Rich Blank was our Member of the Week on August 3, 2010.
Rich Blank is Managing Consultant for NouvEON Consulting. He provides strategic and deployment consulting focused on driving analytics from content and optimizing collaborative business processes, social media, projects, knowledge management, and SharePoint.
Since then, he's become an expert blogger on our SharePoint Community.
He took a few moments to answer our 15 Minutes interview.
What do you do and how did you get there?
I always find it a little hard to describe what I do. I’ve spent time evangelizing and implementing technology, architecting solutions, managing projects and people, firefighting escalations, building business cases, writing statements of work, and working with clients as a management consultant. In some cases I have been focused on social networking, collaboration, or knowledge management. In other cases I was helping to surface analytics and optimize projects and business processes. While that sounds exciting to someone who understands all the buzzwords, I'm not sure my wife or kids know exactly what I do every day. If I had to simplify it all --- I help companies organize the mess of digital information, share, and make sense of what they know.
My career really started at the University of Michigan in the early ‘90s where I was an accounting undergrad major. While a student, I helped develop some of the first websites and worked on early distance learning initiatives for the Business School … and I was hooked on IT. I landed my first job as an IT Project Manager for Hewlett Packard and transitioned into consulting at a Big 5 firm from there. I spent a few years migrating mainframes to ERP systems which gave me a solid foundation in large scale system deployments, project management, consulting, and enterprise IT infrastructure. Those ERP projects also exposed the difficulty collaborating and sharing information with dozens of resources from around the world. As I searched for better ways to collaborate and manage projects & information, I found a better way working for eRoom and eventually Documentum and EMC. After leaving EMC to obtain my MBA fulltime, I shifted towards management consulting....with, of course, SharePoint being a major focal point in recent years.
What are you proudest of?
My family – my 2 boys, my wife, and my newly born daughter!
What is your No. 1. goal today - and what is your greatest content-related challenge?
Personally, my #1 goal is to be debt-free like the rest of America! Professionally, my goal is probably the same as my “greatest content-related challenge”. And that challenge seems to be inspiring and enlightening C-level and senior executives on the real business value of social media, collaboration, & knowledge management --- how do these trendy buzzwords and abstract concepts actually impact people, process, and their bottom line. How do we measure something that seems to be immeasurable?
What are your three favorite websites?
You should probably reword this question to say “Other than Google”. Google is my home page and source of search and all knowledge on the web. So other than Google, my top 3 sites are:
Facebook: www.facebook.com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
Ted: www.ted.com
What are the three greatest books ever written - and what’s on your nightstand today?
This is definitely a tough question as I rarely read fiction. I read about technology, management, or self-improvement type books. While these may not be these best books ever written, these 3 books made a lasting impression on me personally:
“Managing the Professional Services Firm” – by David Maister. It was the first book I read at the start of my consulting career.
“HP Way” – The original garage startup and my first official employer out of college. I was definitely brainwashed with a core set of management values I still believe in today.
“Wisdom of Crowds” – by James Surowiecki. It was a timely book given the rise of Google, Web 2.0, etc...
On my nightstand is a relatively new book called: “The SPEED of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything” by Steven Covey. It seems so simple – the concept of “trust” and it’s what drives much of the online world today. Trust is just something that can have a profound effect on relationships in both our professional and personal lives (as well as our online virtual life)!
What are the three greatest movies of all time - and what’s the last one you’ve seen?
3 Greatest Movies: Office Space. Gladiator. Goodfellas.
Last Movie I saw: Inception
What was your first concert - and what are the three greatest songs on your Ipod?
First Concert: I am pretty sure it was Billy Joel in the mid-80s.
3 Greatest Songs on my iPod:
Maroon 5 – Sunday Morning
John Mayer – Clarity
Frank Sinatra – The Best is Yet to Come
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