8iconPeople: the Who-How Solution

Stewart Research, Inc.—a fictitious name, along with the others in this tale, which is true in the main elements—once seemed on the verge of big money.

Frank Stewart, a slim, intense young chain-smoker, was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from a large company to monitor congressmen and bureaucrats influencing certain business activities. He planned to sum up gigantic piles of newspaper stories inside a computer. Then his early-warning service would ferret out patterns for his benefactor and other businessmen trying to keep up with the vagaries of government. Stewart’s plan may come to pass, but last I knew, he was fighting off unfounded rumors of bankruptcy.

“We’ve wasted upwards of $40,000 on computer consultants and the consequences of their ‘advice,’” Stewart told me in the modest white-frame home where he and his wife lived and worked and took in boarders.

“And that doesn’t include the thousands of dollars in business we lost because our computer was down at the wrong times.

“I had to lay off five people largely because of the consultants’ lack of interest in anything but turning a buck off us.”

Stewart’s story illustrates the need for the Who-How Solution in hiring consultants. Who-How may also help micro users train employees and get the most out of their data-processing departments.

Who-How is nothing more than the five Ws and the H of newspaperdom. Like a reporter, you simply ask, “Who?” “What?” “Why?” “When?” “Where?” and “How?” and especially “How much?” Ask those questions often. Ask them when:

1. Deciding whether to hire a computer consultant. How much in your time and your people’s will it costnotto have one?

2. Hiring and using a consultant. It isn’t just a matter of asking, “Who?” Ask, too, “Who cares?” Who cares about a consultant’stwo decades with IBM? What counts is how much he can do foryou. Is the IBM experience relevant?

3. Training employees. Don’t clutter your people’s minds with computerese not related to their jobs. Use the five Ws and the H to strip the training to the basics—which, by the way, almost surely won’t include BASIC.

4. Working with your company’s data-processing people. Know which questions to ask to find out the computer crew’s true attitudes about micros. And come up with the right answers of your own if the mainframers feel threatened by your interest in do-it-yourself computing. Good data-processing people, however, won’t be frightened—quite the reverse.

The scary aspect of Frank Stewart’s consultant fiascoes is that he and his people were hardly lost amid high tech.

“Some of us were inventors,” Stewart said, and his vice-president, Bob Hillard, even had a smattering of the FORTRAN programming language. Stewart’s firm didn’t rush blindly into computerization. Originally, it had been hand culling articles from 140 periodicals and 16 major daily newspapers. “We sat down,” Hillard recalled, “and worked out a mathematical formula to give weight to a particular article by mention of certain words, certain individuals, certain companies.” Existing data bases like The Source and Dialog just wouldn’t do. You couldn’t easily use them to search out the political patterns affecting the fortunes of Stewart’s clients.

Stewart spent $31,000 on a computer and soon was suffering defective circuits and junky software. He paid a secretary to cram almost a million words of newspaper articles into the machine’s hard-disk memory, but it still couldn’t fetch facts as easily as he’d hoped. Then the data-base program, the one he was using to store facts and juggle them around, crashed—apparently overwhelmed by the volume of data. Micro data bases at the time, the early 1980s, couldn’t easily handle big hunks of text. Stewart couldn’t retrieve whole articles.

It was time for a consultant. A good consultant (the “Who”) theoretically could write or install a new program (the “What”) in an effective way (the “How”), justify his actions (the “Why”), and ideally do everything at a reasonable price (the “How much”) before the data base grew toounwieldyunwieldy(the “When”). Stewart wanted him working on his own premises (the “Where”) as much as possible so he could supervise him.

“Our first consultant lasted all of four days,” Stewart said. “He was abrasive, nasty, and didn’t know what he was doing. One of our staffers was so frustrated trying to work with him that shewept. We’d hired him because he was a friend of a friend and said, ‘I’m a computer programmer. I can fix it for you.’ We never quite could pin him down about his background. We were so burned that for five or six months we put off hiring another consultant.

“And when we did get one,” said Stewart, “we wanted a solid, established firm.”

So he went to a government contractor headquartered in an imposing building, the size of a small public library. The consultants even owned the same-model computer that Stewart’s company did.

Unfortunately, however, they were using different software for much different purposes. Stewart’s needs were new to them.

“Look at MDBS,” Hillard recalls telling the contractor. “It really looks like a good package.”

But he says the consultants told him they hadn’t even heard of it.

That in itself might have been a tipoff that Stewart had hired the wrong people for the job. MDBS stood for Micro Data Base Systems. Ads and reviews about it had appeared inByteand other prominent publications of the micro world.

With the clock ticking away at up to $35 an hour, the consultants searched for data-base software meeting Stewart’s detailed specifications. “Three weeks later,” Hillard said, “they handed me a bill for $2,500 and said, ‘The package you need to use is MDBS.’ I said, ‘Where is the work, where are the hours in relationship to the $2,500 bill?’ It went around in circles.” Stewart and Hillard must have remembered the old saying that a consultant borrows your watch to tell you the time of day and then charges you for it.

According to Stewart, in fact, the consultants based most of the report on material his company had given them.

By think-tank standards in his area, Stewart may have gotten a bargain. Dealing with consultants new to micro data bases, however, he was in effect paying their tuition.

“The federal government must like them immensely,” Stewart said, “because they do good, documented work in the fields they have expertise in. But a small businessman had no business using them. After two and one-half months we had nothing but recommendations on the data base—and a stack of bills”—$2,500 high.

But there was hope. Stewart’s corporate benefactors were sticking with him. If he could get his data base running, he could easily recoup his losses, offering clients a treasure trove of information about government policy-making affecting them. Although Stewartthought of himself as a truth seeker, his vice-president was bluntly a money man. “We would have sold our service for a million a year,” Hillard said, “and we would have netted $600,000. We were using four people to feed the articles into the computer, but that would have changed, because optical readers eventually could scan magazine articles and newsprint.”

So now Hillard shopped around for a new savior to unravel the complexities of the MDBS software that he had settled on.

He found three possibilities. One consultant, a micro expert, was snowed under with work, and another man had only mainframe experience. So Hillard and Stewart chose Fred Brown, a retired military officer who had worked not only on big computers but also little Radio Shacks and TeleVideos. In fact, Brown came recommended by the manager of a local computer store. The manager leveled with Stewart. He said he and Brown were together in a partnership developing software for lawyers’ offices. Hillard asked only two people about Brown. And both references came from the computer-store manager with the business relationship with the consultant. Inquiring about Brown, however, Hillard asked some good questions. Did Brown document the software properly? Did he, in other words, tell how to use or change it? Did his software work? Did he meet deadlines? Did he live up to all the specifications in his contracts? “I got affirmative answers to most of these questions,” Hillard said. One reference said a software project of Brown’s hadn’t come in on time but brushed off the problem as a hardware one.

