Social Intelligence = Business Intelligence

Hello All –

Recently I have been hearing a fair amount of folks (conferences or otherwise) use the vernacular of “current awareness” to describe an effort to stay abreast of what’s being said about clients, prospects, industries, issues, etc.  However, the reality is that “current awareness” is really only 1/2 the equation, at best.  We here at Manzama are much more interested in what we like to refer to as “current understanding.”  That is, how can we help our clients develop more strategic and insightful reference points in and around clients, prospects, industries, etc.  An effort that, well, that requires much more than simply building awareness.  It requires analysis, relative views and perspectives in and around information and so forth.  Accomplishing this can be done via outside editors, but it can also be accomplished with the use of tool to help one analyze and assess information on their terms.

Frankly, I had a hard time finding meaningful information on the topic (click here for some helpful information on the topic), so, perhaps the distinction is just important to me, but nevertheless, I believe it will not be the last time I use the term:).

All the best,

Peter

Last week we highlighted a few ways that users can use Manzama to establish and maintain thought leadership. I wanted to share another example of how you can leverage social media using Manzama.

It became widely known Monday that Yahoo has purchased the photo-sharing site Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Using Manzama, you would have known about this potential purchase since Thursday last week when rumors started hitting the tech blogs and Twitter. Expressed by the Manzama “Timeline Chart,” a user would have been able to notice a significant spike in blog and Twitter traffic around Yahoo.

The news exploded on the blogs and Twitter starting Thursday and throughout Friday. Illustrated here by a significant increase in tweets around Yahoo. When you click into they spike you learn there is speculation that Yahoo board of directors were going to meet over the weekend to approve the deal (before they received a competing bid).  The major spike in Twitter chatter occurred a full two days before major news outlets began running the story.

This is an example of how Manzama’s monitoring of a clients media mentions, media would have given a user a 2-4 day advantage over people relying on main stream media.

I recently had the opportunity to attend the ILTA Luncheon on the usability of Twitter in law firms. It reinforced why, here at Manzama, we focus on finding insights from social media platforms as well as major media sources. The focus of the gathering was how lawyers are not just using Twitter as a marketing tool, but also as a service to connect them to relevant information.  I wanted to highlight just some of the ways Manzama can help lawyers with finding and sharing specific insights within social media.

As lawyers find interesting content, they can repurpose it directly to Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook using the Manzama toolbar.  Repurposing content is a great way for attorneys to be seen as thought leaders and stay top of mind with clients and prospects.  This also gives lawyers a platform to interact and engage in conversation with other thought leaders in the area, providing deeper insight into the topic.

Manzama also allows individuals or teams (client/practice/industry) to monitor Twitter.  Because Twitter is the epitome of drinking from a firehouse, it is very hard to monitor information around clients, industries/practice or general topical areas (fracking or unmanned drones).  Manzama allows Twitter content to be filtered and narrowed bringing the universe of tweets down to a manageable level so that you can easily see  issues you care about graphically highlighted as spikes within discussions.

With Manzama, a lawyer has the ability to track an industry topic around a specific client. Often, mentions of a potential story breaks on Twitter long before it’s covered in the major media outlets. Having the ability to track a particular client mention via Twitter gives a lawyer the edge they need to proactively act on an issue. This slight edge could be a critical advantage needed to protect a client’s risk.

Google, the company that changed the way we get information and influences which information we receive,  just announced that they are retiring Google Reader as of July 1st, 2013. We read the headline when the news broke, and more importantly, waited for the reactions to the development.

Google Reader performs a part of one of the basic services Manzama provides: the aggregation of news feeds. Many professionals outside of Law rely on Google Reader to try and keep up to date on Industry developments. Think Google Alerts before you replaced them with Manzama Alerts. So it took less than 12 hours before those professionals reacted to the news of its demise:

Google Reader, please don’t go — I need you to do my job!

The author, Laura Hazard Owen, is a journalist that ranks a news reader as one of the top 3 essential apps for her job.  She ranks it higher than email (though predictably just below coffee).  Her story is not unique.  In order to perform our jobs today, we need a way to manage information, like Google Reader.  This axiom affect all of us, and each of us likely has a personal solution.

Manzama offers more.  We recognize the need to manage information as simply the basic business problem at the nexus of your new reality.  The reality is this: in order to excel at our jobs, we need a way for information to find us, like Manzama.

Manzama differs from other tools in that it can be trained to know something about you and to serve you what you care about.

