Boarding a flight between Montreal and Miami yesterday I overheard a mother tell her son, who looked no more than 3-years-old, “Turn off your iPad.” She suggested, gently, that he take a nap until we were up in the air, at which time he could sign into the American Airlines’ (please don’t become United Airlines, service will suffer) wireless service and “play.”  I was immediately envious—I’m a digital junkie, lusting after the new iPad and couldn’t believe this 3-year-old kid (toddler?) had one! I don’t even own an iPad2—though simply an exercise in discipline because I can’t quite YET justify carrying around another device when the ones I have meet every need quite efficiently. (But if I won one in a raffle or a VMO fan would ship one to my door, I’d certainly accept the gift with gratitude!)

Still, as I looked around the economy class cabin, everywhere kids were tethered to some electronic device. We must face the fact: our kids are digital natives. They do not know life before the Internet and in many cases before mobile devices, which are now the literal center of their universe—even those as young as 3 years old! This WILL have an impact on how we deliver legal services in the next 10 years, maybe less as today’s teenagers, also digital natives, become entrepreneurs, inherit the family business or wealth, buy homes, pay taxes and more, and seek a different legal services model, yes?

The ABA Journal cover story this month, April 1, 2012 edition, profiled the “…Footprints of America’s Switched-on Lawyers.” Lots of interesting commentary, insight, and even techie confession in this article from folks like Richard Granat, Niki Black, Carol Elefant, and others.  I recommend reading it, after you finish reading this post, of course.   Then read Rik Myslewski’s, The Lifer column in this month’s Mac | Life magazine, “Take Time to UnPlug” for another piece of advice for those who still remember what it was like to listen to the sounds of silence or indulge in a face to face conversation!

DIGITAL DISRUPTION CONTINUES

The news here on this VMO post is that most of our kids today are completely programmed to easily adapt to evolving technology. When today’s adults are faced with the next disruptive version of the Internet, the Semantic Web, (coming soon to a connection near you, with lots of “scary” stuff that is sure to peak and freak any clear thinking adult’s privacy and security thresholds), our kids will take to it like fish to water.

They will likely not question a single sign on ID (that hackers could capture and do who knows what), and will likely readily embrace the concept of a “personal data locker” in the cloud. What’s that? Well, the personal data locker on the semantic web will be, for example:

1. “a portal to a world of custom-made products based on their personal ontology,”*
2. It will include a body scan, models of feet and hands, and even a biometric profile of how you move.
3. This data locker, containing your specifics, will enable suppliers to make or customize their product for you!
4. No more trudging through reviewer comments about size or fit of the jeans you’re longing to own on a retailer’s website!

According to this fascinating book, which I have been slogging through since 2010 because it is frankly mind-boggling, *Pull: The Power of the Semantic Web to Transform Your Business, David Siegel, November 2009, your ontology, the niche areas of your interest, will be stored in your “data locker” and will satisfy various kinds of semantically specified requirements, so it gets smarter and smarter in personal recommendations the more you feed it. Think Pandora or the new Google search engine. You will be able to add your “friends’” ontologies, with their permission of course, to your locker so recommendations can be semantically integrated with yours.

Your data locker will store your medical, tax, legal records and more, along with your social, physical, and educational records, and probably even an archive of who you voted for in every election. Your purchases, likes, dislikes, calendar, photos, groceries, friends, vacations, restaurant selections, repair bills—virtually EVERYTHING will be stored digitally on the Internet so it can retrieve and connect random bits of data to inform your next moves. And, if you believe what they are saying, it will make you life better, more efficient, and more customized—everyone will have a defacto personal assistant via the cloud. Despite the fact that we may be more vulnerable to nefarious activity, (or in some cases government interference), heck, we don’t have a choice, do we? The kids, our legacies, will embrace it and thus, while we are still around, we will be required to adapt–again! Don’t be caught sleeping may be apropos.

Digital Natives and LEGAL SERVICES

Legal services providers will have to face a new round of threats to discovery, confidentiality, pricing, delivery, and more… ARE WE READY? Digital natives, who know nothing other than transacting via the Internet, will demand that your services be available 24/7 and accessible via the net. Yes? No? Will the profession be forced to adapt? Can we envision this? Will the data locker be implemented while you’re still practicing and how will that look? Do you have plans in place? Are you watching this unfold or are you being proactive?