Unfortunately, Hillard didn’t askallthe right questions. Brown had never before worked with the brand of computer that Stewart Research was using; nor was he fully comfortable at the time with the exact kind of software used at the company.

Brown, however, struck Hillard as “a very nice professional.” He wore three-piece suits, lived in a $140,000 home with several computers in the basement, and held a masters degree from an Ivy League school.

“No problem,” Brown told Hillard. “Listen, I charge——” He gave an hourly figure to the nearest cent; $30.02, we’ll say.

“What?” asked Hillard. “Why 0.02an hour?”

“I like to be fair about my salary, and that gives me $30,000 a year.”

“Okay,” said Hillard, “that’s cute.”

Brown wasn’t about to apply for welfare. On top of the $30,000 for consulting part of the time, he was enjoying income from sales of computer hardware. In short, he came across as successful and honest. And he may have been. Just the same, client and consultant were clearly mismatched.

Their downfall was a familiar kind—software problems.

You could customize the MDBS program in FORTRAN or BASIC. The earlier consultants, the ones with the large government contractor, had suggested FORTRAN. Brown himself was more familiar with that than with BASIC. And Stewart was convinced that FORTRAN would make the best use of software already purchased. So Brown went ahead with it despite three strikes against him:

1. The computer company’s FORTRAN, according to Stewart, was as badly botched as itshardware.hardware.

2. FORTRAN wasn’t as good as BASIC for micro data bases that stashed away English prose rather than mainly numbers. Another consultant was amazed when I told him that Brown had used FORTRAN in a data base storing newspaper stories. “You can use it if you like,” he said, “but you’ll lose something. It’s like trying to translate Hemingway into pidgin English.”

3. Brown was still basically a mainframer. And micro FORTRAN was different from the kind used at large military installations. Writing software for micros is like writing short stories instead of novels. You’ve got to be more elegant and get to the point faster. A micro’s memory simply lacks the capacity of a mainframe and brooks less sloppiness than would a larger machine. Many great novelists could never write decent short stories, and many first-class mainframers just couldn’t code cleverly or deviously enough for micros—couldn’t electronically trick them into thinking they were larger machines.

“What happened,” said Hillard, “is that we were paying for Brown’s training on how to use FORTRAN on a micro. He spent forty or fifty hours developing specifications for the data base and writing the code. This went on and on. Brown kept running into all these problems, and he could have cleared up some with just a quick call to the manufacturer.” Meanwhile, the money clock was ticking.

Several months later, thousands of dollars richer from those $30.02-hours, Brown threw up his hands. “This isn’t going to work in FORTRAN at all,” he said. “Maybe we should do this in BASIC.”

“So,” Hillard told me, “all the work he’d done up to that point was out the window.”

“And on top of that,” Stewart said, “we were anticipating our new software package and didn’t care to feed the information twice into the computer. So we built up a backlog of well over 10,000 articles waiting for the software that never came.”

Brown’s clock ticked away for several thousand dollars more in time, bringing the total billing to $8,630.81. Then it stopped. Stewart Research had simply run out of money.

Stewart’s corporate sponsor could send no more. “Their pockets,” he said, “just weren’t deep enough to subsidize both our own computer literacy and that of our consultants.” When I talked to Stewart in mid-1983, his computer was doing word processing and other minor chores. “But,” he said, “it does hardly enough cross-referencing to be a major data bank.” His research firm faced some $30,000 in debts, including much of the $2,500 bill from the consultants with the library-sized building; and he and his wife were the only two employees left in Stewart R & D. He still hoped to get the data base going, however. “We’re going to become computer consultants in self-defense,” said Stewart. “I’ve done nothing but work on this computer for a year.” It would be nice to be able to do the same, but most of us lack the time or talent; the challenge is to find the right computer consultant so you won’t end up feeling you must do the work on your own.

Not so coincidentally, Hillard himself actually did go on to become a computer consultant part time. He wasn’t the smartest or the best credentialed, but he had what many of the more established consultants lacked—empathy and humility. Don’t shrug off those traits. The real question, as one consultant pointed out to me, isn’t just whether someone is competent; it’s whether he’s competent enough at the job he’s doing for you. Never forget that when pondering the “Who?” and “What?”

Stewart and Hillard obviously aren’t the only people who didn’t ask the right questions in time. A sail maker wasted $18,000 on a computer system recommended by a consultant. The machine didn’t work right with the hard-disk memory, and it lacked proper shielding against the 60-cycle hum given off by power lines. By the time Hillard was on the scene, the consultant had left town. He says the computer was such a disaster that “I suggested to the client that he get a length of rope and use it as an anchor because it was unfixable.” In another case, a truck-rental firm spent $30,000 for $15,000 of computer equipment. And then the consultant didn’t even supply instructions to operate and modify the software. “As far as I know,” said a more ethical expert, “he’s still a consultant. Computers are mystical, and most people don’t know when they’ve got a good system or when they’ve got a bad one.”

“The real problem,” Hillard correctly said of consultants, “is that the microcomputer field has only been around since the mid-seventies and things are moving so rapidly. It’s hard for anyone to keep up, consultant or layman.”

There is, too, a nasty economic fact. A micro consultant can’treach full prosperity, in many instances, without having ties with stores or manufacturers. Indeed, most micro consulting nowadays is done in effect by sales reps recommending systems to their customers. How objective can they be? Even conscientious consultants—independent or those with ties—may still favor the computers and software with which they’re most familiar. The man and the machine in effect become one package.

Another anticonsultant argument is that small computers may soon be inexpensive and simple enough to make consultants much less necessary. You don’t use a consultant to buy a $1,000 typewriter. And by the time you read this, or a few years afterward, we’ll have good, complete word processors selling for no more—with printers.

Yet another anticonsultant argument is that you may have computer-wise friends in your own business or profession, smart people you trust. They may actually anticipate some of your needs better than would a consultant. Moreover, it’s been said that if you know enough to pick the right consultant, then you really don’t need one.

I’m not sure. As one consultant pointed out, it’s like choosing doctors. You can be good at choosing one without necessarily knowing brain surgery.

