Category Archives: Social Media

Lifestyle, Social Media

Twat?

Twitter

I joined Twitter in November 2013. That was how I started my blog in late January 2022.

I’m still digesting what has happened between now and then. How could I move from “I love Twitter” to now?

“God, what has happened to Twitter?”

Well, the unmentionable, indeed. Elon Musk. At first, he was looking to buy Twitter, stated he wouldn’t, and then just bought it. I want to say he is a crazy lunatic, but that would be putting crazy lunatics at a disservice. I can’t comment anymore on him. Google him. That’s enough.

More importantly, I look at what I worryingly have lost. And that is a social media base, one that I’ve been comfortable with for years, growing a friendly group of followers and people I want to follow (ok, and the odd, strange ones).

I have a group of F1 nerds (sorry). My typical group of AI and AI ethics folks. Data privacy, cyber security, the metaverse, gaming, music, etc. ESG and DEI. Errr, Lego.

I’m now posting on Twitter in a semi-depressed state, knowing who owns it and how he treats the people who run it, who work for it, and those who used to work for it. I would love all of the folks I follow to move to Mastodon, but that isn’t going to happen (at least… in the immediate future).

Other options?

I have my Mastodon account, which I enjoy, and it is… quiet. I like the people there because I have connected with the folks who I have connected with on Twitter. Just fewer of them.

I struggle with LinkedIn, to be honest. Well, I think it is a cosmic mess, as I constantly get asked if I need investment advice, and the feed itself is just so hard to follow (especially if you are in the habit of accepting invites that you needn’t…um, guilty).

So as I’ve said to a few other close Twitter friends, I feel like I’m in a lost social media dimension. Twitter has become a vile creature with many on it or behind it. I’ll try to stick with those I know and like, but underneath the skin, there is grossness beyond belief. I want to unsubscribe to the entire “Twitter Blue” nonsense rather than sign up to get a Twitter Bluebird next to my handle, which means you are spending an extra $3.00 a month to get it. I don’t want to fund the company or its new owner any further.

Whether I follow them or they follow me, we chat together.

I had a friend on Twitter – someone who used https://chirpty.com, and I’d take delight to see if I was in his inner circle or close to it every Friday.

He passed away last month – many people didn’t know about it, but I found out soon after from a few close sources. I’ve never met him. I’ve only joked with him on Twitter and as a result of several things (F1 racing, cybersecurity, coffee, etc.). But when I heard he had passed away, something inside of me broke. I’d chatted with him online, really liked him, and got to know him (perhaps just a little, but enough), but now he was gone.

I guess that is the power of social media. I’ve always, always said – it doesn’t work or accomplish what it is supposed to do unless you are willing and happy to take that leap and be social. So, a social media friend was gone. I was upset. It was like a true friend was gone.

I just wanted to write this because I’m now worried that I’ll lose that feeling without a platform like Twitter. Forget the fintech posts, etc. The sociality of being on Twitter has been hit hard, to the point where I find it difficult to… support?

So, for now, I’ll post on Mastodon (which I would urge anyone interested to try), but I’ll most likely continue to post with my grouping of F1 aficionados on Twitter or gaming nerds, etc. Because I still have a bunch of core folks I like a lot there. It is just disheartening with all of the news regarding Twitter and its new owner. But I still crave those who I know and those I like. I will crave being social.

I’ll still be there, but I cannot support Twitter other than using it as a contact base with those social media friends who have not yet joined the Twitter Migration to Mastodon.

And no. Facebook is not an option.

Tumblr, anyone? Anyone?

Chris Garrod, December 12th, 2022

Blockchain, Lifestyle, Social Media

I Twit.

(c) https://securesense.ca

I joined Twitter in November 2013.

Though, I didn’t earnestly join until around early 2017. Before then, I was a Facebook fanboy. I joined Twitter in 2013 just to secure my Twitter handle: @ChrisGGarrod.

The thing about Facebook, when I look at it now… the friends I had and who received my posts, replying or commenting on them (and by posts, I mean things like photos of their kids, holiday photos, etc.), weren’t really my friends. Some were people I knew from high school, or college, ex-work colleagues from London. Some are people I work with. Some I don’t even know.

Some I don’t even know.

So, gradually, I got bored, and I discovered a new outlet, Twitter. Or rediscovered it. A few things then happened.

I’m partly an insurance lawyer, so I began to connect with insurance and reinsurance colleagues and started following some of the blogs and press in that industry. I added news journals like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Inc., The Washington Post, etc., to my list of followings. I also started the following on or about Bermuda, our news, our politicians, etc.

Then, I fell into the #resist crowd. Those who disliked Donald Trump (a lot.) All of a sudden, a group of others – #theresistance – and whatever other handle you wanted to use came into the picture, all of us retweeting left-wing stories, memes, etc., which were anti-Trump.

At that point, inadvertently, my followers grew. Other than the relatively normal folks who I started following, I also ended up in a crowd of… well, people who I agreed with, I suppose, from one end of the political spectrum but who weren’t to my taste.

