RPCN: A Unique 35 Years

RPCN’s major benefits are Networking, Learning and Mutual Support. But, what differentiates RPCN from other nonprofit organizations? A combination of factors contributes to our uniqueness. Let’s explore some of these as we prepare to celebrate RPCN’s 35th Anniversary in 2025.

1. Four regularly scheduled public meetings per month (Forums, Presentations, Workshops). Well-organized hybrid meetings (Zoom simultaneous with in-person). Awards and public celebrations for notable people.
2. Open forum/roundtable public meetings for mutual support. Attendees pose questions about their business or career. The other attendees share their knowledge, expertise, and insight to help answer the questions. (This is a major RPCN benefit and differentiator).
3. Dedicated, long-term volunteers provide structure and effort to keep the organization healthy. These volunteers (including many past-presidents) also provide a core of lore, while promoting and accepting change. They don’t say “We’ve always done it this way, so why change?” They’re driven by a strategy of improvement and RPCN values.
4. Accepting all who wish to join - you don’t need to be a “consultant.” RPCN doesn’t have a standard definition of a “Consultant” or “Consulting.” There is no RPCN certification required to be called a consultant.
5. Willingness to share experience, knowledge and skill with others, even with competitor members.
6. Helping each other through business / family / personal emergencies. e.g., Two solo competitor members trusted each other enough to fill in for each other during vacations.
7. RPCN membership increases during business downturns (when people explore consulting after layoffs or retirements).
8. Focusing on serving members and community needs (e.g., Our University of Rochester Simon-Vision Student Mentoring program serves both).
9. All members are treated as equals. Vice President (President-Elect) is nominated and elected annually by the membership.
10. Longevity: Founded in 1990

This is only ten. What other thoughts do you have about what makes RPCN unique after 35 years?

Welcome New Members

Please welcome these four new members to RPCN:

Katie Welch (they/them) is an accomplished CPA, trainer, change agent, and leader. They have experience with the construction, manufacturing and not for profit sectors which developed Katie’s insightful problem-solving skills. They are currently immersed in a work/life transition and have joined us to aid with the many moving parts that will lead to their new direction. Connect with Katie here.

Paul Graver joins us from the Capital region of NY. He is taking his extensive production and operations background and bringing solutions to smaller manufacturers to maximize their capabilities, avoid prolonged down time, and plan for future effective and efficient growth. Paul is in the early stages of start-up and is working on those many tasks of admin, marketing and sales that we have all faced. Connect with Paul here.

Igeme Kay Ezenwata brings extensive experience from the energy industry with international application in procurement and supply chain functions. She is new to the Rochester area and is a continual learner. Her business is in its start-up phase, and she is looking forward to the support from our members in that early phase. Connect with Igeme (pronounced E’ geme) here.

Ken Byrne is a creative solutions designer and programmer bringing efficiency to the complex administrative and technical information sharing systems needed by project managers. Xerox used his talents for 40 years and now Ken is bringing that talent to his brand-new business. As with our other new members, guidance on the many start-up tasks and networking will help Ken. Connect with Ken here.

The Role of Collaboration in Consulting

Collaboration is the cornerstone of successful consulting. Consultants don’t merely provide ready-made answers; they work closely with clients to craft tailored, effective, and sustainable solutions. The consultant must dive into the client’s mindset, clarifying goals, establishing roles/responsibilities, and having  regular and open communications. This partnership ensures that the solutions align with the client’s specific needs, goals, and organizational culture.

The collaborative process begins with a deep dive into the client’s challenges. Consultants engage stakeholders across all relevant levels, gathering insights, identifying pain points, and uncovering opportunities. This dialogue ensures that consultants grasp the full scope of the problem and can contextualize it within the organization’s environment.

Through workshops, brainstorming sessions, and strategic meetings, consultants and clients co-develop strategies. This approach not only fosters innovation but also builds a sense of ownership among clients. When stakeholders feel their input has shaped the solution, they are more likely to embrace and implement it effectively.

Data-sharing is another vital aspect of collaboration. Consultants rely on access to accurate, comprehensive data from the client to analyze trends, identify inefficiencies, and model potential outcomes. Transparency and trust are critical at this stage, as open communication ensures that both parties are aligned.

Furthermore, collaboration allows consultants to adapt their expertise to the nuances of the client’s industry and organization. While consultants bring specialized knowledge and best practices, the client’s insights into their unique operations ensure a realistic and applicable solution.

