The end.
It’s never quite what you expect.
In part, it’s really a beginning, though the beginning may not include you.
So we get only a hint of how the story will progress. A family has been reconciled. One troublesome employee has moved to the competition. Another is still in the offices.
We have installed a new tech system but the benefits of that system are not obvious. Not in revenue. Not yet.
And so the series ends with the consulting team returning to their homes. the client starting a new life, and How We Manage Stuff ready to progress to a new story.
The last part of our story on technology consulting.
Cast:
We arrive in Hamburg.
Port City. International City.
World Headquarters of Coffee Logistics.
Things start poorly for the team. They are tired. One of there number is perhaps a little drunk. There are some extra requirements and a dynamic that doesn’t make sense.
The operations manager seems to have an unusual control over affairs and the boss.
The boss?
He’s in Switzerland.
And with that, the story begins.
The first act of our story on technology consulting.
Cast:
It’s not the slides.
It’s not the words.
It’s not the clothes you wear.
This doesn’t determine your success. Or at least it doesn’t determine it very much.
The bigger issue: What do your clients know? And when did the learn it?
In the consulting trip to Hamburg, our team is about to deliver its report. Lots of ideas. Lots of implications for the future of the client, Bohne Kaffe Logistiks.
But the report has become public. Or at least parts of it.
And everyone thinks they know what is in it. More importantly, they think they know what is in it for them.
The measure of success? Can they communicate the real message.
Tenth episode in a series on the ins and outs of tech consulting.
Cast:
You don’t, and that”s the point. None of know what we are doing when we going into a new organization. We don’t know the history. We don’t know the power structure. Sometimes, we don’t even know the goals. (And this will lead us to one of the key questions of this series: “Who are Leena and Klara?”) Occasionally , we don’t even know ourselves.
Our podcast consulting team has beens starting work in Hamburg. Anna’s replacing a key staff member and thinking about the future. Trouble is, she does not know all that the client is thinking and might not know what to do if she did.
Second episode in a series on the ins and outs of tech consulting.
Cast:
How do you begin a consulting job?
In thunder, lightening or in rain?
It is chaotic at the start. You move to new offices, meet new people and start to appreciate new responsibilities. Our podcast has been hired by a German firm – a logistics provider to the coffee industry – to review their software systems and make recommendations. They arrive on site, after a long flight, and quickly discover that they did not fully appreciate the environment in which they would have to work.
First episode in a series on tech consulting.
Cast:
It’s not a question of smarts. It’s a question of how it got that way. A lot of the smart apps are fairly straight forward – classic computing ideas repackaged in a clever case. You start taking the p hone apart and you a lot of ideas that aren’t that clever experience t for the effort that it took to get them into that little case.
So we ask the question “How?” And of course, Anna has her ideas. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she’s not. But someone had to decide why the map app was important and why it was smart.
Anna and her crew take apart the smartphone as part of her series on Artificial Intelligence.
Cast:
He is remembered as as the founder of the Electronic Freedom Foundation. Or, alternatively, as a lyricist for the Grateful Dead and link between counterculture and technology. However, John Perry Barlow was the writer that argued that cyberspace was a frontier and that settling that frontier would require more thought that we were prepared to give.
Cast:
Evelyn the Business Manager – Margaux Amie
Rohit from IT – Noah Masur
[18415]
A more thorough discussion of technological frontiers and the ways that organizations leaders need to approach those frontiers can be found in the podcast “The Context for Work“.
Was the Internet designed to withstand a nuclear attack? Common story. Is it true?
Rohit and Penelope Othmar explore the origins of the Internet when they review the book Imagineers of War by Sharon Weinberger, a book that discusses the history of ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency. The answer is not as straightforward as we might like.
Featuring:
Debbon Ayer as Penelope Othmar, Principle of the Lillian Moller School for Disruptive Innovation
The end.
It’s never quite what you expect.
In part, it’s really a beginning, though the beginning may not include you.
So we get only a hint of how the story will progress. A family has been reconciled. One troublesome employee has moved to the competition. Another is still in the offices.
We have installed a new tech system but the benefits of that system are not obvious. Not in revenue. Not yet.
And so the series ends with the consulting team returning to their homes. the client starting a new life, and How We Manage Stuff ready to progress to a new story.
The last part of our story on technology consulting.
Cast:
