Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, recently proclaimed that email is probably going to die. Her rationale is that if you want to know what adults will do tomorrow with technology, you look at what teenagers are doing today, and teenagers think email is kind of, well, “lame.”  They prefer social networking and text messaging.

A little too ambitious?

Okay, social media is changing the world, but will it really kill email? In my opinion, no, at least not in the foreseeable future. There are all sorts of reasons why email will live on, but here are my two favorites:

Teenagers don’t conduct business

In the future will people use Facebook to send proposals to clients? To send internal office memos to coworkers? To send an invoice? Could you even imagine using text messages for any of this? Teenagers don’t have any of these needs yet, but they will, which is largely why they don’t use email now, and Facebook  seems ill suited for a lot of these purposes.

Besides, even if social media technology renders email antiquated, that doesn’t mean it’s going away, any more than the internet and computers have killed paper.

Teenagers don’t care about privacy

If Facebook kills email, how are you going to sign up for websites (and for that matter, how are you going to sign up for Facebook)? Using your Facebook user/pass instead? Some websites already offer this option, but are you really going to login to your bank, credit card, health insurance or other sensitive websites using your Facebook credentials? Among other problems, this would create a serious privacy hazard — Whoops! Facebook accidentally published every website you logged into and every person you contacted last month, and they sold the info to advertisers!

But do teenagers care about privacy? Absolutely not. Teenagers are famous for publicly posting pictures of themselves with a bottle of Popov vodka in one hand and a stained-glass bong in another, having no concept of how that could impact their careers and reputations down the line.

Adults, on the other hand, care a lot about privacy, which has been Facebook’s biggest problem of late.  I just don’t see adults trusting Facebook enough to make it the hub of everything they do on the web, no matter how sensitive, especially given its problems with privacy in the past.  If for no other reason, email will stick around as a sort of ID card for the web.

The predictive value of teenagers

Is this really crystal ball insight into future adult behavior?

I’m not going to dismiss wholesale the notion that teenagers predict adult technology trends, but certainly there must be exceptions.  It seems that at least with business technology, old habits persist, perhaps even irrationally, and a ton of email’s utility is wrapped up in business.

So if I’m going to accept the “email will die” thesis at all, it’s limited to the possibility that social media will kill social email use, which is already starting to happen.  But I doubt email is going anywhere for business, at least in the near future.

So, do you think email is going to die?

Big news last week that Obama fired his general in Afghanistan, General  Stanley A. McChrystal.  I read the Rolling Stone article and couldn’t help but thinking that McChrystal was a megalomaniacal moron.  From a managerial point of view, McChrystal’s comments gave Obama no choice but to dismiss him.  Anything less would have been an abomination to Obama’s elected position as Commander-in-Chief (by that way, is that title even in English?) and duty to be a competent manager.

In any organization, it is critical that people argue and debate.  I remember joining Microsoft and watching people engage in mental (and sometimes hostile) combat regarding product and other strategic directions.  They always left the conference room as friends, but the culture at Microsoft, which spawned Expedia, which sort of spawned Avvo, mandated such a crucible to ensure the best ideas rose to the top.  Even at Avvo today, I feel fortunate to have a team that cares so much about our product and vision that I practically have to pull them off of each other in strategy meetings.  All of this conflict is borne of passion, and I don’t believe any company can succeed without it.

That being said, when a decision is made within Avvo and any other successful organization, that’s it.  Possibly the decision is revisited if it is not achieving its objectives, but it is not revisited immediately after it is made (otherwise the decision has not been made at all).  Moreover, anyone who disagrees with the decision needs to get on the bus and support the direction rather than dwell on the differences.  Failure to get on the bus is arguably a firable offense, but then taking that to the media in such a crass way is akin to loading your own gun.  Why?  Obama could not have said it any better, “I encourage debate will not tolerate dissent.”  Maybe he should have said “public dissent” but you get it:  He’s talking about the bus. 

Adding insult to injury, this is not the first time Obama told McChrystal to get on the bus.  The picture above was their first public spat over disparaging comments McChrystal made regarding Vice President Biden.  Even though Obama called him to the carpet then, McChrystal was still full enough of himself to ignore his boss’s admonition and do it again a year later.  Sheesh.

