IT considerations of a small professional services firm

Here are some off the cuff things that any new or small "professional services firm" (aka consulting firm) will need to consider: 

• Things common to small businesses -
  
• How big is the company
• What can you afford
• What are the needs
• Are the needs generic like msft office or specific like detailed timekeeping or graphics

• How will you communicate with clients -
• Email obviously, but will you ever need to do blog posts for them?
  
• How about microcommunication services like Yammer?

• What security level do you need
  
• Federal, state, and local government all have their own specific security requirements as customers
• Are you under HIPAA requirements? In many respects this is less stringent than having a Federal government client, but has its own peculiarities and challenges
• Do your IT needs create any special office space / facility needs? Federal government and HIPAA certainly will

• Billing needs
• Will your clients require you to submit billing invoices to them in any specific way? 
• Do you need to track billing on a per minute basis? Per hour?
• Do you need to track specific billable actions like writing a memo or email, making a phone call?
• Who will you be billing, and are there any industry-mandated

• Location of staff
• Colocated?
• Across the world?
• A mix of the above where some are together, some are in another country, and you have part-time people elsewhere?
  
• How about special subcontractors?

• Do you need IT to be controlled on your servers

• How will you want to collaborate internally
• See above on "Location of staff", but even if you are all within earshot you may prefer to have collaboration supercharged via 
 

Pictures:- by ob1left
-  From lucky_dog
-  by Philo Nordlund

Four more things you can do to get hired

Often times, the biggest thing standing between you and getting hired is yourself. I interview a lot of people in my job, and most people come prepared and have done enough interviewing that they are relaxed. They aren't complicating the situation. But others...

Here are some tips to help you get hired:

1) We really REALLY want to hire you. Most people don't typically enjoy combing through resumes, calling references, and doing interviews. So you honestly have no reason to be nervous.

2) Unless you aren't prepared. So while your #1 tip is true, I have found that a near majority of applicants who I interview are under prepared. A shockingly high % don't even know their resume well. Others don't research our company and what we do (we're consultants to the federal government).

3) Be very very careful with that "embelesh" stuff. It's one thing to say you were really proud of a project or a team when you maybe weren't (though, that is actually lying and if I found out that you said you were proud and later admitted you hated your team, I'm not going to be happy and will question your ethics going forward). But under no circumstances are you to mess with the facts. Don't say you saved your company/client $1M when it was really $100k, etc.

4) Have a plan of attack, it should help set you at ease. Most people only do behavioral interviews where they go through your resume. Maybe they'll ask some questions about a particular experience, client, product, etc. But in reality, most interviews are overly simplistic. So relax. Know the drill, know your resume, know what you want to highlight.

5) Remember that you are marketing yourself, your skills, your experience. You're the only one selling yourself, so if you are shy about saying you did something well, get over it. Don't be a narcissistic braggard, but be willing to say "I think such and such project went well, as did the customer because we met all their objectives."

6) Have a story to tell, and align it to what the needs of the organization are. What, you don't know this? Well then you didn't do your homework. Research the company, read the position description several times (if they didn't have one, call them and ask; or start off the interview by asking to learn more about what they want so you can "better answer their questions"), and then know what parts of your resume you want to highlight.

Don't take 15 minutes telling me about how great working at McDonald's was when you were 16. Tell me about your recent and relevant experience.

I cover two of the above points in more detail here - http://ckstevenson.blogspot.com/2010/04/two-best-things-you-can-do-to-get-hired.html

And did a Prezi presentation on how to write a good resume - http://ckstevenson.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-to-write-great-resume.html

Pictures in order of appearance:

• by unk's dump truck
• by VerdeSam
• by TheTruthAbout...
• by boogah

The definitive guide to Rehobeth Beach, Bethany Beach & Dewey Beach

What follows is the quickest overview of the Delaware Beaches (hopefully to become part of the "Delmarva Coast" tag line).

Rehobeth is more "open" and has the most to do of the three. It feels like a modern beach spot, but retains small town charm. Best restaurant and shop options.

Bethany is stuck in the early 1970s, in a good way. It has a couple of restaurants and bars, more than enough shops for a long weekend, and tons of beach houses for friends or family.

If "Virginia is for lovers" then "Dewey is for drinkers". Only a small handful of restaurants (Nalu Hawaiian Surf Bar and Grille was good) and lots of 16-24 year olds roaming around looking for beverages and a new "friend".

Best time of year for sports? Now is the dark horse candidate

Doesn't this time of year have to compete for the best of sports?

