Confab Conference for Consultants

One of the longest sponsors of the Confab, QuadRed provides a suite of best practice assessments that help consultants evaluate businesses and create strategic action plans for improvement. The suite of assessments include business performance (QuadStrat), leadership effectiveness (QuadLead), and board governance (QuadBoard).  This year at Confab, Quad Red added a new twist to their assessment offering. For consultants who do assessments at their clients sites, whether for the organization as a whole or in a special area such as marketing, sales, IT, or HR, QuadRed will create a custom assessment to automate the process. Contact QuadRed at 949.325.2520 or sales@quadred.com for more information.

QuadRed has graciously sponsored Confab’s golf outing for consultants in addition to exhibiting at the conference several years in a row. Thanks to Guy Greco and Jeff Rigsby for your long-time support of IMC and Confab.

Target Teams came to Confab in 2008 for the first time to show consultants its psychometric assessment tool that measures how and why individuals do things. Target Teams’ profiles are statistically validated and support companies and organizations to better hire and manage employees. According to Kevin Cook, this conference for consultants has exceeded his expectations as an exhibitor. Cook said Target Teams’ focus is on being a resource for consultants so that they can focus on what they do best while offering a solution to their clients. To try the Target Teams profiling solution for free, go to http://consutlant.target-teams.com and complete the questionnaire in one sitting within 24 minutes. Answer the questions as they relate to work and without input from others.

Confab, the conference for successful consultants and those who want to be, was fortunate to have as its kick-off keynote speaker Sarah Miller Caldicott, President of The Power Patterns of Innovation, grand-niece of Thomas Edison and co-author of the book, Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America’s Greatest Inventor. According to Caldicott, while most people know about Edison’s inventions, they don’t know that he started 150 companies and had thousands of employees. His companies were quite flat in structure, unlike traditional hierarchical companies, a structure to which today’s companies are returning in order to create innovation. Edison’s companies resulted in some of the largest in businesses today such as G.E. and Con Edison. His patents created by 1910 have created $6.7 billion in market value today. If the market value number included patents that Edison sold, it would come in at over one trillion dollars.

How can we learn from Edison about innovation? According to Caldicott, Edison used analogy and fantastical story telling to come up with inventions. He kept a notebook and often drew pictures and diagrams of inventions, which helped engage right brain creativity and made it easier to communicate his ideas with employees. He valued solitude and was aware that some of the best ideas came from quiet time. He surrounded himself with a small and diverse team of great minds to facilitate innovation.

This keynote presentation got great reviews from attendees, and many attended a two-part follow-on workshop that was offered by Caldicott to help consultants learn detailed processes for helping their clients create an environment of innovation.

At Confab’s annual Talk Show lunch for consultants, the questions steered toward how consultants can survive and thrive during tough economic times. The Talk Show is a forum where consultants can submit written questions in advance. The questions are read out loud and “runners” with microphones go into the audience of consultants for those who have answers. Here are some examples.

Question: Has the downturn affected your consulting practice?

Answers: Ronna Cohen, President of Breakthrough Business Performance, said that as layoffs increase, many individuals will enter the consulting profession. As the unemployed flood into consulting, members of the Institute of Managment Consultants(IMC) who follow the Institute’s Code of Ethicsand benefit from its resources and educational programs will have the competitive advantage over new consultants. Chris Rollyson,  Managing Director of CRSA, said that the downturn is creating disruption, which usually means opportunity for consultants.

Question: When writing a book, should self-publish or go through a publisher?

Answers: Michael Shays, Fellow of the Institute of Managment Consultants (FIMC) and President of The Focus Leader, said that he self-published in order to get his books out in print more quickly. Certified Management Consultant (CMC) Idora Silver, President of I. Silver Management Group, Inc., said that she prefers self-publishing because she has control over how the books are distributed. If she wants to give a book to clients or potential clients, she can do that at no cost. Mike Van Horn, President of The Business Group, said that by self-publishing, consultants are free to create other products that compliment the book, mentioned that publishers don’t really do much marketing for authors, anyway and added, “Plus, we’re too old to have to go around begging publishers to publish our work!” Charles Day, FIMC and President of Charles E. Day and Associates, LLC, disagreed. He feels that the credibility that goes with being published by an established publishing company is worth the extra time spent soliciting publishing companies and working within their way of doing business.

