Soulard Idea Market
The Soulard Idea Market is at the Lucas on August 8, 2006, from 6:00 until 8:30. I’ll have more details tomorrow.
Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me ...
Michael McDonough has an article in the Design Observer titled The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School that made me think he was actually writing about Law School. Here are a few:
1. Talent is one-third of the success equation. Talent is important in any profession, but it is no guarantee of success. Hard work and luck are equally important. Hard work means self-discipline and sacrifice. Luck means, among other things, access to power, whether it is social contacts or money or timing. In fact, if you are not very talented, you can still succeed by emphasizing the other two. If you think I am wrong, just look around.
2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work. Only 5 percent is actually, in some simplistic way, fun. In school that is what you focus on; it is 100 percent fun. Tick-tock. In real life, most of the time there is paper work, drafting boring stuff, fact-checking, negotiating, selling, collecting money, paying taxes, and so forth. If you don’t learn to love the boring, aggravating, and stupid parts of your profession and perform them with diligence and care, you will never succeed.
7. When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance. Overconfidence is as bad as no confidence. Be humble in approaching problems. Realize and accept your ignorance, then work diligently to educate yourself out of it. Ask questions. Power – the power to create things and impose them on the world – is a privilege. Do not abuse it, do not underestimate its difficulty, or it will come around and bite you on the ass. The great Karmic wheel, however slowly, turns.
10. The rest of the world counts. If you hope to accomplish anything, you will inevitably need all of the people you hated in high school. I once attended a very prestigious design school where the idea was “If you are here, you are so important, the rest of the world doesn’t count.” Not a single person from that school that I know of has ever been really successful outside of school. In fact, most are the kind of mid-level management drones and hacks they so despised as students. A suit does not make you a genius. No matter how good your design is, somebody has to construct or manufacture it. Somebody has to insure it. Somebody has to buy it. Respect those people. You need them. Big time.
I’d love to get a list of those things you wish they’d taught in school, but never did. Leave a comment, e-mail me, or trackback to this post and I’ll compile them all for a future post.
The Myth of the "Short" Meeting
In practice, I always preferred a face-to-face meeting with my clients to a telephone conversation or an exchange of correspondence. I believed in-person conversations were much more effective and better for both client and lawyer — and still do. However, it is important to keep in mind the true costs (to the lawyer and client) of that “short” meeting. From 37signals:
If you’re going to schedule a meeting that lasts one hour and invite 10 people to attend then it’s a ten-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting. You are trading 10 hours of productivity for one hour of meeting time. And it’s probably more like 15 hours since there are mental switching costs associated with stopping what you’re doing, going somewhere else to do something else, and then resuming what you were doing before.
Remember how valuable your clients’ time is. Though you may not think their time is worth as much as yours, at the end of the meeting, neither of you will get that time back.
technorati tags: meetings, productivity, client+service
Soap Box Derby for Adults -- In St. Louis!
This looks like it is going to be fun (and it takes place in St. Louis):
The Red Bull Soap Box Race happens on the streets of St. Louis' Forest Park October 28. Unlike most gravity-powered events, the Red Bull race follows a drag racing-like single elimination, bracketed duel format, with two racers fighting it out side-by-side down the course. The racers get a power boost at the start, too, in the form of a hefty push from their crew of four "mechanics."
Red Bull is looking for fifty teams, who will be scored not only on speed, but also on creativity and showmanship. If you're looking for design ideas, check out photos from some of Red Bull's previous gravity races in Austria, England (pictured above), Sweden, Czech Republic, Australia, Italy, Finland, Ireland, Germany and
South Africa.
If you firm couldn’t afford that NASCAR sponsorship, how about sponsoring a Soap Box car?
When Creativity Takes a Holiday
One of the reasons lawyers aren’t a more innovative bunch is that we spend so much time working in our businesses, that we don’t have time to work on them. Does this sound familiar?
When pressure's intense, creativity is one of the first casualties. Fear of producing still more work, fear of censure and fear of losing face foster cultures that are risk-averse; together with an attitude that protecting your butt always takes precedence. People become too afraid—or too tired—to do more than stick with what they know and what's worked before. You can say goodbye to any possibility of outdistancing the competition through innovation.
Besides, in today's most typical culture, internal competition is more intense as job cuts proliferate and promotion prospects diminish. No one can afford to make mistakes. Mistakes cost results and time; they undermine your credibility; they're noted by those who control promotion, political influence and employment itself. Why risk any of these to back some unproven idea? "Making the numbers" gets you a pat on the back—more or less however you do it.
