Niche Social Media Platforms — Trend of the Future?

Episode Notes

Transcript

The Kennedy Mighell Report

Niche Social Media Platforms — Trend of the Future?

01/29/2021

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Intro: Web 2.0. Innovation, trends, collaboration. Software, metadata, podcasts. Got the world turning as fast as it can? Hear how technology can help. Legally speaking, with two of the top legal technology experts, authors, and lawyers: Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Welcome to The Kennedy Mighell Report, here on, The Legal Talk Network.

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Dennis Kennedy: And welcome to Episode 279 of The Kennedy Mighell Report. I’m Dennis Kennedy in Ann Arbor.

Tom Mighell: And I’m Tom Mighell, in Dallas. Before we get started, we’d like to thank our sponsors.

Dennis Kennedy: First of all, we’d like to thank Colonial Surety Company Bonds and Insurance for bringing you this podcast. Whatever court bonds you need, get a quote and purchase online at Colonial Surety.com/podcast.

Tom Mighell: And we’d also like to thank ServeNow. A nationwide network of trusted, pre-screened process servers. Work with the most professional process servers who have experience with high volume serves, embrace technology and understand the litigation process litigation process. Visit Servenow.com to learn more.

Dennis Kennedy: And we want to mention that Tom and I are available to speak to your organization about this topic, or the podcast, or any of the other topics we’ve cover on our podcast. In our last episode, we covered our big personal knowledge management project, we’re calling “the Second Brain” and the organization component of it focusing on a tool called, Notion. In this episode we went to look into the growth of niche social media tools, and what that might mean for you. Tom, what’s all on our agenda for this episode?

Tom Mighell:  Well, Dennis, in this edition of the Kennedy Mighell Report, we will indeed be looking into some communications, and social media tools that you might not know a lot about, and whether, and/or how lawyers should use them.

In our second segment, we’re going to talk about something called, a personal digital reset, and as usual we’ll finish up with our parting shots, that one tip website or observation that you can start to use the second that this podcast is over.

But first up, niche communications and social media tools. If you’ve been paying any attention lately, frustration with the major social networks has reached a fever pitch, I think over the last few months. So, we thought it might be a good idea to talk about some of the other platforms where people are going to talk, and whether or not any of these platforms might make sense for lawyers to explore, to use, to take

advantage of, see if they make sense for their practice. Tools like Discord, Clubhouse, Twitch. Some of these have been around for a number of years. Have you heard of them? They’re suddenly a lot more popular. Dennis, is this an issue of people adding on more social media platforms, or are they fleeing big tech for something different, and maybe better?

Dennis Kennedy: I really do wonder about that. I mean I think, there’s a bit of people talking about leaving the big social networks, but I think this is really more that the people are trying to find a new place where their audience is, or they’ve been invited to because some of these things are invitation networks. But I think, they’re looking for maybe both a format, and an audience, or community that fits them a little better than sort of the overwhelming, big social media networks. And with the sense that, you’re sacrificing privacy, and that what’s being shown to you in those networks maybe has a bit more control over it than you would like.

Tom Mighell:  So, I’m going to go out on a limb here or maybe this is not such a big limb I’m going out on. Here is why I think that, and we’re going to talk about these tools in more detail in a minute. Here’s why I think we’re seeing people go to them, and especially in a year of pandemic, of the tools we’re mostly going to cover, the majority of them have some sort of either voice or video component to them. And I’m going to make the argument that just having a social relationship with people via Facebook, or via Twitter, or Instagram is not enough during a year of pandemic when we’re not allowed to be in front of people.  Having voice to voice, or face-to-face conversations, real interaction is where people are — they’re starting to crave. They’re starting to really want that sort of thing.

And the services we’re going to talk about allow you to have that more personal interaction with people. And I think that’s what’s driving a lot of these which it’s interesting to me because there’s so much to what we’re talking about that frankly, was around 20, 30 years ago in some form, or fashion. And sort of everything old is new again, but because of the times we’re in suddenly, these tools become a lot more popular.

