[Guest Blogger: Mary Anne Fry]


One of the songs in the play Rent is the “Seasons of Love.”

In the song we are asked how we measure a year in our life…  Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred (525,600) minutes in a year. ..Do you measure a year in daylights, in sunsets, , in laughter?

How about: In words?

How do we value 525,600 minutes of words?  We use words, stumble over them, misuse them and they are a seemingly free commodity. You recall the childhood taunt: “Sticks and Stone can break my bones, but words will never hurt me”  Wrong…. Words have lasting power. They are essential building blocks of human interactions… of communication.

As I was reviewing some leadership values and standards I was looking for common threads. One that especially stands out is that good communication is critical to the success of any project.

Part of communication is words, but effective communication is not just words.

A study on communication pioneered by Professor Albert Mehrabian  proposed that the meaning of words could be divided into 3 parts:

  • 7% on the word itself
  • 38% on the way the word is spoken
  • 55% (over half!) on body language and primarily facial expression

It is also interesting to note that there have been several studies offering evidence that people retain only 25% of text read online.

To be really powerful, words need to be teamed with body language and voice. And yet our opportunities to communicate verbally or in person are diminishing daily. We live in that 7% zone where it is necessary to communicate electronically… by the word itself.

Even with just a 7% power supply each of us still have the ability to drive our words in a positive direction to support our goals. We just have to keep in mind the limitations of the word alone when drafting the message and accept when it is better to pick up the phone or have a meeting.

How do you measure a year? 525,600 minutes of powerful positive words and hopefully a few amazing sunsets and lots of laughter.

If you’re like me, you probably read more blogs than you do magazines or maybe even newspapers. It’s a great platform that allows anyone (good or bad) to write about the topics that are interesting to them. I remember my boss back in 2003 talk about blogging, and I thought it sounded like the craziest thing I’d ever heard. However, after a few years of writing and reading blogs about law, technologies, libraries and many other topics, I’ve really come to appreciate a well-written blog.

Therefore, this week’s Elephant Post allows our contributors to share one or two of their favorites. We hope there are a couple on here that you haven’t read, or don’t have in your handy-dandy RSS feed, yet. Enjoy, and don’t forget that you can contribute to our Elephant Post each Thursday. After you read these perspectives, scroll to the bottom of the post and take a look at next week’s Elephant Post question. All you have to do is put your perspective in the form. It’s very easy!

Lawyer Perspective
Big Legal Brain
C. Hank Peters

First, I write it. And third, it adheres to the Daily Show approach to news, but this time the focus is on law practice management and how best to structure an efficient practice. Fifth, it’s pretty funny and occasionally offensive, two attributes most legal blogs lack.
Marketing Perspective
Harvard Business Review
Sophia Lisa Salazar

Let’s face it: not all of us could get into Harvard.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t audit the courses.
I was always a big fan of the magazine so, naturally, when they started up with the blogs it was the first one that I added to my google reader.
Giving me a heads up on the thought leadership in our country, giving sage business and management advice and keeping me in touch with the latest trends in the economy, it is a must read for me.
It helps me keep a broader perspective on my job. I’m not just a marketer, I’m a business woman.
Marketing Perspective
Brain Pickings
Sophia Lisa Salazar

Brain Pickings is to blogs what Picasso is to paintings.
An edgy hodge-podge of art, illustration, design and graphics, reviews and culture, I look and read and admire it every day.
It inspires me, pushes me and taunts me, like a demented running coach to do better, imagine bigger and race for that shiny star.
Knowledge Management Perspective
A2Z
Ayelette Robinson

A2Z is a blog written by Sarah Zearfoss, the Assistant Dean for Admissions at the University of Michigan Law School. Her posts are smart, insightful, wonderfully written, and remind me about aspects of the legal profession and about being a lawyer that I’ve either forgotten or never took the time to explore. Her musings are (not surprisingly) typically spun off of law school admissions stories, but those stories are just the triggers for more universal thoughts and reflections. I could have listed here any number of KM- or legal-IT-related blogs, but I’m highlighting Sarah’s because it’s off the beaten path and honestly, it’s just plain good.
Knowledge Management Perspective
Above and Beyond KM
Janis Croft

Well written musings that touch a variety of topics. Enjoyable reading.
Law Librarian Perspective
AOTUS: Collector In Chief
Greg Lambert

