“The days of sitting in our rooms as marketers — defining our message — pushing it out there — are over.  Now your brand is the sum conversations about it….  This changes entirely the rules of engagement.” — Marcel Lebrun, Radian6 CEO 

While going over a Fulbright Forum PDF Presentation called “MySpace Is Everyone’s Space“, I saw a mention of Radian6, which was defined as a “platform to help companies listen to the social web to know what is being said about [their] company.”  I jumped over to Radian6 website and started looking around (and watching videos) to see what they, and their motto of “The Engaged Brand” were all about.

Radian6 makes its money through a social web monitoring software with their pricing starting “at $500 per month, per profile for up to 10,000 new monthly results… and $100 per month, per user ID.”  There is a great write-up on Radian6 and their new console over at TechCrunch— pay particular attention to the comments after the review and notice how Radian6’s customers rave about the product.  Even if you’re not interested in the software, there is tons of information resources available at Radian6’s website.  If you scroll down to the bottom of the Radian6 home page, there is a list of resources that would help those trying to understand the social media impact on their business… all the way up to Case Studies of how companies like Pepsi, UPS, and even Cirque du Soleil are monitoring, listening and engaging in the ‘sum conversations’ about their brand.  So, even if you’re not ready to plunk down the cash for the Radian6 product, there is still a lot that they are offering to help educate a marketer understand, plan, engage, and evaluate how the company brand is being discussed in the social network community.

One example that I liked was the PDF presentation called “The Why and How of Social Media Participation” where they laid out the reasons that social media participation matters and the need to have a plan for building a listening strategy and engaging the social community.  I especially enjoyed the section on building awareness of who your company is, and what you do.  On the social web, the factors that help build that lasting awareness are:

  • Relevance: How what you’re doing aligns with what someone needs or is interested in
  • Context: Whether you’re present and engaged when and where your audience needs you to be
  • Resonance: How much your presence and solution endures and stays relevant over time
  • Accessibility: How well you provide your community access to the people behind your brand
No longer will the “one-size-fits-all marketing” approach work.  With the social web there is an expectation of “a more shared, human approach.” 

For a marketer, or anyone that is looking for information on how to get started in social media, monitor social media, or show others the importance of engaging in social media, then I suggest going to Radian6’s website… scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and read the case studies, presentations, white papers, and blogs that are Radian6 has put out there for you.  You’ll learn a lot, even if you don’t spend a penny.

After watching the latest TED Talk by Derek Sivers on “how movements really get started“, I recalled how I understood how to leverage Twitter. Derek talks about how movements start not with a leader but with its first follower. For what is a leader but a nut case until he is followed?

As you might remember, I am a big fan of Ashton Kutchner. I think he is completely under-estimated as a marketer. In fact, I think that is probably his biggest strength: he is willing to act a fool in order to laugh all the way to the bank.

When I first started on Twitter, I watched him and Demi interact with each other. And I realized something: they had a tacit agreement to retweet each other’s tweets. Of course, we all know that when you retweet something your exponentially exposing someone else’s work to your followers. But what if you had an agreement between three people to retweet each other’s tweets?

Yeah, you got it. When 3 gee–errr–people retweet each other’s tweets, it just takes off like a whirlwind.

Just one more reason to encourage companies to embrace social media–the whole is oh so much more than the sum of its parts.

I am happy just be a lowly follower … 😉

My good friend, Mark Gediman told me many times that he designs his competitive intelligence (CI) reports like a children’s book.  A big picture… and a little bit of text.  It seems that attorneys have about the attention span of a child when it comes to reading CI reports, so this makes perfect sense to me.  So, when I saw a review of “How to Publish a Children’s Book with StoryJumper” on makeuseof.com, I thought I’d uncovered the motherload of CI reporting tools, and immediately had to test it out.  As luck would have it, I listened to the podcast interview this morning of Mark Medice explaining the Hildebrandt Baker Robbins Q4 Peer Monitor Index (PMI) and definitely thought this, of course, would make a great children’s book!!

