Time for my regular roundup of what I’ve written in other locations recently, along with a quick itinerary of my upcoming speaking appearances.

1. I’ve been especially busy at Law Firm Web Strategy, the blog of Stem Legal, with three recent posts on social media:

• Sponsored stories: Facebook’s legal marketing breakthrough? considers a new advertising gambit by Facebook that might actually make sense for lawyers.
• Explaining social media and why it’s ideal for lawyers generated a lot of interest exploring the what and the why of social media in the legal profession.
• Explaining content and why it’s so hard for lawyers is a flip-side Part 2 to the previous entry: how to deliver great content and why lawyers often don’t.

2. My most recent column for The Lawyers Weekly sparked a lot of feedback: Do what you do best and outsource everything else kind of sums up my assessment of the current legal marketplace and how firms should respond to it.

3. My latest column at Slaw looked at a different question: why are some of the most influential people in law firms also the least pleasant to deal with? The importance of being nice makes the case that collegiality has a business purpose.

4. My newest entry for Attorney At Work reached back to law school to discuss the potential benefits of private knowledge management: Revive your law school study group.

5. My first entry for Small Firm Innovation, a dynamic new blog sponsored by Clio, won’t appear until early next month, but I’m proud to be both a contributor and a member of the advisory board. Check out SFI today for practical first-hand accounts of small-firm success.

In terms of my travel plans, here’s where you’ll find me over the next several weeks.

• Tomorrow, I’m addressing the Toronto chapter of the Legal Marketing Association with a luncheon presentation on responding to the extraordinary changes (including in Canada) to the legal marketplace.
• On June 2, I’m delivering a plenary presentation at the annual conference of the Barreau du Québec in Gatineau, QC, on access to justice: sorting myth from reality and issuing a wake-up call to lawyers about the latent legal market.
• On June 11, I’m co-presenting a full-day conference for the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society in Halifax. Extra bonus (for both the attendees and me): my co-presenter is Matt Homann of LexThink!
• On August 5, I’m back in Toronto as part of a Presidential CLE panel on legal technology during the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association.
• Finally, during the 2011 International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) conference in Nashville, I’ll be part of a panel presentation on the impact of legal process outsourcing in the marketplace.

These and other engagements will take me through the summer, so I’m now booking appearances for the fall. If your law firm or practice group is organizing a retreat or your organization is hosting a conference and you’d like to learn more about my presentation packages, please drop me a line. Look for more information about retreats and presentations in an upcoming Law21 redesign as well!

Finally, I want to make one last pitch for your firm, department or organization to submit an entry to the 2011 InnovAction Awards, sponsored by the College of Law Practice Management. The deadline for entries is now just one week away, and based on inquiries and entries already received, I’m anticipating a banner year for submissions; yours should be among them.

Jordan Furlong speaks to law firms and legal organizations throughout North America on how to survive and profit from the extraordinary changes underway in the legal services marketplace. He is a partner with Edge International and a senior consultant with Stem Legal Web Enterprises.