I haven’t worked on any computer projects in a few weeks. I haven’t written a new essay in a few months. I haven’t written a new original song or worked on my short stories in a few years. One morning I woke up realizing all of these things at once and I decided that something wasn’t right.  Was it a lack of creativity?  Motivation perhaps?  Well, it turns out that it was a combination of both. But what could be causing such a drain?

It turns out that it was my job.

A few months ago, I quit my job and moved to the Bay Area for a brand new one.  Some people found this change to be a bit drastic, but as I’ll explain later in this essay, it was a decision in progress for several months. I came to realize that my job left me little time or energy to work on my own projects, and that coupled with general career path dissatisfaction made me decide that it was time to move on.  I’d like to provide a basic summary of what I did, and why.

So what is it that you do here?

I graduated engineering school with a degree involving a healthy blend of business and nerdery.  Most people know that I’m in the software industry, yet don’t realize that I did not graduate with a degree in Computer Science. I made that move specifically so that I got a lot more exposure to the business side of engineering, and it was definitely the right move. So naturally after I graduated I decided to pursue the best of both worlds.

Consulting was a great fit, and so I managed to land myself a pretty hip gig traveling to the west coast working on, you guessed it, business software.  I went to clients, talked about their business needs, put on headphones, and crafted solutions out of thin air.

I got a lot of exposure to the whole “real world” thing, but I also learned a lot about the niche I was in.  I busted ass, and I’d say I was pretty decent at what I did.  I made senior in a year, which was pretty cool, since that doesn’t happen too much at my former company.

When I told my manager I was leaving, it was pretty evident that he didn’t see it coming.  He explained to me that I was on the “fast track” at my company and in my career, and that I should be absolutely sure of what I’m doing before making such a drastic career change.

So why’d I jump ship?

Didn’t you get the memo?

I’m going to let you in on a few secrets.  Most common folks don’t know anything about ERP, CRM, PLM, B2B, B2C, or any other fancy acronyms you throw at them.  All they know is that they get paid to go to work, and sometimes they spend that money on things.  The business world has a very ornate ecosystem that, for some reason, works like an echo chamber.  Everyone in it can hear each other to some degree, but anyone outside of it is blissfully unaware of how it affects them.

When you go to the store to buy something, you’re buying directly from a business.  We call that “Business to Consumer” or B2C for short.  However, that business can’t do everything on its own to sell you that product (no, not even Apple.  Looooove yooou!) and so it has to depend on other businesses to help it along the way.  The interaction between businesses (business-to-business, or B2B) is the space I’m in, and it’s a different monster from the B2C interactions that we are all used to.

That thing you bought at the store?  Well it wasn’t always there.  It got shipped there, and so that involved some sort of shipping logistics.  Someone had to purchase that thing from some vendor, or perhaps put in an order at some overseas manufacturing facility, so now we’re talking about procurement or perhaps production.  Clearly there was money involved, so that means financials.  Obviously a bunch of human beings were involved in this and so now we’re talking about human resources.  Maybe there were some sales guys involved in cutting a deal to get that product to the stores and in your hands, so that means some sort of customer relationship management.

If all of this sounds complex, it’s because it is.  Being the enginerd I am, I’m attracted to complex systems.  The unfortunate part about these complex systems is that they are also usually complicated.  But, that doesn’t mean they have to be.

It’s not that I’m lazy.  It’s that I don’t care.

Business software doesn’t evolve as rapidly as consumer software. However, in the past few years, a handful of really bright people decided to take unique approaches to some common complexities.  They decided “Hey, we’re going to do this differently” and of course their well-established counterparts scoffed.  They found a way to deliver business software without the typical overhead and up-front costs to the customer, and Software-as-a-Service was born.

My former company is, by design, affiliated with one of those well-established counterparts.  So, when I was sent out to help folks with their businesses, they had to play by our rules, which were the rules passed down by our king company.  We used a specific platform, did things a specific way, and used the same playbooks over and over for completely different businesses.  Also, the tools and technology we used were designed for very specific purposes.