With my idea in my head, a PDF of the report in hand, a free account to StoryJumper.com, and a CD-ROM full of clipart I bought at a used book store, I was ready to make my first children’s attorney’s book!

The process wasn’t entirely smooth, but for something that I really only spend about 90 minutes on total (if that…) it was a lot of fun to do.  I showed the finished product to Mark Gediman and he seemed to like the fact that it was only a 15 page children’s book that wouldn’t tax most attorneys he knows. I’m sure that there are a lot better story writers out there than me… so, next time you have to give a report to a group of attorneys, give this a try. It might get them to pay attention and even learn a thing or two to take back to their office and share with the other children attorneys. Click on one of the images to see my masterpiece!!

In the past 25+ years, there have basically been three types of electronic legal publishing. First there was the “terminal” publishing, where the print material was transcribed into a vendor locked format that could only be accessed through a specific machine that you purchased directly from the publisher. Next, the vendor “program” publishing where the resource was no longer locked into a specific machine, but rather ran on your personal computer through a vendor supplied program and accessed the information through an Internet connection or through locally based CD-ROM resources. Finally came what we know refer to as the “Cloud” computing model, which is simply the latest buzz word for accessing the information with a standard Internet browser through a secured connection. Many of us think that the first two methods of publishing have gone away, but if you think about it, both seem to be finding a resurgence in popularity, and publishers are wondering if they can exclusively move some of their products away from print and survive solely on a vendor locked format like the iPad.

Like it or not, it does seem that the idea e-publishing finally reached a tipping point with the Amazon Kindle where people (including myself) finally bought into the idea that they could actually read an entire book in electronic format. In my opinion, there were three or four reasons behind the Kindle succeeding where other e-publishing formats failed.

  1. E-ink made the text readable
  2. Having the support and backing of Amazon made me comfortable
  3. Downloading books wirelessly made it easy
  4. No monthly fees to maintain the Kindle satisfied my ‘cheap’ side
Let’s face it, the Kindle represents a paradigm shift in how readers view the traditional publishing world, but it was simply the first transition in what will probably be a decade’s long shift.
The biggest complaints I’ve heard about the Kindle is the fact that there is no backlighting, the e-ink is black and white only, the size is too small (Kindle I and II) or too bulky (Kindle DX), and that although the text looks like the print in a book, the “look and feel” of the book is just not there. Now with the iPad, it seems that all of those issues are answered. So was the Kindle simply an opening act, simply warming up the crowd so that Steve Jobs could swoop in with his iPad and wow the crowd with what they really paid to see? Probably… but it is too early in the game to know for sure.
How about on the publisher’s side of the issue? Does the iPad give them something that the Kindle, or PDF, or other forms of electronic publishing not offer? If you think about it, most legal publishers completely ignored the Kindle publishing phenomenon. Why was that?? What exactly does a legal publisher need from an e-publishing format in order to be comfortable putting their material out there? My basic knowledge tells me that they want the following things.
  1. E-publishing should be cheaper than print publishing.
  2. The publisher must be able to set the price.
  3. E-publishing should allow me to protect the Intellectual Property of the publisher’s work.
  4. There has to be a public acceptance of the e-publishing format.
  5. There has to be a de facto publishing standard that all legal publishers adopt.
For legal publishing, the Kindle probably came up short in all of these topics; maybe with the exception of number one (cheaper to publish). How many of these do the iPad answer?? Perhaps all of them… although it may be too early to tell on number four’s public acceptance issue and number five’s vendor format adoption.
The biggest problem with legal publishers relying on the iPad as their platform for electronic publishing is that they are really locking themselves into a partnership with a company that is extremely proprietary —closed systems vs. open. There is also such a cult of personality surrounding Steve Jobs, which you have to wonder what will happen to it once he is no longer around to guide it. Legal publishers also have to consider what to do when the next big product is released… say the HP Slate. Pretty much all of that work that was put into making the publication work in the iPad format will have to be done all over again to make it work in the ‘next big thing.’ Same as with all those companies that created iPhone apps who then wanted to make it available in other formats. They basically had to start from scratch to make it work for a Blackberry or Android or Palm. Most didn’t even bother to convert it, thus locked themselves into a single vendor format with a small but vocal user base. If legal publishers go with the iPad, will they find themselves locked into a closed format and simply not port their product over to other formats simply because doing so creates tips the scale of issue number one above? It’s definitely something they’ll need to think about. The e-publishing revolution has definitely begun… it will be interesting to see which side the legal publishing world decides to join.

