JD Lasica has posted a fine weblog entry whose title asks: Are emails private? And should bloggers scoop their interviewers?

The questions stem from a recent development that I've indirectly been a part of: OJR columnist Mark Glaser has said he's a bit frustrated that bloggers whom he has interviewed have posted interview transcripts to their blogs before Mark's final articles are published. In essence, the bloggers "scoop" the reporter himself -- which might be unethical, or at least in bad faith.

JD's article raises more than a few interesting questions: Is the reporter doing his subjects a favor by quoting them, or vice versa? And is it ever acceptable for an interview subject to post a transcript? On what terms?

This is a fascinating issue. For the record, I was one of the folks Mark interviewed for his latest article, although I didn't post the transcript until yesterday night, after his column was released. (It was another source for the same column who pre-posted.) I did it mostly for the benefit of people who wanted more information about the topic at hand. And since he only ended up using a paragraph of my response, I didn't want my other interview responses to go to waste. Plus, I believed I had the right to post my very own opinions to my Web site.

I probably wouldn't have posted it before the story, out of respect for Mark. And if he'd asked me not to Web-post my comments at all, well, I probably would have obliged, only to kick myself later. (Don't I own my own words?)

But I must say that, as a reader with a strong interest in the topic, I really enjoyed looking through the interview transcripts posted by the other folks. Without question, those transcripts add to the story. And that's not to say that Mark's column wasn't excellent; a well-crafted, smartly-edited article is a better way to present the story than a bunch of transcripts, which in and of themselves are supplementary at best. I only wish the full transcripts were linked-to from the column itself.

I look forward to the day when it's standard practice for news organizations to Web-post full interviews themselves.[Holovaty.com]...

A Study by The Radicati Group, "Enterprise Wireless Email Market Trends, 2003-2007," Shows That Wireless Email Access has Increased the Amount of Time That Employees Can Put Into Their Work

Research indicates that employees using wireless email will have put in an extra 55 minutes of work per day.

"In a world where time is of the essence, and an increasing number of tasks are mission-critical, wireless email and other soon-to-come applications will pave the way for a truly global mobile business landscape." , says Sara Radicati

Email is only one tool. We can also use IM and SMS for short messages, telephone and voice mail when we are on the move and shared workspaces for complex and rich communications. Robin Bloor examined all messaging options.

[Smart Mobs]

There's a great debate in the blogosphere and among technologists about whether e-mail, much disparaged as the cause of productivity-sapping information overload, and a lightning rod for relentless and overwhelming spam merchants, is toast. Detractors say it is unrescuable, an inefficient use of time and an ineffectual means of communication. Supporters say it is the inevitable and powerful successor and replacement for snail mail, and must be redesigned to solve the problems that are preventing it from doing its critical job, which is (as shown on the chart above, from my earlier post) -- ubiquitous, fast, free 1-to-1 (or 1-to-a-few) (but short, non-critical, non-iterative) written communication. Like Clay Shirky, I love e-mail, warts and all. Some of the things that e-mail has allowed me, and those in my communities, to accomplish that no other medium could have achieved: Strengthened relationships and improved dialogue with readers of our Salon blogs. Pressured the Canadian government to fundamentally change its position on several key matters such as the Kyoto Accord. Enabled readers of my genealogy site to contact and exchange critical information with me. Enabled me to conduct targeted surveys of Salon bloggers. Enabled my high-school graduating class to organize an amazingly successful reunion. Helped establish and strengthen communication and collaboration among many loosly-knit communities of which I am a member. So I want to save e-mail. I think we need to either fix the problems plaguing e-mail (info overload, spam and abuse), or develop a substitute tool that fills the void its demise would leave. I think a possible answer to spam and info overload is a simple concept I call transient subdomains. Here's what I mean by this term: What do we do now when we get too much spam in a mailbox? We trash it and set up a new one. It's a one-step-ahead-of-the-enemy approach, but it's extravagent. Suppose instead of just assigning people an e-mail address, we assigned them an e-mail domain, with the ability to set up an infinite number of subdomains (or channels, if you prefer), each with a short and finite life. Example: Let's say my e-mail address is dave.pollard@hotmail.com (it isn't -- I use my real e-mail address sparingly in public because of spam etc.) Instead of junking this address when the spammers overwhelm it, suppose instead I had an e-mail domain: dave.pollard@hotmail.com/ and could create any subdomains I want, and abandon them when they've lost their value. So for example right now I'm interested in people's opinions on my novel-in-progress. With transient subdomains I could request them at  dave.pollard@hotmail.com/WhatCouldBe. And I occasionally help out Mark Hoback by co-editing Virtual Occoquan, the online periodical, and I would be able to communicate with potential authors of the next edition at dave.pollard@hotmail.com/VO28. And I'm collaborating on some Social Networking and Social Software developments with a small group of people in two distinct communities (one consisting of people I regularly meet in person, the second of people I've never met but who have expertise the first group lacks), so I could communicate with them under the subdomains dave.pollard@hotmail.com/SocialNet1 and dave.pollard@hotmail.com/SocialNet2. Not only do I think transient subdomains could save e-mail from lamentable extinction, I think the same concept applied to phone numbers could save us from telemarketers as well. OK, I'm done. I told you it was a naive proposal. Now I'm looking to those that understand the technical workings of e-mail and telephony to tell me whether it could work, technically. And for the twisted minds out there to tell me how the spammers could get around it.

