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William McKnight

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I will periodically be sharing my thoughts and observations on information management here in the blog. I am passionate about the effective creation, management and distribution of information for the benefit of company goals, and I'm thrilled to be a part of my clients' growth plans and connect what the industry provides to those goals. I have played many roles, but the perspective I come from is benefit to the end client. I hope the entries can be of some modest benefit to that goal. Please share your thoughts and input to the topics.

About the author >

William is the president of McKnight Consulting Group, a firm focused on delivering business value and solving business challenges utilizing proven, streamlined approaches in data warehousing, master data management and business intelligence, all with a focus on data quality and scalable architectures. William functions as strategist, information architect and program manager for complex, high-volume, full life-cycle implementations worldwide. William is a Southwest Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, a frequent best-practices judge, has authored hundreds of articles and white papers, and given hundreds of international keynotes and public seminars. His team's implementations from both IT and consultant positions have won Best Practices awards. He is a former IT Vice President of a Fortune company, a former software engineer, and holds an MBA. William is author of the book 90 Days to Success in Consulting. Contact William at wmcknight@mcknightcg.com.

Editor's Note: More articles and resources are available in William's BeyeNETWORK Expert Channel. Be sure to visit today!

Recently in The Blogger Category

New Book on Consulting

My book, 90 Days to Success in Consulting, published by Course Technology PTR, is now available at Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, Borders, etc. 

 

Consulting is a passion and I've seen and learned a lot in my 15 years of doing it.  What I do with the book is to provide an understandable and implementable action plan in consulting, whether you're looking to self-consult, are already working for a consulting firm, or are contemplating either route.  It's also for those who know they need to treat their non-consultant position like a consultant.  In terms of fields of application of consulting, this book is about the business of consulting and applies to all fields.

 

I hope this sounds intriguing and that you'll get a copy!!! 

  

978-1-4354-5442-2_hr copy.jpg

 

Here are the chapters:

 

What is consulting?

The Traits of a Professional Consultant

The Top Consultant Image Building Blocks

The Bottom Line

How to Stay Current: Technology and Skills

Service Planning

Establishing Fees

The Role of the Consultant

Client Contracts

Acquiring People

Requests for Information/Requests for Proposals

Client Communications

Writing and Speaking

Managing Capital

Partnerships

Getting the Word Out

Marketable Value and Exit Strategies

Parting Words


Posted October 3, 2009 10:37 AM
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William McKnight, Lucidity Consulting Group

Some of you have noticed that my bio, above, has changed. Yes, I have completed my employment agreement with Conversion Services International and I have joined Lucidity Consulting Group to lead their information management practice.

A little about my new company and endeavor...

Lucidity has been around for 8 years and has built a solid consultancy based on relationships and results. I've found the people extremely professional and dedicated. Lucidity was rated #8 "Best Companies to Work For" in Texas earlier this year. With over 100 consultants and offices in Dallas, Chicago, Denver and St. Louis, and existing, strong practices in Oracle applications, JD Edwards, Hyperion and Siebel, I have the foundation of a strong team for expansion of the information management capabilities.

My practice will be one that you can count on that can partner with your organizations and I am eager to engage a new set of client challenges. I will have a broad range of full lifecycle skills on board that are needed to assess, plan, analyze, design and build best practices information strategy, data warehouse, business intelligence or master data management environments and, as always, from a vendor-neutral, methodology- and architecture-base.

I'm going to stop here because the blog is not where I have historically got salesy. I know some of you were interested in knowing more about Lucidity.


Posted July 24, 2008 12:48 PM
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Catching up with alpacas and yoga

I've been busy, even to the point of looking at www.ilovealpacas.com once or twice.

I have a speaking enagement with SetFocus in Parsippany, NJ and available via a live stream on Friday, August 10. The title is "Modernizing and Advancing Information Management across the Enterprise" and the abstract is below.

Next week, I'll be at the "Bilderberg of business intelligence" - the Pacific Northwest BI Summit. Link to last year's event. It's hosted by Scott Humphrey, who I strongly recommend for any vendor in this space seeking the highest quality public relations. I will speak on RFID business intelligence and also take the opportunity to torture some members of the BI community. I know - I already do that frequently with my blog postings. However, this torture will come in the form of leading yoga sessions.

Abstract for SetFocus event:

Information is the frontier of modern business competitive pressures. Information mastered at an enterprise level greatly supports efficient corporate projects. Enterprise Information Management provides a consistent view and utilization of information throughout the enterprise.

For 10-20 years, data warehousing has been the center of the universe for Information Management. While enterprise data warehousing provides a tremendous amount of value to an organization, modern advances in Information Management technology allow for a more nuanced, yet effective, strategy for a broader Information Management. Central to this approach is Master Data Management. Data warehousing professionals future role is as Information Management professionals and this overview will assist in the bridging of invaluable tools of the trade into the IT organization’s capabilities.

In this seminar, we will discuss the following:

Multiple, complex applications serving a variety of users

Data warehousing is evolving, with new demands and needs placed on robust data warehouses

Exploding data size that will continue to explode with data types running the gamut beyond traditional alphanumeric types

Master data requirements in the operational environment as well as the data warehouse

The role of operational Business Intelligence within the information management architecture


Posted July 23, 2007 8:06 AM
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United States I have NOT had a client in during career

Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Arkansas, West Virginia, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Alaska, Hawaii


Posted June 12, 2007 6:49 AM
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Client wins award in Radical BI and DW Implementation

tdwi_BPA_2006_web.gif

The Data Warehousing Institute recently named its 2006 annual list of "best practice" award winners. A CSI client is a winner. Business Intelligence has become the “center of the universe” for the AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group (ABSG). This is no more evident then when you visit the main page of the ABSG website (www.absg.com). Two words are repeated and have become the mantra for ABSG employees in 2006 - “Knowledge Driven". Now that's radical!


Posted June 21, 2006 12:10 PM
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