Networking Socially - in the Flesh!!

I've had a busy few evenings networking in a social environment, not behind a computer screen but in the flesh, so to speak.
latimerhinks.gooruze.com

Firstly, I attended the County Durham and Tees Valley Charity Awards which Latimer Hinks along with accontants Horwath Clark Whitehill, were sponsoring. It was an emotional evening for some and I was so pleased to see recognition for down to earth people who virtually singlehandedly have improved lives of those around them.

I spoke with Dorothy Bowman of Newton Aycliffe Junior Neighbourhood Watch, a lady of "just over" 80. When Dorothy saw that the children of Newton Aycliffe, a deprived area where more and more houses were being built with no thought of the children's needs were going to lose their meeting place - the Dandy Kart she and her husband came up with the idea of using a bus which they purchased and renovated to provide "The Kool Red Bus". Dorothy was previously a lorry driver so driving a bus did not pose a problem - remember this lady is over 80 years old!

Dorothy is determined to fight for the Council to give her some land so that she can build a permanent meeting place for the youngsters. She is an amazing woman, full of energy - she deserves a million awards - as do all of the winners and nominees for the Durham and Tees Valley Charity Awards.

Details of the winners

Secondly I attended Darlington Civic Theatre Gala Evening - the 100th Anniversary.

Latimer Hinks are corporate sponsors of the theatre and we share a long well established history in Darlington. Latimer Hinks Solicitors was born in 1872 and the Civic Theatre in 1907.

The Gala event was a great success (a sell out!) and thoroughly enjoyable. With guests such as Brian Conley, The Krankies, Zoe Birkett, Jane Macdonald, Journey South etc. Brian Conely was excellent and SO versatile! I was extremely surprised at how much i enjoyed the "variety type" performance.

Scoble's Social Media Starfish

Scoble's Social Media Starfish
Originally uploaded by DBarefoot

What a wacky starfish!
This is a brilliant diagram to show the channels of social media.
Many thanks to Dbarefoot of Flickr

Social Networking Sites + Employment - do they mix?

You've probably seen/heard the news recently that social networking sites are costing UK businesses upwards of £130 million per day. It is suggested that 233 million hours are lost to people using work hours to surf social networking sites.

Many firms are now using social media as a tool to communicate and build business.

The times are changing and employers should consider how social networking sites can be used to their advantage. Networking sites can be a great way to keep up with an extended network of friends, acquaintances workplace colleagues, customers, and fellow-professionals.

Staff of Deloitte, IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers activley encourage their staff to use networking sites. The ability to reach out to the right person for expertise and knowledge is one of the primary values of any knowledge-based worker.

A "network " of people can be built around anything, including law firms. We need to adapt to this phenomonal new media and focus on how it can help rather than disregarding their use because others use them in an unprofessional or non business related way.

To prove a point:

Law firm Allen & Overy recently had to repeal their ban on Facebook after their IT department was bombarded with complaints from staff members. Staff at the firm are now allowed to go onto the site as long as they do not view videos, which may compromise the performance of Allen & Overy’s IT systems.

US law firms as ever have welcomed social networking - eight of the largest law firms have a Facebook network:

• Skadden, Arps 335 Members


• Baker & McKenzie 557 Members


• Jones Day 220 Members


• Latham & Watkins 291 Members


• Sidley Austin 107 Members Mayer Brown No Network


• White & Case 287 Members Weil, Gotshal No Network


• Shearman & Sterling 137 members


• Kirkland & Ellis 160 Members

Latimer Hinks have a Facebook and LinkedIn prescence. I feel the business related social networking is definitely the way forward.

You may find these articles of interest:

• Why lawyers can't ignore Facebook for networking


• compelling information for law firm marketers about FaceBook


• How Social Networks are Disrupting Everything you Know About Business - Valeria Maltoni explains how social networks are becoming the glue which holds real-life and online lives together (from US perspective)


• Social Networking for Businesses and Associations - What is social networking? Why does this matter? Isn't "social networking" just for high school kids? How can my organization get closer to customers or members using social networking?


• Who said the Internet was getting Boring? How much of an influence and social networking sites having on corporate life.
  
  Facebook Stats:


• There are over 150,000 registrants daily. That's 1 million a week since January.


• Average visitor stays 20 minutes.


• Most growth is among people over age 25. 47,000 Facebook groups.
  

In Plain English...

Solicitors are often asked to speak in "plain english". Forget the herewith, herein etc - plain, simple, easy to understand english is what Clients crave. At Latimer Hinks (according to Client satisfaction feedback) that is what we provide.

