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The new websites of BPP and the Bar Standards Board are paradigms of excellent website design
In many ways, the website is likened to the ‘shop window’ of the organisation. It is the visible part of an organisation, which is vital for attracting new stakeholders. It also acts a pivotal part of the knowledge sharing mechanism. Furthermore, it can portray a strong brand, if it has a robust brand identity, which ensures loyalty amongst its audience.
The new websites of BPP and the Bar Standards Board are both worth looking at. BPP is one of the most important professional educational providers especially in law and business-related disciplines. The Bar Standards Board is pivotal in regulating the Barristers.
I like the BPP website very much as it is visually very attractive. In addition to presenting its formidable strength in professional subjects such as accountancy, banking and finance, law, leadership and personal development, I thought that the section on disability support for students was truly excellent. As a student who has studied the GDL at Waterloo, and the MBA at St Mary Axe, I am now in a third centre, Holborn. All there sites have treated me as a person who feels valued as part of a wider community, and have gone out of their way to support me reach the highest professional standards in my postgraduate studies. I can only compare this to my legal training to the College of Law, for my Masters of Law, which I felt was exceptional too. I can only compare this to Cambridge University where I did other undergraduate studies and my Ph.D., but the focus on teaching at BPP and the College of Law in my personal belief is much more focused and impressive.
Likewise, I really like the new Bar Standards Board website. I have student enrolment with the SRA, but again the presentation of this website is immaculate. It effortlessly presents various issues such as the Code of Conduct, recent consultations (including the BCAT proposals), specialist regulatory requirements (including equality and diversity, both extremely important subjects to disabled individuals like me), and professional conduct for barristers. Its layout is uncluttered, and not overwhelming at all.
Both @BPPLawSchool and @barstandards follow the @LegalAware on Twitter, and it’s therefore extremely rewarding to be part of a wider, positive, network.
Two novel social media innovations by law firms creating social value: the cases of Eversheds (@legaltrainee) and Inksters
Law firms are increasingly embracing innovation as a source of competitive advantage within the UK. Innovation allows an unique strategic marketing niche for law firms within a highly competitive marketplace, and offers law firms a means to improve on market share and market growth. In management of these firms, especially in the contemporary landscape of alternative business structures, such flexibility and adaptability can mean that firms such as Eversheds and Inksters flourish, whereas older, bigger incumbent firms struggle.
Fundamental to the definition of an innovation is an idea or product which is easily understandable; that then ‘diffuses’ across to ‘adopters’ within a wider ‘network’, who can then decide to make or break an idea. Google+ is an idea but its ultimate survival depends on whether the general public take to it, in the way that they have taken to Facebook; indeed, Facebook announced its IPO today. The network no longer consists of employees, including trainees, within the firm; it is much wider, critically involving now the general public, other clients, potential clients, and even potential trainees. In this post, I describe two innovative uses of the social media by two law firms: @Inksters and the trainee account of @Eversheds, called @LegalTrainee, both involving Twitter. Inherent in the innovations is full participation by the intended audience in determining the success of the innovation; this is reflected indeed in the tagline of ‘Legal Trainee’, “this is not just a brochure, this is conversation” (as depicted here).
Inksters decided to send out Christmas hats through the post in a campaign which is still going strong, and @LegalTrainee decided to offer a competition whereby a law student who had put ‘@LegalTrainee’ into his or her profile could win coffee with a partner of Eversheds. Both were relatively simple ideas, but were remarkably successful. I put various questions to Brian Inkster of @Inksters and Ismat Abidi, a trainee solicitor of Eversheds @LegalTrainee, earlier this week. As explained here, @LegalTrainee is not simply a Twitter account, but is how Eversheds has embraced the social media in a number of different platforms.
Both are great examples of how an organic social media marketing campaign should be conducted. Indeed, for a wider discussion of the social media issues, a brilliant short book has been written by Guy Clapperton called ‘This is Social Media: Turning Social Media into Sales’ (this book, newly published by Capstone, is available in Kindle and iBook formats too, and available from here). This updated book is especially great for practical tips throughout the text, including “action point” boxes, with a variety of topics covered such as content, tone, business analytics, platforms for innnovation, and returns-on-investment. Guy discusses in his book the critical issue of participant behaviour; implicit in his argument is the convergence of the culture and mindset of the two parties, and fundamentally increasing brand awareness. This is certainly no mean feat, as it is all about the ultimate holy grail of marketing – discovering new members of the target audience.
