You know why lawyers are so expensive? They’re worth it.
It’s been twenty years since I met anyone who called themselves a management consultant. I’m sure some are still around, but the heyday of management consulting was in the 1980s and 1990s. The fiscal crisis of 2008 killed it.
General management consulting is pretty much dead. Now all consultants are just contractors who do some really specific technical thing, and are worth bringing in for X days that has to get done but it’s not a big enough, ongoing task to merit hiring a FTE to do it.
You know why lawyers are so expensive? They’re worth it.
Worth it to who to do what is the question?
I would say that’s “partially true”.
If you Google “management consulting firms”, you will likely get hits on McKinsey, Bain, Boston Consulting Group and other “management consulting” firms. These firms are still very much in business and there seem to be a lot of them.
Curiously, I think you may be correct about management consultants not referring to themselves as such. Most of the firms I worked for, we tended to just refer to ourselves as “consultants” or “I work for Deloitte/McKinsey/Accenture/Whoever” or “I do change management/strategy/health care consulting”. Or more broadly, it’s just referred to as “professional services”. Even on the McKinsey web site, I had to dig around for the term.
I would agree the heyday of traditional “management consulting” ended in the 90s. At least the model of hiring a bunch of really smart MBAs to fly into a company and magically solve their problems (or make a lot of money by prolonging them). I get the same impression when speaking to consultants maybe 5-10 years older than me.
You seem to be confusing “management consultants” with “IT contractors” and “system integration firms”. Admittedly there is a lot of gray area and overlap these days, even within specific firms. But generally the problems McKinsey or Bain is solving for the CEO are different from the operational issues Accenture or GapGemini are solving for the CIO or operational head, which are different from some senior manager who needs to outsource some work to technical resources from Cognizant or Wipro.
No, I am not. Did I mention IT? I wouldn’t lump management consulting in with IT. I’m thinking more in terms of consulting in sales, quality, marketing, and the like. That still sells but no one dares call themselves management consultants.
The CBD industry is a pretty stunning grift, IMO. As an actual medication, its legit usage is pretty limited to a handful of specific medical conditions. If CBD came from cantaloupes or ground-up crickets instead of devil weed, we’d never have heard of it.
For that matter the legal THC/marijuana industry is pretty sketchy. So many bogus claims based on stoner wives’ tales. Sativa doesn’t impart an energetic high, indica does not impart a sedating high, mangoes do not counteract an accidental THC overdose. So much fluff and BS.
What about the whole hemp industry of clothing and other goods made of hemp? Is there anything special about hemp that makes it an attractive material?
The term “management consultant” was and is used extensively on branded materials and in both formal and informal communications. At no point was anyone ever like “how dare you!” so I don’t really know what you are going on about. Sure, maybe we might qualify what kind of consulting by clarifying “strategy”, “financial advisory”, “change management”, “digital transformation” or whatever the term du jour.
I assumed you meant IT when you said “some really specific technical thing” because most of the firms on this list provide consultants to do specific technical IT stuff.
Hemp is, shall we say, a weed, which makes it rather hardy and suited to rather adverse conditions, so it can be farmed in some pretty shit conditions. The fiber was good enough for frigate halyards, so it is quite sturdy. There is a lot of hemp-hype by the hempists, but it is not entirely unjustified. Using trees to make paper from monoculture forests seems quite absurd when hemp can do a comparable or better job. Trees should be grown for wood, not paper, using ideal species instead of junk pines.
In the end, the upsides to hemp may be overstated, but the downsides have been exaggerated as well, it seems. It is not the fix-everything crop, but excluding it in the past has probably been a pretty serious mistake.
The more conditions a drug or supplement is claimed to treat/cure, the less likely it is to be really effective for any of them.*
People in my Facebook fig growing group are starting to sound like wine snobs. A particular fig is said to taste “jammy”, with overtones of specific fruits and/or other flavorings, which the dim-palated of course cannot detect (and the fig snob could doubtfully reproducibly identify). Fig collecting is not quite an “industry” but it may be moving in that direction.
I support the legalization (or decriminalization) of these products, but in most cases they should not really be called “medicine”. They can be used for a few conditions but the standardization is not there. Although there have been a great deal of hysterical claims about the side effects, I do not support their use by pregnant women and, in some cases, drivers.
Cotton in particular is a thirsty plant, and needs huge amounts of water. Southern states are draining their aquifers to spin our cotton undies, where comparable acreage of hemp would not cause as heavy of an environmental toll.
Our nearest strip center has a CDB shop. I don’t have a pic of their storefront to share, but the list of things it cures or help is a kitchen sink of random stuff. It’s so overblown it’s comedic.
Every time I see the store I think of a true snake oil salesman with a wooden wagon back in 1840: “Cures all ailments of both man and beast!”