I was a borderline case. I still might have bought a Kaypro without Michael Canyes’s approval, since I knew another writer familiar with the glories of the Osborne who appreciated the greater glories of the Kaypro. On the other hand, with my consultant friend’s guidance, I could shop for the lowest price rather than the most technical help from the dealer. And Michael steered me away from the dot-matrix printer, which, with their inferior print quality at the time, would have been bad news for me. I was lucky. I had befriended Michael through an Osborne user group at a time when he himself was looking for advice on writing, so he didn’t even charge me. You may be similarly lucky if you have a skill a computer consultant needs. But don’t count on it. So often, free consultants are worth their charges.

Had I not been as fortunate and had I experienced difficulties, I would have been willing to pay for advice. And mind you, my whole system costs less than $3,000. “You don’t want to spend $10,000 on a computer system,” Michael warns, “and find it doesn’t do what you want. You’d be better off spending several hundred dollars or more to learn exactly what you want and get some help installing it. Think of the business you’ll lose if you install your computer and it doesn’t work as planned. It depends. You could also spend a lot of time shopping and talking to people and not pay a consultant. It depends what your time is worth. Theaverage guy has one or two uses for his computer in mind, and he doesn’t want to piddle around with the complexities of the thing. He just wants to cut right down to the core of it and get this job moving. If a consultant spends two or three hours with someone discussing a micro, it may cost perhaps $75 or $100. But the client might master in a day what might normally take a week or even several.” The wrong consultant, however, may actually cost you more—in money and time.

When shopping around for the right one, you’ll first want to consider awhat—what work you need him for. Forget about computers. Does the task make sense commercially? Are you realistic about its costs? A former New England consultant tells of a baseball enthusiast who wanted to recreate some board games on the computer screen. It might have worked. But the man didn’t just want a computerized arcade game here—rather, a replication of ball parks, with their actual proportions. “He had a statistical background,” recalled the ex-consultant, “and had done some statistical consulting for a professional sports organization.” But there was a problem. The man believed that the consultant could perform this miracle on an Apple for less than $5,000. Actually, the program would have cost $50,000 to write—probably more than the man could quickly recoup through sales of the program. The consultant turned down this mission impossible. But the client let his enthusiasm for the project blot out his business sense and in fact squandered $55,000 on another consultant, who, incidentally, botched the job.

Now move on to the details of the work you want done. Do as with software; get as clear an idea as you can of the paperwork you’re computerizing. You may want your electronic files organized entirely differently from your paper ones. Whatever the case, plan ahead. You don’t want to—as somebody once put it—automate your confusion. And there’s another reason for knowing your precise needs before calling a consultant. Trying to jack up the bill, some experts can be brilliant at inventing new problems to fit their prepackaged solutions. Or they may downplay your real needs because the answers are not in their tool kits.

You’ll also want to decide if the consultant is just to give advice or more. Don’t pay simply for advice, then expect him to haggle with equipment suppliers and install the software.

And what about other services besides advice? Take the task of keying paper records into your computer system; some consulting firms will line up temporaries for the job. That way your normal people must worry only about their regular work and learning the new computerized routine. Of course, thisdata-entrywork may itself be part of the training, and at least if your people enterthe material, they’ll more easily find it later on.

As you define thewhat, you also get into awhen—your deadline for computerization and how long the consultant or the firm is to remain on the job. There is a happy medium. You want him around long enough, full time or part time, to get the system up and running. But don’t count on making him in effect an employee. Hire permanent people if that’s going to happen. Joseph Auer, a $1,500-a-day computer-negotiations expert with blue-chip clients like New York Life, tells what can happen when consultants stay too long. A bank used a consulting firm for years. The outsiders became the main people familiar with the electronic links between the automatic teller machines and the big computer. Then the bank woke up. It realized that the outsiders could cripple its operation. The consultants didn’t blackmail the bank, but it was worried enough not to risk incurring their displeasure. Rather than farming out the work to a facilities management firm as planned, it extended the existing consultants’ contract, with the understanding that the outsiders would make the bank’s own people self-sufficient.

Next go on to thewhoquestion. A generalist who’s a good, quick learner might be a better deal for you than an overpriced guru who limits himself to one area. It’s like medicine. I’d much rather be cut up by a smart general surgeon with a steady hand than by a mediocre cancer specialist. Of course, for a complex job, you want the equivalent of a top cancer surgeon. At Stewart, anyway, the right specialist might have “programmed” the company to succeed.

Intertwined with thewhoare twohow muches—the size of your company and the task for which you need the consultant. Are you a small businessman or a Fortune 500 executive? The consulting needs of the two categories may overlap. The general rule, however, is that a large company will feel more comfortable with a large consulting firm (GM, say, with Arthur D. Little) and a small company will be better off with a small one. A small businessman may enjoy more personal attention from a small consultant. He knows the people he’s dealing with, and it’s harder for the firm to pass the work on to a green employee—while charging the full price. The smallness of the firm, of course, makes it that much more important to check out references. Of course, sometimes the small guy may fit the large company’s bill; Michael Canyes, for instance, has tutored WordStar classes for the Federal Trade Commission—a good buy for the taxpayers, considering his skill and low overhead. “The smaller consulting firms,” he wisely says, “are likely to save a large business money when the consultants are working within their limitations.”

Canyes, however, at the time I wrote this chapter, wasn’t theconsultant to install a $5 million micro network. He might be one day, but back then he just didn’t have the resources to do the job justice. A Big Eight accounting firm would have been better than Michael; in fact, an executive with a large company mightn’t need an outside consultant of any kind—large or small. His or her employer may boast a large microcomputer center and a helpful data-processing department. But you never know. Sometimes, Data Processing is either ignorant of micros or discourages their use. Ask some test questions. Has anyone in Data Processing ever installed a micro for business purposes? Do many in the department have micros at home? Are they reading the micro magazines and newspapers—InfoWorld, say, rather than just magazines about the big machines? If Data Processing isn’t comfortable with micros, you’d do well turning to the outside.

One of the qualifications for the outsider, of course, might be his ability to work harmoniously with Data Processing if you’re hoping to hook into the mainframe. Then again, your micro might be a stand-alone, not exchanging information with other computers, so that you needn’t worry what Data Processing thinks. Even if you’re using a Data-Processing staffer or other internal person, you still may want to find out his track record. Don’t be a corporate chauvinist. Every company has its share of gobblers.

