To be fair there is always a ‘colourful’ fringe around, but there seems to be an increasing tendency to search for answers from ‘unusual’ sources. Last week I came across a group that offers feng shui consultancy to property businesses, and today I came across the concept of a ‘business psychic’ on twitter. A group that describe themselves as offering ‘practical guidance for small business entrepreneurs’ said they are interviewing one and wanted ideas for questions - digging a little deeper, it appears that another business psychic was featured in Newsweek recently – she charges clients $10,000 per month for 24/7 access to ask her questions.
There are three thoughts that strike me: first, and we offer no judgement here, if people believe their business can benefit from feng shui, psychic readings, intuition, tea leaf interpretation etc. , then someone has to fulfil that need. The second is that if there are feng shui consultants and business psychics around – what else is there?
Finally, it is a shame that we don’t feel able to offer our own rational, sceptical view of these services because of the experiences when writing about scientific evidence of excellent scientists and authors such as Simon Singh and Ben Goldacre. While these alternative offerings conflict with or vakues and therefore we would never dream of offering any service that did not have evidence of it’s effectiveness, this humble blog cannot afford to take advice on what we can or cannot say in the more subjective field of business, so we merely report.
However, the Meridian 1 search for ‘new age’ and ‘alternative’ consultants in the business world begins!
