In an evaluation submitted after one of my recent speaking engagements, someone complained about how I “shamelessly” plugged my book. And in an evaluation submitted after a recent seminar, someone said, with respect to my one-minute explanation of Koncision, “Could do without the sales pitch for his company!”
Given that those probably won’t be the last complaints I hear about self-promotion, allow me to explain myself.
Two essential components of an efficient contract process are (1) clear and consistent contract language and (2) document assembly (assuming that you have the threshold contract volume and need nontrivial customization). It’s impossible for me to talk about the contract process without mentioning those two aspects.
And it so happens that if you’re looking for comprehensive guidelines for clear and consistent contract language, MSCD is the only game in town. Furthermore, if you’re part of the majority who won’t be setting up their own document-assembly system any time soon and you’re interested in the notion of vendor-content document assembly, currently Koncision is the only service that’s in a position to offer rigorous language, state-of-the-art substance, and top-of-the-line technology.
So if I’m expected to speak about the contract process, there’s no way I can do so without mentioning MSCD and Koncision.
But unless I’m making a pure sales pitch, anyone listening is entitled to expect me to be even-handed and to keep things in proportion. I think I satisfy that requirement. (If in at the end of my “Drafting Clearer Contracts” seminar, after a day immersed in MSCD, I discuss document assembly for three minutes, I think it’s unobjectionable for me to devote one of those minutes to Koncision.) If any plausible alternative to MSCD or Koncision appears, I’ll happily consider factoring them into any discussion of the contract process.
Nevertheless, if at any time you think I do in fact need to ease up on the self-promotion, by all means let me know.
Ken,
I can’t opine on your self-promotion, as I haven’t attended one of your presentations. However, I can’t believe you wasted electrons on this issue. If you didn’t plug the book, the complaint would be “speaker didn’t tell us where we could find this information in a book”.
Bryan
Bryan