What One Lawyer Has Learned About Social Media (But There Are Still 5 Days Left)

Last week I received a novel invitation – call it a ‘dare’ from a long-time colleague and friend in a faraway land. He and I have never actually met, but we have interacted so often professionally and we keep trying to figure out how and when we can end up at the same conference, perhaps even sharing a speaking opportunity or panel so we can finally say ‘Hello’ in person – even split a bottle of wine. The invitation was a novel twist on attracting speakers to a professional conference – specifically the 2014 Webit Global Conference to be held in Istanbul.

Although the agenda was pretty full already, the organizers decided to create some ‘buzz’ by allowing people to vote for a few speaking slots as “Audience Choice” selections. Imagine that, a professional conference with a ‘power to the people’ format. While obviously hoping to increase attendance and excitement for the conference, the balloting is online and you don’t have to be registered to vote.

Now I’m wise enough, with enough experience, to appreciate that a practicing lawyer will NEVER win a popularity contest. I mean seriously – who normally says “I love my lawyer and really want to hear him talk!” I believe this to be true, even if we aren’t charging by the hour!

But I do love a good challenge and I thought it would be a good opportunity to conduct an informal, completely unofficial and invalid experiment. So I sent requests to people I’m connected to on LinkedIn, tweeted on Twitter and provided a link, with ‘Please vote for my presentation’ on my email signature block. Here is what I know and what I learned so far:

1. On this Legal Bytes blog, there have been more than 120,000 visitors, with 76,000 of them unique. So far just this month, there have been more than 2,500 visits. My own contacts – friends, family, professional colleagues, adversaries and people I have met over the years – number well over 6,000. As of this morning, I had 3,677 direct connections on LinkedIn. That means, according to the platform, there are 18,240,386 professionals in my network. That’s more than 18 million people! Eat your heart out Ellen and Ashton! Who’s ‘trending’ now?

2. Although Legal Bytes gets posted on Facebook, I don’t use Facebook otherwise and I only have a little over 480 ‘followers’ on Twitter (most of whom I don’t know), but that may simply be because my tweets, like my Facebook posts, are simply feeds from my blog. Perhaps those other 76,000 people are getting their information here and don’t need to duplicate it on Facebook or Twitter. Further study may be required (not really).

3. If you don’t have a Facebook profile, the organizers won’t let you vote – an interesting condition for a professional conference. Not sure why they didn’t pick a different platform or not require any pre-condition of membership in a network.

4. The organizers apparently won’t let you vote even if you are registered with Facebook, if you don’t have enough ‘friends’ on your profile (a few of my lawyer friends tried to vote and they are just as unpopular as I am). I’m guessing the conference organizers only want people who can spread the word to lots of others.

5. As of this morning I had 92 (yes, 92) votes.  Although I can’t really tell how many total potential speakers entered the contest, I am number 234 and some people have almost 1,000 votes already.

So far, my little experiment has led me to the following observations:

(a) My connections don’t vote, don’t want to vote or are out of the office and will get back to me as soon as they return;
(b) My connections really don’t like lawyers;
(c) My connections either don’t like this lawyer; prefer not to vote for this lawyer; prefer not to vote at all; didn’t qualify to vote (I may ask for a recount); or didn’t like the description.
(d) My thousands, hundreds of thousands and even millions of linked and networked connections don’t mean that much – it’s the people who know me that really count.


Perhaps there are or will be other lessons. After all, there are still 5 days left and if I ultimately end up with more than 18 million votes, I will be forced to admit I was totally wrong about the real power of social networks.

Useless But Compelling Facts – July 17, 2014 Answer

Our most recent Useless But Compelling Fact question asked if you knew where the character Batman came from, and we are happy to provide the answer.

Batman (or the Bat Man), the character, first appeared in May 1939 in Issue # 27 of Detective Comics. Batman would go on to be the star of the title (often written "Detective Comics featuring Batman"), and taking over the logo art on the cover. The comic book issue is considered to be among the most valuable comic books in existence – with one reported sale of a copy in very good (but not mint) condition selling for US$1,075,000. Holy Batman!

Useless But Compelling Facts – July 17, 2014

Some of you know that “Batman Begins” is a 2005 motion picture directed by Christopher Nolan, staring Christian Bale in the lead role as Batman.

The motion picture has an amazing supporting cast that includes such stars as Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, and Morgan Freeman, and tells the origin of the character, beginning with Bruce Wayne’s childhood fear of bats. The motion picture is one of a new series of films based on the crime-fighting adventures of the iconic Batman character.

What you may not know is where the character Batman actually comes from . . . if you don’t know, I’ll tell you when we publish the answer . . . next week! But if you do know, send me an email, or better, why not just use the Bat Signal . . .

Useless But Compelling Facts – July 2014 Answer

Earlier this week, recognizing the FIFA World Cup fever sweeping the globe, we asked you to tell us how many "own" goals have been scored thus far in World Cup history. We also asked a bonus question – name the only player in World Cup history to score goals for both teams (his own and the competing team) in the same match.

The answers – both of which Shari Gottesman, longtime friend and Legal Bytes reader, got perfectly right – are:

As of today, 41 own goals have been scored in World Cup play.

In 1978, Ernie Brandts (born Ernstus Wilhelmus Johannes Brandts), playing for the Netherlands, scored an own goal in the 18th minute of play and then a "normal" goal for his team in the 50th minute of the match between the Netherlands and Italy. The Netherlands went on to win that match 2-1.

If you want to really immerse yourself in World Cup trivia:

  • Manuel Rosas scored the first own goal in World Cup play in 1930 in the match between Mexico and Chile
  • In 2002, in Portugal’s match against the USA, the USA’s Jeff Aggos scored an own goal in the USA net, and in the same game Portugal’s Jorge Costa scored in Portugal’s net
  • Trinidad and Tobago, in its only appearance, is the only team that has scored more own goals than regular goals in World Cup history. It scored an own goal favoring Paraguay in 2006 and never scored for itself in the match. 

Health Care in the Clouds: Not Always Fine on Cloud 9

Many of you are already familiar with the series of individual and topical cloud computing white papers that we launched in 2011. We spent the next months and years compiling these articles into a comprehensive work entitled, “Transcending the Cloud: A Legal Guide to the Risks and Rewards of Cloud Computing.”

The Consumer Finance Law Quarterly Report previously published two of our articles associated with “cloud-related” legal issues: The first applicable to financial services [65 Consumer Fin. L. Q. Rep. 57 (2011)] and the second related to advertising and marketing [65 Consumer Fin. L. Q. Rep 431 (2011)].

Recently, Joe Rosenbaum and Nancy Bonifant were privileged to have an article they wrote published as the third in the Consumer Finance Law Quarterly Reporter’s cloud computing series, and you can read the article right here: “Health Care in the Cloud: Think You Are Doing Fine on Cloud Nine? Think Again. Better Get Off My Cloud” [67 Consumer Fin. L. Q. Rep 367 (2013)]. The article represents an updated version of the article originally posted right here on Legal Bytes [See Transcending the Cloud – Health Care on Cloud 9? Are You Doing Fine?].

For more information about the implications of cloud computing and technology on health care, privacy compliance, and related legal matters, feel free to contact me, Joe Rosenbaum, or Nancy Bonifant or the Rimon attorney with whom you regularly work, and we can make sure you get the guidance and help you need to navigate the clouds.