I think the “virtual” law firms, the lawyers that are adapting to technology, definitely have a head start. I’m not just talking social media for marketing, I’m suggesting this is a delivery and storage issue. After all, most courts have all their records digitized now and filing, researching, and more are all accomplished remotely. No more treks down to the courthouse to face a surly clerk and sort through paper files that result in paper cuts and disability claims.  Nope, records are available via the Internet and are being used  by paralegals and legal assistants as convenient and time saving developments. IT professionals are looking into the cloud for storage—are document storage facilities becoming extinct? And, proprietary software development companies, are they scared? Many are being forced to shift their business models in this new digital nation. The sky is falling…..

Social Media

Back on earth…following my most recent public speaking engagement at Legal IT 6.0 in Montreal – shout out to the event – it was amazing, one of the many astute attorneys attending the event came to me and commented on how refreshing it was to hear me propose that social media is not mandatory, but rather can be used as a complementary tool to our off-line business development and marketing activities. Seems, according to his observations, that many social media speakers are setting a tone of do-it-or-else-suffer-severe-consequences. This is never my approach. It has to make sense to the individual and be used in an appropriate context—at least for now.

BUT, I agree to a degree that ignoring the global marketplace found on the World Wide Web could delay progress for those who are in the transitional demographic—too young to retire in the next 10 years but too old to feel that the social web is the only means to new business.  For the digital natives…well, what else is there? Paper? Pencils? Crayons? Blocks? Globes? Balls? Roller skates? Hugs? Birds? Beaches? Bikes? Playgrounds? Nursery rhymes sung by a calming mother or father’s voice while falling off to sleep? Hmmm… Will that custom-fit pair of jeans be worth the exchanges? They may never know the difference…

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!

The AmLaw Daily reports that Proskauer Rose announced on Wednesday that the firm plans to supply the bulk of its 700-plus lawyers with iPad 2′s.

I’m a straying out of my comfort zone in this post today—I am not a hardwired techie—but I am all for technologies that enrich our lives and improve the way in which we do our work, whatever that may be.  So, I found it interesting, in fact, exciting that a large international law firm was ready to make a serious investment in the iPad, ultimately the Apple iOS 4 mobile operating system. I know plenty of individual lawyers that own them for personal use, and some that use them for their legal practices, but this is a whole ‘nuther thing—close to a 1/2 Million dollar investment in hardware (500 x $829 top of the line), and I’m guessing another $200,000.00 or more in soft costs of applications (apps), support and training. I might add, for something that not everyone needs nor will they adapt to easily. I hope I am wrong because; it’s A REALLY NICE TOOL AND I’M SURE THE LAWYERS WILL LOOK SMART WORKING ON THESE SLEEK NEW DEVICES.

Coming from an industry that is deeply entrenched in Microsoft hardware, software and gadgetry; in my mind this is a remarkable development. Maybe even a tipping point. But hey, change is good. I see more lawyers using iPhones these days. (Hmm…and many carrying their Blackberry AND an iPhone! Huh?)

Here’s the rationale behind the purchase, according to The Am Law Daily blog post:

Steven Kayman, a securities litigation partner and chair of the firm’s technology committee, says that roughly 500 lawyers have requested iPads that will come preinstalled with a collection of business applications like DocsToGo and Goodreader. The firm will also offer training videos and sessions for the new hardware.

“My hope is that people will feel very comfortable loading the iPad up with all of the key documents from their transactions and from their cases,” says Kayman. The offering is part of a long-term commitment by the firm to technological advancement, he adds. Earlier steps included a new data center in New Jersey and increased bandwidth for offices to connect to that location. [end]

[At this point it's important to note that my office is fully equipped with Macs  - they're responsive, reliable, and friendly— they look and feel nice, they get the job done. But, I don't own an iPad (yet). Just seemed like an extra gadget to carry around. I do however own (and use extensively) a Macbook Air 11"— a fantastic workhorse and so easy to carry in my purse!]

If I’m not mistaken, it sounds like Mr. Kayman is a little tentative…

“My hope is that people will feel very comfortable loading the iPad up with all of the key documents from their transactions and from their cases,” says Kayman.

Yeah, I’m not sure they will… so, let’s look closer….

How do I do that?

