After that last VTL meeting, there was a lot of discussion about changing up our format a little.  The idea is to balance our “presentation” model with a more round-table, peer-learning model.

By popular demand (believe it or not) our first topic will be developing an IT budget.  With it being early in 2012, this is very timely.  (more…)

It’s a new year and you’re not out there mingling and meeting other professionals, right?  You have a pocket full of business cards from interesting people, but what do you do with them?  You follow up. (more…)

There’s always a lot of discussions about leadership styles in the workplace, but very little discussion about something even more important – the feeling a leader offers.  This is the essence of leadership – the ability to connect with others and provide a strong lead that they want to follow. It’s also an area that very little time is spent developing. (more…)

Finding great mentors and maximizing those relationship is something that most people don’t do well.

Mentors are another powerful tool to professional development (and career) success.  Spending time with and learning from leaders is a great way to jump the learning curve.  (more…)

Now that you have your image up to speed, online presence wowing people, and stories to tell, you’re ready to go out into the world and start networking.

A couple weeks ago I met with a contractor for coffee.  He was recommended to me by a mutual acquaintance.  Fifteen minutes in, he actually told me he had no idea why we were meeting.  He didn’t understand the value of networking! (more…)

Do you think only sales guys and businesses raising money need an elevator pitch?  Think again.  Every time you meet someone professionally, be it networking, job hunting or at a conference, your elevator pitch is a key tool for introducing yourself.  Your elevator pitch is the answer to the dreaded question “Tell me about yourself”. (more…)

In part 1 of this series, we talked about designing your personal image for success.  While your personal image is hugely important, it’s only one piece of the puzzle.  Your online image can make all the difference for getting the initial meeting.

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After spending a few years in our careers, we start to our professional/career roadmap.  For us techies, this is an easy process. After all, the natural progression for a great techie is simple:

Help Desk -> Network and Server Admin -> IT Manager -> IT Director -> CIO

While this progression seems logical, it’s not a simple continuation. Jumping from a Server Administrator to IT Manager is more like changing freeways than continuing on the same one. (more…)

Over the past couple weeks I’ve been introduced to a number of of technical people who are either looking for a job/contract or are looking to step up into their next role.  Their timing is great – any recruiter will tell you that the market is picking up.  You can also see it from the number of postings on my aggregated Vancouver Tech Job RSS (feel free to subscribe).

Each of the people I met have been technically skilled, but are not having the success they’d like in their hunt.  They all have had one thing in common – while they’re skilled and amply employable, they haven’t spent any time focusing on their personal branding.  (more…)

Our Topic

“Portfolio Management”

Graeme Byrne, enterprise project management and MS Project super-guru will discuss portfolio management and how it applies to your business.  (more…)