Your Friendly Neighborhood Computer Guy

Start and Grow a Computer Business

5 Myths of Computer Consulting

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5 Myths of Computer Consulting

So you want to be a computer consultant?  You have dreams of starting your own business so you can work on your own, make lots of money, and be your own boss?

That’s excellent!

Computer consulting is a great field to be in, and will be in demand for the foreseeable future.  But setting realistic expectations is a key component to getting your business started on the right foot.

I spend a decent amount of time browsing forums related to the computer consulting business and I find that many people who are just starting out can have similar misconceptions about exactly what it takes to be in this line of work.

Here are some of the myths I see most often, in no particular order:

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The Computer Guy Identity Crisis: Choosing A Job Title

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Throughout my years in the IT industry I’ve held many positions and titles. Some are fairly accurate descriptions of what I was doing, and some were decidedly very un-acurate.  Now as I start my own business, I’m stuck with the task of giving myself a title.  As it turns out, it’s a little harder than I had anticipated.

Growing Up Geek

When I first fell in love with computers, I was in elementary school.  My parents got a big hunky IBM clone (I don’t remember the brand) complete with two fancy 5 1/4 inch floppy drives.  I loved to play around and find ways to break or confuse the programs.  This started a long love affair with breaking and fixing computers.  At that point, and all through school, I was a true computer geek.  I used computers for the sheer novelty of it.

Flash forward to my time serving in the US Army.   I wanted to flex my computing prowess and volunteered for various computer-centric tasks like creating databases and such.  I then got the opportunity to help network a new office from the ground up.  After that, I was officially appointed the unit’s assistant IMO (Information Management Officer), and was tasked with helping people in the unit with various computer issues.

I loved that job, and found I really had a knack for troubleshooting.  So, after I got out of the army, I took a job as an intern at the Help Desk of a pharmaceutical company.  Within 4 years time I was hired on full time, promoted to a Level 2 Analyst, and promoted again to my current position in the computer industry, Enterprise Systems Analyst.

Every time I was presented with a new position and name (Geek, Assistant IMO, Helpdesk Intern, Helpdesk Analyst, Systems Analyst) I was basically doing the same thing, fixing computer problems.

What’s in a Name?

When I had the idea to start my own computer business, it never occurred to me that I would need to define my job title. In fact, it wasn’t until I started writing this blog that I realized I needed to figure out what to call myself.   So I came up with a list of names that I’m considering using to refer to my position as an independent computer guy, along with how I feel about each one:

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