• NBA post-season - I don't really watch, but whatever, lots of people like it and watch. ESPN is crammed full of articles and posts etc
  
• NHL post-season - I watch more than the NBA, but not much; but hockey fans are obsessed and the finals are back on NBC. The Olympics really lifted this sport into the consciousness of the sports world again.
  
• MLB - early in the season, so no one is knocked out yet and teams still have a "we could win this" feel; maybe you haven't even given up yet if you follow the KC Royals or Pittsburgh Pirates.
  
• Men's College World Series - Gets later TV coverage than the other post-season items, but is really fun to watch. The Super Regionals should start soon
  
• Women's College World Series - Insanely competitive and addicting if you like baseball/softball, which I really do. The pace of the game is real quick, which makes it fun to watch. Faster than NCAA baseball. And the smaller field dimensions mean ground balls are always very close plays. Plus you get to watch 5'6" 130lbs and 5'10" 190lbs girls hit home runs.
  

There's also random golf tournaments, the French Open for tennis, etc.

That's a really good group.

The other competition as I see it is NFL / NCAA hoops (preferably the conference schedule time), & March Madness.

Visiting Lewes, Deleware

We are visiting Lewes, Deleware right bow. So far I give it an eh.

Amp it up Lewes!


Post visit notes: check out my Yelp profile for my recomendations, but the town shuts down at 5pm.

Just tell me this is perfeclty distressed

And you can have whatever you want...

Best practices, templates, checklists and "our way"

Or, "how to ignore a cohesive way of doing things as an organization."

One of the bigger challenges of a growing company is developing a sense of self, of identity. For a city, it is having some defining element, some "thing", or in an oddly phrased but oft used statement "having a there THERE."

For a President, we call it "gravitas", and that might be the truly best way to describe it.

 

For an organization, it is about defining "how we do things HERE." Maybe it is an unrelenting willingness to work extra hours, maybe it is that no one leaves if someone else is working late and all chip in, maybe it is that everyone is a hardball negotiator.

For companies who make a living off of selling services, and doing so via formally written proposals this should inevitably result in having a "tao of writing proposals." There has to be some sort of a company-wide way of doing the basic, mechanical, and necessary things.

 

In my experience, the basic elements of this are having templates, checklists, and best practices. Or to others "the four three horsemen of the apocalypse." See, I LIKE having a way of doing things. A somewhat repeatable process. I like knowing that if Chuck, or Susan, or Rosie or Stefan are going to lead a proposal that they'll do it in a somewhat similar and familiar way. No curveballs, no out of left field methods.

Sure, they can innovate, they can improve, they can refine. These things are needed, desperately. But it is if value to the organization to know that a proposal will be run smoothly, and resemble the last several proposals. You need the commonality, the repeating themes and trends.

My employer is still at the beginning phases of that path. We have led several prososals, as a "prime". In our world, this means that we're working with other companies who will "subcontract" to us. Imagine if Microsoft and Macromedia teamed up to tie their software together. Obviously Microsoft is the 800 pound gorilla in that relationship. Well when you are the "prime", you're King Kong.

We've been King Kong a few times, it's gone well too. But we've done it only a few times, not enough so that all the major players in the company have led a major proposal, so we've had to learn a few lessons repeated times.

• Why would we want a checklist that tells us if we've met all the little teenie tiny details of the Request For Proposal (RFP)? Because if you don't hit them all, you can't win!
• Why would we want a template for developing our main selling points? Because it speeds the process, it provides consistency, and it helps you to use the past selling points that worked.
• Why would we want to have 2-5 standard ways of doing things? Because we've found they work for our company, the way we work, the way we deliver services to customers.

But we're still heading down that path. We're not there yet.

Helpful and great pictures, in order of appearance:

• http://www.flickr.com/photos/akijinn/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/winkydo/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlevin/ / CC BY 2.0
• 
  
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/slack12/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Testing out Twitter's @anywhere feature

This SHOULD result in you being able to see a hover card when you mouse-over @ckstevenson.

I was tipped off to finally using @Anywhere from the Twitter Media blog.

Advice on implementing @Anywhere from the valuable Cool Tips N Tricks.

As he wrote, and tested out:

Here is an example of the @anywhere feature. Just move the mouse over @rahuljrark and you will see my username, some information and a Follow button to follow me on Twitter.

This is what it looks like when you have read EVERYTING in Google Reader

I didn't think you could read ALL the "recommended items" but I have,
several times in fact.