Dazed and Confused - Pink11 revelation

It's 6am Vegas time, and my head is spinning.  I am coming up on day 3 for me of one of my favorite conference venues Pink Elephant IT Service Management.  After years of studying, implementing, consulting and leading ITSM intitiatives and projects I woke feeling like someone had picked my pocket.

WHY IN THE WORLD DO NON-IT COMPANIES HAVE IT SERVICES?
THEY DON'T NEED THEM!
There I said it.  (actually' I've already tweeted it).

Why would I say this?  Me, after standing on soapboxes for so many years.
I don't know if it's the past year of doing the ITSM Weekly Podcast and listening to guests.  Having some gut wrenching discussion internally at Inforonics about our corporate strategy.  Maybe it has been reading the Universal Service Management Body of Knowledge (after reading this post Ian offered users a $50 discount. use Discount code "VigilantGuy" tx Ian) and meeting its author this week Ian Clayton.  I'm sure it's a  bit of all that, but's it's definitely 2 distinct events that have happened in sessions here at Pink.  Which is why this contiues to be one of my favorite venues.

Event #1) After a 45 minute panel discussion on Service Catalog (of which I had the pleasure of being on) the last question of the day was by a women who was frustrated by the inability to have services defined and asked "Besides Email, what are some other IT services".  I then hear each panelist rattle off System after system,  network, storage, etc..   It was clear this panel of Service Catalog (where you write down what the services are for the business) couldn't agree on what a Service is.

Event #2) In a panel discussion moderated by Rob England (aka The IT Skeptic) the topic was the elusive CMDB.  A source of consternation, frustration, and confusion throughout the ITSM industry.  The major point hit again and again: It has to be Service Aligned....  But wait, we can't define what a service is.
As I sat there and listened to the extremely passionate arguments, emotional lessons learned, and even one person honeslty begging for help.

We are trying to put Round Pegs in Square holes.  We are making up a layer that does not need to be there.  The IT Service layer is fabricated to fill a misconceived whole.  Well there is no whole.

Business Models are supported by Operational Models that are managed through systems and processes.  Business Services are the only services a business needs.  These can be supported through systems layer that correlates and integrates assets (technical or not).

Yet, that is not how ITSM community speaks and talks. In the ITSM community if my Business Model is about Hospitality, we still create this thing called Storage Area Network Services.  When did SAN Services become something people buy to get a hotel room.  They Don't!

So if I follow the current thinking on ITSM, I am supposed build and define the SAN Service, put it in a catalog, map it to a CMDB, and present its value to my CEO and ask him for a seat at the table.

If you were CEO, would ask me to sit down?

I can tell you what Captain Arbrashoff would say: "Beat it buddy"

Please tell me your comments or send me a tweet @vigilantguy  I would love to hear your response and thoughts on this.
On to day 3.

ITSM Weekly the Podcast (Week33) - Guest Speaker: Kevin More

In my last blog post I spoke about the human element of actions.  This becomes ever so much more prevalent when your corporation works with deviations from societal norms.  In my life I have worked for almost every type of corporation, marketing, sales, insurance, finance, hospitals, snack goods, education, engineering...  There is a few I haven't worked in by choice, but not many.  The actions of showing up at a desk, walking into a meeting, presenting a topic, evaluating a report, have all been relatively the same for me.  My strength has been FCAPS Fault, Capacity, Availability, Performance, Security, and Change management.  However, my experience for everyone of those actions has been completely different.  FCAPS management to be truly proactive you must understand the business.  What does that mean?  What do the people in the business do, and how do they do it?  You must observe the culture, understand the patterns.  For instance, my first work assignment in insurance I took the opportunity to evaluate when desks would clear out at the end of the day.  I noticed typically around 4pm employees were heading out and by 5pm it was fairly empty.  So before ever running my first system utilization report, I already head the suspicion that between 2-4pm the system was at high-load.  Lifestyle was a cultural element, and sports moms' and dads wanted to be home for 6pm practice. When evaluating network and system traffic, I was spot on. 2-4pm heavy usage.  So I then took that data and evaluated the load testing strategy.  Just as you would have suspected, a ramp load to an avg steady stay for 6 hours and then down again.  In other words, the simulation was emulating traffic and load based on a work-day schedule, not a cultural behavior or pattern.  So what am I getting at?   KNOW YOUR BUSINESS.

This week our special guest is a colleague of mine from Boston SIM, Kevin More.  Kevin is a very impressive proffesional, not just cause he is technical, a savvy business person, or has an iPad.  (Though I am jealous of his iPad).  It's because he knows his business.  He understands what his culture does, how they perform actions, and even more importantly WHY they do it.  Listen in as Kevin More, CIO of May Institute, discusses the delivery of IT services for an organization dedicated behavioral health and development of children and adults with brain dysfunctions and autism.

Enjoy this weeks episode with our special guest Kevin More.


ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Episode 33) from ServiceSphere on Vimeo.

Your Hosts:  Matthew Hooper and Matt Beran(twitter #ITSMWP)

AUTISM, iPADs and SIM-FUSION!

What happens when a CIO, a Service Desk Manager and an Industry Junkie Chat Weekly?!

