“So,” Hillard told me, “all the work he’d done up to that point was out the window.”
“And on top of that,” Stewart said, “we were anticipating our new software package and didn’t care to feed the information twice into the computer. So we built up a backlog of well over 10,000 articles waiting for the software that never came.”
Brown’s clock ticked away for several thousand dollars more in time, bringing the total billing to $8,630.81. Then it stopped. Stewart Research had simply run out of money.
Stewart’s corporate sponsor could send no more. “Their pockets,” he said, “just weren’t deep enough to subsidize both our own computer literacy and that of our consultants.” When I talked to Stewart in mid-1983, his computer was doing word processing and other minor chores. “But,” he said, “it does hardly enough cross-referencing to be a major data bank.” His research firm faced some $30,000 in debts, including much of the $2,500 bill from the consultants with the library-sized building; and he and his wife were the only two employees left in Stewart R & D. He still hoped to get the data base going, however. “We’re going to become computer consultants in self-defense,” said Stewart. “I’ve done nothing but work on this computer for a year.” It would be nice to be able to do the same, but most of us lack the time or talent; the challenge is to find the right computer consultant so you won’t end up feeling you must do the work on your own.
Not so coincidentally, Hillard himself actually did go on to become a computer consultant part time. He wasn’t the smartest or the best credentialed, but he had what many of the more established consultants lacked—empathy and humility. Don’t shrug off those traits. The real question, as one consultant pointed out to me, isn’t just whether someone is competent; it’s whether he’s competent enough at the job he’s doing for you. Never forget that when pondering the “Who?” and “What?”
Stewart and Hillard obviously aren’t the only people who didn’t ask the right questions in time. A sail maker wasted $18,000 on a computer system recommended by a consultant. The machine didn’t work right with the hard-disk memory, and it lacked proper shielding against the 60-cycle hum given off by power lines. By the time Hillard was on the scene, the consultant had left town. He says the computer was such a disaster that “I suggested to the client that he get a length of rope and use it as an anchor because it was unfixable.” In another case, a truck-rental firm spent $30,000 for $15,000 of computer equipment. And then the consultant didn’t even supply instructions to operate and modify the software. “As far as I know,” said a more ethical expert, “he’s still a consultant. Computers are mystical, and most people don’t know when they’ve got a good system or when they’ve got a bad one.”
“The real problem,” Hillard correctly said of consultants, “is that the microcomputer field has only been around since the mid-seventies and things are moving so rapidly. It’s hard for anyone to keep up, consultant or layman.”
There is, too, a nasty economic fact. A micro consultant can’t reach full prosperity, in many instances, without having ties with stores or manufacturers. Indeed, most micro consulting nowadays is done in effect by sales reps recommending systems to their customers. How objective can they be? Even conscientious consultants—independent or those with ties—may still favor the computers and software with which they’re most familiar. The man and the machine in effect become one package.
Another anticonsultant argument is that small computers may soon be inexpensive and simple enough to make consultants much less necessary. You don’t use a consultant to buy a $1,000 typewriter. And by the time you read this, or a few years afterward, we’ll have good, complete word processors selling for no more—with printers.
Yet another anticonsultant argument is that you may have computer-wise friends in your own business or profession, smart people you trust. They may actually anticipate some of your needs better than would a consultant. Moreover, it’s been said that if you know enough to pick the right consultant, then you really don’t need one.