"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", Leonardo Da Vinci.
Has your law firm got a social media policy or a set of social media guidelines?
If not it is surely only a matter of time before they do. The rise of the risk management function in firms (not just law firms) means that as social media takes off, guidelines and policies will be put in place (take a look at this site for a raft of policies out there for various companies!).
I’ve been blogging (on this site) for a little under a year now and have already fallen foul a number of times, I have posted something I maybe shouldn’t have or ended up agreeing that it may be best I didn’t say what I had. So I think it’s in the interest of the blogger as well as the firm to have a few guidelines in place.
I recently caught a tweet that led me to a web page that outlined the guidelines for ABC in Australia, these were the best guidelines I have yet seen! The beauty is the simplicity:
- Do not mix the professional and the personal in ways likely to bring the ABC into disrepute.
- Do not undermine your effectiveness at work.
- Do not imply ABC endorsement of your personal views.
- Do not disclose confidential information obtained through work.
That’s it! Four bullets, brilliant!
If I had abided by these guidelines I would have checked myself in all my afore mentioned cases. As well as offering a good guideline for social media use they underline a trust and belief in the professionalism of their staff.
Those that are following this blog and/or my twitter feed know that I’m working on a number of things around email management at the moment. And this set of guidelines got me thinking, maybe this is the way forward for all policies?
So I had a go at a few points for managing the electronic file:
- File electronic documents and email in a manner:
- that would allow you to find and display any document/email on your PC should your client call unexpectedly and refer to that document/email
- that you’d be happy to show your clients the electronic file
I think that would be enough to ensure a full and proper well organised electronic matter file, stored with others in an easy to find structure.
“Perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away", Antoine de Saint Exupéry.
"Simplify, and add lightness", Colin Chapman.
or simply KISS! (Keep it Simple, Stupid!)
The Microsoft blog policy is famously two words “Blog Smart”. That’s it. Seriously.
Why? The argument was that the act of writing a blog is conceptually no different from any other writing you might do in the course of your job: email, fax, letter, article.
Microsoft asked itself, “do we really need a blog policy?” and decided that everything it might say was already covered by general guidelines and expectations set in the employee handbook. So “Blog smart” really means, just do what you would normally do as a professional representing the company in front of customers. It sure keeps things simple and the nice thing about the princple of it is that you then don’t need to go create a new policy for every new communication or publication mechanism that might emerge in the future.