Note: Michael Stoner addressed this subject far more eloquently than I yesterday, but I had already started this post so I figured I would finish it :-)

The other day, I touched the tension between higher ed consultants and internal employees in higher ed.  Though I made this note on that post, I want to reinforce it with this post, because I don’t want people to get the idea that I think consultants are bad.  I think they play a vital role - colleges just don’t have the bandwidth to do everything!  Here are my general guidelines for when you should bring in a consultant: 

1) When you don’t have internal subject matter experts

There are a lot of really smart people in higher ed…but as much as there are colleges (or departments within colleges in a decentralized model) that overlook their internal experts, there are also places out there that don’t have the luxury of having people to overlook.  That’s not to say that the employees at places like that aren’t very good at their job, but they’re just not obsessive uber-geeks over this type of thing.  Repeat after me - just because someone is on Facebook does not mean they understand marketing on the web.  If you don’t have someone with at least a basic understanding of these things, then you probably need some outside help.

Some would recommend hiring students for people in this situation - young, cheap labor who grew up using this stuff.  In this case, I think you get what you pay for.  Students need to be trained and monitored, and can end up being more of a time sink than anything else.  On the other hand, once you get them trained, they can be great…but the learning curve is often severe.  

2) When you need a roadmap

You can learn a lot from reading books and blogs, but there’s a difference between understanding something in theory and actually implementing it.  Having someone that’s been there and done it to guide you can be an invaluable resource.  They know to ask the questions that you haven’t even thought of.  They’ve seen the difference between how something should work in theory, and how it will probably end up realistically going down.  Having someone that’s been through it can make your process run all the more efficiently and effectively.

3) When you don’t have adequate internal resources

At the CASE: Communications, Marketing and Technology conference, the idea of the “one man army” kept coming up over and over again.  Sometimes, even if you have the knowledge and the experience, there just aren’t enough hours in the day.  Since consultants can have a limited project scope, and don’t come with the extra burden of employment benefits on top of their compensation, they are often cheaper than hiring another FTE.  Though this is more of a short-term strategy instead of a long-term scalable approach, sometimes you just need to get things done.

What are your thoughts? Have I missed something?  Leave a comment!

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