[consulting] Estimation-Blowout case-studies wanted

Sat Mar 28 22:14:25 UTC 2009

I agree, fascinating discussion. Victor, I think you should solve this
problem at the same time as the recently discussed "cleaning up after bad
developers" problem. The solution should not be named a union but an
industry group... like a group of professionals. Individuals/companies can
sign up, for which they pay a yearly fee. You review some of their work and
"certify" it, sort of, to allow them to join. Once they've joined, all work
produced by a member must be reviewed by another unrelated member, giving
clients a certain level of peer-review quality. This won't force an hourly
rate but you could recommend one for your members... at least they would
have something to stand on when they charge more.

Or something like that. No examples of something like this that worked come
to mind so it could be completely stupid; it's just some ideas floating
around my head.

But I did want to mention that the problem discussed in the "cleaning up
after bad developers" thread has nothing to do with Drupal. It has to do
with IT workers and exists in all facets of IT. Truthfully, it exists in
basically all kinds of work - that's why you get recommendations on a
builder instead of just opening the yellow pages, isn't it? I think
independent review would be the best way to solve it but I don't know of
that practice really existing at all in IT. I guess no-one wants to pay for
that.

Regards,

John

From: consulting-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:consulting-bounces at drupal.org]
On Behalf Of Victor Kane
Sent: Thursday, 26 March 2009 12:00 PM
To: A list for Drupal consultants and Drupal service/hosting providers
Subject: Re: [consulting] Estimation-Blowout case-studies wanted

Fascinating discussion.

But to all you Adam Smith people, I have to say:

There is no such thing as the individual small producer: there are factories
and workers, monopolies, and wannabe monopolies, and you may think you are
free and individual, but we are all workers in a factory, and the bosses are
driving down wages and salaries as we speak.

Our real problem is to band together and demand a minimum wage for each
category.

We need a union.

Of course we have a right to publish our minimum wage! Of course we have a
right to declare rates beneath which no-one should be accepting work.

So:

* All certification under control of the website application developers
union (we can affiliate with writers, with communications, etc...) 
* No to monopoly certification programs and other attempts to create
monopolies with the aim of driving down rates.
* Minimum wage for each category.
* Drupal free always as in beer and speech. Drupal development open to all.

Only a uniion can do that.

Otherwise we'll all be washing dishes in Soho, because it's a better paid
job than developing websites.

Consultants, unite! You have nothing to lose except your WSOD.

Victor Kane
http://awebfactory.com.ar
http://projectflowandtracker.com

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 10:28 PM, Michael Prasuhn <mike at mikeyp.net> wrote:

I see the logical fallacy that you present here, but I think that misses the
most poignant part of the message you are replying to and that is:

Publishing your rates != Agreeing to set minimum prices.

Anyway.

-Mike

On Mar 25, 2009, at 5:12 PM, Cary Gordon wrote:

There is a logical fallacy in there. What you are really claiming is
that rate disclosure does not directly lead to a monopoly, therefor it
is either legal or somehow not as illegal as other collusive behavior.
We could have a long discussion of what type of fallacy it is. I go
for begging the question.

Feel free to disclose your rates. On advice of counsel, I won't.

Cary

On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Mehboob Alam <malam at thinkx.com> wrote:

But I'm far from convinced that its illegal to share your rates with your
competitors,one to one or on a mailing list.

If GM, Ford, Chrysler and Toyota agree to set prices, that's "collusion"

If JetBlue, SouthWest, Alaska and others decide to set minimum prices
for certain routes, that's "collusion"

If several LCD manufacturers agree to fix their prices, and that ended
up costing Apple a lot of money due to the lack of competitive
bidding, that's "collusion".

Publishing your rates here.. not so much. The clients have a choice of
thousands of possible vendors for these kinds of projects, and it
would be difficult to set minimum prices.

And then, anyone who desperately needs the work can easily low-ball
their rates to get the project.

So, fire away.. :)

just my opinion..
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The Cherry Hill Company
http://chillco.com
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