Its ten years now since I took the plunge and left the safe world of a regular salary payment to set up Terrace Consulting.
Terrace Consulting has taken me on an amazing journey. I’ve met some wonderful people, some of whom I can now count as friends; I’ve had some exciting assignments; and most of all I feel I’ve made a positive difference to the way the organisations I’ve worked with have managed, accessed and stored their information.
It hasn’t always been an easy road for the people I’ve worked with as inevitably they have had to change the way they work. The changes have come about largely by the changing way people who need information want to access it. That has been heavily influenced by technologies. No longer do people want to, or have time to, browse the library shelves or search the physical file stack. Many people want information delivered to their desktop and want it NOW. “Google it” has become part of everyday language.
My biggest challenge has been to match the way the end users want to get information with the way the suppliers deliver it and to have a happy bunch of people at both ends of the process. That didn’t always happen.
A personal challenge has been to find a substitute for work colleagues to bounce ideas off and to keep up to date with current trends. That has been most interesting and very rewarding
So what is ahead in the next ten years for Terrace Consulting?
More of the same I have no doubt. Also for some time now I’ve been aware that new businesses get little if any advice on how to keep good business records.
2012 will see the development of instructional advice on the Terrace web site, using a range of media, to small and medium business owners and managers on a range of record keeping and information management issues. First off the block will be instructions on how to manage email – this seems to be the big issue for 2012.
Thank you everyone who have been part of this journey over the past 10 years. Without you I couldn’t have done it. I hope you’ll continue to be on my journey from 2012.