It was bad enough that McChrystal chose to attack Biden again and just about everyone in Afghanistan not in fatigues. But taking this matter deeper into the organizational toilet was how he did it.  The article opens with him engaging in an expletive-laden whining session about having to have dinner with a French official.  He could not have sounded more jingoistic and moronic.  He is flipping the bird at his subordinates for getting him “screwed into” this Franco-mess and reminding them that they could not kick his ass (his words).  Think of your own business, if this was one of your employees publicly discussing his disdain for a business partner in your local paper or similar media outlet, you would go crazy — no matter how troubled the relationship with that partner may be.  If the relationship needs help, then work on it with a positive attitude.  If it can be saved, then save it.  If it cannot, then get out of it.  But don’t stoop to the level of badmouthing your partners, co-workers or superiors in public.  It is such bad form that I cannot come up with a pithy analogy that does it justice.  My “moron” characterization is the best I can do.

I’ve written and spoken about organizational communication a lot over the years:  It is the lifeblood of any successful organization.  Successful organizations need to constantly work to keep the good, bad and ugly in plain view and on the table for discussion.  But McChrystal’s actions were none of that.  They were a violation of organizational respect, good manners and all of the lessons we learned (or not) in kindergarten . . . beginning with “works and plays well with others.”

Mark

As some consumers have found out the hard way, one of the problems with describing one’s experiences with businesses online is the potential to get slapped with a defamation suit for your trouble. It doesn’t really matter whether the suit has a chance of prevailing; the cost of defense makes censoring oneself seem like the best option.

Obviously, this is no good for the kind of reputational ecosystem that can provide other consumers with valuable information about the quality of a service providers’ offerings. That’s why I’m so encouraged by the potential of the Citizen Participation Act (H.R. 4364), a bill currently working its way through Congress that would put in place a nationwide anti-SLAPP law. Under the Act, those sued for exercising their First Amendment rights would have access to a special motion to dismiss. Valid defamation cases could still proceed, but those driven by thin-skinned bullying tactics could be thrown out at the earliest opportunity, complete with attorneys fees paid to the defendant.

While California has long had a such a law – and Washington just got one – most state anti-SLAPP laws are non-existent or anemic in coverage. A robust nationwide standard is long overdue. If you’re interested in supporting the bill, visit the Public Participation Project website or write your representative.

This is not a humble post. It is not full of business acumen, legal insight or bleeding edge technology advances. This is a cheerleading post about Avvo’s growth in appeal to both consumers and lawyers.  I write not out of arrogance, but to answer the question we get asked by lawyers every day, “why should I spend time on Avvo instead of all of the other websites out there?”

When it comes to legal directories bigger is better – be it having the most lawyers, the most information or the most consumers using that information to chose a lawyer. Two Novembers ago, I wrote a post called “Avvo – World’s Largest Legal Directory” using some data to compare Avvo to the establishment. It’s time to update those stats:

Avvo – more lawyers, more ratings, more reviews and more people finding lawyers than anywhere else in the world.  Lawyers, there are literally hundreds of websites in which you can invest your time and dollars. Prioritize Avvo, the one that delivers the biggest impact to your business.  (Oh and we’re free.)

Data Sources

• Lawyers – Avvo (internal numbers), Lawyers.com search, Superlawyers – 5% of roughly 800,000 practicing lawyers.
• Rated Lawyers – Avvo (internal numbers), Lawyers.com search, Superlawyers – 5% of roughly 800,000 practicing lawyers.
• Lawyers w/Client Ratings – Avvo (internal numbers), Lawyers.com search
• Traffic Growth – Compete comparison of annual growth rate for Visits (Findlaw directory data on lawyers.findlaw.com requires a free log in to Compete to see subdomain data).

Over the years, I have had various people contact me – many of them lawyers – looking to make a jump to the “business-side” – i.e., leave their current profession and become a business person.  I try to take as many of these meetings as possible mostly to be helpful to other professionals in transition, but also because I like the “forward payment” of these meetings.  We have all been in transition at one time or another, and the more we share ideas, introductions, etc., the better off we will all be as a community of professionals over the years.

Notwithstanding my desire to be a good community participant, these meetings with lawyers often fall flat.  After a bit of small talk, the meetings usually go something like this:

Mark:  “So how can I help?”

