Online identity for the legal industry: Exclusive Interview with James Alexander CEO of Vizibility

02
May
2012

Natalie Alesi

This past week, I was honored to be able to conduct an exclusive interview with James Alexander, CEO of Vizibility, regarding online identity for the legal industry.  Vizibility is a relatively new company that specializes in Online Identity Management by allowing professionals and companies to curate and rank their Google search results.  James spent an hour with me answering questions and demoing the Vizibility system and mobile optimized business cards.  I don’t get impressed easily, but this product can really be helpful in differentiating the competition for law firms.  And the kicker, the basic Vizibility service is FREE. Yes, FREE.

Recently, I became interested in the concept of Online Identity Management and came across the Vizibility site and product via several other blogs and articles that I found in the legal community.  Read below for the full detail of my interview with James and take a moment to view the short YouTube Video of how Vizibility works at the end of this post.

Question 1:  Reputation management is vital for any legal professional, how did you come up with the concept of Vizibility - Online Identity Management?

James: I have two first names and back in 2009 I couldn’t find myself when I went on Google.  So, I thought, how can I help myself? I didn’t want to have a case of mistaken identity.  I thought if I have this problem, other must too. So how can I help professionals find themselves online and make a killer first impression? And that’s how I came up with Vizibility. Let’s face it, we’re a Google society. We Google everything.

Question 2: Attorneys are very skeptical about doing anything online, including branding themselves.  I get asked a lot how to remove negative comments and reviews about attorneys. How can Vizibility protect an attorney’s online identity?

James: Vizibility uses a prebuilt search where attorneys can choose and rank which Google results are shown in their Google search when prospective clients click on their ‘Search Me’ button. You can choose the top 5.

Natalie: So basically, it’s very easy if there were negative comments that were to show up, they would just not be included in the top 5 ranking results.

James: Yes and you can choose to remove certain results as well within the SearchMe Google results.

Above ‘Search Me’ Results: The professional version allows for law firm branding by removing the Vizibility logo and adding the firm logo.

Question 3:  What ideas and innovative ways are you finding that your legal clients are using the ‘SearchMe’ button and QR Codes? Is the Vizibility ‘SearchMe’ button offered in other languages for an international audience?

James: We have clients that add the Search Me button to attorneys online bios. McCarter and English is one firm that is now using Vizibility. Loeb & Loeb LLP and Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP are some others.

Natalie: I can also see Vizibility QR Codes being put on presentations and RFPs within a law firm. This could demonstrate to potential clients that the law firm is on top of technology. Especially IP firms. I can also see them being added to email signatures, business cards, even engagement letters.

James: Yes, absolutely, pitch books and pitch decks, we also see them being used quite frequently for Firm Events. It’s a great tool for networking and finding CommonConnections™. You can take a look at our Infographics on QR Usage in Legal Marketing and Social Media in the legal sector. We also have NFC ID Cards. Right now this is a very new technology but is one that we will be seeing in the very near future along with more mobile devices that will support the NFC Technology (Near Field Communication).

Right now we are focusing on North America but the European market is where we are expanding. We do have some clients that have international offices that use Vizibility.

One other thing that I want to mention is that we provide our clients with a ‘talk point’s card’ that is given to all attorneys who use the QR Code. We give three talk points on why and how the firm uses QR Codes.  It starts as a conversation for the attorneys that can then segway into the firms’ services and how the firm or attorney uses the latest technology. This really makes a powerful lasting first impression.

Question 4:  Attorneys work where ever they can, tell me more about the 'mobile identity toolkit' and 'CommonConnections'.

James: In a survey of law firm websites, only 12% had optimized for a mobile device. Only 12%.

Natalie: Wow, that seems really low, especially with almost every attorney having a mobile device.

James: Let me show you how the mobile identity toolkit works. As you can see, when someone scans a QR Code the mobile optimized business card displays with following features: Name and Contact info, Notes & vCard, CommonConnections and Links. Each section can be customized and organized.

Natalie: That is really cool James. I really like that you can connect the CommonConnections™ to LinkedIn and Facebook.  What a great way to see who knows who!

James: Yes, it’s pretty cool.  What we also let you do is ‘Edit Notes’ so you can specifically enter detail about a conversation you had with a prospective client.

Natalie: Entering notes is great. A big plus for relationship building and business intelligence for attorneys and firms.

Question 5: The legal community can be a tough audience to convince and often is last to adopt technology where corporations are many years ahead, what typically convinces a legal professional to use a product like Vizibility?

James: What’s great about Vizibility is that it can be managed by a team if you are in a large firm or by an individual if you are a solo practioner.  You can share your Online Identity and get real time alerts when someone scans your QR Code or clicks the ‘SearchMe’ button.  This can provide instantaneous results for working and connecting with prospective clients.  You can specifically see who has searched for you, the date, the website, the organization, the industry, the city, state and country.  We even provide the ability to map the location.  I do want to clarify however, that we do not store the IP Address and the person who scans the code has the ability to not share their location if they do not wish.  In that case, we cannot provide specific location details. To provide the location, we use a 3rd party vendor which does a reverse look up on the IP address of the individual who clicked your button or link. We also provide a Search Results change report.    This report shows the latest Google results and which results have moved up, down or are new.

Vizibility also allows the ability when an attorney leaves a firm to curate the results for the new firm and attorney bio of the new firm. You no longer have to worry about prospective clients finding the wrong results when a new attorney joins your firm.

Natalie: Wow James, this is really fabulous. [All through the interview I could hear the alerts that James was receiving from the scans.] I do notice that some features of the Vizibility site don’t work when I’m logged in. Although, I am using Internet Explorer 8 which can be common in law firms.

James: Yes, we will definitely look into that, thanks for pointing it out. However, that ‘s an old browser and we typically recommend at a minimum IE 9 and Chrome.  However, we have an admin tool that easily lets those responsible in a law firm manage 3 to hundreds of users.  With Vizibility for the Company Plans we  include an account administration tool to: Set up and manage all users, download QR codes for any user, configure mobile business cards for all user, curate Google searches for all user, purchase business cards for any use, order QR code stickers for any use, and access usage metrics and reports.

Question 6: Have you seen law students using Vizibility? What advice do you have for law students using Vizibility to find jobs? In what ways have you seen Attorney Recruiters utilize Vizibility?

James: I think that we have not fully tapped into the potential of this technology and how it will be used.  I think it’s a wonderful tool for any professional especially attorney’s and law students to manage their reputation and online identity. You are definitely ahead of the curve Natalie.

Natalie: Thanks James, it will be interesting to see how the legal community continues to take charge of their reputations and online identity in the near future.  Thanks for this interview James, Vizibility is pretty impressive.

James: No problem Natalie. If there is anything you need information on, please let me know.

My sincere thanks to James Alexander for taking the time to speak with me about how the legal community and law firms can use Vizibility.  James is hooking me up with my own personal NFC Card. I’ll be sure to let you know how that works and write a short review. Stay tuned.