May 18, 2017
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A Massachusetts doctoral student is trying to force the CIA to open up about how it uses jokes on social media. The CIA has been on Twitter since June 2014 when it tweeted, “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” It was a humorous nod to […]
via MIT student sues CIA for info on Twitter jokes — Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News
March 29, 2016
For being tweeterific, Yvonne McGhee will receive Gary Vaynerchuk’s great new book.
A few weeks ago, I made a promise to a roomful of lawyers. Today, I’m (finally) making good on that promise.
Standing on a Chicago dais, I was privileged to present to about 400 folks at the ABA Bar Leadership Institute. My topic was strategic communication. (Here is a PDF of my PowerPoint.)
Yvonne C. McGhee, Executive Director of The Virginia Bar Association (and quite a tweeter!)
I opened my presentation by making the following promise: The best tweet/tweeter from that morning session, as determined solely by me, would be deemed the winner of a great new book by Gary Vaynerchuk. The book is titled #AskGaryVee: One Entrepreneur’s Take on Leadership, Social Media, and Self-Awareness. (And you can buy it yourself in multiple places, including here.)
My thinking was that those who were great tweeters—and thus great communicators—might make the best use of Gary’s great tips and insights.
So without further ado, I offer you, as the winner: Yvonne McGhee, executive director of the Virginia Bar Association. In person or online, Yvonne is a consummate communicator.
Below you can see her winning tweet, which shared in my amusement at Facebook’s new emoji called the “ha-ha.”
Engage those who like, comment, or LOL your posts. After all, “who doesn’t want their ha-ha acknowledged.”@azatty #BLI16
— Yvonne C. McGhee (@Yvonne_McGhee) March 18, 2016
Congratulations, Yvonne. Send me your snail-mail address and the book will be speeding your way!
Here, by the way, are the new Facebook emoji:
Spot the ha-ha in the new Facebook emoji.
To show how difficult my selection process was, I share also a few other tweets that made me chuckle or even LOL. First, a hilarious comment by Elizabeth Derrico of the New York State Bar Association regarding the likely result of my urging Snapchat use by bar leaders:
Spend some dough on the user interface says @azatty before bar leaders who are now downloading snapchat. #BLI16
— SBExec (@ExecSB) March 18, 2016
Next, Robin Lynn Haynes, Washington State Bar Association President-Elect, gets my props for sharing my love for English majors:
“I’ve waited 20 years to use the English major as the hero of the story.” .@azatty .@ABABarLeader #bli16 #englishmajor
— Robin Lynn Haynes (@GirlWonder34) March 18, 2016
Institutionally, the Albany County Bar shared its love of dogs and then shared their own. Dogs are always among the best tweets:
I like that all the main take awaysof this presioare presented with dog images. Makes me miss my pup #bli16 pic.twitter.com/aOUQVlTTZ7
— ACBA (@AlbanyCountyBar) March 18, 2016
Finally, Vermont Bar Counsel Michael Kennedy recognized the love my presentation had for Beyonce. Hat tip to you, Michael:
Blog readers know I love tying ethics to pop culture. So thanks @ABABarLeader for seminars w references to @britneyspears & @Beyonce #BLI16
— Michael Kennedy (@VTBarCounsel) March 18, 2016
Thank you to the many, many attendees who participated in the tweetup in Chicago. You’re the best!
Follow @azattyMarch 21, 2016
Oh, Twitter, right back atcha with that #love!
Some of you may find the following fact unastonishing: Today is the 10-year anniversary of Twitter.
Happy birthday, Twitter. I’m happy you’re here!
That most agile of social media channels has had some growing pains in the past year, and I am rooting for it to emerge stronger than ever.
The reason I’m a fan has everything to do with reader engagement—and the ability to learn news as it’s happening, rather than when a news conglomerate decides to drip-drip-drip out information.
Yes, in fact, Twitter does have a signature.
Here at Arizona Attorney Magazine, Twitter was a game-changer. It has allowed us to know what was happening in real time. And it allowed us to share news as it broke. Pre-Twitter, unless you were the Associated Press, a TV channel, or a major daily newspaper, you were pretty much sidelined from breaking news, even in your own beat. But sweet sweet Twitter changed all that.
