Personal Mission Statement

I made fun in my last post about a "naughty" list for ITSM but please don't be deceived. I, and those around me that I care about very much have been deeply hurt about some of the developments in our "community"

So let me state very clearly my personal agenda.

I'm not an idealist, I like to think I'm a realist. Much of what we do in IT is driven by commercial imperatives. I have a very tough financial target to reach each year. Most of what you see of me here and on other social media  has to fit into the margins of managing an eight figure P+L account.

I was criticized recently for overvaluing the "real world" of practitioners over that of conferences and think tanks. Well I'm sorry, but that is reality. ITSM takes places at the coal face. Time spent in committees and conferences helps the community and I've spent my fair share of time doing it over the last 25 years, but it isn't where ITSM happens.

I also come from a very ethical, rational and let us by very honest a very British background. That actually means not that I'm hell bent on political and economic domination of world economies, after all we lost our empire long before I was born, but rather that I believe in democracy, community and valuing others.

In recent months I've been accused of xenophobia. That is incredibly hard to stomach when I've worked across different geographies most of my life and currently work for an Indian company managing a multinational team.

I also believe deeply in the sharing of IP, and have long been a supporter of the Creative Commons Licence. I also realise though that commerce depends on the protection of IP, especially when that IP was created as part of a commercial arrangement.

To put this in practical terms I think there is lots of IP in our industry that is twenty years old and deserves to be set free because retaining it doesn't benefit anyone. But don't for one moment forget the investment UK government made in developing ITIL and that ITIL is theirs's (and now AXELOS's) to do with whatever they want.

There are behaviours that I'm afraid are prevalent in any industry that are also found in IT and ITSM that I find abhorrent. Let me be very clear what they are, and that I will not tolerate them:

• Censorship of opinions that differ from your own because they don't fit with your contingent agenda
• Bullying of those perceived to be weaker than yourself.
• Claiming to speak for the community, the great unwashed and  the disenfranchised when you don't 
• Setting rules you can't and don't live by yourself
• Spreading FUD in support of a personal agenda
• The rewriting of history to suit yourself

This has always been, and always will be, an independent blog. Long may it remain so.