INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS
New England Chapter

News and Views

In this issue:

You Should Have Been There!

Member News

Member Views
& Ideas

Member Profiles
Jennifer von Briesen
Bill Gately
Jim Stewart
Pamela Campagna

Upcoming Events

Strategic Partner
Events

You Should Have Been There!

Our thought leading conference on March 28th was a huge success. It was an intense day of learning, networking and idea generation. Here’s what attendees had to say:

You all did a truly terrific job of putting together a program that kept the audience engaged, provided them options. Well done!

Great to have our national president there. Venue is fine. Networking is up to attendees not IMC.

Great day. Very glad I attended. Got lots of value. Nice mix of topics.

Very good conference.

As usual, I thought it was a great program. I learned.

I had a good opportunity to network and make new contacts. I think it is a great and timely topic.

The networking was terrific. The environment was welcoming and warm. Great job.

Member News

Mary Adams CMC, Trek Consulting LLC www.trekconsulting.com spoke recently at the Financial Executives International on the topic of “Strategy in a Flat World: How Finance Can Contribute to Breakthrough Performance.” Contact Mary at for a copy of the slides.

Curtis Bingham, President of Predictive Consulting Group had an article published in the April issue of Sales & Marketing Excellence entitled "Roots of Real Innovation: Innovation Must Come From Customers.” This article talks about the fallacy of perceived sources of innovation: great leaders, pure research unfettered by customer needs, employee innovation programs, and even brand marketing. Instead, it makes the case that as Leavitt said, "The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer," and therefore, customers must be the primary source of innovation. Sustained, profitable innovation comes from customers. By understanding customers' needs, wants, and desires and profitably satisfying them better than competitors, you'll win more customers, keep them longer and make more money from each of them.To read the article, you can visit Curtis' website at www.predictiveconsulting.com or his blog at curtisbingham.com.

Ronna Cohen, President of Breakthrough Business Performance will host a free webinar entitled 7 Tips for Using Assessments to Grow Your Business on April 29 at 2 p.m. Ronna will share ideas and tips on how to offer quick surveys and other assessment to showcase your expertise and enable prospective clients to see the value of the work you do and the skills you bring as a consultant to the table. You will leave with a number of new ideas on using assessments to generate new revenues and expand existing projects. To register go to www.breakthroughbp.com and click on the webinar icon.

Member Views & Ideas

Positively Creative

A certain elderly lady who had only three strands of hair was thrilled to be able to create a braid. When only two hairs remained, she thought how wonderful she would look with parted hair. With one strand remaining, she decided to wear a ponytail. Finally, when she became completely bald, she felt relieved that she no longer had to fuss with her hair!

Maybe your business is losing some hair... or maybe you are losing hair over your business? Now would be a great time to get positively creative. Here are some “PC” thoughts:

• If the market is changing... change your approach to the market
• Some companies still try to braid their hair even when they’re bald!
• Your sales message may need to change
• You may need to feature different services
• A different focus or approach may be required 

• Don’t retreat with the market... seize opportunities
• Some companies snooze with bad news
• Bad markets like confidence... crying with your prospects doesn’t win business
• Seek the big crumbs big companies must leave behind
• Be aggressive but focused... it’s “smart bombs,” not “bombs away!” 

• Be a thought leader... be bold, positive and creative
• Don’t sit with the other “sitting ducks”  
• With changing times comes new opportunities
• You need to step outside the box... not just think outside
• To set new trends... you need to stick with your leading thought

It takes a special attitude, a tough professional mindset, to turn tough times into new opportunities. And, it’s not an exact science. I believe it was Yogi Berra who said: “Prediction can be very difficult, especially about the future.” Who knows whether you’ll need to braid your hair or just wear a ponytail?

