Service Desk and IT Support Show

Just like buses, you wait for ages for one of my blog posts and then they all come together.

A quick reminder for those in the UK that next week is the Service Desk and IT Support Show in Earls Court.

I won't be speaking, in fact it is one of the shows I've never been invited to speak at*, hint hint, but I will be there for both days and we will be recording a special edition of the ITSMWPROW podcast live from the VIP lounge. So come along and join us if you can.

This year's programme of speakers looks particularly interesting.

*Following my comment to the organizer on a yet to be broadcast podcast that "the best thing about it is it is convenient for Infosec next door" it might be some time before I get an invite to speak.

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scot walk into a bar....

...no it isn't the start of a joke, but a scene in the Bellagio at the start of the Pink11 conference in Las Vegas earlier this year. The Irishman was Patrick Bolger and the Scot was Barclay Rae , two of my fellow presenters on the ITSM Weekly Podcast Rest of the World Edition. The Englishman was obviously me, there to present on ISO 38500 and take part in the CMDB panel discussion chaired by Rob "ITSkeptic" England.

Pinky goes to Vegas

Running into two such  great enthusiastic and  ITSM thinkers right at the start really set the tone for the whole event, even if I could have met them much more cheaply without leaving the UK. In fact in the next hour we were joined by a plethora of ITSM gurus. Those of you who have listened to our post Pink11 podcasts will have realised that Pat, Barclay and I came back buzzing with ideas, and again I want to spotlight some of these over the next few weeks.(Update - those ideas have morphed into the Back2ITSM concept)

Vegas 

OK, by now you will have gone away and checked the link to the conference and worked out that it took place way way back in February. So you'll have two questions.

Number 1 - When is the next Pink Conference?

Number 2 - Why has he only just got round to blogging about this?

Well there are two answers to that. The first is that I've been rather busy with the day job, and the second is that I've wanted to reflect a little before drawing conclusions.

Social Media 
Not only was this a hot conference topic but it also made a huge difference to the conference experience. A lot of facetime conversations were continuations of Twitter based debates. Not only that but in the main sessions there were live Twitter feeds following the #pink11 hash tag, and that hash tag generated a lot of interest. There was also a lot of activity in the blogsphere - Barclay Rae and Matt Hooper both got very excited.

Recording the podcast. Oh the glamour of it all

Here are some of my own initial thoughts, largely focusing on the difference between this event and similar conferences in the EMEA  region.

Back to Basics
I'm going to make a gross generalisation here. At UK ITSM conferences the presumption is we all know what the foundations of ITSM are so we don't bother questioning them, and the result is our thinking about the subject hasn't moved forward for years. At Pink there was an awareness that those foundations aren't as robust as we'd imagined. Some very fundamental issues, such as "What is a service?" and "Do you need a CMDB?" and "Do you really understand problem management?" were addressed. If you think they are trivial questions with answers enshrined in ITIl then I would suggest you probably don't understand the questions. Suffice to say at least one hastily conceived  CMDB project was publicly abandoned following the debate on their value.

Ceiling in the Bellagio's reception 

Not Being Scared to Ask for Help
This kind of leads on from my last point. At UK conferences speakers stand up and tell you what a great job they've done and that they've got all the answers. If you've read my ramblings on "The Halo Effect"  and "Cargo Cults" you'll know my view of that approach. Here there was much more of a dialogue going on between the speaker and the floor, and more discussion between delegates.

Perhaps the extreme example is the overwhelming response Pink and Hornbill have had to their ITSM Extreme Makeover initiative.

Personal Highlights

• Meeting so many ITSM gurus face to face, too many to mention them all
• Sitting on such a distinguished panel to discuss CMDB
• Listening to Captain Mike Abrashoff talk about leadership

Who says Vegas is fake?

If you've never been before I really really recommend that you make the trip to next year's show.

The Ghost of ITIL Past

Ivor took Brandon by the hand and led him through the mists of time to an earlier IT world...

..which gave rise to the first problem, because the secure access to the data center meant Brandon couldn't tail gate him..

Once that hurdle had been surmounted they surveyed the scene in front of them.

"Isn't it idyllic to see a place for everything, and everything in it's place?" declared  Ivor, the ghost of ITIL past. "Look at how the Ops Manager rules his tape monkeys, marvel as he refuses admission to any developers carrying arbitrary tapes. His word is law."

Brandon, the once and future auditor, could not help noticing various tapes lying unaccounted for outside of the tape store, or that the tape monkeys appeared to have no idea what they were actually doing.

"Tell me Ivor, what have you brought me here to see?"

