Brave New Workshop

Baker Tilly: a brave new world of services

It felt like deja vu all over again. My colleague Brian Sommer invited me to join a couple of other analysts, Katherine Jones and Tom Ryan  to be part of a market intelligence and strategy workshop for the consulting/advisory side of Baker Tilly , one of the largest accounting/advisory firms in the world.

Brian did plenty such sessions for Arthur Andersen/Accenture and its clients when he was a partner there in the 80s and 90s, and I did the same while at Price Waterhouse, then Gartner.

But the world has moved on and  the two intense days we spent were a forceful reminder of how much it has changed. Brian, Katherine and Tom had done a similar session last year and they were commenting on how far BT itself has evolved in just a short few months.

Bryan Majewski, the lead BT partner, deserves plenty of credit for:

a) inviting not just his consultants but also many of his HR, marketing, alliance, quality management and audit colleagues to the session. It was a large investment which highlighted the seriousness of the firm’s commitment.

b) allowing for a very broad agenda as I describe below

While there were many breakouts and group exercises and side conversations, broadly there were 5 themes, admirably quarterbacked by Brian with his usual flair

The SaaS/cloud marketplace – cameos and updates on many software vendors BT has alliances in place with and many others for them to consider Opportunities in a much wider set of mobile, social, green and other innovation marketplaces. I was impressed with the broad range of consultants I met and am looking forward to profiling some of the people I met/clients I heard about in my next book on innovation.  A sign of the out-of-the-box sessions – Tom demoed an “in-beta” gadget for the hospitality industry which brings together sensory and cloud computing. The changing world of vendor alliances and ecosystems. Katherine did a fine job mimicking Miss Manners in one of the sessions as the group role played profiles and personalities of many of the technology executives they will be dealing with. The scary new world of elevator pitches and tweets in a world of social messaging The competitive services landscape – again we covered a very swath of service providers BT is likely to run into – or should at least be aware of

Over and over during the sessions I heard the words “small teams” and “management consultants not just package implementers” as BT differentiators. While that may sound like an oxymoron, a comment Bryan made to the group was telling “We have to continually watch for the risk of reverting to our legacy mindsets”. Many of the consultants come with careers in Big 4 consulting firms and mega-projects.

50% off at Brave New Workshop | phenoMNal twin cities

A President. A Terrorist and his hilarious wives. Seal Team 6. And their laughable hair raising adventures in Abbottabad. The Brave New Workshop, no stranger to political satire, shares their own unique look at the adventures of Seal Team 6 and their mission that ended with a splash! Audiences on both sides of the aisle will enjoy the many hysterical characters that inhabit and invade Abbottabad. *Disclaimer * – The Brave New Workshop does not guarantee that after watching the show, audiences will be able to say, spell or find Abbottabad on a map.

50% off sketch comedy at Brave New Workshop -

RT : just met a brave person... has been in practical life for many years and now is ready to try his hand at new things and taking our workshop

RT : just met a brave person... has been in practical life for many years and now is ready to try his hand at new things and taking our workshop

just met a brave person... has been in practical life for many years and now is ready to try his hand at new things and taking our workshop

Basking in the wonderful feedback I got this morning about my Facebook & Twitter workshop AND enjoyment of helping a new client 'be brave'!

Return to Civility, A Speed of Laughter Project

Theatrical improvisation, short form, long form, and sketch-based improv

As early as 1989 in the improvisational set, Brave New Workshop was doing ... In her thesis research on Dudley Riggs' Brave New Workshop as a tool for ...

Brave New Workshop's 40th anniversary

Uptown Minneapolis

Brave New Workshop is now the United Srates' oldest ongoing satitical comedy theatet. ... The 1970-1971 Dudley Riggs Brave New Workshop cast are shown here ...

The art of the laugh, a handbook for sketch writers, actors, and directors

An Introduction What is the Brave New Workshop? Since 1958, the Brave New Workshop ... Brave New Workshop staff, instructors, writers, and performers have ...