The second session that I attended while at Social Fresh Portland was the “Social Media B2B Panel,” with Greg Cangialosi of Blue Sky Factory, Jason Peck of eWayDirect, Adam Holden-Bache of Mass Transmit, and Schneider Mike of Allen and Gerristen.  A lot of great information came out of the panel, starting with the first comment that “social media doesn’t just happen.”  The panelists agreed that companies need to put a smart person behind the tools, and get buy-in from everyone in the company, not just the executives.

For B2B companies, their goal is to make their customers more successful than their competitor’s customers.  To identify what they want from a specific social media strategy, they need to start with the bottom line in mind.  Cangialosi commented that social media is just an extension of every other area of the company, but that it’s largely happening out of marketing departments.  The panel advised that the marketing department should lead with their messages, but customer service should be involved as well, and whoever is responsible for CRM, for a more complete strategy.  Peck added that B2B companies need to have communication skills and subject matter expertise to effectively deploy a social media strategy.

Cangialosi said that the true promise of social media is when you can engage with people, which the legal marketers I know in social media would agree with.  When engaging, it’s important to be transparent in social media channels about why you’re there. If you’re not planning to use it for customer service, let them know, but expect people to ask questions anyway.  The panel also suggested working with a public relations team in advance to forecast out what prickly issues could come up.

Continue Reading Recap of Social Fresh Portland: Social Media B2B Panel

Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network.

For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, Sebastian Laboga of Kübler GbR in Germany.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
With more than 230 employees and 27 locations, KÜBLER is one of the leading German law firms concerning insolvency and reorganization law.

Who would be your typical client?
Our typical clients are companies of all sizes or private individuals that are either insolvent, afraid of becoming insolvent or have business with any of these groups.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
That we are one of the largest and most effectively organized law firms in Germany dealing with financial crises, restructuring and insolvency. We have the staff and know-how to literally run even very large companies in times of trouble or insolvency. In addition we are very hands on – good at producing words and paper of course, but even better at actually providing help and taking action.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
Running a mine sweeping company as insolvency administrator. Etiquette was very military and the management scheduled their meetings at 6 o clock in the morning. Attending on time was a true challenge.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
I guess helping companies to a successful restart after a crisis or insolvency makes me a little proud every time. My proudest moment though was definitely managing to attend the mine-sweepers’ meetings at 6 o’ clock a.m. AND understanding what they were talking about!

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
I have five kids – what do you think?

What would surprise people most about you?
My broad knowledge regarding movies and TV shows.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
Standing in Rome on the top of the Castel St` Angelo, looking at the illuminated Vatican by night with a glass of Champagne in my hand.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
 I would almost have ended up as a Tax Adviser. But I am very happy that I didn’t.

If a movie were made out of your life, who would you want to play you?
Jeff Bridges, aka "the Dude."

How would you like to be remembered?
Too early to think about it, really – the Dude still abides, doesn’t he. But people shouldn’t think they could get away with peeing on my rug easily…

The first session of Social Fresh, Portland that I attended was “Real Facebook and Twitter Results Panel.”  Since I know many law firms are hesitant to get involved with Facebook and Twitter, the comments from this panel might be especially useful for you in evaluating whether these platforms will work for your firm.  The panel featured Justin Kistner of Webtrends, Carri Bugbee of Big Deal PR, Kevin Tate of StepChange, and moderator and panelist Shauna Causey from Comcast. 

After each of the panelists introduced themselves, they focused on their experiences using Facebook and Twitter for themselves and their clients.  Tate said, about starting a Facebook page, that a company can often learn as much from its failures as its successes.  Kistner agreed with this, saying that his company had thought about starting a new blog, separate from their original one, and quickly realized that it would make more sense to leverage their existing web presence and audience, because they already have put their trust in you.  But in addition to thinking about the external audience, when deploying a social media strategy, it’s just as important to bring your internal audience in and show them the value. 

