It’s been a busy first quarter again here at Inherent.   Here’s a quick overview of sites we’ve launched so far this year:

• Danning, Gill, Diamond & Kollitz, LLP, a Southern California firm focusing on bankruptcy and business litigation matters, launched both a new logo and new website.
• Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney, LLP, a leading law firm in New York, launched a new website.
• A long-time Inherent client, Schenck, Price, Smith & King LLP, has both a stellar new website design and a newsletter template styled to match.
• McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, LLP (“MDM&C”) has with more than 300 lawyers in ten offices in seven states, who are now using Inherent-designed e-mail signatures, newsletter templates, a Microsoft® SharePoint® intranet, and a new website.
• JoAnne Dellaverson, Esq. devotes her time to the resolution of employment disputes; her new website helps highlight her experience.

As the first quarter winds up, we’re looking forward to launching some fabulous website in the second quarter and beyond.

As mentioned previously, QR codes are unreadable by people; they’re designed to be read by smartphones. Unfortunately, like many other technology advances, they are being misused by some to distribute malware or engage in phishing attempts. The same is true of shortened or tiny URLs; they’re meant for convenience, but can be misused to lure innocent web surfers to unfriendly websites.

There are, of course, ways to reduce your exposure to misleading links, whether in tiny URLs or QR codes. When installing a QR code reader on your smartphone, test it out on a QR code that you’re sure links to somewhere safe. Once you’ve scanned the QR code, make sure the app you’re using offers you a chance to review the URL before loading the site. If it doesn’t, find a different app. If it does, make sure you review the URL each time before clicking through… sometimes, you’re only looking for a minor difference, such as mybakn.com instead of mybank.com.

Likewise, if you’re not comfortable with the source of a tiny URL, you can decipher it either through a browser extension (easily installed for Chrome and Firefox users), or through a deciphering website (such as http://www.longurl.org/).

When it doubt, always assume that it’s worth the extra step to verify the URL.

We have just launched a beautiful new Web site for Orloff, Lowenbach, Stifelman & Siegel, P.A., a New Jersey law firm. Their new site includes a revitalized logo design, introductory Flash, and rotating photos with teasers for their practice areas. And that’s just the home page! Take a look: http://www.olss.com/

Your personal Web site and blog are all about you. You can write to an audience or to yourself; the real audience is you and what you want to share with the world. Your law firm’s Web site, on the other hand, has an audience: your current and potential clients. With the astounding growth of the internet over the last decade, your law firm’s Web site is your strongest marketing tool… if used right.

A great Web site design will capture your visitors’ attention when they arrive at the site, but it’s the content that keeps both your audience and your search engine rankings. A lot of the effort needed to have a great Web site for you law firm is in creating and maintaining the content. A great Web site design, tailored for ease of use, is intended to enhance your high quality, concise content that is presented to your visitors and updated regularly. The content should be written with an ‘outside-in’ focus, taking into consideration how a client or prospect would likely look for information.

– Frances

Social media provide an abundance of opportunity for the business person looking to expand their networks, but they are so easy to misuse, whether intentionally or accidentally. You want to capture the attention of your network, but must avoid scaring off potential and current clients.

I recently read an interesting book called Relationship Economics: Transform Your Most Valuable Business Contacts Into Personal and Professional Success, where the author, David Nour, said it best: “the worst thing you can do on social media is to sell; doing so unequivocally turns everybody off.”

Unfortunately, I can give you examples from my personal experience. I recently received a request on Facebook from someone I didn’t know, explaining that he had noticed we had a mutual interest. I was slow to respond – I prefer to only friend people I know – but I eventually accepted his invitation to connect with an e-mail about our common interest. About five minutes later, he posted a sales link on my “Wall”, which everybody on my Friends list could see. Five minutes after that, I had deleted the link and blocked him from my Friends list.

Similarly, one of the lists I follow on LinkedIn periodically gets hit with badly written ads for the industry the group supports. Summaries of these discussions are e-mailed to the members of the group; the universal response on LinkedIn has been “this is spam, why is it here?” It’s annoying to see these on an otherwise productive group, and is akin to walking into a clothing shop and trying to sell clothes to the salespeople.