I work with attorneys every day; helping them navigate social media and integrate the web into their business and practice development. At least once a week a conversation goes like this:

Me: “Yes, just open up a new tab and type into the address bar.”

Them: “How do I do that?”

(I’m not joking about this, if a lawyer has been using an earlier version of Internet Explorer and gets upgraded to IE7, they just don’t know.)

I could give you a dozen more examples of lawyers who do not know their way around the lap top they’ve been using for years. And, it’s not a big thing. It’s just not an immediate need for them. So, my question is: Will this new “toy” hold their interest? Will it inspire them to learn to swipe, download apps from iTunes, plug-into the dock connector port, conference call with Facetime, or will it simply become another log jam for the IT department’s help desk? “How will they do that?”

Comfort?

“My hope is that people will feel very comfortable…” Well, I’ve never seen an iPad user look comfortable when typing (even with the tiny fold up exterior keyboard which dilutes the beauty of a lightweight mobile device, IMHO).  For a few changes to a document it’s probably okay. But, what if you have big fingers?

Cloud Storage

Feel comfortable “…loading the iPad up with all of the key documents from their transactions and from their cases?” I’m not so sure about that one either. (Are clients comfortable with that?)

Using the iPad, lawyers will have to learn to use the cloud (i.e. Dropbox or similar) or at the very least some sort of enterprise syncing services. There’s not a lot of built in storage for the iPad. It is designed to be a light weight device using chip technology (solid state drive – SSD) instead of an electro-mechanical hard disc drive found in those heavy lap tops I still see people lugging around airports and conference rooms. And, despite layers of security measures implemented by savvy IT professionals, there is still the larger issue of whether the cloud is appropriate for confidential documents. (I use cloud storage space and feel quite comfortable, but I’m not transacting billion dollar deals! Except in my dreams!)

[ADDED to post 4/22/11, jln]  A widespread failure in Amazon.com’s Web services business was still affecting many Internet sites on Friday morning, highlighting the risks involved when companies rely on so-called cloud computing according to the New York Times. Some quotes from the article:

“We don’t think the cloud is enterprise-ready,” said Jimmy Tam, general manager of Peer Software, which provides data backup for businesses. “Are you really going to trust your corporate jewels to these cloud providers?”

“Clearly you’re not in control of your data, your information,” said Campbell McKellar, founder of Loosecubes, a Web site for finding temporary workspace that was not available Thursday. “It’s a major business interruption. I’m getting business interruption insurance tomorrow, believe me, and maybe we get a different cloud provider as a backup.”

Software

“My hope is that people will feel very comfortable..” Let’s be real, learning new software is rarely comfortable. The iPad comes loaded with the native Mac office suite of Pages, Keynote and Numbers. These are great native programs, but it’s still a dot doc world in the law biz. Who wants to take the time to learn a whole new program that doesn’t play well with Microsoft. (I use MS Office for Mac because law firms only want to read MS docs! It’s just easier.)

Proskauer intends to use DocsToGo, an app that allows you to work in Microsoft Office, and syncs your work via wifi or 3G to the cloud and/or your desktop. I can’t speak directly to the usefulness (or security) of this application, but it is available for my iPhone 4 and I looked into buying it a while back. Then I hesitated. It’s only $17 but the user reviews of DocsToGo are real mixed: out of 127 reviews – 52 are positive and 58 highly negative, 17 were neutral. The negative reviews ranged from limited capabilities, to unstable, to don’t waste your money. The positive reviews were however glowing, but if I was going to be the one answering all those help desk calls I’d be concerned.

Road warriors

“My hope is that people will feel very comfortable…” There are several nice new features on the iPad 2 for reading, sharing your screen via a large presentation monitor, and video conferencing with Facetime, not to mention all the available apps that make the iPad useful for heavy travelers. But, and that’s a big BUT, aren’t working lawyers still going to want (and need) to carry their laptop too? And their smart phone? IMHO, that’s a lot of baggage to lug around, uncomfortably.

Lost or Stolen?