Tate used the Travelocity gnome campaign on Facebook as an example of a successful use of social media to engage the audience (the panelists agreed that audience engagement should be a key goal when using a social media tool like Facebook or Twitter).  Facebook users could become a “Fan” of the Travelocity gnome, and were able to interact by voting on where he would go next.  This was very successful and continues to see fan engagement.  Tate pointed out that once people feel that they have ownership of something, you have to be careful about taking it away – an example of this from my own experience was when a Facebook user created a Fan page for the Norwegian curling team’s pants.  The page was not endorsed or created by the team, but during the Olympics, it suddenly grew very popular and attracted a lot of fans and activity.  Facebook realized that the page wasn’t created by the team (even though they had contacted the user who started it and invited him to their next match) and they took it down, citing their fan page rules.  But because so many fans were attached to the page, they launched a campaign to get Facebook to bring it back.  After a few hours, Facebook relented because of the outcry. So even though the Norwegian curling team didn’t start the page, the fans were invested in it and didn’t want to lose it.  Tate also pointed out that even when a brand creates the Facebook page, the fans really own it and define the content and interaction. 

Continue Reading Recap of Social Fresh Portland: Real Facebook and Twitter Results Panel

Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network.

For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, John Verrall of Verralls Barristers and Solicitors in Gibraltar.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
I would describe my practice as progressive, motivated, contemporary and inspired.

Who would be your typical client?
Typical client – probably either a young married couple purchasing a property or a commercial client.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
That I am the fresh face of a new generation of talented lawyers who are responsive to client’s needs and committed to the timely delivery of the highest standards of legal work based on ethical principles.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
My most challenging case involved a widow and a trust fund left by her husband.  It was challenging because of the legal principles and issues it threw up, mixed with the vulnerability of her position as a mere potential beneficiary under the trust along with other beneficiaries from the husband’s first marriage.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
Opening my own law firm 10 years ago.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
Sail, snow ski, gardening, gym, read, travel and dine out with friends.

What would surprise people most about you?
Not sure. You’d probably have to ask them!

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
Meeting the members. I particularly enjoyed the ILN conference in Prague.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
Something to do with geography and environment.

If a movie were made out of your life, who would you want to play you?
George Clooney!

How would you like to be remembered?
As a fun, relaxed and easygoing, but caring person, who prided himself on the quality of his work and his problem-solving skills.

Today, I attended one of the Social Fresh conferences, which took place here in Portland, Oregon – for those of you wondering what Social Fresh is, it’s a conference about social media, focused around case studies, and it takes place in some “underserved cities,” as the conference website describes them.  Although it’s not a conference focused around the legal field, I felt that broadening my social media education to find out what other companies are doing and what works for them would be useful in my own professional social media efforts, as well as for the law firms we work with.  

Like LMA 2010, I’ll be posting re-caps of the valuable sessions that I attended today over the next few days, but I wanted to get a quick post up about my thoughts and the key takeaways from today’s conference.  
The theme that I took away from today’s panels and presentations was two-fold – 1) know your social media objectives and 2) know your audience.  In terms of the former – it’s not just enough to jump into social media, to create a Twitter profile or a Facebook fan page (in terms of your company or firm’s brand – I still think there’s utility in experimenting for yourself to learn about the tools).  You have to ask yourself why you’re on there, what you want to get out of it, and what you’re prepared to do with it – have a strategy.  There were a lot of comments that although marketers may be handling a company or firm’s social media efforts, customer service is still a large part of the job.  So even if you enter into social media for the purpose of getting content out there, you must be prepared to answer questions and deal with customer service-type issues.  This is true even in the legal industry – for law firms getting involved in social media, you have to be prepared to deal with questions coming up that border on a client-attorney privileged relationship, possible issues with complaints against the firm, etc.  The overwhelming answer on how to deal with these issues today was “have a plan.”  Before entering into social media, decide who will be behind the efforts, what happens if a person or group starts flaming your Facebook page, what steps are taken if a crisis arises – think about the possible issues that may arise before they happen.  Everyone agrees that social media is just another channel for the same types of marketing that companies and firms have always been doing, so some of this will just be an extension of an existing crisis communications plan your firms have, but it’s essential to discuss strategy and possible roadblocks before releasing a corporate social media strategy.

Continue Reading Social Fresh – What Did I Learn About Social Media?

Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a socialmediatoday webinar on “Social Media in Asia: Where are the Emerging Opportunities?” (For the webcast and slides, visit: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/webcasts/184500) What follows is a re-cap of the highlights, but the key takeaways that came out of the webinar are the following:

– Culture is hugely important – In order to succeed in Asia, you must have people on the ground who understand the social meda ecosystem for that country and can help you to navigate it.