IOW, it cures a specific ailment of that salesman and his beast: They need to eat and rubes’ money makes that possible.
It’s also a result of the industry being unregulated.
So it can make as many, and as spurious, a set of claims as any other “dietary supplement” BS product. Thank you Senator Hatch, you deeply corrupt bastard.
Hell, just enforcing product purity & potency regulations would be a giant start, even if we still don’t know, or officially care, whether the stuff has any effect on anything other than the customers’ wallets.
I completely agree with both of you, but I think it’s worth pointing out that the fact that the medical benefits of CBD are overblown by snake-oil sales types does not detract from the (unfortunately minimal) amount of research that does point to real medical benefits. I’m sure the people it has helped couldn’t care less about whether it’s overhyped or not. One might note that pure CBD is not psychoactive, so its users don’t use medical claims merely as an excuse to get stoned. There have also been allegations that the THC in cannabis (the psychoactive component) has medical benefits, but unlike for CBD, there is very little medical support for that contention (AFAIK).
Here’s someone who got into fairly major difficulties with US Customs and Immigration over (rather stupidly) carrying CBD across the border, but in one of the few good-news outcomes in this sort of situation, the decision was later reversed:
There is certainly some support showing benefits in a few conditions. And it is a reasonably safe alternative to some stronger treatments. But some of the claims made are excessive and things like dose are speculative. It is not benign for every person or population.
I do not think it should be criminalized and agree with expunging problems from previous use. I am somewhat supportive of legalization but think the government needs to recoup tax moneys better, and keep edibles away from people who cannot yet vote.
Hey, I have “fellow wine aficionados”, too, only we call ourselves poker buds. But these guys do know the Good Stuff (and are great about bringing a bottle to sip while we play cards).
Now, when I bring wine, I do extensive research… which consists of running into a wine shop and yelling “Help! I’m on my way to play poker with wine snobs, and I need a $10 bottle that tastes like $50.”
Well, the biggest snob of all fell in love with a wine I’d brought and I had to admit I’d gotten it at Trader Joe’s. Got a text from him the next day: “Went to TJ’s, bought two cases. Now I know how much you value your friends.”
(It was $3.99 a bottle; Grifone Primitivo. A meaty old vine Zin. Wine dude is now on his sixth case…)
I really like that “Wine Idiot” site – seems to be a fun young lady who likes wine, tells us that she has never taken a wine course because she doesn’t want to be “told what to like”, and just freely blogs about what she likes, mostly in the low-price range. No snark, sounds good to me! In fact, experience is probably the best way to learn about wine, along with some guidance about what to expect from various varietals. Wine courses are mainly about learning terminology and such, IMHO.
And the Grifone Primitivo sounds like I would probably like it. Sadly, it’s not available here, though the Ontario Liquor Board has a very wide wine selection from all over the world (it is, in fact, the largest single liquor-buying organization in the world, I’ve heard). But if it WAS available here, it sure as hell would not be $3.99. In addition to high taxes and government markups, there is some sort of moral philosophy about “minimum prices” for alcohol, for fear that if it was too cheap, it would promote alcoholism among the feeble-minded and weak-willed, or something. The Spanish Merlot that I currently like is $8.15 and is by far the cheapest decent wine I’ve been able to get in years – most reasonable wines tend to be $17 and up, though I generally try to keep it under $20-$25 unless it’s something incredibly exceptional.
But thanks for the reminder. The Liquor Board has a very good online inventory system and I see that the store just up the street has just over two and a half cases of the Spanish stuff, so I am off tomorrow to get at least a case as I’m running low.
(I know that the inventory system is very good and responsive because I’ve sometimes rushed out to a particular store when it shows they have “x” bottles available of something I really like, and when I check it again after I get home, it correctly indicates that it’s totally sold out. “I know”, I chuckle to myself, having just struggled down to the wine cellar with my haul.)
I’m equally sure that the people who believe hydroxychloroquine and oleandrin helped or cured their Covid-19 infection don’t care about what the science says about those drugs. Ditto for OTC supplements like colloidal silver, apple cider vinegar, toxin “cleanses”, industrial bleach and a gazillion other snake-oily products people buy because they’re convinced of health benefits.
There are a bunch of CBD clinical trials going on, and maybe some of them will show value in ameliorating certain conditions. Meantime a lot of folks are going to wind up disappointed and after shelling out $$, will move on to other miracle supplements, “superfoods” and other things that treat the Root Cause of Disease but that Doctors Don’t Want You To Know About.
Whoa, are you absolutely wrong here, Deth. Annuities - I don’t sell many as I’m not a big fan - are some of the most profitable things I can sell to a client. And when I make money my firm makes money.
In fact, experience is probably the best way to learn about wine, along with some guidance about what to expect from various varietals. Wine courses are mainly about learning terminology and such, IMHO.