Potential buyers got their first look at Facebook financials yesterday, which showed the company produced a $1 billion profit last year from $3.71 billion in revenues. The company derives 85% of those revenues from advertising, with the rest from social gaming and other fees. The initial public offering could value the social network between $75 billion and $100 billion, putting the company on track for one of the biggest U.S. stock-market debuts of all time.

Facebook’s membership growth has been staggering. The company said in its filing that it has 845 million users globally, up 39% from a year earlier.

Facebook takes pains to mention the importance of privacy, mentioning the word 35 times in the filing, and even listing its “privacy and sharing settings” as one of the ways the company creates value.

The number of ads delivered on the site grew 42% and the average price per ad grew 18% over 2011 from 2010, according to the filing.

The company attributed the improvement to a vast trove of information that allows marketers to “show their ads to a subset of our users based on demographic factors such as age, location, gender, education, work history, and specific interests that they have chosen to share with us on Facebook or by using the Like button around the web or on mobile devices.”

 (Wall Street Journal)

INVESTORS’ RISK

While all this is quite interesting data to me, there was one particular piece in the IPO filing that caught my attention:

As a matter of required disclosure, to caution investors against buying blindly, Facebook had to release a list of “risks” on the S-1 Registration Statement.

A quick review of those risks, which follows, made me think…this is a terrific exercise and one that law firms could benefit from—a REALLY HONEST assessment of their “risks.” 

SIDE BAR: A SWOT analysis completed during strategic planning—strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats—will likely get you to the answers, as I’m thinking threats could be substituted for “risks.” With one caveat: your list of threats cannot be unfounded nor cliché. I’ve seen many law firm SWOT reports, and I have to say that too many have made me wonder if they were just filling in the blanks or if they really knew or understood their actual market risks?

Now, if a law firm did plunge into a market risk assessment, what if instead of keeping risks hidden in the executive boardroom, what if that list was distributed among the firm’s stakeholders (not just partners but also employees whose careers are dependent upon the success of the law firm)? Couldn’t that help the firm’s best interest? After all, they are all investors at various levels and…they have ability and responsibility to protect the firm’s best interests from its risks. How can they do that if they don’t know what they are? Management? Do all your attorneys know? Is it practical to share that information with an associate who might be on his way out in another year and off to a competing law firm?

What do you think? Maybe not? Just saying…I think it would be of great benefit on several levels.

 Here is the list pulled from the Facebook SEC Form S-1 Registration Statement. Thanks to Brian Solis for pointing it out on his blog post of Feb 1, 2012.

FACEBOOK RISK FACTORS

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

If we fail to retain existing users or add new users, or if our users decrease their level of engagement with Facebook, our revenue, financial results, and business may be significantly harmed.

The size of our user base and our users’ level of engagement are critical to our success. We had 845 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of December 31, 2011. Our financial performance has been and will continue to be significantly determined by our success in adding, retaining, and engaging active users. We anticipate that our active user growth rate will decline over time as the size of our active user base increases, and as we achieve higher market penetration rates. To the extent our active user growth rate slows, our business performance will become increasingly dependent on our ability to increase levels of user engagement in current and new markets. If people do not perceive our products to be useful, reliable, and trustworthy, we may not be able to attract or retain users or otherwise maintain or increase the frequency and duration of their engagement. A number of other social networking companies that achieved early popularity have since seen their active user bases or levels of engagement decline, in some cases precipitously. There is no guarantee that we will not experience a similar erosion of our active user base or engagement levels. A decrease in user retention, growth, or engagement could render Facebook less attractive to developers and advertisers, which may have a material and adverse impact on our revenue, business, financial condition, and results of operations. Any number of factors could potentially negatively affect user retention, growth, and engagement, including if:

1. users increasingly engage with competing products;
2. we fail to introduce new and improved products or if we introduce new products or services that are not favorably received;
3. we are unable to successfully balance our efforts to provide a compelling user experience with the decisions we make with respect to the frequency, prominence, and size of ads and other commercial content that we display;
4. we are unable to continue to develop products for mobile devices that users find engaging, that work with a variety of mobile operating systems and networks, and that achieve a high level of market acceptance;
5. there are changes in user sentiment about the quality or usefulness of our products or concerns related to privacy and sharing, safety, security, or other factors;
6. we are unable to manage and prioritize information to ensure users are presented with content that is interesting, useful, and relevant to them;
7. there are adverse changes in our products that are mandated by legislation, regulatory authorities, or litigation, including settlements or consent decrees;
8. technical or other problems prevent us from delivering our products in a rapid and reliable manner or otherwise affect the user experience;
9. we adopt policies or procedures related to areas such as sharing or user data that are perceived negatively by our users or the general public;
10. we fail to provide adequate customer service to users, developers, or advertisers;
11. we, our Platform developers, or other companies in our industry are the subject of adverse media reports or other negative publicity; or
12. our current or future products, such as the Facebook Platform, reduce user activity on Facebook by making it easier for our users to interact and share on third-party websites.

______________________________________________________________

As a bonus, here’s the open letter from Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, included in the S-1 filing. The Facebook mission statement:

LETTER FROM MARK ZUCKERBERG

Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission — to make the world more open and connected.

We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do. I will try to outline our approach in this letter.

At Facebook, we’re inspired by technologies that have revolutionized how people spread and consume information. We often talk about inventions like the printing press and the television — by simply making communication more efficient, they led to a complete transformation of many important parts of society. They gave more people a voice. They encouraged progress. They changed the way society was organized. They brought us closer together.

Today, our society has reached another tipping point. We live at a moment when the majority of people in the world have access to the internet or mobile phones — the raw tools necessary to start sharing what they’re thinking, feeling and doing with whomever they want. Facebook aspires to build the services that give people the power to share and help them once again transform many of our core institutions and industries.

There is a huge need and a huge opportunity to get everyone in the world connected, to give everyone a voice and to help transform society for the future. The scale of the technology and infrastructure that must be built is unprecedented, and we believe this is the most important problem we can focus on.

We hope to strengthen how people relate to each other.

Even if our mission sounds big, it starts small — with the relationship between two people.

Personal relationships are the fundamental unit of our society. Relationships are how we discover new ideas, understand our world and ultimately derive long-term happiness

At Facebook, we build tools to help people connect with the people they want and share what they want, and by doing this we are extending people’s capacity to build and maintain relationships.

