Consulting Chronicles #5: Getting In, and Out, of the Industry

Today, I’ll talk about how to get into consulting, what the skills and expectations are, and what can cause you to get out.

What is Consulting?

Consulting in the Flash/Flex world usually consists of 3 tasks that may be related:

  1. Offer your architecture expertise.
  2. Offer your code mechanic expertise.
  3. Augment an existing team.

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What I Learned About Trying to Double My Rate

Introduction

I made a new years resolution to double my rate this year. If you take a look at the current Flex Consulting Rates, and think double or triple, you’ll have an idea of what I’m trying to do.

In the past 8 months I’ve found three challenges to reaching my goal. First, I had some misperceptions of what level of quality of software businesses want. Second, I have been distracted from the truth by the echo chamber I participate in, specifically the Twitter followers and blogs I read. Finally, and most importantly, while I’m good at marketing, I’ve completely failed in selling the value of my services.  The following lists the failings in detail with my new goals to fix those problems.

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What I Learned at Flash and the City 2010

While it’s fresh, here is what I learned at Flash and the City 2010 (blog).  It was a Flash & Flex conference in New York City that brought together developers from around the world.  The reasons for me to attend were (beyond being invited, duh):

  1. You don’t attend conferences, you speak at conferences.
  2. I like smaller conferences.
  3. I love Manhattan.
  4. One of my current clients is there.
  5. My wife had never been to New York.
  6. You don’t get many eastern conferences (east in the USA).

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