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Responding to the economic recession affecting non-profits, PlanDone announced today that pricing models will be adjusted from 75% to 100% off for qualifying organizations in need of collaboration solutions.

Does your inbox ever look like this? Subject: Re:Fwd:Re: Final Draft_Ver6.doc
or more specifically - do you have multiple versions in your inbox right now?

It's that time of year again when we look back on the past year and look forward to the new year. Personally, we are going to set resolutions and professionally, we are going to set goals. So, what exactly is different, which is more important and where are the similarities?

Common resolutions include:

1. Spend more time with family
2. Pay off credit card debts
3. Make more money
4. Lose weight/get in better shape
5. Improve overall health

Common goals include:

1. Spend more time learning customer and employee needs
2. Cut expenses
3. Increase sales

The holiday season brings welcome relief to recharge the personal batteries by taking time off after a year of doing more with less for staff members who are wearing multiple hats. Juggling resources poses an entirely different set of circumstances for managers who have aligned goals and bonuses with completed projects that end before 12/31/10. Balancing the needs of staff and managers while still getting the work done, is especially challenging for some companies.

Generally, when asked for estimates on tasks, project managers will guesstimate a number of hours for a project, factor in roughly an uncertainty variable based on fear and risk and double the estimated hours knowing that there are too many factors to know ahead of time - padding their numbers in order to stay on schedule. Let the buyer beware of people who say that this uncertainty can be quantified and managed. Murphy's Law will beg to differ and be proved right time and time again.

Instant Messaging (IM) is defined as a form of real-time, direct, text-based communication between two or more people using personal computers, or other devices, along with shared software clients. Often referred to as "online chat" connections are facilitated between known users in groups such as "buddy lists," "friends lists" or "contact lists."

Too often project managers "collaborate" in software packages using a variety of tools such as email, IM, intranets, meetings, conference calls, IP phone calls, document sending/sharing, and other add-ons minimized at the bottom of the screens. They are constantly alerted/pinged to respond to requests (from both co-workers and friends who are sharing cute baby pictures) with no effective way to capture that isolated information without remembering to manually sort and re-purpose it in a separate task management system.

Let's face it - stuff breaks. Entropy and Murphy's Law apply to the virtual world just as they do to the physical world. It doesn't matter if there is an elegant piece of code wrapped up with clear naming conventions, adhering to standards and optimized for performance running on a shiny server hosted to the world, eventually it is going to fail due to a variety of factors including add-ons, installs, part failure, outages and upgrades to products, operating systems, browsers and equipment for all hardware and IP assets. It's part of life for software and IT professionals.

Consultants, especially Environmental Planners, have to balance many factors and entities to accomplish their work. They must commit to their clients to provide solutions to water resource planning, redevelopment and capitol improvement projects while considering the site specific setting's physical, chemical and biological factors and scientific, technical and engineering factors when taking on a project.