Irregular Update #7

Hello Friends in the Computer,

I had one of those moment of introspection this week that perhaps you only have when you’ve had as much therapy as I have. To wit, maybe I am only so into professional organizations and community based projects to overcompensate for the fact that I’m kind of a loner and not a super great friend/partner/etc. I guess we’ll figure that out someday but in the meantime I’m really enjoying the service I’m able to do with my AALL/PLLIP committees and the ABA Center for Innovation. I have yet to do anything with ILTA but I literally just joined so not surprising.

Anyway, let’s get into it.

MEOW MEOW

The cat is out of the bag! Well, it never really was in the bag to begin with, but I can now officially confirm that the contract job that I’ve been alluding to is as a Senior Solutions Analyst with Legaltech Hub. It’s been really great and has allowed me to continue doing the things I’m good at and enjoy while at the same time the freedom to explore life and take care of other obligations. I really like the people there and the things they are doing and planning very much align with my “oh I wish I could have done that” list from previous gigs.

Staying Relevant in 2012

Someone on Twitter shared a 3Geeks post by Toby Brown from 2012 - <yelling> 2012! </yelling> - about law firm adoption of tech. I can’t find tweet to credit or know which was the specific post (I think it was #4) but here’s the whole series:

• Part 1

• Part 2

• Part 3

• Part 4

• Part 5

As we’ve established, I’m in a real “looking back at the past” mode lately, and it was interesting to see what is the same and what is different. We’re very fortunate that there’s several “blawgs” (I’ve never like that word) with extensive archives to peruse. I’m not so interested to see who was wrong or right (I save that for me), but more to see what were people thinking and talking about at a particular moment in time. Might fuck around and do some topic modeling of the archives one of these days.

To Be Studied: Deming

I majored in Anthropology in college and I will defend that decision until my dying breath. I do acknowledge, however, that maybe I should have taken a business class or two? I found this tweet in my bookmarks

…which lead me to discover W. Edwards Deming and theories of business transformation. So I’m going to be looking into that. If it turns out he’s not a great guy or something, please let me know before I get too invested.

Related: I am thinking of paying for LinkedIn Learning and poking around some of their courses to up my “business skills” game and also maybe get some certifications of things that I have experience doing. Has anyone tried that?

Semi-Regular ChatGPT Update

First of all, this is a Sarah Problem and not necessarily a Them Problem, but the people hyping up ChatGPT sound sooooo much like the NFT and blockchain hype types and I just want to be like “are you sure this time?” I just…can’t get that excited yet.

(1) Stephen Wolfram (of Wolfram Alpha search which I always confuse with the law firm in Angel) has a great explainer on what ChatGPT actually does. It’s dense but accessible , I think.

(2) This This This:

(3) Greg Lambert had this fun thread of how it may be useful in the librarian/knowledge wrangling world

(4) Nicola Shaver (and the replies) is compiling a list of legal tech companies that are using Chat GPT or LLM based generative AI in their products:

(5) Mishcon de Reya is already hiring a Prompt Engineer - that was fast!

(6) Quinten Steenhuis of Suffolk Law shows how generative AI can be used in “grow bono” aka using tech to supercharge and deliver access to justice at scale. “Grow Bono” may be my favorite thing I’ve heard in ages.

Free Stuff

Now that I’m back to exploring more creative endeavors, I am on the hunt for images I can use without violating copyright or going broke. (Shutterstock now has a huge Lego Minifig collection and unnnnh…) Here’s two new to me fun entries:

• PhyloPic - free silhouettes of plants and animals

• OpenVerse - openly licensed images and audio

See You In March

Time flies when you’re having fun. But it turns out that it also does when… you’re not. Next week marks the 6th anniversary of my mom’s death and also the 10th anniversary of my hysterectomy. The former feels like it just happened and the latter feels like a lifetime ago and I’ve been experiencing cognitive dissonance like one of those “Cleopatra lived closer to present day than the building of the pyramids” listcles that make the rounds every few months.

(And every time they go around at least one makes me irrationally angry like finding out if the The Wonder Years aired now, there’d be a very special episode where Winnie’s brother died in Afghanistan post-9/11.)

They were both sad but the hysterectomy saved my life and my quality of life increased dramatically so I can’t be too mad at it. Anyway, I will be taking next week off from…everything…and don’t plan on doing any updates anywhere.

But wait! There’s more bumming out to be had!

I’m sad to report that my sister’s dog Humphrey, who was a co-star on several social media updates and who got to meet many legal tech vendors when he stayed with me last summer while my sister was catching up on 2+ years of work travel, has passed away. He loved sitting outside on the deck, snow, digging in this one spot in the flower bed by my house, and doing this stupid silent bark at the UPS man when he wanted to express displeasure but not risk confrontation. He was a very good boy.

Mid to Late February? Not a good time for Glassmeyers.

Be well,

Sarah

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