The UPS man brought me a package yesterday that contained the book in the photo below.

LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers

So, I thought now would be a good time to pre-announce the impending release of the new book Allison Shields and I have written called “LinkedIn in One Hour for Lawyers,” which is now available for pre-order.

It’s part of the ABA Law Practice Management Section’s reasonably-priced “In One Hour” series of books on legal technology topics. While the title is self-explanatory, the goal of the book is to provide a quick and easy, but reasonably thorough, introduction and guide to LinkedIn, the premier social networking platform and the social networking tool most commonly used by lawyers.

Many, many lawyers have joined LinkedIn, but it’s rare for me to find a lawyer who tells me that he or she is using more than a tiny fraction of the potential of LinkedIn. This book is meant to help remedy that.

Allison, Michelle Golden and I presented a very popular webinar last year that led to the idea for this book. I’ve long been a fan of Allison’s writing – we have a similar style and a similar lawyer-focused approach. The writing collaboration was great, and we’re very pleased with the final product.

The book itself is short and to the point. It has lots of color screenshots and a simple, step by step approach to the essential components of LinkedIn – Profiles, Connections and Participation.

The main portion of the book consists of ten “lessons” that will get you up and running on LinkedIn. We finish the lessons section with three action steps anyone can take to improve their LinkedIn effectiveness.

We also have a set of advanced materials, covering topics like ethics, apps, advanced features, and more, plus a list of 60 of our best LinkedIn tips.

Our idea was to provide not just the basics, but point readers to more advanced uses, and share some of our ideas about how LinkedIn fits into the context of your real-world networking contexts.

I really like the way the book turned out and want to thank everyone involved in the project (including my daughter, Grace, who provided proofreading and editorial help).

I also wanted to share comments we received from two people I admire greatly, Bruce Marcus and Patrick McKenna.

“One of the byproducts of the new world of social media is the burst of new how-to books. Naturally, some are far better than others, and so we are blessed when a pair of superior and experienced practitioners like Dennis Kennedy and Allison Shields share their experience in using LinkedIn® in One Hour for Lawyers. Yes,after an hour with this clear and succinct book,you will indeed become highly proficient in the art of using LinkedIn® proficiently and profitably.”–Bruce W. Marcus, editor of “The Marcus Letter on Professional Services Marketing” and author of Professional Services Marketing 3.0.

“If you are interested in promoting your practice, finding clients, discussing important issues with like-minded colleagues, or getting answers to your important burning issues, than you definitely need to explore the social networking power of LinkedIn®. And it would be hard to imagine two better people than Dennis Kennedy and Allison Shields to make it unbelievably easy for even the most reluctant lawyer to get up-and-running as quickly as possible. What a great way to spend an hour–teach yourself how to ramp-up your networking activities with this highly practical guidebook. Even an old dog like me, who has had an active presence on LinkedIn® for more than a few years, has to admit that I learned a number of new things (advanced search techniques and company buzz) from reading this book.”–Patrick J. McKenna, bestselling author, law firm management consultant and host of “Law Firm Leaders,” the only LinkedIn® group exclusively for large law firm managing partners.

The book is currently available for pre-order, with a 15% discount available.

As an aside, as the title indicates, the focus is on use of LinkedIn for lawyers and other legal professionals, but I don’t think you need to be a lawyer to get some benefits from this book.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

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The Lawyer’s Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell.