My response was (and will always be) this: If a client or competitor can figure out how to solve a certain problem by merely reading your article, presentation or even book, you don't have a defensible service. "Reengineering the Corporation" (Hammer and Champy) sold millions of copies in the 1990s, yet lots of consulting firms made lots of money helping companies reengineer their businesses. Many companies couldn't reengineer their processes just by reading the book.
Have you heard this concern -- that "we're giving away our secrets" -- at your professional services firm? And how have you responded?
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I agree, implementation in a professional service firm is so contextually sensitive that you can talk about almost anything without any risk of it being duplicated quickly, if at all. Taking an idea to a service offering that makes money is a herculean task in most firms. The idea has to be presented in such a way that partners get excited about it, you have to sell the idea to a client, money needs to be made available to scale up delivery capability. On and on. Of course, ideas are diffused through competing firms, but it takes a while, certainly long enough that a firm can brand itself with an insight, like Hammer did with re-engineering.
I agree. Professional services firms are inherently about networking. To truly "network" you need to contribute and share with network. The more you contribute, the more you get back.
And is not about giving away secrets. We do not have the secret formula to Coca-Cola. For transaction attorneys, a big chunk of our work ends up in the public records, the registry of deeds, EDGAR, etc. for all to see.
We are showing our expertise by sharing. Our clients are buying our expertise, not our secrets.
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