“…loading the iPad up with all of the key documents from their transactions and from their cases?” What happens when an iPad is lost or even stolen? They’re small enough to steal kind of quickly. Most IT professionals that have launched iPhones for their lawyers have covered the security and administrative capabilities such as installing security certifications for a second layer of password authentication and executing a remote data wipe for lost phones. This may make it easier for firms to accept the iPad, which uses the same operating system as Apple’s smartphone, but it’s up to the owner to act on the first level of security—password lock. I still see lawyers using smart phones that are not set to require a password to open them for use. Most think that it’s a layer that gets in the way, but I don’t leave home without one! Password lock is critical for any smart phone. It will block or certainly delay any criminal person from accessing data on the phone.This is an easy yet critical step for anyone using an iPad; not to be overlooked.

Speaking of passwords; it’s been preached over and over but many lawyers still use the same simple passwords everywhere. And, they store those passwords on the device. Anyone who wants to steal your iPad will know exactly where to go and what to get.  TIP: consider purchasing “ONE PASSWORD.” Great tool for mac users. You can have complex passwords for every site you visit but need only one master password. You can change that one master password every week, and add another layer of security to all your browsing history.

Alternatives

The iPad is a very nice device and one that offers a number of great Apps that aren’t available for laptops, but if I were a law firm, large, medium or small, looking to move into the Apple OS, I’d get everyone a MacBook Air 11″ (entry price-all you need-only $100 more than the top of the line iPad 2). It is slim, trim, solid state, starts quick, lasts long, can run Microsoft Mac programs and it is a work horse. I love mine. I bought it instead of iPad and so glad I did. Okay, so it doesn’t have the touch screen or a zillion apps, and swiping your fingers across a screen does look high tech space age modern, but those are low priorities. Especially when great alternatives exist.

Bottom line

Between you an me, I’m going to be watching for the fire sale of lightly used iPad 2′s early next year. Meanwhile, follows are some blogs by some seasoned attorney iPad users.

I welcome comments and push back: Tell me why the iPad is going to revolutionize our industry or how owning one has made your work life more productive. Thanks!

Wise County & City of Norton Digital Office Blog

Computer World : iPad Lures Business Users

The Mac Lawyer Blog

Apple Briefs

Mac Litigator

Where else on Earth would you find…

• A conga line of ranging 56,800 miles (90,900 km): Equal to 9.76 round trips on the road between San Francisco and New York City.
• 74 Elvis impersonators
• 1.3+ billion potential connections
• 1,091 Chocolatiers
• 79+ million job transitions/changes tracked
• 46 profiles with “beatboxer” listed as a position
• 428% year-over-year membership growth rate in Brazil.
• The most registered users named Lee, Smith and Kumar
• 951 years of back-to-back 5-minute phone calls made by 100 million professionals
• 50% year-over-year growth in iPhone skill index
• A dog or cat psychologist / psychiatrist  [4 listed as a position]
• Target industries with the fastest year-over-year new member growth rates in Education (175%), Facilities Services (121%), and Ranching (112%)
• 100% of Fortune 500 company executives
• A martini whisperer [listed as a position]

Congratulations, LinkedIn on your 100 million member mile marker!

Says Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn CEO,

LinkedIn is used in over 200 countries and territories around the world, with more than half of our users coming from outside of the U.S. You can now connect just as readily with someone in Sao Paulo or Singapore as you can with your colleagues in San Francisco, London or New York.  You no longer have to live in the same city — or even the same country — to build and strengthen relationships that can help you succeed and grow professionally and fundamentally transform the trajectory of your career path.

Impressive!

Fifteen Ways Lawyers Can Use LinkedIn:

1. Create a profile | add to your online footprint—very high page rank on search engines, almost guaranteed first page results for individual name.
2. Use keywords in your profile title, summary, and experience to help you get found in “on site” searches.
3. Prepare and post a well-groomed and complete profile to position your personal brand – people hire lawyers, not law firms!
4. Create a personalized summary that expands on the benefits you deliver, not just features found on firm website page. Attract others to your network.
5. Encourage your employees to maintain complete profiles to show off your solid team.
6. Make introductions and get introductions from others in network.
7. Join client industry related groups.
8. Engage prospects by answering industry related questions.
9. Network in groups with your peers.
10. Use as a contact management system for getting and staying in front of your network via inMail, event announcements and press releases. (Use this in addition to the database used by your law firm marketing department and firm branded email blasts–it’s personal!) Stay top of mind!
11. Add apps to your profile to post docs, publications, feed blog content, JD Supra articles, Twitter updates, and travel schedules on Trip-it. Your activity shows up in your network “stream” keeping you front and center.
12. Share your presentation decks using the Slideshare application.
13. Use sharing and favorite or recommend buttons: Improves on-site traffic generation.
14. Customize links to your individual website bio page, firm’s main page, and blog or other personal website on your profile.
15. Promote and recommend others – the Golden RULE of business relationships!

