Candid Interview With Will Weider On Consulting (From A Customer Point Of View)

This past week, I had the opportunity to speak with Will Weider, CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System, about using consultants. His perspectives are interesting because they are from a customer’s vantage point – not from a consultant’s viewpoint. Will Weider is author of the one of the earliest CIO blogs on the Internet, the famed “Candid CIO” blog.

Steve: Will, thanks for talking with me. As a management consultant myself, I’ve approached you for a “candid” view on using consultants. I am interested in constantly improving the practice of consulting and management. Hopefully this interview will shed light for both consultants to improve their practices and peer organizations of yours to improve their selection and use of consultants. To that end, when do you look to consultants, and what do you look for in consultants?

Will: There has to be a specific reason for using a consultant, and my philosophy is to use consultants as little as possible. A couple of thoughts immediately come to mind. The first is that consultant costs can give me heartburn (e.g., when comparing loaded hourly rates of internal staff against the consultant). Now as context, it is infrequent that my organization does not have the skillset to either get a project done or solve a particular problem.  A second perspective is that I have had some disappointing consulting engagements where the results have fallen short of my expectations. Part of the blame may fall on the consulting firm which may oversell themselves in order to get a deal done. Some of the missed expectations may be in part that the buyer has elevated expectations when using a consultant.

Steve: Do you have any thoughts on aligning an organization and its expectations when using consultants?

Will: I’ve found that the worst time to use consultants is when my organization is saturated. A client organization needs capacity to bring the consultant on board, ramp them up, manage them, provide feedback, etc. As an example, if I have estimated a project at requiring 100 hours to do internally, then I may need to allocate 125 hours when accounting for budget and overhead of managing the consultant. As far as aligning expectations, I have mostly seen consultants provide incremental value as opposed to exponential value and miraculous benefits as marketed. Consultants can get oversold on their value proposition too easily. I also wanted to note that some consultant agreements have unacceptable terms, rivaling those of my software vendors.  These include such terms as up-front payment, termination clauses and advance notice requirements, etc. Where these terms go in the new environment we are in is still to be determined, but they have to be more client-favorable.

Steve: What kind of advice can you provide on using consultants?

Will: For me, the best time to use a consultant is when you need a 3rd party advisor. For example, suppose there is a big, multimillion dollar project going off course. A consultant with the right background can provide an independent project audit. Our needs are aligned when using the consultant in this manner. We need a specific skillset (perhaps not a scarce resource), we don’t have time (e.g., because we have 60-70 projects going on), we need a fresh look, and we need an independent view. This is the perfect type of situation for a consultant because the scope is well-defined, the scope is narrow and the timetable is short.

Steve: Great insights, thank you. Changing gears bit, I think readers may be interested in your views on the federal stimulus package and its impacts on consultants.

Will: The package has clear intent, but everyone is still waiting for the clinical IT requirements to be defined on both the medical group and hospital/ambulatory side. Less than 2% of hospitals have real Computer Physician Order Entry (CPOE), so once the requirements are defined, there may be a flood of work for implementation consultants with CPOE and specific Hospital Information Systems (HIS) expertise. I’ve estimated tens of millions of dollars of eligibility for our provider organizations (medical groups and hospitals). We are working with a number of vendors and suppliers to plan for various scenarios so we qualify for these funds and deliver on the President’s vision for a more efficient and effective health care system. It’s all a new process – I’m not sure that anyone has an “inside track” as to how to get these funds.

Steve: Terrific info. Let’s change gears again and cover social media. How have things changed since 2005 when we first met via the blogging world?

Will: These days I use both Twitter and blogging, although there has been some shift towards using Twitter. I will say that consultants that I use have connected with me via social media. Some of these consultants demonstrate their expertise to me for free before I use them. These consultants may be those that are helping me with technology, preparing for swine flu impacts on my organization, or other dynamic areas. Consultants that are confident in their abilities to provide value are not afraid to pursue either risk-free or non-traditional models for engaging me.

Steve: Will, this has been a great dialogue, and I appreciate your candor for the benefit of the business community. Thanks for your time.