David S. Ferriero is the Archivist of the United States, and his blog shows the importance of how government officials can embrace the public they serve by creative use of social media.  Ferriero discusses everything from his ideas of what the future will look like to specifically how his organization is saving the treasures of the past. The stories are from his own special point of view, and show his passion for what he does. I think that all government officials… from the freshmen members of congress, to the senior members of the administration, all the way to the members of the US Supreme Court could learn a thing or two about how the AOTUS shares his message with the public.
Law Librarian Perspective
Jason Wilson’s – “Rethinck”
Greg Lambert

Anyone that knows Jason Wilson (via Twitter, his blog, or as the VP for Jones McClure Publishing) knows that “pulling punches” isn’t in his lexicon. If you want to read about the legal publishing industry from a point of view that says “things shouldn’t be this screwed up” and goes on to explain what could be done to “unscrew” it… then Rethinck is a must read blog.
Information Technology Perspective
LeadershipFreak
Scott Preston

This  is a well written, concise blog on improving leadership skills.  Dan Rockwell does a great job of distilling leadership concepts into simple, easily digestible ideas.  His blog is recognized as a top site for leadership learning and career advocacy.
Information Technology Perspective
knoco stories from the knowledge management front-line
Scott Preston

Nick Milton has a great deal of KM experience and does a good job of sharing what he has learned.  This is a great site for understanding the challenges with KM as well as good ideas and exercises on improving KM.
Knowledge Management Perspective
Work Awesome
Patrick DiDomenico

Great, fresh ideas about productivity, apps, and general awesomeness.

Next Week’s Elephant Post (2/10/2011)

What the legal industry needs right now is more _________!

This question was suggested by my good friend Emily Rushing (who has already called dibs on more “cowbell”! Because more cowbell makes everything better.)

So, what do you think the legal industry needs more of?? Why?? Contribute your perspective by filling out this easy form, or click on the link if for some reason you can’t see the form.

It’s been a very interesting year for Thomson Reuters and their WestlawNext product. This week, the folks at WestlawNext returned to LegalTech in New York to mark the anniversary (and for many of us law librarians, remind us that they still wish to get around us to sell this to your organization.) So, besides what I think is a great product that suffered from a bad marketing and sales plan, what has WLN accomplished this year?? Here’s the rundown from the WLN press release:

In the year since its launch, more than 15,000 law firms; corporate law departments; and law departments in federal, state and local government organizations have upgraded to WestlawNext, including 33 percent of Am Law 100 law firms. Also, more than 1,400 corporate law departments have upgraded to WestlawNext, including those from 20 percent of Fortune 100 companies, and WestlawNext is available in 97 percent of ABA-accredited law schools as well.

I think that many of the readers of this blog can probably read these stats and see “creative marketing” written all over it. I wonder how many of those 33% of AmLaw 100 firms were offered free upgrades to WLN, or other incentives to move over to the new product? I know I heard horror story after horror story of the significant price increases (or as WLN put it last year, “modest premium” increases) that prevented many large law firms to switch to WLN, even when their existing contract was expiring.

Again, I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. WestlawNext is a great product and offers a lot of features that make legal research easier and better. However, I will also say this again. Attempting to go around law librarians (who have to account for the cost of these services), coupled with the increase in pricing for the service, will make the transition to WLN much slower, and will leave a bad taste in the mouths of those responsible for making the upgrade to WLN. Whoever at Thomson Reuters that decided to turn the salespeople loose on the firms with a “get what you can get” approach to selling this product, needs to be fired. As I told Lexis last year, we don’t want to feel like we’re buying a used car from a sleazy salesman in a polyester suit. At this time, it appears that 67% of the AmLaw 100 firms agree with me.

Pricing Exposed to Academics
Last week, I was listening in on Rich Leiter’s podcast when he started discussing how he (as the Director of the University of Nebraska Law Library) is a huge fan of WLN and loves what it can do. However, even Rich was stunned when he saw the pricing sheet of WLN if you get access to information outside what is allowed in your contract. I wanted to jump in on the call and shout – “Welcome to my world, Rich!!”

