It’s like the proverbial widget-maker whose job making widgets was eliminated by the industrial revolution – our obsession with productivity and output means that sometimes, our technological goals sometimes outpace our interests as humans. (Think of the controversy over inhumane conditions at Apple factories.) The key to success in this kind of environment is figuring out how technology can best augment the work we’re already doing, while considering the social costs.

Take the example of technology in higher ed. In distance learning, watching webcasts of a lecture probably isn’t going to do as much for you as sitting in an actual classroom. Practically, it’s just not as effective a teaching method; ethically, it doesn’t fulfill its obligations to the students (who we owe an education) or to the teacher (whose role we respect and want to retain). However, applications like Second Life for education, where students interact with a professor in real time in a digital classroom, have great potential in offering access to students who may not previously have been able to experience a university education, while still valuing and integrating the work teachers already do.

For lawyers, what that seems to mean is using technology in a way that help your employees work smarter, so they can spend more of their time using the best of their human skills: communication, intuition, and creativity. Paralegals who have technology that helps them complete repetitive tasks and paperwork can spend more time doing research and helping generate case strategy. Time-saving applications help everyone regain control of their workload, or simply go home earlier to spend time with their families. The best tech tools aren’t a replacement for good employees; they make good employees better. They help maximize both our practical and ethical ends: to do good work, while helping everyone reach their full potential.

What do you think? What are some of the best instances in which technology can change the work we do?

One of the most important things we’ve learned about networking is how much it’s about listening, not about talking. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of networking in a hierarchical way—here’s me at the top, and here are all these contacts below me who can help me. But think about the word “network:” it refers to series of lateral, interconnected points, without regard for hierarchy. Think fishing net, not climbing rope.

What this means, ultimately, is that networking works best when we think about interdependence, and remember that mutual need doesn’t mean “everyone’s mutual need to help you.” Ninety percent of your time at a networking event should be spent learning about what other people are doing, and taking an active interest in how you can help them, rather than promoting your own practice or product. Even if the relevance to your practice or project isn’t immediately obvious, push yourself to keep listening. Sometimes the most meaningful connections take more than thirty seconds to develop, and after all, you shouldn’t head into an event expecting to close the deal. Cultivating valuable contacts takes time, patience, and attentiveness.

But that’s just one piece of advice. Below, we’ve included five of the best articles we’ve found that offer a good perspective on networking. Reading these won’t make you a master networker—you’d have to tear yourself away from the computer to do that—but they make some great points to consider next time you’re at a networking event.

• How to Attend a Conference as Yourself:  how to get more out of networking by abandoning shameless self-promotion.
• “But I’m Too Shy to Network!”:  specific strategies for the introverted, written from a woman’s perspective.
• How to Network Without Being Fake, Cheesy, Pushy, or Smarmy:  a great list of guidelines for networking, focusing on how changing your outlook can positively impact your results.
• Understanding How Women Network:  Though we don’t always agree with generalizations about women and men as a whole, this article has some good thoughts on relationship building as  a networking tool.
• The Art of Networking: a post about networking wouldn’t be complete without a reblog of someone we know. Here, a slideshow from the fabulous Sloane Berrent about taking an active interest in the people you’re networking with.

This predilection for risk-aversion continues with one’s legal studies. Law school conditions the nascent lawyer to substantiate every argument with precedent, and justify any position by saying “this is an acceptable choice, because someone else has already done it this way.” And with the final move into actual practice, the awareness of risk influences almost everything a lawyer says or does. Liabilities are considered; cases are declined; potential conflicts are vetted. Even legal language, with its infuriatingly looping clauses that include or preclude every possible interpretation, is designed to minimize exposure.

A piece of personal history: my first job out of college was a temp gig at a firm that offers “risk management services.” At the time, I thought this was the worst kind of corporate doublespeak—I was unsure what risk assessment was, and I had a hard time conceiving of risk as something to be “managed.”  Risk seemed like an externality, something to be avoided or embraced but not necessarily controlled.

