alexsbrown.com News: November 2007

Date: November 25th 2007

I have gotten tons of e-mail from vendors wishing a happy Thanksgiving. I am in the US where we celebrate Thanksgiving with a long weekend and a turkey feast, but wishing "Happy Thanksgiving" seems inappropriate for an international group. I took some time over the long weekend to think about you, my subscribers, and this update is my way of giving thanks to you. I do not know what traditions each of you follow, but I wish you a great day every day.

Some news from alexsbrown.com:

"The Charter: Selling Your Project" Available as an On-Line Speech and Class

A full-length recording with slides is now available on-line, 54 minutes long. This presentation was recorded at the PMI North America Congress in Toronto, Ontario, Canada on September 12, 2005. It has also been given before several other groups.

This speech provides project managers with the tools and inspiration to make full use of project charters. This information can help project managers become key partners for senior managers and strategists in their organizations. The matching paper has been on this website since 2005.

The material will also be available as a four-contact hour, four PDU, on-line class through Real-Life Projects, Inc.. Taking this as a paid class helps support this website.

On-Line Survey for All Project Managers

If you have ever worked as a project manager, please go and fill out this important survey about project managers and senior executives at www.executive-pm.com. I have been helping Russ Archibald, PMP and PMI Fellow, and Jean-Pierre Debourse of ESC Lille with the survey, and I think it can help project managers tremendously. The survey is extensive and takes about an hour to complete, but I ask everyone to please take the time to do it.

This survey should help senior executives understand project management better, and help define clearer career paths for project managers to become executives.

Please take the survey at www.executive-pm.com today. It is closing December 15, so time is running out.

Presented "Project Schedules and Return on Investment" at the PMI North America Congress 2007 in Atlanta, GA

Available in HTML and PDF formats.

Presented at the PMI North America Congress in Atlanta, Georgia on October 8, 2007.

Explains key financial terms, including return on investment, time value of money, payback period, and first-to-market advantage. Applies these financial concepts to sample projects, to help project managers understand the business impact of schedule changes.

This paper was published on the site in 2006, but had to be taken down once it was accepted for the PMI Congress. The paper is now available on the site once again.

Founded a Toastmasters Group on LinkedIn and Started the Toastmasters Networking Web Site

Toastmasters International has helped me over the years to become a better speaker and leader. As a way to give back to that community, I founded and am running a group on the LinkedIn business networking site for Toastmasters members. It will help them meet other Toastmasters all over the world, to exchange business leads, and to learn more. I also started a new website to promote all kinds of business and social networking among Toastmasters. The new site is "Toastmasters Networking" and is available now at www.toastmasters-networking.org.

If you are a Toastmaster and would like to join the LinkedIn group, Toastmasters Networking has all the instructions to join. It also has directions on how to join similar groups on XING and other social and business networking sites.

If you are a Toastmaster or know any Toastmasters, please spread the word. I hope to see this expand and grow through the whole Toastmasters community.

Future Plans: Site Upgrade Using WordPress

Every few years, I have done some sort of site-wide update. Sometimes the changes were cosmetic. Others upgraded the site to new web standards, like XHTML and CSS. This time I hope to improve both the technology and your experience as a reader by moving the site to a WordPress management system.

No, the site will not become a "blog". WordPress will just make it easier to manage the growing number of articles on the site. It will also help me to put some non-project-management information here on alexsbrown.com, and offer new features like

• Full-text search of articles
• Better cross-referencing of related articles
• View articles by category, date, and other options

It will also help me reduce the time needed to post a new article, which should help me get articles out to you more consistently.

All the existing articles will be available freely on the new site; they should just be easier to find and navigate through. Look for the new site sometime in December.

Feel free to e-mail me with any requests for material to add to the site.

Thanks,
Alex S. Brown, PMP