[THIN] Re: OT: Sorta...Idea....Consultants Consortium

Well, it's not exactly what Futurelink did, they were more of the
let's buy up some of the good/decent VARs in the country and try to
put a macromanagement spin on them while letting them still
micromanage themselves (into oblivion I might add).  They used the
VARs to try to push ASP services and the VARs did that until they
lost money and then had to revert to making money the "old fashioned
way."  Now Vector on the other hand has been quite successful in
trying a similar thing, so it can't be all that bad of a concept.

On a spin off of the original idea from Rob would be to organize a
501(c)(6) corporation here in the states (at first) and organize it
as the consortium of consultants [definition of a 501(c)(6) is a tax
exempt business league organization where the company is an
association of people who have a common business interest -- no this
doesn't mean that we get away tax free on work, it's just that the
organization and some other things don't get nailed].

Here's perhaps an extension on the idea:
Basically, let's say that I get a job here in Hershey for a company
upgrading 10 WinFrame servers and they also need 5 new servers added
to the farm in Oak Park, IL; I log the job with the consortium
looking for help; Ron O decides that he has the time and picks up the
ticket; we both bill our time out and get paid without excessive
travel costs and the normal crap.

I know that when I was working hardcore as an independent (years ago)
that there were a lot of times where I had to try to find subs who
could do 10 or 15 hours in some geographic spot where I would have
lost money to fly to, but it still needed to get done, and at that
time there were fewer people who even knew what Citrix was so I ended
up losing a lot of money going to dinky little airports in the middle
of nowhere...

The interesting thing about this is that it could look like, or even
be some sort of ubiquitous organization in which the work could
probably get done across the globe by people who were pretty sure
that they know what they are doing.  It's a novel idea and it could
be an extremely powerful marketing tool for each individual or for
the consortium as a whole (plus as a side benefit because of the
power of the organization it could probably bring rates up
substancially for some folks).  The interesting thing is that because
of the way that this could work it is feasible that some folks who
have "real" jobs could also get involved to do the remote work on a
very part time basis and pick up some extra cash.

Oh, and to answer your question Jim, no it's not that contractors
want to necessarily work for ourselves, it's just that there can be a
lot more opportunity in working as an independent (or if the market
is dry, less...) -- Purely mercenary greed.

Just my $0.02 worth, otherwise the whole original idea is a good one
and I know that I would personally be interested.

-John

=====================================
John A. Vorchak (eMVP)
Vorchak Software
Custom Windows XP Embedded and
Windows NT Embedded Components and Solutions
jvorchak@xxxxxxxx
=====================================

> -----Original Message-----
> From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On
> Behalf Of Jim Kenzig http://thethin.net
> Sent: Friday, 31 January, 2003 18.58
> To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [THIN] Re: OT: Sorta...Idea....Consultants Consortium
> 
> 
> Not a bad idea but remember that is what FutureLink tried to do a
few
> years
> ago (buy every consulting firm on the planet) and where are they and
> everyone who joined them now? I can see the ads on the superbowl
now...
> The
> CFI Consulting Group, we figure it all out....literally.
> 
> I thought consultants are consultants because they want to work for
> themselves?
> JK
> 


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