Well, we weren’t the only ones having some April Fool’s Day fun yesterday.  In fact, there was so much tomfoolery going around that no one could tell what was real and what was a joke.  I’m really hoping that the iPad/Donkey Kong console is true!!  That’s a much better use of an iPad than reading boring US Supreme Court cases on it.  Here are a few of our favorite April Fool’s Day posts from some of the legal bloggers we follow:

We had a couple other ideas on a good April Fool’s Day post (anyone remember last year’s where we posted that all attorneys at a BigLaw firm were getting Kindles preloaded with case law and statutes?)  One idea I had was to say that the Texas Board of Education was setting standards for legal publishing in Texas, and would be removing any decisions written by Justices Marshall and Brennan along with ‘select’ other major decisions, however Bush v. Gore would still be included.

The other thought was that we were entertaining the offer to sell the blog to WestlawNext and would only be available through the “Used to be Free Blogs” Database at $3400.00 an hour.  But that LexisNexis, Bloomberg and Wolters Kluwer were making counteroffers and it was becoming a bidding war on who would buy-out the 3 Geeks.  Actually, if anyone at WestlawNext, LexisNexis, Bloomberg or Wolters Kluwer is reading this…  think about it (we still all want to retire to some small Caribbean island… see #10 of my 2010 projections.)  We decided not to run with that story since the “we’ve been bought by Google” was making its rounds about the blogosphere yesterday, so we thought it had been overdone.

Now it’s Good Friday and some of us have to ask for forgiveness for our Thursday follies.  For all those partners at a Houston firm that saw my post yesterday about SCOTUS adopting iPad formatting (and buying it hook, line and sinker…  I’m sorry.)  For those single attorneys that were really hoping that AVVO Singles was finally your path to true happiness…  well… I’m sorry… but for a completely different reason.

For all of you poor souls that have to work today (myself included), I’ll be doing a live Webinar/Podcast later today with some other poor law librarians that also didn’t get the day off.  We’ll cover how budget cuts are impacting law school’s ability to teach and train students legal research skills and what that means for those baby lawyers that are coming your way.

Until then…  I’m going to go order this…

Toby and I were having lunch with Jason Wilson this week and I brought up the fun contest that Daniel Schwartz was conducting for the Connecticut Bar Foundation’s Technology Symposium.  The contest was to ‘Tweet” your favorite US Supreme Court case in 140 characters or less (actually, if you take away the #cbftech you’re left with about 131 characters or less.)  The contest sounded like fun, so I thought I’d contribute by tweeting one of the cases I remembered from my first semester of law school, Worldwide Volkswagen v. Woodson.  But, in doing a quick Google search to refresh my memory of a case I hadn’t read in 16 years, I discovered something that I hadn’t even considered before (although Toby did kind of mention it in his TECHSHOW 15 Sites.)  Many of the cases taught in law school classes are already briefed and ready on sites like Wikipedia.  Take a look at Worldwide Volkswagen’s Wikipedia entry as a sample:

Wikipedia Entry:

Background

Accident

Harry and Kay Robinson purchased a new Audi 100 LS automobile from Seaway Volkswagen, Inc. in Massena, New York, in 1976.[1] The following year, as Kay Robinson passed through Oklahoma on Interstate 44 en route to the Robinsons’ new home in Arizona, the Audi was struck from the rear by a drunk driver in a 1971 Ford Torino. The impact of the collision itself did not directly injure any of the Robinsons, but the crash resulted in the Audi’s doors jamming shut and a puncture in the car’s gas tank. A fire then severely burned the trapped Kay Robinson and her two children riding in the Audi, Eva and Sam.[1]

Lawsuit

The Robinsons did not bring a suit against Lloyd Hull, the drunk driver. He had no insurance or assets and was therefore judgment proof. The Robinsons claimed that a product defect in the car led to the injuries they sustained…

This is a C-Student’s dream!!  Not to mention a Cheap C-Student’s dream because now they don’t have to go out and buy one of those briefing supplement books (I assume they are still being sold at the off-campus books stores, right??)

I dug a little deeper (which translated, means I did another Google search) and found that there are tons of briefed cases out there for mediocre, or time-constrained law students to use.  The document repository site called .docstoc has almost a hundred briefed cases ready for the taking.  In addition, it also has a number of study aids, bar review notes, and past exams that others have uploaded.  So, if I wanted to see the USC Law Schools Torts I exam from Fall 2008, it’s there!  I wanted to get a checklist of analyzing double jeopardy questions for a CrimPro class??  It’s there.
I don’t know if law students of today know this, but we used to have to go to a little slimy bookstore/copyshop/pawnshop to copy class notes from someone that took Prof. C’s CrimLaw II class two years ago, and had to pay 10¢ a page!!  That’s if Prof. C hadn’t already gone down to the bookstore/copyshop/pawnshop and walked out with the original copy telling the owner to ‘sue him’ if he wanted to.  (Prof. C was one bad MoFo… and I don’t mean the law firm.)
I stopped my research (in other words, no more Google searching) at this point, but I did wonder if there were more ‘advanced’ cites out there for C students that were aspiring to become B- students.  Someone let me know if there are online social communities that allow you to correspond with other law students to discuss these cases.  If there isn’t, I may have found my new path to riches and fame.  I’ll have to do some more ‘research’ on that subject.
Although many law students may be disheartened by how much law school costs, that they’ll have thirty years of student loans to pay back, and they’re entering what could be the darkest time in the history of law firm hiring… at least they can sleep well knowing that they can at least show up to their CivPro II class in the morning with a fully briefed case and the hope that the Prof will call on someone else that day.

This morning, William Knott, a spokesman for the US Supreme Court, made a surprise announcement that the US Supreme Court will phase out releasing court opinions in PDF format and will begin releasing all Court materials to fit Apple’s new iPad format.  The multi-million dollar agreement between SCOTUS and Apple launches a new approach for the Court to push information to the public and at the same time generating much needed revenue to support the Federal Court System.  Knott justified the move by saying, “With the downturn in the economy, and the legislature’s refusal to adequately fund the Federal Courts, we’ve decided to look for additional funding through corporate sponsorships.”
Back in January, the Court handed down the Citizen United decision (Knott apologized that the decision is currently only available in the Court’s old PDF format), which ruled that corporations and labor unions could contribute to political campaigns.  Apparently, the Court has interpreted that decision not only for campaigns, but also for other governmental contributions, including itself.  “Hey, why should some schmoe congressman from New Jersey be able to take money from corporations or unions and the highest court in the land cannot?” asks William Knott.  “We’d be hypocrites if we said it was okay to contribute to politicians, and then tell those same corporations and unions that their ‘free speech rights’ end at the steps of this courthouse.”
In addition to the agreement with Apple, Knott also hinted that for the right price, the Court would be willing to sell ad space within the opinions themselves.  “My God, look at all the white-space that will be available in the iPad format,” Knott adds.  “I’m not saying it’s a done deal, but we are looking into the option of monetizing the Court’s opinions.  We’re just keeping our options open at this time.”  Knott assured us that the ads would be “tasteful” and would have absolutely no influence on the Court should any of the advertisers have matters brought before them. The ads, tentatively referred to as “CourtSense”, will be similar to the Google Adsense model in order to sell contextual ads within the opinions based not only on keywords within the opinions but the user’s own browsing habits and email content.  
When I asked William Knott why the Court thought that the public would not find the idea of the US Supreme Court taking money directly from corporations and unions as a “payoff”, Knott stood up and poked me in the chest and screamed, “Google does the same thing with its new Scholar website, and they don’t need to take taxpayer money to support their operations, do they??  Americans should be happy that their justice system doesn’t need to ask them anymore to shell out their hard-earned tax dollars to support the Courts.  By opening the Court to corporate money, tax dollars can be reallocated to building what Americans really want, and that’s more prisons!  So for America, it is a tremendous win-win.”
The new format should be rolled to Apple Retail Stores or decisions can be downloaded directly from iTunes at about the time we release our April Fool’s Day post in 2011.
[note: April Fools!]

