♬ Three is a magic number
Ya it is, it’s a magic number
Somewhere in that ancient mystic trinity
You’ll get three
As a magic number…♬

Written and performed by Bob Dorough

Steve Matthews, the creator of the Canadian Legal Blog Awards, has just announced the 2008 Clawbie Nomination process.  True to Steve’s creative and delightfully quirky mind, rather than just submitting a nomination, he has invited people to nominate three Canadian Legal blogs via a blog post.

Never being one to turn down a creative challenge, here are my three choices to kick things off:

1.  Slaw.ca: Hardly day goes by where I don’t look at Slaw and see what is on people’s minds.  The cooperative weblog idea is a powerful one – here we see web 2.0 concepts in action  – and the resulting dialogue between posts and comments makes the blog totally fresh and intriguing. The points of view come from all across Canada.  The topics are driven by what the Slaw community feels is important.  It is like being part of a great big respectful conversation that never stops – and never stops being interesting.  This is my nomination for Simon Fodden and the rest of the crew for crafting, nurturing and growing this ever so Canadian social legal blog.

2.   Twitter.  OK, now I know Steve will say this isn’t a blog per se.  Nor is it a Canadian blog per se. But it is a micro-blog – and there is a community of Canadians twittering – and tweating and listening to each other and to others – on Twitter.  I think these Canadians have crafted their own collective micro-blog on Twitter – and it is fascinating! Where Slaw is about a big, deep,  thoughtful community, Twitter is about being part of a different, dynamic, ‘flow of consciousness’ community.  The Canadians in the Twitter community know who they are – but that doesn’t get in the way of anything. This is really about having a dialogue with people. Kevin O’Keefe (an American, if that matters)  just posted to Twitter on the Clawbies while I was writing this. Twitter is everything about breaking legal and technology news and being involved – or part – of the story at the same time.  So my nomination is for all the Canadians who are on Twitter and crafting their own micro-blogging community within a community!

3.   law21.ca: Jordan Furlong is doing great things on his blog that deals with what my old mathematics professors would call inflection points.  These are points where a function changes curve and interesting things are happening.  Jordan is extraordinarily skilled in picking up on those inflection points in the legal community’s function and providing insightful commentary thereon.  Well thought, well done and well received.  Keep up the good work Jordan – my third nomination.

And so I encourage you to visit www.clawbies.ca and read the nominations and nominate a blog or two yourself! Oh – and Vote too!  That makes three – nominate, read and vote – an ancient magical trinity!