Consulting Tools

I had a bit of luck during the holidays. A book I’d wanted was checked back in, just before New Years.

Elaine Biech has written a number of books on marketing and consulting. This one, “The Business of Consulting,” was written in 1999. [ISBN 0-7879-4021-6] What I didn’t realize is that all the tables and checklists were on a diskette.

I got the wild idea of turning a few of the checklists into MindManager maps. This should be easier since most of the text is already typed into the Word documents on the diskette.

The conversion isn’t direct. Just importing the document into the map will give marginal results. The fun is looking at the chart and deciding how I can effectively use it as a MindMap.

My first run at it is a type of SWOT analysis for consultants/entrepreneurs. By changing the columns to branches, the checklist becomes interactive. As you decide whether a trait is adequate or needs improvement, you move the trait to the appropriate branch. Here’s the first pass at ordering my traits as a consultant.

The images are "jpg" versions of the map. As a map they can be edited and enhanced with text notes and links.

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