Tag Archives for " network "

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.

Jul 06

Forgo the Status Quo: Preparing for the AALL Annual Meeting and Conference

By Michael Feit | Associations , Events

The 110th American Association of Law Libraries’ (AALL) Annual Meeting and Conference is scheduled for July 15-18, 2017 in Austin, TX. The theme of this year’s conference, “Forgo the Status Quo”, seems perfect for such an eclectic and vibrant city such as Austin! According to recent attendee surveys, 22% of attendees are from law firm libraries. For that reason, we are excited to attend this year’s conference.

We want to know what our clients want to know.

Below, we offer some suggestions and tips on how best to prepare for the upcoming conference and optimize your time there:

Plan in advance what you want to attend. Prior to the conference, study the conference schedule and decide what programs interest you the most. You have the option of downloading the conference app to your device, making it a handy option for planning on the go and managing your conference schedule (https://eventmobi.com/aall2017/). While you will receive a program upon arrival, come prepared and have the program and the programs you are most interested in attending already highlighted if you prefer paper. As some programs are bound to be more popular than others, try to arrive early to ensure that you can get a seat. Check out the events and meetings scheduled, and map out what events interest you the most.

Schedule time for the vendor hall. Be sure to leave ample time to explore the exhibitor hall and find out what is new and exciting with vendors and databases. You probably won’t be able to do it one day, so plan on popping in once or twice during the conference to connect with vendors and see the greatest and latest offerings. And this is a great time to collect literature on new vendors and databases to share with your colleagues back at your firm.

Bring an extra sweater or long-sleeved shirt, and dress comfortably. Summertime in Austin is HOT, but the Austin Convention Center will be cool. Some conference rooms might be chilly, so come prepared!

Network, network, network! If you attend the conference with colleagues, it might tempting to stick close to them. It’s best to divide and conquer and meet new librarians! And if you go to different programs, you can present what you’ve learned to your colleagues after the conference.

Get Social! If you are on Twitter or Facebook, find the conference hashtag #AALL2017 and follow along for conference news, events, photographs, tips, and commentary. Use #AALL2017 in all of your social media conversations and posts! If you don’t have a chance to attend the conference, this is a great way to follow along.

Bring business cards! Be sure to update your LinkedIn profile before heading to the conference. You may exchange business cards with new folks you meet, but they will likely add you soon after on LinkedIn.

Follow Feit Consulting on LinkedIn to see daily highlights from the conference.