The WestlawNext Academic platform now shows the students (and the faculty) of law schools, exactly how much the “street value” of WLN costs, and why law firm librarians always tell Summer Associates the stories of how past Summers’ were stupid enough to get into databases outside the firm’s contract and rack up $30K bills for looking at things like 50-state surveys. $3,400/hr databases is an old story in law firms, but I am happy that WLN is showing the pricing sheets to law students. It is also good for academics to understand that what they pay for Westlaw or WestlawNext is a fraction of what law firms with a similar number of users pays… a very small fraction. So, kudos to WLN for putting that information in front of them.

I still think that most firms will upgrade to WLN over the next two-three years. However, those firms that stuck with the basic Westlaw instead of upgrading aren’t exactly loosing sleep over it. The final move will come when Thomson Reuters announces that it is shutting down the Westlaw.com platform and forcing its users to either upgrade, or move to a different provider. It’s a shame that the last year has been a battle between firms and Thomson Reuters over the WLN product. I hope that Thomson Reuters has learned some lessons on how to release new products like this in the future… I can hope any way.

Here’s a snapshot of the WLN pricing sheet that students and faculty can now see. (Click to enlarge)

Chalk up another bar association for Fastcase… and a big one at that. Starting tomorrow, Fastcase will be a free service to all members of the Washington D.C. Bar Association. With the addition of the 70,000 D.C. bar members, that brings Fastcase’s total subscriber base to more than a half-million lawyers.

Fastcase has been very busy in the past few months having secured new bar agreements like Georgia and Washington, DC. They’ve also enhanced the interface (which my “user experience” librarians love to talk about), and agreed to support the Law.Gov project. Of course, all this movement with gaining new bar associations means that I’m going to have to update my map of free legal research providers through state bar associations!

Congrats to Fastcase and to the members of the D.C. bar.
Here’s the press release that’s going out about it tomorrow:

D.C. Bar Partners With Fastcase to Provide Free Legal Research
Members Gain Free Access to Nation’s Smartest Legal Research Tools
Media Contact: Jennifer Brand
202.731.2114
jbrand@brandsolutionsgroup.com
Washington, DC (February 1, 2011) — Legal publisher Fastcase and the District of Columbia Bar Association today announced a partnership that will provide all active and judicial members of the D.C. Bar with free access to the Washington, D.C. libraries in Fastcase’s comprehensive online legal research system.
Beginning February 1, 2011, more than 70,000 attorneys will receive free and unlimited access to one of the nation’s largest law libraries through the D.C. Bar website, www.dcbar.org. The service is unrestricted by time or number of transactions, and unlimited printing, reference assistance, and customer service are included for free.
The D.C. Bar is one of the nation’s largest bar associations, representing almost 10 percent of all attorneys in the United States. Its partnership with Fastcase reflects the Bar’s commitment to providing its members with outstanding services that enhance their practice.
“The D.C. Bar is excited to announce this new benefit and free resource for our members,” said Katherine Mazzaferri, Chief Executive Officer of the D.C. Bar. “Our members range from local solo and small firm attorneys to global law firm leaders, so offering free access to Fastcase is a valuable benefit that our entire membership can appreciate.”
Members will get free access to Fastcase’s D.C. law libraries, as well as the ability to subscribe individually to the Fastcase nationwide Premium subscription for $195 per member per year (the service normally costs $1,140 per year). Law firms can get even larger discounts by subscribing to Fastcase’s Enterprise Edition.
“A member benefit like this is difficult to value, but comparable services cost at least $2,000 per attorney per year, making the Fastcase worth more than $140 million per year to members of the D.C. Bar,” said Ed Walters, Fastcase CEO. “Fastcase’s approach to research harnesses the power of smarter research tools. We can provide better service at high volumes, which makes partnerships like the D.C. Bar such an effective win-win proposition.”
With the addition of the D.C. Bar partnership, Fastcase now provides free premium legal research to more than 500,000 subscribers, in dozens of AmLaw 200 law firms, 20 state bar associations and dozens of voluntary bar associations and law schools.
“That makes Fastcase by far the largest legal research service outside of Westlaw and LexisNexis,” said Phil Rosenthal, Fastcase President. “Fastcase is larger than Loislaw and Bloomberg Law combined. And those numbers are paid subscribers only — they don’t include users of Fastcase’s award-winning, free mobile apps.”
Fastcase was founded 11 years ago by two attorneys seeking to democratize the law and build smarter tools for legal research. Fastcase has gained overwhelming support from state bar associations, many of which have upgraded to Fastcase from LexisNexis, Casemaker, and Versuslaw in the last year.
“We’re excited to work with the D.C. Bar,” said Rosenthal. “We are a D.C.-based company, and have spent countless hours practicing law on the same side of the desk as many of the D.C. Bar members, so we understand the importance of saving time, keeping costs competitive, and using the right tool for the job.”
Fastcase has gained very strong momentum in the legal research market in 2010. Fastcase was voted #1 in Law Technology News’s inaugural Customer Satisfaction Survey, finishing first in 7 out of 10 categories over traditional research providers Westlaw and LexisNexis. Fastcase’s free apps for iPhone and iPad have dominated the category, winning the prestigious New Product of the Year award from the American Association of Law Libraries. And Fastcase joined Apple, Google, Twitter, and others in the prestigious EContent 100 listing of companies that matter most in the digital economy.
About Fastcase
As the smarter alternative for legal research, Fastcase democratizes the law, making it more accessible to more people. Using patented software that combines the best of legal research with the best of Web search, Fastcase helps busy users sift through the clutter, ranking the best cases first and enabling the re-sorting of results to find answers fast. Founded in 1999, Fastcase has more than 500,000 subscribers from around the world. Fastcase is an American company based in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.fastcase.com.
About The District of Columbia Bar
Created by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 1972, the District of Columbia Bar is the second largest unified bar association in the United States. The D.C. Bar’s core functions, supported by member dues, are the registration of lawyers, operation of a lawyer disciplinary system, maintenance of a Clients’ Security Fund, and certain other administrative operations. The D.C. Bar serves over 95,000 member attorneys, which represents nearly 10 percent of all attorneys in the United States. For more information, visit www.dcbar.org.
# # #
Jennifer Brand
Brand Solutions Group, LLC
(202) 621-8123 Phone
(202) 731-2114 Cell
jbrand@brandsolutionsgroup.com

