Good memories of my buddy David, who, at some young age, inserted a dry pinto bean into one of his nostrils and left it dangling there. All of us began to laugh, of course, along with David. But after all good, long, strong laughs, you have to refill the lungs at some point. "Ha-ha-ha! sniff"
Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
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Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#12A buddy of mine refers to this phenomena as "fish pizza". "You want fish on your pizza? Alright... here you go."
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#13Of course, if they answer they enjoyed it and it was wonderful, then they are not someone I can relate to or help in any way. Or, of course, you might be about to learn something, since sticking beans up your nose is a metaphor you chose for something you think is so stupid you would never actually try it.
Congratulations, you've just displayed a level of perception which is almost completely absent from I.T.: that there are often reasons other than the purely technical ones involved in decision-making.
There are a couple of traps in consulting. One is the trap where the consultant believes that they have a bird's-eye view of the problem to be solved, when they're actually looking through a keyhole. (Security-related consulting falls into this trap often.) The other trap is where the consultant's own experience leads them to conclude that their approach is the only right way to do a particular thing. Infrastructure-related consulting has fallen so far into that particular trap that I question whether it'll ever make it back out again. For example: Windows servers! Linux servers! Windows servers! Linux servers! or, smart switches! Dumb switches! etc.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#14Of course, if they answer they enjoyed it and it was wonderful, then they are not someone I can relate to or help in any way. Or, of course, you might be about to learn something, since sticking beans up your nose is a metaphor you chose for something you think is so stupid you would never actually try it.
Congratulations, you've just displayed a level of perception which is almost completely absent from I.T.: that there are often reasons other than the purely technical ones involved in decision-making. There are a couple of traps in consulting. One is the trap where the consultant believes that they have a bird's-eye view of the problem to be solved, when they're actually looking through a keyhole. (Security-related c…
I think you hit the nail on the head. I've been consulting for a number of years and in every organization I go to, there are inevitably other consultants who know the one "true" way to do something.
Regardless of whether someone else on the team writes easily readable, tested, working code - these consultants will inevitably complain it's done incorrectly and refactor it to their vision. This wastes time and money, and more often than not I've seen it lead to regression bugs in the software.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#15This appears to be the case with the current Congress. Canada, Singapore, Costa Rica and Switzerland are looking better and better.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#16A buddy of mine refers to this phenomena as "fish pizza". "You want fish on your pizza? Alright... here you go."
the best pizza i ever had was tuna (somewhere in italy, years ago).
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#17[deleted]
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#18If somebody puts that on a t shirt ill buy it. Bonus points for a funny cartoon.
Home Movies (from Adult Swim) already made an awesome cartoon about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNCRcozGZNU
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#19This person is assuming that people want his advice, or to tell them why they're wrong. Very often people are intent on doing something that seems stupid to you, but smart to them. In that situation they really don't want to be told that they are wrong and the best thing you can do is stand nearby, ready to dial 911. Sometimes the only "right" response is "I would not have thought of doing it that way. What can I do…
He's talking about consulting. I would sure hope the person paying him for advice wants his advice. And the idea here is that it's preferable to get a job with someone who will listen to that advice they paid for to reach a reasonable conclusion, which seems like a perfectly good plan to me.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#20Of course, if they answer they enjoyed it and it was wonderful, then they are not someone I can relate to or help in any way. Or, of course, you might be about to learn something, since sticking beans up your nose is a metaphor you chose for something you think is so stupid you would never actually try it.
Congratulations, you've just displayed a level of perception which is almost completely absent from I.T.: that there are often reasons other than the purely technical ones involved in decision-making. There are a couple of traps in consulting. One is the trap where the consultant believes that they have a bird's-eye view of the problem to be solved, when they're actually looking through a keyhole. (Security-related c…
As I read this article, it's mostly non-technical reasons that come to mind as reasons to discourage someone from sticking a bean up their nose. Technically, it's an interesting challenge to get that bean up there, but it just doesn't add any business value.