Business, Tech, Consulting, Analytics

Today's breathless pace favors independent consultants At 4:45pm yesterday I got a call from a client I hadn't heard from in a few months.  Almost out of breath, he says "Can you be here Monday?"  Well, that's rather like asking monks whether monasteries are a good idea. "Of course!" I said.  Client says "OK, gotta run." What to think about such planning?  I happen to know that this person (a pleasant and considerate fellow) has recently been drop kicked into a greatly expanded job.  He has a long todo list plus technical fires to put out almost hourly.  Plus, he has a family.  So, would he like to do a better job planning? Certainly.  Is he at the edge of what he can do?  Probably close to it. While we all have concerns about the  mind-numbing pace of managerial jobs today, we nonetheless have to handle problems right now--in ten minutes, two floors down.  As a religious friend of mine once said, "no rest for the wicked and t...

Recently I published a slim book on the basics of using a package  "DPLYR," in the R programming language.  DPLYR has a detailed and thorough user guide and is open source.  Why would anyone need to buy a book about it? Short explanation: time is a nonexpandable resource for all of us.  We need to allocate it wisely. Long explanation:  Virtually all technical manuals for popular, open source software are written by experts who are immersed in the details.  The authors are typically bright, hardworking individuals who are doing their best to include all relevant details.  Unfortunately, the very abundance of expertise makes them poor writers for people who simply want to use the software as a tool to get something done.  Software should be for everyone with a minimum of startup time . Imagine if someone had to study automotive mechanics before they were allowed to drive a car. Here's an example from another outstanding R package, Lubridate....