At TECHSHOW last week, I kept hearing the phrase, “Clients have gotten smarter.” This was typically in relation to the law firm fees clients are paying and how things are changing. The presumption is that clients figured out law firms weren’t treating them well on price (a.k.a rates and hours) and are now holding them accountable. On the face of it, this ‘smarter’ statement sounds right. Everything we see and hear seems to confirm this assumption.
But have they become smarter?
A colleague recently attended an in-house counsel conference on getting more for less. With few exceptions, the attendees commented on how their CXO (replace “X” with appropriate letter) directed them to cut internal and outside legal spend and that they would now be treated like every other department in the company. The bottom line: legal departments no longer get a pass when it comes to cost management.
So what has really happened is that instead of getting smarter – clients have gotten accountable. They are now in reaction mode trying to figure out how to pass that accountability on to their law firms. And in this process the great majority of them are asking for discounts and then managing to the hours, since this is what they know.
I’ve previously used this Einstein quote: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.” Clients tinkering with rates, hours and expenses are only pushing on the edges. Working within the traditional hourly billing model will not result in the big changes everyone wants. In other words – it’s not smart.
When I see clients moving the fee discussion (versus rates and hours) to the beginning of the engagement to establish a price-to-value proposition up front, then I’ll believe the whole smarter thing.

I received an interesting email this morning from Bloomberg asking me to participate in their “Bloomberg Law Litigation Survey.”  Seems that Bloomberg is wanting to query its Bloomberg Law customers on their opinions of current litigation issues and see who we think will prevail.  I thought I was super-special, until Toby told me that he got the same survey.
This is a very, very interesting idea.  I’m not sure if there is a place for those not using Bloomberg to sign up for these surveys, but maybe one of the Bloomberg Survey Gurus could let us know.
Here is a sample of one of the survey questions:
Again, I thought this is actually a pretty good use of Bloomberg’s customer base, and a way to basically crowdsource some information from them and determine if the crowd’s answer matches the eventual outcome of the litigation.  However, one of the big failures of this survey is the format.  First of all, you have to open the PDF file and read the survey.  If you want to answer the survey, you have to print it out and fill out the form.  Then, perhaps the biggest problem in my opinion, you have to FAX the survey (two-pages, mind you) back to Bloomberg.  What is this??  1991??  Here’s a snapshot of the “legal” language of the survey where you have to actually take out a pen and check the box, sign your name and date the form:

So, Bloomberg gets an “A” for idea, but a “F” for execution on this one.
Here’s my suggestion to Bloomberg to raise that “F” up to at least a “C”.  Use a web-survey tool! Heck, have Mike go out and buy a web-survey company… he can afford it.  With a survey tool, you make it easy for someone like me to answer your survey in about a minute or two.  The tool should already have my personal information build into its database, so I won’t have to fill out those personal sections of the survey.  Basically, I open up the page, check the box, click submit, and then back to work.  If you make it easier on your users, you’ll definitely get a higher percentage to answer your survey.  Make it look good (and maybe enter me in a chance to win one of those new iPads), then I may even bump that “C” up to an “A-“.

