Unseasonably warm weather and unreasonable amounts of sex-offender-related hot air have thrown the f/k/a Gang off our usual content routine. So, this evening, I’m hoping to post more traditional fare. Given my continuing low level of energy and short attention span, I’ll be doing it in spurts. So, please come back later for more (including, an update on our strange and inspiring “inadvertent searchee” results; and new poetry by our Honored Guests from Frogpond).
Two subjects we first focused on in early 2004 were getting attention in cyberspace today:
- We asked back in March 2004 whether legal marketing is spoofable. Now, Charon QC posts Marketing for Dummies? about an unusual marketing campaign at Eversheds (via Blawg Review #131); and, after the ABAJournal lists 50 ways to market your [small] law practice, Grant Griffiths thinks they forgot a big one, and Above the Law wants to know which of the fifty you think are the most ridiculous.
- Meanwhile, the New York Times asks and answers “How Many Site Hits? Depends Who’s Counting” (Oct. 22, 2007). Back in Feb. 2004, ethicalEsq wrote “those misleading traffic stats” and “three times nothin’ is . . .“.
night in the hut
searching on the shelf
. . . katydid– see our Inadvertent Searchee pages –
A little carny incest: The Carnival of the Captitalists #211 is being hosted this week by the Anonymous Editor of Blawg Review (the carnival of law-related weblogs). Although the ubiquitous Ed fears that “this granddaddy of blog carnivals is showing its age–and it’s not pretty,” he scoured the blogiverse for relevant and worthy offerings from recent weblog posting and certainly put some sparkle back on the CotC logo.
— One set of links worth clicking concerns the New York Times “Competing for Clients and paying by the click,” which was covered by Overlawyered.com, TortProfBlog and the WSJ Law Blog.
I think I hear him
grumble good morning
and grumble good morning back…………………………………………………… Barry George, JD, from Frogpond XXX:3 (Fall 2007)
BusinessMeisterGuru: Meanwhile, the one and only David Maister — author of the upcoming Strategy and the Fat Smoker — presents this week’s Blawg Review — it’s #131 at his Passion, People and Principles weblog. Being humble and risk-averse, nonlawyer Maister “focused on issues relating to the business of law, rather than legal matters (which I am not qualified to judge.)” [Of course, I’ve never noticed prior Blawg Review hosts making legal judgments.] David presents recent posts on lawyer Marketing, Leadership, and Economics, and more. I was intrigued by this blurb and clicked on through:
“Michelle Golden, president of Golden Marketing is also an active member of the VeraSage Institute, which is committed to abolishing the billable hour. She reports on the advice given by another consultant on how to implement a value-pricing approach.”
What I found sounded an awful lot like more value-billing b.s. (see this and that prior post, for example), aimed at generating fees even higher than you can get from hourly billing (through what looks like price sensitivity manipulation). Oh, and I wonder if I’m the only one who wonders what the heck this bit of practical advice means: “Assign an intellectual capital task force. This team should inventory intellectual capital, then document, name and package it so that the firm can train to unique processes and price on value, rather than hours multiplied by dollars.”
………………. coming later tonight (unless I get a better offer): haiku from the brand new Frogpond, the journal of the Haiku Society of America: such as
tall spring grasses
a new path leads
to the old path……………………… by Carolyn Hall
10 P.M. Frogpond break: 
Alzheimer’s ward
the faded blue numbers
on a resident’s arm……………………. by Pamela Miller Ness
after all these years
just the blip
of his heart monitor
lime-green moss
blowing from the pine
on the logging truck……………….. by Michael Dylan Welch
warm day
tractor mud dries
on the country road
………………………….. by Hilary Tann
…………………………………………….. all from Frogpond XXX:3 (Fall 2007)
Plus (coming in the morning), answers to deep questions such as What’s the first Google result for the queries [farmer goose spanking] and [gumba deficit disorder]?