Recently we asked TechnoLawyer members to take a survey about some new initiatives. We also asked how we could better serve you. Boy did we receive an earful. Below you'll find some of the comments we received along with my responses.
"Keep up the good work. I particularly enjoyed your publishing the critical post about cookies. That guy has failed to keep up with the times. By now, everyone should know the need for cookies at a secure Web site and understand that they are not evil."
I'm glad someone other than me doesn't view cookies as evil!
"Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the number of mailings from TL. I realize I can change preferences, but by and large I enjoy all the articles."
Well, I'm glad you know about your My TechnoLawyer page. As for the rest of you, keep in mind that you can easily manage your newsletter subscriptions.
"I get too many e-mails from TechnoLawyer on a daily basis. I would like them combined into one daily e-mail."
That's impossible because we publish self-contained newsletters — and I can assure you that you'll never receive more than one issue of a newsletter on a given day. Instead, what you need to do is manage your subscriptions on your My TechnoLawyer page.
"I've got to admit that I really dislike the practice of having articles published only in the TechnoLawyer Archive. I don't have a subscription to the archive. I also admit that I am too cheap to buy one. I try to support TechnoLawyer advertisers whenever possible and to give TechnoLawyer credit as the source of learning about the advertiser. I understand that you need a revenue source, but I really HATE not having access to articles that I'd like to read because they are available only through the archive."
"I am generally satisfied, but would rather see more of the articles in the free section."
Just to be clear, we publish virtually all of our content for free in our newsletters. The only content exclusive to the TechnoLawyer Archive are a handful of Posts each week that the contributors clearly wrote quickly — these Posts tend to not contain as much detail as the Posts we include in our newsletters. But I admit that even a very short Post can contain invaluable information.
With TechnoLawyer Archive subscriptions starting at $9, I personally think it's affordable even for individuals let alone law firms. That said, an increasing number of bar associations provide a free year of TechnoLawyer Archive access to their members. If your bar association has at least 1,000 members, ask the powers that be to contact me. Participating bar associations don't pay us, but we require that they inform their members about the benefit. There's no point in providing a benefit that no one knows about, which is often the case with bar association benefits.
"The majority of items addressed in TechnoLawyer are geared toward big firms with large IT budgets."
"Obviously a very good resource for solos and small firms, and some tips and issues apply to everyone involved in legal technology."
Interesting how people reading the same newsletters can reach opposite conclusions.
"Allow newsletters to be formatted for printing."
Your best bet is to subscribe to the ASCII version of our newsletters. This way, you can remove the line breaks and print a version that will look like a typical word processor document.
"Overall, I like Technolawyer and think you are doing a great job. The only constructive criticism I might offer is to make the comment process more transparent. Currently, all comments go through TechnoLawyer before they are available for review, which creates the appearance of censorship and/or bias towards your advertisers."
We never edit your Posts. Instead, we just act as a conduit. Obviously, we reserve the right to not publish a submission, but we seldom exercise that right — just once last year I think. Basically, if you take the time to write it, we'll publish it unchanged.
The reason your submissions have to go through us is because we built a content management system that enables you to contribute via e-mail instead of through some Web interface that would require you to login. In other words, we do the hard work so you can have it easy — there's nothing easier than sending an e-mail message.
"The e-mails are also hard to read — I wish the graphics were better and there wasn't so much clutter. I also wish that paid ads were on the side like on most blogs or Google."
I suspect you receive our ASCII version. We also publish our newsletters in HTML. In the HTML version, the ads do indeed appear along the side. To switch from ASCII to HTML (or vice versa), just log into your My TechnoLawyer page.
"Free beer?"
Actually, we did provide free booze to New York area TechnoLawyer members at our BlawgWorld launch party on November 30, 2005. We hope to make it an annual event.
"It's hard to criticize the job you do when it's free."
Isn't it amazing how many valuable services we receive for free on the Internet? It's kind of like the early days of television when it was 100% ad supported (nowadays, most of us pay for cable or satellite so free TV is a myth).
"I very much enjoy TechnoLawyer. I have been able to find many good tips."
Thank you!
About TechnoEditorials
A TechnoEditorial is the vehicle through which we opine and provide tips of interest to managing partners, law firm administrators, and others in the legal profession. TechnoEditorials appear first in TechnoGuide, and later here in TechnoLawyer Blog. TechnoGuide, which is free, also contains exclusive content. You can subscribe here.