ENJOY!

Do you use Google Alerts? They’re great, aren’t they? (If you don’t, go get a Google Account and start right now. There is a help tab that will walk you through how to get started.)

I’ve been using basic Google Alerts to follow my name, my company name, and select clients’ names for as many years as they’ve been available. However, Google Alerts are much more. For example, a few months ago I set up an alert for [ LinkedIn +Tips ].  This search string produces a surprising bounty of web content, blog posts and news stories that inspire new ways (tips) for using and improving my participation on the LinkedIn social network. You could add +Tips to any search term and get all the content being published as a Tip, i.e. [ tennis +Tips ], [ human resource +Tips ], or [ law-firm-marketing +Tips ].

Alert Search Tips

Here’s a few tips for getting the best results from Google Alerts, all of which can also be found in Google’s Help articles.

• It’s important to keep the topic keywords precise unless you don’t mind getting a lot of peripheral hits. The more precise your search terms are, the more relevant your alerts will be.
• You can also use quotes around words if you are looking for them together.
  • “white house”
  • “Mike Smith”
• You can use a minus sign (-) in front of words that you want to exclude.
  • paris -texas
  • apple -fruit
• Or, put a plus sign (+) immediately before a word to match that word precisely as you typed it, which will exclude synonyms and spelling variations.
  • +foard (to stop Google including results for Ford)
  • Michael +Jacson (to stop Google including results for Michael Jackson)
• Use the site: operator to limit your search to specific sites.
  • physics site:.edu
  • congress site:nytimes.com
• Use the site: operator with a dash to exclude specific sites.
  • “joe bloggs” -site:twitter.com
• Always use square brackets [ ] to denote queries, i.e. [ to be or not to be ] is an example of a query; [ to be ] or [ not to be ] are two examples of queries.
• Check out Google Guide Quick Reference Cheat Sheet for Advanced Search Operators

More Alert Search Details

Here’s a little more detail from Google’s Help article about what these advanced search features deliver.

• Phrase search (“”)
  By putting double quotes around a set of words, you are telling Google to consider the exact words in that exact order without any change. Google already uses the order and the fact that the words are together as a very strong signal and will stray from it only for a good reason, so quotes are usually unnecessary. By insisting on phrase search you might be missing good results accidentally. For example, a search for [ "Alexander Bell" ] (with quotes) will miss the pages that refer to Alexander G. Bell.
• Search within a specific website (site:)
  Google allows you to specify that your search results must come from a given website. For example, the query [ iraq site:nytimes.com ] will return pages about Iraq but only from nytimes.com. The simpler queries [ iraq nytimes.com ] or [ iraq New York Times ] will usually be just as good, though they might return results from other sites that mention the New York Times. You can also specify a whole class of sites, for example [ iraq site:.gov ] will return results only from a .gov domain and [ iraq site:.iq ] will return results only from Iraqi sites.
• Terms you want to exclude (-)
  Attaching a minus sign immediately before a word indicates that you do not want pages that contain this word to appear in your results. The minus sign should appear immediately before the word and should be preceded with a space. For example, in the query [ anti-virus software ], the minus sign is used as a hyphen and will not be interpreted as an exclusion symbol; whereas the query [ anti-virus -software ] will search for the words ‘anti-virus’ but exclude references to software. You can exclude as many words as you want by using the - sign in front of all of them, for example [ jaguar -cars -football -os ]. The - sign can be used to exclude more than just words. For example, place a hyphen before the ‘site:’ operator (without a space) to exclude a specific site from your search results.
• Fill in the blanks (*)
  The *, or wildcard, is a little-known feature that can be very powerful. If you include * within a query, it tells Google to try to treat the star as a placeholder for any unknown term(s) and then find the best matches. For example, the search [ Google * ] will give you results about many of Google’s products (go to next page and next page — we have many products). The query [ Obama voted * on the * bill ] will give you stories about different votes on different bills. Note that the * operator works only on whole words, not parts of words.
• Search exactly as is (+)
  Google employs synonyms automatically, so that it finds pages that mention, for example, childcare for the query [ child care ] (with a space), or California history for the query [ ca history ]. But sometimes Google helps out a little too much and gives you a synonym when you don’t really want it. By attaching a + immediately before a word (remember, don’t add a space after the +), you are telling Google to match that word precisely as you typed it. Putting double quotes around a single word will do the same thing.
• The OR operator
  Google’s default behavior is to consider all the words in a search. If you want to specifically allow either one of several words, you can use the OR operator (note that you have to type ‘OR’ in ALL CAPS). For example, [ San Francisco Giants 2004 OR 2005 ] will give you results about either one of these years, whereas [ San Francisco Giants 2004 2005 ] (without the OR) will show pages that include both years on the same page. The symbol | can be substituted for OR. (The AND operator, by the way, is the default, so it is not needed.)