Brian Inkster (Inksters)
1. What is the concept behind the ‘Inksters hats’ campaign?
Inksters rebranded in December 2011. The new brand reflects Inksters’ place in the legal market as forward thinking lawyers and incorporates an arrow device. This points to Inksters’ care for detail, progressive approach and the fact that we direct clients and lead the way.
2. Where did the idea come from?
As part of the rebranding exercise we asked our designers, O Street, to design a Christmas Card to launch the rebrand. They came up with the idea of a Christmas Hat as the cut out in the Christmas Crown reflects the arrow device in our new logo. Indeed, as with the hat, on our new notepaper and business cards the arrow is actually cut out of the paper/card rather than being printed on it.
3. Why has the campaign been such a success?
Social media has really made it a success. We printed on the hats an e-mail address to send photos to but the vast majority of the photos received have been tweeted to us. Tumblr was an excellent blogging platform to post the hat photos and Twitter quotes to. Setting up the Tumblr blog with the www.inksterschristmashats.com domain enabled the hats and quotes to be showcased. This combined with Twitter was a winning combination. Tweeps tweeted about receiving the hat and/or tweeted photos of it on themselves, their pets, toys or elsewhere. Other Tweeps who had not received hats asked if they could get one and we were still just a week ago (which is a month after Christmas) posting them out. We are now into February and still have the promise of some hat photos over the next week including someone who has a carefully planned photo to take this coming weekend! All of this has kept Inksters Christmas Hats in peoples minds well beyond Christmas and given it a longevity that a standard Christmas card would never have had.
Ismat Abidi (@LegalTrainee)
1. Why does Eversheds, through @legaltrainee, consider it important that applicants understand the work and culture of the firm through social media?
A Trainee gets as much out of a TC as they put into it. It’s also no secret that Trainees that most closely fit the firm’s culture will be the most valuable to the firm, get the most out of their training experience and become more likely to secure an NQ position with that firm. It’s really a two way process, so by finding applicants that fit this bill at the graduate recruitment stage, it’s a win-win situation for both sides. That’s why it’s important that applicants understand the work and culture of the firm. It’s not crucial that this is done through social media, but social media is the best way for Trainees and Graduate Recruitment to engage in real and live conversation with potential candidates. It’s like a 24-7 international networking event where recruiters and candidates can come and go as they please. What’s even better is that all conversations are public, so unlike face-to-face networking events, students can see what other candidates are asking and join in discussions between recruiters, legal bloggers and other students.
2. In addition to offering the competition, how does @LegalTrainee use social media to achieve an innovative, competitive edge in securing the best applicants ?
@LegalTrainee isn’t just a Twitter account – it’s an entire project using three social media platforms: Brave New Talent, Facebook and Twitter, which are integrated with one another. Chances are that our target applicants use at least one of these platforms. The competitive edge is that we’re offering a live brochure to candidates (our slogan is: This is not a brochure, this is conversation), which no other firm really does at the level of direct engagement we’re involved with right now. Aside from the project itself being innovative (@LegalTrainee recently won the SoMe Graduate Recruitment Award 2012 for Best Use of Twitter), Eversheds allows real Trainees from across its international offices to manage and run these accounts using mobile devices and engage directly with press/candidates/any other followers. It ’ s not the PR team or graduate recruitment that followers are speaking to (though they do monitor the account), it’s the real trainees talking about their real experiences at the firm – something that hasn’ t previously been done before in the legal world.
3. Why do you think that the various competitions run through @LegalTrainee have been so successful in reaching new candidates?
It’s unfortunate that there’s no other way to sift through large volumes of high-calibre applications more efficiently than online applications. We’ve all been through it (most of us have done so several times) and it can be a really grating process. You could be an absolutely ideal candidate and for one reason or another, have a bad numbers day and fail the numerical reasoning test, which means your application automatically stops there. I applied to Eversheds in 2005 and again in 2007 (with a supposed destined-to-fail-in-a-TC-hunt 2:2), so I know what it’s like. These competitions that Eversheds run offer a chance for those who otherwise didn’t get through the standard application process. Unlike spending an evening filling in your work experience and grades in an online form, the way to enter these competitions is quite refreshing for law students. It can range from submitting a video/song/blog with a friend to win work experience in our Hong Kong office or simply following a Twitter account to win coffee with one of our Trainee Partners. If I was still searching for a TC, I’d definitely enter these sorts of competitions.