"I have brought you so that you might understand there was once a golden age of IT, when we knew and understood our place in the world.. It was a world where the dangerous intellectuals were turned to the right, and became system analysts, whilst those of us who were unworthy turned left and became operators. Of course there were also also those who ignored all the obvious signs and became Sysprogs"

"So what happened to the Sysprogs?" queried Brandon.

"To be quite honest we don't know, we could never be bothered to talk to them at office parties. Anyway, behold IT Narnina!"

"I think you mean Nirvana, but then again... look this is very impressive, that machine there blinking and whirring away must be incredibly powerful.."

"Indeed, behold the might 1Mb disk drive...."

"No sorry, I meant the air conditioning unit over there, but anyway, here we are buried in a silo, what I want to know is what the customers thought about IT in these days."

"They think it is very shy"

"Shy? Are you sure about that?"

"Oh yes,  when I went out to meet the customers they kept telling me how shy it was."

"OK can I just check here, were the customers based in Germany, and were you by any chance a senior MOD civil servant?"

"OK, I might have been."

"And do you think that instead of saying the system is shy, sir*, they might have been saying something else?"

With that the ghost of ITIL past faded away, to be replaced with the ghost of ITIL present.

*German slang for the products of Microsoft.

Thoughts on the 2010 itSMF UK Conference

So that's the 2010 conference over for another year.

A night's sleep, even though it involved dreaming about CMDBs and Service Design packages, has given me time to reflect on it.

So here are my thoughts.

If I'm perfectly honest I normally find attending this event a bit of a chore, but I thoroughly enjoyed this year.

First of all the venue and location was better than the Metropole, and I didn't find myself getting lost navigating between sessions and exhibition halls. I was really impressed with all the hotel staff I interfaced with, which coming from a customer service background is pretty unusual. The same applies to the conference support staff as well. I'm afraid the food at the gala dinner was another let down, but I've come to expect that.

Secondly there was the shift to just two days. I felt that made the event more focussed, and seemed to push up the attendance in the individual streams. Last year a lot of good sessions didn't get the audience they deserved.

Perhaps some thought needs to be given the timing of the first and last keynote sessions. Coming down from Coventry I only just managed to make the opening session, and the final session had a relatively small audience. If I go next year I will seriously consider coming down for the Sunday night.

Thirdly, of course, there were the people. Now I tweeted from last year's gala dinner that I was the worst networker in the room, and that remains the case, but this year social media came to my aid and I had some great conversations with @servicesphere, @stephenmann, @duncs, and @ barclayrae amongst others. It would have been nice to have had a wider tweetup, I'm not sure why that didn't happen and have a horrible feeling I should have arranged it.

Confession time, I had to grovel to the wonderful @G2G3 AKA Linda King because I kept walking past the stand without talking to them, which taught me two valuable lessons. One is that we need to be consistent with our social media persona, and the other was that it is too easy to ascribe the wrong motivation to others. I'm just naturally shy. 

The only reason I mention this is that it was the  theme of a lot of the "People" sessions, which is the stream I concentrated on.

We need to  give out clear messages to our customers,
and make sure
we understand the messages they are giving to us. 

The less said about my own session on ISO 38500 the better, because to be honest I was just trying to get to the end of it without infecting 80% of the audience with man flu. I did get some kind comments afterwards, but I can't help feeling I've not got my presenter's mojo back just yet. I suspect that is partially because I'm looking for a new, minimalist, style to call my own. Hopefully I'll have that sorted by Pink11. My ideas are evolving rapidly.

What did strike me, and some of the audience, is that some people just don't get what we are trying to do with ISO 38500.

It isn't about how we do things inside of IT.

It isn't a recipe book like ISO 20000

It isn't a rational construct like ITIL

My gut feel is we have a lot of "storming" to do in the ISO 38500 world before we can get round to "norming" and "performing"

Not for the first time I was surprised people didn't realise the financial contribution the Tata group makes to society. I got the message that as a behaviour it still matters but we keep too quiet about it.

Most presenters, including some of the authors, seemed to take the view that ITIL has become a sideshow. The big issue is how do we solve a specific issue, and ITIL rarely helps in those cases beyond providing a common vocabulary.

Final conclusions: For once I felt we have matured as a profession. There were very few theoretical/perfect world sessions. On the other hand there were few sessions that pushed the boundaries to the art of the possible.

Now, off to write my slides for Pink11....

Brandon Lane CIO - Episode 7

Brandon Lane has a vision

(Or a slightly premature ITSM Carol)

Ten minutes before the first team meeting.

Brandon rubs his temples.If only Yssabele was here to soothe his furrowed brow.

Actually, when he thinks about it, most of the furrows on his brow are of Yssabele's doing. Even how to spell her name normally confuses him, because she changes her preferred spelling from week to week.

Never mind. You get the picture.

And oddly, now does Brandon.

