a curmudgeon and an iconoclast walk into a bar...

the year was 2000.

i was at bootcamp for a research job, being indoctrinated on how an analyst works, career path, what's expected, how to deliver, etc.

the final session that week was a gentleman by the name of Ken McGee. he spoke about being a curmudgeon. he said that was his unofficial title, and he liked that one more than his official title because there was only one of those titles in the company and you could not be promoted to it. you had to earn it by being nominated by your fellow analysts.

it was an informal affair, there was no process or competition. after a lifetime of work your peers felt you had the right qualities for the job. when i saw him present the main keynote at a conference a couple of years later the concept of what he did made sense: he gave a great keynote that felt like an honest conversation with the audience: this is good, this is bad, here is data supporting both statements. here is what you should do, based on my experience and thousands of conversations with people in similar situations. he did not care what people may think, he was upfront about that. he was trying to help, give the audience the knowledge and wisdom they needed.

later i had the pleasure of working with him in an executive consulting session. his role here was more direct and personalized. his knowledge of the client and markets helped him in less than 2 hours finnd all the holes in the client's strategy and provided a dozen plus potential fixes. poking holes now made the strategy bullet-proof later, he told the client.

second story: a handful of analysts were doing a consulting day with the largest vendor in our market. we had a keynote to open the day, from the lead analyst for that vendor, setting the stage for what mattered in the market, followed by 6 hours of briefings on the latest and greatest from the vendor, concluding the day on 2 hours of feedback (15-20 minutes from each of us, different specialized areas of the market).

the end of the feedback session was led by a 30 minutes summary of what we recommended led by Scott Nelson. In those 30 minutes he took the feedback we all provided and (in real time) used it to build a SWOT analysis on the whiteboard.

the more impressive part was the next 10 minutes, when he proceeded to discombobulate the vendors' products, messages, and GTM strategies and looked at each dissected component and spoke truth to the present and future state of each while correlating to the SWOT analysis he just built. he deconstructed the entire offering and laid it bare with its weaknesses -- done on the flight, in 30 minutes.

a curmudgeon. an iconoclast.

these were the people who shaped my career and my approach to enterprise tech. i am sure they did not try to do that, or that they even know they did. the impact was far greater than if they'd've tried.

20+ years later, here i am.

why am i telling you this? because those two qualities shaped the business i am trying to build next.

not as an analyst; as a curmudgeon + iconoclast to hire. there is no title or name for what i do. IYKYK.

this is what every smart executive needs in their corner in the world of enterprise tech: whether you're a practitioner or a vendor, you need someone in your corner willing to tell you how ugly your baby is, how badly you're executing, and how you can improve on both of those areas. with data. and innovative ideas.

you know if you read most of what's published, it is not really what you need. adulant write-ups that report what you told them to say (vendors), insipid and flat, generic advice that you can get from ChatGPT (practitioners) - this is not what you're after.

to move your career forward, you need these people in your corner: a curmudgeon, an iconoclast.

does't have to be me, i am sure you know many others that fit your need better.

but if you are interested... DM me ??