Web 2, blogoshpere, widgets, blidgets, wikis etc - this is NOT plain english. Ask anyone to explain the above and they probably find it quite difficult to explain in plain english ... until i came across LeeLefever of Common Craft. He produces short and simple online videos. According to LeLefever their "videos help make sense of complex ideas using a simple format called Paperworks."

The videos remind me of Tony Hart and his little charachter Morph. They are excellent - no computer gimmickry, just paper, marker and a hand!
I have watched 4 of his "in plain english videos" and i wish i'd watched them before i started blogging. It would have made life so much easier.

So if you want to learn about :

• RSS in plain english


• Wikis in plain english


• Social Bookmarking in plain english


• Social Networking in plain english
  
  simply click on the above!

I'm Back!!!! and boy am I cold!

Well, our holiday was great. Excellent weather (of course), fabulous accomodation ... and the kids were pretty much well behaved throughout. BUT the downside of any holiday is returning to the UK weather.

We landed in Newcastle around 2am Monday, luckily it wasn't raining. The pilot warned that the temperature we were to be greeted with was 10 degrees. We noted that previous early mornings (1/2am) spent in Almunecar enjoying the local fiesta provided us with an extremely pleasant 32 degrees. Quite a difference!

Now i'm back at my desk with purple feet (i just HAD to wear my sandals and my feet aren't too keen on the cold) and the heating has been "switched back on" temporarily until i thaw out.

Five cups of tea later (rather than ice cold water) and I've now sifted through my emails and discovered that Judiths Divorce Blog is performing pretty well according to the stats and email communications.

1. Delia Venables of Venables.co.uk has contacted Judith and other family law bloggers with regard to producing an article on Family Law Blogs for the award winning Internet Newsletter for Lawyers. This page provides a comprehensive list of family lawyers in alphabetical order, thanks to Delia for the listing and once the newsletter is completed i will post a link.


2. The Journal has contacted our PR agency, Recognition. They would like Judith to consider being one of their bloggers! It's a joint collaboration with the Evening Gazette so should provide great local publicity. We're waiting for passwords etc but should be up and running fairly soon.


3. Judiths Divorce Blog has been added to the Top Divorce Blogs section of Wikivorce as well as being listed on the resources section.


4. When Judith corresponds via email to Clients a link to the blog is provided. We are now receiving positive comments from Clients with regard to the blog (and of course Judith's excellent service)
   

All in all i think we're getting there. I'm sure we still have a lot to learn but we will keep at it!

FeedBurner - pushing your information

I've been burning feeds - not something i thought i'd be saying in a marketing role + it's free!

Recently Google purchased news-feed management company FeedBurner for $100 million and Google is now offering the service for free - Google Gives Away Feedburner

Why Would I Want to Set Fire to my Feed?
If you long for creative ways to attract an audience, see where your content goes once you publish it and generally add a lot more value to your feed, then "feedburning" is for you

Your "feed" is redirected so that you can get a true picture of how many subscribers you have, where they come from etc. You are provided with a very detailed analysis which can be tailored to what you require. I've used the data on one blog to help promote the other blogs. It's interesting to see where your traffic comes from and where it is going to!

See Feedburning for Bloggers

Social Bookmarking - is there a less time consuming way?

In order to "push" my blogs out into the blogosphere (or whatever you'd like to call it) i have started to bookmark blog postings and of course the blogs themselves.

This i find to be very time consuming. At the moment i'm bookmarking to Delicious, Stumble Upon, Magnolia and Technorati.

Now with three blogs up and running this adds up to a fair amount of time. Is there an easier, less time consuming way to do this?

I'd really appreciate some advice - i'm verging on the edge of hysteria as nearly everytime i log in to the relevant sites explorer develops a problem and has to "shut down" Grrrrr!!!

The Latimer Hinks Guineapig

This is a time for firsts - my first blog and first posting. The reason I have decided to create a blog is to diary the progress of a marketing campaign which myself and the family law partner (Judith Middleton) at Latimer Hinks Solicitors decided to undertake.

I am hoping that the campaign will generate traffic to the Latimer Hinks website and also raise the profile/awareness of the partners of the firm.

It is an experiment of which Latimer Hinks is the guineapig.

I recently attended a presentation by Roger Coathup of 21 Thoughts . Roger considers himself to be a "futures expert" (GRReat job title I might add). The presentation was excellent and set me to thinking of how best to create a social networking presence.

I took Roger's comments on board and decided to try a few out.