Google may have lifted a motto from Caeser: Veni Vedi Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered)

Mannzama creates its own: Quid Vobis Curat (What you care about)

Recently Manzama was published in Marketing The Law Firm, an ALM Publication.  For those that subscribe to the newsletter, you can get the story in its entirety, but the genesis of the article was the “personalization of business intelligence.”  If I had to talk about the evolution of the consumption of business intelligence I would say the progression has evolved as follows:

• 1990s: Internet content usage creates new venues for companies and organizations to “message” what it is they care about — enter blogs, news sites, etc.  At this stage, information overload is not really an issue;
• 1995+: Content proliferation reaches critical point of “too much.”  Many industries (including the legal profession) begin to rely on third party providers/curators of information to get better intelligence on clients, practices, industries, etc.  For example, a firm might subscribe to a renewable energy newsletter to stay abreast of developments within that industry;
• 2000 – 2006/7:  Consumers of intelligence want to see more specifics, less interest in seeing what everyone else is getting via newsletter or alert.  Law firms begin to invest in “high-touch” organizations that curate content to various practice, client or industry teams.
• 2008+ :  Outsourcing curation gets expensive, especially in light of the fact that markets have become more “micro” in nature, users (including lawyers) expect to see intelligence that hits their inbox be relevant to their needs.  Typical alerts are too broad and it’s costly to get granular.  Technology starts to enter into the equation in late 2008.  The result is “personalized business intelligence.”  More and more this is what we hear from lawyers –help me understand the issues that are emerging, risk points and trending concepts within an industry, client, practice or theme in general.  Oh, and make it easy.  Tall order, but that’s the game we are in and it’s really a lot of fun.

All the best,

Peter

A colleague recently shared this post with me from Slaw (Canadian On Line Legal Magazine). The basic premise among other concepts discussed is that people do not want to “search” they want to “find” information, implying they don’t like to construct long queries, etc.    I’d like to take that thinking a step further and argue that people do not only not want to “find” information vs. created query upon query in hopes of locating the “knowledge” or “insight” that others are unable to locate, rather, the trend is moving toward “information finding you.”  Broadly speaking, the adoption of tools and user habits for professional and enterprise software users lags the consumer world.   Think “ease of use” and “social like features” first found in Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and later migrating to business/enterprise applications.  Along these lines, one trend we see here at Manzama is “information finding you,” think “Groupon” making its way into business/enterprise applications. This said, of course there’s still discernment with respect to “is this information valuable, once it finds me,” but the expectation is I am not always out there looking.

At Manzama we have strived to achieve this result from day one, and, not surprisingly, it’s not easy, but as we “learn more,” we can deliver a better result as well as contextualize these results vs. a long list of thousands of “possible stories of interest.”  Likewise, more and more, you’ll see what used to be a complex search (think boolean characters, parameter searching, etc.) become a part of the algorithms themselves, hence, even for the “searcher” this should reduce their efforts to find information.  Finally, we need to think of the information from a different perspective — that is a “relative” perspective.  That is, is what I just found an important  ”insight” to a few or to many?  And, how do I know this (think measurement, trend analysis, predictive analytics, source of information)?  As the bucket of information becomes larger (think Big Data), the methods to locate the knowledge and assess its value need to evolve.   For example, if one was able to see an increase in FCPA blogger discussions as pertaining to settlements with pharma companies  over the last three (3) months, is there an opportunity to get ahead of the issue and manage the risk sooner with your pharma/bio tech companies?

PJO

I often wonder how statistics like that from Harvard Business Review in April 2012: “Fewer than 44% of employees know where to find information they need for their day-to-day activities.”  At first glance, I say “so what?”  We seem to be a fairly productive society, or, so we believe.  However, the more time I spend analyzing issue and understanding the importance of data (and I am not talking just metrics on a company’s or firm’s performance — a lagging indicator), the more convinced I am that a deeper understanding of data across many perspectives = greater probability of success.  This said, it’s pretty clear to me that the range of investment and interest in leveraging data varies, sometimes this is evidenced by a firm’s commitment to understanding.  I’d like to share some data points on a summary I recently read on “Big Data, Why it matters — prove it,” from the Economist Intelligence Unit. I actually added the “prove it” part of this statement, but the articles describes the various levels of commitment an organization will devote to data and how that translates to success (or lack thereof):

• Data Wasters = “30% of data wasters don’t prioritize data collection.  Yet 70% collect data, and still severely underuse them.  These companies under-perform financially, and can be found in any industry.”

Quick facts: (a) suffer from poor alignment between business and IT; (b) far more focused on improving internal operations and far more focused on internal reporting in particular; (c) put mid-level managers in charge of their data strategies; (d) struggle with data management skills.

• Data Collectors = recognize the importance of data collection, but lack resources.

Quick facts; (a0) submerged in data; (b) most likely to put senior IT person in charge of data; (c) suffer from poor IT/Business Alignment; (d) struggle most with data quality, accuracy and reconciliation; (e) do not invest in “skills” to manage data.

• Aspiring Data Managers = Fully embrace importance of data for future.

Quick facts: (a) They allow data to inform strategic decisions; (b) companies in communication and retail space are most likely to be found in this category; (c) slightly less likely to put CEO in charge of this strategy; (d) currently leverage internal data, but hoping to put more data to consumer/client facing issues; (e) unlike strategic data managers, still struggle to clean and reconcile data; (f) 66% put only half of valuable data to use; (g) they are most likely to complain they have too much data and not enough resources.

