This week it’s all about me.

As of today, IT Catalysts will no longer accept new clients. That’s because as of today I’m rejoining my old compadres at what used to be Perot Systems and is now Dell Services. And while I received the actual offer one day before Michael Dell took the company private, there’s no truth to the rumor that he did so to make sure the deal got done before investors learned I was joining the firm and panicked.

Well, I’m pretty sure there’s no truth to it …

Here’s what’s going to change:

Keep the Joint Running isn’t going to change very much. Except for this: My affiliation with Dell means I’ll be biting my digital tongue from time to time, refraining from industry commentary when any appearance of conflict of interest might taint it. Aside from that, KJR will cover its usual topics: Anything and everything about business and IT leadership, management, what they’re supposed to accomplish and how they can best accomplish it.

Advice Line will change a lot more. Namely, it’s going to go away. This is painful for both me and for my friends at InfoWorld. It’s like this, though: The Advice Lines I write that get the most attention are industry commentaries. They’d have the same conflict of interest taint in InfoWorld as in Keep the Joint Running, only in InfoWorld they’d taint the entire publication, not just me. We couldn’t figure out a way around this, so after sixteen years I’ll no longer have a weekly presence there.

Email correspondence: No change here. Write if you’re in the mood. If you agree, compliments are always welcome. If you don’t, pointing out what I’ve missed is even more welcome.

If you need advice, my newfound association with Dell Services doesn’t mean I can’t give it to you without charging you. It does mean that when the help you need goes beyond what we can handle in a bit of electronic back-and-forth and it’s time for a more formal consulting relationship …

Consulting: The coverage isn’t going to change all that much, on the grounds that my expertise hasn’t changed just because my corporate affiliation has. If you need help and I seem to be the logical source for it, email me just as you would have before and I’ll get the ball rolling.

I’ll now have all the resources of Dell Services to draw on, so if you need help that’s beyond my personal areas of expertise, instead of calling on “the people in my network” I’ll be calling on my colleagues at Dell Services.

I no longer set my own rates and terms of engagement, though.

That’s about it. Personally, I expect to be working more in teams and on larger engagements than previously, and I’ll have to adjust to the strange sensation of reporting to someone instead of reporting only to my clients. I’m sure you have lots of empathy for me on that score …

Anyway, I figured I’d better say something here, operating on the well-known theory of business communication: Ask the question, “Who should know about this?” and include whoever is on the list in whatever message you’re delivering.

You’re on the list.