MH in their response is using a tried-and-true method. It's called "Oh, we're fine." It's total BS.

Reminds me of a local wine shop that got one out of five stars in the local paper, distributors stopped selling them wine, the valet parkers at the front wouldn't park the cars anymore for the wine shop, just the adjacent restaurant.

I asked "are you going out of business?" "No, we have big plans." Two weeks later, they were gone.

MH had it's time and place. Lawyers.com is OK, but with google, a wise consumer finds much more than where someone went to law school and how many federal district courts to which they are admitted.

I responded: "Someone who knows lawyers and social media"

Although not speaking on behalf of MH, Lin's response shows that someone at MH is listening. They do have LinkedIn integration, which is a step in the right direction.

Much more to do as Kevin points out. Will they survive this viral beating?

But I do empathize with the folks at MH. They can't really come out and say, "We're in serious, serious trouble."

They're in a difficult position. Of course, responding with "marketing speak" was probably not the best course of action.

I have no doubt, Kevin, that if LexBlog was the brunt of negative Internet discussion, you would handle the problem adroitly. MH should hire you as a special consultant!

Not sure MH is really listening. We had one person who someone on Twitter doing some digging found worked at MH. A couple of us mentioned his name which required him personally to say something. Doesn't look like corporation knows that Twitter exists.

On blogs, MH listens to its name, but hard to tell if leadership really hears what is being discussed.

MH need not say we're in trouble. They could partake in the conversation taking place in social media and social networking. Imagine if their CEO put a face on the company so we would get to know her/him and the company a little. Building relationships with customers in a real and meaningful way works.

MH has a huge investment in a social community called MH connected. The company has been talking about for over 6 months. However, rather than generate open internet discussion with the legal community and its customers, most lawyers are not allowed to test it, and are only shown marketing info and screenshots.

The result is that only those law firms drinking the MH kool-aid and paying big bucks to MH are going to talk positively about MH connected. And those firms are not likely to have a presence in the Internet conversation.

That's a mess for MH Connected. Closed and shrinking customer base. No input from larger legal community on the product's offering. No one with an effective Internet presence speaking highly of your offering.

There are now 950 surveys and rankings of law firms, including Martindale-Hubbell, Chambers, Leading Lawyers, Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, 204 “Best, Super or Top" lists, 175 largest law firm lists, 122 “Rising Star” lists, 103 Diversity-focused surveys and 90 Workplace satisfaction lists, according to research by Jaffe Associates.

And all of them generate little to no new business for law firms, according to Acritas research.

Having written the original post, I would like to say that the only contact I have had with MH has been the corporate post last Tuesday. No phone call. No conversation.

A press release that says "we're in social media" does not make it so.

Social media is about conversation, and MH has never been about a dialogue.

For many of us who have been approving the 5-6 figure expense, year after year, enough is enough.

If the AV rating is relevent, show me how. If the directory is the LEADER over Google, prove it. And, if MH Connected is the bomb, then let it rip.

Laxmi's response seemed quite sincere and certainly speedy - perhaps they are learning from the last few weeks. But what makes me wonder is why they haven't had any further dialogue with you, Heather and other bloggers who discussed this earlier? My blog is as yet quite new, my influence slight. I'm not the one they should be trying to convince. Hmmmm!

I am working in the Sr Management team within M-H and can assure you that we are not blind to the challenges we (and the market) face. We are determined to improve, demonstrate value and bring innovative marketing/business development tools to the legal community. Are we there yet, of course not. Have we come a long way in the past 12-18 months? I think so. It's easy to find an area that I missed in this broad statement but in general, I feel positive about the changes and improvements. Please don't confuse marketing spin with delusion. It shouldn't be surprising that a little spin leaks out in some of our (and other) responses. Our collective "conversational tone" will come along with a little more comfort and time.