People sharing more — even if just with their close friends or families — creates a more open culture and leads to a better understanding of the lives and perspectives of others. We believe that this creates a greater number of stronger relationships between people, and that it helps people get exposed to a greater number of diverse perspectives.

By helping people form these connections, we hope to rewire the way people spread and consume information. We think the world’s information infrastructure should resemble the social graph — a network built from the bottom up or peer-to-peer, rather than the monolithic, top-down structure that has existed to date. We also believe that giving people control over what they share is a fundamental principle of this rewiring.

We have already helped more than 800 million people map out more than 100 billion connections so far, and our goal is to help this rewiring accelerate.

We hope to improve how people connect to businesses and the economy.

We think a more open and connected world will help create a stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products and services.

As people share more, they have access to more opinions from the people they trust about the products and services they use. This makes it easier to discover the best products and improve the quality and efficiency of their lives.

Greentarget, Zeughauser Group and Inside Counsel magazine just released survey data that updates their oft quoted 2010 findings on how corporate, in-house law departments are using social media with The 2012 In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey. (News release below.)

Just 19 months ago the ‘power users’ were the under-40 crowd. Today, the survey shows that, hey, even lawyers in their 40′s, 50′s and 60′s—the decision makers—are jumping onto social media more frequently to, in my words, “better understand their choices.”

What’s new?

That’s right, they’re out there listening, reading and evaluating the private practice attorneys who every day conduct a type of dog and pony show as they post to their blogs, Tweet their successes, and network on LinkedIn. But that’s where it sort of ends. Don’t expect to get the GC to engage in Twitter banter with you nor comment on your blog—they’re not engaging as frequently as they are stalking. The survey’s executive summary states that of the 86 percent of the in-house counsel bar that use it at all, 68 percent use it to listen exclusively, while just 32 percent say they both listen and engage with others. So, the majority of in house counsel is essentially invisible and largely prefer to consume content without interacting on new media channels. (Interestingly, this I believe tracks close enough with the North American population in general. The last available (free) social media engagement data reported in 2008 showed that 48% of online U.S. adults were spectators and only 18% creators, 25% joiners and 44% inactive. From Groundswell, by Charline Li, Josh Bernoff for Forrester Research. These numbers have been updated, but I don’t have access to them.)

Lawyers win.

Though not surprising, it looks like the best new media marketing strategy is to credential lawyers as subject matter experts using social media, blogs and even Wikipedia entries rather than waste time trying to brand the whole firm, or so the data suggests: 

By having articles, decisions, opinion columns, background on precedent-setting cases, and similar material featuring firm attorneys cited as references in a Wikipedia entry, firms can showcase the expertise of their attorneys in front of in-house counsel. It is important to note that Wikipedia has very specific rules on how entries are to be edited, and a very active community of editors who do not tolerate the use of Wikipedia as a promotional tool. This further supports the notion that law firms should use Wikipedia to enhance existing articles by adding to the fingerprint of reference material contained within those articles, rather than promoting themselves via firm-focused entries.

Analysis.

The full report does a good job at logging the tally of responses and goes a step further to offer analysis which should be of help to those law firm marketing pros that seek to gain traction in the inner sanctum of corporate law departments with their social media activity. However, after I digest the report I hope to return with my own analysis on how I believe private practice lawyers and law firms can use the data to their advantage. 

At the end of the day, a big shout out to the report creators and sponsors, Greentarget, Zeughauser Group and Inside Counsel magazine and their teams.  I can’t help wondering what goes through the in-house counsel’s mind after being asked about their social media behaviors.  I wonder why they were willing to participate? Do they want to help lawyers and law firms better understand how they hire lawyers and law firms? Are they encouraging them to continue to reveal themselves through social media as a more efficient means; i.e. process improvement tactic? Or, maybe they just want them to know that “you never know who’s watching!”

In my 2010 book published by WEST, social.lawyers: Transforming business development, I tell the story of Robert Thomas who landed two Fortune 100 clients without ever submitting a response to an RFP, simply because the general counsels both reported that (paraphrased) ‘we read your blog, we know what you know and it’s like getting to hear your lawyer think out loud and we like what you’re thinking!’ Pretty cool, huh?

Certainly, no longer is it okay for any lawyer trying to develop new business to be absent from the social web!

Cheers,

NEWS RELEASE from Greentarget

Social Media Adoption by In-House Lawyers Growing, Signaling New Opportunities to Reach Buyers of Legal Services

Second annual In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey shows generational usage leveling off; prominent blogs influence hiring decisions; in-house lawyers “invisible users” who consume content without interaction

Chicago, IL January 25, 2012 – A survey released today by communications firm Greentarget, consulting firm Zeughauser Group and InsideCounsel magazine finds that older in-house lawyers—those in their 40s, 50s and 60s—are using social media in far greater numbers than they were in 2010. The survey (#GCSocial on Twitter) highlights key factors that influence hiring decisions among buyers of legal services, and provides new insights for law firms to reach current and prospective clients more effectively through digital communications. The results show dynamic progression from the study’s 2010 figures, the first year the survey was conducted.

“The days of the younger ‘power users’ is quickly fading as older counsel are using social media tools with greater fervor and frequency than they were just 18 months ago,” said John Corey, founding partner of Greentarget. “Whether it the continued emergence of blogs, the untapped potential of LinkedIn or the vast implications of in-house counsel listening quietly rather than actively engaging on the social web, the research provides timely new perspective and guidance on how to implement and measure social media strategies geared to the in-house community.”

The In-House Counsel New Media Engagement Survey measures how corporate lawyers’ use and perceptions of new media have changed and what they are using digital communications to do.

The Highlights:

• Prominent blogs influence the hiring of outside counsel. Eighty-four percent of respondents say they think blogs are credible, and more than half think a prominent blog will influence clients to hire that firm.
• Blogs declined in daily readers from 2010, but an increase in weekly and monthly readers more than made up for it.
• General counsel say they read firm-branded or law firm attorney-authored blogs slightly more often than they read blogs written by professional journalists.
• LinkedIn is the most dynamic example of older lawyers increasing their usage of social media, with the majority of respondents of all ages using it at least weekly.
• Communications between law firms and their clients is slowly but steadily going social, as evidenced by a modest increase in respondents who said they were using new media tools to access content from their outside firms.
• Just seven percent of respondents say they have visited the Wikipedia page of their outside counsel. However, 87 percent say they use the platform to research issues, indicating law firms should consider a different approach to the e-encyclopedia.
• Most in-house counsel listen but do not interact online. This suggests that firms cannot accurately measure the ROI of new media by pursuing dialogue and interaction with client-side lawyers.
• Hardware innovation is influencing legal marketing as a growing percentage of respondents are using mobile devices—smartphones and tablets—to consume industry news content.