It’s helped in other ways. This past Friday, I presented to hundreds of legal leaders at the American Bar Association’s Bar Leadership Institute. I also invited continued dialogue on Twitter, and promised a gift of a terrific book to the best tweeter from the session. (More on that later.) No surprise, engagement spiked.
Because the digital world is all-knowable and all-knowing, I was able to look up my very first tweet, way back on August 12, 2009 (you can see it below). I was relieved that I did NOT launch my Twitter brief with a mention about my lunch. Instead, my inaugural tweet happens to combine a few of my fondest interests: lawyers and legal affairs, human rights, and historic preservation. A social-media trifecta!
My first tweet: 140 characters pack a punch.
That was almost 25,000 tweets ago, and I am looking forward to all the conversations to come.
Feel free to follow me here; I’m pretty sure we’ll have a blast together!
Follow @azattyJune 23, 2015
The Arizona Biltmore is the site for the 2015 State Bar of Arizona Convention.
This is annual Convention week at the State Bar of Arizona. As always, a large selection of educational seminars (and fun activities) are packed into the three-day event held in Arizona Biltmore.
More detail about the Convention is here.
As always, Arizona Attorney Magazine staff (yes, that’s me) will cover the annual event.
And as in the past, we will not print a once-a-day hard-copy “Convention Daily.” Instead, I’ll will cover Convention news closer to real time, via the editor’s blog and social media. We will use multiple channels to communicate what’s going on. But the surest way to be sure you see everything is to follow me on Twitter. My name in Twitter is @azatty. You can view all the evolving content here (or at http://twitter.com/azatty, to be specific). I will be tagging everything with the hashtag #azbarcon – so be sure to search for that.
Want to participate? Send me brief stories or story suggestions. Or if you have convention photos, we’d be glad to share them with readers.
And don’t forget to tweet from convention. Use the hashtag #azbarcon.
Questions or suggestions? Reach the Editor, Tim Eigo, on-site at the Biltmore, at 602-908-6991 or via arizona.attorney@azbar.org.
And always feel free to stroll up and say hello. I’ll be hiking all over the Biltmore to cover the goings-on. Or you may catch me at the Arizona Attorney table in the Exhibitor area. If you miss me there, leave your card or a note.
Follow @azattyApril 1, 2015
My opening #BLI15 communications slide. #itsnotatypo
Yesterday, I promised to share my decision on whose tweets from the ABA Bar Leadership Institute communications session were the most splendiferous. Today, I honor that promise.
Ultimately, I come to praise four folks—and I end this post with our Big Winner. Each of them will receive a special audiocassette (why audiocassesttes? Read here and here.). Of course, to receive their prize, they have to contact me at arizona.attorney@azbar.org with their snail-mail address!
Here are photos of the audiocassettes; click them to biggify (I’m still not sure who gets which, except for The Big Winner):
And before I forget: If you go to the end of this post, you’ll also see that we had huge Twitter engagement during our session. So I’m pleased to name and thank many of those talented folks. (Want to see nearly everything? Here’s my Storify from the session.)
Every one of the people appearing in today’s post deserve a follow by you on Twitter. Get to it!
Without further ado, here are our four winners:
Whitney offered engagement, excitement, and even a suggestion that she will change her life’s mission statement—all in response to our presentations! Not to mention her use of the hashtag #notthesameoldkitchencabinet
Here are a few of her tweets:
Look at John’s tweets below and note a few things:
His classic approach is appreciated by busy tweeters everywhere:
And this, not officially during our session, is still eloquently put:
Yvonne has been a leader’s leader for years, and her tweets show how adept and generous she is as she offers praise and insights.
Plus, she used the hashtag #truth at an evocative moment. I think you’ll agree that Yvonne shares the love in wonderful ways:
… which refers to this slide:
A young Dustin Hoffman learns about mobile.
So if you’re paying attention, you’ll see that Tom Prol is our big Twitter winner (Twinner?). Therefore, he will receive the fantastic tape from the band Spinal Tap.