Your Hosts:  Matthew Hooper and Matt Beran(twitter #ITSMWP)

Special Guest:  Kevin More

Submit Questions:  Anonymously or Email or Call In: (765) 236-6383 or Twitter Questions/Comments #ITSMWP

• Christory
• HDI Speaking Tour
• itSMF Fusion 2010
• Executive itSMF Fusion 2010
• Glenn O’Donnell
• Ivanka Menken
• Kevin More
• May Institute
• Autism
• ABA
• Autism in the US military
• iPads discussion
• iPads in use from clinician 
• SIM
• CIO Roundtables
• HDI
• itSMF
• Focus groups more value than social media
• SIMPosium

ITSM Weekly the Podcast (Week32) - Guest Speaker: Philip Neufeld & Matt Neigh

Service Management  - a term that continues to allude people who are in the service industry.  I'm not talking just IT, all be it probably we are the worst to embrace this.  I'm talking about those who just don't get that if you are not fabricating a tangible (electronic or physical) product or good, then you are performing services for your job.  Even if you make a product, say diamond plated dental instruments (something you would be surprised I have learned a lot about),  you still are performing services.  Turning shanks, dipping instruments, packaging, shipping, are all series of actions.  So what's my point?

Service Management is not process.  Processes are not Service Management.  Yet both involve the same series of actions.   You must perform a series of actions in a quality controlled form to produce a result that is consistent, expected, and predictable.  This is where PROCESS kicks in. Processes help you to know which actions to take, when to take them, and what to track about it so you can measure, tune and report on those steps.  SERVICE MANAGEMENT thus is all about the attitude, reflection, interaction, communication, and personalization that surrounds the people performing those actions.  Thus a simple way to think about it in my mind is a PROCESS gets the job done, SERVICE MANAGEMENT satisfies a the requester.  Thus if you spend too much time focusing on either one of these without the other, you will achieve an imbalance of not getting the job done and being a talking head to a requester, or being efficient but a royal pain to work with.  Remember if it's just an action, a robot can do that.  Humans desire a human element, and you must bring that human element to the table when perform actions for other humans.

Enjoy listening to this weeks episode where we speak with Special Guest:  Philip Neufeld Director of Service Management, IT Services State of California and  Matt Neigh from our Higher Education sponsor Cherwell Software

Thanks again to our sponsor   Cherwell Software  Higher Education and ITSM Software

Show notes here: http://www.servicesphere.com/blog/2010/9/13/itsm-weekly-the-podcast-episode-32.html


ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Episode 32) from ServiceSphere on Vimeo.



Your Hosts:  Chris Dancy, Matthew Hooper and Matt Beran (twitter #ITSMWP)

Mobile Apps, Communication Intelligence and Fusion

What happens when a CIO, a Service Desk Manager and an Industry Junkie Chat Weekly?!

Your Hosts:  Chris Dancy, Matthew Hooper and Matt Beran (twitter #ITSMWP)

Special Guest:  Matt Neigh

Special Guest:  Philip Neufeld

Series:  ITSM and Higher Education

Submit Questions:  Anonymously or Email or Call In: (765) 236-6383 or Twitter Questions/Comments #ITSMWP

Sponsor:  Cherwell Software 

Sponsor Special: Higher Education and ITSM Software

Episode 32 Topics:

• American Medical Systems Support
• Dr. Pam Carter’s Podcast
• Jay Stuart Sends Free Pass to Pam Carter to Fusion10
• Cherwell Software
• Phil Neufeld
• CBAT
• Former FrontRange Solution Leaders
• Fresno State
• Deskside Support Best Practices
• Pat Bolger Hornbill Software
• Ease of Use vs. Ease of Usage
• Cherwell Asset Discovery Tool PDF
• HEAT Service and Support
• True Differentiators in ITSM Solutions
• The Future of ITSM Tools
• Human ERP
• Fristory
• Platform for Service
• iCherwell Mobile Application
• WAP
• Client side Business Rules
• Cherwell Software “Community”
• Matt Neigh’s Blog
• Matt Neigh’s Twitter
• Tungle.me (Calendar of the Future)
• Pull Media vs. Push Media for Service Management
• SIM
• SIM and itSMF Special (50% off for members contact HOOP!)
• itSMF Executive Forum
• Cherwell Software at Fusion10
• itSMF Social Training, UGH!
• CSU Travel Restriction
• Higher Education Podcast Series Episode 28-32

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 (Week13) - Guest Speaker: Michael Cote' from Redmonk

Cote' who?

Don't feel "like you are living under a rock".  I didn't know who he was either.  However, 10 minutes into this podcast it quickly became apparent, THIS GUY IS DIFFERENT.  His perspective, energy, passion, just streams out in our discussion with this weeks guest speaker: Michael Cote'

Coté is an analyst at RedMonk covering enterprise software, specializing in systems management, application development, collaborative, and social software.Before Redmonk, Coté worked at BMC developing the BMC Performance Manager family of enterprise systems management products. As aBefore starting his RedMonk weblog, PeopleOverProcess.com, he shared much of his experience on his weblog DrunkAndRetired.com and in his weekly podcasts.


If I were Gartner or Forrester I would definitely be worried about the approach the folks at RedMonk are taking.  CIO's and Marketing executive's like myself are hungry for a real perspective on products, and people like Michael Cote' are delivering just what we need.  Real info from real people.

I'm now a fan, and not just because he joined us on our podcast :).

More great show notes from Chris Dancy here:
http://www.servicesphere.com/blog/2010/5/4/itsm-weekly-the-podcast-week-13.html?SSScrollPosition=0
Thanks as always to our producer at large Matt Beran  (our modern day Sally Jesse Ralphael)

Listen Now:

ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Week 13) from ServiceSphere on Vimeo.