Big tip-o-the-hat to Courthouse News Service for following up on the class action suit brought by Texas resident Karen McPeters against Montgomery County’s (Texas) mandatory use of LexisNexis for electronic filing of court documents. We discussed the Federal class action lawsuit brought by McPeters back in April, but it appears that the Federal Judge was showing some doubt about the standing of the case in federal court on the issue of filing fees preventing due process or equal access to the law.
Cameron Langford at CNS gives a great “blow-by-blow” of the case, where McPeters equates the fee to a poll tax that is discriminatory to the public that can’t afford the fee… and essentially equivalent to a literacy test for those that are not computer literate enough to understand how to file document electronically. Those are interesting arguments, however, I did find one statement in the complaint that stood out for a much more practical reason. According to the complaint, LexisNexis charges over twice as much for filing over other e-filing services that serve Texas Courts.

Very interesting…(oh, and for you non-Texans… Bexar County is pronounced similarly to “Bear”… if you say Bex-ar County, they’ll know you’re not from around here.)

Here’s the synopsis of the complaint. It is definitely worth a read.

At the beginning of January, we decided to run an experiment where we’d offer free advertising space on our blog. As we end the first full month of the experiment, we think we’ve had a pretty good start to the experiment, and would like to share some of the details on what’s happened so far.

First of all, we had to actually take the idea of running free ads, and turn it into something we could manage easily. We decided that for the format of our blog, we asked that the advertisers get us a web-friendly image that was 167 pixels high by 200 pixels wide. They would also need to get us a link to the website they wanted to direct the reader to. On our side, we needed to find a way that would rotate through the ads and make it fair for all of the advertisers. After scouring the Interwebs for a few minutes, I found a couple of scripts that would work on our  Blogger site. One was a rotating script that would run the ads in order, but would change the ad every 10 seconds or so. The other script was one that would randomly pick the ad whenever a page was loaded. I decided to go with the random script over the rotating script because it seemed to be the “fairest” way to run the ads. The rotating script didn’t go to waste, however, as we used it to run some of our kudos for the blog (see the rotating images on the right-hand part of the page below the “Follow Us on Twitter” links.