• Strategic Data Managers = Most advanced.  Most often found among manufacturing, financial services and technology companies.  Strategic managers first identify strategy and then get data that helps them better understand how to get there.

Quick Facts:  (a) Use a high percentage of data they collect; (b) A C-Level exec runs their data operation; (c) invest heavily in all aspects of data management; (d) explore emerging data sets for value.

I suppose only a couple of question remains — where are you today?  And, if need to, how are you going to change your scenario?

All the best,

Peter

Tim does an excellent job of laying out the challenges law firms are facing today, especially as it pertains to the need for “data” to impact business development relationships.  On a related point, Tim talks about understanding which markets make sense to pursue — said another way it’s about “micro markets,” see post on this blog in 2011. His comments on the need to better analyze internal and external data as it pertains to a firm’s growth efforts underscore the need for new process, thinking and systems.  Most firms I work with acknowledge this to be true, but it’s really about execution and use of the information to drive the business (a practice I am not sure many firms are accustomed to).  Internal (helps you with profitability), external (social media, news, industries) helps you with skating to where the puck will be.  In either case, Tim suggests decisions should be “data driven.”

In any event, I encourage folks to see the full video here.

A few other data points that we believe are driving the need for more aggressive and sophisticated business development tactics/strategies:

•Prior to 2009, demand for legal services exceeded supply.  Since that time, revenue generation in many of these core disciplines is flat or in decline.

•Law firms are placing greater emphasis on business development and increasing their investments in resources accordingly.

•IBM CIO Study – BI and Analytics (Big Data) are # 1 Priority for CIO’s in 2012 in terms of new technology investment.

•Harvard Business Review, fewer than 44% of employees indicate they know where to find information when they need it.

•Forrester Report – Social Intelligence (information in the public domain) & Business Intelligence are not possible without a technology platform.

All the best,

Peter

I recently had a great conversation with the principal/managing partner at Threshold Advisor, Karen Kahn.  Karen expressed to me that her work with AMLAW 100 Firms points to “industry” focus.  While this in and of itself may not be a unique relevation of sorts, the insight within the statement was “how” do you right a ship that has had a historical focus on practice area development and/or “execute” to an industry strategy.  Without giving away all the specifics, it’s about the roles the lawyers and partnership to deliver a system/process that can truly help a firm/partnership execute on an industry strategy.  In any event, I encourage the read, which can be discovered herein: http://www.thresholdadvisors.com/differentiate-yourself-with-knowledge/

A quick snippet: “Only 40.9% of inhouse counsel reported that the law firms with whom they work understood their business; 85.8% said that they would find it valuable for firm lawyers to possess knowledge about the industry in which the business operates.”

All the best,

Peter

As seen in….

Business intelligence (BI) was long ago adopted into mainstream business practices, but it has only recently begun to be incorporated into the law firm environment.

Taking its cues from business process improvement strategies Law firms have started to look at the data they collect in order to improve client relationships, maximize costs, and essentially harness the data flowing through the firm for a variety of purposes.

Managing Partner Magazines new report Business Intelligence in Law Firms takes a practical view of BI and breaks down the data sets available to many of the non-legal parts of law firms and explains how understanding the underlying data in these areas of law firm management can improve competitive advantage through BI.

Business Intelligence in Law Firms provides a thorough understanding of key BI concepts and their application in a law firm.

Through the use of practical examples from legal or other industries this report covers topics including:

• Underscoring a competitive advantage through the use of BI
• The use of BI practices across multiple verticals and how the use of BI in a law firm differs
• Business intelligence inputs within a law firm
• The fundamental steps to creating and nurturing a successful BI program in a law firm
• Challenges or ‘speed bumps’ to be aware of with regards to implementing BI into your firm
• What each management area of law firms has to offer in terms of BI
• Using BI to change the way a firm thinks about revenue and profitability
• Capturing information to transform a firm’s efficiency and increase its bottom line
• Marketing intelligence and using BI as a key marketing differentiator
• BI’s impact on legal project management and E-discovery
• Secure intelligence – protecting what one knows

This report also features firsthand experience and case studies from law firms and service providers including the likes of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, Carlson & Wolf, Seyfarth Shaw, Acritas, Best Best & Krieger, IntApp, Sirkin Advisors amongst others, on how they have achieved BI success in their organizations, they provide insights into:

• The inclusion of individual lawyers and understanding their part in the BI process
• Legal project management – the use of process mapping
• Market research as a business intelligence input
• Competitive intelligence and brand development
• Globalization and revenue growth
• The future of big data in law firms

Packed with supporting charts, tables, graphs and a full glossary of key terms, Business Intelligence in Law Firms provides the tools needed to understanding, implement and benefit from BI within in the law firm context.