It's always challenging to describe what I do.

One reason: I'm much more comfortable talking about clients and coworkers.

Another reason: the longer I'm around, the more I realize that pigeonholing in anything related to market positioning means obsolence. We really have to fight our need to use labels, especially outdated ones, when we look at our resources.

That said, five things are interesting right now. One. Using social media in the enterprise. Two. Putting technology terms into plain language. Three. Creating branded concepts that differentiate people and companies. Four. Hearing what customers and users think. Five. Analyzing markets to help clients focus on customer and buyer values

For startups, I work as part of the founding team.

I use my experience and "core competencies" to do everything from building the business model to drafting copy. Market analysis, positioning, command of the language, cocktail chatter -- they all play a role in giving a core technology the authenticity that appeals to people. Even investors. I always insist on differentiation, too, exposing what makes the new company stand out -- from the business model, to the business plan, to the messaging.

For established players, I go where they need me. But I always start from understanding the business strategies and market position -- and working the project from there.

The marketplace is now oriented toward community and conversation, courtesy of technology and our weariness with isolation. Being original is critical to engaging all stakeholders and attracting them into relationships and regular conversation. My clients leverage their originality to build synergy between what they do, how they do it and how they talk about it.

To add challenge and beauty to my life, and because it's Mission Control for technology, I live in San Francisco. I volunteer at the Presidio Community YMCA, located in the heart of the historic and treasured Presidio of San Francisco; from 2005 to 2008, I served on the Board of Managers. From 2002 to 2005, I served as a member of the Presidio Restoration Advisory Board, through which community stakeholders and regulatory agencies work to produce consensus decisions about the environmental restoration of the former military base. I even lived on the Presidio for two years.

I began serving clients in 1990, in Chicago. In 1997, I opened an office in Palo Alto, in California's Silicon Valley. In 2001, I moved my base from Chicago to San Francisco. The siren call of technology, just in time for the bust. Web 2.0 is correcting that, and most of us are hoping it won't get irrational or too bubbly. Even after all this time, I'm still getting used to life beyond America's East Coast and Midwest. But I've never questioned the move to the strangely exotic West Coast.

I work with companies of all sizes and cultures, in a variety of industry verticals. Clients have included BookRenter.com, Huron Consulting Group, Alvarez & Marsal Taxand, Carat Fusion, BlueLithium, KBM Workspace, ePIT Systems, Firetalk Communications, Interwoven, Bridge Strategy Group, Arthur Andersen, American National Bank [now Bank One], Grand Central Sanitation [now a Waste Management company], ServiceMaster and Aon's Rollins Hudig Hall unit.

To really shake up my professional life in the new millenium, I agreed to participate in a family project that combined a family memoir with a finally-accurate record of family recipes. [Remember: memoirs are different from autobiographies.]

So I'm now registered in the Library of Congress and on some websites -- not all sites, because some people and entities refuse to accept the fact that my talented novelist-sister would have allowed her business-sister to actually write a book with her, with contributions from Mom and our three sisters -- as the co-author of COOKING WITH MY SISTERS [Random House, October 2004, paperback October 2005; Simon & Schuster UK, hardcover September 2006].

Under my own steam, I have been published [short commentary] in HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW and interviewed by THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, NBC's WEEKEND TODAY, NPR's THE DIANE REHM SHOW and SAN FRANCISCO.

Before establishing my consulting practice, I was with Andersen Worldwide, the global professional services firm that was the parent of Andersen and Accenture. I served as a speechwriter for the managing partners and handled special projects.

Yes, that Andersen. When I was inside the company, I worked for leaders who set the standard in thinking, acting, performing and profiting honestly -- without sacrificing competitiveness or the occasional yet necessary macho moment. Unfortunately, their heirs wound up emphasizing competitiveness and machismo over quality and perspective.

But fear not. The Andersen philosophy of "think straight, talk straight" lives on, around the world, through the people who still execute, in new jobs and organizations, a most wonderful, distinguished legacy. I strive to be one of them.