Welcome back to another edition of our determined voyage through the backwaters of legal community webcasts and streaming video. Each edition, we examine cutting edge examples of law firm, court, and law school “webcasts” — video over the Internet. This evening, we’ll include Flash and downloadable video files in our coverage of ... (drum roll please) ... the ‘office tour.’ But first ...

THIS JUST IN

By Larry Bodine, April-May 2004

WilentzTV.com
“On January 20, Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, of Woodbridge, N.J. launched WilentzTV.com, its Internet TV channel. First program aired: ‘Your Legal Rights,’ an interactive, real-time show.”

“The firm plans to run the show every other Tuesday, live at 10 a.m. The topic on the March agenda was ‘Top 10 Tips When Getting Divorced.’ After the broadcast, the shows are archived for the Web site's on-demand programming. Currently in the archive is ‘Meeting the Needs of Educationally Disabled Children’.” http://www.lawfirminc.com/texts/0404/mkt.bodine0404.html

TELEPRESENCE

This capability was mentioned briefly in my column about the Skadden Arps web site, www.skadden.com (see The Bridge, May, 2004). Skadden Arps offered “Multimedia Office Tours” of several of their branch offices. (Since then, these have been removed in an apparent move to simplify their web offerings.)

PEOPLE, BEAUTY, REALITY

The office tour is a conducted tour, so the people are part of the show — and how better to humanize large organizations than to show us a few of the people who work there?

WHAT’S ON TONIGHT?

• “Orange County Office Tour” (1min:58sec), Preston Gates & Ellis
  www.prestongates.com
  This dazzling multimedia presentation loads quickly and mixes photos with beautiful effects -- slides plus narration and music. Eye candy compared to the fuzzy, liquid look of streaming video - Macromedia Flash required.

  The Preston Gates Flash tour was discussed on LawFirmInc.com:

  By Larry Bodine, April-May 2004

  Virtual Open House
  “Nobody expects a rock video to be used to announce an office relocation. But that's exactly the way Seattle's Preston Gates & Ellis debuted its new Orange County, Calif. office — complete with a virtual open house and office tour.”

  “Kathleen Peterson was managing partner when the project was developed. She says the entire project took about a month and cost about $5,000. ‘We created an open house that lasts far longer than a single evening, and effectively brands Preston Gates as a firm that is comfortable with technology,’ she says. Preston Gates e-mailed clients, prospects and colleagues, inviting them to click on a link and take the virtual tour.” http://www.lawfirminc.com/texts/0404/mkt.bodine0404.html

• “Virtual Tour” (3:00), Dewey Ballantine
  http://www.deweyballantine.com/employment_virtual_tour.cfm
  This is a simple collection of captioned office snapshots and portraits, presented as a s l o o o w sideways-crawling slide show - Macromedia Flash required.

• “Virtual-Reality Corporate Tour” (360 degree photo), Gunderson Dettmer http://www.gunder.com/firm_tour.htm
  Zoomable panoramic photos offer views of the lobby, boardroom, and offices in Menlo Park, Boston, and New York - QuickTime required. I think a few good photos would be better.

  The next three items are actually campus tours, not office tours, but I think it’s useful to include them.

• “Video Tour” (0:55), Washington University School of Law
  http://law.wustl.edu/qtlifewuls This perky campus tour includes slides and full-motion streaming video plus narration and music - QuickTime required.

• “Virtual Tour” (3:39), Duke Law School
  www.law.duke.edu/webcast/virtualtour.html
  A simple college video with a facilities orientation using slides and full-motion streaming video plus narration -RealPlayer required.

• “Law School Guided Video Tour” (4:12), Cornell Law School
  http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/admissions/media/DialupIndex.asp No instant gratification here. There is video -- but no streaming -- only downloadable zipped files - Macromedia Flash/Shockwave required.

In sum, these are 6 examples that offer a short tour of the tools that can be used to show off your workplace. These office or campus tours all present very short, very active, highly visual presentations — using video, Flash, or panoramic photo.