Submitted by Ron Visocchi, Managing Partner and Sales Sage, The Benjamin Group

The ROI of Thoughtleading: Why Experts with an Edge Make the Most Money

If thoughtleading as a strategy sounds good and feels good and looks good, it’s only logical that it would work productively to deliver a competitive advantage. But how can we know for sure? Examples of thoughtleaders such as Donald Trump, Tom Peters, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, and Harvey Mackay—and even Ralph Waldo Emerson—demonstrate that it can work for some people, but can it work for you and me as well?

The more quantitatively oriented among us will put it more bluntly: Can you prove it? Is there evidence that thoughtleading in fact really does produce measurable business growth? Can metrics be cited? Is there a way to identify thoughtleading’s return on investment (ROI)?

Although the answers to these questions are all YES, the path to getting there, like so much else in life, requires a map. Studies of thoughtleading do indeed indicate that there is a quantifiable return on investment as a result of this strategy. Some of these studies are direct and dramatic. Others, however, may feel murkier to our quantitatively minded friends. Yet the research exists, and its results are overwhelmingly affirmative.

Submitted by Ken Lizotte CMC, author, The Expert’s Edge, excerpted from Chapter 2 http://thoughtleading.com

Stay connected with your fellow members!

We sponsor groups on LinkedIn and Google Groups to help our members stay connected and use each other as resources. This is a members-only benefit so you must be invited. Need an invitation? Contact:

For LinkedIn: Denise Clancey at: 617-973-6667 or

For Google Groups: Pamela Campagna at 508-497-9999 or

Member Profiles

Jennifer Searches and Discovers New Frontiers

Jennifer von Briesen is the Owner & Principal of Frontier Strategy, LLC a strategy consulting firm founded in 2003. The firm works with organizations that have tough growth challenges to help them discover and conquer new market spaces—frontiers—of opportunity.

“Most of our clients are B2B, Fortune 1000, telecom, industrial, high tech, and service companies,” Jennifer says, “that want a significant portion of their growth to come from new products and services. However, we also work with non-profits and are increasingly interested in doing work for small and mid-sized firms.

“Our greatest success has been helping a Fortune 100 manufacturer to organically develop and establish three profitable new growth businesses and seeing our partner and client team leader get promoted to a high level position in the corporation.”

Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Jennifer:

1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, it would be freshly baked bread.

2. If I weren't a business person, I would be an international photographer.

3. Something I would like to do, but haven't had the chance is to visit Machu Picchu in Peru.

4. The last concert I went to was The Wallflowers.

5. My favorite toy as a kid was my Winnie the Pooh teddy bear.

6. When I'm not working, you'll find me being walked by our dog.

7. My favorite TV show is “Project Runway”.

8. If I could be any animal, I would be a giraffe.

9. The last movie I saw was Amazing Grace.

10. If I could have dinner with a famous person, dead or alive, he or she would be Marco Polo.

Learn more about Jennifer and her business by visiting her firm’s website http://frontierstrategy.com

Bill Does It the Old-Fashioned Way

Bill Gately has achieved almost everything in life the old-fashioned way. During the day, he spent 25 years working in almost every hands-on position that a technology/manufacturing based company could offer. He was attracted to smaller, startup companies because of their can-do attitude and the opportunity to wear many hats. At night he went to school for engineering and business, and after a combined 15 years of night school, Bill earned a BSME and an MBA. After building and successfully selling his last company, Bill left the corporate world to start The Rockland Group in 2006. His combination of technical and business education and hands on experience allows Bill to work with people at all levels of the business on a peer level to help them energize their companies to be more competitive and profitable.

Bill has a wonderful wife of 25 years and four children (two boys, two girls) ranging in age from 16 to 22, three of which are currently attending college (nice timing for a new consulting business). Rounding out the family are a dog, four cats and a horse. They live on the South Shore in a restored (constantly) 1830’s Cape Cod home.

His greatest success to date was having the ability to build a company from the ground up and have culture unlike no other. It was nice to prove, that although rarely done today, it is possible to be successful by allowing other people to be successful. Bill’s biggest surprise to date is how hard it is to sell when you are the product.

Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Bill Gately:

1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, it would be Guinness (tastes great and contains all the food groups).

