Julius Caesar, in recognition of his overwhelming victory against Pharnaces II of Pontus, sent a simple, but powerful message back to Rome and the Senate: "VENI VIDI VICI", I came, I saw, I conquered. My message back to Washington DC and my Project Management colleagues: "VENI VIDI LOQUOR", I came, I saw, I spoke.
It's now been a solid week since I left for home from the AtTask Work Management Summit (WorkOut2011), in Salt Lake City. I was asked to come out to Utah and be a speaking guest of the conference. I basically ran two themes: [1] Balanced project management through the use of Agile concepts [2] Project Management Zombies.
I had the opportunity to participate on a panel the first day I was there and then was part of the keynote the next. The keynote was by far the highlight of my trip, sharing the stage with Ty Kiisel and Raechel Logan (The hosts of TalkingWork), Donna Fitzgerald (Research Director at Gartner), and Scott Johnson (Founder and CEO of AtTask).
WorkOut 2011 was nothing short of spectacular. From the exceptional venue (The Grand American Hotel), to the passionate and approachable people, to the forward thinking product design, I am in awe of what AtTask delivered.
Because I spoke completely unscripted, I'll have to wait until the YouTube videos comes out (I've been told by the Firm Snapp Conner PR, my panel talk and the Keynote will be out soon) to see exactly what I said. Fortunately, a few people in the audience quoted me in their tweets.
"One of our failings in this day and age is we forget we're working with people."
"Inspire more people from the bottom up, empower them to become leaders"
"Remember you're not managing resources - you're managing people"
"Don't judge zombies [on a project] they don't know what they're doing"
Thank you, everyone, for the memories! I look forward to seeing you all again.
Photo: Bryant Livingston