I’d like your opinion about something that has been bugging me for a little while and has come up again in my business. My brother pointed something out to be on my business website yesterday. I have a tendency to refer to my firm (ie, me) as “we” in some of my posts and static pages. It also seems I am not terribly consistent about it and occasionally speak in the first person. I obviously need to sort out that inconsistency and my question is which construction do I use?
At the moment I work as a solo practitioner and the model I use to provide services to my clients is a sort of virtual firm model where I bring other smaller firms into the mix to provide a coherent service to my clients based on their needs. In other words a couple small firms brought together to provide the expertise clients need and then go back to what they were doing before.
The point is Jacobson Attorneys is my trading name. It is me and an ad hoc consultant to my firm but essentially just me.
On the one hand referring to my firm as “we” gives the impression that the firm is made up of more than one lawyer. In a business where perceptions count for a lot, a perception that the firm is bigger than it really is may mean something to some clients. There seems to be this perception in the local marketplace that solo practitioners just can’t cut the mustard when compared to lawyers in larger firms so appearing bigger than a solo practice can mean the difference between receiving work and not.
On the other hand it is not very authentic to give the impression of being a “we” instead of a “me”. Authenticity is the hallmark of the social Web and that is where I focus my practice. It also doesn’t take very long for a visitor to my website to realise that there is only me, effectively. I’ve been talking about the change that is sorely needed in the legal profession here in South Africa on Twitter and I am only going to be talking about it more. Part of that discussion will include my thoughts about how small firms (including solos) can use a virtual model to come together on a project by project basis and provide a comprehensive and professional service to clients while giving clients the benefits of using small firms. It can be a very effective solution. Hopefully this model will help persuade clients that it isn’t about size but more about how you use what you’ve got!
So what do you think? Is the perception of size important enough to be somewhat disingenuous or is it either vital or simply ok (or both) to come out of the closet and be proud of being a solo practitioner?
Some awesome news has just hit Twitter: MIH has acquired Afrigator, the social blog aggregator run by our very own Mike Stopforth, Stiaan Pretorius, Justin Hartman and Mark Forrester. This is fantastic news because an acquisition like this is an excellent validation of the business model (barring ’90s style hype, which I doubt very much in the circumstances).
Moments ago Bandwidth Blog got the scoop in the latest South African internet acquisition. MIH Print Africa have acquired a majority stake in African blog aggregator Afrigator. This will be huge for the local startup as MIH Africa has investments all over Africa which will help Afrigator reach a larger audience in the African continent. The acquisition also means funding to market and further develop the Afrigator platform. With large internet audiences in SA, Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria Afrigator is in a great position to gain critical mass by combining the audience (bloggers, readers) in these countries. MIH Africa’s objective is to build audiences and communities in Africa and with Afrigator’s platform they can launch into the emerging market to quickly gain market share and also leverage Afrigators existing base.
The acquisition looks set to cause a little bit of a shakeup as Justin and Stii relocate to Cape Town to focus on Afrigator full-time. It feels like just the other day that Justin joined Avusa (then Johnnic) and shifted into the new iLab division/department. It also seems like everyone is moving to Cape Town (Matt Buckland moved recently after he joined 24.com). Naspers is behind many of the moves in this space and I am beginning to wonder if Cape Town shouldn’t have a new media lawyer of its own (my wife may disagree …):
The Naspers group’s social media strategy has also really taken off in recent months with local internet guru Matt Buckland moving to 24.com as GM of online publishing and social media (Laaik.it, play.24.com, Spaces, 24.com blogs etc), Rafiq Phillips moving to MIH Swat and then the acquisitions of Blueworld and Afrigator.
I am fortunate to know Justin, Stii, Mike and, to a lesser degree, Mark and this is great news for a great bunch of guys. Well done!
I created a video out of my presentation slides and a voice overlay which I added this morning for anyone who would like to watch my presentation. The voice overlay is pretty much what I spoke about during my presentation, includes a few ideas that went around during the discussion that followed the presentations and a couple other thoughts I have had. It runs to about 12 minutes and I have also posted it to my Facebook page (feel free to wonder over there, become a fan, start a discussion or just post a pithy thought to the Page Wall).
I enjoyed listening to a number of pretty passionate people talking about how we can make a difference in South Africa. There was a fair amount of debate about who bears the responsibility for helping to bring about the change we seek. It was pretty sobering to see all the people who have been seriously considering leaving the country although that should be placed into perspective. One member of the audience made a good point about people leaving the country: there are many people who are returning or who are looking to create a new life here, whether they are coming from Africa or Europe and North America.
