100 Tweets: Thinking About Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less.

I really like Twitter.  For those who follow me, you know that I try to share lots of legal-themed tips, thoughts and ideas.  In fact, most of my Ten Rules posts started out on Twitter -- where I'll test 15-25 "rules" to see which ones work best before picking the ten favorites.

However, there's lots of stuff that lives on Twitter now that used to live here on the blog.  And since I don't expect everyone reading this to follow me there (or go back and read through my 2000+ Twitter messages), I decided to compile a "Best Of" list of my favorite tweets. 

So, here (in .pdf form) is a little e-book I've titled:  100 Tweets: Thinking about Law Practice in 140 Characters or Less.  It contains my favorite 100 tweets, in no particular order, and should give you a sense of what I share on Twitter that you don't always see here.

If you enjoy it, and would like to follow me on Twitter, I'll see you there.

Selling Through a Slump E-Book

I had the privilege of contributing the legal chapter in the new Selling Through a Slump:  An Industry by Industry Playbook. 

Oracle and The Customer Collective co-sponsored the guide, which contains great advice for selling in multiple verticals, including accounting and consulting, retail, the public sector, health care, insurance, telecommunications, services, technology, media and manufacturing.  The author list reads like a who's who of industry experts, and I'm honored to be in such great company.

Check it out here.  Registration is required, but the download is free.

BlawgWorld 2007

I am honored to be one of the bloggers featured in BlawgWorld 2007, the one-of-a-kind e-book from my friends at Technolawyer that collects the best posts from the best writers in the legal blogosphere. If you'd like to download your own copy for free, you can do so here (pdf).  Enjoy!

Extreme Outsourcing

I just happened across Timothy Ferriss' site (blog) and saw this article on "Outsourcing Life" that I'd like to share.  If you are experimenting with outsourcing work in your firm, check out some of the extreme suggestions on outsourcing a few other things.  Timothy has a book coming out.  I've asked for a review copy and will share my thoughts if it comes my way.

Things I Like

I’m playing around with Amazon’s new “AStore” product.  It allows me to build a virtual storefront with products I choose.  I’m going to change it every month with new and cool books, magazines, and gear that I personally recommend.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Management by Baseball - Book Review

A few weeks ago, Jeff Angus, the author of the phenomenal Management by Baseball blog, contacted me and asked me to read his new book, also titled Management by Baseball.  In the book, Jeff breaks down management into four discrete “bases” (get it?) that one must reach in order to become a Hall of Fame manager.  The four bases (from the book’s website):

Managing the Mechanics  Every day of the baseball season, skippers skillfully juggle complex decisions from choosing a lineup to calling for a steal. In the dugout, they handle abstract concepts like time management and training techniques. In the office, they pore over research reports and apply them to the problems at hand. Learn from the masters the methods of successful operational management (and lessons in what to avoid from baseball's biggest bunglers).

Managing Talent  Great baseball managers know how to get the most out of a team over a long season by understanding how to evaluate and motivate players, and when and how to hire and fire them. Learn how to apply their models and get the most out of your team.

Managing Yourself  The most successful managers in and out of baseball learn enough about their own habits, biases, and strengths to overcome preconceived notions. Boost your own skills through examples of how baseball's best and worst came to grips with intellectual and emotional blind spots that undermined their effectiveness.

Managing Change--and Driving It  The best baseball managers know how to adapt to significant changes in the game. So should anyone who works outside a ballpark. Lessons from baseball will improve your ability to thrive in times of change and actively drive changes to your company's advantage — and your own.

There is a lot to like about the book, and I’ll share some of the insights I gleaned from it in a few posts later this week. For now, the Box Score:

 HITS: 

• Great baseball anecdotes told in a way even non-baseball nuts will understand and appreciate.
• Insightful management tips and tricks I’d not seen before.
• Good set of baseball-like “Rules” throughout the book.

RUNS:

• In depth economic analysis of business decisions told in a way that makes difficult concepts easily understandable.  Jeff’s explanation of “The Book” in baseball, stochastic decision making, and the Law of Problem Evolution in Chapter Four was really, really great.
• Jeff’s introduction (to me, at least) of the diseconomies of scale, has changed my thinking on the advantages of large organizations.

ERRORS:

• Not enough baseball.  Jeff is a top-flight consultant, but too often he digresses from baseball to share a lesson he learned in consulting.  If he is going to rely upon the baseball metaphor, he should do it completely. 
• The format of the book makes for difficult reading.  There are too many sidebars that break up the flow of the narrative.
• Jeff’s “Rules” should be collected at the end of the book, either as an appendix or as a separate, pull-out supplement.