[How to Save the World]

Several months ago I published a list of What the Blogosphere Needs More Of. It was one of my most commented-on posts, and I promised to update the list based on readers' suggestions and additional ideas, and permanently post it on my sidebar. I'm putting it on the right sidebar, since there is more room there. I hope it will be useful to those stuck for something to write about, or wondering why some posts, and some blogs, are vastly more popular than others. Please note that this is a list of content that bloggers want to see more of. If you want to see a list of what blogging tools are most sought-after, that's here. Blog readers want to see more: original research, surveys etc. original, well-crafted fiction great finds: resources, blogs, essays, artistic works news not found anywhere else category killers: aggregators that capture the best of many blogs/feeds, so they need not be read individually clever, concise political opinion (most readers prefer these consistent with their own views) benchmarks, quantitative analysis personal stories, experiences, lessons learned first-hand accounts live reports from events insight: leading-edge thinking & novel perspectives short educational pieces relevant "aha" graphics great photos useful tools and checklists précis, summaries, reviews and other time-savers fun stuff: quizzes, self-evaluations, other interactive content Blog writers want to see more: constructive criticism, reaction, feedback 'thank you' comments, and why readers liked their post requests for future posts on specific subjects foundation articles: posts that writers can build on, on their own blogs reading lists/aggregations of material on specific, leading-edge subjects that writers can use as resource material wonderful examples of writing of a particular genre, that they can learn from comments that engender lively discussion guidance on how to write in the strange world of weblogs

[How to Save the World]

Busblog writer Tony Pierce puts forth the idea of the sponsorable photo essay. Steve Hall comments. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[MarketingWonk - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

ClickZ's Joanna Belbey and Karen Gedney put together a good, basic reference for getting started with email marketing. ClickZ reports. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[MarketingWonk - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

Publishing consultant Vin Crosbie, in his monthly "Publishing: Free or Fee?" column for ClickZ, tackles the question of whether or not blogs may be able to charge readers fees to read their material. In fact, most of the column is comprised of extensive quotes from other leading blog experts, including Patrick Phillips, publisher and editor of I Want Media, Rafat Ali, publisher and editor of PaidContent, both of whom are skeptical about the opportunity to charge for blogs, as well as our own Rick Bruner, playing the role of the blog believer. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[MarketingWonk - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

The next level of targeting and results improvement in search engine marketing will likely come from personalization. Google's Kaltix acquisition underscores that priority for the search giant. CNET gets the skinny straight from Eric Schmidt, who concurs that the algorithm is undergoing constant enhancement. CNET reports. Kevin Lee comments. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[MarketingWonk - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

You may have noticed something strange lately at Google. Some searches that should display thousands of results only show a handful, even though Google itself says there are thousands of matches. This "bug," highlighted by The Register, causes Google to display highly reduced result sets. The explanation hypothesized in the article is an algorithm change designed to thwart Google page spam. Author Andrew Orlowski goes so far as to suggest that Google is moving away from the famous PageRank to place more emphasis on anchor text. Kevin Lee comments. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[MarketingWonk - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

The Direct Marketing Association's neutered interactive group, the Association for Interactive Marketing, finally released its email guidelines, stripped of meaningful spam policies. The contraversial document originally dared to define spam as unsolicited email, but the parent organization, rife with "opt-in" emailers and traditional direct companies, censored that part. It then launched a star-crossed publicity campaign to try to define spam only as email that contains already illegal, fraudulent claims. IAR reports. Tig Tillinghast comments. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[MarketingWonk - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

Having passed an anti-spam law two months ago, Missouri broke the precedent set by other states by actually bringing charges against two Florida (of course) spammers. This case may provide the first test of inter-state spam law enforcement, as the dozen or so other states have yet to file charges based on their own laws. The constitutionality of this cross-state regulation is, as a result, untested, although similar regulations have passed muster in the telemarketing realm. IAR reports. Tig Tillinghast comments. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[MarketingWonk - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

kickass weblog. The Democratic National Committee has a kickass weblog.  [Scripting News] with a choice of RSS feeds. [McGee's Musings]

Alarm Bell Phrases on Ward's Wiki are just great. As with all links to the Wiki though, be warned: click too many links and hours of your life will inexplicably vanish...

