Scary Monsters and Disturbing Superheros

Ever wonder what those pictures your kid draws would look like if reworked by a professional artist?  Wonder no more:  The Monster Engine. 

Way cool.  (Found via Angie McKaig).

Pair up for productivity

In the most recent issue of Steelcase’s 360 e-zine is an article titled The Next Evolution of the Personal Workspace that suggests working in pairs (dyads) offers demonstrable increases in productivity, innovation, and workplace morale.

When pairs collaborate, they build on each other's thoughts and ideas in a process that psychologists call “laddering.” This process starts when we're young and is critical to how we learn. Dr. Charles Crook, a British psychologist and researcher, notes that how much people can learn is limited when they work alone, and that learning can be taken farther if people work and learn together. “Collaboration is critical to learning,” he says.

An interesting study, pointed out in the article, looked at travel agents (who often work in pairs with their clients) before and after their workplaces were changed to encourage dyadic work:

When a better workspace was created that allowed side-by-side collaboration and supported multi-connected displays, the results were clear:

• privacy was increased for the pair
• customers were more engaged and active customers could more easily track itineraries and costs
• redundant work was eliminated
• transaction costs decreased
• customers reported a better experience and more satisfaction due to the physical set-up
• transaction time was reduced to 5-10 minutes vs. the typical 30 minutes

Should lawyers and other professionals work more often in pairs?  The study seems to suggest a pretty significant improvement in efficiency and customer satisfaction.  Sadly, there was no study on how much clients liked being billed at two professionals’ hourly rates instead of just one’s.  (sarcasm intended)

Grace at the Beach

Just wanted to share a recent picture of my daughter at the beach last week.

Taking My Own Advice -- Call for Testimonials

I shared John Jantsch’s great advice earlier this week and I figured I’d take it myself, so I’m asking you for a testimonial.  If you’ve found this blog helpful to you in any way, and you feel like taking a bit of time tell me about it, please do so.  E-mail me (matt@lexthink.com) or leave a comment to this post.  Thanks.

Some Great Questions for (and from) Managers

Jeffrey Phillips writes about change in his Thinking Faster Blog and suggests a great question we all should be asking ourselves:

What would happen if in your yearly or quarterly review the "boss" asked you the following question - "What changes have you made to the way you work, and the way the organization works, to make it and you more productive?"  If change is no longer thrust upon the individual but becomes an expected action and is compensated appropriately, the pace of change will increase dramatically. 

Each of us needs to identify the areas of our work life where real change is possible and begin working everyday to make the incremental improvements which will help ourselves - and our companies - become more productive.  If you manage people, be sure to ask them - what are you doing differently today to become more productive?  If you work with business partners or vendors, ask them - what can you do to help us become more efficient and productive. 

Law Students, Don't Hold Your Breath

Thanks to Rob at BusinessPundit for a pointer to this BusinessWeek article on Rensselaer’s new MBA program:

For starters, the degree is broken down into five "streams of knowledge," rather than traditional majors or concentrations. Each stream delves into a different aspect of business, such as Creating & Managing an Enterprise, and Networks, Innovation & Value Creation. It's not that students don't learn economics, marketing, or strategy. Instead, each of those basics is blended into the larger concepts. A typical class might involve a discussion, led by a finance professor, of a company's change in value after a corporate merger, followed by a look at the case by a management prof from an operations point of view. Because the teaching is rooted in events in the contemporary marketplace, there are no textbooks per se. "Our textbooks are newspaper and magazine articles," says Phillip H. Phan, professor of strategic management and entrepreneurship.

Coming soon to a law school near you?  Get serious.

A quick quality of life quiz.

Anita Sharpe has this quote (which I’ve edited just a bit) from a book she just read:

Of course, everyone spoke ill of his profession, but, basically, it was all a question of selling his time, like everyone else. Doing things he didn't want to do, like everyone else. Putting up with horrible people, like everyone else. Handing over [ ] his precious soul in the name of a future that never arrived, like everyone else. Saying that he still didn't have enough, like everyone else. Waiting just a bit longer, like everyone else. Waiting so that he could earn just a little bit more, postponing the realization of his dreams; he was too busy right now, he had great opportunities ahead of him, loyal clients who were waiting for him. . .