I think most good technologists don’t like being tied down like this, especially early on in their careers.  I suppose if I stuck around, I would’ve become a total guru at doing what I was doing.  But that would’ve just turned me into a magician with one good magic trick, and that’s not the career path I wanted to head down.

I don’t want to be such a specialist.  I want to experience a wide variety of technologies, tools, and tricks of the trade.  I want to expand my horizons and work with the absolute best.  That handful of really bright people who take unique approaches have created astounding companies that have developed revolutionary technology- and I want to be a part of that wave.  Knowing about it and not being a part of it caused me to become a bit stagnant.

Of course, there were other reasons besides wanting to hang out with the cool kids that made me make the switch.

Deeper and deeper.  Way down.

Few people would argue against the statement that the San Francisco Bay Area (which includes Silicon Valley) is filled with some of the country’s brightest minds.  I always try to be around smart people, and while the folks I previously worked with were quite smart (and thanks to the hours I worked, I was definitely around them quite a bit), there was something about the Bay Area vibe that caught my attention.  Moving to the Bay Area was an obvious choice.

I managed to get lucky in that my last project, before I quit, was in the Bay Area, and I stayed at a place in San Francisco while on it.  However, just because I resided in San Francisco didn’t mean I “lived” in San Francisco.  My job’s long hours and travel schedule were hardly conducive to any sort of social lifestyle out here, and that was a problem.

My former company was also having issues of its own.  Retention was poor, possibly because of “the economy” or the shifts in the company direction.  Nobody really knows even today, but the point is that the situation was looking a bit grim.  While my particular position was secure (at least, I assumed as much), all the nervous energy made it apparent that I needed a backup plan.

I found a position at my new company (I still need to talk to our PR department to see if it’s okay for me to disclose the name, will post an update later if possible) that lets me build things that help other people by making their work lives easier, and allows me to work in a stimulating environment with intelligent people.  So the question that remains is, what’s next?

I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob

Some of you may be wondering if I miss the perks that came with my consulting job. Don’t I miss the basically-free travel, hotel and airline points, and nomad lifestyle? Meh, not really.  I’m not going to lie and say that the next five years of my life are planned out.  Sure, there’s a possibility of me getting back into the consulting gig some day.  There’s even the possibility of me not being in the software realm in the future.  It’s pretty hard to tell where I’ll be, but that’s not to say I don’t have a vision for the future.

It’s no secret that I’m aligning myself to either create or be a part of a start-up some day.  Until that happens, I can only absorb as much knowledge as possible and develop skills along the way to prepare me for those days.  I’m pretty sure that my recent career move is only going to help in that respect.  I almost make it sound like I’ve got some sort of career commitment phobia, but rest assured, as long as I’m being intellectually stimulated, working on a kickass product, and working with brilliant people, I’ll be quite happy.

Now, what these decisions are going to do for my comatose creative life is still a toss-up…but I suppose I’ve already taken the first step.

Special thanks to Mike Stashwick for reading drafts of this essay.

Buzz-What?

A little research shows that Wikipedia provides some insight:

A buzzword (also known as a fashion word or vogue word) is a vague idiom, or a neologism, that is commonly used in managerial, technical, administrative, and sometimes political environments. Although buzzwords can impress one’s audience with the pretense of knowledge, they typically make sentences difficult to dispute, on account of their cloudy meaning.

For those of you with a penchant for trusting older, established sources of research:

“an important-sounding usually technical word or phrase often of little meaning used chiefly to impress laymen”

So a buzzword by definition obfuscates unclear ideas. Arcane business concepts that have little or no value usually end up turning into buzzwords that are spewed out by industry pundits and players alike.

This leaves us to our next question: why use buzzwords?

Communication failure

I’m of the opinion that most of the time, buzzwords are used as a communications crutch. Clearly, one of the more popular uses of buzzwords may be used to change the tone of voice (or text) to a more “professional” one. In doing so, however, the speaker/writer may be demonstrating a certain “overprofessionalism” which may be an indicator that they don’t exactly know what they’re talking about.

