With all this talk about Social Media, I thought to myself, “What is being social anyways?”. The way I was raised, it was about interacting with people. While it’s true that social media does indeed open new ways to interact with people, it also gives us  a way out of actually interacting with others. Oh and don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. If you’ve ever been on Facebook, you know exactly what I’m referring to. How many times have you checked a friend’s Facebook (“FB” for all your cool cats) profile to see what they’ve been up to rather than to drop them a line? How often have you checked a person’s LinkedIn account profile instead of e-mailing them? Don’t know about you, but this seems pretty anti-social, no? (I’ll bet a few of you check out my LinkedIn account in a few minutes… prove me wrong.) Read more…

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Humour Anti-Social Media, Random thoughts, Social Media

Part 8 of 13 of my series on the profession of management consulting

This is it. You’ve made it to the implementation phase of your client engagement. All the analysis is done and the countless hours of debating over which steps to take are well behind you. It’s all smooth sailing from this point on right? Sorry pal. In fact, quite possibly, some of the hardest times are still to come. (Did I mention I was sorry?) Oh and did I mention that most of your budget will be spent during the upcoming implementation phase while executing your deliverables? To make matters worse, even if you’ve been clever enough to bring your client over to your side along the way, during this critical phase, he may yet turn against you – and worst yet – may not even realize he’s in fact resisting you. Read more…

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Management Consulting, Project Management 8 of 13, Mana 695E, Resistance

My local newspapers are full of great articles written by journalists about finance, how-to repair, and general sound advice on a slew of topics. However, would I pay for all this actionable insight? Let’s just say, I haven’t purchased a newspaper in a very long time – and I’m willing to wager neither have you (at least not as often as you used to). The newspaper model is collapsing. The audience at large sees information as a commodity (for the most part). Why pay for one writer’s point of view, when I can find another three writer’s points of view for free – even if it isn’t quite as good. Read more…

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