“By addressing not only where in-house counsel congregate online, but also what they are using digital platforms to do and what kind of content they find most meaningful, this research provides fresh insights into how legal marketers can better adapt and align their new media strategies with marketing and business development,” said Norm Rubenstein, partner of Zeughauser Group

Added Thomas Duggan, Group Publisher, InsideCounsel: “It is fascinating to see how media consumption habits are changing. For instance, blogs—both those that are firm-branded as well as those that are maintained by traditional editorial operations—play an increasingly prominent role as niche media outlets for news and commentary about legal issues.  As the leading publisher serving general counsel and other top in-house legal professionals, we are committed to keeping our finger on the pulse of how the in-house community is using new forms of media to stay informed and connected.”

To download a summary of the research report, click here. For more information, contact John Corey at jcorey@greentarget.net or 312-252-4100.

About the Survey’s Authors

About Greentarget (www.greentarget.com)

Greentarget is a strategic communications firm focused exclusively on the communications needs of highly competitive business-to-business organizations.  We counsel those who counsel the world‘s most sophisticated businesses and direct the conversation among their most important audiences to help deepen the relationships that impact the long-term value of their organizations.

About Zeughauser Group (www.consultzg.com)

Zeughauser Group is the firm of choice for legal industry leaders seeking to increase their competitive advantage and profitability, enhance market position, and strengthen organizational culture.

About InsideCounsel (www.insidecounsel.com) 

InsideCounsel is the premier monthly magazine serving general counsel and other top in-house legal professionals. It is the oldest monthly magazine published exclusively for the in-house community with an editorial mission to provide the strategic tools that general counsel need to better manage their legal departments and fully understand the business risks companies face today.

There are two fatal errors that keep great projects from coming to life:

1. Not finishing
2. Not starting

—Buddha

A DEEP BREATH OF LIFE

Early last year I took a yoga class at Florida Keys Community College. While I was far from a good student, having missed more than half the classes, the small investment I made paid off in a BIG way. At the end of each class the instructor read from a book, which I eventually bought and became an extremely positive force in my life, my relationships, and my work. The book, written by Alan Cohen, is titled “A Deep Breath of Life.” It is organized with daily stories that inspire “heart-centered living.” Over the past year there have been a number of entries I thought to share on the VMO blog but held back for one or another reason, mainly because I feared being too touchy-feely. Today’s entry was just too instructive to take a pass on not sharing, and so applicable to the law firm environment where great marketing projects too often fail to come to life because we don’t ACT NOW!

Act Now

“While living in a farming community, our group planned to erect a new house. For many months we discussed the plans, and because we did not fully agree, nothing was done. Then one day, one man went out to the building site with a plumb line and began to hammer stakes into the ground. It wasn’t long before the house was built.

“You can think and talk about a project for a long time, but only action will manifest it. If you wait until you’re ready, you’ll never get anything done. Don’t wait until all the conditions are perfect for you to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.”

—Alan Cohen, author, A Deep Breath of Life

When I was working as an executive marketer in-house at law firms, more times than not, great projects were delayed by analysis paralysis. I think back to how many of those projects, had we simply started, could have made a significant difference.

Begin Here

While I believe Cohen’s story is inspirational and instructional, in a law firm it is simply just not acceptable to “start” anything without going through the hoops and layers of approvals. So, what can we do? Here are a few things I’ve done in the past or have seen others do to “start” great projects and still honor the system. (Please add yours in the comments!)

1. Build your case. Law firms are noted for their reliance on precedent. First to be second is the mantra for many.

Managing Partner: “You want to do what? Show me other law firms that are doing it successfully then we might try it.”

Marketing Director: “There are no other law firms doing it, that’s why it’s a great project for our firm and we could be first!”

Managing Partner: “First? Too risky. We don’t want to be the first to fail.”

While not ideal, you might point to other non-law firm examples where similar projects have worked. You’ll need to connect the dots for the decision makers, so in advance of presenting your project idea I recommend a good brainstorm session with trusted advisors or your team to identify potential objections. You might also consider running a what-if scenario past your ethics committee or state bar association. At the end of the day, I believe and have seen it work, if you do your homework and come to the discussion prepared with some key evidence that the project has real legs, you stand a better chance of getting it off the paper. That’s a good start.

2. Test it. Part of building your case, especially if it’s really original, is to test your project. For example, I know a marketing team that created “draft” videos using what they had on hand at no additional cost, a flip camera. Before they pitched the project to management, they wrote the scripts, played the parts, recorded them, and edited them into something close enough to their vision so the partners could actually see how it would play out. While the quality was not on par with their ultimate goal for the project, seeing the draft clearly demonstrated the  potential of the medium and the direction the team would be taking the project. They are now one of the most prolific law firms creating effective videos for internal communications as well as for clients and prospects today!

3. Prove it. A young associate attorney asked his firm for permission and a small stipend to start a blog. He was succinctly turned down—“We’re not ready for that social media stuff.” Not deterred, (and with the VMO’s encouragement ) he tried another approach: invest time on his own to creating a well-thought out plan for content and promotion before he pitched it to the law firm again. He took action and started. Short of actually launching a blog on his own, he prepared a statement for the blog’s “About Page,” his “Author Page,” a comment policy, disclaimer, and fleshed out a list of content Categories complete with descriptions. He made a list of 50 SEO terms he could use, having done a little research on the web, including an analysis of potential titles for the blog and tactics for cross promoting. Then HE WROTE A DOZEN blog posts! With this in hand, he went back to the practice chair and demonstrated that it was a plausible project and that he was committed to it.

How will you “get the party started” in 2012?

Exceptional ideas and projects need exceptional measures to get started. Are you up for it? Books I recommend for further inspiration include:

1. Enchantment by Guy Kawasaki and his earlier book,
2. Rules for Revolutionaries
3. How to Act Like a CEO by executive coach, Debra Benton. (How to Think Like a CEO by Benton is also very excellent!)

What books are on your list for 2012? Drop us a note!

Go Forth! Happy New Year!

