INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT CONSULTANTS
New England Chapter

News and Views

In this issue:

List of Members
& Their
Thought Leadership

Upcoming Events

Strategic Partner
Events

Member
News & Wisdom

List of Members & Their Thought Leadership

Want an easy marketing boost for your business?

Then sign up to attend the IMCNE Thought Leading conference next week. The program will feature a Directory of Attendees that will include their signature thought leadership titles. Below are some of the IMCNE members that have already registered. If you want to have your thought leadership featured and distributed to a broad audience, make sure to register by this Friday, March 21st.

Mary Adams, CMC
Trek Consulting LLC
http://www.trekconsulting.com

• Management 2.0: Leveraging the Growing Intangible Side of Your Business, Business Strategy Series
• Cultivating Innovation: Lessons from America’s Chief Innovation Officers, Trek Consulting White Paper
• Exit Pay-Offs for the Entrepreneur - Mergers & Acquisitions, The Dealmaker’s Journal

Barbara Alevras
Sage Consulting Services
http://www.sage-cs.com

Glenn Bachman, CMC
Raven Business Group LLC
http://ravenbusiness.com

Curtis Bingham
Predictive Consulting Group, Inc.
http://predictiveconsulting.com

Pam Campagna
BLUE SAGE Consulting, Inc.
http://www.blue-sageconsulting.com

Denise Clancey
Teledirect Partners, Inc.
http://www.teledirectpartners.com

• Telephone Traction: Tips and Techniques to Fine Tune Your Telephone Approach, NEWBO
• Call on the Right Initiative for Telesales, Boston Women's Business
• Motivating Your Telephone Sales and Service Teams, Work.com

Ronna Cohen
Breakthrough Business Performance
http://www.breakthroughbp.com

Diane Darling
Effective Networking Inc.
http://www.effectivenetworking.com

• Networking Survival Guide, McGraw-Hill
• Networking for Career Success, McGraw-Hill
• Boston Business Journal Columnist

Allen Falcon
Horizon Information Group, Inc.
http://www.horizoninformation.com/

Lloyd Franke
Franke Associates

• Safety as a Core Value: A Key Business Component,
  Profit Press, Inc.

Bill Gately
The Rockland Group, Inc.
http://www.rockland-group.com

Jeff Govendo
The Innovative Edge, Inc.
http://www.innov-edge.com

• Monthly newsletter, The Innovative Ledger
• Workforce, Diversity and Corporate Creativity, in Handbook of Business Strategy, 2005

Lewis Green
L&G Business Solutions
http://www.l-gsolutions.com

• Lead with Your Heart: Sell Happiness and You and Your Business Flourish

Allan Haberman
Haberman Associates
http://www.biopharmconsortium.com

• Addressing Unmet Type 2 Diabetes Needs, Genetic Engineering News
• Biotechnology and the Future of the Pharmaceutical Industry
• Powering Drug Discovery through Target Evaluation: Moving Beyond the Validation Paradigm

Shelley Hall
Catalytic Management LLC
http://www.catalyticmanagement.com

• Preparing for Change, Business Process Management Magazine 2008
• Turn to Your Customer to Solve Customer Churn, Business Strategy Series 2007
• Unrealistic Expectations Doom CRM Initaitives, ManageSmarter 2007

Michael Katz
Blue Penguin Development, Inc. http://www.bluepenguindevelopment.com

Tom Kennedy, CMC
The Kennedy Group
http://www.kennedygroupboston.com

Ken Lizotte, CMC
emerson consulting group inc.
http://www.thoughtleading.com

• The Expert’s Edge: Become the Go-To Authority People Turn To Every Time

Michael Oleksak
Trek Consulting LLC
http://www.trekconsulting.com

• Strategic Conversations with Your Customers, The Handbook of Business Strategy
• Technology Companies Have a Variety of Options for Funding, Mass High Tech
• Intellectual Capital Focus Can Increase Value to VCs, IndUS Business Journal

Scott Schulz
7th Wave Solutions

• Remodeling Leadership, ISPI Performance Journal

Harvy Simkovits, CMC
Business Wisdom
http://www.Business-Wisdom.com

• Shepherding Business to Your Door; Moving from Chasing Business to Gaining Business
• Change for Good… What you leverage and measure, you get!
• When the Dictum ‘Just Do It’ Doesn’t Work