Exceptions

Search is rarely absolute. Search engines use a variety of techniques to imitate how people think and to approximate their behavior. As a result, most rules have exceptions. For example, the query [ for better or for worse ] will not be interpreted by Google as an OR query, but as a phrase that matches a (very popular) comic strip. Google will show calculator results for the query [ 34 * 87 ] rather than use the ‘Fill in the blanks’ operator. Both cases follow the obvious intent of the query. Here is a list of exceptions to some of the rules and guidelines that were mentioned in both the Advanced and the Basic Search Help articles:

Exceptions to ‘Every word matters’

• Words that are commonly used, like ‘the,’ ‘a,’ and ‘for,’ are usually ignored (these are called stop words). But there are even exceptions to this exception. The search [ the who ] likely refers to the band; the query [ who ] probably refers to the World Health Organization — Google will not ignore the word ‘the’ in the first query.
• Synonyms might replace some words in your original query. (Adding + before a word disables synonyms.)
• A particular word might not appear on a page in your results if there is sufficient other evidence that the page is relevant. The evidence might come from language analysis that Google has done or many other sources. For example, the query [ overhead view of the bellagio pool ] will give you nice overhead pictures from pages that do not include the word ‘overhead.’

Punctuation that is not ignored

• Punctuation in popular terms that have particular meanings, like [ C++ ] or [ C# ] (both are names of programming languages), are not ignored.
• The dollar sign ($) is used to indicate prices. [ nikon 400 ] and [ nikon $400 ] will give different results.
• The hyphen - is sometimes used as a signal that the two words around it are very strongly connected. (Unless there is no space after the – and a space before it, in which case it is a negative sign.)
• The underscore symbol _ is not ignored when it connects two words, e.g. [ quick_sort ].

Other ideas for keeping track of web content.

If you only wanted to see social media activity for a person, you could use a social search engine like socialmention.com. If you want topical blog content, try searching alltop.com, a site that aggregates top blog content. Individual social media sites have in-site search that will flush out content. And, if you’re looking for deep web data, photos, and archival information you can subscribe to services like 123people.com or spokeo.com. Finally, if you want to see what a website looked like in the past, use waybackmachine.org which is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form.

What are your favorite search tools and how do you use them?

Something other than Autumn leaves is in the air. This week I’ve seen mentioned three high profile instances of individuals and institutions going on a social media blackout or brown-out and I admit my online activity has waned in the past few months — not because of choice but because I’ve got dozens of more immediate tasks (and relationships) to attend to. Anyway, here’s the rundown…

On Monday, it was Harrisburg University announcing an experiment to lock down access to social sites on all campus servers. According to Higher Ed;

On Tuesday, Chris Brogan posted this: Find Your Blinders:

Over time, I’ve been putting on very important blinders, one technology at a time. You see, our tools give us this “eyes wide open” blast-in-the-face exposure to information. We get text messages. We get tweets. We get email notifications. We get phone calls.

I have blinders on.

My phone doesn’t beep, buzz or blink when I get a SMS text message. I have to go find you when I’m ready to deal with you. My computer doesn’t ding or light things up when I get email. Not even my Twitter app.

I’m doing my best to direct my attention towards what matters: people, work, the future. Do I really want a tweet to draw me away from that?

On Wednesday, I opened the sports section of The Key West Citizen and found this:

NO TWEET ZONE – It’s a Twitter outage for Miami Football.