Consider the following (pseudo) example:

Hi Aashay,
I just wanted to touch base with you about the new features on the Gibson. The client is beginning to see the value-add of leveraging our on-demand solutions and I would like you to prepare a few deliverables to pass to the stakeholders. Moving forward, we will want to provide synergistic metrics that demonstrate increased ROI.
Ping me if you have any questions.
-Bob

To a lay person, there isn’t much substance behind the email. However, to the experienced yuppie who is conditioned to parse buzzwords into english, the message indicates that someone is asking me to perform some action and/or interact with a client. Removing the corporatey buzzwords, this email becomes far less intimidating, and perhaps the message becomes even more clear:

Hi Aashay,
I just explained the new features of the Gibson to the clients and they like what they saw. Can you provide us with some detailed documents I can give to some of their executives? In particular, we’re going to want to show them that working with us and our products was well-worth their time and money.
Contact me if you have any questions.
-Bob

I’m not sure why they do it, but management executives in particular are very good at using buzzwords, especially when trying to communicate an ideas or concepts without knowledge of details. I’m of the opinion that a humble “I don’t know, but I intend to find out” beats a long-winded circular response any day.

Just for fun, here’s a small list of some other buzzwords I’ve seen or heard that bug me:

• leverage: This one’s used in place of the word “use” more often than it needs to be. Say this one enough and it’ll start to annoy you.
• net new: I heard this one from a friend of mine at a different consulting company. Example usage: “We’re only performing upgrades on anything that is net new.” This one is particularly awful. what’s with the “net”? Is there such thing as “gross” new? Isn’t simply “new” adequate?
• value-add: An ubiquitous phrase, although what’s with the “add” part. A common use phrase would be something like “where’s the value-add in this new feature?” My question is, does the “add” really add any value?
• deliverable: A generic word that came from consulting practices to describe anything you give to a client: documents, software code, etc. Say it ten times fast.
• synergize: This is pretty much the stereotypical business buzzword. Wikipedia describes synergy as “The phenomenon in which two or more discrete influences or agents acting together create an effect greater than that predicted by knowing only the separate effects of the individual agents” …What?

Good for nothin? Not quite.

The abundance of buzzwords may lead one to believe that there has to be some value in at least some of them…somewhere? I don’t disagree that certain buzzwords have importance. However in my opinion, they only become useful when everyone agrees to their meaning. Certain buzzwords have permeated throughout different industries and become ubiquitous (such as “value-add”, or “low-hanging fruit”). Perhaps it would only be fair to remove these words and phrases from the “buzzword” category and place them gently in the “jargon” category?

Besides playing Buzzword Bingo and sugarcoating unfamiliar concepts, there is one example that I can think of where a few buzzwords (used in moderation, of course), can be quite useful: Job interviews. Studying up in advance and dropping an industry buzzword here and there during a job interview can show that you’ve done your research and made an attempt to prepare for the interview. In fact, it might even be fair to say that interviewers will expect at least a few to be thrown about; the interviewers themselves tend to use them (this is especially true in the consulting field). Pro tip for consulting interviews: ask your interviewers what their companies’ typical deliverables are. This will give you a general idea of what it is they actually do.

Be warned however, as this can also lead to a major pitfall if you use too many or are careless in using them. If you’re going to use a buzzword be absolutely sure you understand when and where it is used, and make sure you’re using it in the right context. For example, during one of my first job interviews, I mentioned something about “human-centric design” (at the time this was a buzzword to me. I now know that the phrase holds true meaning, but that’s a story for later) to one of my interviewers. He responded with an enthusiastic story about how he studied Human-Computer Interaction in college and had a variety of interests in the field, and started to ask me technical questions that I clearly could not answer. It was a pretty embarrassing moment.

Scalable Conclusive Logistical Objective Framework Smorgasbord

The inevitable mumbo jumbo can confuse, bore, and even belittle unprepared newcomers to the corporate world. While it’s a bunch of fluff for the most part, there are occastions, however, where it comes in handy. The key to buzzwords is using them in moderation. Too many can make you sound like you have no idea what you’re talking about, but too few may indicate that you’re not really trying. In my opinion, if you’re ever unsure about the vocabulary to use, keeping it simple usually doesn’t hurt. Just make sure you know what you’re talking about, and if you don’t, simply tell the truth. People will respect you a lot more for admitting when you don’t know something than trying to “buzz” your way around it.

