Observed

It’s simple.  Be practical and responsive.

At least, according to a panel of managing partners convened earlier this month in Boston.  The occasion was the annual conference organized by the New England chapter of the Legal Marketing Association.

Why practical and responsive? The reason they offered was just as simple:  It’s what clients’ customers expect from them.

It occurred to me that this is an extension of the wisdom imparted by Laura Meherg — namely, that clients tend to want lawyers who can:

1. Fix their problems.
2. Make their lives easier.
3. And, are nice to work with.

The challenge is how to best convey practical and responsive to your clients and prospects, short of demonstrating it.  In other words, how can your marketing content reflect these abstractions.

Consider case studies.  Here are a couple of real-world examples:

• A major engineering company brought John into a case after being hit with a variety of commercial and IP claims by an oil and gas equipment company in Texas.  “My strategy was to aggressively develop evidence before I even asked for documents.  So, I examined a key executive who had all of the information and was driving the dispute…before my opponent’s defenses were in place.”  As a result, John got damaging admissions into the record early, changing the risk calculus for both sides and setting up a favorable settlement.
• When a competitor sued a global manufacturing company with a patent infringement claim, John suspected that there was another, more deadly scenario in store for his client.  “My sense was that my opponent was leveraging the patent infringement claim in an attempt to get information to support a trade secret claim and get an injunction against my client.  If successful, this could effectively shut down my client.”  John developed a strategy based on what was best for his client in the long-term by admitting the patent infringement claims and, thereby, initially denying the competing company the ability to assert the more damaging trade secret claim and quickly enjoin his client.

Well, what do you think?

Finding a needle in one of Monet's summer haystacks illustrates Cognitive Impenetrability. That's the struggle we have when our brains are asked to filter out the clutter of the ordinary in search of the extraordinary. Such as being able to create a good sentence in the midst of a relentless torrent of psychic, creative noise.

First, take a look at Writing Tip #4.

OK, now consider this one, where I wrote about how something might become harder to do the harder I try.  It introduces the theory of Cognitive Impenetrability.

That’s a way to describe how hard it is to find something when what we’re are looking for is rare.  For some reason, as radiologists and the TSA know, our ability to see it decreases.  Or, as Harvard prof Jeremy Wolfe says, “…if you don’t find it often, you often don’t find it.”

Same with writing a good sentence, especially when it’s the first thing on a blank page.  It’s like finding a lucid needle in the crowded and chaotic haystack of our brains.

The radiologist is trained to pause — one more time — before reporting that an x-ray is negative for cancer.  They effectively take a break.

That’s what I recommend writers do, too.

Even the most creative force in modern architecture admits to having little if any idea how he creates. Gehry seems to understand, however, that it helps to bring his fears out of Shadow and put them on the tip of his pen.

At the beginning of Sketches of Frank Gehry, the director, Sydney Pollock, asks the great architect a great question.

“Is starting hard?”

Gehry replies.

You know it is.  I don’t know what you do when you start, but I clean my desk.  I make a lot of stupid appointments that I make sound important.

Avoidance.  Delay.  Denial.

I’m always scared that I’m not going to know what to do.  It’s a terrifying moment.

And then, when I start, I’m always amazed.  ‘Oh, that wasn’t so bad.’

How true.

Next time you're stumped in a crossword, put your pencil (or pen) down and walk away. Forget about it. Come back in a few hours or days and you'll be amazed to see solutions where before you were stuck. Same with writing or, perhaps, just about anything else creative.

I rarely do my best writing when I’m trying to do too many things at once.  Or, when I’m too tired.  Plus, I know that the first thing I write is seldom the best I write.  Know what I mean?

Turns out that these observations follow a common thread…and have some science connecting them.

I re-discovered a great story that illustrates this.  Last summer, The New York Times reported about five neuroscientists who spent a week in late May 2010 in a remote area of southern Utah, rafting the San Juan River, camping on the soft banks and hiking the tributary canyons.

It was a primitive trip with a sophisticated goal: to understand how heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects.

The five reached a rough consensus, agreeing more or less that heavy exposure to technology and other stimulation leaves less room in our brains for storing and integrating ideas.

So, do what I do.  When I get stuck in a crosswords puzzle, for example, I’m amazed how I can solve clues after I put the paper aside and come back to it way later.  Or, when I look at a draft of whatever I’m writing a day or two later…and often discover all sorts ways to make improvements.

Seth, BTW, may have tapped into something similar when he suggested that you get a fresh set of eyes to challenge whatever you’re writing, building or designing.

But before you click on one more thing, turn off, tune out and take a break.  Your brain (and clients) will thank you.