– Mobile devices will be the primary source of access for a lot of people because broadband access is not always available.  So compatibility with mobile devices is hugely important.

– Face-to-face interactions are still paramount.

The speakers for the webinar were Thomas Crampton, Asia Pacific Director of 360 Digital Influence for Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, Peter Auditore, head of SAP’s Business Influencer Program and a Senior Fellow at the Society for New Communications Research, and Robin Carey, CEO of socialmediatoday.  They began with comments from Crampton on scale – he said there are 338 million “netizens” (citizens of the net) in China versus only 62 million in France (as of a report from 2009) and also greater than the population of the United States.  However, the top social networks in China are not the familiar ones in the West - Qzone has 183 million users, Xiaonei has 40 million, kaixin001 has 30 million, while Facebook only has 0.4 million.  Crampton observed that the government is very savvy in China – Twitter is blocked, but Google Wave is not.  He also noted that Friendster used to rule Asia, but now Facebook is “romping across the nation.”

Continue Reading Social Media in Asia: Where are the Emerging Opportunities?

Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network.

For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, Lorna Patajo-Kapunan of Kapunan Lotilla Garcia & Castillo Law Offices in Manila, the Philippines.

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
Our firm is a medium-sized law firm with 17 lawyers and support staff totaling 20, all committed to our vision of “quality legal service with competence, integrity and courage.”

Who would be your typical client?
Our typical client would be the good guys — good corporate citizens who aspire for a level playing field, aggrieved individuals who still have faith in the justice system.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
I want my clients/potential clients to know that I eat my enemies for breakfast, that I will fight even against overwhelming odds, that I can and do walk the extra mile.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
As an advocate for women’s rights, my most challenging and high profile case was defending a male against a female for allegedly taping a sex video of the sex act and purportedly distributing it to the public. My legal position (to the horror of the women NGOs) was that the male was the victim.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
My proudest moment as a lawyer was when our firm was judged by the Bishop/Businessmen’s Council of the Philippines as the only law firm in the country deserving of the ISQ (Institutional Spirituality Quotient) award – this is equivalent to a “good housekeeping seal” at the workplace.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
I have many “hats” – dedicated father/mother (I was widowed 9 years ago) to my 5 boys, 2 grandsons, 9 dogs; volunteer Trustee on the Boards of several foundations/socio/civic groups, such as the Philippine National Red Cross, World Wildlife Fund, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Rotary International, Zonta Foundation, UNIFEM, National Heritage Society; devoted daughter to my father (94-year-old retired justice of the Supreme Court) and mother (87-year-old retired dean of one of the biggest nursing schools in the country); confessed shopaholic — my “cure-all” remedy for my stress is shopping.

What would surprise people most about you?
People are surprised that I can be a softie — that despite the Dracula fangs, I have a heart that beats/bleeds.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
My most memorable ILN experience was when our former Firm hosted the ILN Regional Conference in Cebu in a distant past.  It gave us the opportunity to showcase the typical Filipino hospitality.  Looking forward to hosting another soon.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
If I weren’t a lawyer, I’d like to be a CNN/BBC Anchorperson — reporting news when and where it happens, or a professional tennis player, earning some 6-7 digit figures while having FUN.

If a movie were made out of your life, who would you want to play you?
My favorite movie is Casablanca — but I identified more with Humphrey Bogart rather than Ingrid Bergman. I need to sort out my fantasies first.

How would you like to be remembered?
I’d like my epitaph to read “She lived, laughed and loved!”

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve been following along as attendees of Georgetown’s Law Firm Evolution Symposium have been tweeting the conference highlights.  Rachel M. Zahorsky of the ABA Journal was in attendance, and wrote a great article that summed up a theme of the conference – BigLaw must change or die.  She quotes several speakers, who make ominous statements:

– Patricia Gillette, Orrick partner: “It is a mistake to think of change in terms of silos…Change must be sweeping. If you do not change, you will die.”

– Susan Hackett, Association of Corporate Counsel vice president & general counsel: “The window is open for another year to year and a half for firms before clients start walking and looking at firms they’ve never looked at before…Whenever a firm says [it] can’t hold to a budget number because of unpredictability, the GC still has a busted budget. It’s not unpredictable. It’s unforgivable that they don’t know and unforgivable that we haven’t held them to that.”