So why am I writing? I monitor many blogs but haven't participated as I should - guilty as charged. I would like to offer to anyone publicly or privately to send me a note if you are interested in comments on any of the many messages, themes, issues that might be in the social network community that relates to M-H. I can't promise an immediate blog response from all of us at M-H but that is more a reflection of a number of long hours and not a disrespect of the social networking community. But, I will try to be one voice to those that would like to engage in a conversation about change/value. Criticism is easy - discussion about needs/improvements/market realities/etc. are more challenging but are definitely the kind we(I) need to hear.

Thanks for bearing with my ramblings but I hope this helps in some small way to contribute to the discussion. I will be more involved - to the extent that my thoughts seem interesting. I hope that discussions like the forums that Kevin and others provide will offer a way for us to hear the things needed to continue to improve and then to see products that result from that knowledge.

Regards,
Dave Danielson
VP Strategy and Alliances
LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell
david.danielson@lexisnexis.com

But isn't this the gist of your comment?

* Unlike innovative companies (Comcast, Dell, Southwest, Kodak to name a few) LexisNexis Martindale does not see the need to fully engage in a conversation with your customer base via tools like Twitter and blogs.
* Unlike these other innovative companies, LN Martindale is too buried in day-to-day business to spend the time needed to engage in the conversation with your constiuents.
* That you're following blogs closer than net users think and we just don't know it because unlike innovative companies you don't engage in the conversation in a way where people would think you are listening.
* That rather than LN MH making a comittment to start engaging in the conversation, you'll personally accept 'notes' from people, but because of 'long hours' you can't guaranty a quick response.

This is an indictment of LN MH, not you personally Dave.

MH talks a good game when it comes to Web 2.0. MH wants law firms to committ huge dollars to MH's social networking community.

But unlike companies who get it, LN MH will not commit the resources, both to learn and to staff, a team (perhaps 1 or 2 people) to effectively use the social media tools at hand to engage in a conversation with your constiuents (customers, prospective customers, and their influencers -blogs/twittter users).

If LN MH does not get it when it comes to its own client development and PR affairs, how can you ask law firms to believe in the services and products you provide? You can't.

You've got great people working at that company. I got to know many of them when my last company was aquired by LN MH. Let those people engage in conversations online. Why not let those employees, in fact push those employees, to blog, comment on other blogs, use twitter etc to enage in the online conversation?

Martindale-Hubbell, a proud company with a great legacy is taking a beating online and in public conversations at conferences. The majority of law firms and lawyers think you're irrelevant and a dinousaur. The only way you're going to turn that opinion and deliver better services and products is to immediately and vigorously engage in the conversation as innovative companies do.

I'm presenting on one of the panels on Web 2.0 marketing/client development at LegalTech in New York in a few weeks. I understand LN and perhaps MH is participating on those panels. It'll be a great opportunity to continue the discussion.

My comments were intended to suggest that even though we might be tied up in day-to-day urgencies, there is a growing understanding of the need to be more engaged in the social networking community. But, because I cannot speak for anyone but myself, I thought i should raise my hand as a willing participant in the community representing the thoughts/ideas of M-H. I figured I owed it to the community to speak out and clearly identify myself.

Kevin you and the social media community will always have the benefit of moving faster than M-H corpoate will but we are moving in you direction. I (and others0 are encouraging those of us who monitor but do not comment - to be more "verbal" and participate in the community. As of Jan 9th, I can't say that this means we will be good in this effort but instead, we will endeavor to get better. I also agree with you, Kevin, that we need to get a broader group of people who make monitoring and commenting on blogs/twitter a priority, not an afterthought. Hopefully others will be more vical too but again, I thought it was proper to raise my hand.

Today, we are overly focused on transforming the product line and have not done enough to communite with the community. We should definitely balance communications better with "heads-down" development. Fair Enough. I'm curious, because you know LN/MH internally, what do you think would be the right approach? (number of people, monitoring what conversations, etc.) It's not that I don't know the answer to this - just wondering what you would say.

thanks -

I hpe this helps -