Consulting Life

9 Tips For Starting Into IT Consulting In Canada

merodgers — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:13:00 +0600

I'm going to write about the process of breaking into IT consulting. First I'm going to write a summarized, more condensed
version which breaks down the main must-have steps. Then I will in future postings look at each of these points in more detail.

Note that I've added (in Canada) because while I feel these lessons can be of use to IT consultants everywhere , there are
country specifics that must be considered.

Get a Lawyer. While this step makes many cringe, it really is a necessary evil. You need someone with legal expertise and experience to guide you through the fun that is setting up an incorporated company. This includes the necessary paperwork and filings to register the company within your province or country. At this point, decisions such as directors/shareholders/etc have to be made. The best advice I think I've received here is to 'keep it simple' at first. These type of things can be modified later. Be prepared though, this phase of things will cost you in excess of $1000 USD.
Get an Accountant. This is going to cost another $500+/year, but it will be the best money you spend in the early months of YourName.Com. Filing taxes for an incorporated company is very different than filing your personal tax return. If your accountant is good/nice/reasonable then they will also do your personal taxes at little extra cost. For business that you do within Canada, you have to pay the govt every few months the HST you collected during that period. So every 3 months you are sending *something* in to the Government. If you working under tight deadlines, this will be a pain as the time flies by. Having an accountant to handle all of the little things/rough edges can be crucial in you having your spare time to do what needs to be done.
Have some or a lot of experience, preferably in two or more core technologies. Are you an SQL expert? Pick up a Java book or course. Are you a wizard with CSS? Pick up a book on design patterns. One of the biggest rewards of consulting in IT is that successive projects may well be in entirely different verticals (tech-speak for markets). This also presents one of the biggest challenges, and that is forcing yourself to stay up to date on what is hot and what is not. If you can manage this step, it really helps in so many interconnected ways. You are interviewing for a position and are weak in Oracle? Relate what the client is working on and how your MySql experience can help them. I've already missed out on a couple of potentially lucrative Ruby On Rails positions due to a lack of experience/knowledge. Don't let that happen to you.
Have or make some consulting contacts in your local market. These will be your pillars and best insight into breaking and staying in the market or business. These contacts will be your source for potential new opportunities, and employers will contact *these* people, not the job boards for finding fresh candidates. Sometimes these contacts will cross/blur the line between consultant and recruiter, so try your best to figure that out up front.
Breaking in is hard, staying in is not as hard. Many times a consultant will start off with a 3 or 6 month contract, then decide that the lifestyle suits their personality. They will then go through the process of incorporating and begin their Consulting careers in earnest. Most employees like their job, benefits, etc... Not many will quit and say I'm going to become a consultant, and start from nothing. The best/easiest way is to secure a consulting position first (getting your feet wet, so to speak), and then the chain reaction of finding their next contract begins.
Have an online presence. Until recently, I did not follow my own advice here. My webpage is a relatively new site that I launched to basically state what I have to offer, in a semi-regularly updated manner. Depending on your source for graphic design skills and site needs, this may cost $200-$500 and up. Anything more than that, and you are probably doing overkill. Employers *will* google your name, and I feel this is even more likely when bringing in a consultant. This is something you will have little to no time to work on when you are actually in a position, but during your downtime it can be very nice to work on and a chance to show off some of the new skills you have learned.
Have approximately 6 months of living money saved in a savings account at any one time. This is advice I have had repeated to me by numerous consultants. This money will be your flexibility and freedom for picking/declining positions both now and in the future. Of course this varies for everyone. Consulting is not all about the money, it is all about the ability to work in positions that you enjoy and with people that inspire you. The money you have saved collecting interest is an ancilliary enabler to help you keep this freedom.
Have a thick skin. This is an entire article in itself, to come soon.
Go for it. Part of the excitement of breaking into consulting is the sense of the unknown regarding what will come next. I will not use the word "adventure" since I'm talking about ultimately sitting in a cubicle and typing on a keyboard, but you know what I'm getting at. You can't timidly make a bold move like this, and you have to have the attitude to support it. This also requires the support and encouragement of those around you. Talk to them, find out what they really think. Do they think it's a good idea? Why or why not?

Music Review: Concentration by Dog Day

merodgers — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:07:00 +0600

For something a little different. I recently did a review of Dog Day's new album for Herohill.com. I am an avid fan of theirs so was very pleased to be able to

get to hear the album so early on. I hopefully will do some more reviews here or there as time goes on.

Dog Day - Concentration review for Herohill.

