Observed

Dave Barry takes his readers on a little journey through the cornfields and bureaucracies of Indiana, where the citizens of Dana are battling to honor the life of one of their native sons, Ernie Pyle. It's too bad that so few of us recognize that name -- or the name of his gifted contemporary from Paducah, Ky., Irvin S. Cobb -- much less have read anything they wrote. That's our loss.

Do yourself a favor.  If you want to see how it’s done, check out Dave Barry’s solid little story about legendary WWII correspondent Ernie Pyle and Dana, Ind., the hometown town struggling to keep Mr. Pyle’s memory alive.

Consider, for example:

Dana is learning the familiar lesson that the famous are not forever so; names slip from collective memory, to be replaced by other names also destined for the tip of our tongues, and then gone. Who remembers, say, Wheeler and Woolsey, the wacky comedy team of the 1930s; or Irvin S. Cobb, a cigar-chomping humorist as well known as Will Rogers in his day; or the Dionne quintuplets, international sensations.

But Ernie Pyle was not just famous; he mattered.

Not too much.  Not too little.  Mr. Barry sinks his hook in the first sentence and keeps you caring about the Hoosiers with the big hearts…all the way to the end.

He gets out of the way.  No dazzling distractions.  No lofty arguments or self-important bloviations.

Just good, solid writing, worthy of Mr. Barry’s subject.

Praesent in multis potuit paucis? (Or...Why use a few words when many could do?) I wonder how much lawyers' love of Latin has to do with the hunger for academic respect that influences so much of their law school training. Or, with the powder-wigged, Boswellian affectations that characterize the case law they studied?

Take a peek behind the curtain of law school training in today’s New York Times.   In it, reporter David Segal outlines the failure of legal education in the U.S. to prepare lawyers to practically earn their keep.

The piece made me think about what might inspire the florid written wordiness I so often see from lawyers, even in non-legal business development content.  Could it have something to do with the obsession of law school professors to be taken seriously in academe?  Or, with the hidebound, 18th and 19th-century (and earlier) case law that still comprises so much of what law students pack into their brains?

Is the use of Latin, hallowed despite its death (or, perhaps, because of it), another way of compensating for the profession’s inferred inferiority.  Is Latin a way for lawyers to prove they they deserve to be taken as seriously and respected as much as, say, physicians or clergy?

Mr. Segal reports that the winds of reform are gathering, offering hope that law student loans and other wrongs will be blown away.  Maybe these fresh breezes will arrive with copies of Strunk and White.

Blogger Steve Coomes might say that PETA's proposed McDonald's statue for downtown Louisville was DOA.

I’m no genius, but I’ve been around this game long enough to recognize a red herring when I see one, and that decoy story looked a lot like a chicken.

That’s how blogger restaurant blogger Steve Coomes wrapped up his post in today’s InsiderLouisville.com about KFC’s change in marketing chiefs.

You may have noticed Mr. Coomes’s  use of  metaphors.  Well, these were just two of at least a dozen metaphors and other analogical usages…in a 700-word, 20-paragraph piece.

Writing Tip of the Day:  Don’t do that.

OK, so he's not Robert Redford. However, if you're a lawyer or law firm marketer hunting for great clients, you want to have lunch with The Coach.

Mike “The Coach” O’Horo isn’t the first sales coach to harness the power of the Webinar.  In the legal services niche, however, he may be the best.

Find out for yourself.  If you’re interested in getting immediate, proven, one-on-one help for whatever sales opportunity you’re facing, then register for Mike’s Lunch with the Coach.  It’s a free, interactive Webinar-based training being launched today via RainmakerVT.

Do it today.  Mike says space is limited.

Some people mean more together than they do apart, whatever the stage. Churchill and Hitler. Bogart and Bacall. Ali and Frazier.

Writers want to engage, not distract their readers. Dave Anderson may have done the latter with his use of a much-hated name to make a point in his article about champion boxer Joe Frazier.

This is the lead in Dave Anderson’s farewell to Joe Frazier, the heavyweight boxer and former champ who died of cancer Monday night.

Did you notice the name in the second sentence?  Did you react the way I did?  With puzzlement?  Wondering why Mr. Anderson reached for such an inflammatory name to engage his readers and make a point about synergy?

Instead of being engaged, the analogy distracted me.  If I had been looking for a third pair for that match, I would have kept my distance from naming mass murderers.

But, hey.  Maybe that’s just me.

When I step into the room created by social media, it's incumbent for me to stick around for the conversation...particularly when I start one myself. In other words, I shouldn't shake your tree if I don't want your peaches. No?

LexBlog’s Kevin O’Keefe wasn’t the only reason going to Boston for most of this week was worth it for me.  But he was a big reason.

Kevin, Igor Ilyinsky, Deb McMurray and other law firm marketing thought leaders were presenting at the annual conference of the LMA New England Chapter.  A couple hundred marketers and vendors met to talk about this year’s topic — the interface between lawyers and technology.

When Kevin moderated a panel on social media, he reminded me of why I still resist Twitter.  It’s because I already feel overwhelmed and over-connected.  Despite the filters and other settings I can use to configure who and what I follow (and vice versa), it just seems like another case of being careful of what I ask for.

I also get what Kevin says about the risks of being technically clever and merely auto-Tweeting new blog posts.  (more…)