The Shannon and Weaver and the Personal Branding Paradox

On the personal branding front, the “very personal” message you had previously recorded, which was played for me when I answered my cell this evening might have come across a little more sincere if you did it before you decided to take legal action against me.

MITPM 2009

(From the Q4 2009 IT&T SIG Newsletter)

By Dave Prior and SK Khor

During the first week of December, IT&T SIG Chair, Petra Goltz and IT&T SIG Past Chair, Dave Prior had a chance to join IT&T SIG Asia Pacific Regional Director, SK Khor and PMI Fellow and 2006 PMI Chair Iain Frasier for MITPM 2009 Conference Awana Genting in Kuala Lumpur.

MITPM is an annual regional project management conference focusing on ICT industry and the IT & Telecom SIG has been supporting the event since 2006. The growth of project management in the area is an amazing success story and it has been fueled by a unique pairing of private and government resources who have worked together for the past few years to ensure that it established a solid foothold as technology and PM best practices take root in the region.

This year, Keynote Speaker and IT&T SIG Chair, Petra Goltz led things off with her talk "Beyond 2009: New Challenges for PM" (see her article “Challenges for Project Managers in the years ahead “ in this newsletter). IT&T SIG Past Chair Dave Prior followed with a presentation on the new PMIS Paradigm and introduced some tools and alternatives that are available for PMs as we move into and beyond Web 2.0 and Social Networking. Then PMI Fellow and 2006 PMI Chair, Iain Frasier, led a very insightful roundtable discussion on the topic of "Project Governance in a Challenging Time" and followed up with a workshop called "The Fast Track PM: Managing Multiple Priorities".

(Video of these presentations will be posted for IT&T SIG members in the coming weeks – stay tuned for more details.)

MITPM is supported by a number of sponsors including a nationwide initiative in Malaysia called Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Malaysia. MSC Malaysia is currently hosting more than 900 multinationals, foreign-owned and home-grown Malaysian companies and it is rapidly becoming a dynamic hub for the ICT industry in the region. MSC Malaysia is directed by the Multimedia Development Corporation (www.mdec.com.my) or MDEC. MDEC is committed to “drive MSC Malaysia by empowering businesses and connecting communities through ICT; and to facilitate Malaysia’s goal of becoming the preferred location for ICT and multimedia innovations, operations and services.”

During MITPM, IT&T SIG Past Chair, Dave Prior had the opportunity to spend some time with MDEC’s Chief Operating Officer Ms. Ng Wan Peng, Head of Capability Development Dr Karl Ng and Manager Ms. Aiza Zeyati Zamani. They explained that when MDEC was first started, it was primarily concerned with trying to create jobs in the region, but in 2003/2004 it took on a more proactive approach to ensuring that not only were jobs being created, but that skilled resources were trained and ready to fill them. By partnering with local Project Management training Specialist like the Advanced Technologies Studies Center (ATSC), they have been able to grow from 80 PMPs at the start of 2005 to over 2000 in 2009. This significant growth has contributed to the recent trend that has led many multinational foreign-owned organizations to establish a presence in Cyberjaya. Cyberjaya is the heart of MSC Malaysia, and for many foreign-owned companies doing business in Malaysia it serves as the location of choice for their Project Management Centre of Excellence, serving the needs of project management expertise across the entire Asia Pacific region.

The work of MDEC extends well beyond just promoting traditional project management best practices. In fact, it addresses technology concerns extending across all verticals. This includes providing education, mentoring and support for everything from Microsoft to Cisco technologies, to ITIL and to innovative and leadership programs, and Agile approaches to technology such as Scrum. In fact this December ATSC hosted one of the first Certified Scrum Master training sessions in Malaysia and is poised to help Agile grow in the region to support projects that require an alternative approach to traditional project management.

The work between MDEC, local organizations like ATSC and groups like the IT&T SIG are a model for how various groups around the globe can come together to help bring focus to new and emerging ideas in regions that are growing and establishing their role in the global IT workscape. The IT&T SIG is very proud to be able to contribute to continued growth in the region and is looking forward to exciting new things in 2010.

Social Media and Personal Branding: Episode 3 - An Interview with John Vajda
(Please note - John's new twitter handle is @PMmashable)

Project Potion Episode 1: The Green Thing

Project Potion Episode 2 : 2009 Year End Lessons Learned with Bas and Dave

Much Catching up to do before end of 2009

Less than 24 hours from now I will be done serving on the Board of the IT&T SIG - which is huge for me because I started in 2002.