I would have thought that we would have about a dozen or so potential advertisers right off the bat. And, we did have bites from about that many within the first week of the experiment. What was interesting, was that we had about half of those that were really interested, not get back with us once we said get us a link and an image and we’ll post it. I found that to be interesting. I also found it interesting that some of the advertisers’ links were directly to a site, while a couple of them had set up the links to track the amount of traffic coming from these specific ads.

Now that we’re stepping into month two of the experiment, we’re looking to bring in some new advertisers. If you’re interested in free ad space on 3 Geeks, then contact me about it (I’ll probably just tell you to get me a 167 x 200 ad and a link.) As with January, we’re looking to encourage the growth of smaller, local or regional providers… but, we’re pretty open minded, so even if you’re a huge corporation, but are running something unique that would be of interest to those that read this blog, we’ll talk with you about that, too.

I want to really thank the five inaugural advertisers (slash guinea pigs) in this experiment. Onit, PLI, Jones McClure Publishing, Kiiac, and CALI were all brave enough to trust us with their brand, and I hope that our little experiment has sent some new folks their way. Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to put them back in the rotation later in the year.

Canadian law firm, Torys, is no stranger to using multimedia to present its annual Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) Trends. Their efforts in making a video podcast of the report even earned them the “Marketing Initiative of the Year” award at the Marketing Partner Forum in January 2007. The video podcasts have been well received by their clients, but Torys took the idea to a higher level this year by creating an animated version of their trends report using white board animation, through the talents of animator Ben Rivers, to enhance the viewer’s experience. Torys animated M&A Trends for 2011 even surpasses our idea we had last year about turning those legal trends surveys into children’s books.

I had a chance to correspond with the voice behind the M&A Trends video, co-leader of Torys’ M&A Practice, Matthew Cockburn, to discuss the details behind the making of the video. I could tell right away from Matt’s responses that he is extremely proud of the video, and loved how Ben Rivers’ artwork brought the subject matter to life. The group of lawyers and marketing professionals at Torys storyboarded the topic and came up with some outlines for Rivers to use along with the recorded audio. “Ben really understood what we were looking for and did a great job,” commented Cockburn.

It seems that the most difficult part of the process was the storyboarding.  Cockburn said that “it took several days to prepare the storyboard and develop the style.” However, once the group settled on the storyboard they wanted to go with, Ben Rivers came into the Toronto office of Torys to create the drawings and shoot the video. So, after days of sweating over the details of the storyboarding, the actual video shooting only took one day.

I asked Matt Cockburn why Torys decided to go with a white board story telling of the M&A trends report, and have they received any feedback from their clients yet. He told me that they had “sent the Trends publication out to our clients and contacts with a link to our M&A Top Trends microsite.” With the 2011 edition being the fifth year of the popular Torys publication, the response from the clients has been very positive. “The feedback has been great. We have had a number of comments from clients telling us how much they enjoyed it. Most of the comments suggest that people thought the video was fresh and engaging.”

The head of Torys Marketing Department, Stuart Wood, must have been thrilled to hear clients say that a law firm’s trends report was “fresh and engaging.” Cockburn gave Wood the credit for coming up with the idea of using a white board animation video to enhance the trends report. It is also helps that Wood’s idea can also be distributed through Torys’ microsite, YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, and even through Torys’ iPhone app. It seems that all Torys is missing is broadcasting this on a local public access station.

The efforts are paying off with a increase in viewers over the previous years’ productions. “At the moment, the total views are over 1200,” Cockburn told me. Not too shabby for a topic like Mergers & Acquisitions trends in the Canadian marketplace. “Ultimately, we would like as many people as possible to read our Trends publication,” continued Cockburn, “we’ll review the metrics to see if the video helps increase interest in the publication and in our M&A practice overall.”

When I asked Matt Cockburn if he had any suggestions for other law firms contemplating doing something like this, he replied firms will “need the content to generate the interest in the first place. As a firm, we have had great success with the Top Trends publication and so this year we gave it a new twist. But we really focus on the content first.”

Finally, I wondered if Torys had any plans to try this again in the future. Cockburn didn’t hesitate in responding with a firm “Yes” on that question. “Yes. We are always looking for new ways to engage with our clients. I think everyone worked well together on a tight timeline and we are very happy with the result. Ben and the rest of the production team were terrific and made the whole exercise a lot of fun.”