Will: Steve, thanks for the opportunity to be interviewed.

Will Weider is CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System, and his blog is at the Candid CIO at http://candidcio.com.

Steve Shu is a management consultant focusing on organizations that use technology, and his blog is at http://steveshu.typepad.com.

Services Offered

Freelance consultant. Provide both interim management and business strategy, marketing, and operations consulting services to clients. Specialty sectors include high-tech, software, services, and communications/telecom. Sample services include:

  • Outsourced management for growth-phase companies (business development & general management)
  • New business initiatives and product introduction
  • Operational diagnostics and change management
  • US market entry for international ventures
  • Business and marketing plan development

Post updated (March 2009).

On CIO And C-Level Blogging

Charlie Russo, News Writer for SearchCIO.com, recently interviewed me for his article "C-Level Bloggers Follow The Rules". The article includes some thoughts on why there aren’t more CIO bloggers out there. Regardless of public blogging, one has to wonder why there isn’t more intranet blogging in IT organizations given the benefits. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that it is more atypical for hosted blogging solutions to have built in intranets.

Light Blogging Due To New Endeavor With 21Publish

I have another post I would like to write to keep up my theme of the week, but I have been busy shifting things around a bit and getting grounded with a new endeavor as COO of 21Publish, a leading cooperative publishing and a hosted multi-user blogging service. I am excited about the opportunity as I am teaming with an experienced crew in publishing, hosting, and peer-to-peer commerce (for lack of better words at the moment). These are key areas surrounding the rising, yet formative market niche of group blogging.

Free Whitepaper And Corporate Blogosphere (Corporate Intranet) Software

21Publish, a niche provider of blogging software for turnkey blogging communities (as contrasted to personal blogging platforms), has just released a free, new whitepaper (note: PDF file) on selecting software for corporate blogospheres (i.e., blog intranets).

Whitepapers are used to help people understand the tradeoffs when attacking certain problems, whether this is selecting an embedded database, email solution, or message queue vendor. Whitepapers try to do this with an unbiased approach as much as possible – the goal of a whitepaper is to show thought leadership and help people. Not to sell software directly. If it does, great.

In any case, in my work as a consultant to 21Publish, I’ve learned that there are different value propositions and functional features that one should look for in a community publishing solution as compared to personal blogging platforms, and such aspects are laid out in the whitepaper.

The whitepaper release is also on the heels of release of a new pricing plan that provides free use for communities of up to 100 users. I’ve started to suggest use of the software for certain classes, alumni groups, small companies, and schools as a communication platform. Take the step to introduce one of your non-profit or commercial communities to blogging. They may also find that the 21Publish solution is appropriate for their use. Help spread the word by emailing, talking, or blogging about it. Thanks!

To What Extent Does Blogging Affect Job Prospects?

The two most common reasons that I encounter as why people who work for an employer do not blog are:

  1. There is a fear of getting “dooced” (i.e., laid off for something written in one’s blog).
  2. There is a fear of putting oneself out on the Internet for everyone to see.

These are valid concerns.

I have detected an additional concern as an undercurrent, and it may become more widespread as time passes and both the ages of blogs increase and as people move from job to job. That is, will something written in one’s blog negatively affect future job prospects with other companies?

To answer this latter question responsibly, I would have to say that it could. I haven’t noticed a lot of cases where it has (or cases from where a person couldn’t recover), but blog content pretty much becomes memorialized on the net once it’s published. I recall being very disturbed on one blog I saw where the blogger used lots of profanity and cited dozens of company names and specific circumstances where they did not successfully get through the interviewing process. The person also used a lot of self-deprecating language in the posts. While I could definitely appreciate the feelings this person had (it’s not a great feeling being rejected), a blog is not necessarily the mechanism I would have used to burn bridges publicly.

