Top Ten Things They Never Taught Me ...
Michael McDonough has an article in the Design Observer titled The Top 10 Things They Never Taught Me in Design School that made me think he was actually writing about Law School. Here are a few:
1. Talent is one-third of the success equation. Talent is important in any profession, but it is no guarantee of success. Hard work and luck are equally important. Hard work means self-discipline and sacrifice. Luck means, among other things, access to power, whether it is social contacts or money or timing. In fact, if you are not very talented, you can still succeed by emphasizing the other two. If you think I am wrong, just look around.
2. 95 percent of any creative profession is shit work. Only 5 percent is actually, in some simplistic way, fun. In school that is what you focus on; it is 100 percent fun. Tick-tock. In real life, most of the time there is paper work, drafting boring stuff, fact-checking, negotiating, selling, collecting money, paying taxes, and so forth. If you don’t learn to love the boring, aggravating, and stupid parts of your profession and perform them with diligence and care, you will never succeed.
7. When you throw your weight around, you usually fall off balance. Overconfidence is as bad as no confidence. Be humble in approaching problems. Realize and accept your ignorance, then work diligently to educate yourself out of it. Ask questions. Power – the power to create things and impose them on the world – is a privilege. Do not abuse it, do not underestimate its difficulty, or it will come around and bite you on the ass. The great Karmic wheel, however slowly, turns.
10. The rest of the world counts. If you hope to accomplish anything, you will inevitably need all of the people you hated in high school. I once attended a very prestigious design school where the idea was “If you are here, you are so important, the rest of the world doesn’t count.” Not a single person from that school that I know of has ever been really successful outside of school. In fact, most are the kind of mid-level management drones and hacks they so despised as students. A suit does not make you a genius. No matter how good your design is, somebody has to construct or manufacture it. Somebody has to insure it. Somebody has to buy it. Respect those people. You need them. Big time.
I’d love to get a list of those things you wish they’d taught in school, but never did. Leave a comment, e-mail me, or trackback to this post and I’ll compile them all for a future post.
Speak for the Hearing Impaired
Tricks of the Trade: Public Speaker
"When speaking publicly, imagine that your audience is hearing impaired. It will force you to slow down, speak up, and enunciate clearly."
Word Processing, Old School
Need to do some distraction-free writing? Try Dark Room, a “full screen, distraction free, writing environment.” I used it yesterday to knock out an article I’m writing and must admit, I really liked it.
technorati tags: darkroom, writing, creativity
The Myth of the "Short" Meeting
In practice, I always preferred a face-to-face meeting with my clients to a telephone conversation or an exchange of correspondence. I believed in-person conversations were much more effective and better for both client and lawyer — and still do. However, it is important to keep in mind the true costs (to the lawyer and client) of that “short” meeting. From 37signals:
If you’re going to schedule a meeting that lasts one hour and invite 10 people to attend then it’s a ten-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting. You are trading 10 hours of productivity for one hour of meeting time. And it’s probably more like 15 hours since there are mental switching costs associated with stopping what you’re doing, going somewhere else to do something else, and then resuming what you were doing before.
Remember how valuable your clients’ time is. Though you may not think their time is worth as much as yours, at the end of the meeting, neither of you will get that time back.
technorati tags: meetings, productivity, client+service
links for 2006-07-11
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Amazing visual depiction of your tax dollars at work.
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For those days when you must eat at your desk.
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Link goes directly to video.
Soap Box Derby for Adults -- In St. Louis!
This looks like it is going to be fun (and it takes place in St. Louis):
The Red Bull Soap Box Race happens on the streets of St. Louis' Forest Park October 28. Unlike most gravity-powered events, the Red Bull race follows a drag racing-like single elimination, bracketed duel format, with two racers fighting it out side-by-side down the course. The racers get a power boost at the start, too, in the form of a hefty push from their crew of four "mechanics."
Red Bull is looking for fifty teams, who will be scored not only on speed, but also on creativity and showmanship. If you're looking for design ideas, check out photos from some of Red Bull's previous gravity races in Austria, England (pictured above), Sweden, Czech Republic, Australia, Italy, Finland, Ireland, Germany and
South Africa.
If you firm couldn’t afford that NASCAR sponsorship, how about sponsoring a Soap Box car?
Reminder - Blogger Happy Hour in St. Louis
Don’t forget the happy hour tonight, Monday, July 10.
St. Louis Blogger Meet Up
The American Association of Law Libraries is hosting its 99th Annual Meeting in St. Louis next week. There are several law librarians who blog (or who want to start), and we are going to meet up Monday, July 10th at Kitchen K (map) for a blogger happy hour, starting at 5:00 pm. You don’t have to be a lawyer or law librarian to come. I hope to see you there.
Seven Challenges to Successful KM in Law Firms
This is an old article from Cory Doctorow, but you should read it if you want to successfully implement KM (Knowledge Management) in your firm. Though Cory is talking on the problems of promulgating reliable metadata (“data about data”) on the web at large, I think his observations are true in small organizations as well. Cory gives seven insurmountable obstacles that will keep us from reaching “meta-utopia.” In a law firm setting, these are the ones that seem most likely to torpedo a successful implementation of KM:
The fine (and gross) points of literacy -- spelling, punctuation, grammar -- elude the vast majority of the Internet's users. To believe that J. Random Users will suddenly and en masse learn to spell and punctuate -- let alone accurately categorize their information according to whatever hierarchy they're supposed to be using -- is self-delusion of the first water.
