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http://www.skadden.com
Upon arrival, you’ll notice the montage of flowing words and images that coalesce into
the web page. I liked the effect — several pages are beautiful — but you’ll need
Flash 5 to behold them.
From any page on the site, click “Welcome” (in the navigation bar at top left) for a
short greeting by the firm’s Managing Partner, Robert Sheehan. To watch the streaming
video messages on this site, you’ll need media player software: RealPlayer 8.
From www.skadden.com, click “Attorney Hiring” (at lower right) to arrive at:
“Skadden Arps: Opportunities”
http://www.skadden.com/recruiting
At top right is an image of Hiring Partner, Wallace Schwartz; click the field labeled “A
Message From Our Hiring Partner” to watch him share a few words about the workplace
in streaming video.
At lower left, click on the field labeled “Visit Our Growing List of 360-Degree and
Multimedia Office Tours” to see:
“Skadden Arps: Opportunities - The Tour”
http://www.skadden.com/recruiting/attorneys_tour.html
This web page is devoted to a moving and interactive flow of text which forms into a list of the
firm’s branch offices. The firm lists 21 branches in all, from Boston to Beijing, Houston
to Hong Kong, and Palo Alto to Paris. Click the name of a city for a web page displaying an
array of faces.
FOCUS ON FACES
Faces — you’ll see many faces here. How better to humanize such a large
organization than to show us a few of the people who work there?
Many of the branch office pages are pleasingly decorated with images conveying local flavor; for
example, the San Francisco office’s page is dressed with pictures of the Golden Gate
Bridge and Fisherman’s Wharf. Most pages are also decorated with the faces of a diverse
sampling of local partners and associates.
Click on a face or a practice area (Litigation, Tax, Complex Mass Torts ...), then click on a name,
and you will see and hear that person speak, in a short streaming video interview.
Most of the branch office pages prominently feature a message from the local hiring partner. The
San Francisco page, for example, is topped by an image of Jim Lyons, Hiring Partner in San
Francisco; click to watch him speak for a few minutes in streaming video.
Is Silicon Valley always a step ahead? The page for the Palo Alto office is a bit different than the
rest. The captions for the attorney photos include titles:
Richard Horton - “Adrenaline”, Ronald Laurie - “Innovative”, David
Hansen - “Boundless Opportunities”, Thomas Ivey - “Cutting Edge”,
and Kate Merrill - “Best of Both Worlds”.
HIGH TECH TOUR
On most of the branch office pages, besides streaming video, another high-tech treat is available
— if you have a high speed Internet connection: a 360-degree IPIX image of the local
office. Click on the image and it will begin to rotate, allowing a panoramic view.
TECHNICAL BARRIERS
The ‘How to View Our Site’ button (at the bottom of the Opportunities page)
acknowledges that the site is Pushing the Envelope. Indeed, the website sets high standards in
terms of the software it requires: Macromedia Flash is needed, and Windows Media Player is not
supported. This will frustrate some visitors. (The media player of choice is
RealNetworks’ RealPlayer.)
BROADBAND REQUIRED
You will need a high speed Internet connection to enjoy this website. Not recommended to those
with dial-up connections — the 360-degree IPIX tour and most of the videos were not worth
the trouble at 56K.
By requiring high speed Internet access, Flash, and RealPlayer, Skadden has rebuffed some of its
audience, but rewarded the rest with a more robust web experience. It’s worth noting that
the firm’s prime audiences — law schools and executive suites — are the least
likely to be inconvenienced by stiff technical requirements.
INVESTMENT OBJECTIVE
In sum, Skadden has invested in a Welcome Message, that all visitors may see, and a
concentration of media assets in the Attorney Hiring section. The Welcome Message (from the
firm’s Managing Partner) is positioned to influence prospective clients as well as
prospective hires. The bulk of the firm’s new investment in multimedia features
(streaming video and 360-degree IPIX tours), however, is positioned where it will influence
prospective attorney hires. From a dollars and cents perspective, it looks like good strategy to
focus such an investment in a budget category where costs are large, and significant reductions
possible.
This effort may increase the quality and quantity of attorney applicants and reduce the number of
‘false starts’ in the attorney hiring process. Feedback from firms using streaming
video in this fashion, suggests that it helps ‘pre-sell’ potential clients and job
seekers. High quality video may convey enough information about a firm’s character and
culture to help inquirers evaluate their ‘fit’ with the firm and opt out before
resources are spent on them. By providing information via streaming video, aiding the
winnowing process, firms may be able to prune marketing and recruiting costs at an early stage
— before travel costs and attorney time are expended.
Too many webcasts, not enough time.
If you see streaming audio or video you
think would be of interest to our readers, please
URL and description.
Has your firm produced a webcast? We want the details!
If you'd like a clickable list of the web addresses from this and past columns,
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