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This week’s episode is on one of my favorite topics: PMOs. In particular we are going to discuss if a PMO Assessment will lead to accelerated enterprise improvement or if it is simply a waste of time. But of course, we first answer the question what on earth is a PMO assessment, how do you do one and what type of results and follow up work can you expect if you do it right. To help us look at this I have invited Pat Zornes as a podcast guest. Pat is an executive consultant for Robbins Gioia (www.robbinsgioia.com) wrote a whitepaper on exactly this topic so she has a lot to say about this. For instance, Pat says that “An effectively conducted assessment can save months or even years of effort and frustration. But a poorly conducted assessment can waste not only the time to do the assessment, but valuable time afterward implementing the wrong “solutions”.” Let’s see what her recommendations are. If you are interested in downloading and reading Pat's paper then please visit www.pmnirvana.com and register to download it. The Project Management Podcast™ is a trademark of OSP International LLC. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The Project Management Podcast™ and its RSS feed are copyright © by OSP International LLC 2005 - 2009. All rights reserved. This episode is sponsored by The Project Management PrepCast at http://www.pm-prepcast.com

Today Wayne Turmel talks to Christopher Edgar, author of Inner Productivity: A Mindful Approach to Efficiency and Enjoyment in Your Work . I also try to spit out a couple of words of Mandarin, we salute a prolific writer who couldn t pass a simple test, and quote Robert Browning. Not a bad day s work. Chris Edgar looking mindful. Show Notes 0:00 Welcome to the show and  a big ni hao to our friends in China. I have no idea how or why, but our audience has grown a lot there and it s now our second biggest audience. Anyway today we are talking productivity and mindfulness. As a result, we dedicate this show to the prolific Feng Meng Lung who wrote productively yet couldn t pass his civil service exams which suggests his head wasn t really in the game.  Do you procrastinate? This is the show for you because the problem is all in your mind. 3:00 The quote of the week is from Robert Browning. Do you know your search? 4:34 Welcome to Chris Edgar. This show treads some lines  we don t normally tread but as Dr Phil would say you know what you should be doing and how s that working for ya? What does he mean by mindfulness and it has an awful lot to do with procrastination because we love to get distracted and aren t always hip to why. 7:24 Many of us know the systems and have every tool we need to get the work done, so why is procrastination such a problem? The problem is a wandering mind. He comes from the legal profession which would seem an odd path to trod for someone in this field. 11:57 This isn t about religion, but about practice and exercise. A lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction to meditation or other touchy feely ideas but the benefits are real. 12:50 It s important to understand the difference between Response and Reaction. Reaction is automatic and unconscious. Response is how we CHOOSE to respond to the stimulus. Misery (or procrastinating)  is optional.The trick is to slow down and find out WHY you re feeling like procrastinating. 15:30 A practical example of how this works . 17:00 What s the difference between INTENTION and ATTENTION? Attention is putting our mental focus on something. Intention is taking a big-picture view of what we re trying to achieve. You can put a lot of attention into playing Solitaire on the computer but are you achieving your Intention? 20:00 Being mindful can be as simple as askingAdd New Post ‹ TPN :: The Cranky Middle Manager Show — WordPress yourself why am I doing what I m doing right now? . Physical symptoms can be a sign we ought to ask those questions. Tension, discomfort and stomach pain are all clues. 23:00 What is breathing through a situation? You think by now I d know what breathing is. 25:00 Chris takes us through a couple of simple mindfulness exercises. When you re thinking about NOW you can t think about anything else. CHRIS RESOURCES

What drives you? Responsibility? Passion? A dream?Choices are always available. That s why decision-making is a critical component to finding success. But not everybody feels they ve got a choice. Sometimes we find ourselves backed up against a wall with only one honorable way out. It s not always the way out we d prefer to follow, but honor, responsibility and doing the right thing drive many people to stay in jobs they don t like, do work they don t enjoy and work for jerks they d rather ignore.Does that mean people shouldn t struggle with all their might to find their passion and find a meaningful way to make money following it? Not at all. But it does mean that we d all do well (and better) to spend quality time in our own war room to develop the strategies that will help move our lives forward. It beats mindlessly putting one foot in front of the other day after day. Our lives need purpose and purposeful decisions.