[Simon Willison's Weblog] The NonAlarmBell Phrases are just as enlightening [McGee's Musings]

A few of my favorites are:

• I'm the team boss. Every decision made on this team is going to be mine.
• "I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but..." Isn't any phrase ending with "but" an alarm bell phrase?
• Look, just give me something for the demo!
• "We're going for a BestOfBreed approach."
• "Oh, come on, I CouldDoThisMyself in a week."

J:L

Jon Stahl pointed out this fantastic thread on Howard Dean's campaign blog, his supporters from around the country (173 comments so far) are dropping great tips for online organizing tools. They already have one of the most successful social toolsets built to date. Dean is dominating the battle for web dominance. In a very open way, they used a thread to harvest ideas and energy from supporters.

(Via Network-centric advocacy) [Smart Mobs]

Blog2Mobile - Here it is a new online service in English (and also in French) based in France:
blog2mobile (beta 1.0). Just click on the UK flag for a version in English.

With this tool, you can create an account (login/password) and read any RSS feed via a mobile phone or a PDA connected to the Internet.

This tool is also Wap and Imode compatible.
See the FAQ there.

[Smart Mobs]

Gary Burd explains how Amazon's RSS feeds work.
[Scripting News]

Greenspun: "What's the point of blogging?"

This weekend is the BloggerCon conference at Harvard.  A young audience member had the courage to ask "What should I say when someone asks me what the point of having a blog is?"

Indeed this is a variant of the early 1990s question the first personal Web sites went up "What is the point of having a personal Web site?"

What then IS the point of personal Web site or blog?

Let's go back to the beginning...
[Scripting News]

Heath Row's incredible BloggerCon notes.
[Scripting News]

Unless you're just blogging to exercise your writing skills, or to communicate with a few friends, you're in the publishing business, and you have readers who hope, or expect, that your blog, just like any other publication, will be valuable to them. Information science identifies two ways that published works can provide value to readers: They can inform, or they can entertain. Most newspapers and magazines have articles that do each. As anyone who reads How to Save the World regularly can attest, I'm no expert on writing for entertainment. I'll leave it up to others to offer advice on how to write entertaining blogs (though I have no doubt that good stories are an important component of many entertaining articles, columns and blog posts). Most blogs aspire to inform, in one way or another, and that's something I do know a little about. The word inform means, literally, to put form around, to flesh out. The 'value chain' at left, another artifact of information science, shows the stages that we go through in the process of becoming informed. A blog that takes us from one stage to the next informs us -- and therefore has value. Here are the four ways that this can happen: Aggregation/Research: This is the process of pulling together, compiling data. It's what a reporter does. Who, what, when, where, why, how. Just the facts, ma'am. It's research. It's hard work, a lot of digging. Example: Billmon or Kriselda go back and find out what someone said two years ago that's still archived in some obscure publication or cache, which proves the Bush Administration has been lying/up to no good. Synthesis: This is the process of distilling and organizing information to provide context for understanding it better. It's what news writers and editors do. Charts and tables are also examples of syntheses. Example: I took the aggregated data on US incomes and produced this power chart. Analysis: This is the process of deconstructing the information to reveal what it means, what it implies. It requires not only an understanding of the information and its context, but also broad and/or deep expertise about the related subject matter: politics, economics, history etc. It's the domain of experts and specialists: business gurus, professors, and lifelong students of specific domains of knowledge. Example: The New Yorker does in-depth analysis like this, while newspaper op-eds (and blog rants like this one of Rayne's) provide more cursory and subjective, but still valuable (and often entertaining as well) analysis. Prescription: This is the process of advising and/or persuading the reader what actions or responses are appropriate in light of the analysis. The analyst may conclude with a prescription that follows from the analysis, or the appropriate action or reaction may be obvious or tacit, or the analyst may not presume to offer a prescription, and instead leave this final step up to the reader. Example: Here is my recent prescription for education reform. None of these four ways of informing the reader is inherently better or more valuable than the others, nor is it always advantageous (or even advisable) to try to do more than one of them in any single article. But you'll generally find that the best publications, and the A-list bloggers, tend to do (at least) one of them very well. So, at the risk of taking all the fun and uncertainty out of your blogging, and being accused again of saying there's a right and wrong way to blog (there isn't -- there are no rules, OK?) here's a scorecard you can use to assess the 'information value' of your posts: Criterion Applicable? Achieved? Appropriate research done, facts checked, citations given Article presents new information, or presents it in a new way/light Layout and organization is clear and concise Graphics used if (and only if) they improve understanding Aggregation/summarization saves readers time reading other stuff Article adds something unique that readers don't get elsewhere Analysis helps reader see the meaning/significance of the issue Arguments/solutions presented are logical and/or persuasive New ideas, perspectives, useful tools or ways of thinking are introduced Heading, intro help readers assess their interest in reading further I've been using it for awhile -- checking off the 3-4 things I'm trying to accomplish in the middle column before I start writing each post (which 3-4 vary from post to post), and then just before posting scoring myself on how well I've achieved each of those 3-4 objectives. It's caused me to 'pull' a few posts that didn't measure up, and miss a few days posting, but it's for the better. I'm also realizing that time pressures recently are negatively impacting my 'scores', and the quality of what you read on this blog. The drop in comments and hits shows you realize that too. I'll try to get back to full stride as soon as work (and other writing) pressures ease off, and I appreciate your patience in the meantime.

