Adding relationship capital to CRM...

Relationship capital is the term that Tom Baldwin actually uses in his latest posting:

"If you're firm is serious about leveraging its relationship capital, these tools shouldn't be overlooked."

The tools he is blogging about are Contact Networks and Branch-IT, both designed to get data in automatically and beyond what people usually needed to be forced to enter into a CRM. Tom sees two advantages in what he considers a "supplement" for or a "nice compliment" to CRM:

First, because they mine your firm's e-mail server and create individual contact records from e-mail your lawyers send and receive (filtering out spam and other junk mail) there's absolutely ZERO data entry required by lawyers or their secretaries...

These systems ... offer various access levels to contact information, which can provide lawyers a much greater level of control over the use of their contacts than in a traditional CRM system.

The second part kind of helped me overcome my initial doubts over the legal situation created by these systems. But then I am not a lawyer, so my doubts on legal issues are not exactly relevant. How would these systems be received ? I guess people are entitled to know about that. Would they agree ?

I wonder though what peer or career pressure would add to that. Anyways, as previously mentioned, Xpertfinder by Fraunhofer promised automation of expert discovery via emails and documents a couple of years ago. Maybe they were just around too early when intellectual capital was still a very shallow term for a lot of people and even less people had come to terms with relationship capital. Welcome to 2006, where this has changed.

What struck me on the website of Branch-IT was one sentence on the start page:

Recruiting: Find strong job candidates with the help of your employees. Cut out the recruiting middleman. Find objective references.

That sounds kind of familiar. Ask your buddies to work for the same firm you work for. Always a perfect match provided they (the firm and the buddies) think highly of you. But automate that? Would I like to take questions over friends of mine if they happen to apply for a job somehwere in a large organisation? Provide references, yes. Talk informally with my boss, yes. Take potentially personal questions about them, no. Talk to some HR manager from another office, yes, provided I know, trust and like the HR manager, otherwise, no.

I am unsure if people would accept this kind of knowledge being captured and used, but then again, Tom Baldwin seems to have a good perception for up- and coming software.

And in some cases automatically captured data may even do less damage than manually entered, subjective and potentially damaging data.

Neil Postman or why our shortened attention span is a tragedy

Huxley, not Orwell is the key message I took away from reading Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman and it has been a while since a book fascinated me this much. This book was published when I was 8 years old and I havent studied media studies, so I should be forgiven for blogging about it now. I dont think however that it has lost any relevance in the last 20 years. From the foreword:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

Postman shows how our culture has lost the ability to pursue an informed discourse and has turned to satisfy it's "infinite appetite for distractions", e.g. through TV news that allow 45 seconds per item and dont ask for or allow further analysis, a constant stream of irrelevant information to satisfy that appetite with the game Trivial Pursuit as the ultimate field of application for all this irrelevant information stored in our heads. Another interesting suggestion by Postman is that the average US citizen would not have recognised any of the first 15 presidents on the street, but would have known what they stood for from their speeches or published work. Try imagining this today :-)

The same "drowning in a sea of irrelevance" is true for today's business environment. I recently read somewhere (but I forgot where unfortunately) that we should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler and I am worried my own work in performance management does not adhere to this principle and that sometimes I tend to oversimplify things.

I do dread the next powerpoint presentation I will be forced to sit in on and I despise the predominant culture in any work environment I have come across to package everything in catch phrases and to expect short attention spans from the audience.

"Face time with management" is just not worth it when all you want to get across is two bullet points. We treat intelligent people like they are kids and people talk about the need to educate others to understand the principles of knowledge management. This is just so wrong.

However I try, I will fail to describe the essence of this great book and the impact on me in a short posting, just read it if you havent done so as yet, or follow one of these two links:

Remembering Neil Postman

Neil Postman Online

The usual pitch

What happens if a lawyer leaves a Magic Circle firm because he cant cope with long hours and all the travelling anymore and starts with a boutique firm shortly after? A friend of mine started with a local firm last Monday for exactly these reasons and guess what - he didnt sleep home Tuesday night and left for Eastern Europe on Wednesday. No, he is not back as yet and his wife is not pleased. I guess he himself is not too pleased either as the new firm had promised him that he would have a life again...

He has fallen for a good version of the usual law firm pitch, my favourite version of which can be found on Anonymous Lawyer:

We have a culture of collaboration. We have a commitment to cooperation. We have an open-door policy. You advance at your own pace. We give you as much responsibility as you can handle. There is no face time. You set your own hours. We treat you like the professional you are. We work hard, but we play hard. It’s all about the people. We have great people. The people here are like nowhere else. You’ll do good work everywhere, but it’s the people that make the difference. You will love the people here.

We place a premium on collegiality. We strive to maintain an informal working atmosphere. We are committed to diversity. We treat each other with dignity and respect. We know what really matters in life. Our benefit package is state of the industry. We provide cars home if you’re working late. We provide meals. We provide coffee. We provide a brand-new laptop. Our information technology services are top-notch. Our word processing center is open twenty-four hours a day. Our client services department is there to meet your every need. Our support staff is magnificent.

...The people make all the difference. You’ve never seen such a collection of people. I’m constantly amazed by the people here. The people here are unbelievable. We strive to find the best and the brightest people we can. Our people are truly special. It sounds like a cliché, but I promise, you will love the people here, you really will.

It looks like "Anonymous Lawyer: The Novel" by Jeremy Blachman could be available soon. Also, Jeremy's personal blog just moved from blogger to typepad. I would move mine the day I get proper tagging like on flickr.com...