As in likely lunatics.

Shedding the followers, I don’t care about and following the people I do care about.

First and foremost. I now don’t care about followers.

A lot of people do. Oh, probably most people, I’d say, on Twitter do. At first, I did.

I fell into the trap of using apps to buy followers. I didn’t spend loads of money but whatever I did was a complete waste of time. I ended up with followers I had no interest in or had anything in common with, and eventually, they just unfollowed me. I was naive.

So that was lesson number one.

Lesson number two: don’t just follow someone back because they have randomly followed you. You might end up keeping that person as a follower because of the “Hey, thanks for following me!” factor, but ask yourself, “Why am I following someone I just don’t care about?” To try to gain followers? I didn’t want to be in the position of having 50,000 followers while trying to keep up with 48,000 following.

I ended up with lesson number three, an invaluable lesson I’ve learned from many of the people I now follow. Only follow the people you want to follow. Forget about the numbers. Who cares?

Forget about the numbers. So what next?

(c) business-review.eu/

The learning part. I became interested in FinTech, specifically blockchain.

It was mid-2017, so blockchain – if you think about Bitcoin being the first blockchain invented in 2008 – was still very nascent (I think it still is.) I became fascinated by the technology behind it. I asked for a whiteboard in my office to doodle on. Centralized and decentralized versions. Using smart contracts and cryptography… opened a new world I’d never come across.

It was just neat.

Following that robotics, automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the Internet of Things. I started following people well-known in these areas who would constantly post articles regarding this… stuff.

So I also went onto LinkedIn and added to my biography something along the lines of “Interests include FinTech and the use of blockchain.”

One evening, in my kitchen, my iPhone rang. I answered using my AppleWatch, I remember. The CFO of an e-gaming, e-sports company, wanted to set up a Bermuda company to issue digital tokens. They had Googled “Bermuda blockchain lawyer,” and my name was the first hit. The company was Unikrn, the first crypto company to be formed in Bermuda.

It was late 2017, and at the time, it garnered quite a bit of attention within Bermuda’s business development industry and the Bermuda Government.

That was then – I had a great time. I was thrown onto various committees, jetted off to various conferences, and spoke on loads of panels, the last being the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2020.

Of course, the COVID pandemic put an end to all of that, but in the meantime, throughout that time, I was enjoying myself on Twitter while continuing to learn not just about FinTech anymore. AI Ethics, data privacy (e.g., facial recognition), cybersecurity, women in tech, DEI and ESG, and BigTech. So, so much. All through following and digesting what others have posted.

So what?

I’ve met a lot of people on Twitter, and a number I’d call “really cool people to follow,” some are sending me tweets and “I don’t know why, but the tweets are still interesting,” and others are “these are my peeps.”

In one of my other blogs, I mentioned the concept of “collective effervescence.” I was a social anthropologist before I fell into the world of law (go figure), so Emile Durkheim, the sociologist who coined it, was someone close to my heart. It’s the notion that a group of individuals could unify as a group, all communicating together (sometimes due to an event – COVID perhaps being one.) It appears all over Twitter and elsewhere: #BlackLivesMatter, the #Resistance, #AIEthics…

Sports examples: “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is sung by almost every fan when Liverpool Football Club plays at Anfield. “Take me out to the Ball Game” as a baseball equivalent.

Putting COVID aside, I’ve probably met more people on Twitter who have the same common interests I do (after all these years on Twitter), where I feel that there is a sense of collective effervescence. Interests, and the well-being of those others… an underlying unity, albeit comical at times. And very serious at times as well.

But whatever – it is always fascinating.

I love Twitter, and I adore the people I’ve come across. Whether I follow them, or they follow me, or we chat together (the latter especially.)

I pretty much have forgotten about Facebook. LinkedIn is great from a professional standpoint but lacks personality (plus, I keep getting asked if I need investment advice.) And please don’t mention TikTok (please.)

I enjoy my #FollowFridays, and I’ll always enjoy getting coffee posts, bunny, Lego, and Barolo wine posts, and wanna-be FinTech rock band posts. Bermuda vs. Winnipeg weather. That sort of stuff.

And I’ll still, always, always love the incredible content I’ll get from the people, news outlets, blogs, or organizations that interest me, which are recommended or tweeted by those I follow.

Just don’t follow for the following sake. Follow who matters.

PS: I hope my tweets aren’t actually twits. ?

Chris Garrod – January 2022

Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation, Law, Social Media, Technology

Social Media and Lawyers: Why so afraid?

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I’m an attorney in my mid-forties.

Every day, I tweet and retweet. I go on LinkedIn to comment on articles. I go on Facebook. I’ve written my own articles and published them on Medium, LinkedIn Pulse and then tweeted them.

Social media. When I mention it to many colleagues who tend to be my age or above, I get a blank stare. “Why I am tweeting?”. What is the point of digital marketing? Do you really get clients from it?