[How to Save the World]

Last week I suggested that IT and KM (Knowledge Management) departments need to get together and refocus themselves on enhancing individual front line worker effectiveness and productivity. Since then I've knocked this around with some IT and KM people both online and in person, representing a variety of different industries, and they've helped me refine these ideas considerably. The first thing I've concluded is that for pragmatic reasons KM should be organizationally part of IT, rather than a separate department or a part of HR or Sales & Marketing. IT has the resources and the budget, understands the function of infrastructure, is less vulnerable to full outsourcing, and has objectives that are so synergistic with KM's that sometimes they step on each other's toes. Besides, as I explained in that previous post, KM has a lot to offer IT as well, to get it past the major challenges IT is facing today. The new, combined TechKnowledgy department would have not only the traditional responsibilities for managing the financial, HR and sales systems and the centralized and desktop hardware of the organization, but also these new responsibilities: Development of new social software tools for front-line employees, including: Expertise locators - to help people find other people inside and outside the organization they need to talk with to do their job more effectively Personal content management tools - simple, weblog-type tools that organize, access and selectively publish each individual's 'filing cabinet' Personal collaboration tools - wireless, portable videoconferencing and networking tools that save travel costs and allow people to participate virtually in events where they cannot afford to participate in person Research bibilography and canvassing tools - technologies and templates that enable effective do-it-yourself business research and analysis and facilitate the preparation of professional reports and presentations, and Hands-on assistance to front-line employees -- helping them make effective use of technology and knowledge, including the above tools, one-on-one, in the context of their individual roles. Not training, not wait-for-the-phone-to-ring help desk service -- face to face, scheduled sessions where individuals can show what they do and what they know, and experts can show them how to do it better, faster, and take the intelligence of what else is needed back to HO so developers can improve effectiveness even more. Why should management pay for these new tools and services that they don't directly benefit from? Because improvements in the effectiveness of front-line workers increases profitability, and because the above tools will also make some management tasks easier: appraisal of employee performance, identification of internal and external experts, knowledge hoarders, and (as these tools begin to cross organizational boundaries) the quality of potential recruits, contractors and suppliers. And some of the personal content management tools could replace centralized content tools and repositories that, in most organizations, have produced more pain than gain. When we talked about this, it also occurred to us that this second category of new responsibilities -- hands-on assistance to front-line employees -- might lend itself right out of the gate to outsourcing. This might create a huge opportunity for all the un- and under-employed IT consultants out there -- as front-line productivity consultants. There are certainly plenty of value propositions for such a service -- lousy return on IT and death by e-mail overload come immediately to mind. So, infrastructure lovers everywhere, there are two opportunities here: One to save both KM and IT from attrition and irrelevance by joining forces and doing some new and desperately needed things, and the other to create a host of new entrepreneurial businesses that will allow business- and tech-savvy people to solve what Drucker called the greatest business challenge of the 21st century. Now all we have to do is convince management.

[How to Save the World]

Bloglines, the RSS feed reader that follows you everywhere, has recently been updated with two neat new niceties:

• Blogrolling (some of) your Bloglines subscriptions on your web site.
• A recommendation feature that suggests new feeds based on your subscriptions.