Lise Stahl Brown
artful Productivity
http://www.artfulproductivity.com

• Exploring Productivity: Ideas from Industry Professionals on Getting More Done in the Workplace 2007
• Organization and Creativity Go Hand in Hand, Women's Business Boston, April 2007
• Practices for Being Both Creative and Productive at Work, Build Boston Conference November 2007

Jim Stewart
JP Stewart Associates
http://www.projmanage.com

Ron Visocchi
The Benjamin Group LLC
http://www.benjamin-group.com

Jennifer von Briesen
Frontier Strategy, LLC
http://www.frontierstrategy.com

• Blue Ocean Strategy in Action, Feb. 2008 Speech at U.S. Assn. for Strategic Planning's Annual Conference
• Growing Your Business with Blue Ocean Strategy, Mar. 2008 Speech at Vistage International (CEO Assn), Shelton, CT

Ann Way
QDS Corp.
http://www.isodocumentation.com

Larry Way
QDS Corp.
http://www.isodocumentation.com

Alan Weiss, CMC
Summit Consulting Group, Inc.
http://www.summitconsulting.com

Is your name on this list without titles? It's not too late to have your thought leadership included in the Directory of Attendees next week. Just send an email by this Friday, March 21st, to Donna Powell () with the titles of up to three of your signature thought leadership works. For books, please use the full title. For articles, please use the article name and periodical names. For speeches, please use the speech name and venue. Include "Thought Leadership" in your subject line.

Upcoming Events

Friday, March 28, 2008
Thought Leading Conference
8:30 AM - 3:30 PM
Hilton Garden Inn, Waltham, MA

The End of the Boom-and-Bust:
How Thought Leading Can Help You
Rise to the Top

A thought leading conference offered by IMCNE

• What separates the truly successful consultant from all the rest?
• How can you make your consulting practice THRIVE year in and year out? No more Boom-and-Bust cycles!!!
• Can you win recognition as THE authority in your field, bar none?
• How could you boost your annual revenue to mid- or high six figures, year after year? And keep it there!

Positioning yourself as a thought leader offers you the potential for such results. Your credibility with clients and peers will soar as word-of-mouth referrals send qualified prospects your way.. rather than you having to seek them out!

And you'll join the ranks of the highest paid consultants because thought leaders (research shows) do make the most money.

At "The End of Boom and Bust," you'll learn why this is so, how others have achieved it... and how you can take your own thought leading to the next level!

AGENDA
7:30 AM Registration and Continental Breakfast

8:45-9:00 AM OPENING/INTRO with Conference Chair
Ken Lizotte CMC

9:00-9:50 AM KEYNOTE: "Developing Leading-Edge Ideas" with Alan Weiss CMC

10:00-10:50 AM BREAKOUT SESSIONS

• "Publishing Your Ideas" with Ken Lizotte CMC
• PANEL: "Conducting Research Projects" with Bob Buday, Mary Adams CMC and Curtis Bingham

11:00-11:50 AM "Speaking to Different Audiences" with Tom Kennedy CMC and Suzanne Bates

NOON -1:20 PM LUNCH KEYNOTE
"The Harvard Business Review Breakthrough Ideas of 2008" with Lew McCreary and Jeff Govendo

1:30-2:20 PM BREAKOUT SESSIONS

• "Traditional vs. ‘Social’ Media?’ Which Work Best for Promoting Your Ideas?" with Lewis Green
• ROUNDTABLES: "Selling Your Services Effectively," with Nancy Stephens, Ron Vissochi, Shelley Hall, Denise Clancey and Ronna Cohen

2:30-3:20 PM "Tying It All Together" with Michael Katz

3:20-3:30 PM Summary and Send-off

For more details on the individual sessions, speaker bios and the 2008 HBR Breakthrough Ideas visit http://www.imcne.org/events/2008/mar2808.html

INVESTMENT
Regular Pricing for Members $150, Non-members $175 through March 27th.

If room is available $200 at the door.

