Week In Dallas

I'm flying back home to Hawaii after a week in Dallas where I attended a conference for the top 5% of Accenture managers and consultants. It was a great honor to be chosen and I joined about 200 folks from all over the world and from an astounding number of work areas and industries. Just in case it wasn't obvious - this is BIG Accenture, not little George Group. The base of employees numbered over 130,000 from which this tiny core of "Top Performers" was chosen!

When I arrived, after a 9 hour flight direct from Honolulu, I had the better part of the day to relax. By evening people started to arrive at the hotel. For the opening reception, we were all given wireless electronic name tags that were used throughout the entire event. Of course your name was on it, but it also allowed you to exchange names and personal information (business cards) by pointing your name tag at some else's nametag. You got points for exchanging information. During events, you responded to questions by the presenter and did instant feedback or filled out real-time surveys. (Google "nTag")

It was high-tech (what else should I expect from Accenture) and a lot of fun! By the end of the week, the top point scores got an iPod Nano! I was the second place winner. The first place winner was widely regarded as only wanting the prize and not interested in meeting people. Of course, I made it a point to chat with everyone I met - which for me means a lot of chatting. I met most of the conference attendees but honestly, I know I won't remember too many details. Fortunately, everyones names and information has been instantly saved to the internet by the nTag company so I'll have a good record!

Now, I have had a Nano or two in the past and gave them away because I never had a need for another MP3 player, but this time, I'm going to keep it. I may become a user of Apple products. Accenture is phasing out support for my beloved Blackberry and the iPhone is far and away the best of the alternate phones that will be supported. Since both DeAnna's phone and my phone has been acting up, I may be switching sometime soon.

Anyway, to get back to the conference.... There were entertaining and educational sessions including panel discussions with senior executives, skill-building tools ,d a team-building session where everyone broke up into teams and created a 1 minute video as a recruiting tool for Accenture. My team's video was a parody of the "I am a PC" commercial (I am Accenture). It was one of three winning videos and I won $200 as well as the fact that our videos will be used at the next senior executive leader's meeting early next month!

I had a great time learning about my peers and my new company. I have a lot of new ideas that I can use on the job as I make new connections over the next year. Aside from meeting so many nifty people.- including the points winner :-) - Perhaps the single biggest insight I gained was a way to evaluate personality types that I'm going to leverage for my coaching. It was very powerful to see in action with our group and I can't wait to see how I can apply it to my job.

I had been feeling isolated from all Accenture because of my location and lack of contact. It was interesting to hear so many other people who felt the same - even thouigh they worked with Accenture teams all the time. I had many people who were envious of my autonomous work and of course, everyone was jealous of being able to work in Hawaii!

I went to Dallas because it was kind of expected. I was defensive of the George Group core and didn't have much use for the layers of Accenture company resources. NOW, I find a lot of possibilities in the larger community and can truely say (with some degree of pride), "I am Accenture!"