Bloglines is a great, web-based way to read RSS feeds. There's no software to wrestle with, and using Bloglines is smooth and easy.
[About.com Email]

A special challenge for bloggers switching hosts is retaining traffic from archived posts that have been indexed in Google and other search engines.
[Blog Hosting News]

Another Internet powerhouse appears ready to jump into the Blog hosting game. This time it's Yahoo!
[Blog Hosting News]

Technorati is now tracking more than 1 million weblogs.
[Blog Hosting News]

view Blogs4Business' Technorati Cosmos

Video blogging has gone main stream and now you can use it to create and broadcast your own web TV show. UK Blogging service Tonguewag has teamed up with UK viral site TTR2 to bring you a talent contest like no other to launch the worlds first video blogg
[Adrants]

Marketers spend billions of dollars every year developing and advertising taglines hoping consumers will remember them, understand them and act on them. Well, according to a recent study by Emergence, most of that money is wasted. Only 6 out of 22 tagline
[Adrants]

If you can't get enough gossip or don't like what you read in the rags then Quickbrew is for you. With Quickbrew's Dirt Magazine, you can choose from a menu of "dirt" to dish up your own personalized rendition of BenLo-like article. Not surprisingly,
[Adrants]

Driven by broadband, streaming media, and online personals, the paid content market experiences more growth.
[Advertising]

UPDATE: The DMA's Association for Interactive Marketing issues e-mail best practices for marketers, after months of controversy and delays.
[Advertising]

Internet.com's interactive marketing editor published a piece today explaining just why Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds may help publishers thwart spam filters, but this one also puts together a creditable list of the downsides. ClickZ reports. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[Up2Speed - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

ClickZ's Kevin Lee lists the main search marketing trade groups, listing their priorities, membership trends and types of activities and services. New to the list is the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), a search-specific trade group. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[Up2Speed - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

TechDirt: Sneaky PR People Discover Blogs. I've noticed a disturbing trend in the past year or so with PR people discovering - but not quite understanding - blogs. Some have a handle on it, but others miss the mark by quite a wide margin. This all became very clear last month when a PR person tried to convince me to write a story about a company he worked for - without identifying the simple (and important) fact that he worked for them. [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

One comment cited an instance of blog spam: "Spammers have also found blogs. One particularly persistent spammer posted comments to the Domain Name Rights Coalition blog advertising a long list of websites, mostly involving diet drugs and penis enlargements. The comment was deleted, and the next day he did it again." [Mikki Barry]

INSTANT MESSAGING, THE SOCIAL CIRCLE, AND THE TELEPHONE [Forbes  Sep 1, 2003]

Researcher Mei Chuah at Accenture Labs is leading a project in reality instant messaging and online commerce, using software "robots" to find out what you and your friends are doing and then linking you together and brokering new adventures (such as "Interested in buying concern tickets together?") -- by your digital cell phone. Chuah says, "The point is to be connected to your social network at all time. Since you're always carrying it, the phone is the nexus and the portal to other devices -- it should sense and control them."

Quentin Hardy, writing for Forbes, explains that once companies realize they can sell more by creating social activities around their products, even more things will communicate, and we will respond to them. Chuah's own research interests gelled when she realized that a lot of the social networks went over into the physical world. People had parties with people they'd never met, except on the Internet: "I started thinking there wasn't that much of a boundary between the virtual and the real. It's all socialization... We will have people-to-machine wireless, people-to-pet -- all sorts of wireless communities. This is coming. The phone companies will have to adapt to survive." [NewsScan.com]

Current List of SpamAssassin (tm) Tests

This is the current list of tests SpamAssassin(tm) performs on mail messages to determine if they're spam or not.

Read it and weep!

DMA, FBI consider joint anti-spam initiative [BtoB Online] Aug. 25, 2003

New York--The Direct Marketing Association on Monday confirmed it is in discussions with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations regarding spam. The DMA said it has proposed to the FBI an initiative called Operation Slam Spam, which would be a joint effort to find and prosecute spammers. "Our message to spammers is: If you're lying to consumers, not honoring consumers' requests, trying to swindle consumers and ruin the Internet economy--the end is near," said H. Robert Wientzen, president-CEO of the DMA, in a statement. "Spammers are taking the Internet on a joy ride, and we are going to work hard to put a stop to it."

You Don't Know Me, but... Social Capital & Social Software

Echo Overview Shelley Powers writes a crisp overview of the Echo project, a collective effort to create a weblog data model, in order to update syndication standards and APIs. ...
[Socialtext.com : Social Software Solutions]

Switchboard Rolls Out Paid Link Program [Internet.com]

Online yellow pages provider Switchboard (Quote, Company Info) announced the availability of new advertising options, offering businesses the chance to insert Web site links on their own listings or on non-commercial listings.

