Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Helping Your Clients With Suggestions For Summer Vacation

Yes, summer vacation is in sight. For separated families, no school can be a challenge. Custodial schedules frequently change, and extended vacation times for parents kick in. Keeping the kids pleasantly distracted can be challenging enough. Add divorce conflict to the mix, and summers can be downright distressing -- for the parents and the kids.

Do you have clients coming to you ad asking "what am I supposed to do with the kids this summer?" I have answers for you.

Bay Area Parent magazine has released the online version of its great Summer Survival Guide. Chock full of fun and stimulating things to do in the Bay Area, this guide can be a real life saver for parents looking to keep the kids busy in a good way this summer. Click here to check it out the Summer Survival Guide.

Please visit hardinglaw.com for more information of Harding & Associates Family Law

#Harding&AssociatesFamilyLaw #californiafamilylaw #divorce #family law #superlawyers #americanacademyofmatrimoniallawyers #Pleasantondivorce #AlamedaCountyDivorce #ContraCostaCountyDivorce #lawyers

Friday, February 24, 2012

Marketing Is The New Selling

Glenngary Glen Ross has to be the all time best salesman movie. In the movie Alec Baldwin gives a speech for the ages when motivating his sales team. You must check it out.

That movie, and Baldwin's speech, are the themes behind a blog post from one of my all time favorites marketing experts, John Jantsch. In his article John brings attention to the new paradigm in marketing. Consider these points:
  • Listening is the new prospecting
  • Educating is the new presenting
  • Insight is the new information sharing
  • Storybuilding is the new nurturing
  • Relationship building is the new closing
As John sees it:
In order to thrive in today’s digitally driven business environment, sales folks need to think and act more like marketers. I suppose to some degree this has always been true, but it is painfully so now that prospects have access to mounds of information, have tools to deflect unwanted sales messages and have the ability to freely publish both flattering and unflattering information about the companies with whom they choose to do business.
This is solid advice, and applies to us lawyers as we market our practices. Please click here for the article from the Duct Tape Marketing Blog.

Please visit hardinglaw.com for more information of Harding & Associates Family Law

#Harding&AssociatesFamilyLaw #californiafamilylaw #divorce #family law #superlawyers #americanacademyofmatrimoniallawyers #Pleasantondivorce #AlamedaCountyDivorce #ContraCostaCountyDivorce #lawyers

Friday, February 17, 2012

Ted Brooks On Cloud Storage

Want to learn more about Cloud storage? Legal technologist Ted Brooks reviews the most popular cloud storage services on his Court Technology and Trial Presentation Blog. Check out Ted's loves and hates regarding Dropbox, You SendIt, Box, Google Docs, and iCloud. This article will go a long way in helping you to understand what cloud storage is, and which product will best suit your needs. Click here for the read.

Please visit hardinglaw.com for more information about Harding & Associates Family Law

#Harding&AssociatesFamilyLaw #californiafamilylaw #divorce #family law #superlawyers #americanacademyofmatrimoniallawyers #Pleasantondivorce #AlamedaCountyDivorce #ContraCostaCountyDivorce #lawyers

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Family Lawyer Magazine

A new magazine has hit the street, with us divorce lawyers as its target market. Family Lawyer Magazine is on online ezine published by Divorce Marketing Group. Lawyer interviews, case reviews, feature articles on litigation strategies, law practice management, experts, and much more. I have given it a read, and have enjoyed it very much. Please click here for a view.

In the spirit if full disclosure, yours truly has also contributed as a writer to FLM. My article Dumping the Banker's Boxes can be read here.

Please visit hardinglaw.com for more information of Harding & Associates Family Law#Harding&AssociatesFamilyLaw #californiafamilylaw #divorce #family law #superlawyers #americanacademyofmatrimoniallawyers #Pleasantondivorce #AlamedaCountyDivorce #ContraCostaCountyDivorce #lawyers #familylawyermagazine

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Why I Use Dropbox

I have two different workstations that I work from within my Pleasanton office. I also work remotely from my home. I work from our satellite offices in Walnut Creek and San Francisco. I work on my laptop, and I work on my iPad. I work from hotel rooms when I am traveling. I don't tell you this to paint the picture of a workaholic (which I am not). I tell you this to emphasize that I work all over the place; and to emphasize that technology makes distance irrelevant.