Sending a digital eCard to a huge database list of “everyone,” without taking a moment to…

• reflect that behind each name is a real person,
• jot a simple note, and
• add a hand written signature…

…is equivalent to diet mashed potatoes.

If you’re going to serve mashed potatoes without the butter, milk, salt, and gravy, why bother. I think eCards, too, miss several critical ingredients. Even the ones that come from an individual’s email address (rather than from info@) seem cold and aloof, no matter how clever the design. It’s impersonal. Besides, who wants diet food over the holidays? We get sooo many emails every day, and there’s a chance your eCard will end up in the spam filter.

Oh the dilemma!

Now, I understand the problems that law firms face during the holiday card season:

1. Lots of cards to send
2. Can’t agree on a design
3. It’s time consuming to sign them all (my secretary can do it)
4. It can get complicated coordinating signatures from multiple lawyers working on a single account
5. Getting it done in time

On the flip side, eCards solve several problems:

1. Your database is set up for email blasts so there’s no extra effort
2. Some people still think they’re cool, especially the animated ones, no matter what design you choose
3. You don’t have to sign them–your digital signature is in your email template–extra marketing points for a link to your website or social network
4. No postage–though there are production costs
5. It’s easy to push send and be done with it

Another point of view

Still, it seems to me that since being a lawyer is a relationship-based profession, taking time at the holidays to send a real card with a personal note and a handwritten signature is not asking too much. (I’ve yet to see an eCard with a personal touch but I hope I’m wrong and someone can share one with us.)

I also know that much has been written and said about whether or not law firms should be sending holiday eCards or not, and from a practical point of view, it is much more efficient. But, I’m wondering, have we lost some of the specialness of holiday greetings in the process? Am I being over sentimental?  Do you have an opinion?

Here’s mine…

Being a very web and technology oriented person, I pondered to myself as I started to carefully choose, address, sign, and jot personal notes on a pile of over 100 paper holiday cards this week. I said to myself,

“This is a lot of work! Shouldn’t I be using a more “contemporary” channel to wish my colleagues, clients, and friends a happy holiday? Just think of all the time I’d save by sending an eCard. Plus, if I sent an eCard, I could include links to my website, promote my blog and encourage recipients to follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.”

My answer came quickly, loud and clear: NO! You see, as I went through my list, checking it twice, each name caused me to reflect on the individual. It brought to mind the valuable meaning they lent to my business or personal life. Some reminded me of the satisfaction I received working with them, the challenges we met, or the failures we endured. Others made me very thankful for their support over the years and the laughs or tears we shared.

I thought of their careers, their families, and their personal or professional goals of which I sometimes knew. This process made me very thankful to know each one of those names on my list. In fact, looking at the stack, I felt humbled to be associated with such great clients, colleagues, and friends. I would not want to give up this process for anything. I don’t want to send these valuable people diet mashed potatoes.

Then, I visualized the addressee receiving their mail one day, opening the envelope, admiring the card, and taking just a minute to read the note and signature—maybe even thinking “how nice of her to think of me,” and placing it somewhere in their office to add some cheer.

It isn’t every day that an opportunity to send a note to someone who has added meaning to my life—whether in deed, word or income–comes along. This once a year tradition makes it special. I don’t know about you, but getting a real card (birthday or holiday) in the mail always makes me feel a bit more special and I remember the sender fondly.

Plus or minus

While I realize there may be a time and a place for both types of greetings, I would think an attorney in the relationship business would jump on this opportunity to prepare and send a personal greeting to each of the 100 most important people in their contact database, just to let them know they were thinking of them. It would, IMHO, dull the constant dripping of every day email communications that seem to only deliver briefs, bills or bad news, right?

Will you be sending “real” holiday cards this year?

How can we help you?

How can we help you? That was the message preceding a “request for information” form in the Contact Us section of a noteworthy B2B company website I recently visited. Ten days ago I filled out that form and requested specific information or a return phone call regarding a webdesign project I am directing for a client. I still haven’t heard from the company.

Sure, I could have picked up the phone, there was a main number listed, but I was already on the website, the form was handy, seemed sincere, and I was trying to save a little time. Additionally, (1) I wanted the information and hoped that the right person to answer my query would call me directly (I wrote a detailed message) and save some steps, and (2) I often wonder about the effectiveness of the info@ email address which many of these Contact Us forms go to so I decided to test it among four prospective design firms. In this first case I got the answer to #2: not very.

Meanwhile, I received a confirmation from this company stating that I had been added to their email newsletter distribution list, this despite the fact that I unchecked the box that would sign me up to receive “educational materials.” Obviously a glitch in their system? Or not. Worse was the impression this experience has left in my mind: (1) This company actually sells their expertise for online marketing strategy (isn’t the contact us form an important part of the lead generation process?),  and (2) eNewsletter advice and modules are also in their offerings, so why didn’t their opt out work properly?

At the end of the day, they lost not only a prospect—not responding to an info@ inquiry is a bad move for anyone—but the glitch also put a dent in their overall image. For example, when I told my client that we had not heard back from this company he was shocked. He asked, “in this market how can it be that a company does not even want to entertain a new business opportunity?” I had no answer for him. But I can be pretty sure that should this company’s name come up in a discussion among his colleagues where he’d likely have some influence to make a referral, he’d relay our story.

Technology is a game changer.

Technology is a game changer, and I’m not referring to shiny new stuff like social media, but rather something as simple as a basic business tool: EMAIL! Why would you relegate one of the most valuable, and essentially free, technology tools to a low interest priority?

There are more than a dozen, if not more, pay-per-lead generation directory sites that lawyers and law firms subscribe to on the web today–paying good money for each lead the site generates. The reason these are becoming more popular is simple, more people go to the web when searching for services and products than ever before, getting leads from this traffic is valuable. But the fact is, you actually have a decent lead generator on your own site too but how many firms are giving it due respect? Frankly, in my mind it begs the question: Why would a high profile company (or law firm) pay top dollar for a fancy and informative website but not have a functional lead generation tool on it?  The simple Contact Us form on your website will do, as long as you manage it properly, right?

Do you use an info@yourlawfirm.com mailbox for web inquiries?

So I ask, knowing that many many law firms use an info@ourlawfirm.com mail address on their websites, is this a risk you’re willing to take? How do you manage your Contact Us mail? Who responds to your info@ mailbox?

I wonder how many law firms have an info@ inbox full of unanswered inquiries? I wonder how many of those info@ boxes are monitored by overworked legal secretaries or marketing coordinators who do not have the time to respond or even comprehend the value of an online lead?