LocalClicks allows advertisers to purchase transactional links on their listings. For example, a local car dealership could pay for links to pages on its Web site that let people sign up for a test drive or see a new car model. The program also allows advertisers to buy links on non-commercial listings. A flower shop, for example, could buy a link on a hospital listing. Advertisers only pay when a user clicks on the links.

RSS, Echo, Wikis, and Personalities The weblog world has taken the 4 elements of organization from mailing lists and usenet -- overall topic, time of post, post title, author -- and rearranged them in order of importance as author, time, and title, dispensing with topics altogether. (Choosing a formal ...
[Socialtext.com : Social Software Solutions]

BEMUSED ABOUT BLOGGING
Web Logs May Make You Popular, But Some See Problems Ahead

BY STEPHANIE FRANCIS WARD

On her Web log–known popularly as a "blog"–Stephanie Tai criticizes Short Cuts, a collection of stories by Raymond Carver turned into a movie by Robert Altman. She also reports on bands she likes, plays she’s attended and other events in her life.

Tai, an environmental lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department, also discusses legal issues, but not as much as she used to. It’s for fear that opposing counsel may use these legal musings against her in future cases.

As blogs become more popular, many lawyers are using the online diaries as vehicles for posting information and updates about their cases and law practices. Blogs also have come to be seen as effective marketing tools.

But even as blogs flourish as an easy way to share information, online authors are starting to become concerned that the information could be misused.

Tai declined to comment further; calls to the Justice Department were not returned. But Catherine E. Reuben, a Boston employment lawyer, says she worries about the consequences of posting random musings on the Internet.

Among Reuben’s concerns are that unsuspecting readers may view musings about the law as legal advice. "Any smart lawyer will have all sorts of disclaimers, and that will help, but if the person is opining about legal issues, and someone reads that and relies on it, there could be trouble for the firm," she says.

Tai’s blog, for example, characterizes her writings as "the personal, nonviewpoint-attributable-to-the-United-States blog of a young government environmental lawyer (and when I say that, I really mean it–the views expressed here are not attributable to the United States)."

But Reuben says she also worries that opposing counsel could use such information to put the blogging lawyer at a disadvantage. Reuben notes that she was once quoted in a print legal publication, and opposing counsel have brought the article to court three times, stating that the position she was arguing conflicted with what she had said in print. Although it wasn’t a blog, Reuben fears that the same could happen with cavalier statements posted on the Internet.

Christopher Wolf, a Washington, D.C., antitrust lawyer, also notes the risk. Although he knows of no law firm that has a policy on blogging, he thinks that will change, in part because the activity may detract from billable hours.

"Random musings on subjects, legal or not, are just accidents waiting to happen," Wolf says. "People exercise undue informality when it comes to Internet postings. When they write, they should reflect and edit what they publish, especially lawyers."

Despite the concerns, many lawyers keep on blogging. Some have even attracted attention and gained an audience. Denise M. Howell, a Los Angeles lawyer cited in a March ABA Journal article on the practice, says that she has discussed the issue of blogging with her firm, Reed Smith Crosby Heafey. The managing attorneys think her blog, Bag and Baggage, is "exciting and interesting," she says. She started the blog in November 2001, and estimates that it gets around 400 hits a day.

"I’ve been pretty clear that although I’m a lawyer, I can’t give you legal advice," Howell says. "To the extent that people have trouble understanding big, abstract legal issues, I don’t see a problem with that. Lawyers write about those all the time."

Howard J. Bashman, who chairs the appellate group at Buchanan Ingersoll, also runs a popular blog about appellate litigation. How Appealing gets approximately 10,000 hits each weekday and has been mentioned in numerous publications besides the ABA Journal, including The New York Times.

"When others from my firm go out and meet new people, oftentimes they’re met with the comment, ‘Isn’t Howard Bashman with that firm?’ " he says. How Appealing is not mentioned on Buchanan Ingersoll’s firm site, but Bashman is thinking about making the request.

Bashman does not discuss personal issues on his blog, but Howell does. Recent posts detail a trip to northern California, with information about restaurants she visited, and the hotel where she stayed. If her page was limited to the law, Howell says, it would be boring.

"Very few of us decide, ‘OK, over dinner, we're only going to discuss the law.’ If we do, most people don’t want to have dinner with us anymore."

It probably makes sense–or at least doesn’t hurt–to post some personal information on a law blog, says Michael T. Reynvaan, a Seattle employment lawyer. Hobbies such as bridge, marathon training or sailing may be interesting to clients who share similar interests.