Well, enough of the discussion of the video for “M&A: Torys’ Top Trends for 2011,” take a look at if for yourself and see what you think about the “twist” that Torys gave their clients this year. Congratulations to Matt Cockburn, Ben Rivers and Stuart Wood for coming up with a great way to present the M&A Trends this year. I hope we see more of this from Torys (and others) this year.

When you’re at the proverbial cocktail party, and someone asks you what you do, do you have an answer? As a professional in a field known by virtually no one (knowledge management), I can tell you that one of the situations I used to fear most was getting the dreaded “what do you do?” question. It sounds so innocent, doesn’t it? And yet it used to set my mental cogs into a twisting, mostly downward, spiral. I had no idea how to answer that question (a) briefly [in case the person isn’t really that interested], (b) coherently [so that I don’t sound like I’m making it up], and (c) substantively [so that I actually answer the person’s question and explain what I do]. But about a year ago, I finally came up with my elevator speech — a way of describing what I do briefly, coherently, and substantively. This is quite a point of pride for me not only because it took me so long to figure out, but also because I’ve found that my speech actually works! Each time I share it to respond to the “what do you do?” question, I’ve been greeted in return with genuine understanding, and even an interest in hearing more. So, what is this 30-second pitch I’ve developed? Well, here you go — I explain that: “What I do is parallel to what Google did for the web. All the websites it searches already existed and were already out there available to be viewed, but suddenly with Google people were able to find those websites much more easily.” One of the reasons I like the comparison for the layperson of knowledge management to Google is that it leverages the distinction between access to content and the content itself that, prior to Google, most people simply did not get, but which Google has since made infamous. Certainly one part of knowledge management is content development and aggregation, but that part is typically easier to explain. The aspect that always tripped me up in the past was how to express the access part of knowledge management. I could say I design, build, and launch a tool that searches; a tool that files email; a new portal; a practice toolkit; a tool that tags documents; a more streamlined process to create documents; etc etc… but listing out projects is hardly the right response at that party to the person asking what you do. So I’m pleased to say that I now have an elevator speech. But I’m always interested in hearing how others describe what they do to those completely outside the legal industry. So if you have an elevator speech too, please comment here and share it with me.

