I am flying again, this time home from the PMI Global Congress-Asia Pacific. The congress was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and by most standards, it was a success.  More than 400 professionals from 32 countries networked, participated, and advanced their careers.

Though the global economy is still in flames (uh, no lie!), I am going to park the discussion on economy for today. I just want to talk about the people at the congress. First of all, it was one of the most diverse crowds I have witnessed in some time. The attendees came from countries in every continent of the world (apart from Antarctica, of course). There was an incredible mix of professional, ethnic, religious, and national diversity; they came from developing, emerging, and developed nations.

And yet, as diverse as the crowd was, the attendees were networking with, well, with a zeal and passion that I had not witnessed in some time. No one missed an opportunity to pick one another's brain. In fact, it was as if attendees ran to sessions, then ran to breaks and meal functions. And the crowd didn't dwindle as the hours and days progressed. It almost seemed that they were invigorated by every minute of the congress.

No doubt, the advancement of the profession is alive and well in the Asia Pacific region. There was an amazing display of PM diversity. I met my first Medical Doctor that was a PMP. He was from Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. He worked in medical insurance and risk, and recently achieved his PMP. He was attending the congress to build his competency in project management.

Another PMP I met was Alvin See Win, who works for a government agency called MIMOS in Malaysia. The mission of the organization is to fund applied research in frontier technologies, such as internet security, interoperability, etc. The young man led the Program Management Office for the organization, and was balancing a portfolio of research projects. He was eager to learn and was like a "sponge," absorbing all that he could, every minute he was there.

But a real highlight was meeting a young man named Kelly Nwosu from Nigeria. He is a 4^th year student at the technical university in Kuala Lumpur, majoring in Business Information Systems. He will graduate very soon. Now Kelly was committed. He is a student, and paid his own way to the congress to learn as much as he could about project management. He is also working on getting his CAPM. He was eager to ramp up his abilities in PM at graduation so that he could become a more valuable graduate.

However, what struck me about our discussion was his inquisitive nature, particularly in finding out how to be successful with PM. He wanted to know how he could make a difference as quickly as possible. Now here is a quiet, soft-spoken young man, a 4^th year student in university, paying his own way to attend the congress, driven to find out how he can ramp up his value.

I have no idea of how good he is as a student, or whether or not he is on the Dean's list for his academic achievements. What I do know is that he is driven to be successful; his greatest ability is his willingness to change for the better. As a very close friend of mine said once, "he has an unconditional willingness to be altered." In other words, he is thinking "hey, help me change in any way that is for the better."

It reminded me that if we are going to pull out of this global recession, we are all going to need a willingness to do things differently. We need to keep asking ourselves how each of us can make a difference, a positive difference, for others, for our organizations, and more importantly, for society. And we need to think like Kelly. It is not about what might happen to "me," but rather how can each of us make more of a difference in others.

Thanks, Kelly. You already are making a difference.

More later!