To use or not to use? Consider Change……

Hmmm. I just read an article about the 10 most annoying phrases pushed from the Oxford Team.  To shorten the reading curve, I posted the list below;

Image via Wikipedia

1 – At the end of the day
2 – Fairly unique
3 – I personally
4 – At this moment in time
5 – With all due respect
6 – Absolutely
7 – It’s a nightmare
8 – Shouldn’t of
9 – 24/7
10 – It’s not rocket science

Now, I’ve been guilty of using several, several of these words (particularly 5 and 6). But, in all fairness, I’ve heard all of these from past and present clients.

As consultants, do we need to change our verbage or just expand it?

One one hand, using this overused words can move clients into a comfortable, conversational mood. They serve as connectors; moving clients to committment. These connectors then become conduits of revenue generation.

One the other hand, they can also cause a client to go offline;moving them into  “more of the same” mode. They’ve heard it already. Revenue doors begin to close.  Now you sitting there wasting your time. You’re now a carbon copy of the last meeting.

They’re looking for something different or, at least, sounds different.

Our president elect has made it very clear that words matter.  In these hard economic times, there are a lot of consultants out there. More so than ever, it has become important that consultants stand out from the crowd; developing their own sense of style and presence.

Yep, I’m talking about personal branding.

I’ve challenged myself to augment these annoying phrases with substitutes. Notice I said augment versus replace.  I think it’s important that these phrases are retained and put into play on an as needed basis rather than 24/7 (Doh!).

We as consultants need to maintain a level of nimbleness. Not because our clients expect it; they demand it.

I’ll leave you with this thought.

Gathering User Requirements Using Logic From The Obama Camp

Fall 2008 - St. Louis Missouri

Ahhhhh the feelings of fall. One of my most favorite times of the year; even the leaf raking. Well, earlier today, i sat and watched Chris Wallace (fox news sunday); as he interviewed the elusive David Plouffe ( Obama camp). When Chris asked David “What was your strategic insight for the general election?” David then stated “we find ourselves two days out from the election with a lot of different wayts to get to 270 electoral votes.” Clearly, having more than one way to reach the ultimate goal is less stressful and shows better leverage of company resources. This quote got my business analysis juices to going; ultimately leading to the following question;

As an Business Analyst, do you have more than one way to connect with your users?

Depending on the stakes, users can make or brake the project. Case in point, my most recent project involved a legacy user group. Veteran employees with 30+ years. Keepers of all inner workings of the department. These union-protected users knew their self worth and value to the department; nothing could be done without their blessing. The usual frontal attack; stating how helping would increase job security did not work. Why would it? So the question becomes…

What’s another way to gain buy-in from a group of users who maybe near retirement, have nothing to lose and could care less professionally about the companies future?

Try food with a side helping of frank honesty.

Employees listening to a spiel

I tell you, after my frontal approach fell on deaf ears, at the next meeting i brought pizza and a different spiel. I sat down, rolled up my sleeves and ate pizza with the masses. I then explained, between bites, how i knew they didn’t have to help but, by helping, they would help ensure the ongoing viability of the company for their future significants (children, wives, husbands, partners, etc) that were not about to retire. By eating a little humble pie i was able to move a solid mountain. Of course there wre those that hated the company and hated feelings of being bought with food. But most understood and appreciated the honesty and straight talk. It opened doors that every academic class in organizational behavior, psychology and change management did not and would not.

So try a little food and frank honesty. By the time people reach the age of retirement, they know “game” when they hear it; but they also know straight up honesty.

Website Creation

You would think that having a masters in information systems and a minor in E-commerce, would afford me the ability to crank out a mega website right? Well, academia gives you insights but it doesnt give you time. Granted, i could take the time to refresh myself in website creation (html, css, ajax, spry, etc) but i’ve learned this in my day2day life’s travels.

Time is money.

The time that i spend enjoying the learning curve is time wasted from my chosen career; business & website analysis. With that in mind, i opted use the aggregating powers of web 2.0 to get a site up-n-going without selling my 5 acres and the mule.

I found a website that sells flash templates called flashden where i was able to find a snazzy enough website for $20. Here take a

All the pictures were there. It was just a matter of changing the wordage (which is not the harde

Image via Wikipedia

st thing to do in Dreamweaver CS3) and then upload to my ISP (Internet Service Provider).  Of course it took more than a few nanoseconds but there’s a takeaway here.

Of course, everything has caveats. One problem is that the site is all flash, you lose a certain percentage of your search engine indexing capability. For me, that just means that i have to supplement it with more blogging, article marketing and social networking.

That’s okay. I have time to do it; I’ll just take the time away from website creation

Sometimes it cheaper and more efficient to outsource your needs. Whenever you are challenged with adding a new process; assess how much time it will cost you in terms of learning, making mistakes, correction & frustration. All of this adds up to time taken away from making money

Just my thoughts.

Using web 2.0 to install a garage door

Very recently, i had to do what most homeowners have to do from time to time; replace the garage door. Rather than following the usual path;

• Go to Home Depot or Lowes
• Pay for the garage door ($500+)
• Pay to have it installed (another $400)

I decided to use some of my learned abilities and resources surrounding web 2.0.

1. Create a web page. I done this using my yahoo geocities account. The price was $0.00 and rampup time was less than 30 minutes.

2. I took a picture of my existing garage door using the camera on my blackberry curve

3. Created a youtube account. The price was $0.00 and rampup time was less than 15 minutes.

4. Created a short video explaining what i needed done using my flip video recorder. Even with retakes, it took less than 5 minutes

5. Uploaded the picture to my newly created webpage; along with my email address for contact

6. Uploaded my video to you tube along with my email address for contact

7. Advertised my request for door installation using Craiglist. I stated that the price was negotiable

Sat back and waited. Within an hour, i checked youtube and found out that 20 people had already looked at the video. I began to receive quotes ranging from $100 – $300. After doing some investigative work, i settled on one for 200 bucks! I was able to save myself at least $200!!!!

Morale to the story;

Using web 2.0 technologies (craigslist, youtube, geocities) i was able to save myself some money!

Next step; getting the roof reshingled…