These days, it seems as if we can get micro-anything-we-want. We can get micro-greens, micro-brews and micro-distilling, just to name a few. In any case, I knew that micro-roasting (of coffee) was a “thing” but I was quite surprised, the other day, when I ordered coffee and each bag I received had information not just about what coffee was in the bag, but it said it had been specifically brewed for me (it had my actual name on each bag) and gave the date and time roasted.
My Point
Well, you’re wondering what this has to do with LIMS, ELN and LES. As I thought more about how “micro” things are available for those of us who want a little something special over the mass-produced items out there, I realized that “micro consulting” is the choice some of you make to get that for your LIMS, ELN and LES projects.
It’s not that it hasn’t always been around because using smaller consulting services groups has always been a choice, it’s just that the big ones are now so incredibly big that finding the smaller companies seems more important than ever.
However, I don’t think that “micro-consulting” is coined as a term (I’ve neither heard it, before, nor did searches on the Internet bring back results that convinced me it was coined as a term). I’m merely using it for the purposes of this blog post.
A Comparison
In our personal lives, as an example, we might shop at an ordinary store, whether brick-and-mortar or on-line, and we might buy something quite ordinary, such as coffee and we might use that item on a daily basis. Yet there might come a time when we might want something a little special and we’ll go to a specialty shop and pay extra to get something more specific. It might be because that’s the only way to get a certain item, possibly because we want coffee of a specific region that isn’t normally sold in the more mass-produced brands. Maybe we’re just curious and we want to try it to see if we can see the difference between the mass-produced and the micro-brew. In another example, it’s quite common on holidays that we’ll buy special items that we might be willing to go to a small shop for.
In our projects, some customers will only purchase the “mass produced” consulting services from the largest companies or they might purchase only what I’m calling “micro-consulting” from the smallest. There are few that purchase both. However, it does sometimes happen that one company will buy some services from each type of company.
I will also point-out that, unlike the example I give with consumer products, such as coffee, micro-consulting doesn’t tend to cost more. In fact, it costs less. I will write another blog post about why that is but I will just state that as a fact, here, and return to it on another day.
It Exists
As I speak to customers, those who are using the largest services providers are sometimes surprised to find smaller companies do exist. And then I’m surprised to think that they didn’t realize there would be smaller companies around. Some of the larger companies speak about delivering services as if they’re the only ones who can do it because that’s what they’re selling. Each of us speaks as if only we can deliver what you need to buy.
Where a huge project team is needed, that often falls to the largest services groups to deliver. For those companies needing focused efforts to deliver on-time and with great experience, it often falls to the smallest companies to deliver on that. Neither of these statements is true 100% of the time, though.
One More Reason to Use GeoMetrick Enterprises
I was recently speaking with someone working to deliver a project and they were surprised at all the delivery knowledge I had and was able to impart to their project. That’s because I’ve delivered on so many projects as a project manager, business analyst, programmer/developer and the like. I just know a lot of these things from doing it so many times. In addition, I’ve played so many project roles I can impart information about a lot of aspects just in one conversation.
When you call GeoMetrick Enterprises, you can get an answer on whether you can get fit into our schedule without waiting for many people to get involved. On a project, you can get assistance about project delivery without waiting for someone else to be contacted.
With that said, if you want to ask me about deliver of services from GeoMetrick Enterprises, just call or e-mail and I’ll give you a quick response, either to ask you more questions or to give you an answer. I’m always surprised when customers ask my competitors (such as the software vendors) whether my company can get involved or not because, being my competitors, they will always find a reason to insist that I can’t and some of their reasons sound plausible, even if they’re not usually true. So, it just takes a few minutes to shoot me an e-mail – just ask.
Gloria Metrick
GeoMetrick Enterprises
http://www.GeoMetrick.com/
Yes, micro consulting does exist and I have spent over $500K on a wide range of micro consulting services from topic research to component development using http://www.upwork.com.
I have not seen anyone from the LIMS industry on such a site but our industry is not the most adventurous sort of folks. I imagine many are still on rotary dial phones :-).
There are so many sites for so many things that I think there is usually only one LIMS, ELN or LES person per site. I occasionally get invitations to networking sites and find that what I do is too specialized to connect with many people who specifically match. I no longer accept those invitations and belong to nothing more than LinkedIn, these days.
As for my own business, I occasionally get people coming to me because they stumble across my blog but most of my customers come the old-fashioned way – through referrals and repeat business. So, yes, it’s pretty low-tech when you think about it.
In addition, my own mindset is that I probably wouldn’t go to a site like UpWork – anyone that wants to do business with me personally contacts me.
So, I think there’s a place for sites like UpWork but I wonder if there are certain areas where it works better than others. For more specialized areas, such as ours, I wonder if the personal element is still more important than it is in areas where it’s more commoditized. That’s just a theory I’m posing about it – I don’t happen to have any data one way or the other about it.
Upwork is best for general professional services such as IT, language translations, wordpress development, graphics designers, video editors, researchers and writers, etc. Everyone needs these types of services. For LIMS/LI professionals, I think Linkedin is best for networking in that area.