Great Software firm, Madison PMI PDD and Teaching Updates

Smart PDF Converter Pro: I highly recommend this software and this company (SmartSoft). I was looking for software to convert a scanned PDF to an editable Word document. Long story short, I bought this software online - quick, seamless process. Turned out it did not do what I thought it did, which they quickly acknowledged, and they directed me to other software that would do what I needed - not theirs. Since I already have Adobe Acrobat Pro, I asked them for a refund, which they turned around in less than an hour.

High points - their software, although it did not meet my specific need, was great otherwise. Their tech support and customer service was great. They had no qualms pointing me to another source to get what I needed, and they issued a prompt refund, no questions asked. What a great firm! http://www.pdftodocconverterpro.com

Madison PMI PDD
So a couple of weeks ago, I attended and spoke at the Madison (WI) PMI Professional Development Day. It was held at Madison's Monona Terrace, which for those of you not familiar with Madison, is on the shore of Lake Monona and is a Frank Lloyd Wright-designed venue - neat place. They/we had some good keynotes, including the state's current CIO (Oskar Anderson) and the CEO of Tenrox, Rudolf Melik. Nice to see several old and newer colleagues including some folks who were at my talk at PMI-Milwaukee.

I also had the chance to be in Buck Joseph's morning session. Buck is an emeritus professor at UW-Madison, and for years taught the Persuasion and Influence Skills for Project Managers course in the UW-Madison Exec Ed Project Management certificate program. I was fortunate to have him as an instructor in the mid-90's in this capacity. Buck's style and reputation are well-known, and his presentation was standing room-only.

Now, had I known earlier that Buck was presenting at the same time as me in the afternoon, I would have been semi-depressed all day. Fortunately I did not realize this until after lunch. When I taught in the UW-Madison project management program's week-long, two- course sessions, I used to teach Managing Multiple Projects as the second course of the week and sometimes followed Buck. Talk about a hard act to follow. I received good evaluations, but one participant went as far as to say that no one should have to teach after Buck Joseph. He's that engaging and fun.

So, Buck's 3 PM session opposite mine was packed, and mine was a bit sparsely attended, as I suspected would be the case. At least with Buck's reputation, I can safely assume it was because so many people wanted to see Buck!

Teaching Updates
I am teaching a course in Project Quality Management for UW-Milwaukee on May 5 - 6. First time teaching this course for UW-M, and I am updating a fair amount of the material for this session.

UW-Platteville has asked me to teach in their M.S. in Project Management program this summer, and so I will be teaching a course called Interpersonal Skills for Virtual and Co-Located Teams. Since this is my first go at this in the UW-P program, Jeff Hathaway, another instructor, will be working with me. It is great to be graduating from UW-Platteville and then having the opportunity to get back into the program as an instructor.

Jim's response and other matters...

Jim Rapoza was kind enough to respond to my e-mail. He points out that for many people who need the kind of help with project management that good tool can provide, new processes introduced through these new tools can provide needed assistance.

In other news - initial feedback from PMI-Milwaukee last week was good. They had a nice crowd, and are at a new venue (Panos) since I last presented to this group. Next week is Madison PMI's Professional Development Day, where I am presenting "Losing Your Religion" again.

Gantthead is in the midst of a major push to expand their social networking capabilities. I am not a huge fan of this whole social networking deal, but within the context of a project management-specific site like Gantthead, it works for me.