Consultant Ninja

Buying votes for $250/per

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:02:00 +0000

January 2009: Social security payments go up by a 5.8% COLA due to increased energy costs.

December 2009: Energy prices drop 30%, so Social Security will go up by 0% (it cannot go down).

Congress/Obama want to thus give every senior $250, total cost $13 billion.

How can any this be anything else other than vote buying?

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama called on Congress Wednesday to approve $250 payments to more than 50 million seniors to make up for no increase in Social Security next year. The Social Security Administration is scheduled to announce Thursday that there will be no cost of living increase next year. By law, increases are pegged to inflation, which has been negative this year.

Social Security payments increased by 5.8 percent in January, the largest increase since 1982. The big increase was largely because of a spike in energy costs in 2008.

Inflation has been negative this year largely because energy prices have fallen. Gasoline prices have dropped 30 percent over the past year while overall energy costs have dropped 23 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. - AP Oct 14th

Breakfast of Champions

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:15:00 +0000

Mrs. Ninja's caloric intake from 6:00am to 3:00pm:

diet pepsi
rest of candy apple
chips
sponge cake

Classic Consulting Quotes

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:32:00 +0000

Job manager, upon seeing a slide I made: "Are you color blind, by the way?"

True story.

Thee Sunbeam method of Government Stimulus

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:12:00 +0000

The evidence on Cash for Clunkers is that it just borrowed from future demand rather than creating new demand. After a quick spike of sales, future demand will be lower.

The first time homebuyer credit is seeing the same effect - 5/6 of the people claiming the credit were going to buy there house anyways, either today or in the near future. So the effective cost per incremental new house sale was $43,000. What a waste.

These programs made 2009 go slightly better than it would have otherwise, but will make 2010-2012 slightly worse. What a stupid way to run a business, or a country.

You know who else did this? Sunbeam.

Is Obama going to be the next Chainsaw Al?

Information Visualization Irony

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:52:00 +0000

I wouldn't let a 22-year old analyst get away with publishing a chart like this. What stupidity.

Stephen Few's commenters excoriate this chart, rightfully so:

"BO is not a business "intelligence" tool. It is a presentation tool, overly simplistic in capability and overly complicated in execution. It lacks functionality and an efficient UI, and is overpriced." - Andy Holaday

"It's a cascading hierarchy of awfulness, which almost makes it challenging to critique!" - Tim Wilson

"But it’s not just the people with the purse strings who will buy something because its a) pretty, b) expensive and c) they’ve heard of it." - N Barrett

The merits of OurBeeswax.com

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:11:00 +0000

Within the walls of modern corporations, asking hard questions, providing negative feedback upwards, and questioning the statements of leaders is extremely dangerous. Those types of statements can lead to an idea being discarded; people attach themselves to their ideas; people with ideas under attack will regard it as a personal attack; and they will lash out at the source of the attack - the messenger.

This isn't news - anyone in a corporate environment knows this. It's also not news to say that this happens in a consultancy; after all, a consulting firm is just as, if not more so, driven by the ability of leaders to convince people (clients and underlings) that their ideas are truly unique and original.

The result is that few messengers are shot, because everyone knows the rules and holds their tongue. As a result, stupid ideas (that everyone in the organization knows are stupid) aren't killed before they do real damage. I'd cite an example, but everyone can think of a time when this happened in their organization.

What is new and interesting is how technology allows those hard questions to be asked within the walls of an organization, while protecting the messenger, and the carefully constructed corporate image.

Do you use Ourbeeswax.com? What's your take on it?

Things I'll miss about New York City

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:57:00 +0000

Seeing NYC in my rear-view mirror is an upcoming event I am looking forward to, but there will be some things I miss. Priceless random quotes from New Yorkers will be one of them.

B&T Girl #1: He is so "not Westchester."
B&T Girl #2: I know!
B&T Girl #3: I don't get it. I've been here a year and I don't get that. And what is or who is "the bridge and tunnel crowd"? Is it a good thing that those guys called us "bridge and tunnel crowd" when we walked in?
B&T Girl #1: Eww.
B&T Girl #2: Gross.
B&T Girl #1: Ew, oh there is so no way anyone called me bridge and tunnel.
B&T Girl #3: So that's bad?
B&T Girl #2: What could be worse?

