Every Friday, we’ll offer some of our thoughts on content marketing, curate a few interesting articles we’ve come across (from the legal industry and otherwise), and tell you what we’ve been up to.

I always tell our clients that we’re sponges: we love to soak in as much information as we can. The more we get, the better the work product that we can produce.

I’ve been researching my whole life. Information is power, and I have always been determined to gather as many data points as I could and make sense of them all.

Think I’m exaggerating about getting an early start?

As an eighth grader, after much negotiation in my cats-only household, my parents agreed to let me buy an exotic pet. I conducted months of research and compiled my notes in a special spiral-bound notebook before choosing a cockatiel based on its versatility, size, and vocabulary-building potential. (Ollie, a play on “Polly, want a cracker” and a nod to Oliver North (Iran-Contra was occurring at the time) lived with us for 25 years.)
No one in my family played soccer, but I wanted to join the high school team. As a sophomore, I taught myself how to play by reading some books and practicing the drills they suggested. (I made it through tryouts, played fullback, and became the varsity team’s starting goalie and team captain.)
I netted state and national awards for my high school research on the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fischeri, but not because of my results (which weren’t all that compelling). Instead, I was recognized for the weeks I spent in the local university’s library beseeching patient, yet probably annoyed, librarians to fetch dozens of articles.
I compiled a 30-column sortable database—mind you, this was in the days of AppleWorks, well before Office—of every statistic available about college and university that sent me literature, no matter how small and remote or how unlikely I was to attend.

The practice of law fed my quest for information. I spent hours researching case precedent and poring over witness interviews, stoking the fires even more as I sought to devise the precise legal argument that would persuade a judge and defeat my adversary.

Now, I’ve found an even bigger thrill: researching new tactics and ideas for Scribe and its clients.

To be clear, we’re happy to serve as our clients’ mouthpieces when they come to us with fully formed ideas for us to parrot. But in my opinion, our work soars to an even higher plane when we’re given free access to our clients’ internal information resources, both human and data-based alike. The more nitty-gritty details we can learn about what our clients do, why they do it, and exactly how they do it, the better we can craft a thought-leadership strategy and the better we can target our content toward attaining their goals.

We’re also constantly striving to expand our knowledge base about content marketing as well. We monitor developments in our industry, and in our clients’ industries, so we can all stay at the forefront of the discussions in our fields.

Our learning never stops, and that’s one of the best things about our work. It’s also why we’re among the best at it.

What’s new this week in the legal industry?

Looking for some (more) tips to improve your content marketing?

Need something to talk about at a holiday gathering?

Would $10,000 make you move to Tulsa? (New York Times)
Do you find this shade of pink “life affirming?” Pantone does. (Washington Post)
Should you walk your cat? (New York Times)

So, what has Scribe been up to this week?

Planning our growth strategy for 2019
Dipping our toes in warm Caribbean waters (well, one of us, anyway)
Studying risk intelligence for financial industries
Theorizing about how the EDRM would look if it were redrawn for today’s ediscovery
Examining case law developments for the last quarter and pondering emergent themes

Got big plans to grow your thought leadership and business in 2019? Let us know—we’d love to strategize with you!

Friday scribbles: always be a sponge