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Many of the nation's leading law firm marketing pros -- including Laura Meherg (not pictured!) -- gathered in Chicago in May 2011 for their annual RainDance conference, produced by the Legal Sales and Service Organization.

Laura Meherg has a pretty good handle on the relationships between lawyers and their clients. After all, she has conducted hundreds of top-level law firm client feedback interviews over the past few years.

This week, Laura and one of her associates at Wicker Park Group, Nat Slavin, offered their insights into what businesses want when they hire a lawyer or a law firm.  When she has asked them, according to Laura, most clients tell her they’re looking for three qualities in their lawyers above all others: (more…)

If you write for a living (or think you might want to try), do yourself a favor.  Watch this movie:

What the 50 screenwriters in Tales from the Script (2009) tell me is important for any writer, especially one with a client.  However you define that.

Here are four of the many lessons they offer:

1. Get used to chaos. No matter how sincere the time line and approval commitments, life has a way of showing up.  Things slide,  and before you know it, you’re part of a train wreck.
2. Develop a thick skin. There’s never any way to predict how your work will be received.  Clients are human, and it’s impossible to know who might have a bad day or when.  Plus, people can disagree.  Your take on something might not be their take on something.  Even if it’s personal, don’t take it personally.
3. Great writing alone isn’t good enough. Writing for hire is a team sport.  If you’re not good with people, find something else to do.
4. Don’t quit. It can be discouraging to go through draft after draft after draft…even when you’re getting paid to do it.  Nothing ever gets created, however, without the risk of failure.  Be brave.

The sooner you accept the legitimacy of these things, the happier and more serene your writing life will seem.

When I build a bio page for an attorney, I remind them that getting picked is an emotional process, at least in part. That’s why it’s important to let visitors to your page know they’re dealing with someone who’s more than a list of impeccable credentials.

Carl Aveni, a litigator based in Columbus, Ohio, agrees. Take a look at this recent clip:

Making your bio like a personal story will also make it more readable and set you apart.

PS:  Thanks to Larry Bodine for sharing this clip with me.  Plus, there’s a related post at http://doug-stern.com/blog/2010/11/19/people-buy-from-people/.

George H.W. Bush understood the importance of superficial impressions. In 1988, he used this picture of a hapless Michael Dukakis to win the presidential election. Bush's fabled campaign ads featuring escaped felon and murderer "Willie Horton" drove the final nail in his opponent's coffin.

We’re hard-wired to judge others.  And situations.  Some of us (e.g., parents of young children) seem to acquire this urge under the right circumstances.

Judging others factors into how much we trust and feel safe.  This is one reason why chemistry and even small, tangible details seem to figure into the hiring choices clients make and whether they remain satisfied with a vendor’s performance.

So, too, it seems when picking presidential candidates.  A recent story in The New York Times vetted several Republican favorites with an eye toward how they present the qualities it takes to win as opposed to govern. (more…)

"O envy! envy! thou gnawing worm of virtue, and spring of infinite mischiefs! there is no other vice, my Sancho, but pleads some pleasure in its excuse; but envy is always attended by disgust, rancour, and distracting rage." -- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part II, Chapter 8.

In the last couple of days, both Seth and The New York Times have taken a look at the connection between on-line technology and envy.  It’s not clear who coined it, but the Times uses an acronym to describe the way Facebook, Twitter and the like have tormented those of us stalking a better offer — FOMO…or, Fear of Missing Out.

Of course, there’s nothing new under the sun.  It’s been ages since Envy was added to the Seven Deadly Sins list.  The ancient Greeks invented Zelos (god of envy and the root for the word zeal), and Cervantes wrote Don Quixote around the end of the 16th Century.

So, I’m reluctant to further demonize our gadgets and apps and how they abet our addiction to connectivity and the inevitable quest for something other than what we have.  Technology is, after all, partly a solution in search of a problem.

In a way, we set ourselves up.  When we open a Twitter account or create a Facebook page, aren’t we giving some part of ourselves permission to act on whatever innate urge might reside in us to compare our lives to the lives of others…and, perhaps, to despair?

A buddy of mine said it really well when he called out Facebook years ago.  He called it invited voyeurism.

So, really.  Who are we kidding?

According to some, "computers and cellphones, and the constant stream of stimuli they offer, pose a profound new challenge to focusing and learning."

Maybe all of us have a touch of ADHD in our hard-wiring.   Maybe that’s what helped keep us safe from the sabertooth or the tar pit or the whatever.

Fast-forward several eons.  The average amygdala is getting a real work out in the Digital Age.  We’re bombarded with stimuli, constantly shifting and sorting — alert to threats and opportunities — and feeding our addiction(s).

This morning’s New York Times suggests we’re paying a price for this innate urge, particularly among the young.  Consider: (more…)