What do I do?

Most of my friends and family have no idea what I do for a living. Working for Xerox, my family is pretty sure that I fix copy machines for a living. I received my degree in Computer Science from Michigan State, so those who don't thin I fix copiers are under the impression that I work with computers. My kids understand what I do in terms of the fact that I travel a lot, receive and send a lot of e-mail and talk on the phone all the time. So what do I do for a living? I can sum it up with this: Help companies streamline their document processes in a way that drive down costs, increase revenue and help them better serve their customers.

So what do I do specifically? My title is: Managing Principal within Xerox Global Services' Business Process Services Line of Business. For the past 13 years, my job has revolved around document management solutions - helping companies capture, manage and deliver their paper and electronic documents. I started as a programmer writing and deploying the solutions, moved on to a solutions architect where i actually designed the solutions and into a Principal role where I would oversee the entire engagement. From there, i moved into a Managing Principal role, where I oversaw teams of Principals and the accounts that they were working on.

Document Management, you're thinking? What's that? Why do you need it? If you think that 90% of a companies communication with customers happens in the form of documents and they account for about 40% of a companies labor costs, you see that it's a huge place for companies to take a look at. I work with companies and help understand their challenges, define solutions, help sell, deliver and manage those solutions. I do very little of the actual consulting any more - most of what I do is in up front salesish type workshops with the customer to help figure out what's wrong and how we can make it strategic enough for them to want it. Most of my days consist of either meeting with customers to figure out what they need and then our internal delivery teams to figure out how to deliver things or fix what's broken. I've had a ton of different roles in this company - managing teams of Principals to do this, managing the teams that design the offerings that we sell, and now it's mostly just managing the team around a single big account.

About the middle of last year, I started working on a huge account in New Jersey and I've been traveling out there every other week for meetings. On the off week of my travel, I do the same thing - just not face-to-face. When I do travel out to New Jersey, I'm out at the customer's site all day, hanging in an office-space we have allocated amongst about 20 of us. Working virtual, it's fun to occasionally have a group of co-workers to see face-to-face.