Warning: For those who have had enough of my running commentary on twitter, you’ll probably hate this post.
Claims vary about the utility of twitter to get business, but some are certainly working their broad butts off trying. Kevin O’Keefe, who is rumored to secretly hold a majority of twitter stock, noted perhaps the most shameful effort. But such overt efforts are poorly received and likely entirely ineffective.
Edit addition: In response Kevin’s admonition, @ottawalawyers asks,
Isn’t @ vancouverlawyer just doing directly what most Tweeters are trying to do indirectly? Is it shameful to be upfront?Point well taken. It may be inartful, but is it any more shameful? Now back to the original post.
Rather, it is the love shown by one twit to another that will best serve the end of ingratiation. And there are no shortage of twits happy to show the love.
Lextweet, one of Kevin’s better looking brainchildren, is enormously helpful in peeking into the world of the inane and its sycophants. There are those who twit their every movement, There are those who then respond with fascination, bordering on adoration. As Dale Carnegie, whose ideals have been revived in the quest for twitter supremacy, said, “become genuinely interested in other people.” If lunch meat is what they twit about, then become genuinely interested in their choice of lunch meat.
While the advice is sound for the purpose of ingratiating oneself with others, it presents a problem for the purpose of being a lawyer. The hope, of course, is that by expressing deep, genuine interest in the lunch meat of others, others will return the favor by sending back paying clients. After all, the twit from Miami now knows a twit from New York who practices criminal defense, so when he has a criminal defendant to refer, where else would she go? The logic seems sound.
But the fact that one twit expresses a deep, genuine concern for the other’s lunch meat offers little basis to determine whether the twit is a competent lawyer, no less a really good lawyer. One might support that those who find it necessary to express deep, genuine concern for lunch meat are even a little desperate for work, indicating that they have some trouble obtaining clients, which may be a reflection on their skills.
For years, people have asked me for referrals to divorce lawyers. I have generally demurred. In my early days, I gave people the names of lawyers I knew. Things invariably turned ugly, and these same people would call me to inform me how unhappy they were with my referral, and how poorly they thought things were going. They blamed me for sending them to this horrible lawyer. I blamed myself as well, for being foolish enough to get involved. I really did want to help, but it went straight into the “no good deed goes unpunished” folder.
Joel Rosenberg, who leads a small but exceptionally well-armed band of renegade renaissance theorists, pointed out to me that it “seems that it’s very hard to be intelligent in 140 characters, but very easy to be stupid.” Perhaps this is why so much effort is placed in lunch meat appreciation rather than a demonstration of competency in the hope of attracting business. The former presents many problems, and is likely impossible.
But if a deep and genuine appreciation of lunch meat becomes the mechanism by which lawyer to lawyer referrals are based, acknowledging the difficulty of ascertaining degrees of competency via twits and instead relying on the kind words of others about salami or even liverwurst, then what does this say about us as lawyers? Is our personal pecuniary interest that overwhelming that we care nothing about the quality and competency of the lawyers to whom we refer clients?
In all likelihood, I am preaching to the choir. Unfortunately, it’s the choir of the church down the street. The church of self-promotion and marketing at the expense of honesty, integrity and professionalism. I know, that would make a lousy name for a church, but bear with me. I don’t challenge the mechanics of using twitter to find a lawyer for a referral. I don’t challenge the mechanics of using twitter to seek out referrals. I suppose any information delivery system with the right crowd will serve the purpose. I challenge referring clients based upon people ingratiating themselves with others based upon their deep, genuine appreciation of lunch meat.
As Monty Python made clear, “strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government.”
Ingratiating twits are no basis for a legal referral system.
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This Twitter agnostic says “Amen, and pass the Spam.”
Who cares about lunch meat? Condiments is where it’s at.
I think a good writer can make even lunch meat interesting; were I a better one, and had the time, I’d write something on my visit to the Spam Museum, for I have, to quote the website, seen “all 16500 square feet of its majestic glory.”
No, I’m not practicing my trade as a professional liar; see http://www.spam.com/museum/ .
‘Course, not only can’t most folks make lunch meat interesting, but have enough trouble making interesting stuff interesting.
Only a true renaissance man can make a spam comment worth reading.
I think there’s two questions being raised: what is the value of twitter for lawyers, and what is the value of personal referrals to other lawyers.
Regarding the former, it seems the theory behind twittering is the idea that it can broker personal connections that would otherwise be impossible to form. But even without twitter there are always going to be personal connections between lawyers. The second question is whether and how those connections might benefit the client.
And perhaps the answer is that the value of those referrals may be relative. If the person who asks for a referral is otherwise going to pick someone out of a phone book blind, then it probably does make sense to give a personal referral. You should always be able to contextualize it (e.g., “I’ve never worked with this person, but I understand him to have experience with X.”) but even if you don’t know the person well it still seems better than to let the client fumble around and possibly risk being taken by a strange lawyer’s suspect marketing…
I’m not sure I can agree with either of your premises. We forge relationships in real life, but only with those with whom we share some real basis for a relationship. This doesn’t exist in twitter, where connections are wholly superficial and we have barely a clue with whom we are interacting. If one defines “value” as currency, then it pays if someone you don’t know sends you business. If one defines “value” as forging real relationships, then twitter has little independent value.