Transitioning Lawyer:  “Well, I wanted to get together because . . . well . . . I like business and I think I could be good at it.  I’m also pretty tired of being a lawyer.  I have a couple business ideas, and since you made the jump to the business-side maybe you could give me some advice on how I could do it.”

Mark:  “What kind of business do you like?  Did you major in business? “

Transitioning Lawyer:  “Any kind of business.  Maybe high tech?  I majored in philosophy and got my JD and have been doing litigation for the last four years, but I have done some contract negotiation in the past.  I always felt that I had an affinity for business when negotiating contracts.”

I’m always a little puzzled where to take the conversation from here.  The Transitioning Lawyer likes business, but doesn’t really have a passion for a particular area of business.  It’s like saying you want a dog – ok, but is there a type of dog that makes you so excited that you want to take it home and snuggle it forever?  How do you know you want a dog?  What kind of dog is best for you?  Big?  Small?  Furry? Hypoallergenic?  Active?  Quiet?  Good with kids?  Simply wanting a dog is not enough.  You must passionately want a particular kind of dog; otherwise the long-term commitment is going to be hard.  Jumping to the “business-side” is no different.

Moreover, the Transitioning Lawyer above has little exposure to business, and yet he knows it is for him.  Don’t get me wrong, the world of business does not require a Mensa-certified IQ.  Many with below-average IQs and little formal business training have succeeded.  But just because you are sick of practicing law, doesn’t mean that the “business-side” is for you.  Many lawyers want to make the jump because they feel overworked and underpaid – “I’m tired of dealing with clients” is a common complaint.  But here’s the secret:  Being in the business world is not all giggles.  The wide-ranging business world is rough and tumble and finding success therein always requires, just like legal, brute-force, roll-up-your-sleeves execution.  Don’t fool yourself, the grass may look greener in the business yard but it’s because someone consistently pulls all-nighters to keep it watered. 

Becoming a businessperson does not automatically give you the G4 -flying, Cristal-sipping, celebrity-mingling lifestyle you see on TV.  To the contrary, the “business-side” often drops you in a jungle with no path or map and only a butter knife for defense.  So, with that admonition, let me offer a couple pieces of advice for the aspiring businessperson – especially those that are planning to leave their boring legal job for that of the mythically exciting life of corporate America:

• First and foremost, you need to have a passion for a specific area of business.  If you don’t have that innate passion, you probably don’t have a sense for business opportunity in general.  Anyone who starts a business does so because he or she has a passion and corresponding vision.   In the healthiest companies, that passion flows through the ranks.  Why would a founder, CEO or any other manager hire someone who they need to get fired up or otherwise explain the opportunity to?  While somewhat overused, the old adage of “learn it, live it, love it” holds true here.  If you are simply pursuing business for the sake of “being involved in business” you have already failed.  You need to find your passion and pursue it with abandon.  With that passion comes opportunities.
• Second, many lawyers forget that they are already in business.  They own a P&L, even if it is their own production for the year.  I am always surprised by lawyers who don’t understand this business element of what they do.  It is usually the solos that have the greatest grasp on this and understand their organizational ROIs, etc.  Whether solo or not, if you are not excited about running or even being part of a legal business, why would you be happier in a non-legal business?  If it’s all hard work, then what are you looking for?  If you can’t answer that, then you need to stay in the legal business.
• Third, while not an absolute, it does help to have a business background/education in making the jump from legal to business.  Maybe it is an accounting degree, maybe it is having worked on a number of financially sophisticated deals through the years.  However, if you don’t have this experience, all is not lost – think about ways that you can get the experience.  One of the best ways I know of is to join an in-house legal department (which incidentally was my own path to the business-side).  In-house counselors will quickly acquire business experience simply by doing their job.  You succeed in-house by understanding your business well enough to balance business opportunities with legal risk. 
• Fourth, if you are going to start your own business out of the gate, keep in mind that a cost of business is making all sorts of mistakes.  Again, make sure you understand the business you are getting into and have socked away enough savings to allow you to weather at least a year without income.  Because lawyers can start billing on day one, they often forget that revenues from any product can often be many months out.  Moreover, lawyer-run businesses are not typically the first choice for outside investors – especially VCs who have a strong MBA bias.  This is because lawyers are often more risk-averse (obsessed?) than your average MBA and they do not have as much exposure to diverse business cases.  So, if your plan is to leave your law practice and immediately score VC money, you may want to have a back-up plan.  Many VCs will require you to show some business development before they believe in the viability of your business.
• Finally, before doing anything, reach out to everyone you know (and everyone they know) who has already had success in business – especially ex-lawyers.  Offer to buy them coffee or lunch and pick their brain on how they identified the opportunity and executed against it.  Ask if you can pick their brain from time to time.  For the most impressive and engaged, put them on your board or ask them to serve as an advisor.  The network you assemble will be invaluable to you as you decide to make your jump and, if you do, as you grow your business.