Time is already in such short supply in companies like that no one dares use any on innovation. They all go instead for the quick, obvious answer; the "done it before a thousand times" answer; the quick-fix. That new idea may be a winner—sometime in the future. But who looks that far ahead, when getting through the rest of today looks uncertain enough? Unless it comes with one of these adjectives attached—instant, quicker, simpler, cheaper, fail-safe—or fits the "get it done and move one" fashionable attitude, dump it right away.
I’m working on a presentation right now, with the working title “Being a More Creative Lawyer,” that I’ll share here online when the first draft is done. I’m having a tremendous time merging my thoughts on creativity and Idea Surplus Disorder(tm) with my new, still developing presentation style. I’ll have more soon.
Get Down With NLP -- Yeah You Know Me
Want an introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)? Check out this 12 part series on the Life Coaches Blog: NLP 101. What is NLP?
A powerful bag of tricks that allows you to help people change themselves through its mental models, patterns of influence and techniques of change.
Instead of giving you generals, NLP has many step-by-step specifics, which is great when practitioners recognize the principles so they know how not to go step-by-step, and terrible when practitioners don’t know the principles and follow the steps to the letter or bend it all out of shape.
A lot of trial lawyers have been studying NLP to help them connect with juries. If you are curious, check out the whole series.
Charge Late Fees for Missed Appointments?
What do you do when clients don’t show up for scheduled appointment? Rob May’s new doctor has a pretty good idea:
A few weeks ago I started going to a new doctor, and was made to sign a document explaining their late fee policy. It was unique. If you miss a scheduled visit, you are charged a $20 fee. If you are late by more than 10 minutes, that qualifies as a missed session. But the doctor's office doesn't keep the money. All money from late fees is donated to the local children's hospital.
I haven't missed a visit, but if I did, I can't imagine arguing with the penalty. I think it's brilliant. It turns the debate from a me vs. them fight for my money to a decision about whether to give money to a third party charity. In essence, it diffuses customer anger while still imposing a penalty. It reminds me that innovative solutions to business problems do exist, but they sometimes require you to step a little bit outside the lines of conventional wisdom.
Easy, not Free, Does It
Joyce Wycoff suggests that “Easy” is the New “Free” on herGood Morning Thinkers! blog. She recounts her experience applying for a mortgage, both in person at her local bank, and online. She raves about her “easy” experience with QuickenLoans and asks a question we all should take time to answer:
So, how could you make life easier for your customers (internal or external)? It may be the most powerful thing you could do.
Indeed. How often have we focused on making things easier for us (as professionals) but not for our customers? In fact, do any of us know what our customers/clients want or need? What would make it “Easy” for our customers to do business with us?
Go ask them.
The Client is Not Broken
Have you ever come across something so forward-thinking you read it several times and said “Wow” after each read? Maybe it’s the caffiene or lack of sleep talking, but I came across this post, titled The User is Not Broken: A Meme Masquerading as a Manifesto, from K.G. Schneider on Free Range Librarian that hit that spot for me.
I’m cherry-picking the best ones (OK, almost all of them), but they are all that good. If you are not a librarian, and I know many of you aren’t, I’ve taken the liberty of replacing “librarian, library, and user” with “lawyer, law firm, and client.”
All technologies evolve and die. Every technology you learned about in [law] school will be dead someday.
You fear loss of control, but that has already happened. Ride the wave.
The [client] is not broken.
Your system is broken until proven otherwise.
That vendor who just sold you the million-dollar system …doesn't have a clue what he's talking about, and his system is broken, too.
Most of your most passionate [clients] will never meet you face to face.
Most of your most alienated [clients] will never meet you face to face.
Your website is your ambassador to tomorrow's [clients]. They will meet the website long before they see your building, your physical resources, or your people.
It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to find a [law firm] website that is usable and friendly and provides services rather than talking about them in weird [legal] jargon.
Information flows down the path of least resistance. If you block a tool the [clients] want, users will go elsewhere to find it.
You cannot change the [client], but you can transform the [client] experience to meet the [client].
Meet people where they are--not where you want them to be.
The [client] is not "remote." You, the [lawyer], are remote, and it is your job to close that gap.