Every once in a while, we like to lob a softball out for everyone to answer. Of course, if you hate what you do, then I guess this wouldn’t really be a softball question for you (good luck on the job search when the economy rebounds, though!) For the rest of us, there are just certain things we do that make us feel good about choosing our profession. I love using the analogy of the game of Careers where different professions bring in different categories of success. Few of us get a good balance between fame (), happiness (), and salary($), but sometimes we get close. [FYI – I’m still trying to think of a good Elephant Post Question that brings in the rules of Careers… let me know if you have a good one!)] We have a number of perspectives this week where people have found a good balance, and enjoy what they do. Whether it is Marketing, KM, Libraries, or CI, it seems that the common theme is that they like what they do, and they feel like they are accomplishing something everyday. Don’t worry if you didn’t get a chance to contribute to this week’s post. After you read the perspectives on this week’s question, we give everyone a chance to answer next week’s question… all without even having to leave this page!! Marketing Perspective Socialicious Danny Johnson I work in Marketing at NetDocuments and manage the social media strategy. Taking what I like to do, interact with people, to work, makes it amazing. Also, cloud computing is the emerging tech of the decade and being a part of it is fascinating. Its a fast paced market so it forces me to stay current or else get left behind. Knowledge Management Perspective You mean there’s something NOT to like? Ayelette Robinson Other than not being able to spend more time out in the sun and fresh air (though my pale skin probably wouldn’t handle that very well in any case), everything about my profession is right up my alley. In no particular order, here’s what I love about my profession: I get to leverage all my prior professional knowledge as though all my prior positions led me in a straight line to where I am today (though they didn’t, at least not intentionally), I get to think of creative conceptual and visual solutions to problems which exercises the artistic side of my brain, I get to have fun picking technology apart and putting it back together again, I get to hang out with both lawyers (business problem solvers) and geeks (techies), I get to work on collaborative teams, I get to make others’ lives easier, I get to bask in the knowledge that there will always be new and increasingly interesting problems to solve, and last but certainly not least, I get to cross paths with the smartest, most interesting, and most fun professionals I know, which inspires me and humbles me every single day. Law Librarian Perspective Magical Research Moments Ellen Quinn Research and problem solving. I love deconstructing a question, considering or discovering resources and then applying them to solve the problem before me. That time of intense concentration and problem-solving zen is what got me into the profession of law librarianship and what keeps it new and interesting. I enjoy the social aspects of research –collaboration with attorneys, staff, courts, government agencies, help desk staff, and other librarians – to provide solutions for our clients. I also love the little things, those “pulling a rabbit out of a hat” moments. These usually involve a request for a specific item – the requester doesn’t know where to find it so they come to you. And because you have many years of experience, you have a thorough working knowledge of legal and non-legal resources, and because you regularly get that same sort of question in various guises – you email the item to them before they (a) get back to their office, or (b) within a five minutes after you get the email request, or (c) you pull an actual book off the shelf right before their eyes, – or (d) because you know that other librarians want to help, you take advantage of interlibrary loan networks and that world-class research library down the street. Competitive Intelligence Manager Perspective “It’s not a job, it’s a profession” Emily C. Rushing Some folks have “jobs” and that’s fine. I’ve had many jobs, jobs are good things. But to have a profession is so much more rewarding. Definitions of “profession” cite to a “calling” and require “specialized knowledge” and “long and intensive academic preparation”. They also reference the “whole body of people engaged in a profession”. This calling and the community is one of the things I most love about my profession. We debate and disagree (hopefully respectfully), but library/research/knowledge/intelligence professionals can and do collaborate, share ideas and work together to improve ourselves and the practices of our institutions. The folks in my profession are some of the smartest, most interesting and dedicated people I’ve ever known. So, belonging to library and intelligence communities as a fellow professional, to me, is better than any ole’ job. Like my colleagues, it’s my profession and my calling. Lawyer Perspective Chief Builder Donna Chmura I am a business lawyer. What I like most about it is that I am helping to build something for my clients, rather than tear something down or pick up the pieces in litigation. The second-best thing is being able to learn about so many businesses and industries, and what makes them tick. Information Technology Perspective Solidarity Scott Preston There are several aspects of my profession that I love. As a technologist, I love the fact that the profession is in a constant state of change. Perhaps the approach toward finding and implementing technology does not change as frequently as it should, but certainly technology is constantly changing and that keeps things interesting. Another aspect of my profession that I love is the legal environment. I work with some of the best and brightest legal minds in the industry and these people expect the best in everyone around them. As I like to say, you better be willing and able to bring your “A” game or you will not last long in the legal environment. You must have a good understanding of how you will approach challenges and be comfortable having your ideas challenged. Finally, I love the camaraderie I have with my many peers at other law firms. I have always been amazed by the amount of information and idea sharing that goes on between law firm technologists, as well as other administrative areas. Law Librarian Perspective Sherlock Holmes…Eat your heart out! Mark Gediman I love searching for the needle in a haystack, following the breadcrumb trail and generally pulling a research rabbit out of my hat. Tracking down the obscure is fun and challenging, the more painstaking the better. That’s what makes me look forward to work in the morning. At least, I think that’s why. Marketing Perspective Voila! Lisa Salazar Creativity.I love taking literally “nothing”–air, web space, another dimension–and creating a new thing. It is a complete a total rush.And it gets really fun when you do it with other people. Some of the best days at work are days when me, the IT guys and the graphics guys sit around a table and come up with a new way to do things.Now that’s a rush! Next Week’s Elephant Post Question:

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The McKinsey Quarterly put out an interesting article about business strategy, and outlined “ten timeless tests” that you should think about when evaluating your company’s strategic direction. (note: free registration required to read the entire article)

