John Benson dot com

Last week I had the privilege of speaking at the LayerOne conference in Pasadena.  Once again, it was a great time and I want to express my gratitude to all those involved in putting the conference on.

All of the presentations are now posted (noid is a DVD ripping machine) on YouTube and I encourage you to check a few out.  

This is the first of a pretty decent run of talks I’ll be doing over the next few months.  You’ll find some more information below:

• May 30, 2008 at the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association Headquarters- Beyond the Rules:  The Mechanics of Electronic Discovery
• June 13, 2008 at Harrah’s Hotel – 15 Hour Review of the Law (Giving the 2007-2008 e-discovery update)
• June 20, 2008 at the Crown Center Exhibition Hall - 15 Hour Review of the Law (Giving the 2007-2008 e-discovery update)
• June 30, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency - 15 Hour Review of the Law (Giving the 2007-2008 e-discovery update)
• August 6, 2008 at Caesar’s Palace – Blackhat USA 2008 – (When Lawyers Attack – Dealing with the New Rules of Electronic Discovery)
• TBD at the Riviera – Defcon 16
• August 22 in Wichita, KS – Information Architecture Mapping

This will be my first time speaking at Blackhat and I’m thrilled that they were able to give me an extended amount of time for me to cover my topic.  I’ll have a whopping 150 minutes to cover the electronic discovery process from end to end.  With so much more time available, I’ll be reworking my materials from the ground up.  

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Needless to say I’ve been swamped with work (and usual spring activities) and not much has happened with CCCKC.  I’ll be organizing a meeting next week.

I’ll be out and about at the Kansas City Hack Day, this Saturday.  I had a great time at StartFest last week, met some great people and look forward to meeting some more this weekend.  

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 After a little incident with my MacBook Pro, I’ve had to abandon my former PGP key.  There are currently some issues with the mail.app GPG plugin and I haven’t tried the beta.  I certainly confirm that the latest version of GPG works fine on Leopard from the binary.  If you want to get started using GPG on OS X, this is an excellent walkthrough.

My new private key can be found at the MIT keyserver as well as here.

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I just completed the rollover from the old webhost to my new one, Huevia with few issues.  I think this host should be much better and work as a long term solution. If you notice any bumps in the road, shoot me an email and I’ll take a look.  

Shmoocon was a tremendous experience. I had a great time, met some new people and ate some sushi. I’ve posted a handout to serve as a supplement to the talk itself. Those that attended (or view it online later on) will notice that the slides themselves aren’t worth much on their own so I’ve pulled this together which hits most of the high points.

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When I got to Dulles last Monday I received word from Evil that I’ve been selected to speak once again at LayerOne in Pasadena. For those who haven’t attended before, I highly recommend it. The venue is very nice and Pasadena always has excellent weather. I missed the GSM talk at Shmoo because I was finishing up my slides, but look forward to hearing David Hulton’s talk as well as David Bryan’s which I’ve already heard good things about.

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I’ve been neck deep at work from the firm and a design project that I’m completing for a dear friend of mine, Chris Benjamin, who is running for Missouri State Senate. He’s a great guy who shares many of my beliefs and know he’s going to be a tremendous senator.

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The comments should appear automatically now. I had Wordpress set to keep them all in a moderation queue, but wasn’t receiving any notification that I needed to clear some out.

  The other day I received an email out of the blue from an outfit called Schmap who produces interactive travel guides for cities around the world informing me that my photo (see above) had been short listed to be a part of their guide to Tampa.   Considering how easy it would be to just gank the image without my permission, I thought that it was pretty nice that they let me know.They’ve obviously been doing some digging considering that the image only has seven total views since being posted last spring but it is a heck of a shot and makes for some cool wallpaper despite being taken on a point and shoot camera.

New Job!
Excellent news on the career front! A few weeks ago I began working for a large law firm in Kansas City as a litigation support consultant. It’s a rather vague title and a difficult position to summarize. I will be working full time as an expert in electronic discovery and the various challenges presented by electronically stored information. I’ll be working directly with clients to help them take proactive steps to prepare for litigation and working internally to educate attorneys on e-discovery issues as they relate to current litigation projects.
Unlike associates, I am exempt from any billable hour quotas or expectations which will allow me to focus my efforts, take part in a wide variety of cases and continue other endeavors which I hold dear. I hope to return to my position teaching law and ethics at Colorado Tech and will be putting a good deal of effort to help grow the KCMBA Technology and Computer Law Committee. Things are pretty exciting around here right now and I’m really looking forward to the next few months.
New Designs!
Over the past few months I completed and published two websites which I haven’t had a chance to add to my design portfolio. In May the Enchanted Forrest Condominiums approached me to revamp their web presence as they completed construction on their new buildings outside St. Louis. I am very pleased with how the project turned out and certainly wish Kim and Claire good luck with their new endeavor.
I also had the opportunity to build a site for the law practice of my old trial advocacy partner, Heath Stuart. He’s a great guy and busting his tail to make it as a young solo practitioner in the Kansas City area. If you have any issue from traffic tickets to estate planning, you should give him a call.
I’ll be collaborating with my cousin on a new project for my father’s range management business soon. I’m looking forward to collaborating with someone for the first time and think that by taking advantage of each of our strengths that we can produce something with some real pop, as they say.
Finally there will be some big changes with this website as well. I’ll be producing a good deal of content relating to e-discovery, technology and law and want to make some changes. Primarily I’m concerned with the RSS capabilities of my current CMS and Joomla’s development cycle has been less than impressive since I first chose it. I’ve done some poking around and have settled on ModX as my CMS of the future. I’ve been looking for a system which doesn’t assume too much, but is more flexible than Wordpress.
New Speaking Engagements!
At the end of October I had the opportunity to speak at Pumpcon in Philadelphia and had a great time. I’m working on additional material to supplement the slides which I presented then and look forward to demystifying the e-discovery process at a Con near you. At this point I’ll certainly be in attendance of LayerOne and DEFCON and hope to add a couple new locations as well as some exciting CLE classes around Missouri.
New Content!
As I talked about above, I’ll be writing a good deal of material on e-discovery and other legal issues presented by electronic evidence. I’m going to stay away from the standard fare of intellectual property issues and strike a balance between writing that appeals solely to attorneys or information technology professionals.
Get excited.