Travel

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Plenty Of Opportunities For More Customer Service Training!

Sometimes, after being in the education & Consulting industry for over 25 years, I wonder if we still need to teach people the basics of stuff like customer service. After all, there’s hundreds of books, courses, blogs and conferences dedicated to this subject. Surely everyone who needs to demonstrate good customer service knows how it should be done?

Apparently not!

As I boarded my United Airlines flight to Mexico City the other day I was greeted at the plane door by a surly Flight Attendant who took one look at my small carry-on bag and snarled “I’m gonna need you to check that bag.” I have traveled all over the world with this bag and never once been asked to check it. It fits easily in either the overhead bin or under the seat. So my immediate response - in a soft, pleading tone - was “Oh really? Are you sure I can’t fit it in?” What I heard next was nothing short of stunning to me.

“What is it about “I’m gonna need you to check that bag” you don’t understand”?

Really! Is there any need for such un-called for rudeness?

This is just a simple example of how it doesn’t matter what expensive tools, training, processes, websites, apps or gadgets a company might to chose to invest in, if the people working there have a poor attitude - the whole service thing just falls apart. It’s all about people.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Leadership Fun In Mexico

I enjoyed talking to our customers at the opening to the 8th Annual ITSM Conference in Mexico City yesterday. The session kicked off with a short video highlighting leadership qualities demonstrated by recognizable leaders from the past and present. I can’t post the video here, but I have included a copy of all the still images and statements in this file. BTW, how many of these great leaders can you name?

However, the point I wanted to make in my talk was that you don’t have to be a “Designated Leader” with great power over resources in order to show leadership. We can all be “Everyday Leaders” in the eyes of our co-workers and friends if we demonstrate some of the qualities I outlined.

Look through these PowerPoint slides to get a better idea of what I discussed; including suggestions for what we can do to improve our leadership abilities when we’re not in charge.

What do you think? Have you seen leadership in action from those who aren’t in charge?

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UPDATE - Just loaded the video to YouTube!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Summer Travels - Mexico, Malaysia, Singapore & Arizona!

Just been reviewing my calendar and realized I have a busy travel schedule over the next few weeks. We have 4 major Pink events in 4 different countries and I’m speaking on the subject of “ITSM Leadership” at each one. Here’s the full run down ....

“8th Annual ITSM Conference” in Mexico City next week.

My opening keynote is titled “ITSM Leadership: You Don’t Need To Be In Charge To Get Results”.

“4th Annual ITSM Conference & Exhibition” presented mid-July in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia & Singapore.

I’m involved in 3 sessions:

• The opening keynote - “Key Challenges For The ITSM Leader Today” - where I’ll specifically include references to what I believe are challenges unique to delivering ITSM in Asia.
• A co-presentation with Pink’s George Spalding titled “Pink Elephant’s Top 8 Absolute Must Do Projects For Every ITSM Organization”
• The closing “Round-Table With The ITSM Experts” which I chair, and will be joined by Cathy Kirch of Allstate, Jerry York of University of Texas Health Science Center, Rich Razon of PureShare and Pink’s own Troy DuMoulin & George Spalding.

“1st Annual ITSM Leadership Forum” presented mid-August in Scottsdale, Arizona.

I’m really excited about this new event on our calendar! Not only are we presenting it at one of my favourite venues, the Fairmont Princess Resort, but also because of the format. We’re facilitating a series of deep discussions into a couple of dozen high priority concerns that ITSM leaders are struggling with today. I present the opening and closing keynotes as well as facilitate a breakout discussion group:

• The opening keynote is titled “Vision, Strategy & Leadership In IT Service Management”.
• The closing keynote is a repeat of what I present in Mexico next week - “ITSM Leadership: You Don’t Need To Be In Charge To Get Results”.
• And the breakout discussion is all about how the Cloud can be exploited by ITSM - “Should ITSM Tools Be Located On Premise Or In The Cloud As SaaS?”. A little provocative sounding, maybe, but a topic many of our customers want to talk about.

Let me know if you’re planning to be at one of these events and I’ll make a point of looking you up to say “Hi!” (or “¡Hola”).

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

3rd Annual IT Service Management Conference in Asia

I just received a copy of the e-brochure describing our next special event in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore & Hong Kong in mid-September. The hardcopy is at the printer right now and will be going out in the mail to our customer database in Asia within the next week or so.

This Conference has an exciting new format. An holistic approach for how you can turn the knowledge we give you into new actions and positive results for the business. I’ll be blogging and tweeting more about this in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, download your copy of the e-brochure and don’t forget to sign-up - there’s an incredible early-bird offer you need to take advantage of right away!

3rd_Annual_ITSM_Conference_-_Asia.pdf

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Updated Session Materials From Last Week’s Knowledge11 (Service-now.com User Conference)

Ask anyone at Pink and they’ll tell you I’m the biggest stickler for making sure we never present anything where the speaker’s visual aids do not match up with the handouts. Some speakers are so conscientious (I’m being generous here) that they continue working on their presentation after the deadline date for submissions has passed. So the event organizers have a V1 of the presentation - which often goes into pre-printed handouts - and the speaker turns up and uses the V2 version on the day.

