Project Management Scratchpad

Sabbatical in Boulder

I'm at the tail end of a sabbatical of sorts; we've spent the month of July in Boulder, Colorado.

First, Boulder is truly an amazing place if you like the outdoors.  I enjoy hiking, and I started most of my hikes this month from the front door of the place I was staying.  Within minutes, I was up in the hills overlooking the town, with a respectable amount of perspiration and lungfuls of air.  People here are, I don't know, healthier than other people.  They walk, they bike, they swim, they enter races with scary names like Triple Bypass.  I'm not worthy.  I will be back, though.

I gave a talk at the SIC Conference (http://www.sic.org) in Denver, and I used photos in some of the slides that I took this month from various destinations in Boulder.  Aspen, the Rockies, etc.  People who might have been bored with the presentation at least had some pictures to stare at while they zoned out.

I'm speaking to a business class at University of Colorado this evening; I'll present a little bit about the company and some of the new products that are in the pipeline.

The best part of the trip was the fact that I had time to step back and think about the company, and re-invent my vision of where I want us to be in a year.  We have some exciting features in the pipeline for our Microsoft Project viewer, and even more exciting is the fact that we will have some great ideas that are going to take the form of new products. 

I am returning to Atlanta recharged and ready to launch 4 new projects!

Conflicting Advice, Both Right

This post is completely off topic, but it's okay for two reasons:

1. It's my blog
2. I created a category called "Completely Off Topic", which I'm going to rationalize makes it okay.

Whenever you have a good idea, there will always, always, always be people who make a logical, reasonable argument on why the idea won't work.

Don't listen to them.

There is a corollary to this: 

Most of the time they are right.

The best success is the success that was achieved in the face of long odds and advice not to go for it.  If you listen to the naysayers, you won't taste that kind of success.