P.Mean: Resources from the Statistical Consulting Section of the American Statistical Association (created 2008-08-02).

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I've talked with a lawyer about setting up an independent statistical consulting practice and he had several valuable suggestions. One of the more obvious ones, but one that I had not considered was to check out resources available through your professional society.

The American Statistical Association has a Statistical Consulting Section, and this section provides quite a few resources. Here's a brief summary of some of the ones that I found helpful.

Workshop on Statistical Consulting (vol 20 no 1). This is just an ad for a conference, but it listed an interesting set of topics.

Statistics Consulting in an Academic Institution. John Zhang, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (vol 20 no 1). This article summarized a panel discussion at the JSM 2002/ This is not of direct relevance to me as an independent consultant, but there are still some valuable comments.

The highlight of the session was the talk given by Stacey Wicker and Dan Pontzer. At the time, they were graduate assistants at the Applied Research Lab at IUP. They shared their experiences and perspectives both as trainees and as statistical consultants. They presented insights on the demanding, yet rewarding, experiences of student statistical consultants. For example, they discussed the many difficulties faced by the graduate student statistical consultant. These difficulties include • an initial lack of confidence in statistical knowledge and abilities; • unrealistic expectations from their clients; and • knowing how to deal with clients who have minimal statistical knowledge, are over-dependent, and lack interest in understanding the related statistical concepts. Stacey Wicker and Dan Pontzer identified many qualities that a successful graduate student statistical

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