Miami’s football players just got the direct message: No more Twitter. The 17th ranked Hurricanes have been told to stop using accounts on the popular social network, the university’s athletic department said Tuesday making the announcement, yes, through it’s own Twitter feed. …. The goal is to limit distractions and focus..

The article by Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press (Sun Sentinel version here) also reported that a random check of Miami player accounts showed no activity since the announcement and several players had deleted their accounts. I’m anxious to learn if the blackout will work and to what effect.

Are we getting burnt out? Anyone working on a social media diet?

The demise of social media and networking has been predicted by some for a while now, here and here, but still, online users are flooding the bandwidth and new sites are launched daily, while tried and true sites continue to tweak and improve their offerings. Just a few short months ago EVERYONE was jumping on board to try their hand at cruising the social scene online looking for both personal and business opportunities. Unfortunately, those with get-rich-quick business development hopes may be building a house of cards—burn-out is for real…if you’re not careful your intake becomes a slippery slope and before you know it you’re sitting in the mud puddle trying to figure out what to do next.

What can we learn from this?

I don’t know about you, but for me, I’ve always worn a media filter and social media is no different. I love the global access to ideas, people and conversations the Internet makes possible, but I have to keep it real. Any engagement with media, especially the user generated kind, is an add-on. As a business tool there are great advantages, but for me, these advantages only exist in the context of fundamental business principles, real people and real relationships.

I’ll go out on a ledge here to say that I think the generation growing up with the Web and all it’s social media accouterments is kind of making up the game as they go along. It is parallel in many ways to those fake reality TV shows. My kids will tell you — I banned them from watching. I’m sure they can still hear my nagging words: “Go out and live your own experiences.”

It may be time to take a step backwards and align online activity to supplement what was working before the social bandwagon rolled into town. Perhaps the bit of old-fashioned wisdom in the actions of Harrisburg U’s provost and UM’s football coach is the ticket? What do you think?

How are you managing your social media tether?  I try to take it one step at a time, manage my time, AND my expectations.

Cheers!

I predict that just about EVERYONE on LinkedIn will have a good reason to add Legal Updates, the new application from JDSupra, to deliver legal industry content to their landing page. For lawyers, though, at least those who are posting to JDSupra.com, the new app is…

“….like peanut butter and chocolate….”

That’s what Ron Coleman, head of the intellectual property practice at Goetz Fitzpatrick LLP in New York and publisher of the award winning legal blog Likelihood of Confusion, thinks. I spoke to Ron on the phone the other day about LinkedIn and JDSupra after hearing about the new client he got in response to a document he posted on JDSupra. Here’s what he told me…

“I was fan of JDSupra early on. I saw it as a great way to sell what I had to offer — experience, originality and quality of work. It’s extremely easy to use and it provides another place for a profile which I use to point people to EXACTLY what I’ve done. I probably have an advantage over lawyers who don’t have the freedom to post things. I’m not hemmed in by institutional concerns.”

Despite the notion that the social Web is all about sharing, conversation and collaboration, for Ron, it’s about how the documents he posts on JDSupra are dynamically aligned with search engines; allowing anyone searching for him or his expertise to find it.

With the new LinkedIn Legal Updates application, it gives him another gateway;  a gateway serving a fairly targeted business audience. Any time you can leverage what you post—post once and distribute it widely across the Web without added work—is a real plus. When you have a captive, targeted audience, well, it’s like getting a double dip. And that’s exactly what the JDSupra app for LinkedIn is all about.

You can preview and install the application here.

You don’t need to have a JDSupra account to access and download the app to your LinkedIn profile. But if you do publish to JDSupra, you’ll want to connect your JDSupra account to the LinkedIn app so all of your content is fed seamlessly into the app and can be searched for or browsed within the application by anyone within the LinkedIn social network.

About that client…

So, you’re probably wondering about that client Ron got, right? Well, here’s the story.  A mid-west lawyer’s client was served with papers in New Jersey. With no attorney relationship in New Jersey, the lawyer went to Google. Instead of blindly searching for a lawyer, he started by searching on the name of the guy who was suing his client. As it happens, a link to one of Ron’s documents on JDSupra that discussed how he had successfully litigated against the same plaintiff turned up. The lawyer reads the document and figures here’s a guy who knows who we’re dealing with. He then called Ron and within a few hours sent him a $10,000.00 retainer to handle the matter.