I just stopped by the exhibit that Omnia has at Confab 2008 and spoke to company representative Carol Ardell. Omnia offers an employee profiling tool for use in evaluating candidates for hire, promotion, training opportunities and more. The profiles can also be used for team-building, to address morale and management issues and for succession planning. Carol said that Omnia does not send out computer-generated profiles with jargon that executives may not understant. Instead, a real, live expert reviews the results of the profile, analyzes the information and then writes an easy-to-understand report that includes a 10-point job compatibility rating, an easy-to-read graph, using non-clinical  wording.  If you want to try out Omnia’s profile, contact Carol at cardell@omniagroup.com and she will arrange for you or someone at your client site to use one profile at no cost.

How can consultants use Web 2.0? This morning I attended Confab’s pre-conference workshop, “The Consultant’s Guide to LinkedIn: How to Profit from Social Networking,” with almost 70 other consultants. Chris Rollyson, a pioneer in corporate innovation, strategy and transformation, did a great job of leading us through the creation of a plan for using LinkedIn. Chris explained the pros and cons of different levels of LinkedIn membership, from free to the paid professional levels that offer additional features and benefits.

He stressed the importance of using LinkedIn with a purpose in mind and encouraged the audience to create a LinkedIn plan to support one or more major business or life goals. The goal(s) would then drive what features of LinkedIn you implement and how you set up preferences on your LinkedIn profile. According to Chris, when you set up a profile on LinkedIn, it’s important to think of yourself as “the host of the party” within your online network of contacts. He advocates taking an active role by not only inviting contacts to connect with you but also using LinkedIn to survey your immediate network or the LinkedIn world as a whole. He discussed LinkedIn’s Answers capability as one way to establish yourself as a credible expert in your niche.

Questions from the audience included some how-to questions and some that expressed concern for identifying the value that LinkedIn would provide versus the time required to set up an effective LinkedIn profile and participate in online networking with contacts. Chris indicated that if consultants set up their LinkedIn profile and contacts with a purpose in mind they are more likely to get a return on their LinkedIn investment.

Schamble. That’s conference co-founder Dick Pinsker’s twist on a golf scramble at Confab (the conference for successful consultants and those who want to be). At conferences the golf outing is often in a scramble format, where the teams play “best ball.” So, when you tee off, your foursome then hits from the best drive and so on, until you are on the green and you hit from the best putt. But, we have a challenge at the Confab golf outing. No only do we have really intelligent folks running this thing, but a certain someone - I will name no names - even though he is a someone with a military background (you know, that discipline and precision thing, oh-so-good for golfing?) and someone who is in a leadership position in IMC USA - seems to be on the winning team a lot. I’m not saying all the time, but… a lot. Oh, did I mention he has been playing golf for 40 years?

This year, the shamble. The way the shamble works is that we tee off and then choose the best ball. From that point on, we play our own game from the best ball and take the best individual score. The short game of golf is considered by many the critical skill of the game, so the pressure was on. And, each player on the team had to count a certain number of drives as the chosen drive for the team, so we couldn’t just rely on our strongest player. (Any strategy consultants out there?) Then, Dick threw in the clincher. At the end of play, we would draw numbers for one hole from the front nine and one from the back, the scores of which each team had to subtract from their total score.

What was the outcome? Well, that team with the certain someone did win. The prize for the winning team were very nice golf shirts. Doug Zogby, Confab Committee member and President of Got Game Consulting, and Technology Fair Participant Mike Goolden of L7 Performance Management got “closest to the tee” prizes as well.

