Conmergence

Reply to Susanna Dodgson RE: Broadband Build Out in Nigeria

over at http://vcafrica.ning.com/

Her post:

This is all great, but the hurdles are still huge. I went to a Corporate Council on Africa Health Forum in November and was listening to a talk by a South African CEO of a pharmaceutical company. He said something astounding: he refuses ever to pay a bribe anywhere. This is the first time I have heard this said and it is exciting.

What has this to do with highspeed internet in Nigeria? Everything. This is a country with daily power outages (and the power company employees demand bribes to provide even sporadic power, at least that was what I saw in BAV studios where I work in Surulere); a country when even canned tomatoes has to be imported (and Nigerian food has tomatoes in everything). Given that back-drop, is high-speed internet somehow avoiding all payment of bribes, avoiding corruption? I desperately want the answer to be yes. http://mjota.org.

My reply:

Technologically, of course, the answer is easy. WiMax and solar energy vendors should team up to build out the grid. One could avoid the ground by using blimps, drones, etc. RE: Bribes seen as a fee-for-service where there is no other meaningful industry exists, well, that's a catch-22. Broadband could bring knowledge work (if global employers would learn to pay for something other than butts-in-seats, i.e. driving into a plant in order to post on a wiki or write software {see Results-Only Work Environments at your local search engine}). Bribes purely for sloth, well, that's a theological problem, which, ironically, broadband could help (at least in delivering seminary curricula). The one anti-corruption benefit of broadband is the enabling wiki-eske ability to create "walls of shame" near real-time -- both of the ones perpetrating the corruption -- and of the law enforcement officials for not prosecuting them (in those cases where the actors aren't the same people). XBRL was just mandated yesterday in the US for firms over 5 billion -- so getting to underlying data is at least theoretically going to be easier. Wish I had more optimistic answers.

Legal-RDF, Legal-XHTML

Legal-RDF is a non-profit organzation that is sponsored by legal firms, software companies, and other stakeholders interested in software tools that leverage the Semantic Web. Sponsors have access to additional intellectual property beyond the free & open-source (FOSS) ontologies, including RDF resources that represent the laws of the United States and of individual states; of web services for querying the XHTML or RDF representations of all resources; and of software that can be immediately used in a software product or a law firm.

Legal-XHTML is hosted by a non-profit organzation that is sponsored by legal firms, software companies, and others who want to represent legal documents using the Extensible HyperText Markup Language, Version 2 (XHTML-2).

Standards Interoperability: Collaborating with Other Standards Initiatives

By Kelly D. Ray, Director Liaison Programs, The Open Legal Standards Initiative, The Open Legal Standards Reporter

The thing about standards . . . there’s so many to chose from. . . . Its an old adage, but unfortunately it's very true. The standards world has suffered from “market” fragmentation. The more the number of standards, the less effective any single standard can be. So, we’re trying something different – coordination. We are in the process of arranging a first of its kind conference to be held in conjunction with the LegalTech Conference in New York which runs from January 31st through February 3rd at the New York Hilton. In addition to working with ACCA, ARMA, and the ABA, we expect a day long session where representatives from OLSI will learn more about and propose how to work with representatives from the following legal industry standards groups and perhaps some other groups.

• Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG) whose mission is to define core and advanced practices to further the effectiveness of those in the compliance and ethics functions. For more information, go to www.oceg.org.
• Uniform Task-based Billing Management Standard (UTBMS) which represents code sets for tracking the nature of legal services and expenses.
• Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) which is a format for transmitting invoice data for legal services and expenses. For more information, go to www.ledes.org.
• Oasis-LegalXML (LegalXML) has several working groups focused on facilitating legal services in several ways listed below. For more information, go to www.oasis-open.org.
• Legal Electronic Document Institute (LEDI) - The Legal Electronic Document Institute is a Washington non-profit corporation established to promote the development of education and standards in the field of legal electronic documents, including practice management of electronic documents, electronic trial practice with litigation support systems, e-filing, e- signatures and e-discovery. LEDI will focus its initial efforts on identifying trends and developments in the use of electronic discovery by law firms nationwide as well as furthering existing efforts to promote electronic discovery standards for use by federal and state courts nationwide.
• The Sedona Conference (Sedona) - The Sedona Conference exists to allow leading jurists, lawyers, experts, academics and others, at the cutting edge of issues in the area of antitrust law, complex litigation, and intellectual property rights, to come together - in conferences and mini-think tanks (Working Groups) - and engage in true dialogue, not debate, all in an effort to move the law forward in a reasoned and just way. The Sedona's hallmark is our unique use of the dialogue process to reach levels of understanding and insight not otherwise achievable. The Sedona's Working Group Series is designed to focus the dialogue on forward-looking principles, best practices and guidelines in specific areas of the law that may have a dearth of guidance or are otherwise at a "tipping point." The goal is that the Working Groups, the open Working Group Membership Program, and the peer review process, will produce output that is balanced, authoritative, and of immediate benefit to the Bench, Bar and general public.

Following is some additional information about the Legal XML Working Groups.

