During our Annual Conference, I had the opportunity to present on the topic that’s near and dear to my heart – social media. An informal survey of the room revealed that about fifteen attorneys were regularly using social media (I defined "regularly" as logging in once a week and connecting with someone in their network in some way). That still left the majority uninvolved, so I endeavored to convince them why social media might matter to them.

I began with some statistics on social media usage from the AmLaw 100 and 200 firms, adding the caveat that I understand that social media differs from region to region and that it isn’t commonly used in business in many countries. However, I still felt the topic had broad applicability because many firms around the world have American clients and I believe that social media will soon become important for businesses around the world.  Continue Reading Social Media – Why It May Matter to Lawyers – A Re-cap from the ILN Annual Conference

MGD Enterprises, a consulting company I follow on Facebook presents a business question or piece of advice daily.  Today’s comment was "Fact for Friday…Is access to social media critical to employee satisfaction? A global survey of workplace attitudes & behaviors by Clearswift shows that 21% of young adults say they would turn down a job if it didn’t allow them access to social network sites or their person[al] email. What is the situation where you work?"

The first commenter said "That will be the same 21% that will complain about their raise because their lack of focus will lead to their lack of production."  Those of you who know me well or follow this blog will know how I feel about that – to me, social media is not about wasting time and being unproductive.  Which is why I responded to him that "I’d include myself in that 21%, but social media makes me more effective because I use it for my job – I network with people in my field through Twitter and publicize my firms and their accomplishments, and use LinkedIn and Facebook for the same reasons. I think when you have people abusing social media, it’s a human resources issues, not a tools issue. The same people who will waste time on social media would be on the phone making personal calls if they were restricted from it."Continue Reading Social Media: Should it be Restricted in the Workplace?