9 Comments
May 16, 2022Liked by Alex Su

I am supposed to go to a conference in my field in July. It will be my first time around a lot of people since 2020. How comfortable was it for you being around so many strangers, especially unmasked? Did you find people respected personal space and safety measures?

I really like your point about not wanting to be visible just for the sake of it. I go back and forth about how much visibility I really want to have on social media. I am on LinkedIn, but I don't post very much and honestly think it would freak me out to have a large following. Participating in community is one thing, but I'm not so sure I'd enjoy creating or leading one.

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Thanks, Alex. Interesting, and great report. Why am I not surprised about the behavior of the Big Law firm guy?

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Greetings Alex,

When did you have time to put this all together? Well done!

A few comments:

1. Malcolm Gladwell says it takes ~10K hours’ practice to become an expert. You must be getting close in your writing…. Good stuff.

2. I wholeheartedly agree with your observations throughout this piece (e.g., CLM over-saturation; winners being companies like Ironclad [early, genuine community focus + honesty + treating customers well]; the warmth and respect of the Big4 (vs. BigLaw) toward the legal ops community; the hollow presence of self-absorbed, out of touch law partners (who either lack self-awareness or don’t care about being jerks). (I had a similar experience at one of the networking breakfasts!)

3. Thanks for the link to the Law.com article; looking forward to reading it!

4. Isn’t Sameena Kluck so real and such fun??

It was fabulous meeting you IRL, Mr. Su!

Keep writing!

Sharon Donnigan

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May 16, 2022Liked by Alex Su

1) I couldn't agree more with you about the power of community that you note in footnote 11: "CLMs that have a vibrant, engaging community of customers are sending a message to buyers that they’ve made people successful. Any vendor can overpromise and lie to get deals. These bad actors will find it very hard, if not impossible, to launch a similar customer community." 2) Personal branding is not about simply visibility for the sake of visibility. It is truly about having an impact and a substantive impact.

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