When Columbus left Genoa in search for financial support for his brave trip to the East Indies, he knew this would be a lifetime project. Slow transportations means, poor communication methods, inefficient organization, time-consuming bureaucracy, disturbing imperial protocols and negative social response. Rumor has it that he greeted his mother with a mourning goodbye rather than an “arrivederci”…
It actually took him 8 years from that emotional departure (1485) to the glorious arrival back to Europe (1493): Travel from Genoa to Lisbon to beg the King John II for support, fail, go back home to find sponsors in Genoa and Venice, fail once more, visit the court of King Henry VII in England and fail again, lobby for 2 years next to the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabel I, handle provocateurs, unexpectedly succeed to get the funds, organize a small fleet, sail to the unknown, fight mutinies, survive unpredictable weather conditions, discover mysterious new lands, approach the local “indios” and, last but not least, find your way back home across the Atlantic. What a project that was!
Not many of us (certainly not me!) would have the courage to run Columbus’s project those days. But let’s imagine that America is still unknown and you are the brave explorer of the 21st century. How difficult would it be to use today’s means to complete that astonishing feature? Lots of difficult projects are nowadays getting accomplished using a cloud project management software. Let’s put History in the hands of your favorite collaboration software: Comidor!
First of all, you send an email to the Portuguese PM and arrange a meeting with him for tomorrow noon. Then, you book a flight from Genoa to Lisbon and before leaving to the airport you assign a task to your mother “please, prepare me a nice dinner for tomorrow night, arriverdeci mama”. Unfortunately, due to the Portuguese economic crisis, the meeting fails and you fly back to Italy disappointed (sum: 2 days). You kick-off an email campaign with the title “sponsor my trip”; for better results you filtered your contacts to include only Genoa and Venice businessmen.
You upload a brochure of your idea and attach it in the emails. No results again (sum: 3 days), you are in despair! You create an issue “No funds yet!” and assign it to your financial auditor Mr. Vespucci. He is on holidays these days, so you send him also a notification message: “Dear Amerigo, I need help, no one wants to fund me, I need money to book tickets to UK”! He replies back with a comment: “No worries, I booked you economy tickets to Stansted airport for tomorrow afternoon; also a meeting with David Cameron and a group of businessmen”. You keep a note: “Not to forget: I owe Amerigo a huge favor!” So, you visit the City in pursue of an agreement with some white-collared golden boys working in blue-chip companies. In the meantime, you prepare a demo video “My expedition to the unknown” and you embed the video in Comidor’s wiki pages, to present it in the meeting with the PM. But, that same night, the English football team is …bitten by Luis Suarez’s skills and as you checked in embedded Twitter trends: #OldAlbion #NationalDayOff.
Your meeting is postponed due to the day-off, so you change your destination to Madrid (sum: 4 days). You are so disappointed, this is your last chance; you fly to Madrid. You create a project“Operation: Torro Rosso” and you design a structured Gantt Chart. You create a custom report “Marketing companies in Madrid”and you run it in Comidor map visualization (embedded Google Maps). You get 4 results, and luckily one of your Spanish friends is working quite near to your Hotel. You visit him and you pay him for a small Google campaign titled: “Help los Conquistadores”.
Of course, you declare this financial expense in Comidor and you link it with the project. In a weird twist of fate, that same day, after 40 years of reign, the Spanish monarch decided to quit the throne. The wife of the new King was surfing in the El Pais website to read the breaking news and there she saw your amazing Google Ad. So, she arranged a meeting for you with the new King for the next day (sum: 5 days). The new King, worried about the financials of his country, decided to grant you the money you were asking for your trip (sum: 6 days). You are so happy that you set-up an event and invite your Spanish friends in a night party in Plaza Mayor (sum: 7 days).
You buy a water plane and fly over the Atlantic. In less than 10 hours you are over the first coasts of the New World. You land the plane, open your tablet, connect to the Comidor Cloud, open the Calendar and type: “Dear Calendar, I found the East Indies. I name this beach: Amerigo…”
Sum: 8 days.
