IT Project Pros
(Originally published in Colorado Biz Magazine.)
Your idea: Great project, great budget, great resources, great potential.
No people.
You need specific skills from one or more people who will click with your company, be enthusiastic, and then go away at project’s end.
From its renovated Victorian in Littleton, CONNECT:The Knowledge Network searches out and supplies temp workers the Knowledge Network with expertise in any of seven areas: management, project management, data management and warehousing, system development and support, system and network administration, and human systems.
CONNECT was founded in 1992 by Maureen Clarry and Kelly Gilmore, both IT pros who’s seen the worst of IT temps while working at General Electric. They drew up their own business model: to bring teams together and then disband them when the project was done, Clarry said. The two strive for a human touch, trying to keep their 3,500 consultants’ career goals in mind and maybe doing some career coaching after the stringent testing phase, while coming through on clients’; projects.
CONNECT consults with a company, determining corporate culture, budget and other points, then gives objective recommendations for a project.
Biggest demand is for database specialists (programmers, administrators) and e-biz pros (strategy, Java programmers, and content developers), Clarry said. Costs for those have run between $60 an hour to $8,500 a day to $135,000 a year.
Back at the 1890 Victorian (which the two purchased for $100,000 five years ago and is now valued at $500,000), CONNECT’s 17 full-time staffers have flexible hours and an onsite daycare in a separate facility in the backyard.