(00:04:48)

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah. I think it is the thing that a lot of these just have analogies to things that go back in some ways I would say, before what we think of as the web. I mean definitely before the web. So, AOL, CompuServe, this kind of things you can see the analogies that are out there, and in like in almost every technology now that we have more bandwidth, more processing power, we can do a lot more things. And especially, that being video, and streaming.

And I think you’re right, there is like, how do we kind of get better engagement than text or static photos give. And so, I think people have so, that’s one thing people have looked at that. And then I also think, you kind of want to find I call it, audience but it’s a sense of community, but sort of like, the people you want to talk to, and maybe, access in real time could be structured, could be unstructured. So, I think that’s an important piece.

Dennis Kennedy: And then in the pandemic through elections, all those sorts of things, I think that people have become more comfortable with people who agree with them, and think like they do. So, there is a kind of like want to find your favorite echo chamber is preferable to having all kinds of people yell at you, and come up with all sorts of crazy things, so I think there’s that on the negative side.

But on the positive side, I think people are kind of starting to look to say like, in the sense of overwhelmed that you can get out there on social media. Can I come to something smaller that really has like a core group of people I actually enjoy working with? Which may go back to the old days of social media, when there’s just so few people on it, and it seems like it was a lot more fun then.

Tom Mighell: I agree with all of that, and I think I would add one more thing to it which is, we talk a lot about we’ve talked in the past about the idea of the hub and spoke.  The blog is your hub, your website is your hub, and your spokes are your various social media tools. I wonder whether that really applies anymore? I wonder whether we’re now looking at people searching for either a better hub, or different spokes? Because these tools allow you either one; to have a good community, but two; also allow you to have a place to teach people, to give presentations, to say, here, one of these tools we’re talking about last night, somebody hopped on to talk about the new election fraud lawsuit they got filed.

And so, I mean it was just something that could immediately be done. They just set something up, and immediately had a conversation about it. I think that it won. The barrier to entry is fairly low to do it, and two; you’re giving presentations to potentially larger, or even small groups of people. So, I think that it can solve a number of different issues for getting your name out there, getting awareness, but also, as you say, Dennis, having community people that either, want to learn about the same types of things, or kind of are like-minded, which may or may not be a good thing.

Dennis Kennedy: It’s that time as you’re describing that, I’m thinking, “Wow, this is like the very early days of blogging. It’s like all the same arguments. It’s just kind of a number of different media that are now available that that fit people better because not everybody’s a writer, not everybody likes text. And some of these things just because they are so much easier, but some of the benefits we see with these tools are similar to what I call especially the very early days of blogging.

But why don’t we go into some specifics in time.  And I think each of the four that we’ve chosen sort of show some of the things that are out there, they’re fairly well known. And they kind of illustrate some of the problems that people are looking to solve. And so one that I wanted to mention first was Mighty Networks, which we’ve talked about, and we had a one of our interview shows last year was with Gina°Bianchini, one of the co-founders of Mighty Networks.

And I think the problem that that Mighty Networks addresses is, if Facebook is so overwhelming, and the other ways that you create groups are just so big, and don’t have the right tools for what you need especially, if you just have like a small group, a small audience, that you’re trying to create, you know, Mighty Networks allows you to have that very focused community that can be smaller, it can be more intense, in some ways, and gives you a lot of tools to do that. And so, as a community building tool, it becomes really interesting and then it’s a platform for online courses, and other things.

Dennis Kennedy: So, it’s kind of like, think of it in comparison to Facebook, but that’s I think, that type of tool and there are other ones out there, that’s I think the problem that’s trying to be addressed.

00:10:12

Tom Mighell: I think so too. I think that the benefit of the Mighty Networks is that, I think it is much easier to attract like-minded people there than some of these other tools that we’re going to talk about. But the thing that I like about Mighty Networks is not just the ability to have messaging, and discussion, and things like that. But also, to have courses where you can showcase your knowledge, where you can show what the community that you’ve decided to put together, it’s arguably because you have some expertise, or want to talk about a specific area, and the Mighty Networks is an ideal place to be able to design courses, give presentations, provide educational content to members of that particular community.  And I think that having that all into kind of just a package of a network is really a smart way to build. It’s small, but mighty I think is really the important thing to think about here.

