2009 might be, in the Chinese calendar, the Year of the Ox, but January feels like the Month of PowerPoint. I’ve been doing a lot of speaking lately, including last week’s great session about Lean and Agile in San Diego. (And thanks again to Rober Pryor of the San Diego Software Industry Council for the invitation.)

Coming up:

  • A Forrester teleconference, "Agile Adoption Changes Tech Company Operations," which includes some preliminary results from the "Agile company" research.
  • A small presentation to some Forrester clients about the state of the technology market, including where the opportunities lie, from a geographic, vertical, and solution perspective. Plus a few tips on how to emerge from the downturn a stronger company.

I don’t know about you, but January has been a busy, busy month for me. Companies are definitely not sitting on their hands, waiting to see what happens to the economy in general, and the tech industry specifically. According to the latest PriceWaterhouseCoopers report, total venture capital for software was down sharply, but was larger than the VC money going to any other single vertical. And the news from technology vendors continues apace, such as the latest progress report on Windows 7 beta.

Busy, busy, busy. The economic news of late 2008 may have been a shock, but people seem eager to continue working. The biggest problem, of course, seems to be figuring out where to put your time, effort, and money during these challenging times.