How Do You Explain Social Networking?

[Jim Milles]

How do you explain social networking to librarians, lawyers, law professors, administrators, and students? Who gets it and who doesn't? How do you get people over their fears of open comments on Facebook and other forums?

I recall how I first made a name for myself 15 years ago going to conferences and workshops teaching those same groups about email, listservs, and Gopher, and the very early web. People were curious, but most could not imagine why they would ever want to use such things.

[Connie Crosby]

I really haven't cracked that nut myself. Librarians are slowly catching on, to at least know what these things are if not thinking about how they might use them themselves. Lawyers and students are slower to pick it up. If the practice of law can be seen (on some level) as managing risk, the easiest way to avoid risk is to avoid putting anything out on the web; this is how I think quite a few are viewing all of this.

That being said, I noticed a number of younger lawyers familiar to me using LinkedIn and Facebook. I think they got onto LinkedIn through invites from other people, but don't necessarily understand what it is. They are using Facebook in their personal lives, but have not figured out how this might translate to the professional world.

An amusing note: one lawyer who criticized me for "wasting time" blogging (something I never did on work time) was also the one who had the open Facebook account with the somewhat questionable personal photographs. I see this as evidence of lack of understanding of social spaces on the web and the power that it really holds. His experience of the web was as a place you go to waste time.

Does this notion exist throughout the industry? How do we dispel it?

[Connie Crosby]

A similar discussion is going on in the not-for-profit sector. See Beth Kanter's blog.

[Wendy Reynolds]

I would think that something like LinkedIn would have much to recommend itself to lawyers. They spend so much time building networks of colleagues to build business!

If you're putting together a presentation to explain any sort of Web 2.0 applications, I find that using the Common Craft videos gives you a concise, clear entry to the concept. Then follow up with real-world examples of how you have used/know other firms who have used the technology and results.

It wasn't so very long ago that we were looking at blogs with a certain amount of suspicion, and with tools like SLAW, The Court and the Profs network blogs, I can now make a convincing argument that you are not truly keeping up unless you include a few blogs in your professional reading.

[Marguerite Most]

In addition to LinkedIn, two other sites for lawyers that we looked at in my law practice technology course this spring were LawLink and Legal OnRamp. One of the guests who talked with the class is in LinkedIn, as are several of the faculty here at Boston College. At least for those students, they got it once they saw real life lawyers are signing on.

[Rita Kaiser]

And I have to try to teach lawyers who do investigative work how to find social networking information and why they might want to look at this information. Not quite sure what I will tell them.

[Marguerite Most]

Rita – there’s an interesting article by Vesna Jaksic in the National Law Journal of 10/15/07 “Finding Treasures for Cases on Facebook”. The author mentions several cases where the court was influenced by information on Facebook.

[Jason Eiseman]

I am running into this exact problem at the moment. I was asked to do a presentation on social networking. I would like to dispel some of the myths surrounding social networking. Unfortunately I only have an hour, and I'm told the attorneys really want this to be in depth focusing on LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace.

What I'm going to try to do is introduce online social networking as a natural extension of the existing social networks attorneys use.

I also think part of the trepidation may also come from myspace and facebook being kind of bogeymen that attorneys hear about but never actually explore. I'm hoping that pulling back the curtain will help them to be more educated and less sensationalist about social networking.

[Connie Crosby]

It helps if you can show them their clients are there. Or potential clients. I strongly believe that will be the ultimate driving factor in all of this.

[Wendy Reynolds]

Hey Jim, I found myself in the situation just yesterday of having to explain LinkedIn to someone. The analogy I used was that accepting links on LinkedIn (and any other social networking environment) is like going to a conference with a big stack of business cards. You meet people with whom you have something in common, and you share ideas. Then they go off to other conferences and talk to other people. And here's the kicker - they give those other people *your business card*.

[Rita Kaiser]

Marguerite,
This is a good article to help me explain to the attorneys about why they need to check social web sites. thanks for giving me the heads up about it.
Rita K

[Rebecca L. Stanley]

I have also found the business card and Rolodex analogy works when I'm trying to point out the purpose of a social network. The features of the various systems in the AALL CS-SIS Web 2.0 Challenge can be used - I think letting them know that each service has its strong and weak features is crucial. The less gaudy appearance of the service (Linkedin wins), the easier it is to promote to the corporate mindset.

[Rita Kaiser]

Just another general reply. I taught a CLE on "Investigating Social Networking Information" for attorneys and investigators and now have two more requests to teach this, plus I did a short column on Myspace and Facebook for my local Bar Association. The issue is, is this considered "private" information, or can they use it for checking for employment purposes, or court or? I know this is a different tack than the using social networks for marketing and such, but it is what the attorneys around here want to know. How do I find the information thee networks contain and then, can I rely on it?