Dennis Kennedy: And not to forget that it’s a great way for content creators to monetize what they’re doing. So, that is one example. The next one I want to talk about Tom is one called, Discord. Again, I think there’s other things out there. We had a conversation before the podcast whether it’s not exactly like Teams or Slack but you see some similarity there in a way that you can bring people together, and you have a number of ways to communicate with them in real time, or not in real time.

And again, it’s like a different slice of things, and I don’t know if there’s an exact parallel to this one, but I think one of the benefits is that, you don’t have to be within your organization, or that you don’t have to feel that you have to have hundreds of thousands of followers like on Twitter for your life to have meaning.

Tom Mighell: So, two of the tools we’re going to talk about have been around for a while. Discord has been around for six years now. It was it was first rolled out in 2015. And like another one of the tools, we’re going to talk about today, Twitch it has seen most traction in the gaming community. So, that’s kind of how I became aware of it. I think I’ve mentioned this on the podcast before.  I have no shame in mentioning that I am a World of Warcraft fan. I love playing World of Warcraft. And most of the groups who get together, and play World of Warcraft together have their own Discord site. And that allows you to have chat boards, you can chat all the time, you can post documents to it.

But then also, there are voice channels that are available. And I think that’s what makes it a little bit different from Mighty Networks, it makes it a little bit different from Teams and Slack is that, you can just hop into a chatroom, and talk to people, but it’s also at least for the gaming area, you’d go on, and that’s what you would use as your communications channel to go on and play, and if everybody was on that channel, they could all talk to each other.

Tom Mighell: I’ve seen other groups start to make use of a Discord, for example, some tech journalists are using a Discord where they just keep it open for a couple of hours in the day where they’re talking about the latest tech headlines, and anybody who’s a member of their community, they kind of use it as a Mighty Networks. Those people get access to their Discord, they get to come in and talk with a journalist and say, “All right. Hey, I heard this story. Is that story good? Or tell me a little bit more about that”

And so, I think that, there are interesting possibilities for Discord in building a community because you can literally have that community where people can hop in, and talk. And it’s not, I don’t want to brag, I don’t want to say that it’s a strong thing that it’s not moderated. There are moderation rules obviously, and each group that does a Discord has responsibilities for making sure it’s moderated appropriately. But it is something that again, we’ll be talking about this a lot, and I’ll be using this term a lot today, the barrier to entry is very low.

And you can get in, and start having a conversation, and talking to people with very little effort, it’s just on a web page, it’s easy, it’s all on all the different platforms. I have quite enjoyed using it for the gaming function. I could see it being expanded to the law, but so far, I don’t see it being used as much as I would like for stuff other than leisure, and or gaming purposes.

(00:15:00)

Dennis Kennedy: So, the third one we want to talk about is, one called, Clubhouse which has become really hot in the last, I don’t know, a month or so, a month or two maybe? And like people were celebrating today, like the first person to have a million followers, so in a way, it’s kind of in the world of social media, it’s smallish, and new enough that people notice those types of things.

Conceptually, it’s an odd sort of thing, but it’s like, imagine that you can have, you can create these conference calls, audio only. It’s an invitation application. So, you have to have an invitation to get in. It’s moderated, has some sort of set of rules, and if you can find when people have events, you can like go on and talk to people, in a kind of structured way.  So, you can think of like, “Oh, I can have, I can go to these audio webinars, and anytime I want, and its audio, and I can listen in, or I can talk myself. But I get the chance to talk to all these cool people.

So, that’s the concept, the reality is sort of like, these the events are super hard to find. And I can tell you, it is like, it just takes me back to when I was working, and on telephone conference calls, that ultimately that’s not my favorite way to consume things.

And the other thing I would say is, the podcasts do the same thing for me. The only trouble is, I control when I consume them, they aren’t real time, I can speed them up, I can stop in the middle and do that sort of thing. So, it’s super-hot area. A lot of people are interested, you’re seeing a lot of things, and starting up in legal. So, that’s one definitely to look at. But that one that doesn’t feel like it’s exactly my medium.

Tom Mighell: So, when you say, “it’s hard to describe conceptually,” I have the exact description for it, because I saw it 40 years ago. It is the telephone chat room. I mean, there were chat rooms back in the 80s, where you could hop on a party line and there’s people joining, and talking about stuff. And some of them were of a more prurient nature, and they weren’t always for family audiences to go into. But it’s literally a telephone chat line.

And what was interesting about Clubhouse is, the name even sounds exclusive. It was designed, and is still, I think an exclusive service because one; it’s only available on iOS. I mean that to me is, testament to the exclusivity. I think it’s a huge mistake. Anybody who listens to me on the podcast, I want to see everything on every platform. They’re coming up with an Android app that’s fair, but it’s not available for PC or Mac, I think that’s crazy. And also, it’s by invite only. So, Dennis, thank you for inviting me, but you only get a couple of invites.

But it started out back in, this really rolled out a little less than a year ago. And I think, this is one of the more direct reactions to the pandemic than anything else. And it was celebrities. It was celebrities talking to each other maybe because they couldn’t get together in real life, maybe they were talking together. So, it became the hot ticket, “I need to get to the service where all the celebrities are talking and go talk with them and sit in a in a phone chat room, and talk to them.”

And now granted, I’ve been a member for three whole days now, I can’t see a single celebrity on here. I think they’ve all completely abandoned it, and now it’s entrepreneurs, it’s people who are looking for an audience. And so, that’s as much that’s as much skepticism as I will show about Clubhouse. I think that the topics that people talk about are interesting. I think that, like I’ve mentioned, somebody just wanted to hop on, and talk about a new lawsuit that got filed and what that means.

I saw at least two discussions today about legal tech; one was about access to justice, the other one was about kind of the legal tech world of vendors, and what companies are out there. I think that having that opportunity to go on, and either use it as a presentation platform to give a presentation, or to just have a roundtable conversation with people where people are having a discussion.

I really like the idea. I’m not sure that’s going to be for every lawyer out there. I mean, some lawyers will want to use it to promote their practice, some lawyers might want to use it to go and socialize and talk to people. I’m not convinced that every lawyer is going to want to use this as a regular part of their social media tool bag that they occasionally visit, or routinely visit to go and talk to people. So, a very interesting tool, and like, they just got a big round of funding, so they’re headed for the stratosphere. Let’s check back in a couple of months, and see where they are. But I’m interested to see where this goes.

(00:20:13)

Dennis Kennedy: The big funding round should cover the Android app.

Tom Mighell: That’s what it needs to cover.

Dennis Kennedy: So, the last one we have Tom, I’m going to turn to you because it’s Twitch, and it’s a gaming platform, and on this podcast, you are the gaming expert.

Tom Mighell: So, Twitch has actually been around for 10 years. It’s been around for a long time, and we’re just now starting to talk about it. And you’re right, it’s a gaming platform. I think that the platform’s main gamer, whose code name is, “ninja” makes $500,000 a month just playing games on the platform. So, if you’re not aware that this is a thing, it’s definitely a thing, people sit there, and they play games, and other people go, and watch them play games, and they make money from people watching them play games.

What I’m starting to see though is, other areas invading the platform. So, for example, NFL is streaming a lot of its games live on Twitch. When the SpaceX would do the space, was up in space, the launch, and the landing that was broadcasted live on Twitch. There are a number of things that are being broadcast now. And I think the point is that, Twitch allows you to do with video, what Clubhouse or Discord allow you to do with audio. You can turn on your camera, you can live stream to your followers instantaneously about anything you want. A new case comes out that you want to talk about, “Hey, I’ll be starting up my Twitch channel in an hour. Please join me at this point in time.

