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Upcoming Events and Digital Media Roundup

BERKMAN CENTER FOR INTERNET & SOCIETY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY
April 22, 2009 // Upcoming events and digital media

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[1] [TODAY 4/22/09] "The End of Lawyers? The End of Law Schools?" with Professor Richard Susskind, Author of "The End of Lawyers?" and IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England (http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/lawlab/2009/04/susskind)

[2] [TUESDAY 4/28/09] Berkman Center Luncheon Series: "Theories of Media Evolution" with W. Russell Neuman, University of Michigan (http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2009/04/neuman)

[3] [TUESDAY 4/28/09] A Sneak Preview of Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine with Stephen Wolfram and Jonathan Zittrain (http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2009/04/wolfram)


[TODAY] THE END OF LAWYERS?
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4/22/09, 12:15 PM ET, Griswold Hall 110, Harvard Law School
Map: http://map.harvard.edu/level3.cfm?mapname=camb_allston&tile=F6&quadrant=C&series=N
Free and Open to the Public
RSVP Required (rsvp@cyber.harvard.edu)

Topic: The End of Lawyers? The End of Law Schools?

Guest: Professor Richard Susskind, Author of "The End of Lawyers?" and IT Adviser to the Lord Chief Justice of England

Will lawyers be casualties in the digital revolution? This is the controversial prediction of Richard Susskind, author of The End of Lawyers? Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services. He believes that lawyers will have to ask themselves what elements of their current workload could be undertaken more quickly, more cheaply, more efficiently, or to a higher quality using different and new methods of working – because if they don’t, their competitors will. The market is unlikely to tolerate expensive lawyers for tasks that can be better discharged with support of modern systems and techniques.

Prof. Susskind predicts that the legal profession will be driven by two forces in the coming decade: by a market pull towards the commoditization of legal services, and by the pervasive development and uptake of new and disruptive legal technologies. The threat here for lawyers is clear - their jobs may well be eroded or even displaced. At the same time, for entrepreneurial lawyers, Susskind foresees quite different law jobs emerging which may be highly rewarding, even if very different from those of today.

Is the same true of law schools? Is the current model of legal education facing radical change? Prof. Susskind will explore these and other challenging questions in a lecture open to the entire Law School community.

This event will be webcast live; for more information and a complete description, see the event web page: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/lawlab/2009/04/susskind


[TUESDAY] BERKMAN LUNCHEON SERIES on THEORIES OF MEDIA EVOLUTION
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4/28/09, 12:30 PM ET, Berkman Center Conference Room
RSVP is required (rsvp@cyber.harvard.edu).

Topic: Theories of Media Evolution
Guest: W. Russell Neuman, University of Michigan

The Internet is a child of its forebears. In the tradition of the legendary ‘horseless carriage’ and ‘wireless receiver’ one hears today of movies, TV and radio as being ‘on the Internet.’ Clearly, we live in a period of transition. It may be useful to draw from recent media history to understand a world in which the Internet Protocol functions as a universal and ubiquitous human electronic interface. This presentation traces the flow of information and entertainment into the typical American home from 1960 to 2005 in search of a theory of media evolution.

W. Russell Neuman is the John Derby Evans Professor of Media Technology in Communication Studies and Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. He returned to UM after serving as a Senior Policy Analyst in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy working in the areas of information technology, broadband policy and technologies for border security.

This event will be webcast live; for more information and a complete description, see the event web page: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2009/04/neuman


[TUESDAY] A SNEAK PREVIEW OF WOLFRAM ALPHA: COMPUTATIONAL KNOWLEDGE ENGINE
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4/28/09, 3:00 PM ET, Austin East Classroom, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School
Free and Open to the Public
RSVP is requested (rsvp@cyber.harvard.edu) or FB (http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=79692322050)

A Sneak Preview of Wolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge Engine with Stephen Wolfram and Jonathan Zittrain

There's been great anticipation around Stephen Wolfram's ambitious project to create a comprehensive "computational knowledge engine." The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University will host a sneak preview of the Wolfram|Alpha system, and a discussion of its underlying technology and implications. Participants will include Wolfram|Alpha founder Stephen Wolfram and Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of Law.

Stephen Wolfram is the creator of Mathematica, the author of A New Kind of Science, and now the creator of Wolfram|Alpha. He is the founder and CEO of Wolfram Research.

Jonathan Zittrain is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, is a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and served as its first executive director from 1997-2000.

This event will be webcast live; for more information and a complete description, see the event web page: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2009/04/wolfram


OTHER EVENTS OF NOTE
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[1] 4/22/09 "Scholarship in the Digital Age: Information, Infrastructure, and the Internet" with Christine Borgman of UCLA // Harvard IIC (http://iic.harvard.edu/seminars/iic-colloquium-series-fall-2008-through-spring-2009/iic-colloquium-scholarship-digital-age-)

NEW: 4/28/09 public launch of MenSpeakUp.org

[2] 4/29/09 C4FCM Lecture Series: The Future of Profitable International News with Philip Balboni // MIT (http://civic.mit.edu/event/c4fcm-lecture-series-the-future-of-profitable-international-news-with-philip-balboni)

[3] 5/2/09 New Media Literacy's "Learning in a Participatory Culture" (http://newmedialiteracies.org/)

[4] 5/19/09 Anti Spyware Coalition Public Meeting: Creating a Chain of Trust (http://antispywarecoalition.org/events/may2009.php)


DIGITAL MEDIA: Watch and Listen
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Did you miss this week's luncheon talk? Catch up with Berkman videos, podcasts, pictures, and dig in to our archive at http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive.

-RADIO BERKMAN: My Own Private Infrastructure with GILLIAN HADFIELD (http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive/podcasts/radioberkman118)

-BERKMAN LUNCHEON SERIES with DAN GILLMOR on "Mediactive: Why media consumers, not just creators, need to be active users" (http://cyber.harvard.edu/interactive/events/luncheon/2009/04/gillmor)


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BERKMAN CALENDAR & UPCOMING EVENTS PREVIEW
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See our events calendar if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, conferences, and more: http://cyber.harvard.edu/events. All of our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted.

[1] 5/5/09 Berkman Center Luncheon Series on "From the Crowd to the Cloud: Social Media in the Obama Administration" with Liz Losh of UC Irvine (https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2009/05/losh)

[2] 5/11/09 "Protecting Your Scholarship: Copyrights, Publication Agreements, and Open Access" with Kenneth Crews of Columbia University (http://cyber.harvard.edu/events/2009/05/crews)


ABOUT US
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The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University was founded to explore cyberspace, share in its study, and help pioneer its development. For more information, visit http://cyber.harvard.edu.