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<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>>>>>>
"Josh" == Josh Heumann <perl-pm@joshheumann.com>
writes:<br><br>
Josh> The Seattle Perl Users Group has been batting about this idea
proposed by<br>
Josh> one of their members. Here is the email. What do
people think about this<br>
Josh> sort of think? We have a lot of Perl People in
Portland...<br><br>
This is exactly what Stonehenge is setting up to do (and has been<br>
doing, to a lesser extent). And yes, I need a bit of profit to
cover<br>
my overhead, but I wanna make a tiny profit on a lot of people, if
a<br>
lot of people are interested.<br><br>
-- <br>
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777
0095<br>
<merlyn@stonehenge.com>
<URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/><br>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.<br>
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl
training!</blockquote><br>
I have been a professional consultant for 20+ years in Utah, California
and Oregon, working mostly for small to medium size consulting firms,
such as my latest in PDX, Kipe & Associates. In Q1-2003 I
decided for the first time to hang out my own shingle and have yet to
land a new client. All of my work since becoming an independent has
been from former clients.<br><br>
I was Kipe employee #2 in 1991 when Bob Kipe left Cap Gemini and formed
his own company. In the 12 years I worked for Bob I had three
clients, 2 in PDX and one in Spokane, and not one day, not one hour of
bench time. Bob died in 2001 and K&A has not been the same
since. I have never had a similar experience with any of the many
consulting companies I worked for prior to K&A. In fact, I have
never had more than a single client engagement with any of those
companies. They were all one-time engagements and when the project
ended, so did my relationship with the company. I shop the Internet
every day for new work and what I see is more of the same. I am
convinced that if and when I land a new assignment it will be another
one-time engagement. Once the project ends I will probably never
hear from the company again. <br><br>
Why do you suppose that is? I believe the model for consultants is
one in which the head hunters simply match up skill sets with job
orders. I believe the consultant is viewed as nothing more than a
piece of living furniture, to be replaced with a newer version when a
current engagement ends. They might make a half hearted attempt to
match the skills of someone coming off a project with existing open job
orders but if there is not a good match, the consultant goes on the bench
while the recruiter searches among strangers for a match.<br><br>
What was different about Bob Kipe? Well in the early days, when he
was hungry, he was a very proactive marketer. He sought out talent
first and then found a way to place that talent in companies where he
knew development work was being undertaken. He was not overly
concerned that the talent did not match 100% some set of skills in a job
order. His approach was to market very smart people who had done
very difficult things and could learn the latest new new-thing.
Three times in 12 years he got himself and me into companies for a face
to face interview with a technical decision maker and three times I
convinced that hiring manager to take a chance on me. Together we
once beat out Oracle Consulting on one project and Microsoft Consulting
on another. I had uninterrupted work for a dozen years but it got
harder as Bob became more successful and less hungry. With big
time, for PDX, financial success he became less willing to make cold
calls on new clients. Why should he continue to bust his hump,
since a select set of clients was bringing in all the money he
desired? His model changed subtly over time to the more typical
quick and dirty job match and consultant discard, although to his credit,
he was still willing to call a prospect where the talent first developed
an interest. After he got sick and then weaker from chemo it became
impossible.<br><br>
He also had a very lean and mean financial model. Since he was a
one-man-band his overhead was very low. He could undercut the
competition and still offer the talent better rates than they could get
from any other firm in town. He thus obtained loyalty from both the
top and the bottom - the clients who enjoyed most favorable billing rates
and from the consultants who put more money in their pockets.<br><br>
From the consultants point of view, I think we are all looking for the
Bob Kipe's of the IT world, but when they are in their hungry
stage. I want someone to market ME to prospects, not see me as a
possible match to some arbitrary set of skills. Do you ever wonder
about the dilberts who write these skill sets? For example, do you
ever wonder what in the world they are trying to build when they require
both Java and C/C++ proficiency in the same person? Java was
created for minds that could not warp themselves around C++, so if
someone can hold his own professionally in C++, what possible interest in
Java would such a person have? Yet to get an audience one must be
able to show current proficiency in both of these OO languages. If
I could get in the door for an interview I could discuss the roles of
these two languages, and why Perl is actually superior for many uses but
I never get the chance since the head hunter rejects any but 100% skill
set matches.<br><br>
So, it does make some sense for consultants to consider how they might
organize their collective resources to hire a marketer with the right
stuff to work for them. That is not the usual model, the marketers
work for the client companies who own the job orders. It is quite
another model to represent the talent and try to find suitable companies
in which to place the talent. The really big firms, such as IBM
Global Services are better equipped to absorb the cost of some bench time
and to pay for training, but even they churn the talent at a moments
notice.<br><br>
I once tried to hire someone to market just me but there just was not
enough money in it for both of us. The Seattle proposal is both
interesting and very ambitious. Ambitious because it focuses on
Perl so in addition to the usual problem of marketing talent, it intends
to evangelize Perl. I wish them well and will stay tuned, and
perhaps the marketing right-stuff includes in depth knowledge of why Perl
is better. In a perfect world it would either not be necessary or
if it is, it would work. I am still hoping to find another Bob
Kipe.<br><br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
Regards,<br>
Will Schmidt<br><br>
<font size=2><b>WilliamSchmidt.com, LLC<br>
</b>11201 NW 77th Street<br>
Terrebonne, OR 97760<br>
541 504-0290<br>
will@williamschmidt.com<br>
<a href="http://www.williamschmidt.com/" eudora="autourl">http://www.williamschmidt.com/</a><br>
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