On average, a person engages in 145-200 interactions daily, both in-person and online. However, only 10-20% of these interactions are truly memorable. Among all these interactions, approximately 5-10% are negative, while 7-20% are positive. This means that despite the sheer volume of daily exchanges, only a small fraction will leave a lasting impact.

When you look at all of that data, and what each individual rates as important in their own lives, consider for a moment where their attention on YOU as a lawyer or your firm as a brand may rank.Continue Reading Kindness in a Digital World: Building Positive Brands and Relationships

Over the last few years, we have offered a program to our young lawyers, which is an introduction to the ILN that includes networking opportunities, business development, and presentations on international business.

We also like to discuss specific topics that our young lawyers have identified as relevant to them – to that end, I’ll be sharing some of those topics here on Zen for you, starting with our first one, personal branding. Continue Reading Your Professional Identity: Personal Branding in the Legal Industry

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of participating in the inaugural New York City event for She Breaks the Law, a network of women leaders founded by Priya Lele, Christie Guimond and Nicky Leijtens. The group brings together women in the legal industry who are “breaking the mould and challenging the norm in the world of law. Our members come from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines, from female founders of disruptive start-ups to general counsel to innovation leaders in traditional law firms. They all have one thing in common: they are leading the change in the way that legal services are delivered.” Over the past two months since the soft launch, the group has grown to over 1,000 members, and officially launched with their London event last week.

At the New York event, as in London, in addition to general networking, we had structured “networking circles” – ours focused on legal tech and how we use it, the power of networking in the legal industry, legal design, and personal branding. I had the opportunity to chair the personal branding sessions, and it led to some thoughtful and interesting conversations around the idea of what it really means to develop your personal brand.
Continue Reading What Does it Mean to Develop Your Personal Brand?

Attendees at the Legal Marketing Association conference will normally shy away from any session that is entirely presented by service providers – but if that session is done by One North, they’re making a big mistake. 

Not only are they always entertaining, but they assume the audience comes in with a high level understanding of the content to begin with (not always the case with all presenters, admittedly) and they deliver some solid food for thought. 

At #LMA15, their session was on "Creating Natively Digital Brand Experiences," which sounds like a lot of terrifying marketing speak. We are going to talk about branding and logos, but the marketing nerd in me loves all of this, so please bear with me. For the lawyers in my audience, you may want to read along anyway – it will give you some insight into the broader challenges that your firm and your firm’s marketing professionals face when it comes to branding (which is an important issue!). 

LMA members, if you missed this, Kalev Peekna and Nate Denton from One North, the conference presenters, will be sharing highlights from their presentation in the next Social Media SIG webinar on May 12th – members can register hereContinue Reading Creating Natively Digital Brand Experiences – A Recap

It’s a little known fact that I happen to have dual citizenship with the US and the UK. So it was with great excitement that I awaited the birth of the royal prince a couple of weeks ago – not enough excitement that I would have camped outside the Lindo Wing, but enough to stick on the BBC online once news of his Royal Highness’s birth was confirmed. 

I’ve spoken before about "fame-jacking" – seeing what’s out there that is culturally popular, and leveraging the excitement and interest that surrounds it. There are good ways and bad ways to do this, and following the royal birth, there was a flurry of them. While I’m generally in favor of identifying a way to link your business with the hot topics of conversation, I felt a bit icky about some of those brands that used the arrival of Prince George to push their wares (and yes, I am aware of the irony of my blogging about it).

We at the ILN posted a simple "Congratulations" message on our Facebook page and Twitter feed for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, which I’m well aware that they will never see. Those brands that did something similar, or came up with the clever way to congratulate them without linking to their website or pushing a new product, I thought did a clever thing. Continue Reading Coat-tail Branding – Clever or Icky?

My final session of the first day of the conference was “The Evolution of the Law Firm Brand: How to Promote the Individual Attorneys within the Parameters of the Firm’s Brand.” Panelists included Aden Dauchess, the Director of Digital Media with Womble Carlyle, Robert Algeri, Partner of Great Jakes Marketing, Joe Calve, the CMO for Morrison & Foerster, and Peter Winzig, the Director of Marketing and Corporate Development for Weltman, Weinberg & Reis. The panel was moderated by Adrian Dayton, CEO of Adrian Dayton & Associates.

The room was quickly filled with interested attendees, and soon it was not only standing room only, but full enough to turn people away. Continue Reading The Evolution of the Law Firm Brand – an LMA 2012 Re-Cap