Cobb: The ANSR Man

March 11, 2005

The ANSR Man

I have accepted an offer from Answerthink.

After about four years of hacking the woods with my own machete, I'm joining a team. This is not the China Deal, which crashed and burned several weeks ago, but the ever tempting Plan B.

It's a reunion of sorts. I'll be working with folks I knew from the 90s and I'll be focusing, once again, on the Hyperion suite of tools. Since I left Hyperion in 2001, they've acquired Brio and Razza, their n-tier product set has matured, their brand recognition has increased and their share price has doubled. Answerthink is the gorilla consulting partner on the West Coast, I'm going to help run things in Southern Cal.

Now this doesn't exactly square with my entrepreneurial spirit, and it's true that I have been quoted saying things like "I'm never going to work for anyone again." In fact I believe that I made quite an impression when speaking of The Vector. Well, the Vector has been deflected, and for the time being, I'm going to be driving a big truck, I'm just not going to own it.

What I tell myself, I believe to be true. Opportunities are forever for those who are prepared. Over the next few years, I'm going to build up this practice, and when I decide to jump at a new opportunity, it will be bigger than one I could have stumbled on with my current associations. Which brings us to that, the devolution of Plan A.

About as much detail as I can say is this. I was to run the IT for a joint venture between some fairly rich and somewhat powerful individuals. Basically a resort in China. I was one degree away from the principal of what looked to be an opportunity to mint money. There were connections to West African gold & textiles, The Chinese Communist Party, Hiphop celebrity, New York Advertising and London International Banking. It turned out that this was not about herding cats, but herding lions, and our commander in chief was a little too much chair & whip and not enough care & feeding. The problem with such an approach is that while it might work for currency trading boiler rooms and the Russian Mafia, it doesn't work with the international Jet Set, of which the partnership was comprised. After an unfortunate series of events, people walked out in a virtual cloud of fists and lawsuits.

The whole thing sounded to good to be true for a long time. However it wasn't. What it was, was too good to be easy, and it has been a singular proof to me that character counts a great deal more when it involves Money, Power or Influence. Corruption is little more or less than the willingness to be above caring. They say power corrupts but it is not power itself that corrupts, power simply amplifies personality. Small flaws in character become writ large. It's just like Shakespeare. The powerful or rich needn't become saints, they only need to recognize commensurately what broken promises and distrust mean when it involves so many more resources. When you have an order of magnitude more choices than the average bear, the right thing seems of fractional use. In fact, it becomes that much more important.

So I'm chilling the international and pumping up the local and soon to be regional. It's better to be the king of a small hill than a prince halfway up a mountain. I am thrilled at the opportunity to put the blue shirt back on. I have spent most of my professional career involved with management consulting and the pure golden geekiness of BI enterprise software. Answerthink also has its own real management gurus - The Hackett Group, so it's much more than a body shop. I believe they have the right combination of tech skills and business brains to be superior, plus I know, like and respect folks in the division I'm joining which just happens to be growing at 25%.

Hey. This means I have to redesign my professional web page... yike.

Posted by mbowen at March 11, 2005 09:51 AM

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Comments

Congratulations, Cobb! A lovely landing after all that flitting and flirting with high flyers.

Sounds up your alley. So what is your new title? I gather you'll be leading a sales force to (further) penetrate the region's Hyperion installations?

Posted by: memer at March 11, 2005 05:25 PM

My title is 'Manager', but for me it's not about *be* it's about *do*.

I'm eligible for sales bonuses if I generate revenue from new clients I originate, but I'm going to be hands-on building stuff in the field. My aim is to build up the west coast practice. We have about 75 heads nationwide for the Hyperion practice, and only 8 or so to handle Pacific and Mountain Time, so we're going to beef up.

I'm also particularly interested in downmarket penetration and lower cost stuff at high quality. I've got a jumpstart on Linux and all that LAMP stuff as compared to most of the BI industry, so I think I can get us into markets where the bigs can't compete. I'm also particularly keen to take all kinds of business from the Bearing Points of the world. We're going to be nimble and deep.

I've also got a lot of relational & DW, so I'm eager to cross train some junior people and bring our suite to bear.

It will take me a minute to figure out where Hyperion has gone the past few years, but the good news is that I still have a lot of friends there. It's going to be a love-fest, and I'm very excited about it. Interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure that I met one of the principals of Answerthink several years ago in Las Vegas when it was THINK New Ideas.

Posted by: Cobb at March 11, 2005 09:02 PM

Nice. Sometimes Life will say to you, "put your finger here for a minute will ya?" And then she'll take various loose threads you've left lying about and tie them up for you in a pretty bow.

Well, go 'head an wreck shop m'man. One value-added consultation at a time.

Posted by: memer at March 12, 2005 06:41 AM