What profession?  Take a look here to find out.  Or read the book.

Stop Trying on New Technology!

As an avid user of new technology, this post from 43 Folders hit a bit too close to home:

No tool can save you from your own crap behavior, so as you approach these great new apps—and I hope you’ll at least check them out if you haven’t—please try to do it with a bit of perspective about how or why the old tools were not working for you. Consider the patterns that you can observe about how you do your best work and which tasks have benefited from a certain tool or approach in the past.

And, finally, as you start to choose one new, dedicated tool to improve your productivity, be circumspect about the amount of pure “dicking around” time that you spend. Yes: learn the tool well and understand its functions and limitations, but avoid the temptation to blow a week moving “your system” into the Next Shiny Product until you really understand how you’ll be better off having used it. Don’t fiddle endlessly, just because it’s fun. That’s not running; that’s just playing with your shoes.

I’ve been working on my personal productivity solution for several weeks now, and I think I’ve gotten it down enough to share it with you (in a post later this week) — so long as I quit looking at amazing apps like Backpack, Sproutliner, Tasktoy, GTDTiddliWiki, etc.  The tools I have now are enough.  And I’m making the resolution now (a la this great advice from Steve Pavlina) to stick with what I’ve got for the next 30 days to make sure it works, before looking for the next best thing.

Law review is the path to the dark side.

Jeremy Blachman has Yoda’s Twenty Pieces of Law School Advice.  Really funny stuff. 

On a more serious note, my LexThink partner Scheherazade Fowler has this great list of Legal Lies.

A Brilliant Idea to Make Meetings Better

Jeffrey Phillips, writing in his Thinking Faster Blog, has a great idea to make meetings better.  He calls it Just in Time Meeting Attendance:

Rather than show up for a meeting and sit through the entire thing, demand that the meeting have an agenda and that the facilitator or leader of the meeting stick as closely to the agenda as possible.  When the parts of the meeting you need or want to attend are complete, get up and leave.  I know this may sound a bit rude, but is it really worth your time and your sanity to simply continue to sit in meetings where stuff is being discussed that a) is not relevant for you b) you don't have anything to add to or c) you could care less about? 

Many of us stay in meetings where there's little left for us to do simply out of fear that leaving will be interpreted as lack of interest  or for fear we'll get assigned stuff if we are not there to defend our turf.  But that's not the best use of your time, now is it?

Imagine holding a meeting where the agenda was tight and you could enter or leave as you were needed.  Imagine being confident that you could enter a meeting 30 minutes after it started, show up just in time to deliver news or listen to the part of the meeting you needed to, and then leave when there was no real reason to remain.  That would be true just in time meeting attendance.

I absolutely love it!

Another Quote of the Week

This one comes from Keith Ferrazzi, on his Never Eat Alone Blog:

Too many people see relationships as pies -- where if you take a piece, there won't be as much left over. Relationships and networks are more like muscles. The more you work them, the bigger and stronger they get.   

The [non]billable hour is looking for an office.

I miss my office.  While I’m in California (where my wife has taken a year-long job assignment), I’ve been working from our apartment.  While I knew I’d miss the social interaction, I never thought I’d miss having a “place” to go to work. 

Well, after two months, I realize that working in the corner of our small apartment’s living room isn’t cutting it.  I need an office — if just for three to four hours per day.  So, if you have a bit of extra office space (or know someone who does), and are located in the Burbank area, let me know.

Be Prepared for Clients Who Love You

Here is another great client-relationship tip from John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing:

… when a client reaches out and tells you that you did a good job for them, they are asking you to take the relationship up a notch. Don't let the opportunity slip on by. You've got to get straight in your head that this is the perfect time to ask for and receive a testimonial, a lead, new business or a referral. You don't have to fall all over yourself acknowledging how smart you are. You can seize the day tastefully by simply being prepared to suggest that your client might know someone else who would like these kinds of results.

Quote of the Week

Can you imagine a managing partner at a big firm saying this as he or she moves the firm to value billing?

I’m sure mistakes will be made along the way. I’m sure that there will be surprises. I’m sure we will have to do quite a bit of adjusting to make the program a win win for all involved.  So what ?  If it works, everyone, particularly consumers benefit.  If it doesn’t, everyone calls me a dumbass, and we go back to doing it the way it was always done.  I can handle that.  Mark Cuban, talking about shaking up the movie business.