This is a general article about law firms, social value and social innovation ; LegalAware has received nothing in the production of this article which is a freely-written opinion, and please note that the article is not representative of the views of BPP or the BPP Legal Awareness Society. The blogpost is a personal academic viewpoint of @Legalaware.
CubeSocial: an important network innovation
Linda Cheung and Mark Bower must be congratulated on what I think is an important contribution to facilitating communication both within and between individuals and organisations. It’s an easy-to-use, attractive, “start up”, called “CubeSocial” – their blog is a very good introduction to their approach, in fact. Where good ideas come from, in the context of innovation and the enlightenment, is all down to our social interactions. The whole is considered to be more than the sum of the individual parts, and often, through notions such as “the adjacent possible“, new innovative ideas can emerge. The environment is considered to be crucial for forging links between individuals and their ideas, and this is indeed at the heart of the internet – idea creation is mooted to have been previously the domain of “the coffee house”. Here’s Steven Johnson, a major proponent of network innovations, on the network philosophy.
CubeSocial is an innovation in the true principles of network design. It builds on an important concept in corporate management; that social capital can be as important as, or even more important, than material resources. The platform is available here. Its stated aim on its home page, which is uncluttered, accessible and informative, is ‘Discover your contacts’ social media profiles, join the right conversations and grow your business’. Its aim is to mine information in your social media profiles, including the usual suspects such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and to construct intelligently the conversations which are taking place within them. Its market positioning is clear, in that it seems ideally placed for an individual within any jurisdiction. Its pricing strategy, such that you can opt to pay for a ‘basic’ or ‘plus’ package, makes sense as a classic price discrimination strategy, outlined here; the cost of the package is reasonable, and the two basic tiers allow for personal and corporate customers.
There are many basic features of CubeSocial which are attractive, and indeed vital for it functioning as a valid innovative contribution. One is trialability – in other words, you can see if CubeSocial is for you, without parting with any money – and compatibility, in that it works well with various cloud social media platforms and operating systems effortlessly. Is CubeSocial doing anything fundamentally different from another service? The questions it poses are indeed sensible (reproduced below), but the danger is that incorrect use of CubeSocial might mean that you are missing out on potential clients. If it works well, it would save time, and potentially sort out the signal from noise which is the ultimate nirvana of networking.
The questions are:
? How can I use social media to get to know my existing clients better?
? How can I find people that need my product or service right now?
? Which social media platforms are relevant to my business and where should I invest my time?
Like all innovations, the ‘success’ of the innovation will ultimately be determined by its uptake, and feedback from customers. Whilst many technological innovations seem like a ‘fun’ idea, the acid test will be as to whether personal or corporate customers will wish to allocate resources into a platform of CubeSocial. There may be some people who enjoy using Facebook or Twitter, who are very hands-on, who will prefer to use their selective attention cognitively to filter the mass of information themselves. I have no idea how customers will react to it, other than the product is very attractively presented, is very easy to use, and does not suffer from any technical issues. It is very reliable, being built on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The risks of using CubeSocial are indeed the same for the use of any of the social media platforms built into it, like Facebook: privacy, security, and confidentiality. I have personal experience of Microsoft Azure as a cloud platform, and can faithfully report that it is considered to be excellent within the industry. Supplier stability is essential in this regard.
Part of the difficulties in understanding whether the approach will be useful for the customer of CubeSocial lies in the known difficulties with the ‘network approach’ in technological innovation. That is where it is critically to be aware of the existence of ‘lead users’ in its adoption, which are provided in a testimonials page of CubeSocial. I found most relevant this testimonial by @JonBloor, as Jon is a significant lead user with an expertise in both business law and technology. Jon provides the following.
The concept is simple, but well executed …worth a look for anyone using Twitter for business purposes (lawyers or otherwise)
More network clients do not necessarily mean a higher quality of information, as introducing more clients can introduce more ‘noise’. Noise is nothing new, of course; there was a lot of noise even in coffee houses, as depicted by Hogarth.
There is no doubt that CubeSocial has the ability for individuals to develop ‘the slow hunch’ before the epiphany of their idea creation. There will clearly be people who will benefit from CubeSocial, and those who will not, and this does not necessarily depend upon the size of their network. Some networks will contain ‘stars’, individuals who are highly connected within their networks, or ‘boundary spanners’, individuals who will broker relationships between the networks. The problem comes if the network which have a high number of ‘isolates’, individuals who might be relatively disconnected from the network, but who do turn out to be surprisingly ‘high worth’ at some stage.