I had the privilege and pleasure of serving on the “60 Sites in 60 Minutes” closing panel for the 2010 TECHSHOW held last week in Chicago. This 60 Sites session is always fast-paced, fun and funny. Along with Debbie Foster (TECHSHOW Chair), Adriana Linares and Ernie Svenson, we dashed through web sites ranging from hard core legal tech to just plain funny. Check out the TECHSHOW site in the next few days for the complete list. For now, here’s my 15:
Above and Beyond KM is a blog about how law firms work and how knowledge management (KM) can help improve their efforts. Mary Abraham’s observations are based on her experience practicing law and then practicing knowledge management in a New York City firm. A “go-to” legal KM blog.
Steven Levy’s blog covers the emerging and dynamic legal project management space. For lawyers and firms looking to understand and incorporate project management into their practices, this blog is the one to watch.
Originally a legal marketing/selling blog, Jim Hassett has taken on Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) in a big way. After surveying a large group of managing partners, he has produced the “The LegalBizDev Survey of Alternative Fees.” His blog posts include excerpts from the survey, making it a premier site to stay current on AFAs.
The legal research space is experiencing a dynamic shift. This site will keep you more-than updated on the current trends and resources in legal research. Joe Hodnicki has an interesting sense of humor and keen insight into what matters for legal research.
In the Fall of 2009, Google unveiled its free legal research offering, which got everyone’s attention. The site contains case law back to 1950 and you can even search by jurisdiction. For those times you just need to “pull a case” this is a simple and free site to do it.
Too often IT projects are all about technology and not about the business. InformationWeek is a great site that brings the business issues up ahead of the IT answers. It is self-described as covering “The Business Value of Technology” and does that very well.
The next time you need a basic understanding of a technology, come to this site. Or better yet, check it everyday to stay up on all the newest stuff. Additionally the site has excellent How-To Tips and Technology Guides.
Bruce Schneier on Security
When it comes to Security, Bruce Schneier is The Man. His site and blog give excellent threat updates, tips and ideas for staying ahead of the security game.
Free CLE is popping up in a number of places. One site for finding these programs is 4FreeCLE. The site indexes free offerings from numerous providers. The existence of this site highlights the trend and availability of free CLE from a number of sources.
American Marketing Association: Especially the Houston Chapter
Lawyers do well to look outside the profession for tips and ideas. One great source related to growing your practice is the American Marketing Association (AMA). A great example of an AMA chapter is Houston’s. The quality and number of resources and events is staggering. As well participation provides networking opportunities outside the legal market.
Did you know you can access the entire archive of Law Practice Magazine issues online? This treasure-trove of practice management articles has what is likely the most comprehensive list of law practice management resources any where.
Humanity produces some VERY interesting stuff. And OffBeatEarth is the site to see it. Check in everyday to see some of the oddest displays of human creation. You’ll find everything from “Awkward Family Portraits” to the art of dirty car windows at “Wash Me.”
Pretty much any question you might have about Internet stats will be answered at Royal Pingdom. This site captures all of the interesting internet trends and demographics. Questions answered: How much email traffic is spam? How does Facebook traffic compare to Google’s – world-wide? And, What are the age demographics for social network sites?
10 Minute Mentor from the Texas Bar
This site contains about 400 10 minute videos on a variety of legal topics. Although some substantive law topics are Texas-based, many are not. As well, more general topics like law practice management and technology are covered. And the best thing about these high-quality mentoring videos: they are free. [Hat tip to Jim Johnson for this one.]
Significant Cases Analyzed: Wikipedia
Next time you need quick access to an explanation of the law and issues involved in a major court decision, look no further than Wikipedia. Most major decisions have been fully explained, including the legal issues touched on, the lawyers involved, commentary and even links to relevant follow-up decisions and articles.