As your new Chair for 2012, I am excited about the opportunity to serve the Atlanta Chapter of PMI. The past year has been hard on many of our members. While we cannot fix the entire US economy, we can help prepare for a better job environment. This can be accomplished through continuing your education, qualifying for higher credentials, increasing the number of your contacts, and heightening the awareness of how project management can help a company improve its market position.
This year we will focus on building your resume through education and experience. We will continue to offer great programs at our monthly Alpharetta & Atlanta lunch meetings and our Dunwoody dinner meeting. Our speakers will emphasize the actual practice or value of project management. Last year, we brought to you the President and CEO of AT&T Mobility, the former Georgia Secretary of State, and former US Ambassador Andrew Young. We intend to have the same type and caliber of speakers this year. Also, we are planning a meeting that features a panel of recruiters and HR executives to discuss both the short and long term employment outlook for project managers. To ensure balance in our education offerings, I hope to enable you to earn PDUs while having fun on a weekend Caribbean cruise.
Perhaps PMI Atlanta’s greatest asset when exploring potential employment connections is our membership. We have members that work for a majority of Atlanta’s biggest and best firms. We will facilitate getting to know one another through “elevator speeches” at the beginning of our meetings, an enhancement to our website so that you can lookup a member that you just met, and personal interviews featured in our weekly newsletter and website. Also we will encourage use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to connect, communicate about alternative project management approaches such as Agile, and to review archived meeting presentations.
PMI Global has always promoted the benefits of volunteering to increase the breadth of your skillset and leadership experiences. We are a volunteer organization throughout from the Chairman of the Board to every Vice President. This year we will increase the opportunities to volunteer for our new Ambassador Corps to welcome new members. We will offer volunteer opportunities with community organizations such as the Beltline Project, Habitat for Humanity, and the City of Milton both to build experiences and credentials in project management. By contributing expertise to one of the Local Interest Groups (LIG), helping to select the Project of the Year, or advancing our chapter through technology are all options for participation. While many volunteers consider their benefits to be priceless, the practical considerations could include free or discounted registration for the monthly meetings, CertEd or Professional Growth classes, PDUs, discounts on PMI items from our online store, and peer recognition.
This year you can help us better serve our membership during these tough times so that we may be stronger when the good times return.
All My Best,
Dr. Geoffrey Berlin, Ph.D., PMP