Confidential files, records, and information are stored and accessed through a secure server at our office. I can remote in, but there are a few steps required to maintain a secure environment. It can be a bit cumbersome. However there are lots of other little things that I can be working on. I find a need to access them now and then, from here, there and everywhere. For those little things I really don't want to have to log into the office network, open a bunch of different programs, keep track of timestamps and versions, etc. For example, articles that I may be writing, or presentations that I am creating. Articles and papers that I want to read. Mind map templates that I am creating. These are materials that I am accessing from all of my different computers. I need to be able to open them on Windows machines, Apple machines, laptops, iPads, iPhones, etc. I need one place where I can keep these projects synchronized, and find them easily.

For these needs I turn to Dropbox. With my free Dropbox account on the internet I have one, central repository for all of those little projects and pieces. If I spent ten minutes writing an article at the office, and then want to do a bit more tweaking of it on my iPad at home later, I simply open my Dropbox account and there it is. This is so much easier than my old method which was to transfer files from machine to machine by connecting the two machines over the internet or via a cable. It also beats carrying around a memory stick that I could move from machine to machine (or not with the iPad and iPhone).

Another fantastic feature of Dropbox is that it runs in the background on my various devices, and keeps them all synchronized without any help from me. I never have to worry that the file on my desktop pc is exactly the same as the file on my laptop. Brilliant! Give it a try. Don't cost nothing!

Please visit hardinglaw.com for more information of Harding & Associates Family Law.

#dropbox #Harding&AssociatesFamilyLaw #californiafamilylaw #divorce #family law #superlawyers #americanacademyofmatrimoniallawyers #Pleasantondivorce #AlamedaCountyDivorce #ContraCostaCountyDivorce #lawyers

Friday, February 3, 2012

Mind Mapping Increases Productivity

Mind mapping is a process that I am big on. Because it is new, there are skeptics and doubters. As the science and statistics for mind mapping evolve though, the beliefs of proponents like myself are starting to be supported with measured evidence. At the Mind Mapping Software Blog Chuck Frey offers an article with evidence that mind mapping works. For example, a 10% increase for mind mapping newbies, up to a 30% increase inefficiency for experienced users. That is substantial. Please click here to read the entire article.

Please visit hardinglaw.com for more information of Harding & Associates Family Law

#mindmap #Harding&AssociatesFamilyLaw #californiafamilylaw #divorce #family law #superlawyers #americanacademyofmatrimoniallawyers #Pleasantondivorce #AlamedaCountyDivorce #ContraCostaCountyDivorce #lawyers

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Cloud Service Lets You Run Office On Your iPad

When it comes to running Microsoft Office creations (Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, etc.) on an iPad app there isn't really full compatibility. However, a new cloud based service is making progress.

CloudOn is a (for now at least) Free app providing about as much Office compatibility as you are going to find. The service is drawing rave reviews from the experts, and is proving wildly popular -- to the point of having server capacity issues, and drawing an attentive eye from the folks at Apple. CloudOn lets you use your iPad to create, view, and edit files directly in Microsoft Word®, Excel® & PowerPoint®. These applications will work the way you expect them to, and your files will look the way you want them to. To use CloudOn you must have a Dropbox account.

Please visit hardinglaw.com for more information of Harding & Associates Family Law

#Harding&AssociatesFamilyLaw #californiafamilylaw #divorce #family law #superlawyers #americanacademyofmatrimoniallawyers #Pleasantondivorce #AlamedaCountyDivorce #ContraCostaCountyDivorce #lawyers

Solo nets Supreme Court win!

I know this has nothing to do with technology, but I think it is pretty cool. Andrew Simpson is a sole practitioner in the U.S. Virgin Is...