<Enter Title>ts_Managing Your Future: Innovation as a Way of Life

Managing Your Future: Innovation as a Way of Life

Portland Regional Chamber Seminar Series

Thursday, October 22, 2009 -- 7:30-9:00 a.m.

60 Pearl Street, Portland

Register: portlandregion.com or 207-772-2811

The world we live and work in is a world of change. If our products and services are valuable, we can be sure we'll draw competitors. Our clients and customers may find those alternatives attractive. Or our prospects' needs and interests may change for other reasons.

Customers and competition are among the numerous factors in our marketplace that are constantly shifting. Whether the changes are drastic or gradual, the resulting economy will not reward us if we present it with the same old approach, with unchanged products and services.

One truth, though, never changes: The future will not be the same as the past or the present. The more comfortable we are with the way things are and the way they have been, the more likely we are to miss the curve of success and discover we are working – desperately, perhaps – to overcome decline.

The answer does not have to be extreme make-over or drastic change in our way of doing business. Our ongoing experience carries numerous seeds of success, if only we are alert to them. Do we know how to identify opportunities, evaluate them and put them to work? Our native creativity sometimes lies buried beneath the tasks and concerns of the moment. Do we know how to awaken it, and put it to work for us?

This seminar examines the concept of innovation as a regular part of managing your job, your career and your business. You know you're going to have a future – this is an exploration of ways you can have greater control over what it will be like.

Organizations need frequent tune-ups to maintain effective workflow amid change. Jim has long experience – plus creative tools -- to help executives analyze their organizations, then design and implement better ways.

Project Management is the 21st-century model for managing complex, risky innovations to on-time outcomes within budget. Jim Milliken offers workplace-tested designs in customized formats for onsite implementation and classroom training.

Communication is the lifeblood of human organization, in small partnerships and large corporations – and the pipeline to their markets. Jim provides practical approaches to all the oral and written forms.

Personal Productivity is fundamental, and it consists of skills that can be examined, practiced and perfected. Likewise Leadership and Supervision. Jim has common-sense training designs for dozens of these essentials.

There is no obligation, financial or otherwise, arising from a preliminary discussion of consultation or training solutions.