Turning to an outside consultant? Then, through computer stores, you might try to track down a local users group for a brand of hardware or software. Go to a meeting. Find out whom the members regard as an ace consultant. In fact, try to go to several user groups—remember the preference that Apple owners, say, may have in favor of an Apple solution or that Kaypro owners may have in favor of a Kaypro one. Mere word of mouth, though, is still no substitute for a thorough interview with the consultant and reference checks. Certainly, too, you can’t use a consultant just because he or she shows up in the directory of a consultants group. Charles E. Harris, a lawyer who, with Joseph Auer, wroteComputer Contract Negotiations, says, “I know of no organizational membership that proves anything other than membership and the fact that the man’s paid his dues.”

“The person to watch out for in particular is the guy who’s doing this part time and he works on a mainframe or something like that,” warns Mark Robinson, a California consultant. He’s been in the micro business for years and handles dealer relations for Lexisoft, a software company—a micro one, mind you. “Anybody who hasn’t made this his business full time for a significant period of time,” he said of micro consulting, “is a great risk.” Consultants can relax. Robinson said eighteen months could be “significant.” I myself wouldn’t shrug off the part timers fromData-Processing departments if they have a long list of pleased micro clients. But as a generality Robinson’s observations seem valid. Not only is micro software written differently from the mainframe kind; there’s also a different mentality. Cloistered away in the computer rooms, some mainframers may strive for technical perfection at the expense of economy. “They may be right about things,” Robinson says, “but that’s not the point. The point may be more like what Mr. Osborne prates about all the time—mere adequacy. I’m thinking of posting an aphorism on the wall fromThe Soul of a New Machine: not everything worth doing is worth doing well.”

The same wisdom might apply to consultants. You don’t need a $1,500-a-day man to help you choose a good micro for word processing—not unless you’re about to buy a few hundred. Opinions vary about pay. Some observers of consultants say you get what you pay for. “There’s very little relationship between pay and value except for one thing,” Robinson says. “People who don’t charge enough eventually go out of business, or that business. If they don’t charge enough, they’re not likely to have been around long enough to have gotten experience for you.”

Then again, as Robinson points out, experience in the microcomputer business rapidly decays in value, weakening the relationship between pay and competence. Back in the late 1970s Bernard McGowan, a Massachusetts ophthalmologist, bought an Apple and hired an expert at all of $5 an hour. His consultant was a scruffy young man in an old jacket. And this guru had himself owned an Apple only a day. But it didn’t matter. His name was Mitch Kapor, and he was good, apparently, for he went on to found Lotus Development Corporation, the company that developed the best-selling 1-2-3 integrated program. Today McGowan is still using $5-an-hour men at times. He told me, in fact, that one consultant, a teenager digesting software manuals for him, doubled as a baby-sitter. No, this isn’t an argument for merciless exploitation of child labor à la nineteenth-century England. For a small businessman with a simple task, however, and no pressing deadlines, a teenager might do well. Why must every sixteen-year-old be flipping hamburgers around after school at McDonald’s?

But teenage computer geniuses are special cases. Don’t count on a $5-an-hour consultant to write up a complex accounting program that you need done within three months to avoid bankruptcy.

Moreover, if you’re a business of any size, you might end up spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars just to audition consultants. That’s right; you may pay them. Canyes will talk to people by phone if he thinks they’re good prospects, but the momenthe gets in the car, the meter starts running. That’s basically in line with what Adam Green, a software training expert, told me. Green has conducted seminars for big-name clients like Price Waterhouse and Xerox, and earlier he worked as a programmer and salesman, so he’s been around. “A good consultant in my view would come out [in many cases] and spend a day or two looking at the operation and then give back a written proposal saying how they could help the client,” Green said. “And then they should charge the client about $250 for that.”

“If someone comes out and spends a day or two with you and writes something up for free, obviously they don’t have anything better to do. They’re not working. They’re amateurs. They don’t consider their time worth anything.” Paying a consultant to write a proposal, you’ll learn (1) if he can communicate in comprehensible English, (2) if he can think logically, and (3) if he understands your business and its needs.

But maybe that’s a step or so ahead of where you now are in the game. Having found a promising candidate, make certain you feel comfortable with him or her. Trust your instincts. Beware of snake-oil artists who, through greed or incompetence, may actually increase your time and expense. People like Bob Hillard and Michael Canyes come across as teacherlike in their eagerness to pass on their wisdom to the appreciative. But not all consultants, in and out of computers, seem that way. A few might not even give you a written report of their findings. Many intimidate you through jargon, even through dress. Quite correctly, some young business school hotshots have been depicted as punks in pin-striped suits. “You have to know what your client wears and dress one level above him,” said an ex-Bain and Company man. “If he wears a sport coat, you wear a suit. If you’re meeting him in a midwestern cornfield and he’s wearing a T-shirt, you wear a button-down. You might actually drive to his office in beige pants, a jacket, and a tie. But you can look in through the window when you get out of your car and then take off as much as you have to.”[31]The consultant wasn’t in the computer trade, but he might as well have been. One industry magazine began a “So You Want to be a Consultant” article with a warning against polyester.

“Well,” I asked Mark Robinson, “what about dress? Can you trust a consultant in a three-piece suit more than one who looks like a refugee from a university computer center?”

“It’s really irrelevant,” he said, “I’d look more at things like Can the guy focus on the relevant features of my business? Does he seem to understand what my business is about? This is one ofthe things that probably isn’t even related to the number of years in micros or computers or what not.” Robinson suggests asking yourself, “Does he quickly grasp the nature of my relationships with my suppliers, my clients, my promotion methods? Is he focusing on the technical solutions rather than my needs first? Does he even consider a question like whether I need a computer at all? Does he try to look at the highest-priority needs that I have in terms of the effect on my bottom line? Does he really have a grasp on why I might have a computer—to move into new things and serve my customers better, to replace existing functions, and so on? Does he know general things like that? If he doesn’t have that sort of perspective, if he isn’t even able to back off as to whether I should have a computer, I may be getting a slightly different type of salesman, someone who is committed to a computer solution, for instance, and isn’t really looking at it from my viewpoint. He is not totally professional.” You might still use such a person, but you’d better consider his limitations and biases.

I asked about “pure” consultants versus those selling software or hardware.

“Most consultants,” said Robinson, “have found that small businessmen’s budgets for pure consulting and their appreciation of it aren’t high enough so they make enough money. So they’ve got to sell software and hardware. And also purity means that a consultant is spread too thin. He’s not able to specialize and know enough about a particular package to be competent in it. So either he has a superficial view of these packages, or else he’s a partisan.” While working as a full-time consultant, Robinson hoped to maintain his purity. “I found myself dealing with a lot of invoices of fairly small amounts,” he said, “and most of my support came from contract programming.”

