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I am looking for an alternative to the word “firm” in description of my business. When people asks what my company does, I am forced to say “we are a web strategy and consulting firm”. I hate the connotations associated with the term “firm” in reference to my company. When I think of “firm”, I think…

• sounds stuffy and too old school - “law firm”, “marketing firm”, “brokerage firm”, “design firm” - we are new school
• sounds expensive - we have a la carte
• sounds bureaucratic - we are agile
• sounds “corporationy” - we are anti-corporation
• sounds big - we are small, for a reason
• sounds fluffy - we are pragmatic
• sounds preachy - we don’t preach, we teach

What are your ideas for an alternative to the term “firm”. What do you use to describe your company? Are we stupid for thinking this? Let us know in the comments…

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The general idea of micro-consulting (or “microconsulting“) provides a defragmentation of consulting. Traditional firms provide “all or nothing” consulting. A scope is defined (which is never static), a contract is signed, and the “project” begins. The customer will be given a base rate for an open-ended (all hourly projects are open-ended regardless of a quoted time-frame) timeframe. The deliverable can be anything - from a report, to analysis, to software.

In comes Micro-Consulting - the “anti-firm” approach. Ask an expert a simple question. And, with no baggage or sales guy or project manager, you get a simple answer. How is this beneficial? Well, the customer doesn’t get all the fluff that comes along with consulting from a traditional firm. They aren’t sold anything more and there is no upselling to other solutions.

The same model is beneficial to the consultant - they get to do what they love - be an expert. They don’t have to deal with selling their consulting “services”, creating specs, writing project plans, worrying about deliverables and milestones, etc.

Time is saved by both the customer and the expert. The customer doesn’t have to wait for a proposal, price quotes, bids, plans, timelines, etc. The customer doesn’t have to do any research - they just ask the expert a simple question, pay a flat rate, and get the answer they are looking for. The consultant likely doesn’t have to do a lot of research - that’s why they are the expert. They don’t have to spend time writing bids, RFI’s, or RFP’s because they have already established themselves as an expert.

That being said, 48Web is launching a micro-consulting, a la carte model. You don’t have to pay hourly or worry about an ongoing project. Just ask a question and get an answer. GANB has integrated the form as well. There are five types of questions:

1. Free: Our free service is a simple Q&A with no guarantees of response or quality or length. You may get a link for a response or a thoughtful analysis
2. Micro: This is our Twitter-like microconsulting feature. For $10 you have 140 characters to ask your question and we have 140 characters to answer the question
3. Quickie: Within one day we’ll get back to you with a 1-2 paragraph response
4. Analysis: Within three days we’ll deliver a brief, one page analysis for your question
5. Case Study: Within five days you will get a two page analysis case study with research regarding your question

What do you think about Micro-Consulting? Is it a good alternative to the traditional model? Let us know in the comments…

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Sometimes I bounce around my Google Reader looking at different sections trying to find snippets to read. Every once in awhile (turning into quite often) this random act brings related ideas from different bloggers together and sparks a thought in my head, which I then relay to you.

Today I was catching up on local Des Moines marketeer Mike Templeton’s blog as he describes in his post, “Late Nights Still Win“, the problem he and many of us face as web workers and entrepreneurs. I run into the same problem with my company. During the day I work on software development for a client that requires full-time attention from me. This creates a predicament for me as I have web strategy and development consulting clients, product development, community maintenance, and blogging to deal with. I’m in the same position as Mike - I work all day and sometimes find time to spend with friends and family.

Interestingly enough right after reading Mike’s post I stumbled upon The Chicago Reader’s coverage of the SEED conference in Chicago, featuring what the Reader calls “Web Cowboys” (I like that - can I be a web cowboy?). In it they interview GaryV (who recently visited Des Moines) and he said something that hit home:

“Don’t quit your job to become the queen of cheese,” he cautions. “But if you’re doing something that blows and you hate it, go work at 7-Eleven to pay your bills and spend every other hour building your personal plan. If you work 9 AM to 6 PM and get home at 7, whatever you put in between 7 and 3 AM is what you’re gonna get in return. You want to watch Lost? Knock yourself out. I don’t watch shit. I don’t read shit. I’m all about my community and putting out content. I don’t consume. I put out.”

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Yes… I had the president of a software development company tell me (in anger), “It’s not rocket science” after asking me why a deliverable was late. “I only see one form here, how can it be that hard?”, he said. At that time I was Project Manager and Software Engineer at a product development firm here in Des Moines. The president was not a programmer.

That brings up a question posed today by Mary-Jo Foley as Bill Gates prepares to leave Microsoft: “Do you need to be a programmer to run a software company?“. This is reference to Bill’s attention to detail to the software being built by his engineers.

Joel Spolsky wrote about it today, asking “How Hard Could It Be?” in his Inc.com column. Joel was a program manager of the Excel team in the early 1990’s and tells a great story that, to me, sums up Bill’s passion and persistence as the leader of a software company. Joel summed up my frustration (and likely many other developers’) of working for a software development company whose leaders know little to nothing about software devlopment:

“Watching nonprogrammers trying to run software companies is like watching someone who doesn’t know how to surf trying to surf. Even if he has great advisers standing on the shore telling him what to do, he still falls off the board again and again. The cult of the M.B.A. likes to believe that you can run organizations that do things that you don’t understand. But often, you can’t.” - Joel Spolsky

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Great story in the NYTimes today that bubbled up to me on Twitter via the #dmtweetup crew. This time last year I wrote a post here asking “Where are all the cool jobs?“. In it I wrote of the “brain drain” that Iowa faces as its smart, young, talented workforce jump ship to head to the “cool” cities. Well this brain drain, among other reasones, has created a SURPLUS (you read it right) of jobs for skilled, knowledge workers in Iowa … even in a recession. The market has completely flipped to where employers are scrambling to attract the young, smart, and talented and giving incentives for “cool jobs”.

As Iowa Job Surplus Grows, Workers Call the Shots - NYTimes.com

“As rising unemployment and layoffs beset workers around the country, Iowa faces a different problem: a surplus of jobs. Or to put it another way: a shortage of workers. A survey of companies by Iowa Workforce Development, a state agency, found as many as 48,000 job vacancies, in industries including financial services — Des Moines trails only Hartford as the nation’s insurance capital — health care and skilled manufacturing. One estimate projects the job surplus to reach 198,000 by 2014, with vacancies increasingly in professional positions. Greater Des Moines alone faces a shortfall of 60,000 workers in the next decade.

The state provides a small, advance view of what some economists predict will be a broader shortage of skilled workers in the next 20 or 30 years, as tens of millions of baby boomers retire from the workplace, and the economy produces more new jobs than workers. Potential consequences include slower economic growth and competitiveness, as well as higher wages for skilled workers and greater inequality”

Don’t worry - once you get here you will find Iowa has a lot of cool tech people and saavy business minds.

Technorati Tags: iowa, business, des moines

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