I follow a bunch of a bunch of channels on there. I get a notification by email. Anytime that person is live, and I can hop on, and watch what they’re saying if I want to, or watch it recorded later if I want to because they’re all recorded. But I see that, this is the video equivalent where you can get people watching you. You can have conversations with them in real time. There’s a chat feature in it. There’s really not much more to the service.

So, I’m interested in this again, becoming an alternative way for lawyers to either show their knowledge, socialize with their community. I see this more as a presentation medium than the others. There’s not going to be as much discussion because it’s really more of a one-way discussion. You can talk on a video, but everybody else can only reply in the chat.

I’m really intrigued by it for the purposes of what lawyers might make of it, but I think it’s a while before that happens.

Dennis Kennedy: I think what’s interesting is that, as our listeners hear this, I think are probably going to react and say, “Well, but I kind of like doing webinars on podcast, Zoom  like, “Why would I want to do something where I dropped the video?” or you’d say, “Well, the streaming video, I can do on YouTube or any number of places. And I have the Slack group that I do this. I have some other things.

And so, I think that what I notice here is that there’s two things: one, that is really true, there is going to be media that really appeals to you. So, it’s good to have these choices, so that’s a plus. The downside is, there are so many darn choices in trying to figure out what to do with them, and how to keep them straight, and just a bunch, it’s almost like too much.

Dennis Kennedy: But I will go back to what you’re saying Tom. I think a lot of distributing by the pandemic because you just want to have like a number of different ways that you can interact with people in real time. And some people don’t like to be on camera. So, some people don’t like to be the center of attention, either audio or video, but you can find a place. It just feels like there’s a lot right now, and you can find yourself on a whole bunch of these different things, for different reasons, and it’d be nice to see some of things a bit more bundled, which I think will probably happen over the next couple of years.

Tom Mighell: I think so too, and I think you’re right. I think that there are a lot of tools out there. There are a lot of choices. What I like about the ones that we’re talking about here is that, they offer the ability for you to communicate with people in slightly different ways than other things might have allowed you to do in the past.

A Zoom meeting, okay. But a Zoom is limited in ways that Twitch is not limited. They both have different audiences, and they differ, and both have different purposes. I think that it’s all about figuring out, “how do I want to interact with people?” And “Do I want to talk with them? So, I want to preach to them?” And then figure out what– and preach is not the right word. “Do I want to give presentations? Do I want to impart my knowledge without a lot of discussion, or do I want to actually have it be more interactive?”

(00:25:08)

But I think that it’s figuring out, “What are your requirements? What do you need to get out of a particular tool?” And that will narrow down your choices greatly because I think, you are right, Dennis. It’s that, I can find myself wandering from one of these services to the other just kind of diving into a channel, or watching something and listening to something on Clubhouse or a video on Twitch, and then I turn around and three hours have passed, and I just kind of get caught up in doing that. It’s really useful to say, “All right, what works for me, what meets my purposes, and then standardize on those tools.”

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah. So, I think it comes down to a lot of the same considerations that we always talk about, like it can be, and the easy way to think of is, jobs to be done. So, what are we hiring the service to do for? And sometimes, it’s just that there are people that we want to talk to or communicate with, and this is their platform. So, that kind of pulls us into one or another. So, I think we have some of the same considerations. I sort of feels like, we’re making decisions about these on a really accelerated pace over the last year.

And Tom you mentioned the phone chat rooms, it just got me thinking that my high school class has a Facebook group, which is probably, my main use of Facebook these days. And there was recently a conversation where people were remembering and this will date me of where their CB radio handles at the time. And so, I grew up in a small town and the CB thing was actually, a really big deal because it allowed people in a small town just a great way to talk to each other.

Tom Mighell: That is Clubhouse right there. It’s CB radio, that’s the same thing.