Event Sponsors:

Strategic Partner March Events

Click here to view the March Strategic Partner events.

Member News & Wisdom

Is Your Organization Living in the Past or Creating the Future?

I have a provocative yet profound task for you. Take a blank piece of paper and make two columns. Now, spend a few moments describing your company, both the good (in one column) and the bad (in the other column) of what currently exists within your business and organization! In the first column, you might get descriptors like "dynamic, energetic, fast-paced"; while in the second you might get "under-performing, lacking-creativity, dull or unfulfilling".

After you have finished, go ask a few of your top-team members to do the same. Then, compare your lists. Do you see any interesting patterns in the descriptors (evaluations, attributions) about your business that you either knew of or may not have known about?

Everything you and your colleagues wrote represents the "current mental reality" of your company. It is what you and your people hold onto every time they walk in the door of your business and deal with your customers and employees. That current reality contains both the accumulation of impressions about your business that is rooted in the past (past events, experiences, decisions, actions, etc.), as well as the varied and maybe sometimes conflicting interpretations that you and they make about that past.

Technically, those descriptors of the past exist only in your team's collective memory. It is not good or bad; it "just is". Yet, a big problem precipitates when people hold onto portions of that described past by laying blame or shame on themselves or others about it. Those kinds of negative judgments work to discount people, slowly yet deliberately draining the energy and life out of them and your organization as a result. Harmful judgments can also create overt fights or covert undermining that can divert your organization from accomplishing its true mission. What do these judgments (from usually quite normal and intelligent people) really contribute to your business? The answer is "absolutely nothing!"

Now, the big challenge for you to deal with is, "Can you and your key people let go of the past (or just let it be as it was without attributing unnecessary judgments to it), in order to create a powerful and worthwhile future together?" If people are stuck in the past, laying blame and shame on themselves or others, then they have much less time and energy to create and act on the future of your business. Acknowledging and accepting the past as "just what was" frees all of you up to live in the present where there is much more power and possibility.

Now, I ask you to sit up in your chair, or even stand up with both feet firmly planted on the ground, and let go of your judgments. I know it may not be easy, but give it a try for just this moment. Embrace the space of the present, where no past or future really exists. What you really, truly, only have is "just here and now", this fleeting moment in time and space. From this vantage point (where the past was something that "just happened", and the future is something that can "only be imagined"), you can free up yourself and your team's energy to focus on what matters to all of you and what is truly most important for the future of your business.

Go ahead; give this simple exercise a try with yourself and your top-team. What have you got to lose? You may find a prosperous, productive and personally-fulfilling future that you and your team can collectively create and fulfill!

As one wise person once said, "If it is to be, be it up to me (or we)." A world of possibility awaits you once you are unencumbered by a limiting or deflating past.

Provided by Harvy Simkovits, CMC, Business Wisdom, http://www.business-wisdom.com

“In a World That Technology Has Made Flat, Where Do Firms Find a Competitive Edge?” By Patrick Foster

This recent article on Times Online summarizes a podcast by Klaus Leinfield, President and COO of Alcoa. Mr. Leinfield asserts that, because information is more freely available today, the only competitive advantage left to business is the strength of its workforce. He summarizes the dilemma of modern business as ultimately being able to create personal connections among a workforce that is dispersed around the world. We would submit that the most powerful way to leverage the power of your people is to focus on all three legs of the stool—people, relationships (both internally and externally) and information—as the foundation of all business today. Read the full article.

Provided by Mary Adams, CMC, Trek Consulting LLC, http://www.trekconsulting.com/?ICUpdate

I am preparing for those looks one gets when we blurt out something that most everyone else finds hard to believe. It is quite certain that I will experience more than a few of those faces next week when I present my take on business growth, ethics and values. Faces will contort, eyes will narrow and more than a few folks will offer stares of disdain. All that will happen immediately following my opening:

Products and services do not a great business make. Nope! To grow a great business, we must always put people first, ahead of profits, products and services.

It took every page of Lead With Your Heart to thoroughly explain this business philosophy and model, and to show readers how to implement the principle as the foundation of their business. By the end of page 231, I am able to show readers not only what the principle looks like but also why and how it works to grow a business's brand and bottom line. Read the full article.

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