Tag Archives for " competitive intelligence "

Sep 22

See you at ARK Group’s 11th annual “Competitive Intelligence in Modern Law Firm” program!

By Michael Feit | Associations , Events

Rather than be a target of downsizing or outsourcing, the Modern Library is innovative, forward-thinking and strives to carve out new roles within the organization while showcasing the value of resources and staff. Librarians have a variety of skills that can be utilized in innovative ways, and partnering with Marketing to provide competitive intelligence for business development is just one of them.

FEIT Consulting will be joining our peers, colleagues and clients on September 28th at the ARK Group’s 11th annual Competitive Intelligence in Modern Law Firm program to understand the latest trends in “Balancing opportunity and risk by leveraging intelligence that informs strategic decision-making–expanding the competitive horizon beyond competing law firm practices”.

As part of the Modern Library audit, we often times advise our clients on best practices for evaluating current CI units or how the library might engage with Marketing to provide interdepartmental support by providing research and actionable data on current clients and competitors. As we help our clients explore the challenges and opportunities the Modern Library faces, we want to know what our clients need to know on how best to support the ever-shifting business of law. See you in New York!

Sep 06

Leveraging LinkedIn for Law Librarians

By Michael Feit | Best Practices , Librarians

Consider the value of using Linkedin, the largest professional network, as a tool in the modern library arsenal for both research and professional development.

Locate expert witnesses. Both Lexis and Westlaw have robust expert-witness information tools, but LinkedIn can supplement that research.  In the general search box, type “expert witness” and select people with the skills, which will pull up a listing of expert-witness profiles. You can then narrow your search by keyword, location, industries, etc., to help you find relevant profiles. In most cases, they will have a profile photograph. In addition, you can usually see their connections to better gauge if there might be a conflict of interest in hiring them.

Build your professional network. Add your colleagues, associates, and clients. Stay apprised of your connections’ updates, position changes, and work anniversaries. Need an introduction at a company or firm? Search for the company to see if you have any first-degree connections, and ask them for an introduction.

Perform due diligence on individuals. Many .aw librarians assist with performing background checks on potential clients and new employees. LinkedIn can be an important tool in that process. Depending on an individual’s content and volume of activity, you might gain powerful insights. Don’t forget to consider the candidate’s online recommendations, featured skills and endorsements.

Professional Development. LinkedIn is one of the easiest ways to stay abreast of the latest trends and news in your field and beyond. Follow companies, associations, and thought leaders/influencers to ensure your feed is full of relevant updates to keep you in the know.

Competitive Intelligence. Follow a company’s personnel announcements and highlighted new product features and introductions. Examine job postings for company growth. Don’t overlook LinkedIn for intel on private companies. By examining the number of employees listed and their titles and positions within their profiles, you can develop core insights into hard-to-find data.  

Determine who the employees were at a certain time in history. Have you been asked to find out who was working at a company or organization during a particular time period? Use the general search feature and filter by “past companies”, which will focus on all employees who worked at a particular entity. You can then cross-check the dates on individual profiles to determine who worked at the company during that time.

Join groups or create your own. Follow group conversations and chime in. This is a great way to showcase your expertise and contribute to the law librarianship field. If you don’t have LinkedIn Premium, join groups! This is a great workaround to be able to send free messages to people on LinkedIn within the same group that you aren’t connected to. There is a limit. You are only allowed to send 15 free 1:1 group messages to fellow group members each month. And if you create a group, group managers can send up to one group announcement per week to members who have chosen to receive such emails. Groups are also a great place to advertise job openings.

Client Development. Follow your firm’s top clients and any prospective clients to keep on top of any news they share via LinkedIn. Furthermore, receive alerts when they are mentioned in news articles. Monitoring client activity underscores LinkedIn’s worth as a cost-effective current awareness tool.

Identify contacts. Search for a company, and see a listing of employee profiles. You will be able to do a keyword search (title, first name, location, etc.) of all of its employees who have LinkedIn profiles.

Pull clean copies of an individual’s profile. Need to pull clean copies of profiles for a case, interview, or upcoming meeting? When you are in an individual’s profile, simply click on the three small dots to the right of the profile and click “save to PDF”. You can download this clean PDF, which contains a person’s educational background and work experience. Please note that this will not include the person’s profile picture.  

Create and share content. Share updates, photos, interesting articles or write your own. Use hashtags to optimize your user audience (e.g., #lawlibrarians). Hashtags are indexed by the social network and become searchable/discoverable by others.

Use LinkedIn Jobs. Need to post a library position? You can pay by setting a daily average budget, and you will only be charged for the number of job views you receive. Even if you aren’t in the job market, the job descriptions in job postings can give you ideas on how to innovate within your own organization. Have you had the same job title for the past 20 years? Maybe it’s time for a change. Job postings can give you great ideas.

Apr 20

Competitive Intelligence: New Roles for Librarians

By Michael Feit | Best Practices , Librarians

Competitive Intelligence (CI) in law firm marketing and business development has finally found its place.  If you were one of the early adopters, you know it was a tough sell convincing the marketing department that CI had a role in the RFP process. Or furthermore that CI was essential for a potential client pitch.

A lot has changed since the early years. CI has established itself as a go-to tool in supporting not only marketing but also the business of law. As a result, CI has opened up new roles for librarians to showcase their research and analytical skills. CI has presented new avenues for interdepartmental cooperation.

To fully embrace this component in your role as Librarian, you should consider the following:

  • Help your firm to identify and purchase the ancillary niche products offered by LEXIS, Thomson Reuters and other providers to support your firm’s CI initiative.
  • Offer your services to your recruiting department to assist in the vetting of lateral partners’ portfolios of business as they are considered as possible firm employees.
  • Get a seat at the table as a Competitive Intelligence specialist, helping your firm grow their bottom line and identify new business prospects.
  • Create and roll out an alerting service on top clients of the firm, giving attorneys touch points of information so they can pick up the phone to call their clients.

Librarians are naturals to fill this critical role and promote Competitive Intelligence within their law firms. If you are unsure of where to start or need assistance in creating a CI business plan to present to management, Feit Consulting can help. If you already have CI in place and need a GAP analysis to gauge the effectiveness of your role, Feit Consulting can partner with you on this initiative. Learn more about working with Feit here.