A big year of awards and enhancements for Content Pilot

As the founder of Content Pilot, I am proud when the company and team I have built does well. Our biggest test of success is how our clients feel about us.  Every engagement - regardless of size or client - means the world to us, and our mission is to deliver superior strategy, technology and design solutions and deliver them with respect, warmth, authority and joy.

2013 has been an extraordinary year of client work, new product developments and awards:

Awards

1. National Law Journal:  2013 "Best of Legal Vendors" Readers Survey
   ---#1 for Proposal Automation and Experience Management (we also won #1 in this category in 2012)
   ---#1 for Website Design
   ---#3 for Branding Design
   
   
2. National Law Journal:  2013 "Legal Business Trailblazers and Pioneers" - The NLJ chose 50 people for its inaugural list who publisher Ken Gary describes as: "...people who have truly 'moved the needle' in facilitating the changing ways that law firms conduct business. Whether it be technological developments, operational efficiencies, marketing & business development breakthroughs, or research – we think this list embodies the spirit that will shepherd and shape modern law firms as a business going into 2014 and beyond."
   
   ---Deborah McMurray, CEO and Strategy Architect of Content Pilot, was named as one of the Trailblazers and Pioneers in the category "Communicators."  Here is a link to the NLJ Magazine that describes all 50. I am proud to be in such good company.  Several Content Pilot clients were honored and friends, as well.
   
   
3. Legal Times:  2013 "Best of Legal Vendors" Readers Survey
   ---#1 for Proposal Automation and Experience Management (we also won #1 in this category in 2012)

Website Launches

1. Doerner, Saunders, Daniel & Anderson - www.dsda.com. Read the case study and see the site before and after.
   
   
2. Chambliss Bahner & Stophel  - www.chamblisslaw.com.   Read the case study about Chambliss and see its before and after.
   
   
3. Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan  - www.sutherland.com.  The Sutherland engagement consisted of a very large website, plus a mobile site, 12 public and private microsites (and growing) and 4 blogs.
   
   
4. Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby - www.wglaw.com.   Paul Fires, the managing partner, said, "Let me thank you for an awesome web site.   We get nothing but praise, and it both looks great and is very user friendly.  Congratulations on a job very well done!"
   

Major Proposal Pilot Enhancements

Proposal Pilot is a centerpiece product of Content Pilot, with the earliest iteration launching in 2005. Many updates and enhancements later, today's Proposal Pilot is the industry's most robust and user friendly platform available today.  Used by more than a dozen AmLaw 50 firms, it integrates with SharePoint, time and billing, document management systems, InterAction and other CRM tools, HR databases, data warehouses, and other systems, and is configurable to ensure that it is the most responsive to what the law firm needs.  In the planning process, we analyze the marketing/business development/proposal team/lawyer workflow and recommend ways to improve and streamline processes and efficiencies.  

It is currently used by marketing/BD and proposal teams in dozens of offices around the world.  

1. Alternate languages.  Content Pilot clients have offices around the world and the lawyers, marketing and business development teams are operating essentially 24/7.  Clients can easily manage content and create beautiful branded proposals in Eastern and Western languages.  As long as all main body content is contained in Proposal Pilot in the languages desired, the output in multiple languages occurs with ease.  During proposal creation, a user can set the output to have all the standard headers, titles, labels, etc. to be in any language the firm wants to support.
   
   
2. Enhanced InterAction and CRM integration.  Firms that are heavy InterAction users want to save time and get even more value from their system investments.  Because Content Pilot personnel are former law firm marketing and IT professionals, we seek ways to help our clients streamline workflow and processes.  One example is automatically posting a new proposal, pitch or RFP as an activity on the company records - saving users several steps each time, and ensuring that the full range of client/prospect touchpoints are effectively captured.
   
   
3. Content Sets.  Employing best practices in project management inspired us to create the new "Content Sets" module.  This enables users to create groupings of content, which can form the basis of a standard proposal for a particular service area, practice group or industry segment.  These Content Sets expedite proposals and pitches for lawyer teams that are heavy business developers.  In Proposal Pilot, the Content Set is moved into a module where users can tailor the proposal with additional descriptive material, short or long bios and specific experience.  This all takes a matter of a few short minutes.
   