How did I do? I’m Jennifer Beever, Marketing Chair for Confab, President of New Incite and author of the Confab blog (for now - we are just getting started). Well, when Dick described the format this morning, I thought that “shamble” described my golf game. You see, despite about some years of lessons and regular then irregular playing, I now only play golf once a year - at Confab! …I know, I know, life balance and all that, what can I say, I’m an independent consultant!… Today, after I removed all of the leaves and stickers from my clothes from searching for my golf balls in the weeds and after getting over the humiliation of having none (that’s zero, people!) of my drives from the first nine holes used for the team, I had some kind of redemption on the back nine holes. Actually, I really connected on a few drives and parred the 15th hole for the team’s low score. But, most importantly I had a great time, as did our entire group.

Thanks again to Dick Pinsker for organizing a great golf outing and for Wolf Run Golf Club accommodating  the Confab group again.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather for our annual Confab golf outing for consultants today. Wolf Run Golf Club provided excellent service and a beautiful course. Because the weather here has been warmer than usual, the trees were just turning yellow, gold, orange and red.

Participants included Dick Pinsker, co-founder of Confab, organizer of the golf outing and president of Pinsker and Associates, golf sponsor Guy Greco of Quadred (thank you!), Technology Fair participant Mike Goolden of L7 Performance Management, Cherrryll Sevy of Cypress Ridge Solutions, Mark Haas, former IMC USA Chair and principal consultant of Research and Organization Management, Don Scellato of Scellato Consulting Services, Doug Zogby of Got Game Consulting, Judith Light, CMC, Drumm McNaughton of The Change Leader, Jennifer Beever of New Incite Marketing, Dr. Sarah Layton of Corporate Strategy, Baldwin Tom of TB Group Consultants, and, last but not least, Lee Czarapata of Runzeimer International.

Where were you? More about the fun golf outing later - now I have to go to the opening reception for Confab…..

Confab 2008, the conference for successful consultants and those who want to be, is about to begin. Some consultants will play golf Saturday at the Wolf Run Golf Course. Is it a plus to be on the winning team? Or, is it better to win or play “good client golf?” 

At 6 PM the Confab opening reception begins in the Silver Baron C, D & E salons on the lobby level on the far side of the casino. The Silver Baron rooms are just beyond the elevator. 

On Sunday the pre-conference workshop, “The Consultant’s Guide to LinkedIn: How to Profit from Social Networking,” begins at 8 AM in Hall A at the Conference Center level. There will be a sign-in list of registrants at the door.

Registration begins Sunday at 8 AM and goes until 4:30 PM at the Conference Center level. The Consultants’ Technology Fair runs from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM in the Gold/Silver room at the Conference Center level.

Feel free to comment - what are you looking for from Confab? Do you think you will find it?

Confab is a conference for consultants by consultants that has been held in Reno, Nevada for the last 30 years. In many ways, Confab is the best kept secret of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC USA).
Confab was started as a conference where consultants could get together and, well…  …confab!

By the way, confab is short for confabulation, which basically means an informal conference or a casual chat. That definition is just how the idea started over 30 years ago. Now Confab is a powerful conference jam-packed with ideas and methodologies that consultants can implement to grow their consulting practices.

Confab 2008 will take place on October 25-28, 2008. The conference starts with a golf outing and a welcome reception on Saturday, October 25th. A pre-conference workshop “The Consultant’s Guide to LinkedIn: How to Profit from Social Networking” takes place on Sunday morning, followed by lunch and keynote speaker Sarah Miller Caldicott, great-grandniece of Thomas Edison and presenter of “Innovate like Edison.” Then, Confab is off and running with breakout and general sessions, networking, Sunday lunch and all meals from Monday breakfast through Tuesday lunch, a consultants bookstore, exhibits and a technology fair.

I’ve gotten many take-aways for my consulting practice at Confab, and I’ve met some very professional consultants who have become friends and work colleagues. In a way I can’t say enough about Confab, but through this blog I’m going to try! Stay tuned for updates on Confab 2008 plans, programs, and the many benefits consultants will get from attending this conference.