And I still have a number of things to post before the year ends.

So, to get things started, some video updates:


Social Media and Personal Branding - Part 3 - with @genexerjv (John Vajda)

Project Potion Episode #1 - The @ProjectShrink (Bas de Baar) and I try to figure out what exactly Green PM is all about

Project Potion Episode #2 - The 2009 Lessons Learned with yours truly and @ProjectShrink

Social Media and Personal Branding - Part 2
The interview I shot with Brett Pohlman, Social Media Coordinator for the PR firm Schneider and Associates has been posted to the IT&T SIG website and in iTunes. Brett has a lot of good advice about using Social Media - and a great story about how he got his job at Schneider.

Project Potion Episode Zero



This is a new project that the Project Shrink, Bas de Baar and I are working on. We've received some feedback from folks since we shot the initial video last week and will be shooting a new episode today with a focus on Green Project Management.

If you have any feedback, or suggestions for topics, please let us know by posting a comment here or emailing me at dave@mrsungo.com, or Bas at basdebaar@gmail.com.

Updates on the Personal Branding Front...

I just finished watching the Project Shrink's new podcast with Dave Garrett (CEO of Gantthead) talking about Personal Branding. Very cool.

In my own personal efforts on the Personal Branding front, I stumbled a bit this summer. work, the IT&T SIG and P2P 2009 took up most of my "free" time recently, but I'm working on getting back into it. Which brings up another, maybe more common question. When you start working on your personal brand, and you end up going silent for a bit - how do you recover any lost momentum.

I've got the 2nd Personal Branding video ready to go and it should be live this week.

With respect to brand recovery efforts, as a follow up to his manly-man shirtless horseback riding pictures this summer, Vladimir Putin is now also working on developing his cred with the Russian Hip Hop crowd as a way to re-establishing his approval rating. I'm not sure if I am just in awe of it, or if it is more like my weird need to stares out the window at a horrible traffic accident as I drive by - either way - it is worth a quick read.

P2P 2009, Cairo Egypt
P2P 2009 kicked off today with opening presentations by a number of keynote speakers including Brisk Consulting CEO and event organizer, Emad Aziz, Dr. Gamal Nassar, Chairman of PMI MENA Chapter; Philip Diab, the immediate past Chair of PMI; current PMI Chair, Ricardo Viana Vargas and former Managing Director of the Scrum Alliance, Jim Cundiff. This year P2P is significantly larger than last year. It is being held under the auspices of H.E. Dr. Ahmed Darwish, Minister of State for Administrative Development and H.E. Dr. Hatem El Gabaly, Minister of Health and includes tracks on Technology, Agile and Scrum, Construction, and Oil and Gas.

"Egypt is wonders of the past and investment in the future"

During the opening presentation by Dr. Darwish this morning he talked about the growth of project management in Egypt and the need to develop talent internally so that as Egypt completes the current five year plan in 2012 and moves into the five year plan that will end in 2017, there are PMs who are trained in their craft and experienced and skilled enough to get the work done. PMI Chair, Ricardo Vargas spoke about PMI's commitment to developing PM best practices and awareness in the African region and talked about the work the Project Management Institute Educational Foundation (PMIEF) is doing to promote Project Management training for high-schools. In a presentation on the work of PMIEF, PMI Immediate Past Chair Philip Diab, gave an expanded view into all the great work they are doing to develop scholarships and expanded educational offerings for the underprivileged as well as emerging markets.

After the coffee break, incoming PMI Board Member, Frank Parth, gave a presentation of PMI Standards, how they are defined and developed. Frank was the project manager on PMI's Standard for Program Management, 2nd Edition.

We're only part of the way through Day 1, and I have to get back to the hall to attend the rest of the day's sessions. Over then next three days, sessions will be held by several IT&T SIG Board Members including, IT&T SIG Chair, Petra Goltz; VP of Strategic Marketing, Bob Tarne; VP Professional Development, Marisa Oldnall; VP Operations (and incoming Vice Chair), Andy Maxymillian as well as myself. PMI Agile Community of Practice founder Jesse Fewell will be giving a number of presentations over the next few days as will Jim Cundiff.

If you'd like to follow the events, we are using the hash tag #p2pconf in Twitter.

More to follow