by Mike Ososki, PMP, Public Relations Committee

The perfect theme for Veteran’s Day holiday was celebrated last Monday at the PMI Dunwoody Dinner. Veterans Mike Williams, Dave Harrington, and Craig Bergwall made their persuasive presentation to consider vets as perhaps one of the better PM hiring choices for industry. Also presenting by video was Vanessa Richardson, owner of Cygnal Consulting, sharing her great transitional success story.

Last year, PMI joined with the Dept. of Defense’s Defense Acquisition University (DAU) to support and aid the DoD/DAU’s “...Acquisition, Technology and Logistics workforce with a professional career path and consistency of training content and opportunity.” (www.dau.mil) The variety of PMI certification specializations (BA, Project, Program, Portfolio, Risk, Agile, Schedule, Org. Maturity) translate especially well to the various military specializations.

We are now in the middle of a massive planned military RIF (Reduction-in-Force): 1.2 million personnel exiting service between 2012-2017. How will they transition? What will they do as civilians? No one argues that ex-Army, Marine, Air Force and Navy are generally well-trained in discipline, leadership, motivation, and a wide variety of valuable practical skills—and these can include project management.

Other inherent, desirable characteristics are flexibility to relocate, diversity, adaptability, high performance under pressure, security clearances / drug-free, quick learning, educated, tech-savvy, strong ability to read situations, and the famously positive can-do attitude. Here in Atlanta, we are proud that Coca-Cola and Home Depot know the value, and routinely hire veterans. Many IT industry headquarters are here, too, and may do well to implement the same practice.

By: Glenn Boylan, PMP

The October Technology Forum featured a very informative presentation by John Salguero titled “Is Your Data Talking to You? And, Are You Listening?” about big data and how to manage big data projects.

Steve Kruger welcomed everyone to the meeting, and thanked Hewlett-Packard for hosting our forum. This was the last Technology Forum to be held at H-P this year.

Steven then turned the meeting over to Mr. Salguero for his presentation. John started with a quiz, asking the audience, which is the most important part of “Big Data”, the “Big” part, the “Data” part, both, or neither?

The answer was neither. John explained that the most important thing about big data is what organizations do with it. Effective use requires the right data, the right questions, the right model, the right people, and the right decisions. For most organizations, this will require a significant culture change.

PMI Atlanta is pleased to announce November’s Volunteer of the Month – congratulations, Dana Murphy!

For the past 3.5 years she has served as Board Secretary for our PMI Atlanta Chapter. Dana is a "consummate volunteer" in various aspects. In addition to her outstanding work with our PMI Atlanta organization, she and her Bernese Mountain Dog Ben, a certified Happy Tails Therapy Dog, volunteers their time by visiting and bringing cheer to a nursing home two Saturdays a month. What a commendable inspiration they are, even her dog Ben's a "project manager" of sorts for goodness sake….outstanding. Dana is being recognized for being an invaluable and tireless volunteer who continues to help our leadership team move our chapter forward on multiple initiatives. As a result of her diligent efforts with our PMI Atlanta Chapter, she has been selected and appointed to a 3 year term on PMI Global’s Ethics Review Committee. In her leisure time she enjoys gardening, traveling to sunny and warm destinations to relax and spending time with friends and family. As an IT Project Lead at Colonial Pipeline Company, she was recently chosen as their "Safe Person of the Quarter", an honor for exceptional work in their firm. We love Dana's passion for the project management profession, she's even re-branded "The Golden Rule" to be called "The Platinum Rule"….how cool is that – read and learn more about her below and what she enjoys about volunteering for PMI Atlanta.

1. What has been your favorite or most rewarding volunteer experience with PMI Atlanta?
While I feel I’ve done a number of things to help Atlanta’s Leadership Team (e.g., created transition plan templates, led the Audit Committee, created two new policies on Harassment and Whistle-blowing, and updated the contracts policy besides my normal duties as Board Secretary), I am so proud to have been part of establishing a Military Mentoring Program for PMI Atlanta. While it’s just in its infancy stage, the opportunity to spend time brainstorming with former service members, hearing some of their history with my head spinning from their military jargon, was such an honor and an incredible experience. I’ve always been so proud of my brother (West Point grad) and have a deep love for our country so this project was near and very dear to my heart!

The Nominations Committee would like to present the candidates for the 2015 Executive Board of Directors Elections.  Elections will commence on November 9th and close on November 20th. The winners will be announced on December 8th at the Holiday Celebration event at The Georgian Club.

Ballots were emailed to PMI Atlanta Members on November 9th.  Be sure to check your email and cast your vote!  If you are a current member and did not receive a ballot, please email us.
 

Secretary Candidate:	Director 3 (At-Large) Candidate:
Chiquetta West, PMP - 2015 Secretary Candidate	Bill Kay, PMP - 2015 Director 3 Candidate