The average [law firm] decision about implementing new technologies takes longer than the average life cycle for new technologies.
If you are reading about it in Time and Newsweek and your [law firm] isn't adapted for it or offering it, you're behind.
Stop moaning about the good old days. The card catalog sucked, and you thought so at the time, too.
If we continue fetishizing the format and ignoring the [client], we will be tomorrow's cobblers.
Your ignorance will not protect you.
This kind of work is what’s so amazes me about the Blogosphere. K.G. Schneider is a writer and librarian. As I sit here today, this “Meme Masquerading as a Manifesto” is at least as good (and frankly, IMHO, much, much better) as anything I’ve seen Tom Peters or Seth Godin write this year. I’m looking forward to reading what she has to say next. Your thoughts?
Computer Programs I Want: ToDo-per Scooper
Saw this about scheduling productivity “dashes” on 43 Folders, and had this thought:
Say you’ve got 10 (30, 200?) items on your To-Do list, and you are so overwhelmed, you don’t know where to start. What you need is a Random Task Generator, (alternative title “ToDo-per Scooper”). Here’s how it would work:
1. It would take the list of your to-do’s, either inputed directly or scoured (scooped?) from your Outlook tasks list, along with the estimated amount of time you think each task will take.
2. It would automatically add 50% more time to your estimate (to account for innacurate and overly-optimistic estimating).
3. Whenever you set aside a certain amount of time on your calendar for non-specific task completion, it would fill in that time with a randomly-selected To-Do (or To-Do’s) that fit the time you set aside.
4. The randomness could be changed to give more weight to more important tasks — kind of like adding more balls for the bad teams in the NBA lottery.
BONUS: If this feature were incorporated into an enterprise-wide calendaring and task-management program (legal software vendors, are you listening?), the business could set aside an hour each day when everyone could get access to a fresh set of to-do’s to complete in that hour. I think it could make the whole enterprise more productive.
Anyone want to build this application with me? Or is it already out there?
technorati tags: productivity, procrastination, lifehacks, software, web2.0
Soulard Idea Market - Update
I’ve found a location for the Soulard Idea Market that will accomodate 30–50 people, and am ironing out the details with the landlord. I’ll have more information soon — perhaps as early as tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Why Blog?
Christopher Carfi pointed me to this essay by Chris Brogan titled Cavemen at the Fire that captures the essence of the “why” of blogging for so many of us:
But the truth is, I'm getting value. I get value in talking with you. I've met so many engaging people, and every time one of you risks delurking and sending me an email, I meet a new friend…. I feel that every day I post something new is another micro resume. I'm telling people out there what I stand for, how I think, what matters most to me. Some days, that's probably not going to land me a job. Other days, it's something that people might relate to.
Be Ready to Leave Your Best Message
Here’s a great tip to keep in mind next time you call a client:
Prepare for every telephone call expecting to get voicemail. This will help you focus your message and prevent rambling. You should treat your voicemail message as a short presentation, thinking it through ahead of time, not during the recording…
From this 1999 Report, via 43 Folders.
Soulard Idea Market
Since I returned to St. Louis, I’ve been living in the Soulard Market Lofts, next door (as the name obviously suggests) to the 160 year old Soulard Market. I floated the idea at a recent St. Louis bloggers lunch for a regular LexThink-ish brainstorming, networking, and fun event to be held every month here in Soulard.
I’m working on some basic details, but if you are in St. Louis, and want to connect with some cool, interesting people to discuss business and technology issues, the Soulard Idea Market may be for you. If you are interested, e-mail me at matt @ lexthink.com or leave a comment. We’ll try to get the inaugural one set for late June.
Why is making a small change so difficult?
Next time you pull out your hair because your spouse, friend, or coworker (or you) can’t seem to change his or her habits, think about this (from Scott Young):
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made when trying to change habits, is simply in underestimating the amount of conscious focus keeping the habit will take. In many ways, making big changes for diet, exercise or sleep is easier than making a little change because it is too easy to undervalue exactly how much emphasis is required to make the change.
Lessons for Ford, and for Lawyers
In The Truth About Cars, Robert Farago offers up his prescription for an ailing Ford:
You want bold moves? Kill Jaguar. Kill Mercury. Sell Volvo. Sell Mazda. Sell Land Rover. Cut half the remaining models and plow money into the ones that survive. Re-invigorate your rear-wheel drive, box-frame car with new sheetmetal, a bad-ass motor and a killer cabin. Build a world-beating Lincoln luxury sedan. Make the Ford Focus the world’s best small car. Get the Explorer’s mileage into the mid-20’s. Develop a more powerful engine than the Hemi and stick it into everything-- including a new minivan. Set SVT loose on the entire model line-up. OWN quality interiors. Don't badge engineer ANYTHING.
