If you’ve been reading this blog for more than a few years, you may have wondered what happened to Ryan. Until about a month ago, I had only written 2 or 3 posts in the last 2 and a half years. If you check my work history on LinkedIn, you’ll see that my dearth of writing coincides with my departure from a large law firm and entry into the vendor space.
In a large firm I was busy, but I could focus on the things in front of me knowing that all the other business pieces were taken care of. In my free time, I could write on 3 Geeks regularly. In a startup/small tech company, everyone wears a lot of hats. I traveled a lot, I did marketing, business development, product testing, and I built solutions for clients. If I wrote, it was usually web content for the company, or thought pieces for publication. Writing for the blog was complicated, because I always felt compelled to write about my company’s products or solutions and I never wanted to take advantage of 3 Geeks to advertise. What changed in the last month, you ask? Well, I quit my job.
Now, don’t worry, I didn’t quit my job in a fit of anger or madness. (This time around.) I decided to quit in a moment of extreme serenity sitting on the dock of a small lake in Ontario. I took the picture above to commemorate the moment I realized I needed to go out on my own.
(Now, just this once, I’m going to take advantage of 3 Geeks to advertise.)
My new venture is Sente Advisors.
There is much sturm and drang in the legal press and blogosphere about whether innovation at this firm or that is real or just marketing. To some, innovation is the most over-hyped word in legal, and yet Chief Innovation Officers and Heads of Innovation are the hottest new roles in law firms today. Whether you call it process improvement, efficiency, or innovation, we believe that most firms want to improve the tools and methods they use to deliver legal services to their clients. We believe that all lawyers want to build stronger, more responsive relationships with their clients. And we believe that all clients of legal services want to be delighted by their firms.
Sente Advisors is a legal technology consultancy specializing in cross-platform solutions and support. We are not only offering an innovative service, but innovation as a service. Whether you’re a small firm with a good idea but no clue where to begin, or a global biglaw giant starting a new project, Sente Advisors can help. We can quickly build prototype solutions using your tools or our sandbox. We can advise on change management techniques, or we can present directly to your decision makers. We can train your team to identify opportunities for innovation, or to do the knowledge engineering once a project has been approved. Sente Advisors is an entire legal technology innovation team at your service for less than you’d spend hiring a single full time employee.
What is Sente?
Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m a gamer. My hobby is board games, I collect them, I play them, I teach them, I use them to build great teams of people.
Sente is the Japanese word for initiative in the game of Go. Having sente means you force your opponent to react to your latest play. We believe that innovative solutions can be a real differentiator between firms and we are dedicated to giving our clients Sente in the legal market.
If you’d like to hear more, I’ll be at ILTACON in a few weeks and I’d love to speak with you. Please send me an email at ryan at senteadvisors dot com.
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And now back to regularly scheduled 3 Geeks programming…