ITSM Weekly the Podcast (Week24) -Women in Tech Series Guest: Sophie Klossner

Continuing our series of Women in Tech, we are excited to have Sophie Klossner on our show this week.  An active and leading member of HDI since 1992.  Sophie has seen the IT profession develop from multiple angles, and gives us a great perspective on it's current state.
It seems to me that the world is getting more competitive.  Because of this I think we are seeing a more drastic reaction to events.  In other words, when things are good, they are great, however, when things are not good, they are horrible.  The reality of it all is things are rarely "Great" and rarely "Horrible" and we tend to get caught up in cycles.   This weeks' podcast touches on a real situation where Cloud Computing takes an impact.  We all know it happens, and that it will happen.  Yet we also know the the market cannot sustain a reputation hit this early in it's development.  Enjoy the discussion that ensues when Beran send "The Tweet".

I'd like to thank our sponsor Hornbill again for hosting this series.
Show notes are here:
http://www.servicesphere.com/blog/2010/7/18/itsm-weekly-the-podcast-week-24.html


ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Week 24) from ServiceSphere on Vimeo.

Show Hosts:
Christopher Dancy
Matt Beran
Matthew Hooper


Submit Questions:  Anonymously or Email or Call In: (765) 236-6383

Sponsor:  Hornbill Software

Sponsor Special:  You Choose!!

NOTE:  There were audio issues with some of this recording.  We apologize in advance!

Week 24 Topics:  

• HDI Overview & Sophie’s Roles
• How has the “help desk” changed over 18 years
• Bursting Out
• Beran’s first TOUCH
• HDI Global Partners
• Practices and Salary Survey
• You Build Value in yourself, for the benefit of the organization – Hooper
• SIM Boston
• itSMF Fusion 2010
• Lisa Rowe’s Podcast Appearance
• Stats on Male/Female in the Support Manager Role
• Gartner Cloud Rights
• Going down the Path (2:02 seconds)
• The Dark Side of SaaS
• Historic Tweet , Service-Now
• Matt Beran – The Social Future
• ITSM Industry Defining Moment
• Service-Now the response
• Twitter the Library of Congress
• Service-Now
• Inforonics
• The Video Clip for Twitter Responsibility
• HDI Twitter
• Fan Mail
•                 Michael, Southern California
•                 Jeff Brooks
• Imperial Palace, Tokyo
• Contact Sophie Klossner

ITSM Weekly the Podcast (Week23) -Women in Tech Series Guest Speaker: Lisa Rowe & Neil Thomas

There is no doubt that IT has been a male dominitated industry.  This month we focus our attention on females who have made a real impact to the IT industry, both through their place within volunteer organizations, as well as within the corporate scene.

To kick off the series we have invited Lisa Rowe on our show.  You'll love Lisa's frank discussion of the "gender debate", and take away some great tips about career development.

Our other special guest is Neil Thomas, who will be heading up the ITSM Weekly the Podcast UK version.

Great show notes are here as always: Plus links to our sponsor of the Women in Technology series Hornbill
http://www.servicesphere.com/blog/2010/7/12/itsm-weekly-the-podcast-week-23.html


ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Week 23) from ServiceSphere on Vimeo.

Show Hosts:
Christopher Dancy
Matt Beran
Matthew Hooper

Submit Questions:  Anonymously or Email or Call In: (765) 236-6383

Week 23 Topics:  

• Martha’s Vineyard
• itSMF USA, Connect Learn Grow Podcast
• Sustainability SIG
• 100 degrees Celsius
• Jeffrey Brooks (I was asked just to randomly insert this)
• Estrogen
• Women in Technology
• SIM Women
• Are American Less Evolved “Professionally” than Europeans
• BJ (Baby Jesus)
• Women's Suffrage
• Woman in the Workforce
• Beran’s Women
• Allan Pease and Allan Pease at Pink Elephant 2010
• Johnny Weir
• Steven Mann
• ITSM Weekly UK
• EMEA
• Hooper and Colleague Driving
• Lisa on Twitter
• Neil Twitter
• The Ego Tweet Profile
• Service Desk Managers from Antarctica
• South American Help desk
• Benjamin Button
• Leadership Tweets
• Brokeback ITSM (Levels of Man Crush)
• Rhettfulence The Tweet
• ITSM Tool Vendors and Marketing Spin
• Rhett Glauser of Service-Now
• ITMM IT Marketing Management
• HP’s 48 Upper Social Network
• ITSM Vendors (Training, Software, Consulting) (RT’s of QUALITY from ITSM)
• ITSM Vendors (Training, Software, Consulting) (SPAM and CONTENT)
• Good Vendors ITSM Vendors on Twitter-
• Cherwell Software
• Numara Software
• Who’s your DADDY!
• ICCM Solutions
• VIVIT HP Community
• The Digital Fuel Twitter
• NSFW VIDEO (iPhone 4 Video)
• HDI Presentation on NEW MEDIA Marketing
• Service-Now Facebook
• The Future of your Desktop (Future-vision from ServiceSphere)
• KCS (Knowledge-Centered Support)

Service Catalogs are the key to demonstrating Value

What is a Service Catalog? Simply put it is system or documentation that allows people to preview the services they can obtain from you and the expectation they can have of getting those services (time, cost, quality, etc...).
Do we need a Service Catalog? Do you need a resume to get a job? No, but if you want the right job, and want to get paid fairly for the abilities you can bring, and want to set the right expectation, then you will want to have a clearly articulated resume.
Same thing with the IT Service Catalog. If you want the business to appreciate the value IT brings to the organization, and you want to ensure that staff, suppliers, and costs are adequately budgeted for, then you must present to the business your capabilities. The Service Catalog is where you will publish and present what IT will do, and thus what they will not do. At face the business will not necessarily want IT to have this. If you do not currently have an IT Service Catalog, then currently the Business can ask you for whatever they want, and IT has to scramble to either try and justify why they can't do it, or figure it out. If there is no cost allocation in place for IT resources, then in the eye of the Business stake holder IT is a free resource, and we all know what the value of free - zero - free has no value.

Thus to really drive the value of IT services, IT must put in place a definitive "what we do, how we do it, and how much it costs" communication platform. More advanced organizations are using this information to build an on-line IT ordering site where people can order account setups, email boxes, new laptops, PDA's and Blackberries, and other enablement services. These sites will typically hang-off the Service Desk platform so that people can get services ordered without having to interact with a service request person. This can lead to tremendous cost savings and it also leaves the business in more control. So many organizations are finding the business more willing to fund the Service Catalog under the umbrella of Self-Service optimization and cost efficiency.

Next blog: "Is the customer always right?" I'll share some tech support stories to show the difference between a customer focused support person and a person who answers the phone and follows a script.