What Professionals Do

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...which describes the essential ingredients to what serves as not only differentiators in your workforce, but the "difference makers". I believe the few people that get the lion's share of work done exhibit these behaviors. Being a professional involves a code of conduct. While consultants (Blood Type of a Consultant) and contractors (Blood Type of a Contractor) are defined in the referenced posts terms of what it means to carry their associated profession's badge, Seth does a good job of providing attributes of "being professional"

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Spark!, Now What?

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...If you are paid for your ideas, then it is a different story. While it is often prudent for your good ideas to find and make friends with other good ideas, building a more comprehensive good idea, you frequently do not have that luxury. Your ideas often have to mature quickly. More importantly, your ideas often need to be shared with others under a deadline, and in a manner that will drive behaviors. No small task.

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Leading at the Edge

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...At the edge, the action is about change. The action is about identifying a vision and working towards transformation of an organization. In the post noted above, Edge IT is defined as functions and services that rhyme with IT Strategy, workforce planning, financial and operational modelling, scalability and capacity planning. This is an area where leadership makes all the difference...

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How Healthy is Your IT Ecosystem?

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As we have all learned, in nature a healthy ecosystem benefits all involved. When any part of the ecosystem is in ill health, in time all other aspects of the ecosystem will suffer. An IT organization operates in a similar manner. When all aspects of the IT ecosystem operate in harmony it operates much more effectively and efficiently.

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Letting Go

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From the consultant or contractor perspective, letting go is a very hard thing to do. The process of performing the type of work which consultants and contractors do is intellectually and surprisingly emotionally engaging. Comparisons can easily be drawn between many consulting and contracting engagements and raising children. There is a great deal of the consultant's soul in the project.

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Whom Do I Hire, Consultant or Contractor?

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As an executive, you find yourself in unfamiliar waters. You have a groundswell of demand for collaborative and Web 2.0 technologies and many are currently used within your organization. While you have concerns over reliability, security, availability, on-going support, and a variety of other topics, you realize the value of these technologies and know that the promise they show will be of tremendous value. Given your extensive knowledge and relationships within the company, you know that of the 360 degrees on the compass in which you can direct your company, you have narrowed the down a possible directional choices to "generally northwest".

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Blood Type of a Consultant

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Before getting into blood type, it's worthwhile to define the term "consultant" as I believe the industry has muddied the term to the point of confusion. Unfortunately, it is common today to refer to all labor external to an organization as "consultants." Consultants are hired to advise (or consult) in areas which are outside the body of knowledge inside the organization. Consultants will typically have either extensive first hand experience in the subject matter, or a research arm which identifies the issues and best practices in a leading edge area of business. Organizations hire consultants to provide their opinion and "advise them what to do" often for the purpose of driving highly material decisions

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