Twitter Business Center Ushers Customer Service into the Age of Engagement
As the social media phenomenon continues to guide and enrich web engagement strategies, more and more companies are responding with holistic touch points for their customers. Twitter’s rendition, called the Twitter Business Center, allows businesses to interact with their customers even if they're not following them.
Features Coming Soon…
Don’t get too excited just yet—Twitter’s business center is still in beta. Presently only a few chosen companies are able to enjoy the new features, which include:
Contributors Tab: The Contributors tab will streamline the tweeting process by enabling multiple users to access the account and tweet on the company’s behalf.
Verified Business Accounts: Previously only available to individuals, Verified Twitter accounts aim to assist in building trust between businesses and their customers. Now consumers won’t have to wonder whether the company they’re interacting with on Twitter is really the company, or just someone pretending to be affiliated with them.
DM Customers You’re Not Following: This is the biggie, especially for businesses with a large audience on the micro-blogging platform. Without requiring followership in order to communicate privately, Twitter is expanding the number of opportunities for interaction. Customers will be able to build a rapport with the brands they care about, and businesses can conduct customer service without it being in the full view of the public.
The feature is optional, of course, so if for any reason you’d rather not have customers contacting you directly, you don’t have to.
via Twitter Business Center Ushers Customer Service into the Age of Engagement.
Golden Opportunity – Opening California to International Arbitration
This Article highlights the challenges facing California in its efforts to become a center of international arbitration, provides examples of legislation for the California Bar and California State Legislature to consider, and suggests various avenues by which to bring California more fully into the international legal community. In particular, California unintentionally does not allow foreign attorneys to represent their clients in international arbitration conducted in California. Amidst both renewed efforts to make California a more likely seat of international arbitration and a legislative opening to revise this aspect of the law, change in the latter makes the former both possible and likely.
via Golden Opportunity « Opening California to International Arbitration.
Wilmer Opening Business Center in Ohio for Back-Office Functions | National Law Journal
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr will move back-office functions to Dayton, Ohio, in September. The center is expected to house as many as 190 workers in technical support, billing support, conflict checks, data entry, finance and other business and administrative functions.
No lawyers will be located at the new business center at first, but the firm plans to add some basic document-review attorneys down the road, said co-managing partner William J. Perlstein. The new setup will add efficiency and cost less than housing business services in pricey offices in major cities, he said.
At present the firm divides back-office functions between its Washington, New York and Boston offices.
“As we addressed the question of trying to consolidate, that freed us up to look outside the metro areas, where space is less expensive and we can get a business campus setting,” Perlstein said. “It’s a combination of cost savings and the efficiency of having everyone in one location.”
The firm is still securing space for the new business center, and its not yet clear how much money it will save with the move, Perlstein said.
Wilmer is not the first firm to establish an off-site business center in a lower-cost area. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe established its global operations center in Wheeling, W.Va., in 2000. The facility now houses about 200 workers.
via Law.com – Wilmer Opening Business Center in Ohio for Back-Office Functions.
Will Shanghai Overtake Hong Kong as World Financial Center?
A report by British law firm Eversheds claiming that Shanghai could overtake London as a world financial center in 10 years has led to a predictable round of hand-wringing from the British press, including the Financial Times, the BBC and the Telegraph.
But not all of Asia is gloating. Missing altogether from Eversheds’ report is the city that’s most worried about losing ground to Shanghai: Hong Kong.
Obviously, such surveys are to be taken with a grain of salt; after all, over a tenth of Eversheds’ respondents predicted Dubai would emerge as the world’s preeminent financial center in decade’s time.
And Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China with a separate local government and legal system, has been booming recently. So far this year, its exchange is leading the world in initial public offerings, mostly on behalf of mainland Chinese companies. It remains the preferred regional base for global banks and, consequently, international law firms.
Still, Hong Kong has long had a complex about Shanghai, which was the region’s preeminent financial center before falling under communist rule in 1949. Now that that same communist government has embraced capitalism, fears abound that Shanghai will be promoted at Hong Kong’s expense.
That anxiety was reflected in a Reuters article last week, in which one Hong Kong banker fretted that his city would become a second city — a Boston or a Chicago to Shanghai’s New York.
via Will Shanghai Overtake Hong Kong as World Financial Center?.
Sept. 11 Mastermind, Four Other Detainees to Face Death Penalty in New York Trial | Law.com
Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be brought to trial in a civilian U.S. courthouse in New York, near the site of the devastating 2001 terror attacks. Prosecutors expect to seek the death penalty.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced the long-awaited and politically fraught decision at a news conference Friday. He also said five other Guantanamo detainees, including a major suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will be tried through the military commission process.
Holder said the Sept. 11 defendants should be tried where their crimes occurred. Nearly 3,000 people died when the World Trade Center towers were brought down by two hijacked jetliners, another hijacked jet hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in the state of Pennsylvania.
“After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for that attacks of September the 11th will finally face justice,” Holder said. “They will be brought to New York to answer for their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks away from where the twin towers once stood.”
Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is a key step in President Barack Obama’s plan to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama initially planned to close the center by Jan. 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.
“For over 200 years our nation has relied upon a faithful adherence to the rule of law,” Holder told a news conference at the Justice Department. “Once again, we will ask our legal system in two venues to answer that call.”
via Law.com – Sept. 11 Mastermind, Four Other Detainees to Face Death Penalty in New York Trial.
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