Know any buzzwords you find annoying or interesting? Leave some in the comments!

Thanks again to Matt Moen and Ryan Spraetz for reading drafts of this.

What does it take?

“What does it mean to have a job in consulting?” I’ve been asked this question by friends and strangers alike. Many images pop into one’s mind when thinking of consultants. Some may remember Bob and Bob, the “consultants” from the 1999 movie Office Space. Others may think of the “TD” consultants that grace us with their antics on the popular (and hilarious) blog Getting Drunk in First Class. Yet others may picture geeky young men in polo shirts discussing the latest in WiMax technology. But what exactly does it take to be a consultant?

My job over the past few months has been dynamic. I’ve learned many things along the way, but there have been a few primary takeaways that I’ve learned are common across all varieties of consulting. Being flexible and adaptive, taking initiative, and knowing when and how to make sacrifices are three core competencies every consultant should have.

Be flexible.

The ability to hold steady in the face of change is a necessity for any type of consultant. There are a variety of consultants out there: Creative, Management, Risk Assessment, and of course the quintessential IT and Software consultants, along with a plethora of others. While I happen to know people in most of these fields, I work at an IT/Software consultancy, so naturally I’m most familiar with that category. Without getting too specific, I’ll say that I work for a small company in an industry that is populated by behemoth corporations and small startups alike. I work primarily with clients who are in the retail industry. They sell things, and we help design and implement software systems that help them manage their selling of things. This includes systems such as back-office software and inventory management systems to websites and point-of-sale systems (a fancy word for “cash register”). However, my initial exposure to what I do today was originally presented to me in a completely different environment. I went through a training course, and my experience in training was drastically different than my experience on my first project.

The training course for my job was a 5-week course designed to teach newcomers certain nuances of the system we’d be working with, as well as give a broad overview of what consulting life was like. I met a lot of people during this course, and established new friendships. During our off-hours, we explored the amazing city of Denver, Colorado and had a generally good time. Although we were expected to pass an exam at the end of the course (which we all did with flying colors), for the most part, the course wasn’t too intensive. After training was finished, we all received our first project assignments, and I found out that I was getting thrown in the fire.

I was put on what’s called a “Go-Live” project. “Go-Live” (or “Cutover” in some circles) is a Consultantese term for flipping the switch: the system you and your company has been working on/with is about to replace a system that your client has been using, usually for many years. While all projects eventually go live, to be placed on a “Go-Live” project simply means that the project you have been put on is going “live” within a very short period of time (usually a couple of months; most of our projects take a year or more to complete). This almost always translates to long hours, high stress levels, and of course, lots of challenges.

Naturally, this was a huge change from my experience during training. I was expected to catch up on all the business processes of my client and understand the both basic and advanced principles of a system I had no exposure to prior the few weeks of training. Being able to learn things quickly is a huge asset. No matter what type of consultancy you work for: the quicker you learn and adapt, the faster you’ll be able to prove yourself useful to your company and your clients.

Just like most IT/Software consultants, I started out with basic programming tasks. Since our project was on a tight deadline, my project managers and teammates were swamped with tasks of their own, so I had learned to become pretty autonomous early on. It was disorienting at first but within a couple of months I became familiar with my client’s business and went from coding basic system modifications to designing entire subsystems. While this was a satisfying transition, however, I came to realize that I’d have to somehow add a new mix of things to my plate in order to truly be satisfied with what I do.

Step up to the plate.

To get the most out of a consulting career, you’ll need to demonstrate the will to take initiative. Naturally, those of you who are interviewing or planning to interview with consulting companies should probably not mention that you intend to be a bitchin’ rebel of some sort and attempt to make changes at an organization you’re not quite familiar with yet, but if you do plan on any sort of career advancement, seizing opportunities is important. Regardless of the type of organization you are in, you need to be able to identify situations that you think need improvement, and you need to be able to both voice your opinion about them and act upon them. If you find yourself at an organization where saying “this sucks, here’s why, and here’s a better way” is not allowed or is considered taboo, then you need to do yourself a favor and quit. Of course, don’t take this to the extreme; spend some time observing things before you formulate an opinion.

