About 100 legal vendors recently participated in a survey of ours. In one of the questions, we asked them to rank TechnoLawyer and 4 other legal technology publications with regard to power and influence. Although Law Technology News received a few more first place votes than TechnoLawyer, we ended up with a higher overall rank. This got me to thinking — if we're now the first or second most influential legal technology publication, why is it that Microsoft never reaches out to us as it does to Law Technology News?
Sure enough, a few days later, I received a call from Weber Shandwick, Microsoft's public relations firm. From my conversation, I learned that Microsoft wants to get the word out among lawyers about OneNote, its outlining/notetaking application. During the course of our conversation, I learned some interesting information.
First and foremost, I had always assumed that OneNote works only on a Tablet PC, but in fact it works on all PCs. My assumption stemmed from the digital ink feature, but it turns out that you can use any pen-input device, not just those that come with Tablet PCs. You can also use OneNote without digital ink.
I also learned some other interesting tidbits. With OneNote, you can start by just entering freeform ideas, and then later convert those ideas into an outline within OneNote or into any other Office document (Word document, PowerPoint presentation, etc.). Also, OneNote accommodates real-time collaboration through simple file sharing (or via SharePoint). And OneNote supports drag and drop from other applications, such as your browser. Thus, you could use it to organize legal research.
Finally, David Allen fans will like the fact that you can designate items in your OneNote documents to show up as tasks in Outlook. Well, I guess public relations works. OneNote sells for $99. Learn more.
About TechnoEditorials
A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.