It was a fantastic opportunity being on the panel. Thanks for Max Kaizen and David for the invitation. If you are interested in continuing the conversation (or perhaps starting a new one), head over to the Epiphany network and dive in.
Update: Take a look at Nic Haralambous’ post here.
I’ve been feeling a little off the last couple months when it comes to my blogs and I think I have worked out why. Lately I have come to realise that there are a number of fresh and enthusiastic younger bloggers likeSaul and Bev and I am feeling my relative age. I am sure there was once a time when I was a young, up and coming blogger … all those years ago.
Maybe there comes a time when bloggers age and should make way for the younger, fresher themes and ideas. In fact, that is probably the way it should be. Then us older farts (or maybe the less relevant older farts) can either spend their days reading feeds, reminiscing the days when we posted some really good shit or we shift gears a bit and blog a little differently (kinda like those after shave ads with the more “mature” older fart who has the big boat and obvious wealth).
Shuffle … shuffle …
(these younger bloggers are pretty hot, if I don’t say so myself)
I just updated this site to WordPress 2.5 and I really like the update to the Dashboard. One of my first thoughts was how the Dashboard and its various elements look about as clean and fresh as the current version of MovableType.
The backend is pretty different and there aren’t as many sub-menu options immediately available which is great. What seems to have happened is that the WordPress people grouped the various Dashboard options in better groups of functions. It took me a little while to figure out that the plugin menu is now to the right and not part of the main menu system.
The widget interface is pretty cool. It is a lot better than the old interface and considerably easier to work with.
I saw that Nic was a little cautious about updating SA Rocks to WordPress 2.5 and I can understand the caution. On the other hand the upgrade process is really simple and works perfectly. The main thing is to follow the steps and not try and wing it (I used to just overwrite all the old files with the new ones – that doesn’t work!).
There has been some flutter about WordPress 2.5 version Movable Type and while Movable Type is a powerful content management system, I have found that is really difficult to use compared to WordPress and with this latest update to WordPress, there is really no question which is the best option for someone looking for an easy to use content management system/blogging platform.
I managed to register a couple domains I have been after for a little while now and have (once again) moved this blog. Please change your bookmarks for this blog to:
I am not going to comment on my compulsion to keep shifting things around – it has become one of those things you just shake your head about. Anyway, I prefer this domain anyway. It creates a nice clean split between my work and personal sites.
It’s worse than that. I’m just really tired — I’ve spread myself too thin in too many different directions. A new kid on the way is staring me in the face, too. So is my email. Everytime I sit down to do an email two more come in. It’s really amazing. The other day I answered a ton of email on the plane (I’m far more productive on the plane, no Twitter is there to interrupt me) and when I reconnected about 1.5x as many as I answered came back! Hint: the answer to email overload is not to answer any email. Yikes.
I wouldn’t say I have quite the same challenges in the same proportions as Scoble does but I do know how he feels. The last few weeks and months have been a bit nutty. I have a number of projects in various stages of development in addition to my determination to blog more often (at least enough to keep my blogs ticking over) and I haven’t exactly been in control at all times. I took the day off on Friday to relax a bit and I think it was a really good idea. My laptop was off until that evening and that felt pretty good too.
I printed out and read three manifestos from Change This including Seth Godin’s manifesto based on his new book, The Dip, and Tim Ferriss’ manifesto titled “The Low-Information Diet: How to Eliminate E-Mail Overload and Triple Productivity in 24 Hours“. I see Scoble mentioned Tim Ferriss in his post. I really enjoyed both of these manifestos (I won’t name the third – I really didn’t think it was very good) and both gave me good thought food. Ferriss’ manifesto in particular has a number of good tips on how to manage email flows and I look forward to implementing some of them (although I don’t think I will ever get to a point where I only check email once a week).
One important thing I realised was that if you are going to take a break from work you really should take at least a day off at some point and take the whole day off. I have been working virtually every day on something and while I haven’t been working 24/7, each day involved work of some kind and the gaps in between don’t add up to a real break.
Anyway, I have had my breather and I am ready to jump back in now …
I’d like your opinion about something that has been bugging me for a little while and has come up again in my business. My brother pointed something out to be on my business website yesterday. I have a tendency to refer to my firm (ie, me) as “we” in some of my posts and static pages. It also seems I am not terribly consistent about it and occasionally speak in the first person. I obviously need to sort out that inconsistency and my question is which construction do I use?
Some awesome news has just hit Twitter: MIH has acquired Afrigator, the social blog aggregator run by our very own 
