Modern Business

December 14, 2006

A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW drove up in a cloud of dust. The driver, a young man in an Armani suit, Gucci shoes, slick sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd:

"If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?"

The shepherd answered: "Sure. Why not?"

The young man parked his car, whipped out his notebook computer, connected it to his AT&T cell phone, surfed to a NASA page on the Internet, where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system to get an exact fix on his location which he then fed to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo.

The young man then opened the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exported it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany. Within seconds, he received an e-mail on his Blackberry that the image had been processed and the data stored.

He then accessed a MS-SQL database through an ODBC-connected Excel spreadsheet with hundreds of complex formulas. He uploaded all of this data via an e-mail and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he printed out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turned to the shepherd.

"You have exactly 1586 sheep."

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my sheep," said the shepherd.

He watched the young man select one of the animals and looked on, amused, as the young man stuffed it into the trunk of his car. Then the shepherd said 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 said:"Okay, why not?"

"You're a consultant." said the shepherd.

"Wow! That's correct," said the young man, "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 anything about my business.

"Now give me back my dog."

E-mail this page to a friend.

Enter your e-mail address and your friend's e-mail address, then click "Send Link". Your friend will receive a link to this page. Your e-mail addresses will not be saved or shared.