This blog is first and foremost a personal journal. A place for notes on what I’m reading, watching and thinking. I took a few minutes to click and scroll back through 2006:

I posted on podcasting with some regularity and tried my hand at it with Dr. Domke’s Living Healthy Podcast.

I am more fascinated with blogging than ever and persuaded our company to start a blog. I’d like to think I played a small, behind-the-scenes role in the launch of the best veterinarian blog on the net.

We did some interviews: Ben Brogdon (Original cast of Best Little Whore House in Texas); Dan Shelley (Executive Editor of Digital Media for WCBS-TV); Dan Arnall (Business Editor, ABC News) and Kevin O’Keefe (Lex Blog).

Kasie had a birthday and I (almost) had my first cigarette.

I was overcome with Mac Lust and bought my first Mac and became a “slider” (someone that slides back and forth between PC and Mac).

I read, wrote and thought about radio. I discovered that politics matters to me more than I thought.

Blogging and surfing cut into my reading time. I only read 24 books. I came up with a couple of good ideas for screenplays that had everything but the ending. Fortunately, Kay was able to provide those.

I discovered the formula for The Perfect Day; I came to grips with the reality that I am not a team player; I worried about how much I worry; I watched two good friends build a tree house and concluded that work is your real life.

I’m blessed with a few good friends; one great partner; two sweet pups; the best job in the world and high-apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes for 2007.

“It’s a whole new generation of lawyers out there. Many younger lawyers feel more comfortable online than anywhere else. Law firms who hire some of the brightest and talented young professionals in the world have a hidden treasure of innovative Internet marketing ideas in these young people. It’s time to unleash the talent you have. Law firms who do so will be rewarded in not only increased revenues but also in their recruiting efforts to land the best and brightest.” — Kevin at LexBlog

He links to some very good examples to support his position.

Disclosure: Life-Partner and Best Pal Barb is a lawyer. No interest in blogging. And, as far as she knows, none of the three or four hundred attorneys in her firm are blogging. At least not professionally.

In one of Clyde Lear’s early blog posts, he talks about a mistake our company made some years ago. No weasly words, just “we shouldn’t have done that.”

I flashed on Clyde’s post as I read this article by David H. Freedman at Inc.com:

Many corporate blogs are sanitized, public-relations-oriented affairs intended to create bonds with existing and potential customers. Others serve as internal message boards to keep employees up to date. But I’m proposing something else: a blog that encourages employees and managers to tell their peers what they themselves have done wrong. It’s an easy step that could quickly effect a large, positive change in your corporate culture.

That’s the name of Kevin O’Keefe’s blog. He chatted with me today about blogging and lawyers and I could kick myself for not asking how he came up with “Real Lawyers Have Blogs.”

The blog is part of LexBlog, a consulting company that helps lawyers with Internet marketing and business development puts a strong emphasis on blogging.

Kevin was a trial lawyer for 17 years but stopped practicing in 1999 and founded an “online law community” called Prairielaw.com (which was later acquired by LexisNexis).

Kevin is my kind of blogger. He thinks every business should be blogging and says all lawyers will have blogs by the end of the decade (even though less than 1% of attorneys currently have blogs).

LexBlog has created some really nice looking blogs for their clients. These are some of the best looking websites I’ve seen and they got all the blog tools and features.

Kevin pooh-poohed my suggestion that blogging was difficult for some people. They either hadn’t found the right tools or weren’t ready to blog (yet). He’s right of course.

(audio no longer available)

After listening to Kevin for a few minutes and looking at and reading the blogs of some of his clients… I can’t imagine why every lawyer isn’t blogging. I guess the real ones are.