--Metro-North

Overheard in New York

The Etymology of Consulting

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:41:00 +0000

Source: Dilbert Search Engine

There goes my bonus....

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:56:00 +0000

From: Jennifer Dziubeck
Date: Wed, Aug 13, 2009
Subject: Introducing Luna Boston Personal Shopping- By Invitation Only!
To: Mrs. Ninja

Dear Mrs. Ninja,

You’ve been a fabulous customer at LunaBoston.com over the years, and to show our thanks, we’re extending you a special invitation for our brand new VIP Personal Shopping Service. Available to just a select few customers, this complimentary service is an amazing opportunity to purchase handbags from your favorite Luna Boston designers that aren’t available on our website or in our store.

Yes, my bonus did come through.

Side note: Did you know that people (like the above model) who appear to be breathing through their mouth (aka "mouth-breathers") are generally perceived as having lower intelligence? What does it say that most fashion pictures of women have them posing with their mouth open?

The Curious Case of Equity Private, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:30:00 +0000

Equity Private is not only snarky, she is profligate.

"I have a reputation going back three years and three months with literally hundreds of thousands of words of my prose" - Equity Private, May 17, 2009

Her anonymous resume, as near as I can tell, is as follows:

EquityPrivate.Typepad.com: February 2006 - February 2009
FinemRespice.com: February 2009 - Present
DealBreaker.com: September 15, 2008 - May 29th, 2009 (Also July 31 2009 - August 14th, 2009)

Two observations can be drawn from this one - one obvious, one less so. First, Equity Private has invested hundreds, perhaps thousands of hours of time in this endeavor, which is a huge expenditure of a person's most valuable asset.

The second observation can only be seen by a closer analysis of her posts: Something has happened this summer; her writing volume, steady for 3 years, has dramatically slowed down. Additionally, it seems that her stint at DealBreaker, finance snark-central, has come to an end.

My questions aren't meant to mock her, or to be snarky myself. Rather, I find her an interesting character study of choices versus capabilities.

Question 1: What compels someone as talented, as motivated, as professionally successful as Equity Private to invest such a huge volume of time in such a narrow pastime as tearing other people down via snark?

Question 2: What's happened to Equity Private's anonymous writing career? Why is it (seemingly) coming to an end?

The Curious Case of Equity Private, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 11:45:00 +0000

For the period of 2006-2008, I was somewhat entranced by the wizardry (and compensation) of my finance peers. One colleague, a Deutche Bank leveraged finance Associate, expressed interest in joining my consulting firm until he learned that it would entail a 70% pay cut, for example. I was blown away that finance's compensation gap on consulting was so large.

This interest naturally led me to search out interesting sources on the sector, of which a couple in particular were Equity Private and DealBreaker. There were others (yes, Leveraged Sellout), but these 2 shone above the rest in a) their degree of self-certitude, b) the disdain they layered on those they critiqued, and c) their anonymity. (Perhaps someone will accuse me of those same traits)

Equity Private, in particular, amazed me - that someone in Prviate Equity could find time to produce such volume. Hell, it takes me 20 minutes to upload a photo and write a paragraph, but she was putting out missives of complexity and incision with regularity. Half the time I didn't even understand entirely what she was writing, so I just figured she knew a lot more than I did.

Then she arrived at DealBreaker, and her voluminous posting brought her great worship and praise from the comment section.

I kept reading DealBreaker and EP, but it started to grate on me. There was something.... wrong... with the writing. Something offensive to me. it took me a while to put my finger on it to find the common theme in her writing. Finally, someone else pointed out the single word that characterizes Equity Private's writing - it's all snarky.

Snarky: "Verbal ingenuineness that is brief, subtle, yet quite stabbing. snark is often marked by deep creativity & use of psychological attack. It employs coldbloodedness and is best served unprovoked. Snark can contain hidden complimentary meaning under a mean face, but it hurts more than it strengthens." - Urban Dictionary

That definition fits her writing like a key to a lock.

