Find the conversation. Join it. Contribute to it.
Law firms are not the only ones who do not understand blogs are not some sort of mini website you're looking to fill up with legal information.
Blogger and journalist, Kristine Lowe, saw that BCC staffers kept fretting about filling a blog as if it were a blank page. She told them to stop looking at blogs that way and advised:
Find the conversation. Join in. Contribute to it — indeed, contribute journalism, answering questions, finding facts, fact-checking the ones that are there. But to do that — beware — you have to talk at a human level with other humans with opinions (who don’t want to talk to a closed door).
To heck with the large law firm baggage that you can't enter into an online conversation. 'We'll take a position contrary to someone else in the firm. We cannot give legal advice. We cannot comment on what other lawyers are saying.' That's rubbish.
I've read law journal and bar publication articles. I've been at legal conferences and seminars. I've attended with other lawyers networking functions whether they be civic boards, rotary meetings, or cocktail receptions.
Lawyers converse at those functions. They offer opinions. They give views on where they think the law is heading. They point out pitfalls for the unwary. They respond to the views and questions of other lawyers.
Conversing is how we learn. It's how we network. It's how we grow as professionals. But for the conversing and networking I did as a young trial lawyer, I would not have been the skilled professional I was when hung up my lawyering shoes 9 years ago.
Kristine is saying the same thing as Steve Rubel who preaches - 'Find the conversation. Listen to the conversation. Engage in the conversation. Empower your audience by adding value to the conversation.'
Blogging is a conversation. Not only do you learn and grow your reputation by joining in, you will not be conspicuous by your absence.
Some of us understand this and have been trying to communicate just this premise for sometime. The problem lies in the fact that most don't understand the concept. And god forbid they might actually give something away for free when they do engage in this conversation.
As you have said many times, the conversation you create with a blog, by posting, commenting, emailing and thanking those who comment on your blog and just continuing a conversation from a post, is exactly why blogs are so powerful.
Perhaps the reason so many don't get is is because it is so easy.
I'm not sure firms are afraid to give something away for free. Though I have heard that some lawyers refuse to blog because they do not want to share information for free, I have never talked with a lawyer or firm for whom that was an issue. Usually it's concerns about positions their lawyers may take.
I do agree that most lawyers do not understand the conversation component of blogging. But I need to recall what I understood of blogs when I started.
Took me almost 2 years of blogging before one of Robert Scoble's posts enlightened me. Fortunately for the lawyers working with LexBlog, they catch on much faster. ;)