There are a hundred reasons why I love this job. One of the top five reasons is the opportunity to meet extraordinary people while traveling around the world on behalf of PMI... 41 countries, nearly 1,000 days of travel abroad in the last five years, and the opportunity to meet hundreds of extraordinary people. Chalk up another one in San Francisco.

My recent trip to San Francisco to help PMI members celebrate the 35^th anniversary of the San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA) chapter introduced me to another extraordinary person. Her name is Bonnie Nixon, and she is the Director of Environmental Responsibility for HP. Her title just doesn't do her work justice. One of the most significant areas of responsibility is maintaining an ethical supply chain in all areas of HP business. This is a remarkable job! Bonnie evaluates the organizations in their supply chain to rate them regarding their social and environmental impact, to ensure that HP contributes to global sustainability throughout their value chain. Pretty cool job, huh?

But that isn't the reason I was so taken with Bonnie. You see, Bonnie has been an environmental activist her entire adult life. She didn't "back into" the job, or take a "new" opportunity, or accept a job as a "corporate" move, although all are reasons to take the job. Nope, she took this job because it was a perfect fit for her, a continuation of the pursuit of her passionate "calling" to contribute to global sustainability. It is neither a job to her, nor just an avocation. It is the reason she is on this planet...I think she believes that. If not with HP, then on her own, or with another company or organization, because it is what she is on this planet "to do." She is driven to pursue a better world. Her personal belief in this journey was visible from the moment I met her. Her focus is razor sharp, and her commitment to global sustainability is crystal clear, and her depth on the subject is bottomless.

It started when she was a student at Pennsylvania State University, in the USA, While attending university, the famous crisis occurred at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. The incident solidified her commitment, and she dedicated her life to doing what she could to change the way people and organizations interface with the world around them.

Since she dedicated herself to this cause, she has accomplished great things.

To top it all off, she has a remarkable balance of impatience and humility. A person with a commitment like Bonnie has all the right to pull her hair out with the glacial progress man has made protecting the planet and all of the species on it. She is persistent, focused, and impatient when she needs to be. Yet she remains humble knowing her place and role in all of this.

Yep, add Bonnie to the list of remarkable people I have met in my life.They are all around me, every day, and every place I go. I find that I look for them more and more, to find the commitments, the lifelong pursuits, and the passion that drives ordinary people to do extraordinary things. It sure makes me want to wake up and go after it another day.

Thanks, Bonnie, for adding to the list. I was honored to be on a panel on global sustainability with you. I was humbled by it. And thank you, Jennifer Russell, for inviting us to be on the panel to meet one another.

I mentioned in my last blog about the concern over a slowing of the supply of money and its impact on fixed capital investment (FCI). There is something else about the economic crisis that is bothering me... for now, let me call it the giant global distraction. I know that sounds strange to call the current global economic crisis a "giant global distraction," but the fact is that economic cycles are, well, cyclical, and it will get better. Assuming we go into a global recession (HELLO!), we could be in for 16-20 years of sluggish economies... or we could come out of it as we did in the 1990s within a couple of years (...well, maybe 4-5 years).

Either way, we end up distracted from critical global issues that we face. Global sustainability, for example, is not a transient issue. It is real need, and it faces us everyday. Food shortages, problems in water supplies, finding cures for AIDS and cancer, education... all critical issues to the quality of life in the future. We cannot get distracted from solving the associated problems. And, yet, I can guarantee that our focus will start to narrow, inexplicably to... yep, you guessed it... cost management. Risk management may very well shift to risk aversion, and creativity and innovation will slow down. Timidity will prevail. Look back over the last 50 years and tell me it didn't happen.

By the way, I am not delusional. We need more prudent financial management in the markets... no doubt at all. I know the economic crisis is real and powerfully impactful throughout the world. And, I am well aware that cost management and risk management are critical to successful projects, especially large complex projects. But if we are so distracted that we fail to consider the management of value, or worse, not look for the opportunities to project success when managing risk, then we will see a regression of prosperity and the gains we have made in solving the problems associated with global sustainability. And worse, we won't tap the unlimited potential of our PM colleagues around the world.

I am reminded of a great quote that I heard two weeks ago at a Forbes Conference on Innovation out in Palo Alto, California. (PMI cosponsors of a series of three conferences on Innovation with Forbes Magazine). More than 10 years ago, Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, was asked by the Apple board to come out of retirement to rescue the company. He agreed to do it, and at his first press conference, when he was greeted with the reality of the condition of the company, he was asked how he was going to rescue the company. He paused, then looked straight into the cameras and said: "I guess we will just have to innovate our way out of it."  And he did just that!

Yes, we need to innovate our way of it... we need to rely on project managers to use their creativity and innovation to get the job done, in spite of the economy. We have the potential... I have seen it in action throughout the world, with PMs solving crisis after crisis. In Brazil, the United Arab Emirates, China, Poland, and the United States, creative and innovate project professionals have repeatedly saved projects facing critical crises. Now is the time to unleash the potential in the PM community, not reel it in.

Let's innovate out of the crisis, not hesitate and withdraw until we see the end of the crisis... let's get the job done now.