the [non]billable hour

Great Historical Photos: Free

The Library of Congress is releasing bunches of their historical photos, free of all usage and copyright restrictions.  Some amazing pics, with more on the way.  Here's the Flickr page.

Keeping Tabs on Clients

I seem to be thinking a bit about client monitoring today.  Here's another interesting service called RivalMap, that is "a web-based collaboration software that gives companies a central place to share and address information about competitors and their industr[ies]."   Seems like a great place to keep tabs on what your clients (and their competitors) are up to.  Check out a review here.

Tags: RivalMap

Kill Your Projects, Not Your Clients

Here's an interesting idea from Scott Young that may just help with your growing to-do list:  Set up a Project Kill Day. In short, you schedule a distraction-free, off-site day to "kill" off one of your projects.  Check out the entire post for his step-by-step guide.

Not sure which projects you have that merit an entire day?  Try writing down the first client-related task you think of in the morning and the last one you think about before bed.  If it is the same one for more than a day or two, kill it before it kills you!

Monitor Client Web Sites with Dapper

You are keeping up with all your clients' web sites, aren't you?  Well, one way to do it is to use Dapper with your handy-dandy RSS reader.  Dapper can take any site (or portion of it) and turn it into any number of formats for you.  Very slick!           

Tags: Dapper, RSS

An Interview with Me

Just in case you're interested, here's a link to an interview I did about innovation, law practice and becoming a former lawyer.  It's here if you'd like a listen:

Build a Better Firm Workbook

While I finish the e-book, I thought I'd share a workbook of sorts that I've been using as a handout when I speak to groups about building innovative law practices.  I hope you like it.

Think REAL Big: Ten Ways to Build a Better Firm.  (Download pdf)

Need More "Work" to Do?

Hugh MacLeod has a great idea for juicing your creativity:

Add 25% to amount of hours you work every week, and fill them with fun, interesting, useful stuff. Google allows its employees 20% of their work time to devote to their own personal projects. If your employer won't allow you to do this, you should unilaterally make the time for yourself, either at the office or at home, hence the extra 25%. Your peers in the office may think you weird at first, but after a while it'll start paying off.

I've been trying to do this for a while now, and it is starting to pay off.  I'm finishing up the e-book and stretching myself to be creative in different ways.  Give it a try!                 

Tags: creativity, gapingvoid, homann

In San Francisco Next Week? Come to VizThink!

I've not written much about my work at XPLANE on this blog - ok, I've not written much of anything, lately -- but I'm really enjoying my work at "The Visual Thinking Company."  I've had an amazing time working with some really amazing clients.  One of the super cool things I'm going to be doing happens next week at VizThink, a conference for visual thinkers that takes place in next week San Francisco from January 27-29th.  I'm going to be facilitating several visual "icebreakers" for the 325+ attendees before each of the plenary sessions.  I'll also be hanging out a lot after the sessions, so if you are in the S.F. area, give me a call on my cell 314-541-6412 or email me if you'd like to meet up.

One more thing.  Here's a Slideshare presentation about why you should go.  Enjoy!

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Tags: vizthink, xplane, visualthinking, homann

Remind Your Clients of Their Apointments

Here's an interesting (and free) application called Oh, Don't Forget ... that allows you to send a future text message to any phone at at predetermined date and time.  Use it to send yourself reminders, or to remind your clients when they are supposed to show up for court, appointments, etc.

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