A Valentine to Kevin O'Keefe of LexBlog for His Birthday
I've never actually met Kevin O'Keefe, the founder of LexBlog, but I owe him a great debt of gratitude for dropping by my old blogger site one day to say he liked a post of mine.
The rule of reciprocity and -- more importantly -- of curiosity, made me click on Kevin's Real Lawyers Have Blogs. The rest is my own LexBlog personal history. First this Blog -- designed and maintained by Kevin -- and then the IP ADR Blog with my IP buddies Les Weinstein, Michael Young, John Wagner, Eric van Ginkel and coming next (!) the brilliant and talented Jay McCauley.
How Kevin Changed My Life
Listen, Kevin is one of those people whose brain is so active you have to put those nuclear material warnings around it.
What Kevin does for a living, however, is not designing and maintaining blogs for lawyers.
What Kevin does for a living is to build communities, jump-start dialogue, inspire lawyers and those who serve them to reach for the higher value and the deeper meaning, and to guide and maximize entrepreneurial effort.
THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH
A fellow blogger told me today was Kevin's birthday (thanks Stephanie!) I only remember my own husband's day of birth because it is the same as mine. I "penned" this post before I knew that Kevin had kindly complimented by blogging today.
Synchronicity. Which is not surprising because Kevin's spirit now pervades the legal blogosphere. He taught me the deep rules of blog road. And every time a new LexBlog blog hits the runway, I can see Kevin's influence there -- his injunction to not just "join the high level conversation" going on in the blogosphere and in more journalistic venues, but to maximize every opportunity that someone else's insight presents to extend that conversation into your own niche and raise the stakes at least one level upward.
WHY KEVIN
If you want to get an idea of why Kevin is so meaningful to his bloggers, read his mission statement -- the following is an excerpt from it -- Why I Do LexBlog:
To help lawyers. A significant percentage of lawyers became a lawyer because of some principle they held - some burning light inside of them, some cause. Law school, student loans, and the practicalities of working long hours to make money and achieve what others have defined as success have just about drowned out that burning light. Blogging about something that you are passionate about, getting positive feedback from others about your blogging, and getting legal work in the area of law you are passionate about sparks that flame inside. Lawyers start to feel good about themselves.
Thanks Kevin! You're the best!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Wow! Not sure what more I can say Vickie. Thanks for the kind words, though I am not as deserving or as grand as you imply.
I follow Kevin's blog and recommend it also.
However, I don't think it is correct to describe blogs as engendering "conversations".
I know why Kevin espouses this line, but I still don't think that lawyers ought to believe that if they put up a blog, they will come.
Oh and by the way get Kevin to get you a subscribe to comments plugin.