Mr. Eckel,
Excellent article sir. Unfortunately, during the Great Recession, clients are using consultants and contractors interchangeably because of wage depression. Consultants are going to have to do more to differentiate themselves in the marketplace so their value is communicated far better.
I think the best resource on accomplishing this is reviewing the works of Alan Weiss or Brian Tracey. However, their concepts are hard to grasp for many IT consultants since marketing and communication skills are not normally cultivated by IT pros.
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"Contractor" is an employment status, meaning you work on a contract basis. Most consultants are also contractors. However, to be called a "consultant" one needs to bring more to the table than the average contractor, as your article says.
When fetched in as a contractor it was because what and how were already decided and they just needed an X to implement it.
So I turned up as guy who could program in X or a design a database in Y.
As consultant I came up with and answer for what and how to see if why still made sense..
The thing is quite often as a contractor I would have told them they'd got it wrong if they had consulted me before hand...
As a consultant I was often contracted to implement the solution, was this a demotion?
Question if you are contracted to consult are you still a consultant....
Sort of gets to the meat of it doesn't it. If you want someone to do Delphi and SQL server 2000, all the skills you might have that might have persuaded them to use Java and Oracle instead or whatever, they don't want and aren't going to pay you for, so no point in trying to big yourself up about it.
So I turned up as guy who could program in X or a design a database in Y.
As consultant I came up with and answer for what and how to see if why still made sense..
The thing is quite often as a contractor I would have told them they'd got it wrong if they had consulted me before hand...
As a consultant I was often contracted to implement the solution, was this a demotion?
Question if you are contracted to consult are you still a consultant....
Sort of gets to the meat of it doesn't it. If you want someone to do Delphi and SQL server 2000, all the skills you might have that might have persuaded them to use Java and Oracle instead or whatever, they don't want and aren't going to pay you for, so no point in trying to big yourself up about it.
Buy a cat and name it Ego just so you can stroke it. If they pay you to write these articles then bravo, sir. Bravo. Few people can pull off getting paid to talk about how great they are as compared to others. For most, this is merely a past-time that goes well with expensive wine and insincere friends. Take your hobby, turn it in to money and you can live a happy man.
In his next article "IT Consultants rule the world" Erik explains how the very fabric of society would fall apart without the constant attention of good hearted geeks everywhere.
In his next article "IT Consultants rule the world" Erik explains how the very fabric of society would fall apart without the constant attention of good hearted geeks everywhere.
colour this one, this one was a bit more subtle, mind you so's punch in the face compared the minor leaguers thingy.
I did for some reason end up with the impression he was bigging himself up again, myself though...
I did for some reason end up with the impression he was bigging himself up again, myself though...
"10 Reasons Why Non-IT-Consultants should be blasted into Space!"
Second Draft:
"101 Reasons Why Non-IT-Consultants should be blasted into Space!"
Third Draft:
"1001 Reasons You People Should just ShaddapAnLissen!"
Fourth Draft:
"How IT consultants are different from contractors" *grumble* *mutter*
I agree, this is a giant step up the ladder... but from two giant strides down. But hey, the direction is about right, maybe he'll get here in the next life...
Second Draft:
"101 Reasons Why Non-IT-Consultants should be blasted into Space!"
Third Draft:
"1001 Reasons You People Should just ShaddapAnLissen!"
Fourth Draft:
"How IT consultants are different from contractors" *grumble* *mutter*
I agree, this is a giant step up the ladder... but from two giant strides down. But hey, the direction is about right, maybe he'll get here in the next life...
10 reasons why Eric Eckel is brill and you should pass lots of work to him in return for recompense that makes his brilliance worth while...
Always been my experience that somepne who spends loads of time explaining why they are great, doesn't have much left to be great...
Always been my experience that somepne who spends loads of time explaining why they are great, doesn't have much left to be great...
This argument has been going on for as long as I can remember (and I've got a very long memory).
I still prefer the definition that's common in construction.
A contractor does it wrong. A consultant tells him why.
The reality is that most IT consultant/contractors switch roles as often as they switch socks. In one day I may be functioning as a consultant for half the day and a contractor for the other half.
If our client's don't understand (or care about) the difference why should we care?
I still prefer the definition that's common in construction.
A contractor does it wrong. A consultant tells him why.
The reality is that most IT consultant/contractors switch roles as often as they switch socks. In one day I may be functioning as a consultant for half the day and a contractor for the other half.
If our client's don't understand (or care about) the difference why should we care?
My clients couldn't care if I called myself a mongoose. They pay for my attention, whether it's to advise them or to make something for them.
in corporate IT and be a minor league lowly contractor.
There's always a bright side, followed by painful sunburn, and skin cancer.
There's always a bright side, followed by painful sunburn, and skin cancer.
Aren't we wrangling about the difference between the generalist, and the specialist ? As I understand it, the generalist attempts to conserve a dynamic overview of the IT-based enterprize by tying together all the constituent parts, whilst the specialist delves deep in a single or two or three closely-related areas of application .. Specialists follow a deeply-rutted career path ( eg. programmers ), whilst the ultimate generalists are the SysOps/SysAdmins who make sure all the dependent parts work together in a harmonious whole, bundled up together as the User experience .. the latter are almost by definition more likely to develop as consultants, than the former - at least, that's what I've seen happen.
... is, I think, a different distinction. You can have consultants who are either. A specialist consultant would be an expert in that specialization, while a generalist consultant would be the "big picture guy" (or gal).
because I can and have programmed in several languages on several different OSes, often at the same time.
Programming is no more and no less of speciality than sys admin, or DBA, or network admin. Do I know how to set properties in active directory so my programs can access files, well no. I know that I need to, and I know that I'll have to learn it or get a man who can. That's a generalist, some who knows they don't know.
Specialist often fall into the trap of thinking because they know X, then Y and Z will be trivial.
A trap you appear to have fallen into big style.
Programming is the art of describing a system in terms of it's parts not ignoring the fact that it's part of a system. You are programming when you do your role, I don't mean scripting or automation. Set up a new user in a system, there are number of things you have to do, some of them must be done in order, some are interdependant, some can be deferred. Instead of doing it in C# or Fortran you are doing it in OS functions....
That's why scripting is a powerful tool for an admin, because it's agood description of what you need to do....
Programmer, Sysadmin, network admin, DBA and web admin and occasionallly hardware guy.
So I shall call your ultimate and raise you three.
And no, you can't be the best you can be at all those things at the same time, that's why programmers and admins and dbas are specialists, crack hot tool X only people in any of them are people who know f'all else, and often assume they do....
Programming is no more and no less of speciality than sys admin, or DBA, or network admin. Do I know how to set properties in active directory so my programs can access files, well no. I know that I need to, and I know that I'll have to learn it or get a man who can. That's a generalist, some who knows they don't know.
Specialist often fall into the trap of thinking because they know X, then Y and Z will be trivial.
A trap you appear to have fallen into big style.
Programming is the art of describing a system in terms of it's parts not ignoring the fact that it's part of a system. You are programming when you do your role, I don't mean scripting or automation. Set up a new user in a system, there are number of things you have to do, some of them must be done in order, some are interdependant, some can be deferred. Instead of doing it in C# or Fortran you are doing it in OS functions....
That's why scripting is a powerful tool for an admin, because it's agood description of what you need to do....
Programmer, Sysadmin, network admin, DBA and web admin and occasionallly hardware guy.
So I shall call your ultimate and raise you three.
And no, you can't be the best you can be at all those things at the same time, that's why programmers and admins and dbas are specialists, crack hot tool X only people in any of them are people who know f'all else, and often assume they do....
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