Add this to the list of “why blogs matter”. Back in January, Brobeck dissolved. For those that didn’t follow it at the time, it was a Big Deal. (At least, if you’re interested in the legal market.) In any event, I blogged my thoughts about the situation here, and had some follow-up comments on the entire ordeal. Mostly, I was frustrated that the conventional coverage (NY Times, Slate, SF Examiner) seemed to miss the point entirely.
Two weeks ago, I got an e-mail from Bob Cringely. He does a monthly column for Inc. magazine, and he was writing about what happens to the clients when law firms dissolve. He searched for information about Brobeck’s dissolution, and at the time my blog was the #1 search result at Google (it’s now #4). He was interested in what I had to say, and the next day we chatted by phone for about 20 minutes. End result – his column in the May issue of Inc. includes three or four quotes from me about the state of the legal market, and the risk of dissolution generally. (I’ll withold my comments until the article actually runs; I think there’s some important “back story” that will help explain a few of my comments.) This is, needless to say, great exposure.
Here’s the funny part – Cringely was on a list our PR firm had generated a couple weeks ago as someone we should pitch to for an upcoming media push we’re doing. In fact, the PR firm had already tried to contact him, but been ignored. (They later tried to claim that he contacted me because they’d proposed an article idea to him, but he had no idea they’d been in touch, and furthermore didn’t even know who I worked for at the time he called me.) I’m not saying PR firms aren’t useful – they are. But this is a perfect case study for the value of triangulating – in this case, I just threw a few opinions out into the ether.
Six weeks later, I got in Inc. magazine.
Yeah, I’d say this is going mainstream.
No comments:
Post a Comment