But other interests, such as professional wrestling or NASCAR racing, could seem unlawyerly. "It might be like acid rainmaking," he says. "It would personalize the attorney, but for most clients, what they’re looking for is somebody who is very professional. Something like that is not going to come across very well." ...

July 2003 shows continued emergence of weblogs as mainstream content platform

There's been a wash of articles this month that appear to solidify the position of weblogs as an online content platform for politics, business and public information. This continued level of acceptance will hopefully enable more conservative institutions (like courts) to embrace the platform more widely. [Rory Perry's Weblog]

Read/Write Web

Web of Ideas A lot of people are getting pretty excited about Social Software. Bloggers like Joi Ito and Marc Canter are writing with gusto about social software. I'm hearing lots of trendy new acronyms and phrases - FOAF, MetaBlogs, Reputation systems, "web of trust", "moblogging", "micro-content", etc etc. It's all getting to be a blur. But these are heady times and everyone is out there hunting that White Whale, the Semantic Web.

I'm going to add my own trendy phrase to the mix: Web of Ideas.

Yes I know, Web of Ideas isn't a particularly original phrase. When I googled it, I found a number of old newspaper articles and school assignments that used it. But still I want to use it myself, because it succinctly states what I have always believed the World Wide Web is all about: dissemination of ideas.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, a 19th century American writer, once said: "The ideas in every man's mind make him what he is." We're lucky to live in the 21st century. We have Web technologies such as weblogs and RSS to help us discover, create and share ideas.

I'll write more about the Web of Ideas later. For now (it's getting late and I'm starting to ramble), I want to point to an interesting development at Erik Benson's weblog. Erik is developing an idea database. Hey, good idea Erik ;-) [Read/Write Web]

I wonder if Richard knows about the Lazy Web? [Marc's Voice]

Six Reasons Why lawyers lose clients

I picked up an interesting statistic from Daniel D. Morris of the VeraSage Institute, who spoke during today's IOMA audio seminar on Law Firm Pricing. He identified why lawyers lose clients:

1% The client dies
3% The client moves away
5% The client has a friend he prefers
9% The client is lost to a competitor
14% The client is dissatisfied with the service
68% The client believes you don't care about them.

This shows that a good marketing strategy for law firms is to improve client relationships and service.
[LawMarketing Blog by Larry Bodine]

An interesting thing I picked up at the Northstar Conference this week in Chicago on "The Latest in Law Firm Business Development" is that law firms are indeed hiring sales directors.  The speakers predicted that most law firms will eventually have a Director of Sales.  To wit:

 

José E. V. Cunningham, Chief Sales & Marketing Officer, Shaw Pittman LLP, Washington, D.C. He is paid a straight commission on new business he brings in.  In most states this fee-splitting is verboten by the ethics rules, but it's OK in Washington, D.C.  This gives Shaw Pittman a huge advantage in the market.  He is responsible for the firm's global business development initiatives, including client-focused and industry-based solutions, and all marketing activities.  Jose is a sales veteran from Cap Gemini Group, Channel International, Ltd, Unisys Corporation and AT&T.

 

Gary Booth, Chief Client Development Officer, Pillsbury Winthrop, San Francisco.  Gary was well known in his prior job as Managing Partner for Global Business Development for Arthur Andersen.  His current responsibilities include management of the firm's client team program that includes "opportunity management," client selection, client satisfaction and relationship sales training.

 

Mark Cowan is the Partner with Patton Boggs in Washington, D.C.  As Head of Business Development and Marketing, he does not practice law and devotes himself full-time to new business generation.  I did a Webinar with Mark on sales, and there's an article mentioning him on the LawMarketing Portal at http://www.lawmarketing.com/publications/news/pub449.cfm.

 

Rob Randolph, Marketing Manager for Business Development, Duane Morris, Chicago.  Rob was also on the Webinar with Mark Cowan and me, and Rob wrote an article about law firm sales, which is online at http://www.lawmarketing.com/publications/news/pub388.cfm.

 

Barbara Sessions, Marketing Partner and Director of Business Development, Winston & Strawn, Chicago, IL.  Barb is an ex-LMA president and has been with her firm for 9 years.  She's one of the few marketers who went from staff to partner.  She's in charge of communications, marketing strategy, practice development (industry strategies and cross-selling), business development (RPF responses, market share analysis, research, contact management), strategic initiatives (anniversaries, events, sponsorships, charitable efforts, partner retreats), public relations and training.

 

Will marketers move into sales?  Only if the marketers have the right genetic makeup.  Cunningham said that "marketing DNA is different from sales DNA."