Legal XML Working Groups

For the remainder of the article please contact Kelly.Ray_at_gmx.net

People's Guide to the Telecommunications Act of 2006

Alliance for Community Media, Community Media Review - Summer 2005

We, THE PEOPLE, must work TOGETHER to write U.S. Media and Communications laws that serve the public interest as we move into our digital future.

The Telecommunications Act of 2006 must:

• Recognize public access to media & communications as a fundamental human right and the foundation of our democracy.
• Affirm the airwaves and public-rights-of-way as shared public resource to be used expressly for the "public convenience and necessity"
• Enforce the public interest principals of open access, ownership diversity, accountability, local control, and community reinvestment to support non-commercial media and communications.
• Apply equitably across all platforms: Phone, TV and Radio, Cable, Satellite & Broadband Services.

CSC's Electronic Service-of-Process Now Integrated With DirectInvoice(TM)

March 7, 2005 /PRNewswire/

Integrated Systems Utilizing XML Technology Deliver Breakthrough Functionality

Corporation Service Company(SM) (CSC), the leading domestically owned registered agent and provider of litigation management, entity management, IP, corporate governance and compliance services for business and attorneys, and Tripoint Systems Development Corporation, a leading provider of Strategic Cost Management, Matter Management and law department software applications, today announced the XML integration of CSC's Electronic Service of Process (e-SOP) offering with Tripoint's DirectInvoice(TM), a market-leading strategic cost management and electronic invoicing service.

CSC and Tripoint have not only overcome the significant challenges associated with connecting technologies of these types but have also perfected the integration capabilities between the two systems, setting a standard that will be very difficult to match. The system has undergone intensive live testing at a Fortune 50 client site for the past ten months and has yielded remarkable savings, delivering an entirely new level of Registered Agent and electronic litigation management services to the client's corporate law department.

With this new integration, CSC can automatically pre-populate DirectInvoice litigation matter records for any corporate law department using XML technology without costly re-keying, scanning or redundant data entry. The law department will automatically receive the information and imaged documents to an online queue, where department members can receive, accept and share service of process data securely with both internal and external members of their legal defense team, providing tremendous cost-savings and increased efficiency.

Justice funds XML pilots

Feb. 14, 2005 By Dibya Sarkar, FCW.com

Six states will receive Justice Department funding for pilot projects aimed at improving their information-sharing systems.

The National Governors Association (NGA) Center for Best Practices announced last week that the states -- Colorado, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- will each get $50,000 grants to adopt the Global Justice Extensible Markup Language (XML) Data Model to exchange information.

Litigation Support: Fear Factor

By Monica Bay, Law Technology News

<ed.note>It's pretty obvious that the law profession has figured out that if all of this stuff is automated then a decent database of cases and outcomes would allow for an automated mediation process as well. I'd bet that wouldn't pay as well once it is commoditized.</ed.note>

David Whelan, who has led the American Bar Association's Legal Technology Research Center for the last five years, is heading to Ohio to be the new director of the county law library in Cincinnati. One of his final tasks was to send the latest ABA technology survey to the printer. I pestered Whelan for a sneak preview, and I was stunned by the litigation support results.

Take a look at the chart. Assuming that the ABA's methology was sound, how can that be? Only 11.7 percent use trial software? In today's competitive environment, I think any lawyer who would go into a courtroom without even basic litigation support software should make sure the firm's malpractice premium's paid.

SEC to accept XBRL

Oct. 7, 2004 By David Perera, Federal Computer Week

Companies filing annual reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission will be able to send information to the market watchdog agency using Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) under a pilot program slated for debut next March.

Starting next spring, companies can choose to attach unofficial, supplementary financial exhibits to their filings with XBRL tags, said Richard Heroux, program manager of the SEC's Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis and Retrieval system. Heroux spoke Oct. 6 at a conference on the future of e-government, hosted by PureEdge Solutions Inc.

Legal Information Institute Releases Complete United States Code in XML Format

Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute has announced the release of a new online edition of the United States Code, including all the Federal law passed by Congress currently in force. For the first time, the project team is also releasing the underlying XML version as a dataset for use in research.

The XML data set has been generated from the most recent official version made available by the US House of Representatives, codified under fifty "titles". The United States Code "is the official compilation of the Federal statutes of a general and permanent nature; by Federal statute, the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives is the publisher and compiler of the Code, and the Counsel is an appointee of the Speaker of the House."

XBRL in Europe Open Day

October 14, 2004, 2pm - 5:30pm XBRL Ireland

Support for XBRL across Europe is increasing with a number of strategic national and EU projects emerging within EU member states and increasing adoption by national regulators.

XBRL in Europe and Business Reporting Ireland Limited (a not for profit company and member of XBRL international) invite you to an Open Day in the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, UCD, on Carysfort Avenue, Blackrock, Dublin on 14 October 2004 - 2pm to 5:30pm. The Dean of the Business School, Prof Eamonn Walsh, is a long time champion of XBRL as well as the PwC Professor of Accounting.