In the end, this is all pretty basic stuff.  But when it comes to the lawyer who is just tired of a being a lawyer, it’s worth repeating.  The old adage that “nothing in life is free” holds true in the business world as much as anyplace else.  Yes, there are wild success stories like the YouTube founders selling for a billion dollars eight months after launch, but there are umpteen gazillion more stories of businesses crashing and burning.  To have a shot at business success – which I hope for most is building a sustainable, responsible business, rather than simply looking for the YouTube quick hit – you need to have a passion which leads to vision which leads to a ton of hard work and, hopefully, a little bit of luck. 

That’s the recipe:  passion, vision, hard work and luck.  If you have it for the “business-side” then, by all means, get moving.  If you aren’t sure, then it’s time to get back to happily shepardizing that brief you’re working on.

Be Passionate.

Mark

For those of you that missed the webinar last week with Smart Marketing’s Mark Merenda, here is the video recording of the session. Mark covered a range of legal marketing topics and offered some great advice for small firms and solo practitioners.

We also have a calendar full of upcoming free webinars, including more guests! Larry Port of Rocket Matter will be joining us on July 15 to talk about Cloud Computing and Andrea Cannavina – the LegalTypist -  will be with us on August 12 to offer 30 Tech Solutions in 30 minutes.

Take a look at the schedule here!

Your Avvo profile took time to build, and your Avvo presence is a continuous part of your legal marketing campaign.  So take advantage of the syndication options we provide, and show off your Avvo presence on your website or blog.

We offer three basic ways to simply and effectively sync your Avvo information and expertise with your other online forums, and for all Avvo attorneys, syndication is completely free!

1. Avvo Badge: Link directly to your Avvo profile with a micro, small, or large custom Avvo Badge.  With the option to display your Avvo Rating, you can use these badges to direct your clients to your Avvo Profile and show off the work you’ve put into your presence on the world’s largest free online legal directory.

2. Q&A Forum Syndication: When you take the time to develop your potential client base on the Avvo Q&A Forum, you add to your Avvo presence, but you also increase the impact of your expertise.  Add your Avvo answers to your website, and expand their effect.

3. Legal Guides: Much like the Q&A Forum, Avvo Legal Guides are an excellent way to showcase your legal expertise and reach potential clients in your practice area and location.  Need help writing a great legal guide?  Avvo Customer Care has created a how-to video for your convenience.

How to Syndicate:

Log into Avvo, and go to your profile.  Select the top left tab: “Dashboard.”  Scroll down and you’ll see the Syndication options in the block on the right.  Obtain the code for either your custom Avvo Badge, your Avvo Answers, or your Avvo Legal Guides, by clicking one of the three links provided in that syndication block.   This will provide you with an HTML code you or your IT person can easily paste into the code of your own website, and which will display your badge, your most recent contributions to the Q&A forum, or your Legal Guides, along with a link to your profile on Avvo.  For a step-by-step tutorial on how to implement these syndication options, check out another video from Avvo Customer Care.

You’ve worked hard to build your Avvo profile and presence.  It’s not just your Avvo Rating that impresses your potential client base, but the comprehensive presentation of your legal background and experience.  Increase your Avvo involvement by syncing your marketing options – keep it simple, and keep it syndicated.

I recently received an email from someone who was trying to learn more about SEO.  He had a pretty good grasp of the places on his web pages that could affect his SEO, but he had no idea how to edit these pages or even see the code of his web pages.

I’m sure this is a very common question, so here’s a short explanation of how to edit your web pages for SEO or just to change a few words. Learning to make simple edits to your own web pages can save you lots of time, money and frustration.

