Professional Services: What To Pay For

If you are one of the lucky ones with a hiring budget, don't get bogged down in all the skill-set talk. Whether you are hiring an independent contractor or permanent professional in accounting, architecture, banking, design, engineering, health care, law, technology, marketing or other profession, full or part-time, you're still building the team.

You've got to think how would it be to have that person around? Can they get you where you want to go faster? Where could their network take you? In Good to Great, Jim Collins talked about how companies that routinely outperform indexes focus on “getting the right people on the bus”, then determine where to go and seating arrangements.

My analogy is sort of a new, green sport, at lease for those who enjoy it -THE SWAP. Today even the most fashionable are frugal in what fashionistas call dressing “high/low”. One green way to freshen the wardrobe is to swap. The way it works, everyone brings stuff they are ready to donate and then trades. What gets left, goes to Haiti. In my case, it was a huge suitcase. To my surprise, I went home with another one!

Helping Haiti is essential. I like free, it's great. But what really made this game rock was what happened when the most experienced swapper entered the room. To be honest, until she arrived, we didn't do anything, even though we just had to dig in. Then she arrived, organized everything and dug for pearls. She didn't do something someone else couldn't. But unlike the rest of us, she happens to know great things can be found for everyone because she's seen it repeatedly. She shares this vision, cares about fair play and loves to see people get what they like. Pretty soon all the guests, male and female, were in the same room peppering her with styling questions. She's never even worked in retail! Like a magic genie, she made the SWAP happen.

Got a project? Get a genie, get it going, create some magic....

NYCGenies on twitter

Bradley Jobling @bradleyjobling –

Catherine Ventura @catherinventura –

Chris Kieff @ckieff

Brad Wilson @ibradwilson

Gilbert B. Hammer @iptvevangelist

Joe Mulligan - @joemull

John Lee - @johnleemedia.com

John Mathews - @johnrmathews

Vidar Brekke - @social_vidar

Marshall Sponder -@webmetricsguru -

Jeff Keni Pulver- @jeffpulver

Damien Basile - @db

Katie Morse @misskatiemo

Jessica Levin -@jessicalevin –

Christine Coster @mizcity

Sophia Negron @sophnegron

NJIT Computing Students Doing the Work

“We are a true learning organization that adapts to change and responds rapidly to stakeholders' feedback. When we give our students the driver’s seats, we become mission impossible. The sky is not even our limit!”
Osama Elijabiri Director of Capstone Program

Budget-strapped departments, entrepreneurs and not-for-profits need to know New Jersey's Science & Technology University (NJIT) has the Capstone Real World University where students in the College of Computer Sciences can, with your best direction, do the job.

Students are supported by other students who have gone through the program and now function in an advisory capacity to the program that develops social intelligence and a sense of ownership for the student workers.

"I only discovered my passion because of that internship"
Jason Pearson, Advocacy Development CCS Capstone Program

With a donation of just $1000 and participation in this week's showcase, your business or organization could have 3 students for 12 weeks to work on that tech project. Projects are open to all industry sectors. To get an idea of what they can do for you, see what they did last term:

Project: Notebook, MS Surface, Cell phone Health Outreach, Image Processing, Multi-media Self-Discovery Programming for the Elderly and Game DevMasters Website Enhancements. Sectors: Web Development, Health Care, Aging

Project: Engineering requirements for Newark community-based organizations in collaboration with Business Access Sectors: Newark Business Community, Engineering

Project: Working with Newark Beth Israel Medical Center in a major project to deploy a new digital alert system and train hospital employees on using it. Sectors: Newark Medical Centers, Digital Alert Systems, Hospital Training

Project: Developing a simulation for the moving helical solar system and working with the president of NJ Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS)and management systems for the betterment of healthcare to take their website to the next level. Sectors: Healthcare, IT

To inspire your own team get your own group of NJIT students. Contact:
Osama Eljabiri
Sr. University Lecturer &
Director of Capstone Program
College of Computer Sciences
University Heights, Newark-NJ 07102
Work: 973-642-7123
Mobile: 973-981-1049
Fax: 866-605-9416
Email: oe2@njit.edu or elijabiri@gmail.com