Stuck between a big company and a startup place
I sometimes feel like I’m caught between two worlds. On the one hand, I feel a strong tug towards the “Silicon Valley dream” of entrepreneurship. Friends of mine like Charles Ju, Founder and CEO of PlayMesh, the maker of one of the top iPhone games out there (iMafia) are living that dream – driven by [...]
Forecasting
As I’ve mentioned before, a good businessperson makes contingency plans. But to make those plans, its necessary to have some insight into what the future will bring – which explains why agencies like Gartner, IDC, and Forrester make millions of dollars selling market research reports to companies who are seeking either: insight into the future [...]
Try Every Flavor
Two weeks ago, I sat down and had a long overdue chat with a partner on my case about my career and what I should do to make the most out of my consulting career. And, like a good MBA/consultant, he put together a framework – although instead of it being a 2 x 2 [...]
Successful Consulting
… looks like this (courtesy of, duh, Dilbert): One man’s trash is another man’s “brilliant” executive strategy. On a more serious note, though, one of the tasks that any strategic executive (or consultant for that matter) needs to be able to do is to take crazy assumptions and to test them to see what would [...]
Lessons from the Consulting Life: chain yourself to your blackberry
Yesterday, I stopped by a coworker’s desk to grab a quick morning breakfast and then to discuss our various workstreams. Given the endless teasing I get about how dependent I am on being connected via 3G wireless card and Blackberry, I thought I’d mix it up by not bringing either my laptop or my blackberry [...]
Happy valentine’s day
First off, I apologize for the lack of blogging. I’ve been busy this past week so haven’t been able to blog as much as I would normally like. Being on my current case for as long as I have been means that any benefits I get from being familiar with the industry are now outweighed [...]
Partner bingo
At my firm, we have a lot of respect for the partners. Not only do they source the deals that keep our paychecks coming, they are oftentimes active members of the community (serving on the boards of various non-profits and charities) and very accomplished and respected members of the business world. I have yet to [...]
Talk the talk
The consultant mystique – explained in 8 brilliant panels (by Dilbert of course): I love doing “transformations” and “forming centers of excellence”…
Prime the pump
I knew that management consulting was a generalist calling, but I had no idea how generalist. On Friday, I overheard one of my coworkers talking to his supervisor about the work he was doing. They were conducting some basic strategic diligence for a private equity client (translation: making sure the company the private equity firm [...]
Box of crickets
I’ve been very impressed by my manager’s ability to: follow all the technical details of some of the discussions that go on with our current client (a major technology company) understand the nuances of the large, sophisticated models I’m oftentimes asked to build I think it’s a testament to the consulting industry’s model of trying [...]