Lose the glass fishbowl; redesign Ford showrooms to look like a modern retail outlet. Trim the dealer network and sell cars on the web. Undercut everyone’s price with every vehicle. Interact with every single customer on a regular basis via internet. Institute no-haggle pricing. Make financing cheaper. Drop 80% of your print budget and dominate the web. Do it all, and do it all at once-- regardless of cost. Then sell value for money. Ford: the best car money can buy.
Imagine a big law firm (or any law firm) making similar moves. What would that advice be, and what would the resulting law firm look like?
Crayon Your Way to Better Presentations?
Here’s an interesting tip from the Sales Presentation Training Blog:
Write your entire presentation out and then get some colored markers. For example, for all the facts that you have written down, highlight them in red. Next, color all your humor in green. Lastly, color all your audience participation in blue.
Ok, now step back and look at your work of art. What, you don't see any green for humor? Where is the blue, for audience participation? Even if you are giving a sales presentation to manage $50 million dollars for a pension fund, you will be amazed by the audiences receptivity if you make the presentation about them. Red is a nice color but make sure your presentation has some green and blue to involve your audience.
Try the same thing with your marketing materials. Use highlight all of the sentences talking about you (your technology, your offices, your expertise) in red, and all of the sentences talking about your clients (their needs, their testimonials, their satisfaction) in green. Too much red? Maybe you need some new marketing materials.
A Great Motivational Tip
Jason Womack shares a tip he received when he asked the audience at a recent workshop for their productivity tips. Jason asked, "How do you stay motivated when the project outcome is a long time off?" The best tip:
Label the project in terms of what I will receive when I'm done. Make it one I "want to" complete.
Training for Big Law Management
This is tounge in cheek, of course, but if your goal is to run a MegaFirm, then I humbly present to you The Evil Overlord List. There you’ll find 100 tips, tricks, and bits of advice for the Dr. Evil wanna be. Here are a few of the more serious ones:
When I’m an Evil Overlord …
12. One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
24. I will maintain a realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Even though this takes some of the fun out of the job, at least I will never utter the line "No, this cannot be! I AM INVINCIBLE!!!" (After that, death is usually instantaneous.)
27. I will never build only one of anything important. All important systems will have redundant control panels and power supplies. For the same reason I will always carry at least two fully loaded weapons at all times.
40. I will be neither chivalrous nor sporting. If I have an unstoppable superweapon, I will use it as early and as often as possible instead of keeping it in reserve.
45. I will make sure I have a clear understanding of who is responsible for what in my organization. For example, if my general screws up I will not draw my weapon, point it at him, say "And here is the price for failure," then suddenly turn and kill some random underling.
46. If an advisor says to me "My liege, he is but one man. What can one man possibly do?", I will reply "This." and kill the advisor.
48. I will treat any beast which I control through magic or technology with respect and kindness. Thus if the control is ever broken, it will not immediately come after me for revenge.
50. My main computers will have their own special operating system that will be completely incompatible with standard IBM and Macintosh powerbooks.
52. I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.
60. My five-year-old child advisor will also be asked to decipher any code I am thinking of using. If he breaks the code in under 30 seconds, it will not be used. Note: this also applies to passwords.
61. If my advisors ask "Why are you risking everything on such a mad scheme?", I will not proceed until I have a response that satisfies them.
74. When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.
85. I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."
90. I will not design my Main Control Room so that every workstation is facing away from the door.
There are a lot of good lessons here. Of course, there are just as many like these:
63. Bulk trash will be disposed of in incinerators, not compactors. And they will be kept hot, with none of that nonsense about flames going through accessible tunnels at predictable intervals.
72. When my guards split up to search for intruders, they will always travel in groups of at least two. They will be trained so that if one of them disappears mysteriously while on patrol, the other will immediately initiate an alert and call for backup, instead of quizzically peering around a corner.
89. After I captures the hero's superweapon, I will not immediately disband my legions and relax my guard because I believe whoever holds the weapon is unstoppable. After all, the hero held the weapon and I took it from him.