I arrived at blogging, almost by accident, and even the likes of Seth Godin and Tom Peters (in this medium) were a mystery; but what a difference 12 months makes. My raison detre, as the heading suggests, is Excellence in Professional Practice. So far, and much to my own frustration, I have not even scratched the surface at exploring and developing the spectrum of ideas, thoughts, muttering, rants and free material that I wish to see come forth. Oh sure, I have had a couple of relatively consistent themes – social media integration in legal practice and life (legal) success – but this coming year is going to see me shift up several gears – actually I feel I need to strap a rocket to my back or become the flaming torch character from the Fantastic Four.

Excellence at its core – or at least what it means to me – is a call to action of the highest order, and is not one to be taken lightly. It is more, much more, than a simple label and it challenges me, every day, to push at the very limits of my own practice, as much as my chosen niche of professional practice.

In my case, I want to move towards a more systematised way of producing the information, so that by the end of a month you have some tools and ideas that can be implemented or used in whatever setting is going to make the most immediate and meaningful difference to Your practice. The definition of “Your” in this setting means your individual practice (BrandYou) but also applies in a firm-wide setting. I just don’t think that digesting the information in a 600-1200 word post can convey the full meaning and depth of the message or idea. I know what I was like in practice: Not only did I want to see the supporting evidence but I wanted to feel something more tangible.

In short, I believe that you will get much more from the engagement if you have a download or something more substantive to work on. As a starting point, I will produce over the course of this month some free implementation documents/tools which I will upload to Scribd and Slideshare. These are likely to be on social media but they may go out a bit wider and look at some ways you can differentiate your firm and create some meaningful buzz around the brand and or its people.

In addition, I see a landscape that includes access to my Evernote account, my Scribd account offering a multiplicity of free Pdf downloads, YouTube videos that provide immediate Takeaways, GoView being used to provide MP3 downloads, perhaps the odd CD here or there, a number of free eBooks or Whitepapers and greater connectivity with Google so that we can start sharing the best bits on the web. If you haven’t got yourself a Google account then you simply must if only to get the benefit of using its Reader facility (try the Android version it is excellent).

Now this might seem a lot or indeed overly ambitious but for me the only way that I am going to make a measurable difference is to produce material that has real and lasting value. I would love to talk about positioning myself as a respected thought leader but even a blog is not going to do that if for no other reason than there are not enough people within my niche who consume their information and market intelligence in this way. The last figure that I saw was something in the order of 4% and therefore to reach a bigger audience I need to look at other social communication tools to achieve that. I also need to connect with my sneezers (see Seth Godin) in a more direct and meaningful way.

Whilst I have a mind-blowing obsession for You to get better and for me to help in that process, if I could provide a download that spreads and informs the discussion but most of all makes a difference to the bottom line then I will have achieved something.

Of course, if you feel that I should be providing you with material in a different format or there is something that would really make a difference in your practice then I would love to hear from you. As a primer, ask yourself these questions:

1. What one thing would make the biggest difference to my practice? [Eg Better clients, better work, or a different support structure?]
2. What one thing would I change if I knew I [or the firm] couldn’t fail?
3. How do I see social media or social commerce affecting my practice?
4. How can I exploit my intellectual capital to take advantage of the limitless possibilities of the web?

If you have got the answers or some of them figured out then fantastic, but if you feel that I could assist in developing and implementing a strategy or set of tools to make the outcome slightly more predictable then please do let me know.

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For more on developing profitable business, innovating in professional practice and implementing social media, subscribe to the RSS Feed of my Blog. Follow me on Twitter at @0neLife, or @Ju_Summerhayes connect to me on LinkedIn or friend me on Facebook. If I can help you or your practice, check out my coaching and consulting firm via LinkedIn, email me on juliansummerhayes@gmail.com or call me on 075888 15384.