I spent yesterday at the Dia de la Pasa (Raisin Day) in a small Spanish village. The day celebrates the fact that El Borge makes its main living from the raisin and the village hosts a free lunch for anyone who turns up, gives away lots of sweet local wine and takes the chance to sell its local produce to the thousands of visitors who attend. And nobody leaves without a plastic glass full of raisins.
It is true that I attended the Raisin Day celebrations only because we hadn’t got organised early enough for Goat Day (I kid you not) in another of the white villages. But it got me thinking about the approach that the village was taking to its main source of income. It was inclusive and generous. It was highly effective commercially – even a miser like me bought local cheese and wine. And it was fun. But the most important aspect was that I will never think about raisins in the same way again.
I wonder whether the IT law industry might take a leaf out of El Borge’s book. It is true that not every IT lawyer lives in the same village (though there’s a soap opera waiting to happen) but you could trawl in quite a few if you threw a large net out in some London postal codes. Cooking up lunch for random visitors doesn’t seem right either, but an online advice event might be achievable. Encourage the public to raise their concerns (we could call it Raisin IT Concerns Day – perhaps not), offer quick answers for free and generally educate about and raise awareness of IT law. We might well find a hidden market for advice among, say, smaller app producers deterred by the frightening legends of high priced IT law advice which are {i}sometimes{/i} wild exaggerations. We might improve the public perception of the IT lawyer – we might even {i}create{/i} a public perception of the IT lawyer as I am not sure that one currently exists which we can improve. I am not sure how to make it fun, but lots of free wine (for participants) might be one answer.
(The post title makes sense only if sung to the Kool and the Gang tune – otherwise it is just silly.)
