Copywriter, technical writer, translator (FR>EN, ES>EN, IT>EN), journalist

Posts Tagged productivity

Time to start auditing outside counsel’s technology skills

Companies audit their third party service providers for many competencies, like security. Why not the competence to do their jobs efficiently? That’s what D. Casey Flaherty did during his tenure as inside counsel for Kia Motors America. He wrote about his experience for the Jan. 24, 2013,

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Switching languages on the Mac

I speak four languages and I regularly switch between them on my digital devices (all from Apple). When I bought my MacBook Pro years ago, I got it with the French keyboard. (That’s an option here in Canada, with its two official languages.) That keyboard makes it

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Evaluating ethical technology use by outside (law) firms

Automakers vet suppliers exhaustively. One faulty part in a vehicle can cost the automaker dearly, and not just in cash. This need to vet applies to any vendor relationships, including those between companies and law firms. Outside legal help functions as an extension of in-house legal departments.

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Is increased productivity worth the time required to learn new skills?

There’s a story making the rounds about a senior lawyer (perhaps a partner in a firm) and a sizeable spreadsheet. This lawyer needed to find rows in this spreadsheet that met specific criteria. When a colleague checked into his (her?) progress, he saw this lawyer bent over

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How Screen Shot Tools Help You Communicate

A picture is worth a thousand words, and pictures of your device’s screen are no exception. Those screen shot images can help people troubleshoot problems with your device — and help you better communicate how-to instructions as well. Sometimes you will see people taking pictures of their

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Digital Transcription Dictates Caution: Digital Dictation and Transcription Options

Many lawyers dictate their thoughts into a recording device, then send the recording to an assistant for transcription. This is a great time-saver for the lawyer. But the human transcriptionist today is gradually giving way to computer versions.

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Auto-Filing Email: 5 Productivity Tips

Imagine if your email system could look like this at the end of your day (presuming your inbox is empty): This is more likely to happen if email lands in the right folder without you having to triage it from your inbox. Dealing with each message in

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Easily putting boilerplate text in email

Some time ago, I blogged about my usage of keyboard shortcuts to automate phrases, paragraphs, even entire messages that I often type. Its a great way to recreate boilerplate text quickly and efficiently. I set up my shortcuts to work across all software on my computer (well, almost all software

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Corralling multiple email addresses

Do you have two or more email addresses? Tired of flipping between web pages to check them all? Why bother. Instead, set them all up in one email client.

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