There’s an old saying in the consulting business that goes: a consultant can tell you fifty ways to make love - but doesn’t have a girl friend.
Nearly half of my 40 year career in information systems was spent as a middle management director overseeing staffs of infrastructure, support and development people. And, like many in my profession, I had the occasion to use consultants. When I would get together with other managers, we used to quip about this consultant or that consultant using descriptions like: That dog won’t hunt; He just can’t make toast; He’s a mile wide, but an inch deep, and my favorite, He’s like a big boat with a very small rudder.
There’s a hot new trend emerging these days called Information Engineering and I like it. Finally, the industry we are all a part of, has come up with a description of what many of us really are – Information Engineers. Engineers are people who use practical knowledge to solve problems. It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to look around and not see something in our midst that came to be without engineering.
In today’s globally integrated market, decision inertia must be kept to an absolute minimum. This requires business information - but not just any business information. It requires information engineered to the decisions. Like a well engineered bridge over a big river, we must provide our clients with engineered information solutions that enable them to navigate to the other side without having to swim for it.
Another key ingredient to being an Information Engineer is being able to actually do the work you engineer. We, as Information Engineers, can say a lot. But, it is what we do that ultimately leads to how we are judged. Being able to both engineer a solution and execute its creation, end-to-end, brings real value, and confidence, in the eyes of the client.
Aristotle wrote: “We are what we repeatedly do..” So, are you just a consultant or are you an Information Engineer?