A Quick Conference Tip

I was talking to Matthew Buchanan of Promote the Progress and Rethink(IP) fame about a really cool thing he’s working on with the other Rethink(IP) guys (I’m sworn to secrecy, but the project’s code-name is “Merman”).  Matt told me he was going to a conference and I gave him a tip that makes more sense to me the longer I think about it:

If you write a blog and attend a conference, make sure the name of your blog is prominently displayed on your name badge.

I know more people know me by my blog then by my firm name.  Given the wonderful people you can meet through blogging, isn’t it better to give them an easier way to meet you, and vice versa? 

It is an honor just to be nominated! Really.

I just received an e-mail from June Holaday telling me this blog was nominated for Marketing Sherpa’s 2nd Annual Reader’s Choice Blog Awards in the “niche marketing” category.  The coolest thing about the nomination (and about blogs in general) is that I already know two of my co-nominees personally:  Michele Miller of Wonderbranding and Yvonne DiVita of Lipsticking.  Both are amazingly cool women who were among the first contributors to my Five by Five series.  After reading the other nominated blog — Anastasia Goodstein’s Ypulse — if I finish anywhere above fourth in this survey, something is seriously wrong in this universe.

UPDATE:  My friend (and chief Technolawyer) Neil Squillante reminded me that the [non]billable hour is up for “best legal blog” in this year’s Technolawyer awards.  The ballot is here, and you must be a Technolawyer member to vote.

It is all about the customer...

Steve Nipper sent me to this site that has a bunch of redone romance novel covers.  Even though most are semi-work safe, close your door anyway because they are so funny, everyone will want to see why you are laughing so hard.

(Steve saw it first on BoingBoing.)

Legalmatch and Me

Of all of the amazing things that have happened to me because of this blog, perhaps the most interesting (and hardest to explain) is my relationship with LegalMatch. 

Back in April 2004 I wrote a short post titled Why I’ll Never Use LegalMatch, in which I took the company to task for its sales tactics.  I’d been writing this blog for a few months and thought nothing of the post or the title.  The post attracted (and continues to attract) dozens of comments about LegalMatch — some positive, but most negative.  I followed up the original post with several more, including some interesting give-and-take with LegalMatch executives.  Ultimately, I received an offer from LegalMatch CEO Randy Wells to meet him in New York.  The result of that meeting was this Apology from LegalMatch posted on my blog. 

LegalMatch next asked me to come to San Francisco to visit their offices and meet with their people.  I got a peek inside LegalMatch’s technology, met some of the company’s people, and extended an invitation to Randy Wells to come to LexThink. 

After LexThink, Randy asked if we (my LexThink partners Dennis Kennedy, Sherry Fowler and I) would do a “private” LexThink event for LegalMatch in lieu of their traditional management retreat.  We agreed, and I facilitated their management retreat last weekend.  LexThink, Inc. charged LM $5,000.00 for the event.

At the retreat, I saw forty LegalMatch managers brainstorming about how to make their company better.  I also engaged many of them in (sometimes heated) discussions about how their methods had alienated folks like me and countless other potential customers.

Gullibility Break:  Look, I know my post and the resulting comments have cost LegalMatch hundreds of thousands of dollars (this figure comes from someone outside of LM).  Just Google LegalMatch, and you’ll understand why, though I’m a bit concerned because at least once a week, someone Googles “LegalMatch” over and over and follows each link back to my blog posts — perhaps to keep my year-old post high up on Google’s first page?

I’ve also learned that many of the internal policies (and people) that led to the things I complained about have changed.  If my experiences with LegalMatch are part of some sort of “grand plan” to sucker me in to coming over to the LM “dark side,” I’ve got to admit that it has been masterfully planned, acted, and executed.

Starting today, I’m changing the title of my original post to “Don’t Sell Like This.”  The comments will remain active, and the content won’t change.  The titles of the rest of my LM posts will stay the same, and I’ll keep the LegalMatch category alive.

