July 2012 - Law Office Technology & Marketing

10 Infusionsoft Commandments for Maximum Effectiveness

An Infusionsoft consultant wrote an excellent article that starts “A client recently asked about my personal best practices for Infusionsoft. So I’ve decided to organize them into what I’m calling my ‘10 Infusionsoft Commandments.’ I’m pretty sure this list isn’t exhaustive but will provide you with a nice little perspective on how I approach marketing automation with the app.” His commandments are:

Thou Shalt Collect As Much Data As Possible
Thou Shalt Track Every Click
Thou Shalt Use Conditions For Most E-mails
Thou Shalt Incorporate Other Marketing Channels
Thou Shalt Limit Number of Front End Follow Up Sequences
Thou Shalt Never Let Technology Limit Goals
Thou Shalt Never Waste A Campaign Step
Thou Shalt Not Be Scared Of The Word No
Thou Shalt Never Fear E-mailing The Right Person Too Much
Thou Shalt Ascend Customers

Read the article to learn about the details of each commandment.

By Richard Keyt|2018-01-14T08:40:44-07:00July 25th, 2012|Infusionsoft|1 Comment

Abolish the Law Reviews!

This week I have been talking to my summer law clerk about her recent selection to be a staff member of the Arizona State University Law Journal. She is a very bright young lady who just finished her first year of law school at ASU. Her selection reminded me of my experience as a staff member and the associate managing editor of the Pacific Law Journal at my law school, the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific.

Before my law review experience I hated writing. It was very difficult for me to write my article, but the article was selected for publication in the law journal. My year as the associate managing editor taught me about writing and to overcome my fear and reluctance to write. The managing editor and I were responsible for reading and editing every word of the two hard copy editions of the journal that were published during my tenure.

Law review is a nice feather in the cap of young law school grads seeking jobs early in their career, but the experience itself has intangible benefits.

An article in Forbes called “Abolish the Law Reviews!Abolish the Law Reviews!” contains the following true statement about law reviews:

“Whereas most periodicals are published primarily in order that they may be read, the law reviews are published primarily in order that they may be written.”

The article makes a point with which I agree. The print version of law reviews should be abolished. The Harvard Law Review had 1,896 subscibers in 2010-11. I suspect that most law reviews have a lot fewer subscribers. Law reviews should be online only.

By Richard Keyt|2012-07-25T11:11:11-07:00July 25th, 2012|Ramblings|0 Comments

Rel=author Not for the Faint of Heart

I’ve spent six plus hours trying to get a handle on how to configure my websites and my Google profile so that my picture will appear next to Google search results that show a link to a web page that contains content I wrote. Everybody in the know says that having your photo appear next to your Google search results increases the number of clicks to your web site or blog. That’s my goal, but to say the process is confusing and complex is an understatement.

I think that my efforts today will ultimately give me the desired result, i.e, my picture next to Google search results when one one my pages or posts comes up. I think I am good to go because when I run tests using Googles’ rich shippets tester I do not get any error messages. However, based on what I have researched it can take some time, even months, before the author’s photo appears in the search results. I’ll update this post when I see my picture in a search result, assuming it ever happens.

For those of you who want your picture to appear with search results, I recommend you read an excellent how to article called “Rel=Author Step By Step Tutorial For WordPress” and watch the author’s demo video.

httpvh://youtu.be/YyIQzHD8rBY

By Richard Keyt|2018-01-14T08:51:54-07:00July 4th, 2012|Google, Video|0 Comments

Cyberattacks on Law Firms-a Growing Threat

Martindale-Hubbell: “In what has become an all too familiar refrain, a major New York law firm was recently informed by the FBI that all of the firm’s client files had been discovered on a server in a foreign country. Those files were then sent from that foreign server to China. . . . How do law firms come into the picture? The Chinese are just as likely, if not more likely, to steal the data they want from the foreign company’s attorneys and consultants as from the company itself. In fact, it is widely known that attorneys’ files are not well-protected from cyberattacks, and it is usually much easier for the Chinese to hack into the law firms’ files to steal the client data than it is to hack into the company’s files directly.”

By Richard Keyt|2018-01-14T08:51:54-07:00July 2nd, 2012|Tech Stuff|0 Comments

Data Backup Best Practices

I’d like to point out the need to set up a protocol to check what’s on the backups since there are common errors. Obviously, you should have backups both on-site, for fast local restore, and backups off-site, for ‘geo-redundant’ safety. Sometime the data files you need to backup are not really where you think they are.

1.1 SQL databases aren’t being properly backed-up – sometimes there is no .bak file available. If you just copy files when backing up, the file may not be there to backup. A SQL script is necessary to write the secure data inside the SQL database to an external .bak file.

1.2 The SQL backup (.bak files) are stored on the same disk drive as the SQL database. When the drive fails you also loose the backup.

2. Archived data is taken off of the cloud. For example, even though email may be hosted ‘ in the cloud’ it may have substantial archived data located only on the local user PC. Last week we know where a firm had five PC’s stolen including a user whose PC had 9GB of email and attachments archived i.e. only stored on her local PC.
Fortunately the PC was imaged and the data was recovered, but most firms don’t image their PC’s.

Maybe the formula for backup is best expressed as: DD + I = S@N (Where DD is Due Diligence, I is + Insurance = S@N is Sleep at Night)

Here are some best practice suggestions for your backups:

Designate one person to check for the presence of a reasonable quantity of files, monitor total GB being backed up, look for the critical .bak for SQL databases and keep several recent backups plus monthly and yearly backups in case to go back to a prior point in time. If possible, have your backup protocol include the forwarding of a daily email status report to a designated individual(s).

For additional peace of mind ‘image’ PC’s and the file server(s). Software to do this includes use of of Microsoft’s VSS (volume shadow service), or Apple’s Time Machine. I know the Windows image approach only stores the same file one time, even if it is on ten PC’s, so it is very efficient. An advantage of imaging is if for example a hard drive failed the image can be used to restore data and it will actually re-install all of your programs too. That can save a ton of time. (Note: Imaging should not be used as a replacement of on and off site backups.)

Some practice management programs let you create a clone file or an automatically synchronized second database that replicates all of your critical calendar, contacts, matters, and related records including email, notes, documents, phone and billing records and related files (such as .pdf, .xls and .anx).

Check your insurance to see how much coverage you have for the next time you have an event – fire, flood, theft, malware, malcontent, solar flare etc.

When it comes to backups you really do need a plan a, plan b and maybe a plan c. Hopefully these suggestions will help you identify what the right backup protocol should be for your office.

Tom Caffrey
Premier Software
www.premiersoftware.com

By On the Net|2018-01-14T08:40:44-07:00July 2nd, 2012|Software, Tech Stuff|0 Comments