Build good will.

Granted, many online leads turn out to be a bad fit or a dead end, but that shouldn’t stop a law firm or company from leveraging the opportunity to build good will (you never know who they might know) by simply sending a brief note in response. Even if you’re not interested or you’re not capable of accepting their case, shouldn’t someone write a quick note to explain that?

The end of the story.

The end of my story is that I filled out four online forms on design agency sites. Of the four, three responded. Of those three, one said they’d get back to me, and didn’t, one wrote asking me for a convenient time to talk and further discuss my needs, and one picked up the phone and called me about 30 minutes after I hit submit. Of the two that made further contact, one, after vetting the project with their team, politely declined the project (via email) saying they didn’t have the bandwidth to start the project until next spring, which was too late for us. The other one, the one that called promptly, is preparing a bid for us and frankly, based on responsiveness alone and grasp for the value of lead generation via their website, has a pretty good chance of getting the work if all goes well, because those two attributes mirror our own objectives!

POST UPDATE:

Today, January 2, 2012, I received a “generic” response to the web inquiry I had sent to design firm one, almost 2 full months from the day I submitted it. Is that an acceptable response time? No, it is not. Meanwhile, my client and I identified another solution.

I need your help.

I’d like to hear from readers about your experience using or managing Contact Us forms. How effective is an info@yourlawfirm.com email address for communicating with prospects or generating leads. How many leads generated via email turn into business engagements? Any other thoughts?

Post Script: (If you are a design agency, don’t even think about spamming the comments with a link to your company site. I will delete it. Thanks!)

Last week on VirtualMarketingOfficer.com I wrote about How To Promote Your Law Blog and it turned out to be a pretty popular post, so I figured there are enough readers who are looking for ideas in this regard—thanks to all who re-tweeted the post; Twitter was driving a lot of the traffic according to my WordPress Stats. Over the weekend, I thought, hey, I wonder how many blogger/readers are using Alexa? (I have no business interest or other connection to Alexa, except being a registered user.) Then I thought, why not ask? Are you using Alexa to monitor the health of your blog, understand your audience, and build a more strategic approach?

If the purpose of your blog or website is to gain exposure and influence readers to pick up the phone and hire you, you should know about Alexa and add it to your blog or website tool kit. What is Alexa?

Alexa is “The Web Information Company.” It provides (free) information about all websites including data about; Top Sites, Internet Traffic Stats and Metrics, Related Links, Site Reviews, Site Ownership contact information, and a few other really valuable paid services. They’ve been pursuing their vision of intelligent Web navigation since 1996. Alexa is one of the largest Web crawls with an infrastructure that can process and serve massive amounts of data.

Okay, so what does this mean for you? Read on…

Web Intelligence

To promote your blog or law firm website (Going forward in this post I use these two types of sites interchangeably.) and to develop the right audience (the one most likely to engage your services), knowing how these sites are performing in search results across the web will be an important component of your strategy. With Alexa tools you can do that.  Further, you can see how you compare with your competitors’ websites. This type of competitive intelligence should allow you to make some informed choices that will make your site a better tool for revenue generation and not just a millstone around your neck.  

Install the Alexa Toolbar

There are two choices. You can install the toolbar up top in your browser menu or install it as a status bar at the bottom. Either works. I use the status bar.  Open your site (or any site) in a browser window and then right click the little icon in the status bar and you’ll get an expanded menu of options.

Select Traffic Stats. A window will open and give you all the traffic stats about the open site in your browser. Other choices include:  Search Analytics, Audience, Reviews, Related Links, Clickstream, or Wayback Machine to see earlier versions of the website or blog.

Traffic Statistics

Before I started using Alexa I relied solely on my WordPress Stats and Google Analytics (all good). I’d learn which posts were most popular, how many visitors a day, where they were coming from and what search queries they used, but with Alexa I can uncover a whole lot more to help me gain clearer focus.

The Traffic Rank shows me what percent of total visits to the site are referred by search engines. Approximately 12% of all visits to my blog site are referred by search engines.

Alexa tells me that: 32% of visits to my blog site are bounces (one page view only), but two thirds stay approximately seven minutes, spending 60 seconds on each page view.

In plain English, this data allows me to make some assumptions:  My search optimization is working but I’d like that 12% to become 20% as readers who reach my blog via search are likely brand new prospects. A third of my visitors hit the home page, read the current post and leave. But, at least two thirds read more than one post! Keeping an audience for seven minutes tells me that readers are getting a deeper picture of my knowledge base and expertise.

It also tells me that because visitors are spending a minute on each page view a lot of my content can be skimmed or read in a minute—this has always been one of my goals—making content easy to skim—I write to reach busy professionals. I want them to be able to quickly assess my value, how that might help their law firm, then pick up the phone and hire me to fill in any “specialty marketing” gaps.

Alexa tells me that 73% of visits come from the US where it has attained a traffic rank of 274,702 (not bad considering my niche focus but certainly can be improved) and my audience, based on Internet averages, is comprised more frequently of females who are in the age range 45-54, have no children and are graduate school educated. (Perfect! Leaders and decision makers!)

Search Analytics

The most recent top search queries sending visitors to my blog are “virtual marketing,” “proskauer rose” (I did a post about their iPad purchases), “jayne Navarre,” “alternative fee agreement,” “marketing officer,” “law firm business card,” “where do CMO’s get their ideas from,” “marketing partner forum,” and “social media secrets.”

Alexa also told me that this month the search query “corporate counsel social media” is driving traffic to the site at an increased rate of 1.30%, while “law firm business card” has declined by 1.22%.  With this information, a strategic choice would be to write a new blog post about “corporate counsel and social media,” “social media secrets” or “iPads in AmLaw firms.”

If you’re working a Search Engine Marketing campaign, Alexa will give you a run down on the most apparent opportunities for you based on Query Popularity scores and Query Competition Index (QCI). A topic for another day….

Reputation Score 

The Alexa Reputation Score is based on how many “incoming links” a site has. Links coming into a website are important because they indicate to search engines a measure of authority and popularity of site content.

Click on the Reputation Score for your site (or any site) you’ll get a list of the top sites that have added an inbound link to the content.