Bruce MacEwan at Adam Smith, Esq. blog took the tests and applied them to how a law firm looks at its strategic direction. Both of these posts provide a nice insight into business strategies and law firm strategies, but I’d like to look at it from an even narrower prospective of law library strategies and see how asking these ten questions can help structure successful implementation of strategic plans.
Here are the ten questions (Note: McKinsey chart shows that most companies’ strategies (65%) pass 3 or fewer of these test.)
Test 1: Will your strategy beat the market?
Test 2: Does your strategy tap a true source of advantage?
Test 3: Is your strategy granular about where to compete?
Test 4: Does your strategy put you ahead of trends?
Test 5: Does your strategy rest on privileged insights?
Test 6: Does your strategy embrace uncertainty?
Test 7: Does your strategy balance commitment and flexibility?
Test 8: Is your strategy contaminated by bias?
Test 9: Is there conviction to act on your strategy?
Test 10: Have you translated your strategy into an action plan?
I think it would be interesting to take a generic library strategic plan – such as this one from Duke University – adapt if for a law library, and run it through the series of tests to see how the strategy holds up to the questions.
Here’s the Duke Library strategies, changed to be more generic:
  1. Improve the User Experience
  2. Provide Digital Content, Tools & Services
  3. Develop New Research & Training Partnerships
  4. Support the Organization’s Priorities
  5. Enhance Library Spaces
Maybe an even better approach is to take the basic strategy (like Duke’s “Improve the User Experience”) and drive it through these questions in order to come up with a better overall strategy. It may even turn out that the original strategy isn’t a good idea at all and the library shouldn’t waste time on it. As the quote goes from Phil Rosenzweig in the McKinsey article, “There’s always new stuff out there, and most of it’s not very good.” Perhaps running the concept of your new strategy through the test can help weed out those “not very good” strategies.
So, if we took the “Improve the User Experience” and applied Test 1 to see if it would beat the market, how would it hold up?? First of all, I think we’d need to identify two things before we go any further. Who is the User? What is our defined Market?
Who is the User?
If we’re talking about a law firm library, then the user would be defined as the attorneys and staff of the firm that benefit from the services the law library provides. Notice that I didn’t use the phrase “attorneys and staff that use the library.” My thoughts on that were that would be too narrow a definition (as probably there are a huge chunk of lawyers and staff that don’t directly use the library, but still indirectly receive benefit from the services provided by the library… such as the library’s maintenance of the online subscription databases, or Intranet links.)
What is our defined Market?
This one is an interesting question and perhaps some law firm librarians do not think there is a defined market in which they are competing. But, let’s step back a minute and think about a broad market definition of who we compete against on a day-to-day basis.
  • Online databases – whether it is Google, Westlaw, Lexis, or any of the other countless sources of information available to your defined Users, they are all competing to get your users to use their services over yours.
  • Internal market – Are there others within your firm that are providing duplicate services? Paralegals, Associates, clerks and secretaries may be positioned to provide some of the same services that your library provides, and may have a competitive advantage because of their proximity to decision makers within the firm. I’m not saying that it is right or wrong… it’s just that they have to be recognized as part of the market.
  • External market – Are there others outside your firm that are providing duplicate services? This type of external market could range from consultants that come in to assist in the training of library users, to Westlaw/Lexis attorneys, to the Barnes & Noble down the street, to outsourced resources. Again, this isn’t designed to make you take a defensive stance against others in the market… you just need to understand who those players are in order to answer Test 1 honestly.
What does “Beat the Market” Mean?
I got in a bit of trouble with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago when I mentioned that a law library shouldn’t run itself like a business and turn itself into a Barnes & Noble. Your library is a business, but it is one with a peculiar type of profit model. So, when we look at the first test and we define what it means to “Beat the Market,” you’ll need to really think about what that means for your individual law library. I’d say it would be safe to say that a generic answer like this would get you started:
“Beating the Market means that the strategy will better position the law library to compete in the market place against internal and external competitors, and will improve the way the library leverages the use of internal and external competitors.”
In other words, even if internal and external competitors end up being the best way to accomplish our objectives, it is accomplished in a way that makes sure the law library is still an important player in that market. If implementing this specific strategy places your law library in a stronger position within your defined market, then I’d say that you’ve passed Test 1.
The McKinsey article says that Test 1 is comprehensive and the remaining nine “disaggregate the picture of a market-beating strategy.” However, stopping at Test 1 may not uncover some of the other weaknesses (or strengths) of your strategy. Therefore, having a conversation about the remaining nine strategies is important in order to have a dialog with others to determine how strong the strategy is, and the best method of applying the strategy successfully.
I’d actually love it if we could recruit some guests to come on and try their hand at answer Tests 2 – 9 on this generic strategy of “Improve the User Experience.” Let me know if you want to tackle Test 2 and explain if this strategy taps a true source of advantage for a law library.