2. If I weren't a business person, I would be a soldier (most important leadership on the planet).

3. Something I would like to do, but haven't had the chance… climb Mount Everest.

4. The last concert I went to was The Who (living proof age doesn’t have to slow you down).

5. My favorite toy as a kid was a hammer.

6. When I'm not working, you'll find me hiking the White Mountains in New Hampshire.

7. My favorite TV show is The Twilight Zone (way ahead of its time).

8. If I could be any animal, I would be an eagle.

9. The last movie I saw was The Wind that Shakes the Barley (Irish Civil War, 1921).

10. If I could have dinner with a famous person, dead or alive, he or she would be JFK.

Learn more about Bill and his business by visiting his firm’s website http://www.rockland-group.com

Jim is a World Traveler

Jim Stewart founded JPStewart Associates in 2003. He lives with his wife Laura and kids Jessica (college-bound) and Nicholas in Burlington, MA. His business’s primary service is providing project management consulting, training and mentoring to high-tech and pharmaceutical firms. In that capacity, Jim has traveled the world, most recently going to Belgium, France and Austria. His biggest success to date has been in making the transition from laid-off corporate worker to full-time consultant. He reasons that is also his biggest surprise.

Jim is currently on the board of IMCNE as its treasurer, a job that has not been as taxing (pardon the pun) as it sounded.

Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Jim:

1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, it would be steak.

2. If I weren't a business person, I would be a rock star.

3. Something I would like to do, but haven't had the chance… travel to the Far East.

4. The last concert I went to the Rolling Stones.

5. My favorite toy as a kid was Clue or Sorry.

6. When I'm not working, you'll find me at the gym.

7. My favorite TV show is the Sopranos.

8. If I could be any animal, I would be a lion (I’m a Leo).

9. The last movie I saw was There Will Be Blood.

10. If I could have dinner with a famous person, dead or alive, he or she would be Winston Churchill.

Learn more about Jim and his business by visiting his firm’s website http://www.projmanage.com

Pamela is Long Past Her Easy Bake Oven

Pamela Campagna is the principal of BLUE SAGE Consulting, Inc., a business management and marketing consultancy that has been offering sales, marketing, strategy and operations services to a variety of industries and business-to-business organizations since 1984. Pam’s background includes serving “in the trenches” and as a manager and executive in several businesses, including Lotus Development Corporation, Banyan Systems and FTP Software. She has worked with multiple client teams in different corporate, industry and competitive settings with the goal of understanding their markets, analyzing their opportunities and developing and implementing integrated and workable solutions.

Her corporate background is supplemented by several corporate and higher education teaching engagements, including as an adjunct professor, lecturer and online facilitator at the Carroll School of Management of Boston College, Northeastern University and Boston University, respectively.

Pamela lives in Hopkinton with her college-bound 18-year-old daughter, Jen, and is surrounded by 12 nieces, nephews, brothers and sisters. You can usually find her watching school sports, hiking or gardening.

Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Pamela:

1. If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, it would be ice cream.

2. If I weren't a business person, I would be a building contractor.

3. Something I would like to do, but haven't had the chance… Get back to playing the piano.

4. The last concert I went to was Fleetwood Mac.

5. My favorite toy as a kid was my Easy Bake Oven.

6. When I'm not working, you'll find me in the kitchen or on a ball field or at my place in the White Mountains.

7. My favorite TV show is NCIS.

8. If I could be any animal, I would be a Yellow Fin Tuna.

9. The last movie I saw was Nim's Island.

10. If I could have dinner with a famous person, dead or alive, he or she would be…  (Former) Queen Noor of Jordan.

Learn more about Pamela and her business by visiting her firm’s website http://www.blue-sageconsulting.com

Upcoming Events

Consultant’s Roundtable

Friday, May 9, 2008
8:00 a.m.
Regus
Riverside Center
275 Grove Street
Suite 2 - 400 Newton, MA

“Remodeling Leadership” with Scott Schulz

Target Audience: Leadership, Organizational Performance, Management Development Consultants

Selecting, developing and retaining effective leaders at all levels is essential, particularly as organizations face tougher economic challenges.