Finding opportunities (1) PWGSC

merodgers — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:01:00 +0600

This will be the first in a series of posts on how consultants in Canada can best get exposed to opportunities on their business. Future posts will discuss the more traditional job sites (monster, careerbuilder, workopolis, etc...) but I wanted to start with a couple of lesser known (for Canadian) opportunities.

The Canadian government has a mishmash of different websites for finding places to offer or bid on services/goods. Some of these sites have confusing user interfaces, and it is really hard to know or guess at how much traffic these sites get.

Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) is larger older Government institution. Here is what they write on their About Page:

"Public Works and Government Services Canada's mandate is to be a common service agency for the Government of Canada's various departments, agencies and boards. With a strong focus on quality services and sound financial stewardship, we ensure optimum value by enabling other government departments and agencies to provide their programs and services to Canadians."

This doesn't mean very much to me, but just take my word for it that you can find gigs/opportunities here. Especially in lieu of all of the recent "stimulus" spending being thrown around both north and south of the border. Granted, most of this helps our fine friends in the construction industry, but there are still gems in the rough.

So you are a small company or independent consultant looking to get in on the action. You have to first go to the supplier registration page:

The steps listed are:

Review the content of the Trading Partner Agreement (TPA);
Complete the TPA signature;
Respond to the Mandatory Requirements; and
Sign the certifications applicable to your firm.
Obtain a Procurement Business Number (PBN)

Awfully straightforward .

The TPA is your standard disclaimer / law type stuff. The one bit that is interesting is that if there is a dispute between supplier and consumer, they submit a dispute report to the Minister, who responds within 15 days.

Step 2, completing the TPA signature. For this step, you need a PBN or Procurement Business Number. Signing up for these is no small task. You fill out this form and then print it out. With me so far?

Step 3. Responding to the Mandatory Requirements. You have to include the above signed form, include a Corporate Profile (in my case it is basically my webpage + resume), include a Human Resource Plan, as well as mention any relevant projects. These are all basically 4 separate pages printed out to be faxed.

Step 4. Fill out another form called Certifications, which is alot like the TPA Signature form, but just includes a bunch of more of regulations and spaces to sign. They could definitely optimize this process a little bit.

Step 5. Obtain a PBN. You wouldn't have made it to this step if you didn't already have one.

You then fax this package to your regional representative and wait. This entire process is VERY similar to getting registered with the provincial standing offer list, which I'll cover on another post. The most annoying part of this for me is 1) the waiting 2) having to dig up the articles of incorporation and make a copy 3)faxing anything :)

I'll let you know any hiccups that occur with my application.

Welcome to BlogEngine.NET 1.5.0

Admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:00:00 +0600

If you see this post it means that BlogEngine.NET 1.5.0 is running and the hard part of creating your own blog is done. There is only a few things left to do.

Write Permissions

To be able to log in to the blog and writing posts, you need to enable write permissions on the App_Data folder. If you’re blog is hosted at a hosting provider, you can either log into your account’s admin page or call the support. You need write permissions on the App_Data folder because all posts, comments, and blog attachments are saved as XML files and placed in the App_Data folder.

If you wish to use a database to to store your blog data, we still encourage you to enable this write access for an images you may wish to store for your blog posts. If you are interested in using Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, VistaDB, or other databases, please see the BlogEngine wiki to get started.

Security

When you've got write permissions to the App_Data folder, you need to change the username and password. Find the sign-in link located either at the bottom or top of the page depending on your current theme and click it. Now enter "admin" in both the username and password fields and click the button. You will now see an admin menu appear. It has a link to the "Users" admin page. From there you can change the username and password. Passwords are hashed by default so if you lose your password, please see the BlogEngine wiki for information on recovery.

Configuration and Profile

Now that you have your blog secured, take a look through the settings and give your new blog a title. BlogEngine.NET 1.4 is set up to take full advantage of of many semantic formats and technologies such as FOAF, SIOC and APML. It means that the content stored in your BlogEngine.NET installation will be fully portable and auto-discoverable. Be sure to fill in your author profile to take better advantage of this.

Themes and Widgets

One last thing to consider is customizing the look of your blog. We have a few themes available right out of the box including two fully setup to use our new widget framework. The widget framework allows drop and drag placement on your side bar as well as editing and configuration right in the widget while you are logged in. Be sure to check out our home page for more theme choices and downloadable widgets to add to your blog.

On the web

You can find BlogEngine.NET on the official website. Here you'll find tutorials, documentation, tips and tricks and much more. The ongoing development of BlogEngine.NET can be followed at CodePlex where the daily builds will be published for anyone to download.

Good luck and happy writing.

The BlogEngine.NET team