Admittedly, I am a big baseball fan and expected to like the book, which I did.  I do think, however, that even a casual observer of the game will find valuable lessons.  One caveat, the book is not an easy read.  It isn’t that it is difficult to understand, or that the words are too big, it just didn’t “flow” like I’d hoped.  Several times, I set aside an hour or two to focus on reading it, but would stop after a chapter or two.  I started to get more from the book when I would limit myself to reading a chapter at a time.  It may have been just me, but I needed time to process the information in small chunks.  I think this is because Jeff packs so much complex business and economic analysis into a such a small book.

With that caveat, I heartily recommend Management by Baseball.  Jeff has found a unique way of looking at (and explaining) business behavior that worked for me.  If you like baseball at all, it will work for you too.

Be the Same and Be Second

Found this summary of the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing on Mike Vance’s absolutely fantastic MineZone Wiki, where there are dozens of business book summaries.  Here is one great nugget:

If you're shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the market leader.

• "You must discover the essence of the leader and then present the prospect with the opposite. (In other words, don't try to be better, try to be different."

MegaTrends in Professional Services

Ross Dawson e-mailed me a link to a new White Paper he’s written, titled The Seven MegaTrends of Professional Services.  You can read the paper online (one trend at a time) or download it from Ross’ blog.  I’m through Trend Two, and find it pretty interesting reading so far.

In case you are wondering, Ross’ Seven MegaTrends are:

• Client Sophistication
• Governance
• Connectivity
• Transparency
• Modularization
• Globalization
• Commoditization

Ross is sending me a copy of his new book, the Second Edition of Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships and I’ll let you know what I think.  I own the first edition, and am looking forward to reading the second.

Technorati Tags: RossDawson, Professional+Services, Trends

Legal Writing Tips from Elmore Leonard

Well, not exactly tips on legal writing, but pretty solid advice from my favorite author.  The best of the bunch?

Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.  The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” . . .   he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.  A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

Imagine if Law Review writers followed the last tip.  No more footnotes!

Technorati Tags: elmore+leonard, writing, law+review

Don't Knock it Until You Buy it.

The worst thing about reading all the blogs I do is that I have hundreds of people constantly telling me about the things they think are really cool.  As a result, I spend money buying things they recommend. ;-)

One of the things that just made it on to my list is the book Knock the Hustle.  According to my friend David Burn at AdPulp:

What’s really great is that Knock The Hustle isn’t just a rant about minorities in advertising or a personal memoir. It’s a transparent account of how the ad business operates—from creative concepting to client billing, new business presentations to office politics. And Hadji has plenty of concrete ideas on how the ad industry could change its practices, where most people in the business just give lip service to the notion of progress. Actually, there’s a good amount of wisdom that nearly any business in any industry can apply. If that weren't enough, many parts of this book are funny as hell.

Sounds right up my alley. 

This one time, in Brand Camp ...

I’m linking to this book because I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to use the title of this post.

Great Excerpts from Business Books

I love reading business books. I find they often give me great ideas I can incorporate into my practice. The people over at 800-CEO-READ have started an Excerpt Blog with -- you guessed it -- excerpts from some books they sell. It has an RSS feed too! Check it out.

Idea Management for Lawyers?

Continuing my thoughts from my previous post ...

Mark Cuban has a great post on his Blog Maverick weblog. If you haven't made Mark's blog a daily read, you really should. He writes about his team, the Dallas Mavericks, but he also writes about his life, investing, and how he's succeeded in business. In the fourth installment in his "Success and Motivation" series, Mark writes about the making mistakes and the competitive advantages he has realized by consuming as much information as he could:

You never quite know in business if what you are doing is the right or wrong thing. Unfortunately, by the time you know the answer, someone has beat you to it and you are out of business. I used to tell myself that it was ok to make little mistakes, just dont make the big ones. I would continuously search for new ideas. I read every book and magazine I could. Heck, 3 bucks for a magazine, 20 bucks for a book. One good idea that lead to a customer or solution and it paid for itself many times over. Some of the ideas i read were good, some not. In doing all the reading I learned a valuable lesson.

Everything I read was public. Anyone could buy the same books and magazines. The same information was available to anyone who wanted it. Turns out most people didnt want it.

I remember going into customers or talking to people in the industry and tossing out tidbits about software or hardware. Features that worked , bugs in the sofware. All things I had read. I expected the ongoing response of “oh yeah, i read that too in such and such”. Thats not what happened. They hadnt read it then, and they havent started reading yet.

I think this stuff happens to blog readers all the time -- I know it does to me. We are exposed to an exponentially greater amount of information distilled from the blogs we read and the writers who write them then the average person. As a consequence, I think blog readers have a lot more ideas.

My question is what is the best way to manage this tremendous amount of great stuff? It doesn't seem like a problem of managing knowledge, but rather ideas. For me, ideas are the hardest thing in the world to manage. Google "Idea Management" and you get 11,700 results. Google "Knowledge Management" and the results top 3,000,000.

For me, one of the ways I manage my ideas is with this blog. Sharing the cool things I come across is just one side benefit to having a great place to store all of the things I find. Another way is by using mind mapping software (pay) (free) However, I need a better way to keep track of my daily ideas.