Then, make a few assumptions.  Based upon “who” is linking in to your site and “what” content on your site has been attracting inbound links you could create more content like that to attract more links.  Or, use the information to uncover the types of bloggers or sites interested in your content and then search for and reach out to similar bloggers (use the Alexa Top Site Category Search) or site owners by email with an excerpt of a relevant post and a link to it; just in case they are so inclined to one day use it for an outbound link. Though this takes more work than writing a check to a Link Building agency, the links will be authentic, valuable, meaningful, and ethical (and make you a richer blogger as you drive new revenue through the threshold of your blog).

Don’t neglect to link your blog or website from your profile on directory sites. While not of the same quality as being linked to from a top blog or news site, these do count as inbound links and grows your Reputation Score. ** see note below

As your reputation grows, it can open up doors that didn’t exist before. For example, I’ve been contacted by a publicist to review several very high profile business books, which I assume was in part based upon my ability to drive inbound links—it’s a web! (The more links you attract, the more authoritative you become.)  Although I primarily review books to alert my readers to great resources, as an added bonus the inbound links they create builds my web credibility!

If the purpose of your blog or website is to market your law practice, and your site doesn’t have any incoming links, there’s a problem. Either your content isn’t getting found or isn’t being read by other bloggers, news sites, or those who could link in to your content. In this case, you’ll need to work a little harder at creating some connections and build strategic content that will attract inbound links. Go to other similar sites such as yours that have high reputation scores and study their Alexa data to see what they are doing and what you might replicate.

Claim your site

Don’t forget to claim your site with Alexa. With a free registration, you can “Claim Your Site” and update site title, description and contact information which is all effective for making sure the search engines know what your blog or site is about.

Paid Services

For a small fee, via Alexa paid services, you can optimize your site, grow your traffic, and improve user experience without a long-term contract. The Alexa Site Audit performs a deep analysis of your site to reveal potential problems and provides recommendations to help you improve your site. You can get the one time audit or sign up for the monthly plan. Learn more…

Alexa Search

I’m going to leave this for another post because there is so much you can do with an Alexa Search,  but meanwhile, when you’re on the site, try it out, play around in there. You can learn a lot by looking at Top Sites in specific categories to see how you measure up and what you could do to improve.

Conclusion

If you or your law firm use Alexa, tell us about your experience in the comments; love it, like it, lukewarm? If you’re not using Alexa, check it out and remember to come back and tell us about your experience. Thanks!

**Note on Inbound Links from profiles on social networking sites like LinkedIn. Alexa only counts the first inbound link from any site. Therefore, if all the attorneys in your firm have the law firm website link in their LinkedIn profile, it only counts as one inbound link. No big deal, but just wanted to clarify that. Still, any lawyer in your firm with a blog site should definitely include that link in their profile to generate a separate inbound link to their blog site.

Now that your blog is “LIVE,” you need to do some basic things to help others find you. Or give your established blog a little shove and see if traffic doesn’t improve.

Submit to Giant Search Engines

Even though you’ve optimized the general metadata on your blog, as well as each post, you may still want to hand submit your blog to some key search engines.

1. Google. Google will eventually pick up your page but it doesn’t hurt to submit it via Google Webmaster Tools. You can also check there to see how it is performing. Make sure your metadata accurately describes what your blog is about. Submit to Google here.
2. Yahoo! Blog Directory
3. DMOZ.  This is a human-reviewed directory of the web. The Open Directory Project (ODP), also known as Dmoz (from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name), is a multilingual open content directory of World Wide Web links. Netscape owns it, but it is constructed and maintained by a community of volunteer editors. When you submit to DMOZ, make sure to follow their instructions for categorizing your blog VERY CAREFULLY.
4. Bing.  Learn more here.
5. Aol.  In partnership with DMOZ.
6. ASK.com. Add your URL to Ask.com

Submit to legal content centric directories

Some legal blog directories have grown quite large and may not be of immediate help to your blog, but try submitting to the narrowest category possible and see if it doesn’t help.

1. Blawgsearch.com
2. Justia,com
3. Blogged.com
4. Blawg.com
5. USLaw.com
6. BlawgRepublic,com
7. ABAJournal.com Blawg Directory
8. AllTop.com/law

Submit to General Blog Directories and Aggregators

1. Alltop.com. Try submitting your (non-legal) industry focused blog to a more general category here.
2. BlogCatalog.  www.blogcatalog.com/
3. BlogPulse.  submit link here: http://www.blogpulse.com/submit.html
4. Best of the Web Blogs.  http://blogs.botw.org/
5. FeedAgg.  Aggregates your blog feed by category http://www.feedagg.com/
6. Technorati
7. Bloglines.  Now being run by Merchant’s Circle, this site reaches out to retail consumers rather than corporate types, but great for personal services practices.
8. Zemanta. Valuable blog tool that feeds bloggers link suggestions to use within their content—submit your blog as a content provider.  http://www.zemanta.com/
9. Newsgator.  More of an enterprise social networking tool, but you can build a Newsgator widget to distribute your content via mobile. (MS Sharepoint partner)
10. Techmeme.  The web’s technology news site of record, Techmeme spotlights the hottest tech stories from all around the web on a single page. Meeting very specific criteria will get your post featured on Techmeme. Not easy but check out this out. http://news.techmeme.com/
11. StumbleUpon. Paid Discovery on StumbleUpon can be effective if you have a specific target audience you are trying to reach. https://www.stumbleupon.com/pd/  OR, simply submit your site for free here: http://www.stumbleupon.com/help/how-to-submit-a-site/
12. FeedShark. Free online tool that easily promotes your blog or website – with the simple push of a button! http://feedshark.brainbliss.com/

 Social promotion

1. Twitter.  Use FeedBurner or FeedBlitz to auto post new content to your Twitter account. Then, for extra measure, write a Tweet that highlights content, asks a question or encourages discussion and send another link.
2. LinkedIn.  Include your blog website URL on your profile using the “custom” box and type in the name of the blog.  Using the (easy) widget on LI, set up the feed of your blog content to appear on your profile page and news stream. Add Twitter to your LinkedIN profile and your Tweets about your blog will show up in your status update.
3. Facebook.  Add your blog posts to your firm’s Facebook page and your individual page. You can link your FB account to automatically grab your new posts.
4. Reciprocal links.  In addition to links within your content to others’ blog content, which can create a pingback or a reciprocal mention, make sure to include a well thought-out, strategic Blog Roll to your blog.  Give your readers similar or complimentary content in your blog roll and ask those bloggers to include your blog in their roll. Build a valuable “blogger community” and incoming links as a result.
5. FeedBlitz.  http://www.feedblitz.com/  Alternative to Google’s Feedburner. Sends email notification to visitors who sign up to receive your latest posts.
6. Scoop.it.com.  Curate your favorite posts, news articles, web pages, as well as your own new posts or favorite evergreen posts, and send your scoop to social networks.
7. Paper.Li  (http://paper.li/) Similar to Scoop.it, publish and share your own-online newspaper on Twitter and other networks—include your most recent post.
8. Repurpose. Set up your blog on Martindale Connected, social networking site for the legal profession, or other industry focused social networking sites. Some will even let you set up a feed so you’re not doing double duty.
9. LinkedIn Groups. This can be fertile territory for specific posts, relevant to specific Groups. Excerpt some of your post to create a discussion and link to your full post. This may take a little more work, but I’ve heard from more than one attorney that this is a very effective tactic.

