If you’d like to see the slideshow of Tony Hsieh’s recent presentation to a group of Internet Marketers, you can view it below.  To reiterate, Tony is the brilliant CEO of the billion dollar company Zappos.com.

I believe it was June 26, 2008 that our group of 20 attorneys from 13 states and 11 law firms decided to undertake the writing of a collaborative book on personal injury law. Today is Feb 5, 2009 – just slightly over 7 months later and we have our first physical proof. When it arrived today I grabbed a little video camcorder and shot some footage.

Here’s a great interview of Guy Kawasaki by Robert Scoble.  It caught my attention because another of my favorite guru’s Kevin O’Keefe highly recommended it.   Guy talks about his new book, Reality Check.  In the course of the interview he says something really astounding – “I am just so sold on Twitter…I think that Twitter is arguably the most powerful branding mechanism since television.” 

Happy New Year!  I don’t know about you but I am truly excited about 2009.    The New Year is a time that I generally focus on goals and priorities and that process tends to be invigorating.  One of the first new projects for our team in 2009 is the launch of Legal Marketing Cafe TV.  www.LegalMarketingCafe.com.  

As with most things we do at Speaker Media and Marketing, we anticipate that this project will evolve over a period of time.  Our philosophy is to kind of roll up our sleeves and test and measure as we go.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress!

In early 2008 my clients and I had our usual “New Year” discussions.  Part of that was to choose a few large priority projects for the year.  One of the projects we talked about was to write a book…  Wow!  If I had known then what I know now.

In late June we had our first group teleseminar to launch the plan.  We decided on a collaborative book on personal injury law and 11 firms determined to co-write the work.

At the end of October the book was finished.  The journey did not go quite as planned.  (It never does)  However, the finished product is something that we all feel very proud of.    So to answer the question – how many attorneys does it take to write a book — let’s just say that it took a few more than expected.

It’s been interesting that lately I’ve seen a fair amount of activity occurring on LinkedIn within the ranks of the people in our industry that happen to be in my network.  That’s why I thought it might be helpful to post  a link to an informative video from Lee Lefever over at Common Craft.  It really sheds new light on the value of the connections on LinkedIn. 

http://www.commoncraft.com/linkedin

If you would like to connect on LinkedIn you can do so at:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/cindyspeaker

I would be delighted to be part of your network!

I’ve hired a number of marketing coaches over the years.  Each one has served a different and very positive role in my professional development.  More than anything I’ve found value in being coached because it invariably drives me to what some marketers call “massive action.”

 A few years ago I hired a gifted guru that some of you have probably heard of – Rich Schefren.  This is a guy that just erupts with one amazing concept after another.  I’ve learned so much from him.  Today I was watching an online video that had clips of a recent presentation he did and I wanted to share it with you.

He juxtaposes 3 business concepts.  He refers to the old way of business as “make & sell.”  A current way that most businesses operate is “sense & respond.”  Then he presents his recommended way as the way of the future and the way to really rise above the competition – “anticipate & preempt.”

One of my favorite lines in this video is “do it wrong fast!”  Another is that “action creates clarity.”  I wholeheartedly agree with both concepts.  We cannot wait to take action until we’ve dissected every potential outcome.  We need to get in there and do it.  Experiment and just keep doing it.  It’s the best way to learn and discover so that we can “anticipate and preempt.”  Thank you Rich for all you’ve taught me and continue to teach me.

I was speaking at a legal marketing conference a few months ago and had the pleasure of hearing Scott Trost present.  Scott is both an attorney and marketing consultant and he presented some very interesting research to the group.

 One of my clients asked me to follow up with Scott and so I jumped on the web to do a little investigation.  I came across a very interesting YouTube video that Scott did in March regarding his thoughts on the future of law firm ownership. 

If you have 3 minutes, this is worth a listen.

I am writing this post from Coeur d’Alene in Idaho.  The M&L group has just finished the first day of their 3 day conference at this beautiful lakeside resort.  I haven’t been to M&L for a few years, and it has been so nice to see friends that I haven’t seen for quite some time.  Of course, Bill Berg is one of my favorites.  Bill is the one that first took a chance on me when I left my position with a Philadelphia law firm and ventured out as a consultant.  My friend and client Terry Bryant is here.  I always get such a kick out of Terry.  We share a thing about time.  I had to laugh yesterday when I was leaving the Spokane airport for the 40 minute trip to the resort.  Terry and a few other attorneys were waiting to get on a shuttle to make the trip.  As I walked by Terry heading towards my rental car he was looking at his watch saying that the shuttle was not meeting his time schedule.  So Terry and 4 others jumped in the rental car with me and we had a fun trip over.  I’ve been working with Rainwater, Holt & Sexton for quite awhile now but we had never actually met in person until yesterday.   Mike is holding down the fort back in Arkansas but both Stephen Holt and Bob Sexton are here. 

A couple of my Atlanta clients came in this afternoon – Tom Ashenden and Bruce Millar.  Greg Stokes, also from Atlanta will be here tomorrow.  Greg has a terrific marketing director, Melanie, and I was so glad to get to meet her this evening.  Melanie gets things done.  It’s great.  She is a mover shaker!

I could go on and on but the hour is late and I want to wrap this up.  I do want to mention one resource that I discussed during my talk today and that is www.ustream.tv.  I have a test site set up and it’s at this link:  www.ustream.tv/channel/legal-marketing-cafe.

Las Vegas attorney Richard Harris and I chatted at the cocktail party tonight and we set Richard up on UStream.TV.  If you want to take a look, here is a link to his show site:  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/las-vegas-personal-injury-lawyer.  Obviously he hasn’t done a broadcast yet but my guess is that he will before long!

 If you’d like to know more about UStream.TV, feel free to email me at cindy@cindyspeaker.com and I’ll help you get started!