Online Marketing Training for Lawyers Conference

I’m going to the AVVO Avvocating Advanced Online Marketing Training for Lawyers conference in Seattle in a couple weeks.  Three things about this event turn me on:

First, the conference focus is the nexus of two of my professional interests, online marketing and the legal industry. Looking forward to a snapshot view of where online marketing is specifically impacting a specific targeted vertical market.  And since the legal industry is, generally, so incredibly retarded in the uptake of these strategic online marketing opportunities, I already feel a certain amount of dynamic tension revolving about this conference. Will it be fear and loathing? Resignation? Or general embracement of new strategies? It will be interesting to see where the attendees line up on this stuff.

Second, the presenters represent a cross section of what is happening in both legal marketing and online marketing. Bob Ambrogi and Tim Stanley founder of Justia have deep roots and genuine street cred in the legal industry. In media, social and otherwise, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google, Microsoft and Twitter will all have representatives pressing their case. And event sponsors Steve Willey of Savitt Bruce & Willey and Susan Lyon from Perkins Coie will probably introduce more legal vertical reality into the conversation. There’s more, but you get the idea. Reps from the major players in the online marketing drama will be putting the best face on online business development opportunities for lawyers. Will the conference attendees be sympathetic? Will they get it? Or will it be the more commonly heard fears of downside risk prevail? I’m eager to find out.

And third, I’m looking forward to some winter birding in the Seattle area. I guess it’s pretty rainy now. But, in the approximate words of Thoreau, “if you want to observe wildlife, go in wild weather.” Following the conference I’ll probably remove myself to the Kitsap Peninsula for the following weekend to digest the event’s proceedings and pick up a few life birds.

This trip should be revealing on all fronts.