Gotta Keep Dry During Typhoon Morakot

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:51:00 +0000

This typhoon is a serious disaster, and I don't mean to take away from it with a bit of levity... but I just couldn't help but laugh when I saw this photo.

Source: The Big Picture

Engineers as Rock Stars

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:37:00 +0000

Who can't love this ad?

Health Care is Not a Right

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:28:00 +0000

The United States Bill of Rights grants rights to its citizens. Those rights prescribe freedoms for self-determination. For example:

What Rights Give:
- The right to choose to speak.
- The right to to choose to assemble with others.
- The right to choose to bear arms.

What Rights Don't Give:
- The right to force other people to listen to you.
- The right to force other people to hang out with you.
- The right to force other people to run a gun store to provide you weapons.

I'm making a point about the distinction of rights.

A right gives you the freedom to choose something, but it doesn't force other people to do things for you.

I can't perform a coronary bypass on myself, so I need other people to do so. Is it a right to force doctors to do that on me?

No.

Health Care is a privilege, not a right.

Dipping my toe in the health care debate

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:21:00 +0000

[Edited to reflect a below comment from Doctor Baloney]

I've had many conversations with folks recently about whether Obama's public health care proposal is a good idea or not, and I have no conviction yet of which side to support.

That said I do have an observation and a question.

Let us agree that the "burning platform" of US health care is the large, sustained increases in health care costs. Fundamentally, that increase is driven by three factors - one demand-side, one supply-side, and one structural. The only way to really contain costs is to reverse one or more of these levers.

Demand Driver: We're fat and lazy, compared to the rest of the world, which lead to chronic health problems.

Supply Driver: There is a large selection of expensive treatments to help people with chronic health problems keep on living.

Structural Driver:The organizations in the health care system operate inefficient operational structures.

Question: In the Obama plan, which one of these three cost drivers is getting reversed?

I fail to see the logic that the government will be more efficient at building operational structures than the private sector.

A Veritable Gold Mine... Gold I tell you!

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:24:00 +0000

I've had an explosion of creative energy lately. Is this what happens when your utilization flatlines at 0%? Good thing I have an outlet.

US Health Care Costs

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:30:00 +0000

Georgetown professor Ken Homa has a good analysis of the health care industry cost structure, and takes issue with Obama's recent targeting of HMO profits. Homa's analysis is correct but could be easier to understand with a simple graphic, which I've done here.

HMO Profits constitute 2% of total US health care costs

Conclusion: Killing HMOs isn't going to save our health care system.

Of course, I've written about health care costs before as well.

Yes, this blog shall continue

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Thank you for your kind words.

It started at dinner near a shipyard...

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:20:00 +0000

My first project was at a shipyard. Over dinner, my seasoned colleagues inquired about the "Consulting 101" course I had just completed before joining the project. We began discussing the term "Client Service," which was used extensively during training, but never truly defined.

I asked my team, "what does 'client service' mean to you?"

Three years later now, I can't remember their answers, but I remember mine.

"I think 'client service' means that you care - personally, and emotionally, about the well-being of your client. It means that you care about the outcome, and want your answer to their problem to be the answer you would get if you WERE them."

Today, the trouble is, I no longer care.

I've seen projects that I've been proud of. But I've also seen projects where I just don't believe in the answer. The clients have been happy, but I don't believe in my heart that it will change the client, or lead to incremental EBIT, or make their employees feel more confident about their company.

I've certainly made my firm money, and our client points of contact are happy. But I don't think the client's shareholders, and the larger client organization particularly benefited.

It's not that we destroyed value; it's just that we made a stack of slides that made everyone look good, but didn't lead to any change. You could say the final briefout deck is like the Emporer's New Clothes. Nobody understands it, but everybody pretends to be impressed by how it looks.

Since I don't care anymore, I don't have any choice.

So I'm quitting.

