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The Geek and the Shepherd
A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a
brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a
young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL
tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd, "If I tell you
exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"
The shepherd looks at the man, then looks at his peacefully grazing
flock and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"
The driver parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook, connects it to
his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the internet, where he
calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his
location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the
area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and
exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image
has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL
database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of
complex formulas.
He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after
a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-
color,
150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer,
finally turns to the shepherd, and says, "You have exactly 1586
sheep."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep," says the
shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and
looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the shepherd says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you
exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why
not?"
"You're a consultant," says the shepherd.
"Wow! That's correct," says the geek, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You showed up here
even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I
already knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know crap
about my business...
... Now give me back my dog."
A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a
brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a
young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL
tie, leans out the window and asks the shepherd, "If I tell you
exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"
The shepherd looks at the man, then looks at his peacefully grazing
flock and calmly answers, "Sure. Why not?"
The driver parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook, connects it to
his AT&T cell phone, surfs to a NASA page on the internet, where he
calls up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his
location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the
area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and
exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany.
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image
has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL
database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of
complex formulas.
He uploads all of this data via an email on his Blackberry and, after
a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full-
color,
150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer,
finally turns to the shepherd, and says, "You have exactly 1586
sheep."
"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep," says the
shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and
looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then the shepherd says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you
exactly what your business is, will you give me back my sheep?"
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why
not?"
"You're a consultant," says the shepherd.
"Wow! That's correct," says the geek, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required." answered the shepherd. "You showed up here
even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I
already knew; to a question I never asked; and you don't know crap
about my business...
... Now give me back my dog."