What did I love about Tom’s tweet-valanche? Only a few things. His:
Wowser. Tom puts the “wit” in Twitter, as you’ll see below:
Other Talented People
Here are some other terrific tweeters from the session (but a guy only has so many cassettes):
As I mentioned, if you want to relive that morning (I know you do), traipse over to my Storify here.
Finally, what do I take away from this amazing roster of tweeters?
All in all, a #winning month. Thank you to all my amazing colleagues!
Follow @azattyMarch 31, 2015
The ABA #BLI15 conference room as I took the stage.
Two weeks ago, I had the chance to present on communications to hundreds of lawyers. Fortunately, prizes were involved. And soon, I’ll announce even more of them.
No, no prizes for me. My prize was the opportunity once again to speak to legal leaders at the American Bar Association Leadership Institute. I had 30 minutes to explore how and why we all communicate well (and sometimes less than well), as individuals and as associations.
I then got to introduce smart people from bar associations around the country, each of whom addressed a core area of communications: in print, in person, and in electronic media. Those folks were Mark Mathewson of the Illinois Bar, Meredith Avakian of the Philadelphia Bar, and Karen Korr of the San Diego County Bar. I think it’s fair to say we all hit it out of the park. (What, you want evidence? Cruise over here to enjoy the Storify I created from our morning’s presentations. We were all pleased at the amount of engagement that surrounded us, and that clearly extended to the web.)
But … I mentioned prizes.
They included the prizes I handed out during my presentation, when folks accurately answered questions.
The audience was terrific and responded immediately when I queried them. And those who answered correctly received … audiocassettes.
That’s right. Old-fashioned music cassettes. I found them at Phoenix vintage stores, and they were quite a hit. But then again, who doesn’t love Leslie Gore singing “It’s My Party,” or Sonny and Cher reminding us that “I got you, babe”?
Here is a tweet from one attendee who won the Sonny & Cher love:
So what were my questions that led to music prizes, you wonder? I asked the audience to complete a quote by George Bernard Shaw …
My #BLI15 PowerPoint slide with George Bernard Shaw
… and I asked what movie was the source for the following quote regarding “turning the dial to 11”:
So, why the cassette mania? Well, it had a communications connection. It emerged from an essay that I was taken with, by Don MacKinnon. It’s titled “Mixtapes: The Future of Creation?” You can read it here.
My other prizes—the ones yet to be announced—are being given to audience members who were the session’s best tweeters. The mind races.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you who those talented social-media folks are—and what they’re getting.
In the meantime, you may enjoy a list of all of my sources, compiled (of course) as mixtape liner notes (click to see the PDF):
ABA BLI 2015 additional reading handout eigo
Follow @azattySeptember 23, 2014
This Friday, I have the pleasure of moderating a great annual event: a panel of corporate counsel at a lunchtime gathering of the Southwest chapter of the Legal Marketing Association.
Before I get to the meat of the matter, be sure to read and register here (the speaker names are at this end of this post).
And now, 3 reasons you should be there on Friday:
1. Your question could be asked.
That’s right. I am seeking (here and via Twitter) great questions to put to attorneys who are in-house counsel at companies and nonprofits. What do you want to know about their work life? Curious how to get hired, in-house or as outside counsel? Secretly yearn to know how not to get fired in either of those two roles? Send me your question(s) to arizona.attorney@azbar.org (or tweet it to me @azatty).
2. These people are canaries.
No, I am not insulting them with a bird reference. I merely analogize them to the proverbial canary in a coal mine. There, the little birds could spot trouble before humans could—and communicated it in a disconcerting way.
Corporate counsel are likewise on the leading edge—of the legal profession’s economy. As purchasers of outside legal services, they are extremely well informed about the state of things. As a result, they hire more, hire less, and examine bills with a fine-tooth comb (or whatever the opposite of that is). They also can gauge our profession by the number of others gunning for their positions. So if you’re looking for guidance on how the legal profession is emerging (or not) from a bad recession, listening to a corporate counsel is a pretty good strategy.