In the end, collaboration is about co-creation. By working together, consultants and clients achieve results that are not only effective but also practical and sustainable, empowering organizations to address challenges and seize opportunities with confidence.

—Mark Fling

Simon Vision Consulting Program Update

As you read this article, the Rochester Professional Consultants Network’s (RPCN) program of providing mentors to the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business (Simon) Simon Vision Consulting Program (Simon Vision) for a fourteenth consecutive semester is winding down. Though, if you’d like to help as a mentor but missed your opportunity, fear not. We’ll need mentors again for the FIFTEENTH consecutive semester starting in late January 2025.

For those who regularly read this column, you already know about Simon Vision and what a great opportunity it is. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Simon Vision, the program is an effort to increase experiential learning opportunities for Simon’s MBA and MS students.

At this time, we aren’t sure if there will be 12 or 16 projects in the Spring semester, but we do know that we’ll be trying to get at least 12 mentors and perhaps even 16 to help in January.    The projects won’t all be based in the Rochester area, although most are.

• In the Fall semester, we had one client based in Warsaw Poland.
• The clients for Spring 2025 won’t be coming from quite as far away this time, but there will be clients from as far away as Minnesota.
• There’s also a project where a company that has a humanitarian bent to its offerings will be looking into a merger with another company in a complementary area, so we are looking for at least one mentor with merger experience. The mentor can help that project team stay on track and bounce ideas off.

Though the clients and projects are pretty much set for the upcoming Spring semester; it is never too early to be looking for projects and mentors for the Fall ‘25 semester.

Projects
Simon Vision is looking for new projects for the Fall semester.

• If you, a client, or an associate have an outsourceable project that could be completed in about 8 – 10 weeks, send an application to Simon Vision to get it included in the Fall 2025 semester.
• Projects are evaluated by the Simon Vision student governing board, and the leadership of Simon Vision work with you to define the project requirements to be completed within these constraints.

Mentors
As mentioned above, we’re looking for mentors for the upcoming Spring semester. There will likely be 12 - 16 projects in total. We would like to have at least that many mentors to help. If you’d like to become a mentor, please contact me at the information shown at the end of this article.

Contact Information
If you are interested in having a Simon Vision Project Team perform work for you, would like more information about the program, or if you’d like to volunteer to be an RPCN member mentor to a student team, please contact Dave Bassett at dbassett@basstat.com.

—Dave Bassett

RPCN Technical Forum

Please join us on Friday, December 6th, for the latest Tech Forum. We continue to implement our new format and to be a great resource for you to get your technology-related questions answered.

Since the August Tech Forum, we’ve been switching gears shortly after 9AM into something we like to call “Our Technology Adventures.” If you don’t know what Our Technology Adventures is, well, it’s an opportunity for you to tell your friends and colleagues here at RPCN about the new technology that you’ve started using recently and all the things you find helpful about that technology. Some of the items we’ve discussed recently include:

• High tech stud-finders
• Brushes with AI – literally, we discussed an AI Toothbrush
• Writing articles using AI tools such as Buzz and Chat GPT
• A tool called the Fire Toolbox that removes bloatware from Kindle Fires
• An app from debunkbot.com that helps expose some questionable theories you may have come across

The discussion has been fun, so we plan to implement it again in December. Come to the meeting to discuss some technology you’ve started to use or hear about technologies others have started using.

We have other ideas for subjects to cover in the post 9 AM segment of the meeting, so we hope to take a poll of the attendees to determine whether we should keep the segment focused on Our Technology Adventures or switch to a different focus. Please join us and tell us what you think of the segment. If you can’t join us, please reach out via the e-mail link at the bottom of this article.

If you can only stay for the part of the Forum when we’re discussing Technology-related questions, that’s fine. If you can only join us for Our Technology Adventures, that’ll work too. We’d love to have you for the full meeting, including the time set aside until 10AM for individualized networking in our breakout rooms or in Ahren’s Benefits’ large meeting room, which we moved to just last month. As a reminder, Ahrens Benefits is at 2800 Dewey Avenue (about 2 miles north of Rte. 104). You can even come just for the networking, which typically starts just after 9:30AM. Our goal for the Tech Forum is to make this program as beneficial to our members and guests as possible.

If you’ve attended any of our recent Tech Forums, we’d love to get your thoughts about its new format, the tweaks we’ve made to it, and how to build on what we’ve had in it the past 30 years. Please send them to this email: TechForum@rochesterconsultants.org.