[Warning: This dives deep into my tech strategy consulting psyche so if you just want the whiskey recipe – it is Friday after all - command-down arrow]

By this time next week, I would have been traveling every week for the last 10 weeks with nary a break. Now, for some, this will elicit some “pffts”. But let me tell you, this is just about as exciting for me as weekly trips to the dentist. To underscore the level of anathema, I will confess that in graduate school, I committed the career no-no of abandoning one of the most coveted internships — with one of the Big 4 — midstream, because I could not bear the weekly check-in and check-out of hotel rooms. (That and the cavalier use of the phrase “continuous process improvement”) Needless to say, I was not Career Services’ favorite child.

Couple that with the vagaries of client service. Oy.

But today, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I had lunch with my favorite philanthropoid and we brainstormed ideas to support a gem of a nonprofit arts venue and incubator in the East End. It was the most fun I have had all week. Which reminded me of the aspect of consulting I loved best: helping organizations innovate.

Working with technology start-ups satiates this compulsion. However, not all technology companies are created equal and for those who don’t have the bias for- or the internal discipline, the slippery slope of “innovation decay” typically follows a curve with time on the x-axis. While I would choose to fill my dance card with clients close to the origin at all times OR with clients who rigorously strive for innovation (no matter where they are in the life cycle), fate is not always on my side. The bell curve will persist.

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