3. They may talk about you.
Well, OK, not exactly you. But I have asked the panelists to consider some anecdotes (omitting names, of course) that explore some of the great things outside counsel have done. But I also asked for their cautionary tales, those that arise out of law firm fails. Nervous-making and exciting all at once, right? That’s our goal.
So, once more with the registration link. I hope to see you there.
And here are the great speakers on tap:
Panelists:
June 12, 2014
Keep up with what’s happening at the State Bar Annual Convention by following us on Twitter! Get short, timely messages (including photos, speaker presentations and more) from Arizona Attorney Magazine’s staff. If you, your firm or employer are active on Twitter, just insert the hashtag #azbarcon into all of your Convention tweets to allow them to be read and searched by fellow attendees and the entire legal community.
The Twitter links will take you to updates in our Convention Daily—news items and photos that will appear on the magazine blog, Facebook and Tumblr pages, and in our News Center:
For more detail, click on the image below for gigantification.
June 26, 2013
Legal news arrives pretty fast via the little blue bird.
Conversation with many lawyers about law practice inevitably leads to dialogue about the value of social media. In that regard, things are shifting. We used to never hesitate to call the profession a very very very “late adopter.” But more attorneys have dipped their toe in to test the waters.
However, even those lawyers who may have established a LinkedIn page for themselves (daring much?) shiver in fear at the suggestion of engaging via Twitter.
Perhaps it’s the less-than-serious name and surrounding nomenclature that turns them off, or the fact that many cannot say their complete name in fewer than 140 characters, but attorneys too rarely share the Twitter love.
Here’s hoping the summer and the United States Supreme Court can change that.
Unlike other breaking news, Supreme Court opinions are issued on a relatively predictable schedule. As such, I can count on my Twitter feed to light up like Broadway as news of an opinion emerges. Via Hootsuite or directly via Twitter, I can quickly scan the posts of journalists and lawyers I’ve come to trust about these things.
Constitutional law communicated via digital means may not be something the Founding Fathers anticipated, but I’m confident they’d be down with it. I mean, if published today, Common Sense would have a digital edition, and The Federalist Papers would have a paper-free app.
The stream of SCOTUS news got me wondering: How are you tracking breaking updates from the Court?
Reading the daily newspaper? Reading websites of partisan groups? Watching TV news?
Please tell me you’re not watching TV news.
Don’t get me wrong: Many of those media are perfectly fine. But if you like how they cover news, check to see if they have a Twitter handle. If they do, follow it. (And if they don’t, seriously reassess your choices.)
Remember, you can use Twitter solely as a one-way news stream. Though I recommend you be an active participant with those you follow (and who may follow you), it is not required. Silent reading and consuming of news is perfectly OK. That way, at least you’ll be benefiting from some of Twitter’s functionality.
(And yes, you may even follow my own Twitter feed here.)
… at @azatty
If you have not clicked through Twitter links before, you may be pleased to discover this: That what begins as a pithy 140-character tweet may blossom into some wonderful long-form coverage. Don’t buy into the stereotype that complex ideas cannot be synthesized, and that Twitter is analysis-lite.
Don’t be that guy. Get on Twitter.
Once there, search around for media sources you trust, or lawyers whose insight you appreciate. Click Follow. You might even organize them into Lists to encapsulate all your interests (“Supreme Court coverage,” “Mad Men,” “Law Practice Management,” “Recipes”).
The Supreme Court and I will be there waiting for you. And we may even retweet your own insight out to the world. Because we’re all share-y that way.
Follow @azattyJune 19, 2013
Keep up with what’s happening at the State Bar Annual Convention by following http://twitter.com/azatty! Get short, timely messages (including photos, speaker presentations and more) from Arizona Attorney Magazine’s staff. If you, your firm or employer are active on Twitter, just insert the hashtag #azbarcon into all of your Convention tweets to allow them to be read and searched by fellow attendees and the entire legal community.
Can’t attend Convention but want to know what’s going on? You also should follow http://twitter.com/azatty
The Twitter links will take you to updates in our Convention Daily—news items and photos that will appear on the magazine blog, Facebook and Tumblr pages, and in our News Center:
For more detail click on the image below to enlarge.
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