In summary, CubeSocial is more than another cloud invention. The idea behind it as an innovation, and its value and worth will be ultimately determined by its customers. If CubeSocial can build a sound business case for its uptake in corporate clients, the business plan of CubeSocial would be in safe territory, I feel. Clients will be quick to note that CubeSocial is fast to implement any technological improvements to make the platform ‘better’, such as the recently announced Gmail integration.
America Invents Act 2011 – a long way from Lincoln
The history of innovation in the US is formidable. Abraham Lincoln had an avid interest in cutting-edge technology. As an attorney, he represented railroads. During the Civil War, he frequented the telegraph office (which provided the instant-messaging of its day) for the latest news from the front, and was actively involved in directing troops. He encouraged weapons development and even tested some new rifles himself on the White House lawn. He is, in fact, the only US president to hold a patent (No. 6469, granted May 22, 1849). It was for a device to lift riverboats over shoals.
The US is very proud of its record on innovation, more than its history in innovation, some might say. In his 2011 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama, championing US innovation, research and development, called on Americans to “win the future“, This, he said, is “our generation’s Sputnik moment.” The Senate approved a sweeping reform of the nation’s patent laws on Thursday, sending to Obama an Act that changes the system for determining priority for inventions at the patent office, and provides more financing for an agency beset by application backlogs and outdated computer systems.
State of the problems
It now takes, on average, two years to get a preliminary ruling on an application, and an additional year for final grant, according to the US patents office. The Internet age, furthermore, has created a surge in applications: in 1997, 2.25 patents were pending for every one issued, but by 2008 the rate had nearly tripled, to 6.6 patents pending for every one issued, according to patent office statistics. A backlog of about 700,000 applications is made worse by computer systems that are out of date, according to Gary F. Locke, the current US Scretary of Commerce.
The America Invents Act (formerly the Patent Reform Act of 2011)is the product of extensive consideration. For four Congresses, the US have worked on this. A principal justification for the impending changes to patent law is that they will promote technological progress in the United States (and thus create jobs). It will possibly change America’s inventor-friendly patent system to favor whoever files for an application first. The House of Representatives passed their version of the Act on June 23, 2011 by a vote of 304-117. After rejecting proposed amendments to a bill approved by the House last June, the Senate voted 89 to 9 to pass the bill, completing an effort of at least six years to overhaul the patent office’s operations and the procedures by which patents can be challenged. The full text of the Act can be accessed here from JD Supra.
Some interesting key features of the new Act are as follow.
Changes to Novelty Rules
The shift to a first to file system is central to the America Invents Act. This provision has the potential to encourage early disclosures of information by the inventor. Although prima facie it appears to provide no more ability for inventors to engage in disclosures than the existing one-year statutory bar, under which an inventor was free to disclose whatever it wanted for the one-year period prior to filing, it perhaps may result in more disclosures than under the present structure. A disclosure race may be encouraged. It is perhaps rather simpler to award patents to the first person that files an application, regardless of whether or not they are the original inventor.
The new Act arguably favours big corporations who can file patents as soon as they hear about a new invention. Several groups representing small businesses, entrepreneurs and early-stage investors have said that change puts small companies, which usually account for the bulk of new jobs, and individuals at a disadvantage to large companies that employ fleets of patent lawyers. Many large corporations — like General Electric, Caterpillar and IBM — supported the bill, which opponents suggested was evidence that the bill favors behemoths at the expense of the little guy.
Creation of a Prior User Defense
Even as the changes to the novelty rules seem to encourage early peripheral disclosures of technological information, at least for US-only inventors, the creation of a prior user defense pushes towards less disclosure. The types of inventions that the prior user defense most applies to are those with the capability of being protected through secrecy. A prior user defense is less important for inventions whose workings are readily understandableM once they are placed on the market because these products already represent potentially invalidating prior art; thus, this type of defense is considered to have most relevance for non-self disclosing inventions, a category that includes many processes.
Elimination of Best Most Requirement
Section 15 of H.R. 1249 effectively eliminates the best mode requirement by amending the list of invalidity defense to exclude best mode While the best mode requirement remains in 35. U.S.C. 112, and thus theoretically could be used by a patent examiner to reject an application, failure to disclose best mode may also not be a basis for holding a patent unenforceable any longer.
Post-grant review
The Act currently contains a provision for an eight-year period of postgrant review of patents already issued. The measure was specifically aimed at so-called business method patents, which provide protection for a unique method of performing a task. The measure was, in fact, heavily favoured by the banking industry, which has been beset by patent infringement suits over things like electronic imaging of paper checks.