Dennis Kennedy: And people remember their CB handles, and the good memories they had of that. So, that real-time communication in a place or a time that’s difficult, is really a strong human impulse. I guess, the thing that we might want to kind of wrap up with Tom is, to pull it back to lawyers, and tech competence, and thing. But I think that, you’re in the world of information governance, if you look and you go, “Oh, like oh, my God. Here’s another ten places that people could be storing important information in conversations that could be could be valuable, and how do we find these things?”  And are our clients there, and is this a way that they would expect to communicate.

I think there’s a lot out there, and it’s not one of these things where you can go like, “Oh, I can just ignore this.” I mean, so what’s your thought time as you think about this you go like, “Oh, wait here’s like a bunch more containers. We have to try to figure out how to get some kind of control over, or at least know what’s in them.”

Tom Mighell: Well, that’s just the way it’s working is, we continue to get new containers, and they continue to be added to our list of just potentially discoverable areas.  So, we’ve been talking, I’ve been talking most of the time about the marketing potential for lawyers for this. But I think, Dennis is absolutely right. You have to think about one; how this might affect the information that’s being kept on it? I mean, with Twitch it’s easy. You’re recording a video, you’ve got that video, it’s easy to get to. I think that the recordings on Clubhouse are either, more ephemeral, or they’re being kept behind the scenes. They’re not something you can easily get to.

But what if a discussion that’s actionable takes place over there do you want a recording of that?  That’s something to think about.  I think that at a minimum though, being aware of these types of tools like, Dennis said, “knowing what your clients might be using.”  So, that you can ask the right questions. So, that you can go to the right places, and get that information if you need to again, as part of the tech competence. And just being aware of them, being an expert on them is one thing, being aware that they exist, and knowing enough about them, to say, “I have to keep this in mind when I think about my clients.”  I think is really smart, and is really what the meaning of tech confidence is these days.

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah. And I was going to say, the one last thing that I thought, it was like another one of these small communities is being used this way is, that next door application where people in neighborhoods are communicating, sometimes in very unusual kinds of ways to each other. And I would say, in there are going to be some cases where you would want to know what’s going on, what communications were between people in next door? And if you’re a lawyer, and not aware of that you’re going to miss the gold, I think.

Tom Mighell: Yeah, well don’t get me started on next door, that’ll be a whole other podcast. We’ll save that for another time. So, for now, let’s take a break.

(00:30:04)

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Tom Mighell: Before we move on to our next segment, we’ll take a break for a quick message from our sponsors.

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[Music]

Tom Mighell: And now, let’s get back to The Kennedy Mighell Report, I’m Tom Mighell, —

Dennis Kennedy: — And I’m Dennis Kennedy. Long time listeners will probably have notice that the last segment touches on the long running topic of, “How do we deal with our digital lives?” Now, we’ve talked in recent years about digital detoxes, taking breaks, digital mindfulness, reboots, other things like that.

So, Tom found a new idea called, the personal digital reset.  So, Tom can you tell us more about this approach, and why it interested you?

Tom Mighell: So, I’ll give credit where credit is due. I think his name is Anil Dash. He’s an internet person. I’m not sure exactly what he does, but he’s somebody that I follow, and have listened to his technology writings. I read his technology writings for some time now. This is his idea. This is what he does. But I find that there’s a lot in it that I have done from time to time, and probably, not just not on a regular basis.

And really, it’s similar to the notion that, we used to have years ago where we were like, the longer you keep your computer on, the more and more stuff piles up in your memory, and things just slow down, and you want to turn it off, and you want to clean out your registry occasionally, and you want to get a lot of the stuff out.

Computers have improved over the years, so that we don’t have to worry about that as much as we probably did 10 years ago. But the principle is the same. So, what he does, and what I think is a good idea to think about is, every year he takes a new look at his digital tools mostly, mobile devices to figure out how he can make his online life, digital life a little bit more pleasant. So, I don’t want to say that it’s like, Marie Kondo sparking joy, but it feels similar to that.