The Ugliest Process Flow Diagram I've Ever Seen

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:04:00 +0000

"OK, kid. I want to you make a process flow diagram of their plan. But make it the most complicated, confusing thing I've ever seen. We want to convince people that this proposed process is a disaster." - Congressman Kevin Brady, to Staffer

Result? Front page of Drudge.

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt is an effective counter to change, whether it be in consulting, technology, or politics.

Actual PDF Link

When the going gets tough, the pretty quit

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:59:00 +0000

"I WILL support others who seek to serve, in or out of office, for the RIGHT reasons, and I don't care what party they're in or no party at all. Inside Alaska - or Outside Alaska. But I won't do it from the Governor's desk."

....

My decision was also fortified during this most recent trip to Kosovo and Landstuhl, to visit our wounded soldiers overseas, those who sacrifice themselves in war for OUR freedom and security... we can ALL learn from our selfless Troops... they're bold, they don't give up, they take a stand and know that LIFE is short so they choose to NOT waste time. - Sarah Palin Resignation Speech, July 3 2009

Isn't it interesting that to support her resignation, she used an example of people doing the exact opposite of what she was doing?

People who support Sarah Palin aren't listening to her words (because they are contradictory and non-sensical). They're feeling her conviction, her passion, her certainty and saying to themselves "if she's so sure about it, and it aligns with my worldview, then she's gotta be right."

Sarah Palin would make a great strategy consultant.

Stick it to the man

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:32:00 +0000

I think what really set this guy off was not the loss of his guitar - it was the complete indifference to everyone he spoke to. People who don't care, and don't communicate that they care, about what is important to customers, are far too common in business. It's narcissism.

Way to blow, United.

New Vault.com FAIL

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:42:00 +0000

"But the economic downturn hasn’t shelved expansion plans for career Web site Vault.com, which on Tuesday, June 23, unveiled a multimillion-dollar revamp." - Workforce Mangement.com

Vault.com Traffic Popularity, from Alexa.com. Note the log scale.

"The new Vault represents the first major redesign of the site since 2001. Late in 2007, private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS) purchased a majority stake in the successful career information company. At the same time, Mr. Sorenson, a media industry veteran of NBC, CBS and Fox, took the Vault helm. Mr. Sorenson is charged with unlocking the considerable potential of the brand and business – and taking it to the next level of growth.

VSS, a New York-based media-focused investment firm, has further capitalized the company since the purchase to underwrite the additional investment in technology.
" - Business Wire

They got their spike in demand, only it went in the wrong direction. The PE guys are going to be pissed that they got suckered into re-upping; I wish I could see the business case justification on this one.

I suspect the poor design, slow performance, and frequent shutdowns can be traced to nobody working the linkages between the executives who were strategically visioning and the programmers who had to execute on it. The sad part is, the programmers will probably get the blame when it's really the executives' fault. Guess who made sure the links are cornflower blue?

If Naomi Newman is reading this, give us the inside scoop. Who fucked up?

Pity the Poor Honduran Army

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:04:00 +0000

"Root for the guerillas. Current prez is a douche." - Text from Banker Ninja, former resident of Honduras

Honduran Military, wetting their panties

I have a simple method to measure civilian protests.

In Rich countries (US, UK, Italy, France), I support the government. I remember in my undergrad days reading in the school paper about these students who spent their summer traveling all over the US protesting various causes. "Must be nice," I thought, as I headed to my summer internship that paid for my state-school education. Rich country protesters are typically obnoxious, over-educated in low-utility topics, and have poor body odor.

In Poor countries, I support the protestors. Everybody I've met in developing countries (Mexico, Vietnam, Peru, Honduras) has been kind and hard-working. I side with them.

Honduran Military, playing war with an unloaded M-16A1

So in the current Honduras situation, I root for the people. However in this case I also feel pity, for the poor Honduran army enlistees, who are stuck in the middle. Guns are no match for sticks and stones.

Honduran Military, gathering intelligence

Honduran Military, sustainment brigade

Source: The Big Picture

Consulting Dinner at the Courtyard Marriott

noreply@blogger.com (Consultant Ninja) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:22:00 +0000

Sometimes, you just gotta go ghetto.