What with the line so thin between salesman and consultant, you should politely but persistently ask about business connections that could sway their judgment.

Obviously, too, you’ll want a consultant’s résumé if he or she has one. He should. One way or another you’re after the normal personnel-office answers—his schooling (anything that could help him understand your business?), his previous jobs (one computer consultant ran a nightclub once—perhaps not such a bad background for an expert dealing with small businesses), maybe even if he has an arrest record (a perfectly suitable question if he’s setting up an accounting system or doing security consulting). Be polite but aggressive. By not shying away from the basics, you’ll be reminding him who’s in charge—the client. Don’t forget thewhy. Why is he in “consulting”? It isn’t a euphemism for unemployment,presumably. Also, why is he working with micros rather than mainframes? Attitude matters as much as brains and skill. Ideally, your consultant will be comfortable with the flora and fauna outside the antiseptic computer rooms. While he’s auditioning, see if that’s true of him.

How do you tell? Introduce him to your people, not just your executives. Encourage them to ask questions. If the consultant condescends toward a secretary or clerk now, he may very well do so toward you later. And if he rubs your people the wrong way, they may resent him in the future and take it out on the computerization project.

Well, there’s a caveat here. Maybe the specs for the job are so clear-cut that your consultant can work in a little corner away from the rest of the world. Withpersonalcomputing, that’s not going to happen as much as with mainframes.

In winding up the interview, ask about the future. Will the consultant be around in the future to do work or answer questions? He won’t be? You still might use him. But police him very carefully to make certain he’s following standardized procedures that another consultant can pick up on. You don’t want your business to go down the tubes when your software man goes off to find his karma atop Mt. Fuji.

Satisfied? Then move on to references—which, if you’re a small, budget-minded business, you might want checked before a full-fledged audition.

Remember Stewart’s ordeal. Ask for the names of people whom the consultant served in tasks similar to the proposed one. Request ten names. The consultant needn’t have done—in each case—jobs like the proposed one. Moreover, you often don’t have to call more than five or six references. But with ten names, at least you’ll know you’re far from the first client. Don’t, incidentally, phone just the references at the top of the list; outfox the consultant in your most constructive way.

You’ll want the references to tell you the usual—what the consultant achieved within the time agreed. Would they use him or her again? What kind of hardware, what software, did the consultant recommend? The same kind for clients with different needs? Be on guard if he seems to have a one-shoe-fits-all philosophy. Also, ask about the references themselves. See if they have any connections with the consultant, social or business.

How many consultants should you try out before signing the contract? That’s up to your needs and your budget. There’s no law saying you have to go through all the screening steps here in every case. Why pay $250 to a consultant to audition when thatvery likely will be the cost of the whole job (assuming you’re lucky enough to find one willing to take on a project with such a low budget)?

For all tasks, though, even small ones, you’d do well to bother with at least one formality—a contract with your micro consultant.

■ ■ ■

A Sample Consultant’s Contract(Featuring Some Plain English From aWashington Lawyer)No, you’re not going to pay a lawyer $50 to draw up a contract for a consultant doing a $60 modification of WordStar.But you can help protect yourself with your own version of the sample contract below. It’s nothing more than a letter in simple English. William Wewer, however, the Washington lawyer who drafted it, says it probably would be just as binding legally as a document filled with “whereases.”

A Sample Consultant’s Contract(Featuring Some Plain English From aWashington Lawyer)

A Sample Consultant’s Contract

(Featuring Some Plain English From a

Washington Lawyer)

No, you’re not going to pay a lawyer $50 to draw up a contract for a consultant doing a $60 modification of WordStar.

But you can help protect yourself with your own version of the sample contract below. It’s nothing more than a letter in simple English. William Wewer, however, the Washington lawyer who drafted it, says it probably would be just as binding legally as a document filled with “whereases.”

Dear——:This will confirm our agreement that you will perform the following[software?]services:

Dear——:

This will confirm our agreement that you will perform the following[software?]services:

[Precisely list the services in numbered paragraphs.]

You have represented to me that you can complete this project by[date].You will charge me $—— per hour for your consulting time. Do not exceed $—— without my written consent.You agree that you are performing these services as an independent consultant and are not my employee.If you are willing to work under the terms of this letter agreement, please sign the enclosed copy and return it by[date].

You have represented to me that you can complete this project by[date].You will charge me $—— per hour for your consulting time. Do not exceed $—— without my written consent.

You agree that you are performing these services as an independent consultant and are not my employee.

If you are willing to work under the terms of this letter agreement, please sign the enclosed copy and return it by[date].

Under your signature, use this language:

I agree to and accept the terms of this agreement to[quick description of service provided].———- [consultant’s name], ———- [date of signing]

I agree to and accept the terms of this agreement to[quick description of service provided].

———- [consultant’s name], ———- [date of signing]

Remember, this sample is just a starter. See BackupVIII, “Consultant Contracts: Some Who-How Questions”, for a list of some of the points a contract might address. One of the more important ones is ownership and control of software. If you want to own the newly developed programs and keep them away from your competitors, here’s what Wewer might insert after the paragraph saying the consultant isn’t your employee:

I am paying you to do this work for me alone and require that you not retain any copies of it or give any copies to anyone else ortell anyone else how to recreate what you have done for me. We agree that the software you create for me will be my trade secret.

“‘Trade secret’ is a key phrase to get in there,” Wewer says. “Then it’s within common law.”Again, your informal contract won’t give you iron-clad protection—that could depend on the mood of a judge—but it’s better than nothing. “It’s the handshake deals,” Wewer says, “that always fall apart.”

“‘Trade secret’ is a key phrase to get in there,” Wewer says. “Then it’s within common law.”

Again, your informal contract won’t give you iron-clad protection—that could depend on the mood of a judge—but it’s better than nothing. “It’s the handshake deals,” Wewer says, “that always fall apart.”

■ ■ ■

“The real problem,” Adam Green says, “is that no one ever has to sign a contract. People get concerned. They say, ‘Boy, lawyers cost a lot,’ and I know the feeling.” Then Green brings up an exception to that opinion, lawyers. “I know a lot of consultants who will never work for lawyers because as far as lawyers are concerned the job is never complete. They understand what it means to be complete.” Their contracts reflect this; yours should, too. Have the consultant do the first draft of the contract, perhaps; but don’t shy away from extensive changes if need be. “Hell,” tell him, “that’s what your word processor’s for.” Back out of the deal if he isn’t reasonable now. He might not be later on.