Full Disclosure Break:  While a part of me thinks I’m an idiot for not demanding that LegalMatch pay me $XXX,000.00 for removing all of the LM posts from my blog, I’ve not gotten anything personally from LegalMatch for writing this post or doing what I’m doing.  The only compensation I’ve received from the company is the value of two airplane flights, a few nights in a hotel room, a couple of lunches and two dinners for the meetings in NYC and SF.  I’ve received no promises and have no expectations. 

I’m ultimately doing what I’m doing because I think it is right, and because I’ve gotten to like a lot of folks at LegalMatch.  Will I work with LegalMatch in the future?  Possibly.  Will LegalMatch be involved with LexThink in some way?  Maybe.  Is this some horrible violation of blogger ethics?  I’m sure you’ll tell me so.  Thanks for your time, and now back to regular blogging.

Build your business backwards.

As we work to turn LexThink into a sustainable business enterprise, I’ve been thinking a lot about the lessons that came from our first event.  One of the best discussions centered around the idea that to build your perfect firm, you must first identify your perfect client.  Sean D’Souza must have been a fly on the wall in that conversation, because he hits the nail on the head with this post, which I’m liberally excerpting below:

Which way, you ask?  Why not reach out into the mind of someone you know. What is that person's name? What do they do in their business? What problem do they have? Can you ask them what problem they have? Can you narrow down what's stopping their profit? What would take that person (whoever that person is) to the next level?

Think of a fictional Natalie. Or a fictional Bruce.  What is he doing right now? What is she frustrated with? Where does he want his business to go? Why is she unable to take weekends off? All of these issues are gaps.

Find out where you can fix the gaps. Bruce and Natalie have loads of issues. And you can be a specialist in fixing just a few of those issues. What can you fix?

Think backwards. Start with a target audience. Think about them, sitting at their desk at 7pm on Saturday night. What would change their life? How can you change their life?

You're a specialist. What do you do best?  Think intently. What we have here is more than just an audio logo or a communication issue. What we need to have is a deep understanding. When we think in specifics, the specifics reveal themselves.

Have your receptionist read this.

I really like Bert Webb’s suggestion (from his Open Loops blog) to identify hidden messages in your communication.  He has a great example in his post How to Say What You Really Mean:

"Good afternoon, Mr. Webb's office, may I help you?"

"Yes, This is Bob Smith.  I need an appointment with Mr. Webb as soon as possible to discuss the situation involving the AYP project at his site."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Webb, cannot meet with you until late next week.  His calendar is quite full, I'm afraid."

With that, my secretary has just told my caller that I am so busy that he is considered unimportant, that his project is not a priority with me, and that, no matter what the topic is, I'm too inflexible to make adjustments in my calendar for priorities that arise unexpectedly.  Get in line, suck it up, and deal with it, Buddy.

Bert then suggests a better alternative:

How should my secretary have have handled the caller mentioned at the beginning of this post?  Let's listen in:

"Good afternoon, Mr. Webb's office, may I help you?"

"Yes, this is Bob Smith.  I need an appointment with Mr. Webb as soon as possible to discuss the situation involving the AYP project at his site."

"I'll be very happy to make you an appointment; let me look at his calendar.  I see that he has two openings next week, one on Wednesday at 9 AM and the other on Thursday at 2 PM.  Which one would fit your schedule better?"

And with that simple turn of a phrase, 90% of my callers are happy to accept the appointment next week and feel positively about it.  She has said we welcome your appointment, that I am busy but have time for his concerns, and that I recognize his schedule is important, too.  Should the caller still feel that he needs to see me sooner, it would continue like this:

"But that's too late, our deadline is this Friday."

"Mr. Smith, may I have a number where you can be reached in the next couple of hours?  I'll personally speak with Mr. Webb to see if there is a way to work you in more quickly.  I'll call you back as soon as I speak with him."

I may or may not be able to accommodate Mr. Smith, but we have added the message that I am flexible and am willing to work with his deadlines as much as I possibly can.  

The final bit of advice:

Begin to look at your word and phrase choices.  Consciously choose the hidden messages in your words and phrases to convey what you want them to.  Even more, train your staff so they, as the front line of your organization, broadcast the same positive hidden messages to your clients and customers.

I’ve been reading Open Loops for a while.  Take a look.  I’m sure it will become a regular read.