Google Apps

Google continues (in my opinion) to dominate the market with its extensive offering of products and services. Regardless of your feelings about operating systems (iOS v. MS), you must agree that Google has the best cloud services, hands down.

Six months ago I transferred all of my email/contacts/calendaring services to Google Apps, and I paid the premium price to upgrade my accounts to the business edition. I'm not looking back!

If you're not familiar with the Google Apps product, your law firm should be. The product provides a clean and simple cloud interface for handling a variety of daily things like calendaring, email, and contacts. More importantly, as long as you have internet access, you can connect to everything through the online resource.

For those of you who love the interface with Outlook (I am one), the paid version ($50/year per user) offers a simple sync to Outlook program that you can use to transfer your Outlook information between your computer and your Google account.

Here's some of the huge benefits I find with using my Apps account:

1. Easy integration/access to email, calendar, and contacts from my laptop, desktop, or smartphone;
2. Seamless sync between Outlook and Google on any computer (I currently sync my home, laptop, and office computers with my Google account);
3. Easily share calendar and contacts with employees;
4. High-quality technical support and hassle-free maintenance (I get the same quality as MS Exchange, without maintaining an Exchange server)

I would always recommend the paid version if you're intending to use Google Apps for business purposes. I believe, and would probably win any challenge, that paying for cloud services, as opposed to using freebies, entitles you to some privacy protections that might not be otherwise. Google Apps provides all users, especially small businesses, with the big business IT resources. 

Google Places

I don't market my law firm anywhere else but on the internet. Sure, I have the obligatory white pages listing I get when I installed my office line, but that's so indescribably boring that it's hardly worth mentioning.

What has been the true "make it, or break it" marketing maven is my firm and personal listing on Google. I've discussed the benefits of Google, and how my listings on Google influence the types of cases I want to develop. When I ask people how they got my information, "the internet" or "Google" are the two most common responses.

Well, now Jay Fleischman has delved into helping you create and utilize Google Places to your marketing advantage. Jay has two posts, here and here, which effectively and succinctly describe what Google Places is, and how to take advantage of the Google behemoth, all for free.

One of the keys that Jay suggests, which I think is the money quote, is get a separate Google account. I didn't do this when I started my firm's marketing scheme, and frankly, it didn't even cross my mind. Now however, the separate account would be nice. The problem I've realized is that have your marketing connected to your private account will create headaches in the future, i.e., what if you want to sell your business? Your public marketing efforts are intricately tied to your private account. It's unseverable without fully transferring my private Google account. The easiest thing to rectify this problem: get a Google apps account for $50 per year. 

Other than that small glitch, I love (as I've gloated before) seeing my names in the 1 and 2 spots on the Google search page. Even more thrilling is that my names come before the BigLaw firms who have mucho denaro to market with.

Google Alerts

I'm a Google "Homer." Although I haven't moved my word processing and all of my email to the Google "cloud," almost everything else is handled by my friends 2,500 miles away.

I think the company is innovative, and provides great services for managing information. I've been using one of their newer products, Google Alerts, for awhile now. This is a great tool for gathering information about particular topics.

With GA, I can set a search term for the Google bots to look for, and they'll provide me an RSS update of all the information they find, as it happens. This is particularly great for gathering news or ideas for blog posts and stories related to my legal practice. 

One of my favorite searches is the "site: nameofsite.com" search. With this search, you can clip anything that gets unknowingly posted to your site, or in my case, those spam attacks that try to inundate your site with ads for male enhancement pills.

If you're running out of innovative ideas, or you want to keep tabs on competition, give Google Alerts a try.

Vacation Time

I'm taking some time this week to celebrate the holiday. As such, I took my family from Oklahoma to visit my in-laws about 1200 miles away.

The problem most solos discover is that if you're not at the office, the work isn't getting done. Admittedly, there are times I hate taking any vacation time because I know when I return, the work will pile up. I'm sure many of the self-employed feel the same way. The truth is though, you need to get away and have some vacation time to recharge and renew.

This trip has been wonderful, because I've been able to relax and enjoy family time, while tackling some issues with clients, potential clients, and opposing counsel.

The first "life-line" has been LogMeIn. The web-based application allows me to connect with my office server and review files, documents, and other important client materials. It's even better because the program is free. You get the full functionality of your office desktop, without having to be in the office.

My second safety-value is Google Voice. This program allows me to receive calls and disguise my cell phone number to connect with clients. I always try to avoid giving my cell phone number to clients because some tend to call your phone at odd hours, on holidays, or whenever. GV disguises the number to my office line, and rings their phone. I can get voice mail messages, and send SMS messages. GV is so good, one client thought I was in the office because I'd just spoke with him from my office number.

Finally, my practice management system, PracticeMaster, has saved me lots of time. I have full access to my cases and can note problems, discuss issues, and take care of business.

I have nothing to gain from any of these programs, except increased performance in my practice. I've discovered that you can enjoy some family time, and still keep an active tab on the processes in your firm.

My life is complete

FYI, Google Calendar can sync with Outlook. This was my one hold-up about moving completely online, and now it's solved. Here's the how-to.

Thanks to Jim Calloway for alerting me.

Google Apps Hack

One of my concerns involves making my PDF files accessible to clients in the Google Apps module. I've raved about the assets of this module, but a downside of the application is that PDF is not a supported upload format in Google Docs. A quick search on Google revealed this gem that seems to solve my dilemma. Here's the hack:

I might catch heck from Google for this little hack, but here's how I get PDF files to work for my Google Apps domain...

As part of creating the web pages for your domain, you can upload files to display on those pages like
images and stuff. Fortunately that also includes PDF files! And since those files are stored in a public location you can access them via a URL link. Then you can create a Google Doc which contains all of the links to those PDF files.

Here's the steps to do this:
1) Select the Web Pages link from your Dashboard
2) On the Web Page Settings page select the Edit your web pages link
3) Upload the PDF file using the Uploaded stuff control on the right side of the page
4) After the document is uploaded, right-click on the link and select the Copy Link Location in FireFox or the Copy Shortcut in IE
5) Paste that link into a Google Doc, an appointment on your Google Calendar, or wherever necessary