Why is this? Is it just that some customers are obstinate and refuse to try anything new? I doubt it. I think it is the same reason that people still use their rotary phones and listen to records. They are comfortable, familiar, safe and well understood. Simple removal of duplicates inside a single custodian, or no removal of duplicates is comfortable and easy to understand. Furthermore, it cements the idea that all files or documents need to be assessed individually – a belief that the legal community seems terrified to let go, even though all signs point to its eventual demise. Those who would cling to no de-duping or inferior de-duping are the same people who will avoid population analytics and automated review. Be glad they practice law and not medicine.
PS. In case you were wondering: Almost 1 billion vinyl albums were sold in 2007, up 15% from 20062.
-Sandy
[1] Source: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_500_telephone
[2] Source: Time magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1702369,00.html
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Doc Review Metamorphosis
Most people today communicate via email far more than they do via telephone (which in turn people use far more than letter-writing). It wasn’t always this way, of course, but most people do not realize that email has been around in one form or another since 1984! It took effectively 25 years for email to come to dominate as the preferred communication method, particularly for business.
How long will the Doc Review industry take to evolve to true non-linear[1] activity? Probably in less time than you think. For comparison, the transition from letters to phone dominance took more or less 60 years (1900-1960). The transition from phone to email took 25. And now as we evolve from relatively static email to far more dynamic Twitter, texting and live data/video feeds, the evolution will be even shorter, generally expected at 5-7 years. As a society we are becoming faster at adapting to change. The most sophisticated review teams are just now experimenting with non-linear review. The rest will be there within 3-4 years.
Already we see signs of the evolution to non-linear document review. Most people are at least aware of the simplest form on non-linear review: near duplicate detection. With near & exact duplicates grouped together into “Dupe Groups,” the very first level of non-linear review is taking place. With Near Dupe, savvy reviewers actually look at a group of documents together, rather than one by one. Documents are usually grouped together by content or attribute similarity, with a group “captain” embodying either the fullest set of content or a logical start and end-point to the logic chain grouping the documents together.
A similar technique is called Email Thread Grouping (ETG), where pieces (“stringlets”) of email conversation threads that might be resident in pockets of document storage mechanisms are brought together logically. Because typical ESI collection involves documents from several custodian sources, often who have important communication relationships with one another, the incidence rate of disassociated email conversations is extremely high. ETG bring together groups of documents from Inboxes, Outboxes, folders, different email storage systems and even different collection sites! By grouping the conversations together from all custodial sources, the review has taken a second step toward non-linear review.
Finally, the courts and the industry are waking up. It’s not going to be a “doc-by-doc” world much longer. Will you be ready? Where can you turn for smart, unbiased information?
The Electronic Discovery Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to resolving electronic discovery challenges by conducting studies of litigation processes that incorporate modern technologies. They recently conducted a survey which broaches the subject of electronic document deduplication; the beginnings of non-linear review. Have a look and let us know what you think.
-Sandy
[1] Non-linear review is the concept of reviewing documents in bulk fashion, rather than one by one in sequential order.
How long will the Doc Review industry take to evolve to true non-linear[1] activity? Probably in less time than you think. For comparison, the transition from letters to phone dominance took more or less 60 years (1900-1960). The transition from phone to email took 25. And now as we evolve from relatively static email to far more dynamic Twitter, texting and live data/video feeds, the evolution will be even shorter, generally expected at 5-7 years. As a society we are becoming faster at adapting to change. The most sophisticated review teams are just now experimenting with non-linear review. The rest will be there within 3-4 years.
Already we see signs of the evolution to non-linear document review. Most people are at least aware of the simplest form on non-linear review: near duplicate detection. With near & exact duplicates grouped together into “Dupe Groups,” the very first level of non-linear review is taking place. With Near Dupe, savvy reviewers actually look at a group of documents together, rather than one by one. Documents are usually grouped together by content or attribute similarity, with a group “captain” embodying either the fullest set of content or a logical start and end-point to the logic chain grouping the documents together.
A similar technique is called Email Thread Grouping (ETG), where pieces (“stringlets”) of email conversation threads that might be resident in pockets of document storage mechanisms are brought together logically. Because typical ESI collection involves documents from several custodian sources, often who have important communication relationships with one another, the incidence rate of disassociated email conversations is extremely high. ETG bring together groups of documents from Inboxes, Outboxes, folders, different email storage systems and even different collection sites! By grouping the conversations together from all custodial sources, the review has taken a second step toward non-linear review.
Finally, the courts and the industry are waking up. It’s not going to be a “doc-by-doc” world much longer. Will you be ready? Where can you turn for smart, unbiased information?
The Electronic Discovery Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to resolving electronic discovery challenges by conducting studies of litigation processes that incorporate modern technologies. They recently conducted a survey which broaches the subject of electronic document deduplication; the beginnings of non-linear review. Have a look and let us know what you think.
-Sandy
[1] Non-linear review is the concept of reviewing documents in bulk fashion, rather than one by one in sequential order.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Name That Service!
Remember the game show “Name That Tune[1]”? Contestants had to listen to the first few strains of a song and name the title. “I can name that tune in 4 notes!” they would say. Well, now it’s time to name something else – Valora’s new service offering!
After years of “black box” services provision, Valora is finally opening up its interface to our customers. For those of you who have been to Valora’s
To those who are new to such services, we are creating a combination Early Case Assessment Tool & Non-Linear Review interface.
The idea is really very simple: show our customers easily and intuitively what we here at Valora already know about their documents. For years, we have been identifying and documenting every possible attribute known to mankind[2] about each and every document that passes our threshold. More recently, we began to use that knowledge in a cross-functional, population analytics way to help diagnose what populations contain and how best to stretch processing dollars accordingly.
Now we are using the same information in a predictive, pre-emptive way to automatically accomplish much of the tasks that today take place manually. Similar to how Valora solved the expensive, inefficient manual coding problem a few years ago, we are now solving the problem of getting both document processing and document review down to a few cents per GB.
While we anticipate public release of our system in January, 2010, we are opening up our Beta program to three select matters late in the summer. Two of the three Beta partners have already been selected, but there is room for one more. If you are interested, contact our Marketing Department at 781.229.2265, mktg@valoratech.com for more information about Beta requirements and expectations.
And finally, the contest! You may have heard via email, and it’s true, that I will personally come to your home (especially if you live in
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