Miscellaneous

1. Guest blog
2. Add your blog address to your business card and email signature.
3. Include a post teaser and blog URL on the firm’s eNewsletter when content is relevant.
4. Include your blog URL in every media by-line when possible. (Rather than, or in addition to,  your law firm website!)
5. Send a personal email note with a link to a relevant post to a special client or others in your contact list.

Hope this is a helpful resource for you. This list isn’t comprehensive, nor do I personally endorse any of these sites or services and I am in no way connected to any. It is simply a random list of ideas that have worked for my clients and me in the past. If you have some favs to add, please drop us your suggestions in the comments! Would love to hear from you. Thanks!

Not particularly relevant photo.

There really is no substitute for the energy generated when people come together LIVE!  Discuss, debate, share ideas, practices, and swap stories—yup, it can be done virtually, but that’s so two dimensional. It’s no substitute for a real handshake, a paper business card passed to a new “friend,” makin’ eye contact, and feeling the table vibe as notes are being frantically scribed on keyboards, iPads, and even the ever trusty pen and paper.

A couple weeks ago, a bunch of lawyers, marketers, vendors, and consultants met LIVE in NYC for a day of all things social media hosted by Hildebrandt Institute and WEST LegalEdCenter and the result was “ELECTRIFYING!”

That’s right. I love social media and how it connects people and content 24/7, but golly gee, a little old fashioned interaction is good for the soul. This LIVE event was no exception and reminded me why I urge the lawyers I consult with to add social media to their business plan but not to the exclusion of personal contact. Okay, ‘nuf said on that. Here’s some tid-bits from the day: Social Media for Law Firms LIVE!

Every Audience has an Audience.

There’s more engagement value when you can create or post content that your audience can readily distribute to their audience. Stop trying to push your lawyers to engage directly with others over the content they create. Instead, encourage them or help them produce or select something OTHERS want to talk about. It makes them look smart while positioning them and their content, exponentially, in the minds of a much larger audience. One that you could never before reach in the bricks and mortar world—including business lunches, newspapers (print) or email and telephone.

This tactic—building content with the intent of helping others engage with others—was a recurring theme among panelists including: attorney blogger Roy Ginsburg – Dorsey & Whitney LLP; CEO, Peter Ozolin – Manzama, Inc.; and CMO, Adam L. Stock – Allen Matkins, as well as among my own panel mates Adrian Lurssen – JDSupra, John Hellerman – Hellerman Baratz Communications, and attorney/blogger Brian Wassom – Honigman.

The desired outcome, i.e., exposure, thought leadership, or feeding the sales pipeline all comes about when we facilitate conversations among a broad audience. And we thought our only challenge was getting attorneys to respond to @ replies on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, or LinkedIn. Not so. Although valuable, no question, producing content that others like, share, download, and discuss makes one’s contribution even more relevant and important to ROI. Especially in light of the fact that search algorithms are now accounting for “likes” and “shares” with even greater emphasis when indexing content in search results. Google+ has truly impacted this new model. So, get out there, build or share valuable content, get noticed, and don’t forget to notice others’ content. It’s a WEB! (LIKE THIS POST? Share and Like above or below!)

From my Lawyers’ Guide to Social Media which was posted to the conference website:*

• It isn’t what you’re saying on Twitter that best connects you and your services with others: it’s what you can get others to say about you that has the most impact.
• Getting reTweets can do more for you at the “handshake” level than any other social site.
• Focus on top 20% of followers as they are your most valuable conduit.
• Show up often. Repetition matters.

Take Control of Your Footprint.

Whether you blog or maintain a profile on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook, you MUST pay attention. Adrian Dayton and Amy Knapp gave attendees an excerpt of their eBook LinkedIn & Blogs for Lawyers:Building High Value Relationships in a Digital Age, emphasizing the POWER of these new tools—not to be taken lightly. Your mere presence on the Internet (i.e. social media) is not enough. You have to be present. Opening an account and ignoring the obvious tactics of optimizing your profiles and responding to connections is a recipe for getting ignored-globally across networks. Clients, prospects and referral sources are taking social media seriously and woe to the lawyer or law firm that isn’t mirroring that.

I add that it is way too easy to use social media—to ignore it is a crime! Social media provides FREE tools that enable more marketing opportunities for FREE! What’s not to like about FREE?

VIDEO 2011.

Are your law firm videos still talking about yourself and how wonderful your commitment to client service is? Or, how carefully you recruit associates, and how you “understand” your clients’ business? Guess what? One point for trying, 0 points for execution. You’re missing some fertile ground for communicating REAL value. Aden Dauchess, Director of Digital Marketing – Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC and Adam L. Stock, Director of Marketing & Business Development- Allen Matkins Leck Mallory & Natsis LLP had a few things to say about creating and posting video content that gets noticed, shared, and adds value. This session, I believe, was one of the most valuable of the whole conference. Aden’s diagram of the video process his law firm follows from start to finish was worth the price of admission.

What’s effective today? Videos that demonstrate thought leadership, news, industry events, education, and community involvement. Check out the Allen Matikins and Womble websites for a taste of how video is done right! You don’t need an expensive crew, charismatic talking head, or an elaborate setting. Just a credible topic, authentic delivery, and a modestly professional recording.

AND MORE….

Thanks to the lawyers who shared their stories—bloggers who found a way to stand out, lawyers using LinkedIn Groups effectively, and time saving tips for cross posting and distribution.