I’ll give you an example from my experiences. Because the company I work at is small, we don’t have a dedicated “Change management” team (usually a team that takes care of training clients on new systems) like some larger consultancies do. One of the more common methodologies we like to use is to train people who are in management roles, as opposed to training end-users (an “end-user” is someone who actually uses the system, such as warehouse worker, as opposed to the people who buy the system, such as IT people or CFOs). The practicality of this approach is sound on paper: you train so-called “power users” and they will be responsible for training the units they manage. However, after spending time watching power user training, I started to feel that it was only appropriate to go directly to the end-users and say “Hey, you guys are getting a new system…you’re going to be expected to do your job a little differently from now on, so you should learn this new stuff, and I can show you how.” Taking this step was something I chose to do on my own; it wasn’t one of my original expected responsibilities. I suppose it turned out I had a knack for it, and now teaching both power users and end-users in small groups has become a regular part (and satisfying part) of my day. Not bad for someone who used to sit around and crap out code 12 hours a day, eh?

More responsibilities naturally means more work, but as long as it’s work I’m interested in, I rarely have a problem with that. You’ll quickly find that tasks that seem difficult to others will become simple for you, based on the fact that you’ve done them several times before. Just like any job, however, you’ll occasionally need to do things that you really don’t want to do.

Be willing to make sacrifices.

Sometimes you’ll be expected to make some sacrifices in your career, particularly when it comes to doing things for your client. Because of their fast-paced, dynamic nature, consulting careers are full of on-the-fly decisions that may have negative impact on other more stable decisions. Like any job, you’ll have to do things you don’t want to do. You’ll may have to prioritize other aspects of your life a little differently. Learning when and where to make sacrifices is an asset to your consulting tool belt.

I remember one particular week of my first project where, after a long week, I was totally ready to fly home on Thursday (the typical day to fly home). A few hours before I was about to leave for my flight, one of my managers came in and explained how a bug in the system caused a $10,000 purchase order to be mysteriously deleted. We needed to build the 600-line order, based only on an Excel spreadsheet that we had, and this required coding a small “job” to automate this process. I was chosen for the task. My hopes of flying back to Chicago and having a relaxing time working from home the next day were shattered. I also needed to perform the tricky task of getting one more night at our always-booked hotel (it’s the only hotel in the area worth staying at). Looking back at the situation, I realized that my manager had chosen me because he knew I was the right man for the job, and that the small sacrifices I had to make only paid off in earning his trust. This trust may have helped in his decision to hand-pick me for my current project, which also happens to be another Go-Live (being on two Go-Lives within one year is not too common in our company).

Making sacrifices for your client will be a regular part of your consulting career. However, be cautious about making sacrifices for your company itself. If you find that your firm requires you to do things you don’t really want to do on a regular basis, you may need to reevaluate some of your career decisions. A consulting firm that values itself over its clients is never a good sign.

Bring it all together.

Consulting careers are dynamic careers. Things can change fast, and being able to adapt to changing circumstances is key. If you’re one of those people who prefer to do one thing consistently, consulting may not be right for you. Also, while it might be fine to have your tasks handed to you when you’re first starting out, it’s important to take charge and find your own tasks as well. Doing this will only increase your interest in your work, and I find that doing work that interests me makes the days go by a lot faster. And finally, don’t let the images scare you. Sacrifices you make in your lifestyle may end up having many other perks, so it’s important to learn to make these types of decisions. I know consultants that travel a lot (myself included), and I know consultants that don’t travel at all. I know some who work ridiculous hours and some who never miss their 5 o’clock happy hour. I even know a consultant or two who have gone from mundane, repetitive tasks to managing entire aspects of Cutovers/Go-Lives. The jobs are different, the job descriptions are different, the companies and corporate cultures are different, and the people are different, but in the end consulting careers are about showing initiative, demonstrating flexibility, and knowing when to simply suck it up and get the job done.

Thanks to Matt Moen and Ryan Spraetz for reading drafts of this.