It had to happen.....Consulting 2.0

You know that a trend is tired out when us consultants wrap ourselves in it .

( I was picking up a thread over the weekend from Stowe Boyd, pointing to a conversation between Euan Semple and Jevon MacDonald.)

Jevon had already, in his discussion of "Enterprise 2.0" in 2007 predicted that:

6 - An all star team of consultants will form who will be one of the few groups able to lead companies through a process of Adoption, Integration and Normalization of social software toolkits and the re development of corporate org charts to address the new, flattened, world. The major consulting firms will come out with their own consulting “products” around Enterprise 2.0, but they will struggle with it as their best consultants will break off to join looser and more creative consulting groups, now that they have access to the necessary low-cost tools

Well now......we are one of those looser and creative consulting groups, and we' run the gamut from adoption (in fact pre - adoption - we do strategy and biz design) through Transformation to Implementation (what, pray tell is Normalization....?) - so any best consultants want to join us all-stars

Euan then responded with:

I definitely think you are on the money with no.6. The big consulting firms are circling this stuff at the moment but as I said to someone on IM recently they would need personality transplants. I don't mean that rudely but most of them just don't get this stuff.

I have also had loads of conversations with others involved in this field and we all agree that there is the possibility for a new model of consulting. In fact I don't even like calling it consulting as I'd rather put a space between the way we do things with the way they were done in the past.

In the same way as managers are going to have to move from command and control to the much subtler art of influencing so too those involved in helping organisations from the outside need to be much subtler in their approaches and a million miles away from the learned dependency of traditional consulting.

Lastly the myth of there being a single solution is unsustainable in a web environment. There are many possible paths and what matters more than the destination is the state of mind of the travelers!

We would demur a whit....while the big houses may not be "getting this stuff", it hasn't stopped any of them using big marketing machines and PR' ing about it and trying to make a market in it - and in our experience that, plus "you can't get fired for buying X" mindset of senior managers, takes them a long way - the issue is that consulting is an asymmetric market (of which more below) so how do you tell the truly competent from the media maestros.

Also, though we hate to admit it, some of those Big Consultancies have some very capable people in them - the issue is more can they structurally deliver the best value to a client today.

As to a new model we agree, partway - we set up Broadsight with just such a new model:

(i) A virtual business - ie no offices - since offices for consultants are a no-no - if you are busy you don't need them, if you are not you don't want the costs. Also use technology to minimise other operational overheads (ie staff). The technology certainly exists to work remotely as a team, and we believe we have pioneered this as much as anyone, being very early adopters of Skype for conferencing, plus using webinars, wikis etc and all sorts of small tools and tweaks to our systems.
(ii) We also have tried to design a structure that is a "socially networked" associate base, using trusted people only. Its not that easy as traditional company structures - limited companies and partnerships - don't really do this very easily.
(iii) Do great work for great people - no more, no less. Walk away from some stuff, do other stuff for a pittance if the learning is immense

However, you have to understand that this approach has some limitations - scalability being one - the old consulting pyramid scheme may not give top class client work, but it is scalable ( and allows those at the top of the heap to cream off a large income built from small levies on those below.)

Where this "Consulting 2.0" model does work well though is in allowing us the flexibility to pursue other projects eg product development, hence projects such as the Memetic Difference Engine and other work we are doing but can't talk about.

Anyway, back to Jevon - he noted in a later post that the time had come for "Consulting 2.0" and the reasoning was thus (summarised on Stowe's page):

Here are some of my personal reasons for having stayed independent:

1. Own your ideas
2. Own your work
3. Freedom to decide
4. Personal space
5. The New World demands change
6. Get Paid More
7. Beaten up by the best

OK, so here is what really happens - in our experience anyway

- Owning your own ideas is great in theory, in practice you can own nothing in the current world as a small player. Your ideas will be stolen and rebranded (yes, I have seen my own slides reproduced in others' colours shown back to me - unacknowledged of course). The good news is that everyone else's ideas are out there too, and there are lots more of them. As Tom Lehrer once said, don't think of it as plagiarism, think of it as research ...or user generated content.....

What really counts after a while is the track record, i.e. actually doing the stuff. And that takes time, longer than we anticipated certainly. This is because fundamentally consulting is an asymmetric market, ie it is damn difficult to tell who is any good and who is not. Hint - the good guys don't need impressively swank offices (1)

- Owning your work - we decided that we would always be absolutely true to what we believed was right. Result - we have been thrown off a few assignments for dissenting / refusing to agree with the dsired result, and seen work go to (in our view) less qualified people who would toe the line, but in essence this is the essence of what we do - great work for great people. We will not compromise on quality, because when all is said and done, this is what remains.

- Freedom to decide - yes, assuming you have choices lined up, if not it is a bit more constrained. But it is true that you can avoid work that you don't want to do (see Getting paid More). However, having a "bread and butter" revenue stream is crucial if you want to do this and eat as well. One of the things we continually grapple with is the "products" - easier to sell but less creative ultimately vs "problem solving" (probably a better solution, but has a higher cost base) modes. One needs both, ultimately.

- Personal Space - this is probably the biggest benefit, you are free to plan your own time more - traditional consulting structures have high time overheads (aka "Partners Adding value") - if the team are competent, you don't need this.

- The New World Demands Change - as Jevon put it:

Many of the best consultants and business thinkers in the world are beginning to see that a flatter, more open, Agora is fundamental to seeing a new economic revolution for organizations.

Here we'd agree - time is limited in this post to go into all this, but the impact of the broadband net is to change the shape of communications, and that changes the structure of organisations - and society (think scale-free vs heirarchical networks). To quote Jevon again:

The truth is, that if we are going to lead an organization to a new model for work, both structurally and culturally, we need to be the very model of the change we advocate.

Quite....so one of the measures of "non quackness" for anyone looking to use a digital media consultancies is the degree to which they drink their own kool aid - Open Source websites, Blogging, use of Web 2.0 techniques etc - in their own operations. How can you help if you have never done something?

- Get paid More - heck, if only ....the truth is that small consulting companies suffer the sell / do issue - i.e. if you are selling, you are not doing and vice versa. Over time you start to get repeat work it is true, but for any of you thinking you'll jump into niche consulting and people will instantly hand you the same per diem as you get with BigCo, you have a rude shock coming. It...takes...time - and a hell of a lot of effort. The good news of course is that what you do make goes into your own pocket, so that to earn a similar net you can charge less.

Our own view though is that the optimal is to combine consulting with product / service development, as hours - at the end of the day - are just not scalable unless you are in a large firm.

- Beaten up by the Best - Jevon's argument is that:

If you are going to make a mistake, or it is time to “learn a lesson”, you may as well learn from the best

Hm...in the UK, beating your team when they err is probably illegal - those Stateside people have all the fun

I guess his view is that "the best" are independent. We'd agree - of course (you certainly need to believe in yourself, anyway) - but also point out that some of the worst are independent too. The problem with consulting is that asymmetric market, so all you can really offer is a track record of happy clients (or at least no lawsuits and innovative, ground breaking work.

However, what we also have learned is that even if you do all the above, if no one knows you may as well do nothing - and in our experience the other thing you have to do is tell people the good news ! This is tough of course...you have to go and build your social network with interesting people and drink lots of beer too, but needs must....

And hence Broadstuff, of course......................

(1) we were thinking about putting up an office in 2nd Life, but that's just soooo 2006 now