This may sound like an unlikely thing for me to say but it is true.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my Macs and my iPhone and do believe that they have enabled me to do things that otherwise I wouldn’t have. But that is the point. It is what they enabled that matters. Someone once called me “the Terence Conran of anoraks” and I took this as a real compliment. I am very interested in technology if it makes life better, but left cold by it if it doesn’t.

This is why I get really, really bored when people go on about this enterprise system or that. I don’t care. Most of them are dreadful anyway. What I am really interested in is what you do with whatever tools you use – and that could be the cheapest BBS off the internet. What is the point in buying the latest shiny thing or lumbering yourselves with Sharepoint if no one writes anything interesting?

There are too many organisations keeping up with the Jones’s and “doing social”. Too many people who use the words but who never blog, never tweet, never think aloud and in public. They might as well have saved their money.

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Someone I know just posted on Facebook that their son has been killed in a car crash. Their expression of grief in this context took me aback. I sat here stunned.

This is someone I haven’t had contact with for years and for me to respond with a Facebook comment in such circumstances seemed wrong.

But then I realised that here was a fellow human being in frankly unimaginable pain reaching out. Who was I not to reach back …..

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I remember ages ago talking about blogging to an older friend who said “Oh yes blogging – isn’t that just people expressing their opinions?”

But opinions are ideas and ideas change the world. Whether it is the ideas contained in The Bible or in Mein Kampf, ideas are what shapes and defines the world as we experience it. Every idea has to start somewhere. Every idea has to first be thought and then be expressed.

With a blog you have more reason to think. Having an outlet for your ideas makes you take them more seriously. Even if you never publish the posts, taking your ideas seriously and thinking harder about them is a good thing.

If you write a half decent blog post you will make someone else think. You may make them think you are wrong or you may make them think you are right but you will make them think.

My previous post about hard men seems to have made people think judging by the comments. Imagine if that blog post had been on a blog on an organisations intranet? Imagine if it had been written by someone with status and influence inside the organisation – or even by someone no one had heard of. It would have made someone else think and maybe, even in a very small way, change their behaviour.

The world only ends up the way it does because people have ideas and express them. What’s so wrong with us all having a go?

Why should we all use our creative power and write or paint or play music, or whatever it tells us to do?

Because there is nothing that makes people so generous, joyful, lively, bold, and compassionate, so indifferent to fighting and the accumulation of objects and money. Because the best way to know Truth or Beauty is to try to express it. And what is the purpose of existence Here or Yonder but to discover truth and beauty and express it, i.e, share it with others?

Brenda Ueland If You Want To Write 1938

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I’ve been doing a lot of speaking and coaching lately on business development, and someone asked a great question: what are the top obstacles to rainmaking success?

I’ve identified three universal challenges. Do any of these sound uncomfortably familiar to you?

1. “I don’t know what to do.” There’s so much information out there about how to bring in new cases and clients and, even more importantly, how to ensure that your current clients are satisfied – no, delighted – with the service you provide. Sometimes, having lots of good information is overwhelming. When I work with someone on rainmaking, one of the first things we focus on (after clearly identifying the goal at hand) is to simplify tasks, according to a targeted plan. Don’t flail around and try “the latest thing.” Figure out what works well for you and do it consistently.

2. Mindset challenges. The challenges that we create up for ourselves (and please note that I am including myself here!) vary dramatically. I’ve heard all of the following:

• Rainmaking is easier for them (men, women, lawyers in big firms, lawyers in small firms, litigators, transactional lawyers, and on and on and on).
• Everything I do has to be perfect, and I’m busy getting ready to get out there. (This crops up a lot with lawyers who see speaking, writing, and holding leadership positions in an organization as a good route for business development.)
• I have to do it all myself, so I’m going to clear the decks and then get started.
• I’m too young.
• I’m too old.
• I tried [insert an activity here] and it didn’t work, so why should I bother?
• My technical skills are so good, I don’t need to market.

There may be at least a grain of truth to each of these rationalizations (and the infinite variations that exist), but buying into these statements is a huge red flag. These “reasons” justify a lack of success and perhaps even a lack of effort. Neither leads to great results.

3. “I don’t have enough time to get my work done and live, and now I should add on business development activities? You’ve got to be kidding me.” This obstacle is the most valid and therefore the most insidious. It also plays into the mindset obstacles, because very often a lawyer who holds a negative belief about client development will sink more and more time into fruitless rainmaking activity. Imagine, for instance, a lawyer who polishes an article to the point of “perfection,” only to find that it’s no longer newsworthy. Fortunately, you can implement three steps to create time for business development: prioritization, systemization, and delegation.

What blocks your rainmaking efforts?

Author: Julie A. Fleming
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: WordPress plugin Guest Blogger

Philip de Lisle :

A new directory enquiries service has recently launched here in the UK called 118 800. It will allow you to ask for someone’s mobile number.

Most people, I suspect, feel that their mobile is their very private domain and don’t want it invaded by cold callers. It’s bad enough when that happens on one’s home telephone.

I’d heard about this service before but thanks to the weekly email I receive from Money Saving Expert (an excellent service for finding the best deals on insurance, utilities), I learnt just how insidious this service is. If you’ve ever forgotten to opt out when signing up for an online service (or offline come to that) and provided your mobile number, the chances are that this service will have bought your details and added you to their database.

But all is not lost! You can opt out! Don’t forget to do your partner’s phone and particularly those of any children you might have as many (most?) kids phones are registered to a parent and so outside the rules governing contacting minors. 118 800 have a removal page here.

I strongly recommend that you take action now!