The second day of the Project Management Institute (PMI), San Diego Chapter, two day conference was also very good last week.  The Handlerey hotel was a very pleasant setting, the enthusiasm was high, and the organizers did a terrific job. 

Topics ranged from Career Enhancement to Establishing an Undercover PMO and much more.  There were more booths and perhaps more attendees than Thursday.  Tom Mattus was a very interesting speaker engaging the audience with a ‘current state’ of Project Management and an interesting activity that showed most groups had very similar lessons learned from prior projects.

This week I thought I would try something new.  Since engaging executives at potential clients has been more challenging than expected, I thought I would offer myself up as a volunteer at some local companies (and by local, I mean within a five minute drive).  I will offer my typical services free of charge on a part-time basis for up to one month.  By limiting the number of hours per week, I hope to get my foot in the door with more than one company.  I truly believe that once they get to know me and see the value I bring, we will engage in dialogue that will result in work. 

I am also considering offering coaching to their managers or executives as part of the volunteer activity.  Although I am not certified, I have practiced coaching techniques as a manager with my direct reports and peers.  This would allow me to get to know some of the team and start building a relationship with the organization.

If readers have any stories or practices to share about marketing activities that worked for you, it would be great to share those.

Gabor

For example, you get on a flight and wish to read, watch a movie, write notes on a pad and/or listen to music, but don’t need significant processing power.  Remove the screen with its own internal battery for the lightest coolest experience.  Because there is no processor and only flash or an iPod sized hard drive, the screen acts as a Kindle/iPod without much heat or battery consumption. 

If you then realize you need more content or processing power from your base machine, simply connect the screen to the base using the built-in Bluetooth connection.  Using the touch screen and a stylus, full power processing is immediately available within 30 feet of the base unit.  In those cramped coach seats you have an easy to read or write surface like a Tablet PC (on some flights I can’t even open my computer on my lap). 

If only our cell phones were built into our Laptops too, but that is for another time and probably a whole lot less practical.

More networking and learning at day 2 tomorrow.

Regards,

Gabor

On a different subject,,, a friend of mine recently described a project at his company.  He explained that during the late stages of integrating a recently acquired brand, there were significant issues because some parties were either not aware of or not bought-in to the project scope.  I explained that no matter what functional methodology a project employs to achieve a given result, the common thread across all successful projects is  the application of basic Project Management principles*.  For example, in my friend’s situation, the Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that a stakeholder analysis is properly completed, which would minimize the likelihood of a significant group of stakeholders being missed.  As a result, all stakeholders are involved from the beginning thus avoiding rework, delay and other unplanned costs.

Then my friend mentioned that the Project Manager is responsible for 27 active projects and has no staff.  Ouch!  Sounds like that organization needs a high level champion for how to manage projects more effectively, but of course that was based on limited information.  Without looking at the broader organization structure, we can only speculate or ask questions, but regardless, it is a pretty safe assumption that if stakeholders are being missed during the project lifecycle, there are fundamental project management gaps that need to be filled if an organization is passionate about continuous growth and improvement.

The fact of the matter is that for projects to be done right the first time, on budget and on time, an organization’s best chances are with a proven PMP certified manager that understands the importance of “Change Management” and maximizes the likelihood of success by ensuring the right people, tools & techniques, and processes are effectively deployed. 

Fulop Consulting will do this with the Lowest Risk and Highest Value.  By maintaining a low overhead and bringing in associates only as needed.  We provide superior service at the lowest total cost.

*Such as those described in the Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)

Finally, received a couple of e-mails about the appearance of this blog and I will work as quickly as possible to improve the look.  However, I firmly believe that since the intention of this blog is to help other professionals that also lost their jobs due to the economic crisis, it is an integral part of Fulop Consulting and should remain published with future postings including more articles around how to approach different elements of business development, project management, and continued responses to questions and suggestions. 

First business priority is marketing to potential clients, second is updating this blog.  Thanks for checking back frequently and leaving comments.

Regards,

Gabor

Today’s successful business leaders will incorporate many different perspectives to realize an organization’s vision:

• Market, competitive and economic conditions
• Product or service vision and organizational culture
• Evolutions in management theory such as Six Sigma, Lean, IEE and Much more
• System implementations – ERP, E-commerce, Business Process Management, hosted vs. owned appliances, package vs. custom software, etc and most have individual models for achieving success
• The opportunities that come with outsource providers and partnerships with different core competencies such as Information Technology, HR, Finance, Marketing, Research & Development and more

Regardless of the approach or model, effective Project Management is critical to successfully getting things done.  Fulop Consulting incorporates the structure associated with being a Project Management Professional (PMP) with the cross-functional business acumen of a seasoned management veteran.  Fulop Consulting focuses on key areas to maximize success while minimizing risk:

• Listening to client needs effectively
• The Project being in line with the organization’s long-term business plan (alignment of improvement spending with business strategy)
• Saving time, money and frustration while maximizing end results
• Team integration for maximum productivity
• Avoiding common pitfalls:
  –Project communication, cost or result is different from what stakeholders expected
  –All stakeholders are not identified, engaged and committed
  –Third party contracts inadequately negotiated and managed due to inadequate terms or scope of work
  –Documented Project Management best practices are not followed and the results are late, significanlty more costly, or do not perform as expected

So the next time your organization is facing a new project, mixed results from prior initiatives, or stagnating, call Fulop Consulting to maximize return while minimizing risk. 