Some helpful instructions for making the most of Legal Updates on LinkedIn.

Publishing on the social web is an excellent marketing tactic that as Ron knows, “enables you [and search engines] to point people to EXACTLY what you’ve done.”

For users, the beauty of JDSupra’s LinkedIn application lies in its simplicity of set up and customization. Here are some simple instructions:

1. Connect your JDSupra account to the LinkedIn app.
2. The heart of the app, EVERYONE on Linkedin can do it. Customize your LinkedIn page feed.
3. How to recommend, share, save Legal Updates.

There you go!

Got any good stories about getting new clients from publishing your content on JDSupra or LinkedIn? Share them below. For more social.lawyer stories check out my new site www.sociallawyers.com.

I want social networking online to give me greater reach, not add to my workload. I’m always searching for ways to cut down on the amount of time I spend keeping in touch with my valuable online social networks. One way I’ve found to double up on my efforts is to sync some of my services, i.e. add my Twitter feed to my LinkedIn profile page. By syncing my Twitter feed to my LinkedIn profile page I post once and cover more territory without jumping back and forth between networks. Another very important management tactic I use is Twitter “lists.”

How to Use Lists on Twitter.

If you’re new to Twitter, here’s a little bit of info about Lists. Lists are helpful in organizing your listening to make your conversations more targeted. For example, you could manually create a “Media” list that includes all the people you follow who are members of the media. When you view the list, only posts from those people appear in the stream.

You can jump back and forth between lists, essentially blocking out noise created by unorganized, random conversations in your main stream. When you open a list you can easily scan what listed people are talking about and enter into the conversation where appropriate.

To create a list, simply select Create New List and name it. Then, scan through the people you follow and add appropriate people to the list. Or add to lists as you follow new people. Once you have a list it will appear in the right sidebar on your main Twitter page.

You can manually build lists for personal friends, industry segments, politicians, CEO’s, social causes, and so forth. One way to quickly add lists to your Twitter experience is to visit Listorious.com. There you’ll find a bunch of ready made lists that you can add and follow. You can also follow the lists that others that you follow have created. They show up in your lists with @theirname.

Now, thanks to a LinkedIn application, Tweets, you can also make a Twitter list from your Connections on LinkedIn.

How to Create a LinkedIn Business Connections List.

We know from experience that it takes a number of touch points to build meaningful relationships off line or online. If you’re looking to increase the value of the connections you already maintain on LinkedIn, you can add the Tweets Application to your profile. Tweets allows you to see who within your Connections is on Twitter, give you the option to follow them, and seamlessly create a “LinkedIn Connections” list.

Simply go to the APPLICATIONS DIRECTORY page, and select add the Tweets application.

Once you add the Tweets Application you’ll be directed to the Application page. The Tweets Application will initially recommend people in your network to follow. You’ll also find tabs for Overview, Connections, My Tweets, and Settings.

When you select the Connections Tab you’ll see a list of all your LinkedIn Connections with a Twitter account synced to their LinkedIn profile. (Remember, you must also sync your LI and Twitter accounts. It’s an option on your (edit) profile page.) From there select the LI Connections that you want to “Follow” and “List” on Twitter. The application will automatically add the list to your main Twitter page and by default it is made private – which means that no one else will be able to see or follow your LinkedIn Connections List.

Using your LinkedIn-Connections list.

When you’re on your LinkedIn home page, Tweets will feed the last few posts sent from your LinkedIn-Connections Twitter List. You can directly post your status there or you can click on the “see more” to jump to the Tweets Application without leaving LinkedIn. In the Application you can get the complete stream of your Connections’ updates and update your Twitter status, reply, retweet or add more Connections to your Twitter list.

When you’re in Twitter, you’ll find the list in your sidebar, click on the list and check out what your LI Connections are discussing or sharing. From there you can of course do all the stuff you normally do on Twitter. (Your lists also replicate to your Tweet Deck or other software that you might use to manage your Tweeting).

That’s it! If you need help with the Tweets Application on LinkedIn, go to the FAQs, type in Tweets in the search bar and there are a number of helpful hints.

If you have any tips for staying organized with your online social networking I hope you’ll share them in the comments below.