Bottom line…social media is no longer a fad. It is a VERY POWERFUL medium. But, I’ve been saying that for almost 4 years now. The Law Gravity vision celebrates it’s 4th anniversary January 1, 2012 and we’re looking ahead at 2012 with optimism; offering lawyers, law firms and marketers context, training, coaching, content, policy, and strategy for successful and rewarding social media participation.

Look for a west coast edition of Social Media For Law Firms LIVE! in the Spring of 2012. 

* If you’d like a copy of Lawyers’ Guide to Social Media, drop me a note and I’ll send it along to you in a PDF. It compares sites and services and suggests best uses for communication and engagement during the buyer/seller process.

Cheers! Stop by often and share the knowledge….

In a nonscientific reader poll conducted for SmartBrief on Social Media, leading marketers (of all types) were asked:

Does your company have a formal training process for employees before they’re allowed to blog, tweet or post other social media content on behalf of the company?

The responses were mildly shocking;

• 70.66 percent said NO,
• 18.56 percent said YES, and
• 10.78% replied “not applicable.”

Frankly, I say, NOT training all employees for social media engagement is equivalent to giving anyone in the organization blind authority to speak to the press/public/clients/prospects/partners/etcetera on behalf of the entity!

We Have A Social Media Policy

You’re probably already thinking—“We don’t need training, our law firm’s social media policy clearly states that employees or Partners engaging in social media must never speak on behalf of the law firm without prior permission. They are required to state that views expressed are their own. Further, we require everyone that puts our law firm on their social media profile as their employer to abide by our policy and guidelines. And…we monitor our firm name using Google Alerts. And….”

I have had the privilege of setting up social media strategy, policy and programs in dozens of law firms over the past three and a half years and I can assure you that simply issuing a policy and/or guidelines without MANDATORY training for attorneys and staff doesn’t cut it. There is plenty of room for personal interpretation of guidelines and rules.

PRACTICAL POINTER: In addition, I’ve seen many law firms skip over the FACT that social media is a fluid form of communication. Why is this important to keep in mind?  Because rarely does the user take the time to review the “guidelines” before posting anything, particularly when they have a tid-bit of gossip that needs to get out to their network, pronto or they are reacting to something said by another without thinking! This is often referred to as SMAD—Social Media Affliction Disorder. One becomes so engaged in the medium that it impairs their frontal lobe—that valuable part of the brain that controls impulse.  Look no further than some fine examples of social media fail caused by SMAD in corporations such as Chrysler, Nestle, Red Cross, Ketchum, and Kenneth Cole. In most cases the communications department made these mistakes or the social media staff person responsible for feeding the social media beast, but in other cases it was the CEO (see Kenneth Cole)! No one is immune. SMAD is real.

Training Leads to Better Execution or a New Job?

Long accepted management principles assure us that training employees leads to better execution. Although law firm dollars are being stretched further these days and fewer are devoted to training, much less to something as dubious as social media, some types of training can be vital to the health and welfare of the law firm—social media training is one of them. At the very least your whole marketing team needs to be trained by someone who knows the landscape very well and can tell the story convincingly.  Further, we’re all still in the early stages of defining best practices. So if you had that training a year or two ago, it’s time to refresh the memory as well as update it to keep up with the latest developments.

Not All Training Is Equal.

In my experience there are four core groups that need social media engagement training:

1. Senior Management/Senior Partners/and anyone that is only marginally engaged in social media but needs to be aware of the mechanics as well as the liabilities.
2. Partners, associates, law clerks, and paralegals that frequently engage with social media.
3. Marketing personnel and particularly those whose job it is to feed social media content and conversation.
4. All other law firm employees, including receptionists, file clerks, HR staff, secretaries, legal assistants and etc.

Each of these groups arrives to training with different perspectives, needs, and precepts. Although I’m often brought in for delivering a basic briefing on social media to key leaders or training on tools for marketers, there never seems to be a priority on training the whole organization. I’ve been preaching it since day one: guidelines and policy tend to remain in the theory stage–stuck in a drawer or the firm Intranet, until they are taught in a physical setting.  I’m not saying law firms aren’t training beyond the boardroom level, in fact, in some cases the marketing staff take my training and share it with the general firm population. This is good. No matter who or where the training comes from, the critical point here is to be aware that there are various levels of training and various messages to be communicated in order to reach those four audiences where they live, work and breathe if the training is to have effect. Still, some training is better than no training. Don’t you agree?

Jeremy Victor, the editor in chief of B2Bbloggers.com on this topic for SmartBlog for Social Media says it like this:  (paraphrased)

Though some argue training is an opportunity for employees to gain new skills and use them to find new jobs…“The only thing worse than training people and having them leave is not training them and having them stay.” Zig Ziglar

So, readers of the VMO blog: What’s in your training room? Training sessions on appropriate social media engagement? Or, lights off? Share your thoughts, success stories, and challenges to training in the comments. We all learn more from shared insights. Thanks!

Created by: Online Schools

WHAT’S IN YOUR DIGITAL LIFE?

Me. Well, I recently moved and do not have an extra outlet at my bedside so I’ve been recharging my iPhone at night beside my desk–in another room. The difference is noticeable. Before I used to wake up in the middle of the night and look at the email.  Then before I got out of bed in the morning I’d check my email and chat. Now, I open my eyes, step out of bed, open my curtains and greet the morning sky (and usually sun) with a big stretch and thanks to the heavens for giving me another day. I put on the coffee and then….I go to the door to pick up the morning paper from the stoop. I breath the fresh air deeply. With my cafe con leche in hand, I move slowly to the desk, unplug the phone and check the email, but rarely respond unless there is an emergency. (Is there ever really a marketing emergency that can’t wait till I get to the office at 8AM?) Then I move outdoors to read the paper and laugh at page 2 of The Key West Citizen. The Citizen’s Voice is a barometer of the tribe–these days it consists of those of us strong enough to weather the summer in Key West. Late this winter it’ll document the 2 cents of the snow birds (as if we really care, right?). But besides being informative it can be amusing! You probably aren’t up to speed on the impact that cruise ships, ghost tours, street musicians, and the chronically homeless have on a small island community such as ours–it’s just outrageous! (tongue- in-cheek). If only the world had such troubles. And, I often LOL at the ever humorous page 2 Crime Report–stupid is as stupid does.

After indulging in this “real time” experience, I awaken and go to my office refreshed and connected for another day! Then I fire up the Mac, the apps and the mail and wonder….what did I ever do without technology?

How does your day begin? With a smart phone or a sun rise?  With a café con leche and a laugh? I hope so!