Disability Law

NAELA Special Needs Summit - 3

By Patrick Hindert

This S2KM blog post strategically analyzes the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) 2010 Special Needs Summit from an Internet-based knowledge management (KM) perspective. The NAELA Special Needs Summit occurred February 25-27 in New Orleans. Prior S2KM blog posts summarized the NAELA Special Needs Summit and analyzed the NAELA Special Needs Summit from a structured settlement perspective.

This S2KM analysis also reviews a March 9, 2010 Web 2.0 webinar for NAELA members by Mark Miller titled "Web 2.0: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". Miller is Chief Operating Officer of ElderLawAnswers; General Manager of Lawyers Life Network; and Director of Operations and Business Development for the Academy of Special Needs Planners. Miller has more than 15 years experience in sales and business development for web-based service providers.

Positives

• Knowledge resources - Whether the subject is elder law, special needs law or personal injury settlement law, NAELA's membership possesses substantial knowledge resources. Specific to disabled persons, NAELA's knowledge encompasses technical legal knowledge as well as relationship knowledge with disability leaders and disability community stakeholders.
• Knowledge culture - NAELA promotes and prioritizes legal scholarship. Examples include: the NAELA Journal and NAELA's annual writing prize for law students. NAELA honors and practices knowledge sharing. NAELA's unprograms offer a non-hierarchical and interactive learning alternative to traditional lectures. Compared with traditional lectures, NAELA's unprogram learning model is more comparable with how collaborative learning occurs on the Internet.
• Focus on web 2.0 - NAELA has identified and offered learning resources on web 2.0 and social network technologies. In addition to Mark Miller's March 9, 2010 web 2.0 presentation, NAELA also featured S2KM's web 2.0 for lawyers wiki at its 2008 National Symposium.
• Mark Miller's web 2.0 presentation - Miller's 90 minute web 2.0 presentation was comprehensive. It highlighted many web 2.0 features, tools, and developments and offered advice for NAELA members about blogging; podcasting; web-site design; search engine optimization; news feeds; key word searches; social media; and emerging tools.
• Web 2.0 examples - a growing number of NAELA members, and non-NAELA special needs attorneys, have experimented with web 2.0 tools - especially blogs and podcasts. Examples of special needs and elder law blogs:
  • Harry Margolis
  • David Lillesand
  • Frank Johns
  • Patricia Kefalas
  • John Campbell

Negatives

• Web 2.0 learning disconnect
  • Neither the NAELA Special Needs Summit nor Miller's web 2.0 webinar made any attempt to integrate the web 2.0 medium itself into their learning programs.
  • If "the medium is the message" (to quote Marshall McLuhan), NAELA has not yet processed or responded to that message from a web 2.0 learning perspective.
  • NAELA's conference was typical of almost all professional association education conferences. Learning takes place in multipurpose hotel meeting rooms with no Internet resources or integration. Laptops are discouraged by the general failure to provide power outlets. With the notable exception of NAELA's unprograms, the speakers lecture with limited audience interaction. Supplemental learning resources include power points, hardcopy handouts or web 1.0 flash disks.
  • Miller's web 2.0 webinar utilized a traditional web 1.0 powerpoint. His extensive presentation was lecture format with limited interactivity and no asynchronous features.
  • Typical of most introductions to the Internet, Miller's web 2.0 webinar focused primarily on identity and marketing - with no discussion about whether and how web 2.0 can enhance and accelerate learning or what learning issues and strategies occur with web 2.0.
  • As one example of a web 2.0 learning issue, many college professors (the paragons of old school learning) are banning laptops from their classroom and view in-class Internet surfing as a distraction. These paragons, however, typically lack any ability to integrate discussions (example: Socratic teaching) or Internet resources into their classroom experience. Their teaching model is a hierarchical lecture which is contrary to how the web 2.0 Internet functions.
  • Teaching web 2.0 using web 1.0 (or predecessor technologies) is akin to trying to teach people to swim or play basketball in a traditional classroom - using hardcopy text with no diagrams - instead of utilizing a swimming pool or a basketball court. After an hour or a semester in the classroom, the students still won't be able to swim or play basketball.
• Role of knowledge management
  • NAELA's members all qualify as knowledge workers. Without specifically studying knowledge management, NAELA has spent 25 years helping its members expand and manage knowledge.
  • The changing Internet medium (currently web 2.0 featuring social network technologies) changes knowledge and how you management knowledge:
    • Knowledge generally becomes more important and complex.
    • New knowledge tools, systems, networks, teams and leaders emerge.
    • New business models evolve requiring new skill sets and knowledge services.
  • Unless NAELA and its members study and understand Internet-based knowledge management, how will they successfully transfer their professional knowledge (including relationship knowledge) to web 2.0?
  • And what happens to those professionals and professional associations who are slow (or unable) to successfully transfer their knowledge to the Internet? How will they compete? Who will want (or allow) them to participate on Internet-based knowledge teams and networks?
  • Neither Miller's web 2.0 webinar or NAELA's first-ever Special Needs Summit discussed knowledge management.
  • How could knowledge management have improved the NAELA Special Needs Summit? As one example, the NAELA Summit made no attempt to define special needs law or to differentiate special needs law from elder law or personal injury settlement law. NAELA could have used (and still could use) various types of knowledge maps to:
    • Define these strategically important knowledge boundaries;
    • Identify stakeholders and online learning resources within each community of practice;
    • Highlight transactional and transferable knowledge opportunities for NAELA members.

Unsolicited Recommendations for NAELA

• Continue to study Internet-based knowledge management - focusing on web 2.0 and social network technologies;
• Develop a web 2.0 learning strategy:
  • Utilizing appropriate learning environments, teachers and tools;
  • Introducing participants to online culture, organizational structures and functional skill sets through actual experience.
  • Integrating web 2.0 learning into NAELA's other educational programs.

For Additional Information see:

• Denham Grey's KM wiki
• S2KM prior blog posts
  • Web 2.0 for Lawyers Concept Map - featuring Barbara Bowen
  • Knowledge Management and Structured Settlements

Full post as published by Beyond Structured Settlements on March 15, 2010 (boomark / email).