Tom Mighell: So, here are some of the key principles: one, you should only see the things that you actively choose to see not what others have chosen to shove at you. Two, app defaults are made to be changed, they are made to work the way you want not necessarily the way the app makers want. So, don’t be bound by what you get out of the box from an app maker. That’s what they want you to have, and you can turn off notifications, you can turn on different features to your heart’s content.

I think, keeping a lot of apps around by thinking, “I might need this someday” leads to most people keeping a lot of apps. Instead think, you aren’t going to need it, and if it turns out that you do, it literally takes two minutes to reinstall an app. So, you can reinstall, and you’re back in business in two minutes.

So, here’s some of the things that he does. I like these ideas, social media. Now, this depends on how many people you follow. He unfollows everyone on Twitter every year, and refollows the ones that now make sense based on his past year, because that changes over the year. What he thinks changes, what he’s interested in changes. So, he’s refollowing. I’m intrigued by that. That interests me. Reset your phone, wipe it clean, and start over. Don’t start from a backup. You might want to start with some of your settings, some of the settings might make sense, but only reinstall the apps that make sense. Do not restore from a backup. I think same with your computer. Usually, I only do this when I get a new computer. But I usually start clean. I think, I make a list of the apps that I have, and I go through them, and go, “Which do I really want to install?”

I think, it’s the same with your tools. During our tech resolutions episode, I mentioned that, it’s a good idea to revisit your subscriptions, and see which ones you really use, and need. I think this is along those lines. Does Google Search no longer I’ll say, spark joy? Maybe, you’ll switch to DuckDuckGo. If to do list is no longer working for you, maybe Trello is a good tool. It makes you more productive instantly. I think, the basic idea is that, our relationship with technology changes over time, and because of that, we have to check in periodically, and figure out, “what’s still important to us?” And get rid of the stuff that isn’t. I like the idea; I’m going to give it a shot.

(00:35:12)

Dennis Kennedy: So, I like the concept, and I employed some of the principles when I get my new computer. But I was trying to figure out how much time he spends doing this reset?

Tom Mighell: Oh, it takes a long time, yeah.

Dennis Kennedy: And it’s — I think it’s a staggering amount of time. And so, it’s something they could work for. So, I think there’s some things in the principles, right, that that makes sense. And a lot of is just kind of leaning things down to say, “Okay, what can I slim down?” But some of it’s pretty extreme, like to this whole practice of unfollowing everybody on Twitter. And then starting over again, and that one feels like, you could spend a good day doing –

Tom Mighell: If you follow a lot of people that is true.

Dennis Kennedy: Yeah. And so, you sometimes see that and you like the people who say, and some of the things, you can just sort of do. It’s like on Facebook, you can kind of control some of that stuff, or how often you visit. So, I don’t think you have to go to some of the extremes.

But there’s some really good ideas in there, things that we’ve recommended especially, and so I think that, when I reinstall things on my new computer, I go into like all the Office programs, everything and I just go through the settings. And I put them to the way I like them, and I look to see what’s new that can change. Notifications, other things like that, the defaults, the files, it goes into. There’s a lot of things that just simple adjustments will make your life easier.

So, I like the idea, it’s just one of those things I just can’t go that far.  I sort of feel like, I just don’t have enough time to do that. And as you like to put that Tom, I’m kind of retired these days, so it’s hard for me to imagine most lawyers saying, “Oh, I’m going to find non-billable time that I’m going to do this whole reset.” So, something to consider though.

Dennis Kennedy: So now, it’s time for our parting shots at one tip website, our special. You can use the second, this podcast since. Tom, take it away.

Tom Mighell: So, I have two. I have one kind of fun one, one kind of useful one. So, a couple of months ago, I think I mentioned one about YouTube videos that would just show the view out of certain window, so you could see what it was, and it was just very peaceful looking at the view out the window.

