By Sateria Tinsley, Communications Team

The March 10th Dinner Meeting kicked off with an extended Professional Growth session "Microsoft Comes to the Westin”.  David Huseonica of CloudAG and Laura Crawford of PM Resource a Group presented on MS Office 365 and MS Project Online. Both discussed cloud based solutions for Project Managers to be able to create and manage projects, track issues and risks for today's enterprise.

Back by popular demand - cash bar!  All attendees were treated to the cash bar returning. We are asked to make best usage of this service as there is a cost to the Chapter associated with its availability. Lack of usage caused it to disappear. In order to keep it available, it will need to be utilized.

New to the meeting this month was a 5-minute Table Power Networking Session. Each member in attendance was treated to a table networking session led by a PMI Atlanta member at each table. Instead of sitting at the table and meeting only your table mates to the left and right of you, we had the pleasurable experience of meeting everyone at the table with 30-second elevator speeches.

The attendees were thrilled to hear the Chapter is ranked 3rd in the nation and 4th globally with only a few members short of surpassing #2 New Jersey.  Doug Guice, VP Membership encouraged the group to bring in new members to assist the Chapter in rising in the rankings.

Caressa Bell, VP Operations, informed everyone that the post event surveys are different and we are listening.  Examples include: February networking was in a tight hallway, so we provided more space this month and the aforementioned cash bar.  The team reviews each response and are working to make changes according to the responses.

After these enthusiastic announcements, Larry Maccherone, Director of Analytics at Rally Software (who also sponsored this Dinner Meeting) presented “Quantifying The Impact of Agile”.

We invite you to join our Technology Forum on March 25, 2014, 5:00pm - 7:00pm at Hewlett-Packard in Alpharetta (Register Here!).  Our topic "“Content is King and Distribution is Queen; Playing the Right Cards in the Next Decade” will be presented by Neil Sharma:

Over the last decade, digital content has remained a critical element that has driven some amazing services. This trend is not going to change in the future. The next decade is about personal digital imprints, the analytics behind them, the myriad ways of collecting the data and then distributing focused responses to the content. Everyone is getting into the act, whether it is a pharmaceutical company, the government or the grocery store down the street. If consumers think that they have seen all the platforms for content delivery like tablets, devices, televisions and smart watches, then the next decade will clearly surpass the current distribution mediums.

The question to ask is if companies are playing in the right space and how they should capitalize on the right types of partnerships.

Neil Sharma has been in the Mobility space since the year 2000. Creating the original joint venture to deliver VCAST solutions with Verizon and Microsoft (first nationwide wireless video streaming solution), he has worked at some very innovative global corporations like Samsung (Vice President and General Manager) and NTT DoCoMo (Senior Vice President) on content, retail distribution and hardware. Because he has an unorthodox background (starting out as an educator and small business owner), Neil approaches topics with both cynicism and optimism to shed light on trends that will shape the future of technological innovations.

Presented by Cindy Filer
Written by Steven A. Shapiro, PMP, CSSGB

The city of Atlanta was definitely impacted by the two ‘Snowmaggedon’ events in 2014 and PMI Atlanta was not spared. The February dinner meeting, which was originally scheduled for February 10th had to be postponed; however, those that attended the rescheduled event on February24th were treated to an exceptional night.

The event was once again held at the Westin Perimeter, PMI Atlanta’s new dinner meeting home for 2014 and featured a rare double presentation by Cindy Filer, President of Innovative Outsourcing.

The evening began with the Professional Growth event where Filer spoke on the topic of “Conflict in the Workplace”. Filer has presented the chapter with both the presentation and a ‘Leave Behind’ sheet which will be made available soon.   The Professional Growth event was followed by the open networking session and then the dinner meeting.

In the dinner meeting, Filer spoke on an equally interesting topic, “The New Economy and HR Practices for 2014”. She presented best practices for hiring employees, managing employees and employment records, as well as how to best approach employee separations. Some of the key takeaways were…
        • To avoid wrongful hire and discharge suits - document, document, document
        • HR decisions need to be highly documented and kept forever
        • Within 48hours new employees need to be I-9 compliant
        • Millennials need to know every hour on how they are doing
        • Staff lean, staff strategically!
        • If performance reviews are not given to an employee, they cannot be fired

Again for this presentation the chapter will post both the presentation and the ‘Leave Behind’ sheet.

Presented by David Huseonica
Written by Ronke Oyemade, MBA PMP, CISA, CRISC

David Huseonica, President and CEO of Cloud|AG, was the keynote speaker for the February Alpharetta Lunch meeting.  David Huseonica, presented how technology has evolved, shifted, and the forecast outlook for cloud computing in 2014.

The Technology Pendulum
The Technology Pendulum continuously swings due to significant shifts in the computing architecture. Computing started off with the mainframe systems which were built based on the centralized computing architecture. The central computing architecture supports centralized computing and storage with thin clients. Resulting in businesses having high upfront costs for hardware and software.

Later on, there was a shift in computing to the distributed computing architecture. Storage and computing were decentralized with the use of PCs and servers. Leading businesses to acquire perpetual licenses for operating systems and software they used.

Now the technology pendulum is swinging back to centralized computing with the advent of the “Cloud” environment. The “Cloud” technology entails the use of large Data Centers and commodity hardware which are capable of being scaled-out to accommodate the needs of the customers. As a result, businesses obtain technology on a pay-as-you-go basis and only for what they use.