Geeky News for Lawyers
Here’s an amazing presentation from Rory Sutherland at TEDxAthens on perspective being the key to happiness.
This is not only about personal happiness, but also about the totally unexpected and cheap (even free!) methods of keeping clients and customers happy.
One of my favorite artists is Zoe Keating, a very modern cellist who uses a Mac (see the tech angle) to loop music live on stage. The results are fascinating, haunting and often highly emotional pieces.
It takes a bit to get going. If you are the impatient sort, skip to around the three minute mark.
I really enjoyed watching Michael Norton’s TED prevention on How to Buy Happiness (aka if money can’t buy happiness, you’re spending it wrong). It’s a light hearted and fun, yet empirical, talk on how spending your money in different ways can greatly improve your sex life (or at least your overall happiness). Give it a watch:
It’s easy to see the economic problems of another country: Greece, Italy. You can look at the economic trends and see what is going to make things worse. However, it is a lot harder to even spot the mistakes in your own fishbowl.
This Planet Money episode on “We’re Headed For A Fiscal Cliff. Should We Jump?” has stuck with me for laying out in stark terms the hard choices we have to make. Give it a listen.
What makes us do bad things? More importantly, what people do the worst things imaginable. Radiolab covers the subject of evil this week in “The Bad Show.”
Give it a listen:
photo credit: Greencolander
Watching the Sunday “talking head” shows is truly an exercise in frustration. Big name politicos repeatedly hit their talking points and the hosts wont ask tough questions for fear that the politico wont come back on. I contrast that with this discussion of the shift of global power from a single pole (the United States) to a multi-polar world in the new century and from nations to transnational groups.
I don’t agree with everything in this discussion. I do not share Ashdown’s faith that transnational treaties can to bring law and curb the power of transnational groups. WIPO being one example where the proposed treaties seem designed to promote large rights-holder interests, exclude critics, and short-circuit democratic involvement via secret discussion. However, compared to the fare on Sunday morning news shows, the piece is still a breath of fresh and frank discussion.
photo credit: Satoru Kikuchi
I saw this mentioned on BoingBoing last week: it is a discussion from the 2011 Vancouver Human Rights Lecture series discussion the importance of mainstream internet venues in democratic movements: unlike small networks (whose shutdown may be invisible to the mainstream), use of popular networks like Flickr, Facebook and Youtube means that heavy-handed shut-downs will likely make more people aware that something is going on. A very Freakonomics bit of analysis!
CBC.ca | Cute Cats and The Arab Spring. Via BoingBoing
photo credit: Dr. Hemmert
This week’s This American Life showcases Mike Daisey’s amazing journey into the heart of Apple’s (and many other’s) manufacturing at Foxconn. Daisey’s plan started simply enough: going up to the gates of Foxconn and seeing if any workers want to talk. Other journalists with whom Daisey shared his plan with, thought this would be … a very bad idea. Undeterred, Daisey went ahead. Then he saw the armed guards.
Surviving that first encounter, Daisey decided to get bold.
Check out Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory | This American Life.
UPDATE 03/16/12: This American Life has retracted (pdf link) the episode for “numerous fabrications.” Now, of course, any company that installs anti-suicide nets on roofs and whose workers have died after 60 hour shifts, probably has some issues. This American Life is to air a special episode concerning the retraction and corrections tonight at 8pm. Via Gawker, BusinessInsider & This American Life.
UPDATE 03/18/12: The retraction episode of This American Life if available here. Or, listen to it below:
I saw this at my kid’s school parking lot. That’s one supportive wife that guy’s got!
Just as in my firm, many solo and small firm attorneys are blazing their own path; trying to find their way to building a profitable business. However, most of us, never went to business school. So, we are just finding our way in the dark.
We have a lot of advantages: we are small, lean, and can turn on a dime. This gives us agility.
However, it still helps to have a model in place. Personally, I think a great place to look is tech industry startups. They are also not shackled with low barriers to entry and low costs. I also think their notions of rapid iterations apply in a law firm setting.
Here is a great discussion on the TWiT network with Eric Ries, author of the Lean Startup, discussing what works for startups. Give it a watch.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53Ic9GODcaE
You can also download a podcast version here.
What do you think? What’s the best startup advice you have to lawyers going out on their own?
