Given a scale of trustworthiness as perceived by the public at large, those of us who choose to call ourselves “consultants” probably land somewhere between door-to-door roofing contractors and used car salesmen. “Consulting” is such an inherently nebulous term, and everybody knows somebody who's paid some guy $500 an hour to do something he never did, leaving them understandably bitter and unable to pass up any opportunity to talk about all the money they threw away on nothing.

In all cruel fairness, a lot of these tales' woeful endings can be blamed on the clients themselves. The vast majority of people in the world plainly do not listen, and teaching them how to do anything new, or even explaining to them why something they're currently doing is hurting them, is often about as productive a task as looking for windmills in La Mancha. All you need to do is tune in to one of Gordon Ramsay's shows to see that nobody wants to be told what to do, even if they happen to be failing so miserably that they've had to resort to begging someone to do just that, and the bulk of any consultant's advice is often lost between the vacuous ears of mentally ossified miscreants who asked a stupid question in the first place—like “can't you just Photoshop® this person's signature in for me?” or “where can I find some software for writing poetry?” It's been going on since biblical times, and it probably isn't going to stop before you die.

But as socially insensitive and politically unacceptable as it may be, stereotypes wouldn't exist if there weren't any truth to them at all. The painful fact of the matter is that a fair number of consultants one finds in the wild are little more than marginally competent rip-off artists who are too flaky and too under-qualified to hold down real jobs. They'll come courting with certifications, celebrity client lists (everybody knows celebrities always make the best decisions) and holographic metal multimedia business cards with links to websites that depict a host of headset clad multi-cultural persons, all of whom are just so happy to be talking to you they could shit saccharine. Just in case you didn't know, most of this is artifice.

Don't these people look busy looking busy?

You'll never actually talk to any of those people on that website, because they're just mannequins—duped into sitting in front of a nameless photographer's kit lens in exchange for pennies and promises of acting work. The photographer then sold the rights to their images to a college kid who makes generic website templates, and that kid turned around and sold a template to your consultant (and hundreds of others) for about $10 via PayPal. It's just-add-water instant professionalism for the cheap and lazy.

What about those glossy gimmick business cards with the gradient-filled logos that almost look impressive until you touch one and cover it with smudgy fingerprints? Well, those are actually incredibly cheap to make, too—far cheaper than tasteful offset printing anyway—and are usually hawked by the same industry trade show turnkey carnies who want to put your business' name on thousands of ball-point pens for $5. And when it comes to ridiculously lengthy client lists, the only thing that could possibly be less meaningful is the certification.

To be clear, we're not talking about certifications from governmental bodies that are actually difficult to obtain—crook or not, you'd better believe that a certified “master electrician” has put in some serious hours perfecting his or her craft to earn that title—we're talking about certifications in various fields of non-Federally-regulated technology that usually take the form of a GIF on a website or a line on a résumé. You might think that there are some spectacular feats of mental gymnastics involved in earning the honor of brandishing such lofty credentials, but in reality most are freely given to anyone who has a couple hundred dollars in their pocket and an hour or two of free time to sit down and take a computer proctored multiple choice test in a cubicle at some rickety learning annex somewhere.

Don't get me wrong, some of these tests are really pretty hard—Adobe's certification exams in particular are often quite exhaustive, and frankly, I learn something new every single time I take one—but they rarely ever test anything more than one's ability to commit trivial information to memory. Studying a software product's manual is a lot like studying a vocabulary list; after some time you may be able to pick the correct spelling of a certain word out of a list of possibilities, but knowing how to spell a bunch of words is no guarantee that poetry is going to fall out of your butt every time you turn around, even if you do have some special software that writes it for you. While it's easy to devise tests which gauge a person's familiarity with the layout of Photoshop's user interface for example, it's pretty difficult to devise one which conclusively proves whether or not they can make your nascent photographic noodlings look like the work of a world-class professional. All the GIF guarantees is that they know where the filters are and what the options do. The true art is in knowing how to not use any of them.

Certifications are a marketing tool, same as any other. They allow a small company without a Superbowl sized ad budget to suckle a split second of legitimacy from the bloodstream of a much larger company through a parasitic tendril affixed to their throbbing, bloated underbelly. Like the badge on a mall cop, they're there to inspire a reflexive reaction, keeping that mental door open just long enough to wedge a foot into in the hopes that someone will listen to you when you tell them to stop flicking Dippin' Dots at the girl behind the Cinnabon cart. But, also like the badge on a mall cop, they are in no way indicative of genuine authority. What they are indicative of is often much, much worse.

Ominous, looming figures engender trust.

Enter the “Certified Partner” scam; a popular one in the software schilling industry. Different people use different names, like “Affiliate” or “Provider,” or my all-time favorite: “Companion,” but whatever the tune, the song remains the same. Company A hires some cut-rate Calcuttan developers to create a niche product that's incredibly esoteric, expensive and difficult to use. So difficult in fact that Consultancy B is formed exclusively for the purpose of teaching Company A's unwitting customers how to use their needlessly complicated product. Since it's cheaper than hiring competent engineers and usability experts who could potentially improve this product, Company A establishes a “Certified Partner” program whereby Consultancy B can enroll to receive a percentage of every copy of Company A's product they manage to sell to their clients. All they have to do is pay a little money, take a little test, maybe attend a day long seminar, and go out there to convince people that Company A's software is the best thing since sliced shit even though it really, really sucks.

