I’m Derek, a project manager and technology geek who lives and breaths general project management, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and technology.  You can follow me on Twitter @derekhuether or if you really liked this article, subscribe to the RSS Feed. Over the course of the last 15 years, I've really expanded my personal brand.  I started out as a full on Tech Geek.  I launched my first startup in October of 1996.  Yes, when the Pentium 133 was the latest thing.  It was a good ride.  Sure, the company died off after 10 years of business but I got my exit and I learned a lot.  Two things I learned.  One, I like to interact with people.  Two, I don't like to interact with people when they don't want to interact with me.  Let's not waste our time here, people.  Who would you rather have a conversation with?  [1] That guy or gal who walks around the room pushing his business card into everyone's face.  Or [2], that guy or gal who you know has similar interests or passions as you.

After leaving the hardware-and-software-geek world for the application development world, I found a niche with project management.  I loved the idea I could help solve a problem (deliver on time, on budget, within scope) when given the opportunity to do so.  I could identify a need and provide a solution.  The need to talk project management when dealing with Businesses, Government Agencies and Educational Institutions led me to get my PMP® Certification.  The need to empower my development teams led me to get my Certified Scrum Master Certification.  The need to optimize my work throughput led me to champion the use of a Personal Kanban.

All of these are all mere tools in my toolbox.  But, when you put them all together, they start to describe my personal brand.  I'm a guy who believes in transparency, technology, and information dissemination.  I deliver products with passion, commitment, and skill.

So, what's the paradox?  I've been writing The Critical Path for a while now.  Since it's launch, I've grown more and more passionate about things other then just project management.  I really have two options.  [1] Launch another blog with my personal perspective and focus The Critical Path on my professional perspective. [2] Expand The Critical Path to include more about my other passions.

I love going on Twitter and finding a thousand personal brand experts or social media experts. (That's kind of a joke)  But, what I believe in most is the wisdom of the crowd.  I would love to see what you have to say.  If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them below.