[LawMarketing Blog
by Larry Bodine]

It's my humble opinion that one of the most remarkable things anyone has yet managed to accomplish with a weblog is Howard Bashman's 20 Questions for the appellate judge, monthly interviews that commenced in February this year with appellate jurists from around the U.S. (and conceivably from around the world). These interviews provide invaluable insights into the appellate lawmaking process and the people who make it work. They're detailed, thorough, and utterly free and freely accessible—no one needs to know you're an Omanian octegenarian before you can take a look.

Howard is willing to keep this up as long as appellate jurists are willing to participate, but he needs to get the word out to keep the volunteers coming. If you are a lawyer, law student, judicial clerk, or anyone who from time to time breaks bread with members of the appellate judiciary, please let them know how much you enjoy Howard's interviews and urge them to participate. I for one would love to see this continue indefinitely.

More from Howard this morning: "One week from today, I will be posting online here the August 2003 installment of '20 questions for the appellate judge.' August's interviewee is Eleventh Circuit Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat. September's interviewee will be Federal Circuit Judge William Curtis Bryson. And October's interviewee will be Eleventh Circuit Judge Stanley F. Birch, Jr. [...] I am willing to keep the monthly '20 questions' feature going for as long as there are federal and/or state court appellate judges who are willing to participate as interviewees. However, if a month were to arrive for which there is no interviewee, then the feature will come to a permanent end." Let's not let that happen. [Bag and Baggage]

Aussies Consider Sending Spammers to Jail 

A new Australian anti-spam measure keeps the offenses and penalties in the civil arena, but sponsors apparently used that restraint as a method to jumpstart support for the new law. Some in the advisory committee charged with tailoring the measure think the current measure does not yet go far enough. ZDNet UK reports. Tig Tillinghast posts. [this is a summary - go to our web site for the complete entry, links, comments and categories]
[Up2Speed - The single source for no-nonsense Internet marketing news]

Advanced Google news search. Now you can search by source, source location, headline, URL, or date. [Google Weblog]

Springer's wisdom: Blogging colleague Joe Territo -- who's cleverly turned his blog into a forum for email interviews with the notable... [BuzzMachine]

Lawyers, Blogs, Money, And Stone Cold 

This week's issue of the ABA Journal eReport includes an article, "Bemused About Blogging," that encourages a cautious and open-eyed approach to legal weblogging. This is something I always try to foster as well. However, to the extent the article suggests a blogging lawyer must dissimulate and dissemble to avoid alienating clients, it perpetuates insular thinking and ignores the realities of the modern business world, which thankfully is populated by individuals with a broad range of interests and concerns.

Before I get into that, one thing needs to be clarified up front since the writer Stephanie Ward apparently had some trouble distinguishing between comments I was making and comments I told her others had made on similar topics. Specifically, in response to her question about writing about things beyond just the law, I told Stephanie that Eugene Volokh had addressed this in his recent interview with Chris Lydon and she should go take a listen. I also told her I appreciated Eugene's answer so much I had quoted him on B&B, and proceeded to read her the interview passage in question. The quotes and attribution somehow got left out of her piece, but one of the benefits of having a weblog is the ability to supply such things where, as here, they have been neglected or cut.

As far as the overall message of the piece, everyone is entitled to an opinion about what might constitute "acid-rainmaking," a great turn of phrase supplied by Perkins Coie Labor and Employment partner Michael Reynvaan. Not so great in my view is Mr. Reynvaan's suggestion that while writing about certain hobbies—"bridge, marathon training, sailing"—might form a common bond with clients, writing about others—"professional wrestling or NASCAR"—could be perceived as "unlawyerly." Maybe it's just me, but the adjectives such an approach brings to mind are "elitist," "narrow-minded," "backward," and "out of touch." While I'm not personally into NASCAR—IRL is more my thing—or professional wrestling, if I were, I assume from time to time they'd come up here. Then, to the extent any of the millions of people who contribute to the huge popularity of these pursuits—who are bound to include clients, potential clients, and colleagues—should stumble on a related Bag and Baggage post, it might just bring a smile to their face.

If you want an automaton as a lawyer, someone like me may not be your best bet. If, on the other hand, you would prefer your legal representatives to think, breathe and have some grasp on the kinds of cultural and policy issues that so frequently affect the development of the law and the outcome of judicial decisions, that might be another story. By the way, I think the same thing goes for Howard Bashman, who innacurately is described in the article as someone who "does not discuss personal issues on his blog." Anyone passingly familiar with How Appealing recognizes that Howard's passions and personality, and the way they come through in his writing, are an enormous part of what makes his weblog exceptional.

[Bag and Baggage]