[First a riddle for you: by adding just one line, can you turn this Roman numeral 9 (below) into a 6? Take a second to see if you can solve this before reading on. One line turns 9 into 6. I’ll revisit the answer, and the point, in this post:]

So, you’ve set 2017 strategic objectives for your firm’s practices; you’ve mapped that to firm strengths and synergies; you’ve refined it to hone in on unmet client needs.

You’re good to go, right?

Not just yet, according to speakers at this year’s Southeast Conference of the Legal Marketing Association. Several identified one key process that can make or break your plans.

Dave Aucker (former Chief Client Relations Officer at Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, now a senior consultant at Akina) and Debra Baker (Managing Director at Law Leaders Lab) led a session focused on building an innovation roadmap to facilitate change in firms of any size. In between setting your strategic plan and mapping that to firm synergies and strengths, their roadmap calls for injecting client and market insights into your process. This step is critical. It ensures you uncover all opportunities – especially those that you might not know exist.

In a short, TED-style talk, my colleague Adrian Lurssen illustrated the value of such insights when he showed how analytics are being mined to uncover opportunities for growth and innovation. Case in point: in 2015, the best-read topic among energy industry readers on JD Supra was not renewable energy, or natural gas, or FERC, or fracking, or even greenhouse gas emissions.

It was … wait for it … cybersecurity.

And here’s the clincher: energy sector professionals focused their time on articles written about cybersecurity matters for the retail industry. Why? Because there was so little written on this topic by law firms serving energy companies. It’s a great example of a missed opportunity.

We have these blind spots due to what Professor James Bailey of George Washington University calls our lack of open mindfulness. Our preconceived ideas and assumptions serve as an unfortunate framework through which we filter information. This often keeps us from seeing the obvious – such as how the addition of one line can turn a Roman Numeral 9 into a 6.

Failing to see the obvious can prove limiting when trying to build new practices.  Take blockchain, for example. Many law firms know that it’s a hot technology exploding onto the scene and most undoubtedly see opportunities in the financial services sector, the software industry, and in network security. But most will miss opportunities to grow in three other hot sectors simply because they lack the market insights to see those opportunities.

Do you know which three other industries are heavily interested in blockchain today?

If not, write me for the answer (an answer courtesy of JD Supra Beacon, a powerful new service which gives firms access to client and market insights enabling them to better compete. You can write me for information on that, too). It might make all the difference to your 2017 strategic plan.

*

[Karen Cariello is VP of business development at JD Supra. It was her birthday this weekend, so the JD Supra editorial team hopes you'll send her a b-day greeting via Twitter. Takers?]