Next week I’ll be at the PMI EMEA Congress in Dublin (9-11th May) and apart from working (Arras People will be there in the Careers Central exhibition hall talking to anyone with a careers related issue) I’m hoping to catch some of the seminars and presentations too. I’m looking forward to seeing how PMI handle a project management conference having been to just about everyone elses and of course I’ll be tweeting from the three day congress too (you can follow me @projectmgmt or just catch the updates on the Camel at the top of the page)
Here are some of the presentations I’m most keen to see;
- The keynote speech from Kevin Eyres – former LinkedIn MD in Europe. He will be talking about social media and project management and we know from our own Benchmark Report that LinkedIn is one of the most used social networking sites amongst the project professional but its still unclear to me how LinkedIn could be used in project management. Hopefully it’ll become clearer and I can report back after the Congress
- How to Accelerate Executive Support for Projects by Michael O’Brochta will hopefully be one I can catch on the end of the first day. It’s still one of the areas most responsible for project failure so I’m hoping it might cover some new thinking, I’m also interested to know whether this presentation throws any hints and tips out for the PMO too
- Another subject which is really gaining greater interest for me is Managing the People Side of Change: An Applied Framework. Brian Richardson will be covering this on the second day and I’m hoping it will give me some greater insight as I look for an author to cover off this subject for the new Handbook of People in Project Management I’m co-editing at the moment
- And another “soft” topic, well we call them soft but actually they’re the hardest of all, with a presentationYour Words, as a Project Manager, Makes a Difference from Alfonso Bucero. I’ve got totally into this subject after reading a great book earlier this year called Relationships Made Easy (if you’re interested there is a great deal at the moment for this book on iBooks (iTunes for £1.99)and £2.99 on Kindle)
I’m hoping I’m not being too optimistic about getting the time just to check out these four because previous experience tells me that where careers advice is available there will always be punters 
Come by and say hello if you’re at the Congress next week
Image Carlos Luna
