When I started The IT Psychiatrist in 2018 I had one clear goal in mind - to provide affordable, solution agnostic, technology advice to small and medium businesses across New Zealand.
This goal came about after observing the access the big firms have to technology advisors to help with decision making and planning. I knew that Small and Medium firms would get just as much benefit from this advice, if only it was in reach.
And this is important because every big business was a small one once.
3 years on I still believe in that goal, but it came with a problem...
...The IT Psychiatrist as a brand has become synonymous with me. Most introductions have started with "this is Anthony, he's an IT Shrink". Now that's great and all, but is has made it difficult to find a marketing edge when the brand and personality are so interlinked.
(I even once got offered a job as a Locum Psychiatrist in New South Wales. I immediately knew I'd made a career mistake when I saw the remuneration - $2000 a day (Aussie Dollars!), plus expenses, car, and accommodation).
A secondary problem is that, while it's raised a few eyebrows and got a few laughs, the company name hasn't immediately given an insight into what I do (or what I want the business to be). This meant that most conversations started with an explanation about what that means rather than a discussion on how I might help them.
And (to a lesser degree) it turns out Psychiatrist isn't the easiest to spell, especially when you must give your email address out.
Starting from today, The IT Psychiatrist Limited will now be trading as Target State Consulting and carry its own unique brand.
The company mission, uniqueness, and focus hasn't changed (you can see more about below), and neither has the dedication to customers - which is why I told them all first.
Oh hell no!
There's too much brand recognition there to just throw that away, and I'm still happy to have him linked to me.
I will be using The IT Psychiatrist as my public speaking brand, and also keeping many of the elements alive in the way I post on LinkedIn - you haven't seen the end of my stick man yet!
He'll still get plenty of air time, just not linked to a company brand.
So it's not time to go and get a new pair of glasses yet.
If you want to find out more about what Target State Consulting or the IT Psychiatrist is up to then follow me!
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A theory of evolution
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The ability for customers to rate their experiences with a company should be referred to as the review economy.
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The other week I was asked a question that I have been asked many times before: what is the most disruptive innovation society will face. I…
"One of Ant's strengths is relating to owners in a visionary sense and talking to people who are on the ground...[Ant has a] wide understanding of different systems, processes and applications and can articulate where we're going and what the possibilities are...working with Ant has changed the way we make decisions about IT structures and support systems."
We hired Ant to support us with an important project after he was highly recommended by colleagues. Ant was responsive, speedy, super-helpful and helped us to make key decisions. We appreciated his broad experience, and his ability to hold a high level strategic view alongside expert advice on details. We will definitely be consulting with Ant again and are happy to recommend him.
"We don’t need a full-time CTO [chief technology officer]. Ant knows enough about our business he can deliver it virtually. He can translate things for us. During project management, Ant came into his own... Ant gets his head round your business and [took his time] understanding our context. He was really clear about pausing on investment into the app...Ant's inquisitive, curious and approachable - he's very easy to work with."
"Ant was really quick to understand the business model and our processes and IT structures."
"Ant helped us at the early stages of Aerotruth helping us to plan our technical infrastructure and ensure we built a product that would scale. Ant was great to work with and we really valued his support and contribution to Aerotruth"
"No question has ever been too silly. Ant's been accommodating and helped me understand. I've valued that he understands the charitable sector really well. He can look through the experience that he has with larger organisations and what's the reality for a small and mighty charity where you don't have teams of people that can come in and project manage an IT project"
"Having Anthony was really valuable – to lean in on his skillset – and his connections. He was able to provide impartial advice about the different strengths [of the providers]. It was important that we undertook a good due diligence process. Having Anthony there meant we had impartial selection as well, which is very important to us and [something] other not-for-profits [could benefit from]."