{"id":152,"date":"2008-01-02T11:32:01","date_gmt":"2008-01-02T15:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/amy\/2008\/01\/02\/non-lawyers-bring-innovation-to-the-table"},"modified":"2012-05-07T15:19:04","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T19:19:04","slug":"non-lawyers-bring-innovation-to-the-table-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/2008\/01\/02\/non-lawyers-bring-innovation-to-the-table-really\/","title":{"rendered":"Non-Lawyers Bring Innovation to the Table. Really."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I received an e-mail from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edge.ai\/Edge-International-1059161.html\" target=\"_blank\">Patrick McKenna<\/a>, a long-time professional services consultant with Edge International, kindly informing me of his most recent blog post (dated December 30, 2007) titled, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patrickmckenna.com\/blog\" target=\"_blank\">The ABA, Shamefully Does Not Practice Diversity<\/a><\/strong>. In it he criticizes the December issue of the <em>ABA Journal<\/em> for its cover story, &#8220;The Blawg 100: The Best Web Sites By Lawyers.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>States McKenna,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;I cannot believe the shameful audacity of the <em>ABA Journal<\/em> to rate web sites for lawyers . . . by including only those written by lawyers. For those who long suspected that the legal profession, unique amongst professions for categorizing people as either being lawyers or non-lawyers, really doesn\u2019t understand or support diversity, you now have the proof.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>He provides several examples of excellent blogs for lawyers written by non-lawyers including those by:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span><a href=\"http:\/\/davidmaister.com\/blog\/\" target=\"_blank\">David Maister<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><a href=\"http:\/\/expertisemarketing.typepad.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Suzanne Lowe<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/amy\/\">Amy Campbell<\/a> (that&#8217;s me!)<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><a href=\"http:\/\/leadershipforlawyers.typepad.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mark Beese<\/a><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span><a href=\"http:\/\/goldenmarketing.typepad.com\/weblog\/\" target=\"_blank\">Michelle Golden<\/a>  <\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Then just yesterday, I read a very interesting article in the <em>New York Times<\/em> that offers an explanation as to how this type of isolated thinking happens. In<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/12\/30\/business\/30know.html\" target=\"_blank\"> Innovative Minds Don&#8217;t Think Alike<\/a><\/strong>, Janet Rae-Dupree, describes this phenomenon as a &#8220;curse of knowledge.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8230;once you\u2019ve become an expert in a particular subject, it\u2019s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. Your conversations with others in the field are peppered with catch phrases and jargon that are foreign to the uninitiated. When it\u2019s time to accomplish a task \u2014 open a store, build a house, buy new cash registers, sell insurance \u2014 those in the know get it done the way it has always been done, stifling innovation as they barrel along the well-worn path.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The article offers anecdotal and scientific support for bringing people with different skill sets \u2014 even (gasp) outsiders \u2014 to the table. It also introduces a groovy, new bit of jargon you can toss around \u2014 &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/12\/30\/business\/30know.html\" target=\"_blank\">zero-gravity thinkers<\/a>.&#8221;  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/12\/30\/business\/30know.html\" target=\"_blank\">Click here<\/a> to read the full article on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/12\/30\/business\/30know.html\" target=\"_blank\">nytimes.com<\/a> \u2014 it&#8217;s worth the 5 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I received an e-mail from Patrick McKenna, a long-time professional services consultant with Edge International, kindly informing me of his most recent blog post (dated December 30, 2007) titled, The ABA, Shamefully Does Not Practice Diversity. In it he criticizes &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/2008\/01\/02\/non-lawyers-bring-innovation-to-the-table-really\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Non-Lawyers Bring Innovation to the Table. Really.<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,195],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-law-firm-marketing","category-marketing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/89"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":762,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152\/revisions\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/amy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}