When Creativity Takes a Holiday
One of the reasons lawyers aren’t a more innovative bunch is that we spend so much time working in our businesses, that we don’t have time to work on them. Does this sound familiar?
When pressure's intense, creativity is one of the first casualties. Fear of producing still more work, fear of censure and fear of losing face foster cultures that are risk-averse; together with an attitude that protecting your butt always takes precedence. People become too afraid—or too tired—to do more than stick with what they know and what's worked before. You can say goodbye to any possibility of outdistancing the competition through innovation.
Besides, in today's most typical culture, internal competition is more intense as job cuts proliferate and promotion prospects diminish. No one can afford to make mistakes. Mistakes cost results and time; they undermine your credibility; they're noted by those who control promotion, political influence and employment itself. Why risk any of these to back some unproven idea? "Making the numbers" gets you a pat on the back—more or less however you do it.
Time is already in such short supply in companies like that no one dares use any on innovation. They all go instead for the quick, obvious answer; the "done it before a thousand times" answer; the quick-fix. That new idea may be a winner—sometime in the future. But who looks that far ahead, when getting through the rest of today looks uncertain enough? Unless it comes with one of these adjectives attached—instant, quicker, simpler, cheaper, fail-safe—or fits the "get it done and move one" fashionable attitude, dump it right away.
I’m working on a presentation right now, with the working title “Being a More Creative Lawyer,” that I’ll share here online when the first draft is done. I’m having a tremendous time merging my thoughts on creativity and Idea Surplus Disorder(tm) with my new, still developing presentation style. I’ll have more soon.
Stressless Press
Need an intro on getting good press? Here it is. One great suggestion to get in print publications (and blogs) is to:
Get to know your publication:
Buy three issues of the magazine and read it cover to cover.
- Observe which sections change month on month and which don’t.
- Make a note of what the cover theme is each month and which words or themes are repeated. Anything that is repeated time and time again on a cover means it’s a core topic for that magazine.
- From your own research form a picture of who the reader is.
- Create a profile of a typical advertiser and who they are trying to reach - this will help you understand where most of the magazine’s ad revenue comes from - and also who is currently successful in this market.
- Imagine your product or service appearing in the mag. Does it fit? Will the readers be interested in it? Can they afford it?
Once you have chosen the publication that is perfect for you and your idea then you are ready to begin your marketing onslaught. First things first: find out who is responsible for which areas of editorial. This may not be clear from the editorial panel so ring the magazine to find out. Speak to the secretary if you can’t speak to the team. The same goes for a newspaper or indeed any other media.
Armed with this information, there are four main ways that you can get the attention of a publication: as an Expert in your field, as an Ideas Machine, by sending a Press Release, or by requesting a Review.
Get Down With NLP -- Yeah You Know Me
Want an introduction to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP)? Check out this 12 part series on the Life Coaches Blog: NLP 101. What is NLP?
A powerful bag of tricks that allows you to help people change themselves through its mental models, patterns of influence and techniques of change.
Instead of giving you generals, NLP has many step-by-step specifics, which is great when practitioners recognize the principles so they know how not to go step-by-step, and terrible when practitioners don’t know the principles and follow the steps to the letter or bend it all out of shape.
A lot of trial lawyers have been studying NLP to help them connect with juries. If you are curious, check out the whole series.
links for 2006-06-28
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Cool travel pillow that actually allows you to sleep on a plane.
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Discussion of the "Rule of Thirds" for merging graphics with text.
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Comprehensive list of blogging platforms, resources, and tools.
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If you want to laugh out loud today. 100 people surveyed, top 5 answers on the board, here's the question ...
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Great tips from Ed Poll.
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7. Send a signed W-9 with the contract or first invoice.
I'm Sorry I'm Late, To Whom Do I Make This Check?
Earlier today, I posted about a novel way to make sure clients keep their appointments. In a comment to that post, a reader wrote:
That is a good plan except it should work both ways. With rare exceptions, I have never had a doctor get me in on time.
I agree. Imagine if you promised to donate the same amount you charged for missed appointments to your client’s charity of choice if you are the one who misses the appointment.
One Way to Sell Wisdom
Having a difficult time “selling” your value as an advisor instead of a tecnician? Here’s an easy-to-understand way to communicate the differences between Data, Information, Knowledge, and Wisdom, from the Across the Sound podcast (via Howard Kaplan):
Data is "the sun rises at 5:12 AM"
Information is "the sun rises from the East, at 5:12 AM"
Knowledge is "If you're lost in the woods without a compass, follow the direction of the sun to find your direction"
Finally, wisdom is "Don't get lost in the woods"
Charge Late Fees for Missed Appointments?
What do you do when clients don’t show up for scheduled appointment? Rob May’s new doctor has a pretty good idea:
A few weeks ago I started going to a new doctor, and was made to sign a document explaining their late fee policy. It was unique. If you miss a scheduled visit, you are charged a $20 fee. If you are late by more than 10 minutes, that qualifies as a missed session. But the doctor's office doesn't keep the money. All money from late fees is donated to the local children's hospital.
I haven't missed a visit, but if I did, I can't imagine arguing with the penalty. I think it's brilliant. It turns the debate from a me vs. them fight for my money to a decision about whether to give money to a third party charity. In essence, it diffuses customer anger while still imposing a penalty. It reminds me that innovative solutions to business problems do exist, but they sometimes require you to step a little bit outside the lines of conventional wisdom.
If You Can Find a Better Lawyer, Hire Them ...
If Chrysler can do it, so can you: Offer a Guarantee.