Great Stuff from The Nub

The guys over at The Nub picked up my post the other day about Value Billing, and added their thoughts:

One can take the question further and ask: How much have we helped our clients succeed? And get the client to determine this. Then build in some sort of payment that is dependent on how much the solution helps the client achieve success. For example, I've been paid the final 25% of my fee upon hitting performance targets. Other times I've received an extra % upon my client's satisfaction.

The Nub also has a pointer to a great excerpt from the John C. Maxwell book Today Matters.

Death by Meeting

Good review of Patrick Lencioni's book Death by Meeting at Jon Pocaro's mktg@msft blog. The book details the four types of meetings your organization/firm should be having. They are: The Daily Check-In (no more than 5-10 minutes); The Weekly Tactical (45-90 minutes); The Monthly Strategic; and The Quarterly Off-site Review. Read Jon's post for more details.

Meaningful Marketing

Every once in a while I find a book I can't put down. I don't know if I have gotten lucky with the last two books I've read, but after reading The Brand Gap, I picked up Meaningful Marketing by Doug Hall, and realized that I'd just gone two-for-two! The author is the founder of Eureka! Ranch, a well-known business idea thinktank. Hall, with his co-author Jeffrey Stamp, looked at over 2,000 business studies and distilled the results into 100+ "Data Proven Truths" set out in the book. Each "Truth" is accompanied by two to four practical ways to apply the truth to your business.

When I read books, I fold down the corner of the pages that contain pasages I want to review later. Looking at my copy of the book, I am certain that more pages have folded-down corners than pages that don't! To be sure, many of the studies upon which the book is based relate to the retail industry, but I gleaned dozens of great ideas. For example:

Do one thing right. Meaningful Marketing is about building a trust between customers and your brand. Trust is built on the belief that you and your company have a higher-than-normal level of expertise in a specific area. This trust results in greater customer loyalty and less price sensitivity. A customer's trust in yor expertise is dramatically enhanced when you focus on doing one thing better than anyone else. Analysis of over 901 new products found that when the marketing message was highly focused on one benefit, the brand was 60 percent more likely to succeed in the marketplace than when the message was unfocused. . . . Think hard aobut your offering. What is the one element that, above all others, defines why someone should become your customer? What is the one Meaningful difference that is most Meaningful to your customers?

Doug Hall has this to say about naming your business:

Your brand name defines who and what you are. The more your sales and marketing message offers a Meaningful difference that aligns with the suggestive nature of your brand name, the more likely customers will recall and remember it. . . . Your brand name is a clear and overt declaration of what you offer. The more related and synergistic your name is whith your message, the more effective your marketing will be. A[n] analysis of some 901 new products found that the odds of long-term marketplace survival were 34 percent greater when the new product's brand name evoked the benefit instead of being an absract or unrelated name.

My favorite idea comes from the section titled, "Keep it Simple, Stupid," where the authors cite a study that found that brands with messages written at or below a fifth-grade reading level were 25% more likely to survive than those with more complex messages. The authors suggest explaining your sales and marketing story to a fifth-grader, and asking him to repeat what he just heard -- and correcting the difference between what you said and what he said.

The book comes with an audio CD that I haven't yet listened to, but it is going in my car's changer tomorrow.

Creating Client Evangelists

I just finished the book Creating Customer Evangelists by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba and found dozens of great ideas to build my ideal firm. In the book, the authors profile several companies that have created amazing "buzz" from extremely satisfied "customer evangelists." The companies profiled included Krispy-Kreme, Build-a-Bear Workshops, and Southwest Airlines. Each company was held out by the authors as an example of a good business made great through fervent customer support and word-of-mouth advertising. A singular focus on the customer experience (and not on stock price, shareholder value, or even profits) differentiated these companies from their competitors.

Th first step in creating avid customers is to learn what those customers want. Huba and McConnell set out ten golden rules for learning -- and valuing -- customer feedback:

1. Believe that customers possess good ideas.2. Gather customer feedback at every opportunity.3. Focus on continual improvement.4. Actively solicit good and bad feedback.5. Don't spend vast sums of money doing it.6. Seek real-time feedback.7. Make it easy for customers to provide their feedback.8. Leverage technology to aid your efforts.9. Share customer feedback throughout the organization.10. Use input to make changes -- and communicate changes back to customers.

I've been meeting individually with my best clients for the past month to learn what I can do to make my services more appealing to them. Now I have to identify and meet with my unhappy clients and learn how I screwed up my relationship with them (and how to keep it from happening again). I'm also beginning a Customer Advisory Board (another of the authors' great ideas) by asking my best clients to serve on a sort of "board of directors" for my firm and to help me learn to become indispensible to them.

Visit McConnell's and Huba's weblog Church of the Customer for a daily dose of their wisdom and insight.