The guts of your website

Your website is simply a collection of files that lives on a server.  When you type in a website address like lawfirm.com/dui.html, you’re simply telling the server that you want to view the file dui.html.  This file, dui.html, is an HTML file consisting of many lines of HTML code. Browsers, like Internet Explorer or Firefox, take these ugly lines of code and render them into a pretty web pages so that no one has to see the raw code. However, if you’d like to view the HTML “guts” of a web page, you can do it in your internet browser.  Here’s how in Firefox using right click:

This will allow you to see the raw code behind your web pages, but you won’t be able to change it, only read it.  If you do want to change the code for SEO purposes or otherwise it is really simple.  Just follow these steps

1) Get an FTP program

An FTP program is what allows you to communicate with your server.  More importantly, it will allow you to download and upload your website files. Filezilla is a great, free FTP program.  Once you’ve got it downloaded and installed, you’ll need to input your server information to login (if you can’t find this info, contact your host):

2) Find the file you want to modify and transfer it to your local computer

To modify a page on your website, you’ll need to download it off the server, put it on your computer, modify it, and then upload the modified file back to the server.  Filezilla makes this really easy.

Inside Filezilla there are two windows.  The window on the left is your local computer, and the window on the right is your server.  To move files between the two, just drag them.

So let’s say you wanted to edit Avvoblog’s readme.html file (which is this web page).  You’d go to Filezilla, find the file (usually files are in the public_html folder) in the “remote site” window, and drag it to the left into your “local site” window:

4) Modify the file on your local computer

Once you’ve got the file on your local computer, you can modify it with any number of programs, including Notepad.

Once inside notepad, you’ll see a glob of HTML that probably looks like total gibberish.  Don’t worry, because if you want to make simple changes to your website, you don’t need to be an expert in HTML.  All you need to do is hit “CTRL+ F”; this will allow you to find the word you want to change.

For example, let’s say you wanted to change Avvoblog’s readme.html file to say “Last Things First” instead of “First Things First.”

You’d go into Notepad, hit CTRL + F and type “First things first.”

Great! Now you know where the words are. Simply type in your changes.  Hit save, and then inside your FTP client, drag your file from your “local site” window back to your “remote site” window:

5) Hit refresh on your page to check your changes

If all went well, once you hit refresh in your browser, your page should be changed:

That’s it! You’re done!

Always make a backup copy

If you’re going to do this, always make a backup copy of a file before you modify it.  That way you can feel free to tinker around to your heart’s content without worrying about permanently defacing your website.

More complicated than it seems

Once you become familiar with the above process, you could make simple changes in a matter of minutes.  That sure beats calling up your web designer every time you want to change a word (not to mention paying your web designer every time you want to change a word).

If you’re interested in SEO, the exact same process above applies to modifying your title tags, meta tags, H1/H2 tags, etc., so if you’ve got the time and inclination, you could do your own SEO as well.

CMS  (content management system) websites

Websites built with a CMS do not require the use of FTP and editors like Notepad to change web pages.  Instead, you can simply login to your website’s administrator page and change your web pages through a WYSIWYG interface.  This can make simple web edits much easier, although the process above is certainly not difficult once you get the hang of it.

A very useful skill

The ability to make simple edits to your own web pages is an extremely useful skill, but certainly not necessary.  The reason it’s so useful is that in the time it takes you to request that someone else make a change, you can perform the change yourself, only you won’t have to pay anyone and you’ll get instant results.

Some might say that social media for business is all about the conversation – that, like traditional networking, it’s all about putting one’s authentic self out there, connecting with other people and enjoying the relationships that are the fruit of sharing ideas and opinions; humor and commiseration.

But who’s got time for all that touchy-feely, networky stuff? Why not just amass an army of twitter followers; a legion of fans to your kick-ass Facebook Fan page? Big numbers have got to equal big results, right?

Well, not exactly. Plug YOUR social media numbers into our handy-dandy calculator and find out for yourself:

1. Twitter followers valued at $0.01 apiece. Source: typical Ebay “buy it now” values for bulk followers (did you know you could buy followers on Ebay? Pretty sweet, huh?)

2. Facebook friends valued at $.37 apiece. Source: Burger King “Whopper Sacrifice” ad campaign
.
3. Facebook Fans valued at $3.60 apiece, based on a recent study of large brand advertising spend per impression.

We’ve told you before and we’ll tell you again (and again) that writing an informative Legal Guide increases your exposure to prospective clients. This video will guide you to select a topic to write about then give you tips to make sure your guide is really great.