Leadership competency assessments typically have been employed to drive succession, selection, development, recruitment, and performance evaluation; however, such models may not assess the right thing: competence does not translate directly to effective performance.

This session will introduce an evolutionary paradigm of leader and organizational leadership system assessment through the concepts of the Leadership Maturity Model®.

• Assess individual performance effectiveness in the context of the organization
• Identify the systemic root cause(s) of underperformance
• Develop individual leaders – and the organization as a whole – to achieve the leadership maturity necessary to achieve organizational objectives
• Develop mature leaders who can drive strategy from vision to execution

Remodeling Leadership was a featured article in the Performance Improvement Journal of the International Society of Performance Improvement (ISPI).

Scott has presented to numerous associations and organizations including the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), Project Management Institute (PMI) and International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI). Scott possesses a keen perception of organizational needs and the uncanny ability to target factors shaping upper management decisions. Whether presenting to an audience of hundreds or to a board of Fortune 500 Senior Officers, Scott leverages 25 years of experience in competitive sales environments – building networks, engaging clients and influencing decisions. Scott brings real world experience front and center, delivering hard-hitting content and best practice thinking with a fresh perspective and a humorous matter-of-fact style.

“Mr. Schulz had a very effective presentation style. His interjection of humor and his ability to involve the audience kept us 'glued' to his presentation. … I would like to see Mr. Schulz back at a future event.” Southern New England Chapter PMI

Investment
$10 for IMCNE members
$20 for non-IMCNE members

Walk-ins are welcome. Coffee is available. Food can be purchased in the Café. To register go to www.imcne.org

Dinner Meeting and Annual Meeting

Thursday, May 22, 2008
5:00 pm - 5:30 pm - IMCNE Annual Meeting*
5:30 pm - 8:30 pm - Dinner Program**
Hilton Garden Inn, Waltham, MA
*No cost to attend Annual Meeting
**Program registration fees apply to Members and Nonmembers/Guests

Social Networking & Web 2.0

What you need to know to use this medium to separate your company from the pack

Join our panel of experts as we examine this new frontier.

Panel Members:

• Aaron Strout, VP New Media, Mzinga
• Scott Monty, Consigliere, crayon, LLC
• Laura Fitton, Founder & President, Pistachio Consulting Inc.

Moderated by:

• Lewis Green, Founder and Managing Principal of L&G Business Solutions and veteran Marketing strategist

Investment
Members Early-bird $45, after May 15 th $55
Nonmembers Early-bird $55, after May 15 th $65

To register go to www.imcne.org

What Would You Ask?

What would you ask if you moderated a panel addressing Social Networking & Web 2.0: What you need to know to use this medium to separate your company from the pack?

That is precisely the challenge that I and the panelist experts face on May 22, when we stand before an audience of management consultants to answer the questions and doubts deep within their minds. Along with panel members Aaron Strout, VP New Media, Mzinga; Scott Monty, Consigliere for crayon, LLC; and Laura Fitton, Founder & President, Pistachio Consulting Inc.; we have to meet or exceed the wants and needs of the attendees.

Read more at http://lgbusinesssolutions.typepad.com

Strategic Partner Events

Click here to view the Strategic Partner events.

Roundtables: Next Event Featuring You?

Have you read a good business book lately? Do you have a question that you would love to ask a group of consultants? Are you one of our New England members that are tired of all our meetings being held in Boston? Do you have a challenge that you are facing and would like to get feedback? Do you have a case study that would fuel a good discussion? THEN USE THIS RESOURCE.

It takes about three minutes to fill out a Roundtable Proposal. You give us a title and description; we’ll publicize it and handle registrations. This program helps our members Get Smart, Get Known, Get Business. What are you waiting for? Download the form today from our Programs page (http://www.imcne.org/programs.htm) or contact Linda Watson at 508-400-3011 or lwatson@whirlawaygroupllc.com