Lawyer’s Confession

Being a Caltech graduate and a former software engineer, I have always taken pride on being technology-savvy. Granted, I try to forget that the last microprocessor I programmed was an Intel 8088 using assembly language, but I never realized how behind on technology — and more specifically, web technology and communication — I was until I decided to start writing this blog.

When you think about it, even a mom-and-pop restaurant at your local strip mall needs a web presence and yet I — and I daresay most of my colleagues — know very little about setting up a website or blog, to say nothing of communicating in anything but email. Case in point: I posted the launch of my blog in Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I then followed up with about 500 direct emails to my contacts and only 1 person (not exaggerating) responded by saying that they saw the update.

I recognize the sad fact that I am out of touch with the new generation’s mode of communication. I know this because I find myself eschewing things like Twitter, Digg, Delicious and Facebook .  I cling to email largely because it is a one-to-one communication and familiar to how I grew up: using the telephone and in person conversations. What I find to be awkward is spraying information to a multitude of users and hoping for a response — akin to waiting for an alien to answer a satellite broadcast — is perfectly normal and comfortable with my daughter’s generation.

So, as much as I would like to think that I once understood and used state-of-the-art technology, I now realize that I am way behind the times and that if I am going to “get with it” (as my kids say), I am going have to do something which is outside my comfort zone.

I asked my friend Bill Mitchell, someone who is really tech-savvy, to revise my article by bringing it “back into the future” and here is how it came out ;-):

As a Caltech alum and former coder, I pride myself on techno-savvy.

At least I did.  Until I realized that I’m like an aging football star still hanging around the high school, wearing the old jersey, into my late 20s.  After all, isn’t Ruby on Rails just like 8088 assembly?  Sure.  Minus everything.  Plus a bunch of completely unrelated stuff.

Technical stagnation is partly about one’s peer group.  When I started posting, friends asked if they could get a PowerPoint version.  I am totally not making that up.  Even as Facebook claims over 600m accounts — basically the entire industrialized world — some of my cohort are not among them.

They will be your cohort someday.  You will be 45, and a recent-grad-turned-entrepreneur will ask you to comment on his business plan via TwinklePie (CamelCase having, by then, gone all the way through passé to become retro-cool again).  And you’ll have no idea what TwinklePie is.  Hardware?  Web service?  Neural implant?

This is inescapable.  It’s not just Luddite peers.  Technology, like iodine-131, has a short half-life.  Without constant investment in learning, decay is automatic.

On the other hand, technology strategy is not technology.  It is strategy.  And strategy’s half-life is more like plutonium:  what worked a thousand years ago works today, and will work in a thousand years.  Network effects worked for the Bell System and Santa Fe Railroad.  Viral marketing worked for Paul the Apostle.

Invest in understanding strategy now, and you will understand it just as well — probably even better — when your friends are chattering through false teeth about how FaceBook went to hell after its acquisition by TwinklePie back in 2027.

10 Comments

  1. Richard, I am so impressed with what you’ve done here and I hope that other lawyers are hearing your message that this online stuff isn’t so hard to learn. I was an early adopter and evangelist for social media marketing for lawyers but my message, for the most part, fell on deaf ears. I’m reluctant to admit it, but I kinda sorta burned out evangelizing on the topic, despite a very strong passion for the topic. It’s great to see that lawyers are starting to embrace the idea of digital reputation development. If I’m not careful, you just might reinspire me!

  2. Richard, congrats on your new blog. I’m recommending it to all the lawyers I know with an interest in technology…

  3. Richard – Like others I am impressed with your blog, even though I am not a lawyer. My son is & I’ll introduce it to him. BUT, I do have a comment about the use of technology in communication. It lacks all the benefits to be gained in personal conversation either by phone, skype, video conferencing or simply face-to-face. The biggest complaint I hear from the C-Suite is that the tech savvy college graduate has poor interpersonal skills, weak writing, verbal communication & art of conversation skills all of which are key to effective leadership. Then what do I know I am just an old (72) entrepreneur who is actively building businesses.

  4. Rich,
    Yours is the lst blog that I have been interested in following. The way you communicate has caught my attention

  5. Richard,
    Same as the others: I am very impressed by your blog so far. Clean, bold, clear, interesting, well-written. I look forward to following it. Well done. Thanks and best of luck to you.
    Chris

  6. Richard,
    Congrats on an insightful and well written blog. I am learning already and can’t wait to read future updates. Keep it up.
    Steven

  7. Marcia Delgadillo

    Richard, I thoroughly enjoyed your presentation at the Legal Marketing Association program. I like your blog and how you are embracing the future!

  8. Richard, I’m happy to discover your blog is not accompanied by a podcast – I love that you find ways to keep law fresh and accessible!