You are unique. Act like it! By Douglas E. Welch Listen Discuss this column and podcast on the Career-Op Community Site Here is a little experiment. If you work in an office with cubicles, stand up on your desk and look out over the office. What do you see? If you work in an building with individual offices, walk down a line of offices and notice what is happening within. What are people doing? How are they dressed? What sort of decoration do you see? Now that you have done this experiment, let me give you a way of evaluating what you see. When you did your observations, did everything look the same from cube to cube or office to office? Were there oddities scattered among the sameness? Was everyone doing something unique? Now, here is what all this means. The more conformity, the more sameness, the more blah your office, the less innovative it is likely to be and the less likely you will find a way to express your true talents and skills. The fact is, we know all of this intuitively, but we force ourselves to ignore it by becoming buried in the day-to-day mundanity of our work. It is only when we stop and take a moment to really look at where we work that we can make the fog clear and see the truth. Why should you care about how your place of business looks? As I have often said in the past, you can only do your best work when you are passionate. Sure, you might do good work, but nothing approaching what you might achieve, given half a chance. If you are burying your uniqueness under the same clothes, the same interests, the same way of working as everyone else, you are bound to suffer. You might still get your paycheck every week, but you won t change the world. You might like some of your co-workers and your office, but you will avoid them whenever you can. You might work, but you might not live. You are unique. Act like it. Look inside yourself deep inside. What clothes would you prefer to wear? What work do you love to do? Where would you like to do it? Is your current job fulfilling your needs beyond a simple paycheck? If not, there is a way you can change things for the better and a big reason why. First the why. Being true to yourself, your passions and your sensibilities is the first path to the career you deserve. If you are constantly corralling your true self and hiding it behind a facade of sameness you are killing yourself every day. You don t have to go crazy in public, but you need to express how unique you are. Start small. Wear odd socks, a neat tie, a new hat. I know it sounds a bit silly, but it is a start and it leads the way to more dramatic changes. If there seems to be only one way to complete a task, find another. You don t need to stand on your desk and announce to the world how you will do it differently, but do it in a way that makes the most sense to you. Once you have something worked out, introduce it to others and see how it received. You may soon find yourself rising above your co-workers who don t make any attempt to mix things up. The next steps take a bit more courage. Take every opportunity to explore who you are. Don t like the hours you work? Ask for different ones. Don t like your location? Ask to work from home on a regular basis. Obviously, all this works much better after you have established a good no, great track record in your work. If you hope to make such large changes, you need to make sure that everyone believes you can complete your work even be more productive after these changes. If you look around and see only sameness, it is time to make a change. Don t let your job turn you into merely another worker bee, just like all the rest. Find ways to explore and express your uniqueness. Find ways to make your job into the career you deserve. Join me on these networks Join the new Career Opportunities Community site! Follow Douglas on Twitter | Douglas on Facebook | Douglas on LinkedIn Become a Facebook Fan of Career Opportunities Support Career Opportunities: iTunes Review | Career-Op Community Site | Podcast Alley Reader/Listener Line @ 818-804-5049 From Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch Get more great content on Podcasting, New Media, Gardening, Los Angeles Events and Technology at WelchWrite.com You are unique. Act like it!

Can Dalton finally make it to Saturday's final? First though, they need to win this mornings round but the competition is tough with And I've Landed. Listen NOW and find out who goes on to the later... So what's it take to get on Fame Games? www.famegamesradio.com

Midori and Audioclique are aiming for that final place in Saturday's final, but first they have to take on the winner from the early edition! LISTEN NOW and find out who gets that last spot in the... So what's it take to get on Fame Games? www.famegamesradio.com

In this episode we ll cover a topic sent in by a listener who is having a problem at the workplace. What is the role of a junior designer as opposed to a senior designer? Who is supposed to know what, and is the senior supposed to be a sort of mentor for the junior? We ll discuss these questions and more. Links from the show: Rookie Designer forum In the Bullpen: Core 77 Try GoToMeeting for 45 days! Visit www.GoToMeeting.com/techpodcasts to start your free trial today.

With Beta Rays Track of the Month win, this week we start out with 5 new acts!! ~ This past Monday started a battle, 15 artists competing for 5 spots in this week's final. Listen NOW and find out... So what's it take to get on Fame Games? www.famegamesradio.com

In this episode of Internet Business Mastery, we discuss the 7 Reasons Why Online Business and Life are So Awesome.  And in the quick tip we share a tool for creating your own online video channels as well as a tool for visually planning your sales funnel. CLICK HERE to get immediate access to your 30 Day, no risk, trial membership to Internet Business Mastery Academy, where you will get full access to ALL of our courses, tools, and resources for creating your own internet business and escaping the 9-to-5. Each month we add at least one new internet business course, a Grill the Guru interview, and new video tutorials in the Million Dollar Rolodex. NEW COMMENT LINE: Toll Free: 877-877-7507 Items mentioned in the episode: Maren Kate: Tweeterpreneur.com Yubby.com Gliffy.com Join us on Twitter! Twitter Transcripts Transcripts of IBM 78 What do YOU think? Why do you think online business and life is so AWESOME right now? Download the MP3

Unique and different are what best describes Lourds and Marv Ellis, but only one will go through to today's later show and challenge Jacob Merlin! Listen now to find out who impressed! VS. In the... So what's it take to get on Fame Games? www.famegamesradio.com

Jacob Merlin's quirky horn band takes on the winner from the early edition! Whoever wins now, goes to the Saturday Final! It's yet another tough round on today's In the Thursday AM edition we heard... So what's it take to get on Fame Games? www.famegamesradio.com

We have guests Lynne Ford and Linda Dickerhoof. Lynne is a radio personality at WBCL as well as a phenomenal speaker. She joins us today to talk about finding the one thing that will make our life complete. Tune in to find out what your One Thing is! Linda is with VIPDesk.com, a company that hires at-home customer service reps. Tune in to hear her describe the jobs that VIPDesk has available and how you can apply! Listen LIVE Thursdays, 11am Eastern, at http://toginet.com/shows/christianworkathomemoms . On our next show: Author Susan May Warren shares with us about being a writer and about her new book, The Christmas Bowl. and Allan Jones shares with us about his company, ContractorBusinessman.com, how his at-home workforce is making money and how you can, too.

Joint degree programs are proliferating and one of the most popular are the programs offering to join a graduate business degree (MBA) with a law degree (JD) for a joint JD/MBA. More and more schools are offering these combined programs in response to strong student demand driven by the potential for substantial savings of time and money. We talk to the experts to find out what the real value of these programs are, when a dual degree makes the most sense for a student, the procedures and standards for admission, what the academic challenges are, and we get the latest information about post-graduate career opportunities.

Hard Rock vs R&B...who will win the in end? Listen now to hear Logan and Live Hart. The winner will move on to the later show today and compete against Gareth Asher!! VS. Wednesday AM show are... So what's it take to get on Fame Games? www.famegamesradio.com

Can Gareth Asher make his second final? First he has to face off with the winner from today's earlier show! Listen NOW to hear who's going to Saturday's final!! In the Wednesday AM show, Logan went... So what's it take to get on Fame Games? www.famegamesradio.com