Bob Brown's Consulting Intelligence Briefings

The End of Consulting Intelligence?

Yes and no.

There is still considerable intelligence within the consulting profession. But, the organization known as Consulting Intelligence, which first opened its doors in 2004, has come to an end.

While I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the last six years, I’m spending more of my time in the role of Vice President of Professional Services at Mosaica Partners, a rapidly growing consulting firm that specializes in the area of health information exchange (HIE) formation. (See the posts below.)

So, both the Consulting Intelligence and The Consulting Survey websites have been shuttered.

If you would like additional information or to contact me, I can be reached through Mosaica Partners.

Thanks,

- Bob Brown

Otherwise Occupied – Transitions in Consulting

For some time now, I’ve been leading a double life. Nothing that would raise any eyebrows, I’ve simply been devoting myself to two very different jobs.

While I’ve continue to work with clients that seek my advice on dealing with consulting firms, I’ve been spending the majority of my working hours in a second role, that of Vice President of Professional Services at Mosaica Partners, a rapidly growing consulting firm that specializes in the area of health information exchange (HIE) formation.

At Mosaica, I’ve had the opportunity to help the firm’s clients – the federal government, states, regions communities and even vendors of HIE related products – make significant strides in their quest to build the organizations and infrastructure that will enable the sharing of patients’ health information electronically. It’s important work. It’s also been both exhilarating and rewarding.

At Mosaica I have been able to return to one of my passions, building a first class consulting team and developing consulting methods, practices and even specific consulting offerings – in this case, tailored to the health information exchange movement that began in earnest with the release of federal funds under ARRA in February 2009.

Working side by side with Laura Kolkman, the president of Mosaica Partners, I’ve just finished writing “The Health Information Exchange Formation Guide,” which is scheduled to be published in January by the Health Information Management and Systems Society (HIMSS). As co-authors, Laura focused on the need for, and benefits of, HIE and I contributed the consultant’s perspective. Together, we have written a book that will help groups of interested individuals move from an idea to a functioning organization by following a step by step approach that’s based on our extensive research into leading practices related to HIE formation. A number of our colleagues and clients have contributed their thoughts to the book and early reviews indicate it will find a receptive audience.

As my workload at Mosaica has increased, I have come to the conclusion that it is where I can have the greatest impact. As such, I have decided to close Consulting Intelligence and concentrate my efforts full time in the area of health information exchange.

To the team that helped me establish Consulting Intelligence, and all the clients we served, I extend a sincere thank you for six wonderful years.

There’s a strong possibility that I’ll return to blogging on a more regular basis and will let you know in this space.

If you would like to contact me, I can be reached at Mosaica Partners.

This Blog Arrived Early

Anyone who has seen our original (and current) Consulting Intelligence web site knows that it's evocative of both wallpaper and brochure ware -- with a heavy leaning towards wallpaper.  It was a very modest first effort and it served the purpose of establishing our new company's name and describing the services we provided.  But, professionally appearing, exciting or even mildly stimulating, it wasn't.  As we grew, that became more and more of an issue.

Our carefully constructed master plan to resolve that issue involved developing and unveiling an improved web site in early July 2006.  Concurrently, we planned to introduce this new blog as a replacement to our infrequent newsletter.  While the web site was being revised with a new architecture, a new logo, relevant graphics and pithy copy, the effort to develop blog capability was also started.

Following our own advice, we thoughtfully located, interviewed, selected and hired an excellent team of blog specialists who turned a generic TypePad template into something that more matched the look and feel of our new web site.  In addition, they helped us work our way through the addition of RSS feeds and those little subscription buttons, links to Technorati and starting a list of our favorite blogs (appropriately, David Maister gets first place).  We have been very pleased with the working relationship and the results.

To keep our blog development work on TypePad out of public view, we required a password to access the blog.  We unit tested the various modules and then assembled and tested the entire system.  Aside from a few minor additions and modifications we were ready to go.

Then fate interceded.  I sent what I now realize was an ambiguously worded note to the development team, telling them things looked good to go.  So, off came the password protection, up went the profile on Technorati and the blog went live.  I found out last night, right after it happened.

After some discussion this morning we decided to leave it up.  You may see some subtle changes going forward, as we tweak some of the functionality.  The posts may not be as regular as they will be after the new web site development work is completed.  With that in mind, we hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

And I hope our experience demonstrates again how important it is to be very clear when communicating with your consultants.  The consolation is that even though I was inconvenienced, I have a new example of the importance of clear communications to use in my presentations.

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