Dear readers, I have not forgotten about you, but with our European Regional Meeting fast approaching, I’ve been concentrating on those details and not on my blogging.  However, I have been reading some excellent posts from colleagues recently, which I wanted to share with you.  So grab a cup of coffee and take a read!

Over at Nancy Myrland’s Myrland Marketing, she’s been talking about some important messages:

• In "Sales is Not a Dirty Word," Nancy reminds us to be our "client’s advisor, their mentor, their solution to a problem, and sometimes even their friend." 
   
• In "You Are Who You Are. I Am Who I Am," she addresses a lot of the recent bashing we’ve seen by blog commenters and people on Twitter and encourages us all to embrace each other’s differences with a little respect – great message.

At the Legal Watercooler, Heather Morse has been using Mad Men to teach some valuable lessons about legal marketing – even if you’re not a Mad Men viewer (which I’m not, but I love a series that connects television with business), her posts offer great points:

• In "Mad Men, Lawyers, and Legal Marketing," Heather advises lawyers that it’s "YOUR job to turn YOUR success into new BUSINESS," just as senior partner Bertram Cooper from Mad Men tells Don Draper "Turning creative success into business is your work."  
   
• In "Mad Men, Lawyers, and Client Relations," she points out that we’re all a personality type and "By better understanding how we personally process and receive information, and by learning how to identify how others do the same, we best communicate and work with one another."

 

• In "Mad Men, Lawyers and the 24-hour Layover," Heather gives some of my favorite advice, to extend a business trip by 24 hours once a quarter, and use this time on business development efforts – she gives some excellent tips on how to make the most of this time in the full post.
   
• In "Mad Men, Lawyers…and the ‘Competition.’ Are you a Pete, or are you a Harry???" she challenges us to look at moving on from a firm (either us or our colleagues), not as something negative, but as an opportunity.
   
• In "Mad Men, Lawyers and…How Big is Your Sandbox?" Heather reminds us of the importance of balance within a law firm, which means that the firm and partners are better situated for growth, weathering economic fluctuations, having a buffer when a partner or client leaves, and fostering a culture of business development and succession planning.  

On Samantha Collier’s Social Media for Law Firms, she’s been offering some great tips to attorneys thinking about getting involved in social media:

• In "Three Steps to Start Blogging," Samantha gives clear and easy direction for any attorney thinking about taking the plunge into the blogging world.
   
• In "Is Your Firm on Wikipedia?" she talks about the benefits of law firms having a Wikipedia entry, and her tips for writing one.
   
• In "Facebook’s Question’s Application – Is there potential?" Samantha discusses Facebook’s newest questions feature, the features that will benefit lawyers and the potential for firms.

I will certainly be back to my regularly scheduled blogging soon, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy a peek into what I’ve been reading and thinking about!