When hammering out a consulting contract, you should fret over three variables emphasized by Joe Auer:

1. “How long is it going to take?2. “How much money does it cost?3. “What’s the quality of the work?

1. “How long is it going to take?

2. “How much money does it cost?

3. “What’s the quality of the work?

“If you tie down the money and the quality and not the time,” he warns, “you give them a license to loaf. If you tie down the quality and time and not the money, you give them a license to steal. If you tie down the money and time but not the quality, you give them a license to cheat.”

Who-How counts just as much in training your people as in the selection of consultants:

1. Who’s teaching? Can he or she communicate well with thestudents, and how adaptable to computers are the people getting the instruction?

2. What task is being taught? A very teachable one?

3. Why is the material taught? To make your people computer literate in a broad way? Just to help them do their present jobs better?

4. When do the students learn? On their time or yours? Will you reward them in any way for their extra effort?

5. Where is the learning happening? Ideally, your students can take the machines home if they want—one advantage of transportables like the IBM portable and its work-alikes.

6. How do the students learn? Through instruction manuals, mainly, or through early experience at the keyboard? Do they suffer through irrelevant exercises, or do they start right away on assignments similar to their jobs? In fact, do they start immediately on their normal work, as some training experts recommend? Do the students work with teaching disks? And are the disks interactive, as Adam Green, the training expert, correctly recommends? Do the disks, in other words, require you to type in a thoughtful response?

“How much?” also figures here. Consider the cost of a good training program versus your losses from misused or underused people. In the future you may want an office filled with people conversant with WordStar or dBASE, but don’t shrug off valued employees who can’t even play an Atari game. Tutor them if need be. Bend. You needn’t be sentimental, just practical. Don’t waste the Mahony Advantage, as I’ll call it; don’t throw away a mixture of background and experience that silicon won’t ever fully replicate.

Unfortunately, Jim Mahony’s employer didn’t take full advantage of the Mahony Advantage.

Mahony, a white-haired man with a ruddy face like Tip O’Neill’s, was a popular local columnist at my old paper, theJournal, in Lorain, Ohio. He barely survived computerization. In fact, he barely survived. He suffered a heart attack that may or may not have been brought on by the added stress. His ordeal is a preview of what some companies may expect as small computers—or terminals like Mahony’s—become requirements instead of options in many businesses. It is a fitting argument for tutoring or other adjustments for key employees. Within the newspaper industry—more computerized than most fields by now—you’ll find few Jim Mahonys today. But many other businesses are now wasting the Mahony Advantage.

At theJournal, readership surveys showed Mahony’s column was one of the main draws. He was a native of his steel town, a perfect counterpoint in a newsroom dominated by young outsiders. He’d worked for theJournal—whether as a newsboy or an editor—since he was ten. The only break was time off for World War II service. Indisputably, on local matters, he was a human data bank. “There’s nobody who knows this town and the people and the relationships, the marriages, like Jim,” said BillScrivo,Scrivo,an ex-managing editor. “You just can’t store this kind of material. He knew who was a phony and who was likely to mislead you.” Jim doubled as the news editor (on theJournalthe news editor’s job was more of a copy-desk function than an executive one in the fullest sense), and over the years he may have saved theJournalthousands of dollars in lawyer’s bills from the libel suits that never were filed. He knew, say, that the Phil Smith caught in a gambling raid was not the prominent black minister with the same name. If nothing else, his vast knowledge of Lorain, Ohio, and its people made the paper more credible. And Mahony loved the traditional newsroom as much as he did his city—the big, black wire-service tickers, the bulky Remingtons and Underwoods.

“A ticker gives a newsroom that certain flavor,” he told me. “You hear a bell, and that means an important story is about to be released and it puts you on the alert, makes you news conscious.” And typewriters? “I figured they were the backbone of newspapering all the way through.” Mahony obliterated, however, at least two of them. He would strike the keys so hard that the letters would fly off the arms. Appreciating the man more than the machines, his colleagues cheerfully wheeled in replacements.

Dapper Dan, however—Mahony’s name for a young computer expert with some flashy sports coats and a fondness for jargon—wasn’t so accommodating.

“His word was God’s,” Mahony said, “and he pressured us. He felt that the pupil should be stepped into a more advanced bracket. And evidently he misjudged the person who was possibly of an older era and not familiar with the computer field. He never appeared news interested. It appeared his whole life was wrapped around computers.”

“The training consisted of sitting down two hours every other day in this little room,” recalled Dick DiLuciano, the former editor handling state news, “and then we’d be told that when you hit this button, this activates this diode or that diode or whatever the term. And finally I decided they were wasting their time telling what happens when we hit a button. We didn’t have to know that. All we had to know was what buttons to hit to get our story into the computer and get it typeset.” Mahony himself complains thatthe paper didn’t start him out with real news stories on the terminal. Instead, he did boring exercises similar to those in typing manuals. “It was much like a batter in major league baseball taking batting practice,” he said. “You just stayed there while they threw curve-balls at you more or less.”

“The only thing Jim really put into the computer on the job itself was headlines and his column,” DiLuciano said, “but he really was getting frustrated and distraught. And I bumped into him in the washroom one day, and he was about to cry. He said, ‘Dick, I know I’m going to lose my job, because I can’t learn how to work that damn computer.’” He almost did lose it. Jim was out sick several months, and he had to leave his news editor’s post. TheJournallet him continue the “Mahony’s Memos” column but assigned him to the “morgue,” the library, to file away old clips. The library was in a room apart from the city desk. No longer was Mahony so handy to editors wanting to know, say, if a home on East Twenty-eighth Street is on the “East Side” of Lorain. (It isn’t—contrary to what a story said.) Were it not for the mishandling of Jim Mahony’s training, he might still be vigilantly editing.

What could have been done to keep Jim Mahony there? Jack LaVriha, a cigar-chomping newspaperman of Mahony’s generation, had an idea. Why couldn’t the paper have hired a tutor for Mahony—maybe a journalism graduate familiar with computers who was waiting for a reporter’s job to open up? The young grad could have entered Mahony’s stories on the terminal, learning city-room ways while Jim gradually mastered computer ones. Computers and older people can get along fine. Even without a tutor LaVriha himself was one of Dapper Dan’s star pupils, and today, though retired, he still drops by the newsroom to write press releases for community groups on the computer.