I happened to ask a person involved with recruiting processes of a large firm as to how blogging affects things. The long and the short of the opinion was that most recruiters don’t have time to search for the blog of a prospect once they receive a resume. Though the company was familiar with blogging, the person couldn’t recall a case where they didn’t hire someone because of what was written in a blog. In fact, the person I asked said that sometimes things can be a plus. For example, if the person posts about things the company cares about, then this can benefit the person.

To cite a good case of blogging where it has helped, Fred Wilson highlighted a case where Charlie O’Donnell was hired as an analyst for the venture capital firm, Union Square Ventures, and where Charlie’s blog played a big role during due diligence. Quite an interesting observation for anyone who knows how difficult it is to land a job in venture capital.

For myself, I’ve had a variety of opportunities pop up because of my blog. Blogging is not my trade though, and it is something that happened somewhat accidentally for me. It has taken some time to generate opportunities (3-6 months plus ongoing experimentation). One opportunity included a book deal on corporate blogging that came out of the blue (which fell through at a later point, but the point is getting opportunities to step up to the plate and swing at the ball). Other opportunities include meeting people around the world (e.g., Germany, UK, France). I obtained a consulting opportunity with the blogging software provider 21Publish as a result of blogging. I also obtained an author relationship with Creative Weblogging as a result of blogging. Clients have told me that they read my blog and that it serves as an additional thing to talk about on the job (some have told that they have purchased books I recommended). There are also some new opportunities cropping up for me as related to my blog and other efforts – I may soon have multiple employers in addition to me being a freelance consultant. I don’t expect all opportunities to pan out or to be a good fit, but the fact that blogging opens doors, well this is a good thing.

Update (6/6/05): I recently accepted and started (June 1, 2005) a fractional management role as COO of 21Publish in addition to my other endeavors. I did not expect blogging to take me in this direction, but I am excited about both the opportunity and the prospects for 21Publish.

Continue reading “To What Extent Does Blogging Affect Job Prospects?”

Update on Prior Post on Management Consulting Blogs

Reader Phil was interested if I’ve found out anything more about the lack of management consulting blogs. To bring everyone up to speed, I had an original post that questioned why there weren’t many management consultant blogs out there. McKinsey only happened to be cited by me to get people’s attention (because of its prominent reputation). It is noteworthy, however, that in my original post I found a public reference that indicated that McKinsey was encouraging its employees to blog, but I have found no blogs to date. Some factual updates on consulting blogs to consider:

  • I did find Mike Nevens (ex-McKinsey) is blogging at the Sand Hill Group from time to time (note my post here)
  • Sapient CTO has spoken out against blogging
  • PR consulting firms are making moves.

An additional factor to consider, one that I did not explicitly address in my original post, is that it is important to think about how deal flow is generated in many management consulting models.

In management consulting, clients problems are generally confidential and they are infrequent (or at least do not follow as regular patterns as may occur in other services areas). Thus, a significant amount of time needs to be spent on marketing (as opposed to sales), because one needs to be at the top of mind, have relationships, and show up at the right time when a client calls. There are some firms that have more dedicated business development resources, but this is more the exception that the rule for the traditional management consulting firms.

To single out McKinsey, they have a very significant marketing vehicle around the McKinsey Quarterly. They provide world-renowned thought leadership there, and they already have eyeballs for their target audience. If one reads the book, "The McKinsey Way," the McKinsey Quarterly type of vehicle serves as one primary mechanism for staying at the top of people’s minds. The presence of this vehicle probably has a diminishing effect on the needs for blogs. Other consulting companies also have firm-specific publications – it is not unique to use these things for marketing in consulting firms.

Risk management is probably the strongest argument I can find to not wanting to adopt blogs in the management consulting firms. That said, I have seen a number of law firms that seem to be able to provide adequate counsel in the blogging area.

So if I were to update my hypothesis on why there are "no" McKinsey blogs, well there’s no urgent need to do so right now. Management consulting firms can afford to be second movers because the needs are diminished by a lack of CXO readers and other marketing vehicles already in place.

All said, I am a fan of Bob Lutz’s blog (Vice Chairman at GM). That’s a great example of what some companies are missing out on.

Update (1/4/07): Update on consulting blogs after two years …