A mist forms in front of his eyes, and standing in front of him is a patrician looking vision dressed in black, complete with pointed beard.

"Who the Chris Dancy are you?" Brandon enquires, whilst desperately trying to reach for the intercom on his desk.

"I am Ivor, the ghost of ITIL implementations past" the apparition announces "I, and my consulting associates, Jimbofin, the ghost of ITSM present, and Ian, the ghost of Outside-In thinking will all visit you to..."

There was a chilling stillness in the room, as the apparition prepared to make its pronouncement...

"Help you deliver an ITIL transformation project."

Brandon looked at the apparition for a few seconds before responding.

(Look, I'm writing this on an Android phone and I'm sorry but my chances of spelling "apparition" right are quite slim. Get over it.)
"Heck, I know the Netherlands is ITIL's own country, and I've smoked but never inhaled a lot of weed, but what planet are you from?"

"Well, planet ITIL, if you  must ask. Anyway my task is to show you the world of ITIL past, which actually isn't that hard, because it lies just beyond your door."

Read on....

itSMF UK conference

I don't believe in self promotion, but I guess I should point out that I'll be speaking at this year's itSMF conference in London next week.

My topic is how you can use ISO 38500 to gain CxO level commitment.

Come and listen to me if you are interested in the topic, but more importantly if you are coming to the conference come and introduce yourself and speak to me, and the other great ITSM experts who will be there. Don't be scared. we won't bite, and I would love to hear from you.

Rest of the World Podcasts

Just a quick reminder that along with Stephen Mann &  Chris Matchett you can catch me on the ITSM Rest of the World Podcasts.

Episode 1

Episode 2

We haven't quite reached the level of slickness achieved by our US counterparts

Flash, bang, wallop

'Old it, flash, bang, wallop, what a picture What a picture, what a photograph'

Lyrics from Half a Sixpence

Have you missed me?

I've been rather busy putting together some interesting bids and delivering some exciting service catalogue propositions. I know, I'm on record as being somewhat critical of service catalogues, but that is when other people are involved, and the objectives aren't clear.

I've also been busy rediscovering some of ny hobbies, including photography. I recently took delivery of a new camera. It is an end of line Panasonic LX3. Now I have previous when it comes to buying cameras.

As I write this I have five cameras sat on my desk.

The thing is, as I keep explaining to my beloved wife, is that different cameras suit different purposes.

I have a Pentax DSLR that I love because it can take photographs that no camera I've ever owned before has been capable of, but it can be heard from a mile away when you click the shutter.

I have a Panasonic FZ18 super zoom that has produced photos at Le Mans when friends with expensive DSLRs have struggled.

I've got a little Panasonic compact which will fit in a shirt pocket, and of course there is a camera in my mobile phone.

But then there is my Panasonic LX3.

It isn't the most up to date camera, in fact I only bought it after they announced a new model and the price dropped accordingly.It doesn't have a great zoom lens, though it does have a surprisingly wide angle facility.

But what it does do it does really, really well. And that happens to coincide with the street photography that I most enjoy doing.

The ITSM conclusion?

Ask yourself what do you REALLY want an ITSM tool to do for you today. Don't worry too much about what you want to do in two or three years time, trust me, the technology will have moved on by then.

All change!

I couldn't resist the title of this post since I'm writing it on a train.

Once again I've gone a little quiet .

The observant ones amongst you will have noticed a small but significant change in my vanity panel.

For the less observant of you I have returned to corporate life as a member of the TCS Global Consulting Practice .

I'm probably as shocked by this development as many of you will be. I am, after all, one of the mavericks of the ITSM world.

So what is the attraction?

It has to be their willingness to look at ITSM and IT governance with fresh eyes, coupled with a strong emphasis on social responsivility

Location : Address not available

The Hare and the Tortoise

Some of you might have noticed an absence of recent posts. Some of you will have realised that this once again coincided with the running of the Le Mans 24 hour race.

What a race it was.

The Pugs appeared to unbeatable, until their engines blew up. The Audis seemed to have an impossible target, until somehow their reliability delivered a 1-2-3 podium finish.

A little bit of me felt this was a hollow victory, until I realised Audi won having covered an incredible record distance. They did not luck into this victory.

And then there were lots of interesting discussions about how a class win compared to an overall win.

But beyond anything else there was that over-riding commitment to doing the best you possibly can.

I had dinner on Sunday night with the Autocon Lola mechanics.

They had come all the way from the USA to see their car do...6 miles...less than a single lap of the Le Mans circuit.

The messages I would love to get out to you is this:

Racers get excited.Racers are driven by a motive that other people don't get.

Racers, although they are driven by winning, don't need to win.

Racers appreciate the effort needed to win, and above everything else, care about trying.