Distilled, here are some lessons from theJournal’s experience with computer training:

1. Even the best-intentioned companies may fail miserably in easing some employees’ computerization traumas. The paper’s editor at the time was Irving Leibowitz, a Lou Grant-like figure beloved by many in the newsroom; I can recall Leibo once jumping up on the copy desk to lead a “Happy Birthday” tribute to Jim Mahony and barely missing the cake; that was Leibo. He died in 1979. Were he alive today, however, he would probably be the first to admit that the paper mishandled Mahony during the transition. Like many others, Leibo was in awe of Dapper Dan. And so he’d suspended the skepticism that usually served him well on the job.

2. The traits which make somebody valuable to his companymaybe the very ones complicating his transition to computerization. Jim Mahony was the folksy, family-oriented man that his column suggested. Mahony knew steelworkers as well as politicians and businessmen, and to maintain that network of friends, even in a small town, takes time. Jim didn’t like working late at the office, boning up on computers; he would rather be with his family or some of the average people he wrote about.

3. At the same time you can’t stereotype anyone—by age, folksiness, or otherwise—as absolutely doomed to fail at the computer keyboard. Just look at old Jack LaVriha, himself a Lorain native and strong family man. Jack took well to computerization and would give the editors cards with numbers on them, saying, for instance, “Call up story number so-and-so if you want to know about a hot veterans parade coming up.” Before computerization he’d lobbied for his stories by shoving them in front of the editors’ faces or leaving notes; the cards were his new way. Why did Jack succeed where Jim didn’t? Hey, he thought of computerization, if that’s what it is, I’m going to accept it. I do whatever stories they give me, so why not this? His being a reporter, not a desk-bound editor with a strict routine, may have helped.

4. An important part of training is simple salesmanship—persuading the worker to adopt the right attitude. Mahony rightly or wrongly felt bullied. He wanted to be wooed, not pressured.

5. Don’t make computerization seem more threatening than it has to be.Journalmanagers bragged how they’d throw the typewriters out of the newsroom—Mahony’s security blankets. Instead, the paper might have kept a few there for tasks like note taking. As a matter of fact, that’s what actually happened. Also, Mahony recalls that the paper computerized without at first having a printer in the newsroom, meaning that staffers had to trust everything to the computer memory. He would have felt more comfortable in the beginning with paper backups. That’s a close one. Learning the Kaypro, I myself progressed faster because I couldn’t use my printer at night without disturbing the neighbors. I, however, was learning voluntarily. Mahony was forced. Try to computerize with the old system intact in the beginning—with paper records, in other words. Not only will your Mahonys feel more comfortable; you’ll be better protected when the computer glitches up. Sooner or later, they all do.

6. As early as possible start people on real projects. The first day at the keyboard Jim Mahony might have been writing a column or part of one. Adam Green, the software training expert, saysto start off teaching your new employees some computer basics. But then they should buckle down to the practical from day one. Integrate WordStar, for instance, into your employees’ work. Don’t say, “Okay, now you’re going to take a class in WordStar.” Instead, have a sales rep use WordStar to write some letters to customers or encourage an accountant to start using 1-2-3 as soon as possible on a limited basis. This isn’t to say that a real project is the only hook you can use. Green has been quite successful with Adventure-style computer games that require people to learn to format their disks and other basic micro skills. It’s a good introduction to micros for the Pac-Man generation. That might not be right, however, for Mahony-vintage people.

Above all, beware of the babble about “computer literacy” for everyone. Follow John H. Bennett’s example. With a Harvard Ph.D. in mathematics and a Phi Beta Kappa key, he’s hardly antilearning. And yet he skillfully mapped out a micro program for executives who weren’t interested in all the subtleties of bits and bytes.

Bennett is the top data-processing man at United Technologies Corporation. United, a $14 billion conglomerate, produces everything from helicopters to air conditioners and silicon chips. “We’re a high-tech company,” Bennett said. “More and more of our products have microprocessors inthem.them.” Most of the senior executives, however, had never used a personal computer before Bennett started a training program for those baffled by tech talk. “It’s not a productivity program,” Bennett said. “It’s an educational program.” With the $5 million program’s stress on hands-on experience, however, those goals meshed nicely.

United homed in on the computer skills that seasoned executives could use in their jobs and searched hard for the right people to teach them. “You can get people to teach you to use an automated spreadsheet,” Bennett said, “and of course there are at least a dozen vendors offering to teach people to use a word processor, but there is no program that takes the standard tool kit and offers to at least introduce you to every tool.” National Training Systems, Inc., however, a California company, designed the course he wanted. In 1983 and 1984, more than a thousand United executives were to learn to use the IBM PC and the Context MBA program. Bennett had settled on the IBM one Christmas vacation when he himself tested several different brands. It was his own initiation to personal computing. He surmised that plenty of software would be coming for the IBM, and in fact Context MBA did appear in time with tools he wanted for United’s executives; the integratedprogram included a spreadsheet, data base, graphics, communications, and simple word processing.

United held the three-day course in a windowless conference room on the second floor of the research center in East Hartford, Connecticut, just across the river from corporate headquarters. Blowups of IBM computer equipment lined a wall. It was as though United were doing all it could to engender concentration. If an executive turned to gaze at a nonexistent window, the sight of the photographs might gently nudge him back to work. Up front was a projection screen and an easel bearing such “EXTRA ACTIVITY” suggestions as “EXPERIMENT WITH VARIOUS COMMANDS ON YOUR SPREADSHEET.” In a photo from United’s public relations office, the carpeted room looked like a cross between a college classroom and a ComputerLand store. Executives came from United divisions across the country. With sixteen IBM computers and matching printers, the training project couldn’t travel very far.

One of the students was himself a local of sorts, Robert J. Bertini, Jr., controller of the East Hartford research center. He was an MBA in his mid-forties, and in some ways he typified many of the executives in the program. “To a certain extent,” he said of his thoughts before he took the course, “you’re afraid you’re going to screw up.” He had toyed with the idea of buying an Apple or Commodore but “didn’t want to sit there and read a book and hunt and peck at the keyboard.” Still, he was constructively egotistical: if others could master computers, why not he? So he signed up. On paper the program was completely voluntary. In practice, perhaps, what with peer pressure, it was army voluntary. “We just didn’t feel the management of a high-technology company could be competitive without knowing what the computer can do for them,” Bennett had said in announcing the program, and who wants to be known as noncompetitive? Still, the company was bending over backward to make the training as palatable as it could. Within minutes of the computer instructor’s first “Good morning,” Bertini was learning how to load disks into the little IBM machine and type out the commands of Context MBA. Mercifully, he wasn’t wrestling with unneeded computerese. “Most manuals,” Bennett correctly says, “are not written with executives in mind. Most are written for people who know how to use computers. On page thirty-something of the manual it eventually gets around to telling people how to start their computers up.”

