How does puffery about Sarah Palin become valuable airspace? How are Palin and Poh Ling Yeow linked by their desire for media presence?

Consider what process may have occurred that caused Australians to collectively recognise “Po” as a reference to a TV chef and not a Teletubbie, and the potential commercial value of that shift.

We have often written about the use of law to make and keep products and people celebrities. It’s the story of how to identify, build and own a trend.

"If you follow the media-versus-Google meme, you know this instinctively. But here are some numbers that spell it out: Of the 25,000-plus sources cataloged by Google News, “less than 100″ have opted out of the index, says Google’s Josh Cohen, who runs the [Google News] service."

Source: Peter Kafka, A Very Short List: Publishers That Have Actually Told Google to Take a Hike, All Things Digital (section of The Wall Street Journal), 21 December  2009.

You have to give to get. This is a great principle to follow when preparing a proposal for a client or negotiating a deal. But there should be limits on how much is given free-of-charge. The interesting point is how and why this is so.

Service providers such as IT developers and consultants are selling intangible services. Often they have to give quite a lot free-of-charge before being paid back or winning a legally binding contract.

To earn and secure revenues from intellectual property licensing, providers of training or training courseware are well advised to apply available legal solutions with rigour.

This is easily done, it is neither expensive nor complex. However, implementation of the solutions requires specialist knowledge that is not commonplace.

Because of that reality it is commonplace for training organisations to poorly protect their intellectual property.

The question and the answer are relevant to other professionals. Our insights emerge from dealings with public relations firms, financial planners, and from establishing this Lightbulb lawyers blog and  maintaining it since mid-2006. We've also learned from Michael Perkins, a lawyer and author who works closely with financial planners.

Here's the question as posed by Des Walsh, a collaborator with our firm and one of Australia's foremost social media coaches. He is a pioneer in the field in Australia and inspired the establishment of Lightbulb.

"What do you believe are the key obstacles or disincentives for financial planners/advisors for incorporating social media in their marketing strategy? Preparing a short (50 min) workshop style presentation for a group of financial planners in Australia."

Mr Rupert Murdoch was interviewed over 37 minutes this week by David Spears of SkyNews on his views on a broad range of subjects. We'll focus here on his perception of the challenge from Google and other search engines for the traditional core of News Corp's power, its newspapers and their advertising-supported business model.

You can watch the video here, and go on to read our take on it.

Just as concrete cancer plays havoc with structures, so does what I'll call "contract cancer".

In the early hours of last night I finalised email advice for an entertainment industry client. My advice was on a licence agreement for my client's sound recordings. The contract was prepared by a multinational company seeking to distribute my client's content.

The contract was littered with little signs of weaknesses. These were gaps or errors in - grammar, clause numbering,  and the choice of words. Two clauses were repeated, each time with different wording.

In the thick of contract negotiations the process required to get to end game can be messy, convoluted and frustrating.

The negotiation positions of managers and lawyers must be considered. Their required new clauses put in, old clauses taken out or changed. Track changes and comments in Word can help, sometimes.

It helps even more to have a big picture perspective of the process. This article sets out our business law framework for legal risk management.

The topic is not taught in law school. It's taught in very rare legal seminars. It's what you pay a lawyer to do, though it can be set out as we've done here.

On completing IT contract negotiations for a client this week, I was reminded of our framework of six approaches as set out below.

One hundred tweets is a personal milestone. In 54 Twitter lawyer grooves from noricd I indicated I found my Twitter mojo. I kept dancing and have now arrived at 100. What's my style and why am I writing?

The tweets I've personally valued the most are Lightbulb-style microblogging aphorisms. For these I've found my muse from a successful, challenging or frustrating day of work.

Those tweets almost write themselves. With the 140 character limit for each tweet I've found it easier being in combination a researcher, writer, editor, proof reader and publisher. Clarity hopefully follows from brevity.

Today I had one of those callers. Their opening lines are the give away. If they ask "How are you today?" my usual reply is "Depends on what you are about to say in your next sentence."

Today's caller asked "Can I speak to the partner responsible for intellectual property matters."

I got the whiff of her probable pitch within a few sentences. I said please don't continue if you're asking me to speak at a conference and pay to do so. I asked for a statement in a sentence as to what she wanted me to do. She had no reply, she hung up.

Her employer should watch the following video on YouTube, or continue to waste dollars and resources on cold calls made without even checking the target's website before calling. The outcome is pushy marketing, not communication.

The video captures social media facts as at October 2009. It documents reasons why I'd vote to expand the Do Not Call Register to ban spam marketing calls to businesses.

Call Sydney 02 9269 0229 for a referral to senior, tested, affordable and expert social media consultants. They transform push marketers into social media communication powerhouses.