Tuesday, December 21, 2010

ITSM Weekly the Podcast (Week34 & 35) - ITSMF Video and Post Show Episode

Many people ask me why I am part of certain associations.  SIM (Society of Information Management), HDI (Help Desk Institute), ISACA (Information Systems Audit and Control Association), and ITSMF (Information Technology Service Management Forum).  The first reason is to meet smart people.  I don't have time to research the latest and greatest trends, practices, and keep up on who's who.  Since 2004, I have had a dual role of chief marketing and technologist.  Each of those disciplines area in and of themselves morphing at lightning speed.  So to keep up, I've found networking with folks for a few hours and hearing a presentation on certain topics keeps me in the know.   Sadly, however, the value of networking groups have diminished as committees are formed and political agendas are pushed.  The value of volunteer-ism is diminished because of prominence or association. What do I mean?  Take for instance the hard working independent consultant who is out working it, and offers to give his experience of deploying a Service Desk at 5 clients vs. the Service Desk Manager for a well known financial institute that has hired guns at their disposal for the hard work.   The committees for choosing speakers all too frequently discount the independent because of fear that they will try to sell the audience, and will choose the big company profile.  Even if the IC has proven to put a lot into the organization.  Give me a break!   First off, 30-50% of the audience at these conferences have either been, are, or will be a consultant at some point in their career.  Second, a SPAMMY consultant is pretty easy to call out.  Anyone who has been at this for a while knows that if you pitch at a conference you loose your audience and credibility fast.  Staying hard-core has always shown value and increased the awareness of your skills and thus led to follow on work.  Even if you are not a polished speaker, simply speaking from the heart on real world experiences and engaging the audience in a mutual discussion will drive more value.  So committee members I call out to you, if you want my continued membership.  Get the workers out in front of us and save the experts for panel discussions.  We want to hear "real world".   Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't have real practitioners from the Big name companies.  Believe me, I appreciate their discussions.  However, if you have attended these conferences and meetings, you have seen that it is "always" these folks.  I'm saying give us people who are dynamic, exciting and know what they are talking about, regardless of their role, company or title.  Just keep it real!


Ths week in IT Service Management Weekly the Podcast, Chris, Matt and I record live from the ITSMF Fusion 10 conference.  It's only 20 minutes, so I have also put in here the following podcast.
Enjoy


LIVE from itSMF Fusion 2010 ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Week 34) from ServiceSphere on Vimeo.


ITSM Weekly The Podcast (Episode 35) from ServiceSphere on Vimeo.

I See A Pink Door and I Wanted Painted Black
What happens when a CIO, a Service Desk Manager and an Industry Junkie Chat Weekly?!
Submit Questions:  Anonymously or Email or Call In: (765) 236-6383 or Twitter Questions/Comments #ITSMWP
Episode 35 Topics:
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Monday, November 8, 2010

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?!
Special Guest:  Kevin More

Submit Questions:  Anonymously or Email or Call In: (765) 236-6383 or Twitter Questions/Comments #ITSMWP
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Friday, October 29, 2010

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

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?!
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
Episode 32 Topics:
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