Just a week after Bertini finished the course, his own IBM PC arrived at his office. Man and machine were still new to each other, and data-processing people were ready to help overcome the normal start-up glitches, but Bertini faced other problems.Would he have time during the normal work day to perfect his computer skills? Nearly thirty people reported to him, and now the machine, too, would be vying for his attention. He also worried some about his image as he groped around on the computer. “Hell,” he candidly said, “we all have our degrees of vanity.”

Once again, however, United had a solution, a routine one in the training program. It allowed Bertini to take the IBM home. “Let’s face it,” he said, “the course taught you the basics, how to get on the machine, how to do some relatively simple, basic things with it. To learn other stuff that makes it the tool it really is took eighty or ninety hours or whatever I spent with the thing at home.” Even after Bertini mastered the IBM, he still used it at home for chores like checkbook balancing—and for work, too; especially work. “My wife,” he joked, “decided that the reason this thing was going to be a big productivity improvement for the corporation was that I’d put in that extra eight hours at home and give them a sixteen-hour day.” He also found himself working later some days at the office.

But Bertini emerged a believer in both the training program and the machine. As chief fiscal officer at the 1,200-employee research center, he helped preside over much of United’s research and development budget—then $800 million a year. His life was a series of what ifs. What about that $4-million mainframe computer; should United buy or lease it? What about taxes, depreciation, interest rates? What about a number of what abouts? Traditionally, Bertini had waited around for answers from his staffers, which could take hours or days; but now he had his own computer and electronic spreadsheet and could consider more options faster. The IBM was also handy for confidential tasks like salary analyses. “As far as merit increases for my people were concerned,” said Bertini, “I had access to it, and they didn’t. And that’s the way I wanted it to be.” He also wrote letters and memos on the computer. “Would you believe, twenty years ago in college I took a typing course?” he said. When Bertini wrote to Harry Gray—United’s chairman—the center controller’s secretary redid the letters on a typewriter. But the little dot-matrix printer worked well for memos zipped out to Bertini’s staffers. The communications part of Context MBA was also a joy, for Bertini could send electronic mail and tap United’s mainframe for facts that previously had been filtered through subordinates. Some staffers resented his new ability to bypass them. It was a reversal of normal roles. The boss had a personal computer before they did and was now better plugged in to United’s information network. “As far as I’m concerned,” Bertini said, defending his new system, “the boss’s job is to second-guess you.” But the worried might findsome solace: Bertini was planning to bring in a second IBM for the people below.

For a bucket of fried chicken, Hugh Hunt, a son of H. L. Hunt, the late oilman, gave me some lessons on how to run my Kaypro.

An Anderson Jacobson salesman had offered my name to Hunt after he couldn’t get his Kaypros working quite right with his AJ printers and the Select word-processing program. I passed on the number of someone who might actually solve the problem.

Hunt, having tinkered with computers for several years, gave me some quick tutoring on my Kaypro.

“Well,” I said, “I’m still not really familiar with the basics of CP/M.”

“Come on over,” he told this stranger, who was wise enough to own the same brands of computer and printer as he did.

“No consultant’s fee?” I joked.

“Bring along some fried chicken,” he said.

Hunt’s home sat on a hill in horse country just outside Washington. He called it Dahlonega, after a town in the Georgia mountains where he had once lived and where miners had extracted gold before the Civil War. In his basement, in plain, fluorescent-lit rooms, were the offices of his land-development company. Hunt showed me how he had rigged up a roll of Teletype paper with a clothes hanger so he wouldn’t have to buy a tractor feed for one of his daisy-wheel printers. A tall, heavy-set man nearing fifty, he wore casual clothes and looked like old pictures of his father in middle age. In the beginning, however, I could only guess who he might be. Even if he had been Hugh Doe, I still would have been interested in his style of training the people who operated his Apple, his several Kaypros, and a pair of Osbornes. His techniques were wrong for many corporate situations. They would have been a disaster for Jim Mahony, the old newspaperman, who was so heavy-handed that he ruined at least two typewriters. But they were just right for Hunt and his people—and perhaps for many other small businessmen who like to be surrounded by employees comfortable with high tech.

Hunt didn’t give his staffers extra-long, step-by-step guidance. Instead, he:

1. Hired people who were fast learners at the keyboard.

2. Helped them with some learning aids like color-coded keys showing kinds of WordStar commands.

3. Motivated them by explaining how their new computer skills would make them happier—and richer, since he paid them more, once their productivity increased.

Esther King, his middle-aged office manager, a bright, down-to-earth high school graduate, actually may have been as responsible for his training methods as he was. She tried to hire only people who’d benefit from some quick lessons followed by intensive self-instruction. “Sometimes I’ll have them sit down at the computer,” she said of her employment interviews, “and I just turn it on and tell them to type. A lot of people, they’re afraid they’re going to hurt it. And you’re not going to hurt it. You can’t hurt it. So you mess up, and you get the wrong thing, and it says you made a ‘fatal error.’ So you just start over, and that’s the only way you’re going to learn—is sit down and not be afraid of it.”

Jeanette Counsellor, at the time an employee of Hunt’s, didn’t just type on computers. She also knew how to juggle around thousands of dollars on electronic spreadsheets. And King herself boasted the ability to use computers to help project building costs, a useful skill since Hunt at the time was finishing construction of a water-theme park in North Carolina. What’s more, on the Apple, King helped Hunt do company tax work.

By telephone—I talked to Hunt and his people several times—I asked point-blank why he’d been so successful in getting staffers running on computers.

“I told them,” he said, “how it would be useful for the rest of their careers to be able to say, ‘I’ve worked with a computer and I’ve word processed.’” His people didn’t mess with BASIC, just skills directly useful in their work. “I showed them,” said Hunt, “how computers could save them a lot of time and trouble in the amount of rewrites I do. I put it to them as a challenge.”

“I was ready to learn,” said Counsellor, who had taken a data-processing course at a community college but had never before used a computer. “I was looking for a job that would train me to do this sort of thing.”

Although your people may need more guidance than Hunt’s staffers in learning computer skills, you can take heart in the results of a poll reported inInfoWorld. Of 500 personnel managers and over 500 clerical employees, 87 percent said “on-the-job training to learn new technologies” is important.

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