Professional Update
A
monthly newsletter for KZN Attorneys from the Kwazulu-Natal Law Society

31 July 2009

This professional service draws attention to current and important items of news
 and members are directed to the hosts' websites

 

InfoUpdate 17 of 2009
Useful Links
and Items of Interest 
 

 
Miscellaneous E-Things

Facebook

Lawyers and law firms on Facebook - 28 July
We've compiled a list of lawyers and law firms on Facebook (specifically: lawyers, law firms, and legal professionals using Facebook Business Pages as part of their online strategy). We like lists (think: Lawyers to Follow on Twitter), but also thought now might be a good time to start tracking what feels like a trend : an increasing interest by businesses and professionals, including legal professionals, to cultivate and engage their audiences on Facebook. (Given the number of people who use the platform daily, this makes sense. Meet your audience where it gathers.) - J D Scoop website

Social Media

Welcome to the future : oh so social? - 28 July
As we often do, many lawyers react to the notion of social networking by first trying to come up with reasons why it might be bad. Maybe the best place to begin is with the word "social." Lawyer skeptics understand "social" to describe the purpose, i.e., something different from professional. But social simply means distributed, as in different people use the tool in their own way, and the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Certainly e-mail is a social tool - it's used to communicate, used by different people and in different ways, and used just as much, if not more, for personal rather than business reasons. It was not so long ago - 1992 to be exact - that most lawyers declared they would never use e-mail. - The AM Law Daily website

See :
Social networking for the legal profession - June 2009
These are fascinating times for the legal profession, which is adapting to the recession and grappling with the role of new technology in creating the firm of the future. Law firms and in-house legal counsel are turning to social technology, not just because it is novel, but because it promises the kind of cost savings, value enhancement and business transformation potential they need to emerge from the downturn as leaner, more competitive organisations. - Penny Edwards on the Headshift blog

Twitter

Do you have a Twitter account?
MBA members can now add Twitter screen names to their MBA profiles. This will allow the MBA to follow you on Twitter. You may also opt to include your Tweets in the MBA members feed. - Massachusetts Bar Association website

Government advice urges tweeting - 27 July
New government guidance has been published urging civil servants to use the micro-blogging site Twitter. Launched on the Cabinet Office website, the 20-page document is calling on departments to "tweet" on "issues of relevance or upcoming events". The website is already used by Downing Street, the Foreign Office and many individual MPs. - BBC News website

See :

Template Twitter strategy for Government Departments - 21 July
Cabinet Office website

The other $50 000 defamation lawsuits awaiting Chicago tweeter - 28 July
The Web is buzzing about the $50 000 defamation suit that Horizon Realty has filed against Amanda Bonnen of Chicago. It’s based on a comment Bonnen made on Twitter. One little tweet! Bonnen has 20 followers on Twitter. @Horizon - Gosh, you are now the laughingstock of just about every blogger on the Internets. That tweet went from being viewed by 20 of Bonnen's followers, to being reproduced and viewed by millions on the World Wide Web. - True / Slant website

Twitter lawsuit, what should business learn? - 30 July
Horizon Group Management has probably by now figured out that suing a tenant over an uncomplimentary tweet was probably not the best course. If the company had been worried that a tweet about a supposedly moldy apartment would damage its reputation, it has certainly magnified that effect probably millions of times. Forgive me if, should I move to Chicago, I choose not to rent from a company that describes itself as a "sue first and ask questions later kind of an organization" as though it is a virtue. - PC World website

InfoUpdate : an Information Service supplied by the KwaZulu-Natal Law Society