Use social media to expand your networks and showcase your work… save the sales for the sales meetings. What can you share via social media? As a Web site design and development firm, our Facebook page showcases some of the Web sites we’ve worked on; our LinkedIn page has an RSS feed from our blog and information about some of our products and services. Law firms with blogs, newsletters or regular news updates should showcase those on their social media profiles.

– Frances

Inherent is excited to be one of the sponsors for the upcoming Managing Partner Forum (MPF) conference in St. Louis next week. These highly acclaimed leadership conferences are designed specifically for managing partners and law firm leaders.

If you can’t make it to St. Louis next week, the next MPF conference will be held in Denver this October, and more are planned for 2012. More information on this and future conferences is available here.

If you can make it, stop in and say hi to the ladies from Inherent who will be there.

– Frances

Of course you know the phrase, “when it rains, it pours”. When it rains at Inherent, we pour out Web sites, which is what we did this quarter. Take a look at some of the Web sites we’ve launched already this year:

• Russell, Krafft & Gruber, LLP is a small Pennsylvania law firm with a lot of style. They wanted a Web site that would strike a balance between approachable and professional. Their new Web site achieves that, showcasing the friendly faces of their attorneys and Lancaster landmarks.
• Axis, an appraisal management firm, has both a revitalized logo and a new Web site, featuring real estate images across the site with just a tweak of color tying the images into their new logo colors. How many different images can you spot across the site?
• A long-time client of Inherent’s, Harwood Lloyd was ready for a new design and a newer version of Dynapsis. Their elegant Web site presents the developments and achievements of their attorneys with an easy to maintain content management system powering it all.
• Weiland, Golden, Smiley, Wang Ekvall & Strok, LLP is one of the largest insolvency boutiques in Southern California. They updated the firm’s image with this striking yet subdued Web site design focusing on their attorneys’ insolvency expertise.
• Don’t tell my daughter, but I don’t actually like pink. But somehow, it works on Web sites. Wright & Talisman, an energy law firm, chose a dark pink for the logo element that accompanies their revitalized logo. The new logo – and element color – carried over into the Web site design without overwhelming their visitors.

But enough about the first quarter… the second quarter starts tomorrow, and I can’t wait to see what the online April Fool’s jokes will be this year. Here are some of the highlights from last year.

– Frances

What a great way to start the year! We were recently notified that three of the Web sites we launched in 2010 were recognized by the Interactive Media Awards(TM).

The Brown Eassa & McLeod LLP Web site won the IMA “Best in Class” Award in the Legal category, the highest honor bestowed by the Interactive Media Council. Among other scores, which can been seen on our Awards page, this site had a perfect score for the Standards Compliance & Cross-Browser Compatibility criteria.

The Ropers Majeski Kohn Bentley PC Web site won the IMA “Outstanding Achievement” award, with a score of 479 – only 1 point short of a “Best in Class” Award. This is the second award the RMKB site has received; it was previously honored with a 2010 Platinum Award by Hermes Creative.

The Dannis Woliver Kelley Web site won the IMA “Outstanding Achievement” award as their second award, having also been honored previously by Hermes Creative.

What comes next for the busy folks here at Inherent? More Web sites! Check back soon for details on our most recent work.

– Frances

It’s time to follow Santa’s progress on the Official NORAD Santa Tracker. As of right now, the tracker shows he’s headed towards Bangkok.

The technology used to “track Santa” continues to improve; there’s a Track Santa in Google Earth option that combines Santa’s trip with the Google Earth functionality.

NORAD’s predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD), began tracking Santa’s trip back in 1955, when an ad to call Santa was misprinted with a CONAD phone number. When NORAD was formed in 1958, they continued the tradition.

NORAD has used various form of media over the years to report on Santa’s location: phone hotlines, newspapers, radio and television. As of 1997, they’ve had a highly publicized Web site, though they do still offer a hotline that can be called any time on December 24^th.

Santa moves fast – he’s now headed towards Vientiane, Laos.

Happy Holidays!

– Frances