How mays I providing y'all with pimping services today? Go Packers!

Since each sale results not only in kickbacks but also long-term support contracts with newly dependent clients, this self-perpetuating circle-jerk sets off a chain reaction of incompetence. Acquaintances of Consultancy B see how much money they're making selling Company A's horrible product and they decide to get in on the game, too. They might not be all that technically savvy, but they took a class, read a few For Dummies books and feel that their ability to bullshit their way through any conversation makes them at least qualified enough to teach Granny Q. Public how to send an email. Mary Kay parties are held where they tell their friends, and their friends tell their friends, and before you know it Company A has such a large network of sycophantic salesmen pushing their shoddy wares under the guise of “consulting” that they lose all incentive to improve themselves. The consultants don't complain about the crappy software because they make all their money covering up that crap with silky linens and spraying it with pleasing new car scents until you're convinced it isn't really there. The clients can't complain because Company A doesn't actually read any email that doesn't come from one of their Certified Partners, and their toll-free number just goes to some guy named “Mike” Sahasrabuddhe who's too busy practicing his “thirty little turtles” speech in a Bangalorean trade school to care about your stupid bug report.

How long this fortress of arrogance is allowed to stand depends largely on the size of the niche market the product targets. If we're talking about extremely popular applications that are used by millions and millions of people, eventually a competitor will arise with a superior product that either knocks Company A out of its complacency or puts them out of business. If we're talking about medical billing, dental x-ray, legal or color management software that is used primarily by a limited number of highly computer-phobic individuals who have no idea that anything better is even possible, then it can easily go on indefinitely. If you've ever seen a DriveSavers brochure change hands or an opened copy of WordStar, MacPractice, QuickBooks or Daylite sitting in an office supply closet, in the words of Steve Albini, “some of your friends are probably already this fucked.”

Pencils, telephones, breifcases; these are just SOME of the tools macguru4u dot com will occasionally pretend to use to help you look half as professional as we wish we could.

Now if I were a much smarter person this would be the place where I'd propose a brilliant solution to all of these problems and everyone would stand up and applaud like I was speaking at a Facebook developer's keynote or something. Unfortunately, I'm not a much smarter person and I'd rather watch a movie about the many hardships Ice Cube must face in taking his kids to the zoo than talk about "social graphs" with a Facebook developer, so I'm afraid you'll just have to continue accepting responsibility for your own hiring decisions. But just as you would not buy a million dollar house without an appraisal from a neutral third party, don't buy a site license for something whose purpose you don't fully understand without asking some questions. Is your consultant a “Certified Partner” with this product's vendor? Do they get anything out of selling it to you? From whom do you get your support in the event that your consultant cannot answer your questions (or disappears entirely), and do they speak the same language you do? Who makes this product's competitors, and why are they inferior? Do any of these competitors have their own “Certified Partners” you can talk to to hear their side of the story before you whip out your Amex? Is there a demo version or are you expected to judge the product's performance on the basis of some QuickTime movies and PowerPoint presentations? Can you return it if it doesn't work out for you? Is the interface full of spelling errors? Does it only run in Classic? Is the product's functionality derived from open source projects you could easily obtain yourself for free? Is it (gasp) written in Java?

If you accused me of painting far too cynical a picture of the consulting landscape I'd be the last to argue. Just to nip a few furious crybaby emails in the bud: There really are good consultants to be found in the world, no software product is perfect, earning a commission on a sale is not a crime, and your chosen industry and/or physical location in the world may have a significant impact on the number and quality of options you have at your immediate disposal. Still, there's enough of the bad guys out there that it wouldn't hurt you to talk to more than one person before making a decision that will significantly impact your company's future. You'd want to know if your doctor was writing prescriptions for drugs you didn't actually need just so he could take his iPhone on a cruise this summer, wouldn't you?

Irrational paranoia must also be kept in check by the fact that it is entirely possible for one to simply be too inexperienced to understand some of what a perfectly honest and qualified consultant has to say, and this makes it equally possible for a budget-minded consumer who's had their head filled with these and other warnings to misinterpret factual information as a shady sales pitch. If you suspect this may be the case in your own situation then you should probably fire your consultant and go look for another one who speaks very slowly and whose surfeit of patience is so great that they have successfully trained dozens of cats to use the toilet in their spare time. Some people simply appreciate having their hands held and egos stroked more than genuine expert advice (which can at times be quite unkind), and it's important to know whether or not you fall into that category before running out and calling someone an idiot just because they couldn't tell you what kind of software you should buy to relieve you from the burden of teaching a poetry class at your local community center. I'm fairly certain even Stephen Hawking would roll his eyes at that one. He can roll his eyes, can't he? If not, I apologize. In fact, I'd like to apologize anyway, to the poor kids who got stuck in that soul-less woman's English class. Just imagine what they're writing now.

Felis Cattus, is your taxonomic nomenclature,
an endothermic quadruped carnivorous by nature?

-Lt. Commander Data