Trouble Right Here in River City

I went to the IEEE (institute of Electrical, Electronic, Software, Hardware, and all other Engineers) National Capital Area Counsel Consultants' Network (NCAC-CN for 'short') meeting the other night. Not being an official member - nor qualified to be one - I don't usually go to these affairs. But it was part 3 of their "The Art of Consulting" series, and my DH was one of the speakers, so there I was with my flip cam, computer, tripod, etc. We need videos for our web site. These may never be appropriate, but I need practice before I even qualify as a lousy videographer.

Because I am fundamentally a nosy person, I nagged Bob early in his talk to ask how many folks - all consultants or folks who want to be consultants - to raise their hands if they already had a web site. Only about 25 percent did. Not even all of those already working as consultants have them!

WHAT?
Exactly!

Oh, we got trouble
Right here in River City
Right here in River City
With a capital 'T' and that rhymes with 'P'
and that stands for 'pool'
That stands for pool
We surely got trouble
We surely got trouble
Right here in River City
Right here in River City

THAT was from the musical "The Music Man". Except in this case it's not River City, it's Avalon on the Potomac, and P stands for Piss Poor Performance. We've all heard that if you build a better mousetrap that the world will beat a path to your door. That's not really true - if they don't know you've built the better mousetrap or don't know where your door is, the world will beat a path to a mousetrap they know about and a door that they can find. The first place most mouse users look for ANYTHING is on the Internet.

If you don't have an Internet presence you do not exist to them. Sure, you might get some business from another engineer who knows you (maybe from attending the CN), and knows your skills complement his/hers but word-of-mouth doesn't really pay off until you already have an established business and reputation.

Even the most primative web site gives you some credibility. You will have your contact info up there, you will have information about what you do, you will have pictures of what you've built or screen shots of what you've programmed, you will have your picture, you should have a video, etc. [Monday's post about booting all 'shoulds' was about PERSONAL life shoulds, not business shoulds!] It tells people about your mousetrap and where your door is.

It's not as if a web site is expensive. GoDaddy sells sites for as low as $10 for a year, and I've had hosting at $10 per month. A cheap template and you're on the air, even if you won't be well ranked on the search engines. Get that up, and when you have slow times you can learn Search Engine Optimization and maybe learn how to use Joobla! to make a hot website.

But by all means, get on the air!

Growing Consultants

Yesterday's Washington Post had several articles on Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new focus in defense spending. The article above the fold http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/06/AR2009040601784.html explained that Gates is moving away from high-tech spending to a focus on lower tech weaponry. The article below the fold points out the impact it will have on jobs in our area: Contracting Boom Could Fizzle Out http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/06/AR2009040604049.html. We are in the DC area, in case anyone didn't know that - the Washington Post IS my local paper.

We own/operate a small engineering consulting company. We don't do govt contracting ourselves, but we get a sense of what's going on because we are active in the local IEEE (that's the Institute for Electrical and Electronic and all other Engineers) Consultants Network. When contractors "contract" (uh, shrink) that means engineers move from being employees to becoming unemployed or becoming consultants. Or both, because let's face it, saying that someone is "really good at marketing, for an engineer" is damning them with really faint praise.

Even before this military spending shift, the IEEE National Capital Area Consultants Network had been getting a boost in attendence because of the economic downturn. The Consultants Network started running a series on how to get started, called the Art of Consulting. In fact, the first session saw a record setting 60 people register for it.

Many, maybe most of those new folks, don't have websites. What websites they do have - hell, even the website for the consultants network itself! - tend to be just awful. The second page of the CN's website still contains that sample Latin "lipsum orem" text, for goodness sake.

All of these new Engineering/Programming/etc consultants need help. They have been thinking like engineers all their lives, and engineers are not known for their social skills, their communication skills, or their marketing skills. They have been employees all of their working lives, so they think like employees and not like owners/business folks. They 'get' Linkedin, sort of, but they don't get Facebook, professional blogs, or Twitter. They understand bullet points, but they don't have a clue about CSS, SEO, or Joomla!, or pleasing/professional looking graphics on a web page.

These newly and soon-to-be minted consultants need the help of the Consulting Network, its experienced consulting members, the greater IEEE (which has SOME articles on consulting on its web site ... with URLs over 200 characters long - I swear I heard Twitter laugh at them), and local resources such as Joomla! or Drupal web professionals, marketing professionals, basic business professionals. It would be great if they could join more expensive marketing education and support services such as Stompernet (we are getting incredible help from Stompernet ourselves).

So, if you are in ANY of the aboved named groups - how about attending the next Art of Consulting meeting? Tuesday, April 21, 2009, in Northern VA. Detailed information is at http://ewh.ieee.org/r2/capitalarea/eSCANNER/calendar.html#CONSULT.

I might even see you there - I've threatened to film the speaker!