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 Zegna suit, Gucci shoes and sunglasses and D&G 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, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his
peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, “Sure. Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer,
connects it to his Cingular 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 formulae. 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 and 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 management consultant." says the shepherd.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required," answers 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 know crap about my business.
Now give me back my dog..."
brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Zegna suit, Gucci shoes and sunglasses and D&G 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, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his
peacefully grazing flock and calmly answers, “Sure. Why not?"
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer,
connects it to his Cingular 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 formulae. 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 and 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 management consultant." says the shepherd.
"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?"
"No guessing required," answers 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 know crap about my business.
Now give me back my dog..."
