Observed

The film "Undefeated" won the 2012 Best Documentary Oscar, despite its rejection in 2011 by the Sundance Film Festival. The filmmakers' resiliency (they got the boost they needed from the South by Southwest conference) is the same kind of resourcefulness it takes out-numbered attorneys to Get Found and Get Picked.

The parallels between marketing a film and selling professional services ought to be obvious.

First, in either case, the numbers are apparently against you. A recent report in The New York Times, for example, noted that the Sundance Film Festival which begins today in Park City, Utah, vetted over 12,000 submissions for 193 slots. By comparison, I read recently that there are 1,250,000 attorneys in the United States competing for increasingly demanding markets less tolerant of hourly billings and other examples of business as usual.

Second, despite the numbers, there’s hope. If history is a reliable guide, many of the films that didn’t make the cut at Sundance will nevertheless earn critical and commercial success. Same with attorneys and other professional service providers who play it smart.

The Times piece describes the advice John Cooper, the director of the Sundance festival, has for the ways rejected films have skillfully used the Internet and other means to build an audience — Sundance or no Sundance.  Responding to a rejected filmmaker’s plans to offer his work via sites like iTunes or Netflix, the Times reported the following:

That’s a resourcefulness that Mr. Cooper would encourage. “Filmmakers need to be creative,” he said. “They should use the cleverness it takes to make a movie to also find an audience.”

This common-sense attitude is precisely what Mike O’Horo and other legal sales thought leaders have been offering their clients for years.  They say that lawyers are — by training or nature — relentless question-askers.  Lawyers also tend to be painstakingly systematic, analytical, well-prepared and hard-working and have a bunch of other qualities that serve business development and sales of their services and firms.

Makes sense, yes?

Toy first? Or, reach for the french fries instead? So, too, with the choices visitors make as they navigate Web sites. Paths tend to vary with the type of site and countless different objectives, whims and other variables. Acceptance of this understanding offers several valuable lessons for how we might write and deploy Web content.

Nutritional analogies aside, Web sites are like Happy Meals. Some people like to start with the french fries. Others go for the toy. And, so on.

Same with Web site user experience. While most of us land on the home page, after that, it varies. On law firm Web sites, studies show that visitors tend to head to the bios. If we’re on a merchant’s site to shop for pewter floor lamps, we’re liable to let the internal search function take us where it will do us the most good.

The lesson here is to realize that the average person is NOT linear when they visit a site. We graze.  Or, as some put it, (more…)

In order to relate better to the marketplace, a law firm Web site ought to do more than brag about the lawyers' credentials. So, instead of looking like a long resume, more and more new or re-written law firm sites now more accurately reflect the reason most people visit them in the first place. In short, they strive to be more relevant.

Law firms have always known that their Web sites were there to provide a sense of assurance to others.  The question has been, What’s the best way to do this?

Until recently, lawyers typically weren’t in the habit of asking clients or prospects what they think or want.  So, the default for content has been what worked for lawyers themselves.  Since they tend to be competitive and impressed with credentials, their sites – especially their bio pages – looked like scorecards.

People come to law firm Web sites for three reasons when they’re looking to hire a lawyer.  This list is based on growing evidence that pinpoints how firms and their lawyers can best instill a sense of confidence in others.

Visitors to law firm Web sites are asking themselves: (more…)

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.

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.

"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?

What is it that motivates my urge to deliver outstanding customer service? It it economic sustainability? Greater profitability? Is it something more personal, such as a code of ethics? Or, is it something else?

Many years ago, a friend of mine was applying to medical residency programs, including the one at Yale-New Haven Hospital.  “I had never been to Yale,” according to my buddy.  “So, when my train arrived, I grabbed a cab.  I told the driver to take me to the hospital and that I had 45 minutes to get to my interview.” (more…)

Here’s the second in a series of practical how-to writing clips from Doug.  It’s a companion to a blog post.