[consulting] What Causes Feast or Famine?

[Maike Marrek]

Hi Fred,

what's about creating a place where stakeholders of supply and demand 
find a comfortable way of communicating/presenting themselves?

On this international (!) list local/semi-local job offers are made, 
because it's really hard to find some experts for (one or another 
reason). On the other hand, recruiters/consultants might have problems 
to get in contact with "unknown" drupal experts, because for them it's 
still a quite unknown/uncomfortable way to start their approach via 
mailing lists, forums or visiting local meetings.

Bringing both sides together might have some quite nice effects for the 
organiser himself - a huge project to present his work and - moreover - 
dozens of new contacts while looking for people who search for/offer 
Drupal projects or special Drupal expertise.

Analysing the current usage of Drupal, I would say: there are/were some 
important companies/organisations round the world (NPR, Zeit, Obama), 
who use Drupal for their sites or parts of them. On the other hand there 
are many, many small companies/organisations, who use Drupal just as a 
quite cheap alternative instead of much more expensive CMSs or 
solutions. But Drupal has definitely reached a complexity which prevents 
non-professionals from using it.

NYC might be a good place for Drupal-developers (amongst others) in 
media business, because anyhow Drupal made it there and presumably some 
of them are connected with relevant decision makers anyway. And there 
are lots of huge companies to work for. But if you can make it in NY, 
you can make it everywhere ;-)

I'm not a technical expert, so I do not have a lot of experience with 
programming and stuff like that. I'm working in the field of marketing 
and sales and as a private person I'm monitoring the development of 
Drupal and other open software products for more than ten years. There 
is a need of connecting experts with potential ... 
consultants/advertising agencies/recruiters/employers/trainers :-)

To answer your question:
- you have to be connected
- with someone with a concrete price margin in mind
- who's looking exact for the skills you have
- at the right moment
(to be continued ...)

As a marketer I would say: let's start a survey to get an idea where 
needs are ;-)

Greetings from Germany
Maike


Fred Jones schrieb:
> It has been discussed here more than once that there are two main
> camps of Drupal developers--those flooded with work and those
> constantly looking for work. Without going into unnecessary detail
> about my boring private life (or lack thereof) I would like to move
> myself from the second camp into the first. :)
> 
> I am wondering therefore, what it is that people think creates for
> them a flood of work? I am wondering if it's:
> 
> 1. Modules you authored on drupal.org. People find you there and hire you.
> 2. Your fantastic site. People find you there and hire you. I doubt
> this is relevant for a little guy like me however.
> 3. Your constant presence on d.o forums or IRC where you meet people
> who want to hire you.
> 4. Your clients all refer to you new clients because they just love
> you and they all hire you.
> 
> I hang out on a certain non-Drupal forum sometimes and I have gotten
> work from that a BIT, so I know that can work. But I don't know about
> d.o nor IRC nor authoring modules. As far as client referrals go, I do
> have some but my clients generally either have no one to send me or
> the people they do send me aren't the type I want to work for, i.e.
> don't have a budget or whatever.
> 
> More than one client has said they WOULD highly recommend me, but they
> don't have anyone to sell me to. Not surprising because a massage
> therapist, an autistic school secretary and a car wash guy don't
> necessarily spend much or any time discussing building web sites.
> 
> So I was thinking of making myself a website and then trying to put
> some energy into whatever it is that might help attract more work to
> me, as opposed to my current system of chasing after it.
> 
> Any ideas are appreciated. :)
> 
> Thanks,
> Fred
> _______________________________________________
> consulting mailing list
> consulting at drupal.org
> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
> 
> 


-- 
a one-armed man comes into a flower shop and says
what flower expresses
days go by and it just keeps going by
endlessly pulling you into the future
days go by, endlessly
endlessly pulling you into the future

and the florist says: the white lilly.

Laurie Anderson - Home of Brave