Video blogs for law firms

Am a little late to the party but I agree with Kevin O'Keefe from Lexblog again here regarding video blogs for law firms. The concept is seductive of course, and I'm hearing it raised more and more often lately, but in practice the devil is in the detail.
I'll offer one additional reason here Kevin doesn't -- you can't skim a vlog. Unlike written communication, if you are going to watch a video you have to be prepared to see it through to the end -- you never know when that important piece of information is going to drop.
So, if you're marketing to a time-poor audience, that makes using video a flawed approach I think.

Google Trends for law firm Web-sites

Wow, doing a little rough and ready competitive intelligence just got a whole lot easier. I've been playing round with new Google Trends for Web-sites and, just for kicks, plugged in the home pages of Australia's five largest law firms.
Although numbers are too low for the tool to graph (as you might expect for law firms) it does provide some interesting comparisons of visitors from each State and idea of which other sites people went too -- and I'm pleased to see Deacons (not yet in the five revenue-wise) is on the shopping list.
Clearly, the Web doesn't yet play as central a role in the marketing of law firms as it does for consumer brands, for example, but it's pretty clear that will (must?) change.
Actually, I suspect this new feature in Google Trends tool is going to cause unease in some circles. After all, how many businesses would willingly share their Web traffic data before now? Now, anyone can see whether the SMH, Age or News.com.au attracts more visitors (click here to find out). Ah, the transparency of the Web!
I've admired Google Trends for some time. While at Dell I used it as an informal indicator of ROI from PR activities, including the launch of our XPS brand. As this chart shows, searches for XPS in Australia started from nowhere around mid-June 2006 (when we first formally launched the XPS brand) and jumped around the time of the launch of the multi-coloured models in mid-2007. During that time there was practically no advertising spend on the XPS brand locally, so a significant amount of that result can be attributed to PR.
Will be interesting to see how this pans out.
Update: Here's a cautionary post suggesting the data may not be as accurate as the existing commercial services. I guess we'll see.

Dell announces best ever PC recycling result

To co-incide with World Environment Day Dell overnight announced it had recovered more than 102 million pounds (ie 46 million kilograms) of computer equipment worldwide in 2007 -- its most ever in a single year and a 20 percent increase on the previous 12 months.
I say well done all!
I know I've said it before but, having been involved in the issue, I've seen plenty of commitments and good intentions from people on e-waste over the last two years but it was Dell that delivered action.
PC users/buyers, if you're seeing your PC brand of choice now moving to reflect your own values on the environment, you've got Dell to thank for it, particularly those in Australia and New Zealand.

Dell, mini-notebooks and social media

You know, there are times I miss working at Dell -- and today is one of those. Take a look at this story from the Wall Street Journal but don't just read what the journalist wrote, read the comments like:

"Lionel Menchaca, and the rest of the Dell blogger team, are the best example of consumer outreach and engagement."

I've read dozens of comments like that in blog posts, stories about social media and even a recent episode of This Week in Tech -- and I haven't even really been looking.
It's hard to believe the team there has gone from this rocky first week to that WSJ story in just two years -- I don't think they get enough credit for it in PR circles.
Of course there are probably many more negative posts from people who haven't had a great Dell experience. But to me the point is no company is perfect, people and businesses make mistakes, and Dell's really succeeding in identifying and doing something about them.
Of course, the other thing I'm really missing this week is my staff discount now that images of the the upcoming Inspiron mini are out (kudos to David Flynn, the only Australian reporter to meet with Michael Dell in Austin this week, his take on the mini is here).

Law firms and Linked-In

Kevin O'Keefe, who runs a prominent law blog in the US, contacted me recently about Deacons' social media work and so I've been reading his site.
Found lots of interesting posts but one in particular -- a story about US law firms and Linked-in, argubly the leading social networking site for business people.
LexBlog: Largest law firms all have expanding firm profiles at LinkedIn
I thought it might be interesting to see how my own firm, Deacons, faired given our focus on innovation. So I checked and found we currently have 180-odd people on Linked-in (ie around 15 per cent).
That's not a bad result in comparison but it got me wondering about other Australian firms and so plugged in some other top ten names and got some interesting numbers.
The exercise proves nothing of course but it might be a useful indicator of innovation within the firms -- and it's certainly something I'll keep an eye on from time to time.

Who's blogging in Australian PR? ... Bueller?

Just back from the PR & Corporate Communications Summit and an interesting presentation from Gerry McCusker of the PR Disasters blog. What was most surprising was the response from the audience to a question Gerry posed.
Who is blogging? Gerry counted six hands out of around 120. I found that astounding!
Granted, I'm far from the world's most regular blogger and, though I wrote my first blog post back in 2004, this one has existed only for a few short months -- so my reaction may be hypocritical.
I appreciate too that having worked for two of the largest names in IT I've also been exposed to Web 2.0 (for want of a better term) more than most people working in PR.
And yes, I had the chance to see (albeit mostly from the side-lines here in Australia) how a large multinational, Dell, virtually turned on a dime in its approach to Web 2.0 and became a poster child.
But I can't help wondering, why aren't people who've demonstrated (by attending the seminar) that they want to learn also engaged in the single most influential change in the industry in 20 years?
Having defended this last week, I'm now wondering if Lee is right.
Personally, I've always had a short attention span for articles on PR itself but there are some excellent blogs by PR people around, including several from here in Australia (check my blogroll).

PostScript: I think this post from Shel Israel somes up the opportunity for communications people.

Saying "sorry" via Facebook

Yesterday morning when I got into the office (having walked through the crowds in Martin Place) I made my own personal 'sorry' declaration on Facebook via Twitter (I appreciate doing that achieves nothing in a practical sense but yesterday was all about the symbolism, right?).
When I next checked back at the end of the day I found lot of my friends had done the same. I can't recall having seen that happen before and I thought it was an interesting outcome of on-line social networks. I wondered how many others did the same.
Perhaps in the future we'll no longer need to ask our friends the 'where were you on that the day X happened?' question around significant events -- because we'll already know.
Update: Looks like Chloe Lake over at News had the same idea.
Update 2: Here's an interesting counterpoint: Radio callers outraged: I'm disgusted, says one. My reading of on-line opinion (after all blogs etc are now another way people share their views en-mass, talk back radio is no longer alone there) suggests many were supportive.