Social Media Training Conference for Lawyers Delivers
So you’ve got this 2 ½ year old start-up company, Avvo, running a conference in Seattle, Washington called “Advanced Social Media Training for Lawyers.” As I explained in an earlier post, the nexus of social media and legal marketing got me hooked on going. I’ve gone to legal marketing events where social media is a component of the event, but not a legal marketing event where social media is the focus. I was curious to see a) who would go b) what would be their interest and c) what was the content of the event.
Is this Conference Legit?
My first concern was the integrity of the conference organizer. Company produced conferences might often be viewed by internal staff as shooting fish in a barrel. With all those live one’s in a room it’s hard to resist the temptation to reel in as many as possible. While Avvo CEO Mark Britton opened and closed the conference, he served as effective conference bookends and actually had something of value to say. Although sales staff silently trolled, they mostly stayed busy helping to manage event logistics.
About the Attending Lawyers
The event was attended by about 200 lawyers including some bar association types and a very small smattering of legal marketing consultants. Lawyers were mostly small boutique firms liberally represented by plaintiff and consumer law. Although Perkins and Coie was an event sponsor, I didn’t meet any others from BigLaw.
Attending lawyers were largely media and technology savvy. Off-topic conversations included discussions of office efficiency and personal productivity. As a group they had crossed the chasm. Few were questioning the social media proposition as much as they were working to define their strategies and tactics to leverage new media. Only the professional crowd I met at EduWeb, a conference I attended for higher education educators earlier last year, showed a higher level of media and technology savvy than this group of mostly younger lawyers.
All About the Content
The best presentations and presenters connected their message directly to the attendees. Doug Mandell, discussing LinkedIn, had taken the time to evaluate every attendee’s LinkedIn profile against 14 criteria. When the performance average proved to be 8 of the 14 (57%), Mandell assigned the crowd an “F”. That got everyone’s attention. Tim Stanley of Justia riveted the crowd, ending the first day by going 50% over his allotted time (with permission) and then still apologizing for talking so fast.
The second day began with an optional 1 hour of CLE credit on the subject of Ethics in Marketing. Although not an attorney, I “audited” the session and found the information compelling. The downside of social media and the ethical issues dominate most lawyers’ thinking on this marketing strategy. Yet keynote speaker Bob Ambrogi @BobAmbrogi observed, “”As far as I know there has never been a disciplinary action against an attorney for answering questions online.”
Susan Lyon @SusanLyon from Perkins and Coie presented the perspective of a large firm practicing attorney who also maintains a broad public persona on Facebook and Twitter in addition to the more business-oriented LinkedIn. Susan confronted common concerns by lawyers about establishing the right balance between privacy and social networking.
Random Acts of Meanness
The event was not without some mild excitement. Midway through the first day, event organizers were confronted with some non-attending jackass Twitter flame throwers. Although there may have been a message in their sarcastic comments, it was obscured by their rude and disruptive behavior. Conference organizers didn’t blink at this menace and the dialogue flowed around the scofflaws and at a higher level.
Always Finish with Beer
We closed the conference properly with Beer for Bloggers at Kell’s Irish Pub with local resident and legal blogging maven Kevin O’Keefe of LexBlog picking up the tab. Thanks, Kev. All told it was a bold and successful move by Avvo. And we had some great beer, too.
P.S.
Yes, I went bird watching on the Kitsap Peninsula after the conference with a friend who works at Amazon. We found 43 bird species and I added 8 life birds to my list.
