Bob Brown's Consulting Intelligence Briefings

Here Come “The Project Police”

On a previous post on this blog and on our firm’s web site, we’ve told the story about how the term “consulting cops” came into being. Today, after quite a bit of discussion, the name was changed.

As you’ll learn by reading the story, there was always some reservation on my part as to the use of the term “consulting cops” or “consulting police.” The phrase struck me as a bit negative, implying that all consultants were less than honest and ethical. That just isn’t the case; some are. The story behind the name is a great story, but he name just wasn’t right. We’ve now fixed that.

From now on, we’ll answer to “The Project Police.” A good portion of the work we do with clients is to help them resolve troubled projects that involve external (and occasionally internal) consultants. Objectively assessing troubled projects and getting them back on track is one of our primary skills.

We’ll still address troubled projects and we’ll still carry our badges. We’ll just be operating under a new – and more descriptive – name.

Consultant Satisfaction Survey Closing This Weekend

Our current survey – The 2007 Consulting Satisfaction Survey – will be closed to input as of 11:59 PM on Sunday evening, January 21. This is 2 days later than originally announced and is being done to allow the maximum number of responses on this important topic.

The variety of the responses has been very interesting [we can view responses prior to the closing of the survey] and will add to our store of knowledge about the wants and needs of clients of consultants.

If you’ve dealt or worked with consultants in 2006 and haven’t taken the survey, please take notice. The final hour is fast approaching. Share your experiences with consultants – both good and bad -- and help improve the quality of the outcomes of future consultant-involved projects.

Warm and toasty consulting secrets

Over in Belfast, an imaginative fellow named Peter Kerr, who runs a design firm by the name of Atto, Ltd., has developed an intriguing way to raise money for charity. His innovative web site, Your Name on Toast, is racking up the hits and the donations to charities to be named later – based on voting by the donors.

These kinds of web site, which Seth Godin refers to as “link promo pages,” are a great way for individuals and organizations whose web sites aren’t in the top 1,000 to get some additional exposure. In this case, each piece of toast links to a web site specified by the person who makes a donation.

Peter’s new web site just happened to coincide with the introduction of our new “consulting secrets” marketing campaign. The result is that we’re one of the contributors.

Results? Our web traffic is way up. Now more people know more about the types of specialized services -- including troubled project resolution -- that are available from Consulting Intelligence.