As for the value of referrals, I strongly disagree. The alternative isn’t steering a client to a lawyer with whom you’ve become acquainted via twitter or the phone book, and to set up such a paradigm is a straw man argument. If you have no one known to you to be competent, if not highly qualified, to handle a matter, then the best response is to suggest that the client speak with someone else who does have an appropriate referral. Referring to someone because they admire your choice of lunch meat is no better than the phone book, and possibly worse since they come with your imprimatur of approval and will lull the client into a false sense of security.
What Twitter is and what it will become, I have no idea. It’s certainly not going to bring world peace or end hunger.
I have seen lawyers share links and ideas through twitter, items that appeared to be helpful information to someone’s practice. I have picked up valuable tips and insight from others far brighter than I via Twitter.
I’ve also seen the camaraderie among lawyers that has developed as a result of Twitter. These 140 character shout-outs have allowed those who participate to get to know each other better. Knowing someone’s taste in wines or baseball team of choice is more interesting to me than what they do as a living.
If Twitter facilitates us learning a thing or two and helps us develop long standing relationships, that’s okay with me.
When Bell invented the phone, I’m sure the debate was rampant as to value of talking through tin can and wire. But we’ve figured out a way to use the phone for commerce, the exchange of ideas, and getting to know folks.
Who really knows if Twitter won’t have the same impact.
I never dreamed you owned that many shares.
To clarify re: the first part, I don’t think Twitter establishes relationships, but I think it can facilitate them. The lunch meat connection just provides the spark; whether a relationship ensues depends on what conversation, via Twitter or otherwise, may follow. But without something like Twitter (although not to be too big a cheerleader for it, for there’s still plenty about it I hate) it is likely that no relationship would ever occur because there would be no way for the initial connection to have been made between far-flung people in the first place.
Re: the value of referrals, that seems to be a separate question. While unlike you I think there might be a slight value-add in referring someone to your lunch meat lawyer pal than leaving them to the phone book, with the proper contextualization, of course, I can see that if the connection to the other lawyer is too slim the client might indeed be better off with the phone book.
But the second question seems to have little to do with Twitter. In your original post you seemed to blanch from making referrals even to lawyers whose work you did know well, so then the question is, never mind lunch meat, is there ever a substantive enough relationship you can have with another lawyer that you would feel comfortable making a referral based upon, and if so, what defines it being substantive enough?
You ever get the feeling that you like something and think its worthwhile, but can’t seem to find a way to explain it, and when tested, write something that makes you cringe and ask yourself, did I really write this?
Maybe I can help you out. There is a camaraderie that forms within twitter, even if it’s essentially baseless but for the fact that folks are lawyers, distant and all engaged to a greater or lesser extent in the twitter community. And from this, people relate, if only on a very limited and superficial basis, but it’s fun and engaging and people enjoy it.
Being lawyers, they feel compelled to explain it and place it into a rational paradigm. Others, like Kevin, have a horse in the race and spin it with the use of twice as many adjectives as nouns, and anecdotes that don’t actually relate to you but you hope would, and so you adopt them as if they were your own, as an i-Gestalt self-justification.
The truth is, twitter is a community and people have some fun with it. This alone is a fairly good reason to twit. But the efforts to try to explain this as a rational business medium require a stretch that no one without a pretty darn big financial interest can say with a straight face.
Does that help any?
Added: I just read your post on twitter, and was particularly interested by this:
Why would you be concerned with growing a twitter audience? There’s no prize for the person who dies with the most followers. Say whatever you want to say, and people will listen if they want to. This is the lunch meat problem, pretending to be someone else to please the most people, gain the most followers and somehow gain some as yet undetermined benefit from this “latest and greatest” fad. I think Cathy Gellis is pretty terrific, and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t be thrilled just to be yourself.
I think Cathy Gellis is pretty terrific
Yeah, but you don’t follow me! 😉
(But thanks, that’s a lovely compliment!)
With regards to the Twitter lunch meat issues, which I’m prepared to put aside for now after this, I think we’re somewhat on the same page. I agree that people who declare it to be the be-all-end-all are deluding themselves; it’s simply too limited a tool and I think interferes with some relationships as much as it enables others. But generally speaking I do get enthused by the potential of the Internet to connect people, maybe more so than others are wont to. It’s actually what I studied as an undergraduate mass communications and sociology student years ago, and this interest in how people come to adopt and employ information technology has continued to inform everything I’ve done ever since.
Which kind of dovetails into your question about why I’d be worried about building an audience. To some extent I do see potential for Twitter to help fulfill some of my particular needs at this present point in my legal career through lawyer-to-lawyer networking.
But mostly, and at some point I suspect I’ll elaborate on this, I see it as being consistent with my raison d’etre — for me the whole point of becoming a lawyer at all was to be able to be a credible force to fix a lot of law that I thought was damaging (in particular, laws addressing the Internet). I used to joke, “They’re making the laws and not asking me!” but I also realized I wasn’t saying anything. Now I am, and that’s why I want the audience. It would be nice to actually have the influence.
I do think blogs are much better along those lines than Twitter is, what with blogging being a much more open and flexible tool, but I’m also seeing how Twitter might be a good complement for it.
I like your post. It does seem to me like a lot of users of social media are transfixed on building rapport/communication at the moment to the sacrifice of some honesty. I think that a discussion about specific goals/value (for lawyers)in using apps is very worthwhile. Twitter seems to be advancing in a way that will allow very specific and targeted communications (the way Yammer likely works in a closed setting);and that may lessen the perceived effect.
Over time, I hope it will all flesh out. For now, I suspect there are far too many people jockeying for position; lawyers for clients and marketers for lawyers. Too many agendas breeding too much disingenuity.