– Robert Ruyak, managing partner and CEO of Howrey: “Partners must be willing to sacrifice some short-term profitability for greater success and profit in the long-term.  That’s something many partners don’t want to do, but we have to.  There is no choice because some firms will, and they’re the ones that will be eating our lunches tomorrow.” 

But some are saying that there are firms that think that the legal industry will soon be back to the way it was, and so they don’t have to worry about changing. 

Mid-sized law firms, like those in the ILN, often find it easier to adapt than BigLaw because their size makes them more nimble.  But even though this is the case, clients are asking all of their firms to more strongly consider their needs, focus on strengthening their relationships.  As was said at the LMA Conference this year, clients have always had the power, but now they know it.

So what are your firms doing to adapt to the siren call of change?  How are you providing your clients with better service, more value, strengthened relationships?  And how are legal marketers supporting their attorneys to make these changes possible? 

Or, on the flip side, are you one of those who believes that the legal industry will rebound, and so there isn’t any need for change?

Last week, I wrote a re-cap on a panel I attended at the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference on Alternative Fee Arrangements.  The panelists said that the law firms that are “pyramid-shaped,” with the larger part of their firms being made up by associates, would have difficulty adapting to the make-up needed to accommodate alternative fees.  They said that those firms that are “diamond-shaped,” with the majority of the firm being made up of experienced partners would be more successful, implying that firms may be heading in this direction in the future.

However, during Georgetown’s Law Firm Evolution Symposium (whose Twitter stream can be followed here), Jeff Haidet of McKenna Long says that “the pyramid will be replaced with the rocketship, associates hired to perpetuate partnership, more efficiency.”  Firms will need to redesign entry level assessment and paths to partnership and leverage different resources, not just high-cost lawyers. 

Howrey’s Managing Partner, Bob Ruyak said (also at Georgetown’s LFES), that firms need to change almost everything about how they do business, including bringing in non-lawyer professionals, lowering costs, and lowering prices.  He said “The risk of uncertainty has to be shared,” and that firms have to change how success and productivity are measures, from revenue per partner to productivity of every resource.  But later, Mari Sako of Oxford said that lawyers mistrust of non-lawyers means that partnerships are reluctant to cede control of work decisions to clients.  Professionals distrust non-professionals’ competence and ethics.  So what does this mean for the changing law firm and what future law firms will look like?

What do you see the law firm of the future looking like?

One of the important messages in terms of social media that came out of this year’s LMA Annual Conference is that “you cannot be a proxy for someone else’s relationship – the lawyers have to do it themselves.”  But in the busy world of attorneys, where time is quite literally money, what about ghostblogging? 

For the uninitiated, ghostblogging is much like ghostwriting, where someone else is paid to blog posing as you or your company.  Aside from the usual concerns about liability, which I would say are magnified when discussing the idea of having someone else pose as an attorney, it seems to go against the very idea behind social media, which is to use these new technologies to form personal relationships with people, sometimes for business and sometimes not.

Reading “The Death of Social Media” this morning, I had to agree with Mitch Joel when he asked “Can we stop the madness?”  He says:

“I’m being naive (I know), people will say, ‘someone writes the speech for the President’ or ‘if people like it and connect to the content, who cares who writes it?’ I dunno, I do. People have lost faith in marketing (just like they have lost faith in those who serve the public office and celebrities). We allow things that shouldn’t be… to be. Saying that ghostwriters have been around for years doesn’t make it right or authentic. Times have changed, and these platforms are (or should be) celebrated for the human and real side. Can you imagine that some Blogs, Twitter and Facebook feeds that you follow are not the real person, but the musings of someone else who simply interviewed the person you thought that you were following? Sure, there’s a place for ghostwriters, but maybe Social Media isn’t one of them? If we keep heading down this road, doesn’t Social Media become nothing more than a boring, traditional mass media channel?“

I’m curious to hear what those in the legal community think about ghost blogging, and how lawyers can manage the balance between their valuable time and pursusing social media (Disclaimer: I’m a strong believer that lawyers spending time creating relationships through social media and then taking these offline is a valuable use of their time.)