Visit www.FulopConsulting.com or call Gabor at 760-683-4210

This week brought an interesting revelation, updates to my site, a different kind of blog post and a lot of unplanned work.  My revelation came from the book “The Power To Get In” by Michael Boylan.  I strongly urge everyone to read this book, because it can help you get a job, get in the door to present your idea, and more.  For me it meant changing my marketing approach.  Rather than blast 300+ letters to companies shotgun style, I decided to analyze the companies and narrow my target to around a dozen companies.  Hopefully there will be 2-3 groups of competitors that I can leverage.  The list is narrowed to 41 companies and detailed analysis is ongoing. 

Special thanks to those that gave feedback on the web site.  I received some great comments, like tips from Jason such as never using “!” and “Click Here”.  Received a great comment from an old friend, Lajos: “On the Services page, tell the reader what they get from the services offered”, and several more bits of great feedback.  I edited what I could (most published 4/26), but some things just weren’t possible with the tools that I currently have,,, perhaps for the next generation.

So this week, rather then mailing letters I read the book mentioned above, started narrowing the target list of companies, and wrote a different kind of blog post (please check it out).  This coming week, I asked a friend to help analyze all the companies and hopefully we can mail something to a list of specific individuals by the end of the week.

Until next time, thanks for reading,

Gabor

Some of the immediate next steps for marketing and business development are: 

–Finalize press release, business cards and letter to CEOs (300+). 

–Gain copies of forms & applications to University case-study programs in the classroom

–Finalize elevator pitch and start calling folks, making sure to document every bit of information so that later I can refer back and better develop the relationship.

–Attend networking events, such as the MIT Sloan Forum, Connect events, etc. and invite potential clients where appropriate; or organize an event of my own

Thanks for checking in and more to come soon.

Sincerely,

Gabor

Thanks Dean!

Dean wrote:  Have you thought about setting up your own wordpress blog, on your new website?

Dishing out tips that highlight your expertise or commenting on current events or things that you plan to consult on will give people an idea of your knowledge and experience. 

By setting up your own wordpress blog, you have more control over the optional features like pushing out RSS feeds, social network ratings like Digg, and others that will help drive other traffic to your site.

Also, you can register your blog on your linked in profile and it will automatically show up on everyone’s home page if they have the blog widget turned on.

Just a couple thoughts…. 

GF wrote:  So, I posted a link to the Blog on my LinkedIn site.  I’ve plastered it everywhere else I could think.  I started a WordPress blog that references the other one.   Now, I need your help to better understand: “By setting up your own wordpress blog, you have more control over the optional features like pushing out RSS feeds, social network ratings like Digg, and others that will help drive other traffic to your site.”  I created categories for Best Practice, E-commerce, in particular, for this info and any questions. 

Dean wrote:

As for the blog bells and whistles…when you installed the wordpress blog in your hosting account there should be some links that take you to third party and optional wordpress widgets.  You can download these and install them.  Once installed, when you go into your wordpress administration screens, you should have options to configure them or turn them on.   If you install the rating widgets, anytime someone clicks on the Digg, or other button to recommend your post, your site will become more visible to other people on Digg.com etc.

Also, using the rss widgets, you can configure your blog to automatically get pushed out and listed on feedburner and similar sites.  If you do a podcast, you can also use the rss widget to push your podcast out to iTunes.  So in addition to writing a blog you can record an mp3 file and attach it and voila you are a podcaster.  Or get fancy and record a video and you could be a vidcaster…. which is even cooler, because you can then post the video to YouTube, iTunes, and the others which can also drive traffic back to your site.   

oh… also one other site you might be interested in..  statcounter.com   it is free, and it allows you to track emails and click throughs like oracle marketing or Eloqua… so you can do targeted email campaigns and track statistics.  also may want to look at doing something similar for all of the links to your blog, this way you can see which sites are producing the most hits back to your blog.

I did a bunch of research on vidcasting, podcasting, affiliate marketing, blogs, including some hands on stuff etc.  for a couple of projects I was working on, but have put on the back burner.  While I am no expert, I am happy to share anything I have learned and help you in any way I can.

Dean