Being a proud product of the rural hills of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, but having lived and practiced law here in the Philadelphia area for almost 40 years now, Ive always fancied myself as an old fashioned, down home lawyer, meaning a guy who would shake your hand, look you in the eye, make you feel comfortable–like family–while all the time using my reasonably highly educated brain to figure out how I could help you with your estate planning.
When my wife and I opened Flood & Masiuk, the law firm, 25 years ago, I thought that this practice would also grow the old fashioned waywe would hang out our shingle, do good, meaningful work for our clients, make them feel like family, and the word-of-mouth would spread.
For years, this strategy workedbut only to a point. Now, weve entered the world of electronic, computer and Blackberry driven, social media with links and backlinks (whatever they are) and websites and all sorts of stuff that the world tells me is how people communicate with each other these days.
And I thought to myself, Self, this is madness! How are people going to communicateI mean REALLY communicatewith each other without the handshake, the look in the eye, the watching of body language, and all those things we use to relate to each other as human beings? Ill stick with word-of-mouth, thank you (but no thank you) very much!
And then, about three weeks ago, I had occasion to be in the Reading Terminal Market in Center City Philadelphia. For those of you who dont know, the Reading Terminal Market is a massive, marvelous place, where merchants sell produce, flowers, meats, fishyou name itall fresh.
Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday, the Amish Farmers occupy their own special area in the eastern portion of the Market to sell shoofly pies and freshly baked pretzels along with their own Lancaster County meats and produce. Charming, wonderful, and neatly old fashioned (or so I thought):
There, in the Amish Section of the Reading Terminal, along with the neatly dressed farmers, complete with beards, straw hats, suspenders and long dresses, was a sign which slapped me upside my head:
PLEASE LIKE US ON FACEBOOK!
I was floored! Old fashioned, naive me, from the hills of Upstate Pennsylvania, still believing that the Amish didnt have light bulbs, much less electricity
AND THEY WANTED ME TO LIKE THEM ON FACEBOOK!
So here we are, sharing our thoughts and insights on the Social Media (with appropriate front links, backlinks, and links of all types), so you get to really, really, know who we are, how we think, and what we do. If its good enough for the Amish, whom I have always admired for their simplicity, its good enough for us.
by the way, I still believe in the handshake, the look in the eye, and the feeling of family, but, following the lead of the Amish, I guess its just not enough anymore.
Marianne Flood, Estate Planning Attorney
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