I don’t really know. Not yet. But that’s not to say I perhaps won’t. And I shouldn’t try.

The Rise of Digital Marketing in the Legal World

Millennials. Those who were born in the 1990s, broadly speaking. The use of WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, Instagram, etc. are all their ways of communicating. Emails are becoming gradually pre-historic in their world, let alone using the….. telephone.

I’ve already written about the rise of AI and legaltech generally in two separate articles. For instance, will lawyers still exist by 2050 as a result of AI? In 2017, certainly the term “Artificial Intelligence” has become a new buzz catchphrase and rightly so. Because it is the future.

And therefore, so is legaltech. And so is the use of social media. In fact, the latter is really the present.

Many law firms are already very effectively using social media. Tweeting appropriately, understanding the proper use of hashtags, such as how many to use in a tweet to gain as many retweets, followers and engagements as possible. The proper use of LinkedIn. Search engine optimization (SEO) for Google. Having a Facebook Business page. Instagram. Pinterest. Google Plus.

Many law firms are also not.

Moore’s Law

Before long, emails will become like faxes became 10 years ago. The exponential growth of the use of this kind of technology — essentially, the sharing of data — is going through an equivalent of Moore’s law. That is to say, the amount of information which is being amassed and then shared is doubling every year.

Gordon Moore was one of the founders of Intel and as noted on their website:

“In 1965, Gordon Moore made a prediction that would set the pace for our modern digital revolution. From careful observation of an emerging trend, Moore extrapolated that computing would dramatically increase in power, and decrease in relative cost, at an exponential pace.”

In essence, the processing power for computers would double every two years — and over time, become cheaper. Buying a new iMac with the power it has today would have been (a) impossible 20 years ago and even if it was (b) would have taken up an entire room in your house.

Exponentially, this has led to the rise of artificial intelligence.

I think back to 25 or so years ago in the early to mid-1990s. Faxing took over a method of communication known as telexing (and if you remember telexing you are officially old). Faxing soon became the common way of sharing information. That method transformed to emails as well as texts on cell phones in the late-1990s, followed by Blackberries in the mid-2000s to iPhones in the late-2000s and then now to platforms like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Currently, you can instantly communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time. You can even see when someone is available, where they are and when they are typing their response to you.

And at less cost.

Emailing someone may appear to be “normal” now but very rapidly, that technology should be replaced by instant messaging, if the Moore’s law trend regarding sharing information continues. Documents will be sent via instant messaging. Clients will see if you are or are not available and when you are responding to them. A new method of storing messages and documentation will replace whatever current method is being used in your organisation.

The use of programs such as Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp will make emails look like faxes are today — perhaps in less than 5 years time.

AI, legaltech and its relationship with social media

As a result, the legal world will also change. Clients will become more demanding and expectations for “instant responses” will rise. Looking back to the days of faxing, clients were happy for a response a few days after a fax was sent. Currently, with emails, many aim for a same/next day response. With instant messaging, many will likely want responses to queries even faster, as awful as that may seem.

And that is where automation and AI play a role.

For lawyers, unfortunately, the questions which clients will ask will become more demanding and require more logical thinking and judgment. That is because automation and more advanced AI will replace many of the more “basic” aspects of law which are currently being carried out today. Some firms are already providing this technology today, such as RAVN, LawGeex and Luminance.

Therefore, some of the queries which a client may send by email today, won’t need to be sent by them at all. The client will be able to obtain the answer through AI and their own research. The queries which paralegals or more junior lawyers research and respond to now could be moved “in-house”. Clients will also be able to draft their own basic legal documents without any legal input at all. That particular aspect being provided by law firms today will become obsolete.

An advantage to lawyers is that — hopefully — the queries coming from their clients will be more thoughtful… and as a result, the number of instant messages one receives in the course of a day will not equal the number of emails which are currently received today. Those range from complex matters which do require human empathy, thought and logic to basic matters which are simply time consuming but also require some form of a human element or creativity which AI simply cannot replicate. Or at least, not yet.

The flip side, of course, is that if you are not receiving as many client queries, then the ability to charge clients on a time spent basis should indeed over time also alter.

So, should lawyers be afraid of Social Media?

So, should lawyers fear the use of social media and scorn its use? Depending on where they are in the their career, they may be at a point where its use is unfortunately inevitable — for good or bad — and just cannot be ignored.

The use of social media is exploding amongst millennials. My generation and those older than me may scoff at its use. But the millennials who use Twitter, Facebook Business, WhatsApp and other social media avenues will, in 5 to 10 or so years, be the ones leading law firm strategies. They will be the leaders.

The use of AI and social media will combine and work in conjunction with each other in the future. In 5 to 10 years time, no doubt some other form of messaging system will have evolved due perhaps to AI.

The legaltech world will continue to evolve, that is for sure, and it is not one a lawyer will be able to escape from.

So, if you don’t tweet and if you don’t have a WhatsApp account, consider getting one and also ensure you are ready to instant message and tweet away.