This time, I’m going to talk about a site that is a little bit different, but a little bit the same. It’s called slow tv map. And it will give you a map of the world, and you can zoom in and they have curated videos from around the world, where someone has turned on the camera, and it has taken literally, a five-hour drive through the Swiss mountains, or has gotten on a barge in the river, and has taken the barge ride. Some of them are 30 minutes long, some of them like, I said are six hours long. And again, sort of hypnotizing. It’s just I can’t stop watching some of these things. It’s very relaxing to watch somebody driving along, and or getting on a train, and going to Dakar, Indonesia.

You’re able to, did I say that right? I’m not sure where they went. But it’s fascinating to look through all the different videos, and they’re adding more all the time. It’s called slow tv map. My useful one is, if you could imagine that Photoshop actually use artificial intelligence to improve the value of your pictures. That is what Luminar, I think is able to do. Luminar is– I’m not sure how new it is, but it’s new to me. It is a photo editor for your Mac and PC. It can also be a browser extension you can use. And I watched some videos on YouYube with people using it, you can literally replace the sky, in your let’s say, you’re going on vacation, and you take a picture and it was a cloudy day, boom, replace the sky, and it is a beautiful sunny, clear day. It is just stunning the changes you can make. You have a portrait, somebody’s kind of not looking so great, got a lot of freckles, boom, hit it, and they have they have clear skin. You can change the shape of their face if you want to change it. A little scary some of the things you can do, but what’s important is that, it is able to read the parts of a picture perfectly from what I can tell, and it can make changes that are very granular to your picture, and really, really, improve how they look.

Tom Mighell: I’m going to start playing around with some of my vacation pictures, and see if I can improve them. But I’m really intrigued by this product. I think that it’s a membership cost, where you’re paying a certain amount per year, $99 a year, I think is what it is, which give you tutorials, templates, all sorts of things. I’m very intrigued, I’m going to give it a shot, Luminar.

(00:40:19)

Dennis Kennedy: Would this tool allow me to put myself into the Bernie photo meme?

Tom Mighell: You know, I think there are about a dozen tools that would help you put you into the Bernie photo meme.

Dennis Kennedy: So, my parting shot is not a technology thing, this is an organization technique I’ve been using. and it’s associated with Warren Buffett, and although there’s some dispute whether it’s something he actually is, but there’s a classic story out there.

It’s called the 525 technique, and the idea is, you write down, and you spend some time, and you write down the 25 goals, projects that you want to focus on for a year. Everything you can think of get to 25, and then you pick the five most important ones, you draw a circle around it, you draw an x through the rest of the 25, and you just those are the five things you focus on for the year. If you would get something done then, you might dip down to the others. But you don’t even think about the other ones, and that gives you kind of a focus, and organization for your year. I’ve done it two years now, and I just find it super helpful.

Tom Mighell: And that wraps it up for this edition of The Kennedy Mighell Report. Thanks for joining us on the podcast. You can find show notes for this episode on the Legal Talk Networks Page for this podcast. If you like what you hear, please subscribe to our podcast in iTunes or on the Legal Talk network site where you can find archives of all of our previous podcasts along with transcripts.

If you’d like to get in touch with us, remember, you can reach out to us on LinkedIn or send us a voicemail.  We’d love to get voicemails. 

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That number Michell is (720) 441-6820. So, until the next podcast, I’m Tom Mighell.

Dennis Kennedy: And I’m Dennis Kennedy. And you’ve been listening to the Kennedy Mighell Report, a podcast on legal technology with an internet focus. If you like what you heard today please rate us in Apple podcast, and we’ll see you next time for another episode of The Kennedy Mighell Report, on the Legal Talk Network.

Outro:

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The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not represent the views of, nor are they endorsed by Legal Talk Network, its officers, directors, employees, agents, representatives, shareholders, and subsidiaries. None of the content should be considered legal advice. As always, consult a lawyer.

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Thanks for listening to the Kennedy Mighell Report. Check out Dennis and Tom’s book, ‘The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart ways to Work Together’ From ABA books or Amazon. And join us every other week for another edition of the Kennedy Mighell Report, only on the Legal Talk Network.

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