Gerry Riskin's Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management

Just wanted to say I'm enjoying Gerry Riskin's Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management [link to the 7th law and work backwards...]. Well worth the read!

Nice work Mr. Riskin! :-)

Building Online Profile Beyond Blogs

I have a new Slaw post up titled Building Online Profile Beyond Blogs.

Also, make sure to check out Connie Crosby's most recent addition on LLRX on the value of blogging!

2006/2007 VALL Executive

As mentioned in yesterday's VALL meeting, here is the 2006/07 Executive:

The Core Executive:
Past President - Susan Crysler
President: Johanne Blenkin
Vice President - Steve Matthews (yup, that guy)
Treasurer - Katie Heung
Membership- Teresa Gleave

The Program Committee:
Gwendoline Hoar
Deborah McLeod
Yoko Beriault

The Communications Committee:
Andy Froese
Kathy Barry
Christina Tribe
Susannah Tredwell

As I've mentioned before, VALL is full of friends and I get far more out of it than I could ever put in. It's a 3 year committment on my part, and I don't take it lightly. As you can probably guess, I'll be writing a lot more about VALL in the future, but for now let's just say I'm happy to be back.

Steven Cohen Comes Back to Law

Welcome back to Law Steven Cohen! Arising from the PubSub fallout, Steven is returning to his Law Library roots by joining Law Library Management, Inc..

Think his new company's going to get a profile boost? very shrewd hiring decision, IMO.

Congrats Steven! Now you can get Bonnie to add you to the 'Shucha List'!

Legal Marketing - TV & Radio -vs- Blogs

Library Boy, aka Michel-Adrien Sheppard, and Law Librarian at the Supreme Court of Canada, has posted his thoughts on the lack of French Canadian law bloggers.

Responding to an article (pg. 14) in the most recent edition of the National, Michel-Adrien suggests that the problem may have more to do with the fact that francophones have an easier time building profile with traditional media like TV & radio. Who needs a blog when the most popular forms of media are so accessible?

From the post:

"In Quebec, there is a tight little media world and any lawyer who attracts attention can easily and quickly get invited to all the major TV and radio studios, most of which are located within a 10-15 minute taxi ride of each other in Montreal (with perhaps a handful in Quebec City), and become known as an authority on an issue. They might even give you your own newspaper column or ask you to guest host a show segment (civil libertarian Julius Grey seems to be on Marie-France Bazzo's morning show Indicatif Présent on Radio-Canada almost every other week). Who needs blawgs?

That might be very pre-Web2.0 but that would be my theory."

Michel-Adrien's points seem valid, but I hope this doesn't stop potential francophone law bloggers from getting started. The value of blogging, from a marketing perspective, is the same regardless of language or media accessibility. And unlike a radio or TV interview, blog posts don't give you a profile spike once and then go away. A quality professional blog can become a body of work that will continue to demonstrate your expertise over a career. Building one's 'online profile' is fast becoming an essential marketing tool, and those without one are - simply put - invisible online.

Lord Denning Video

Check out this online video clip of Lord Denning from the LawProse Website!

New LTAIG Newsletter

The BCLA Library Technicians and Assistants Interest Group (LTAIG) has just published their first newsletter!

It was put together by the LTAIG committee, which includes fellow VALL member Emma Wood, who is acting as Editor. Emma also looks to be blogging SLA, for those in the local community keeping track. :-)

One other notable, kudos to LTAIG for posting that handy list of Canadian Library Technician programs on their website.

excited utterances is moving

Watch out! Our KM blogging friend excited utterances is moving, partnering and going entrepreneurial!

Before I get too far, home base has changed. Here's the new url: http://www.practicesource.com/excited/

So here's the scoop. Joy London has partnered up with Sean Hocking's Law Library News over at PracticeSource.com. The new publication is titled "Law Librarian News & excited utterances", and will now be a subscription service, with an annual price of $130 Canadian.

Under the new arrangement, excited utterances' archives will now be taken behind a subscription firewall. My only comment here is that I hope this situation doesn't destroy the growth of Joy's blog. It's rare, in my experience, for blogs do well outside the vision of the search engines where most new readers are likely to come from. That said, Joy's blog has an excellent reputation, and a strong word-of-mouth viral marketing aspect to it.

If you're an RSS subscriber, you'll want modify your feed to the new URL. Looks like the full text feed option is no longer available, dropping down to headlines only. Hopefully this is just a transition issue, and the RSS can get back to a full text delivery. (???)

For more than 4 years now, excited utterances has offered exceptional legal KM coverage, and I continue to be a big fan. This is a big step, and in many ways, a brave one. So best of luck to you Joy and Sean! My fingers are crossed.