Eventually, someone broke it down to me: Most people are notoriously bad at assessing risk. They let their emotions either excessively minimize or magnify every decision. This phenomenon is even harder to manage when people make decisions in groups. Risk assessment offers an analysis, often numerical, of how big a risk a particular situation is for a company. It provides a sense of control, not of the risks themselves, but of your company’s response to them.

Are we suggesting that your firm hire a risk management consultant? No (and besides, who has the budget for extra consultants these days?) The takeaway is that it’s possible to be not just aware of risk, but to also be aware of your awareness of risk. Letting risk influence your decisions is fine; it’s inevitable. But that influence can be much more useful if you step back, consider the situation, and think: “How much of this risk is real, and how much is emotional, cultural, or just irrational?”

Like so many underappreciated aspects of business, risk is a potential tool. In a risk-averse culture like the law, your ability to harness that tool can give you an edge over your competitors. Cultivating a more conscious and self-aware perspective on risk will help you take more chances, to see the forest where others see the trees.

You can think of it this way: your new firm is a startup, a word that has a lot of anxiety-provoking questions attached to it. Will you end up penniless, with nothing but an Aeron chair to your name, like a victim of the dot-com bubble? Will you look back on this as a reckless decision that cost you a lot of time and money?

By training, lawyers focus on the negatives of a course of action, but rarely look at potential benefits. Starting your own practice has one big benefit—freedom—the option to try just about anything to help make your firm effective.

At big or even medium-sized firms, even the smallest changes can require rigorous review through the appropriate, pre-designated channels. It can take a long time to make anything happen, and political drama or institutional stasis can still derail the best ideas. But at your small firm, you can bypass the bureaucracy. You can try anything you want, and your big, brilliant idea can be implemented (or scrapped) tomorrow.

By viewing your small firm as a startup, you’ve basically been granted an infinite number of choices. Most people don’t get to experience that kind of flexibility. And though this might seem overwhelming at first, keep in mind that every choice is an opportunity for you to succeed, not just fail.

From time to time, we hear business owners reminding each other to “adapt or die.” Though we appreciate the gist of this truism, it doesn’t do anything to counteract the fear and uncertainty you might feel when you’re striking out on this adventure. Though you’re certainly about to start adapting to the changes the market throws at you, don’t concentrate on the possibility of failure—focus on the probability of success. Learn to change, and learn to live.

– Kat Stromquist

In other words, paper has a quality of presence. We can visualize it in real space; we can touch it with our hands. And that’s part of the reason, even with so much wonderful technology available to us, the conversion to a less paper-based practice can look and feel so hard. Conducting business online seems, for many, both dubious and impermanent. Even the language we use to talk about digital information makes it sound inconcrete: after all, where does information go when it’s stored in the vague abstraction we call “the cloud?”

So we find ourselves hanging on to paper: not only because it still dominates legal practice, but because of our intuitive assumptions about its stability.  To successfully make our businesses more digital, we need to change our thinking, and understand that even though paper seems permanent, it’s really one of the most ineffective tools we have to help get things done.

For instance, unlike digital information, which can frequently be recovered, paper can be irretrievably lost. It can be misplaced, left in a cab, or wiped out if your office’s basement floods. It can’t easily be shared. To access it, paper requires everyone’s presence in the same room, or (expensive, tedious and time-consuming) photocopies. It is the definition of insecure: paper can’t be password-protected or encrypted, and gives its information to anyone who can get her hands on it.

But it’s hard to change our conception of things, right? In the coming weeks, we’ll talk more about the eventual death of paper—and why you shouldn’t view it as a bad thing. Transitioning to a more technology-oriented workplace won’t be easy, but it’s worth doing, and can help you grow your business. Keep an eye on our blog and we’ll show you why.

 – Kat Stromquist