   

4. Multiple Element Page Designs. The world's largest and most sophisticated law firms are designing "magazine-style" proposal templates in Word - portrait and landscape - and PowerPoint.  Working closely with our clients, we are helping them to spice up their proposals with the inclusion of graphics, quotes and accolades, infoGraphics and other images, and more. We have enhanced Proposal Pilot's ability to handle the inclusion of these beautiful and memorable elements.  These content elements can be stored in Proposal Pilot or added to a proposal by surfing to the network location where they are stored.  Additionally, the grouping of elements can be pre-configured so that they are added to a proposal in one quick click.
   
   

CP Deals and Cases Tool Enhancements

This tool is an integral part of Proposal Pilot, but is also a stand-alone experience management system.  As I've written in several blog posts, effective experience management is one of the most strategic investments and commitments law firms can make.  Yet we see more paralysis around experience gathering and curating than with most other initiatives.

We employ a best practices approach - working with our clients to understand their firm culture and structure, knowledge management and information sharing, workflow and business development goals. Then we recommend processes and a project management approach that will help them introduce efficiencies, and increase the integrity of and organizational trust in the data.

1. Managed Matter Lists.  Many firms have already created lists of matters in highly specific areas of expertise.  Our CP Deals and Cases  Tool makes it easy to find and output a list of this experience through the creation and administration of Managed Matter Lists.  As a new piece of experience is added to CP Deals and Cases, it can be tagged to as many practice area lists as desired.  New lists can be created with quick searching and tagging of the experience records.  When outputting into a format, such as a table, tombstone or narrative listing, the user simply selects the Managed Matter List and "voila!" - all data is packaged and available for printing or emailing to lawyers and clients.  It is also available for inserting into proposals and pitches.
   
   
2. Leveraging Data in other Firm Systems.  CP Deals and Cases makes it easy to access data that is stored in other data systems across the firm.  Saving time and money is a goal of all Content Pilot tools.  We find ways to leverage and curate data from other firm systems - time and billing, CRM, data warehouses, for example - through strategic integrations. This limits marketing/business development or KM team input of data, and enables users to use the data that already has an official “owner” somewhere else in the firm.  Through use of our API tools, the system be configured to reach-out to other systems and import what the user selects.
   
   
3. Experience On-the-Go.  A lawyer's experience is the one thing that makes him or her unique - it's the fingerprint of their careers.  We have designed an "On-the-Go" feature that puts your highly focused experience  at the fingertips of lawyers and marketers - in a minute or two.  A user generates a document by going to the On-the-Go module and selecting the output format desired (bullet point, paragraph, table, tombstone, etc.), searching and selecting the experience records or adding a Managed Matter List, and clicking "generate." Your colleague can quickly be out the door with a branded, tailored document that is fully responsive to requests from clients, prospects and laterals.
   
   
4. Velocity - our mobile cross-selling app.  We launched Velocity more than a year ago as a simple app to help lawyers cross-sell the experience of their far-flung partners around the nation and world.  Accessing it on your Smart Phone or tablet, it pulls data from CP Deals and Cases to facilitate relevant conversations with prospects when they occur - in a taxi, over a drink  or lunch, at a ballgame, in a meeting.  Mobility and relevancy are married in this tool - critical for lawyers who want to compete at a higher level, and who want more business development wins than their competitors.

 Read Law Firm 4.0 Blog posts about effective experience management:

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/02/experience-management-its-been-elevated-to-mission-critical.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2013/01/experience-managementdatabases-best-practices-in-content-gathering.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/11/experience-management-and-databases-the-results-of-a-survey-of-cmos.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/01/experience-databases-if-you-build-it-will-they-come.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2010/07/do-you-know-what-you-dont-know-a-post-about-km.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/08/how-law-firms-can-grow-revenue-in-a-more-client-friendly-way.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/12/2013-advice-for-law-firms-to-ensure-a-bright-future.html

http://lawfirm4-0.typepad.com/law_firm_40_blog/2012/02/3-geeks-review-our-cross-selling-mobile-app-velocity.html

For more information about Content Pilot's work and enhancements, contact Keith Wewe at [email protected] or me at [email protected].

Wishing you a happy and prosperous 2014!