So guess what happened when I presented at Knowledge11 last week!

Yes - you got it. I sent in my “Disruptive Trends & Technologies - Are You Ready?” session a few weeks ago, then when I spoke last Thursday I had inserted a few more slides. But hold on - I have an excuse. I didn’t change any of the content (words, phrases, charts, diagrams, etc) I just inserted some photos to lighten things up a bit.

So if you want to see some pictures of me in my early IT days, hair and all, you’ll find them in this file- enjoy! Disruptive_Trends_and_Technologies-_Are_You_Ready.pdf

BTW - must give a shout out to my Pink buddy - Chris Dancy - who clearly wowed everyone at the event. He spoke a couple of times earlier in the week (I was in the penultimate time-slot on the last day) and by the time I showed up I lost count of how many people came up to tell me he’d done an outstanding job. Yay Chris!

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

An ITIL Christmas In Malaysia!

George Spalding and I finished the Pink Perspective in Kuala Lumpur today and then went for a walk across the road ....

Sunday, December 06, 2009

A Lesson in Capacity Management in Singapore’s Sim Lim Square

As usual, when they’ve got time to spare on a Sunday afternoon in Singapore - where else would a couple of geeks find themselves but in Sim Lim Square. The Tech Mall to top all Tech Malls. Somewhere on the 3rd or 4th (or was it the 5th or 6th) floor, George Spalding and I found a little store with every possible size of portable disk drive. Check out the video and see for yourself.

Monday, November 02, 2009

Pick A Cliche: Is It “I’m Only Human After All” Or “No Rest For The Wicked”?

After a couple of weeks being under the weather (no H1N1 - thank goodness!) I’m back in the office today. Looking at my diary for the next few months it looks like I’ll be bouncing around quite a bit, so I’d better get my immune system firing on all cylinders.

December 2: Tagging along with George Spalding as he speaks at the HDI Orange County Chapter.

December 3: Carrying George’s bags again at the itSMF LA LIG before we fly off to Singapore together.

December 7: “Pink Perspective Singapore”.

December 8: “Pink Perspective Kuala Lumpur”

December 9: Socializing with our customers at the Regional Education Symposium in Kuala Lumpur.

December 10: itSMF Singapore evening meeting.

January 19-20: “Pink Elephant IT Management Expert Briefing” in Kuala Lumpur with George, Troy & Gary (details to be posted soon)

January 21-22: “Pink Elephant IT Management Expert Briefing” in Singapore with George, Troy & Gary (details to be posted soon).

January 26-28: On to Dubai for our “1st Annual IT Management Conference” in the middle-east; in collaboration with our partner - Trillium Information Security Systems (details to be posted soon).

February 20-26: Pink’s 14th Annual ITSM Conference at the Bellagio, Las Vegas.

March 10-12: “Pink Elephant 6th Annual ITSM Conference in Mexico City”

Hope to see you at one of these events, or at least in an airport somewhere. Say “hello”!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Whirlwind Tour of Pakistan Wraps-Up

Three major cities - Islamabad, Lahore & Karachi - in just 3 days. But now it’s all over.

Gary Case and I had a very interesting, enjoyable and illuminating time in Pakistan. We visited 2 major customer prospects with our prospective new partner - Trillium Information Security Systems - and then spoke at a special event on Saturday evening produced and hosted by CIO Pakistan,  a CIO Executive Dinner Discussion titled “IT Governance Through IT Service Management”.

This CIO Pakistan event deserves a special mention. For a number of reasons I was unable to confirm my travel plans until Tuesday mid-morning, Toronto time. Then, what must have been a small army of people immediately sprung into action to actually produce & promote the CIO Pakistan event for the Saturday evening, barely 4 days later! It’s a huge testament to the organizational skills of the Trillium and CIO Pakistan teams that this event was pulled off so successfully (I certainly enjoyed it!) It was put together so quickly that it’s still not mentioned yet in the events section of the CIO Pakistan website! I’m sure we’ll see it there soon as there was a lot of video recording and photography going on all evening (that’s one of my photos - below. Gary being interviewed by CNBC).

I am very grateful to Mr. Mohsin Sheikh and his team at Trillium for organizing such a productive program for us. Also to Ms. Rabia Garib and her team at CIO Pakistan for their special efforts too. I promised her more advance notice next time - if they’ll have us back.

I wish I could have stayed on a little longer, for two reasons one professional, and one personal:

1. Clearly there are a great deal of opportunities for Pink to serve and support the IT market in Pakistan. I just wish I could have met with even more organizations.

2. I really enjoyed interacting with the many Pakistani people we were introduced to on our trip. Not only did they come across as both highly competent and professional, but the hospitality extended to us was quite humbling.

We’re already working on next steps for “Pink in Pakistan” - so watch this space!

Friday, September 11, 2009

Islamabad to Lahore in 4 Hours - By Car

The countryside was spectacular, so I tried really hard to get some decent pictures out of the car window today. But we were traveling so fast on the highway that they are all too blurry to post. I suspected that might be the case so I started shooting video. But I didn’t get anything too exciting there either because Gary Case was prattling on non-stop about work the whole time.

Once we’d finished giggling about playing cat & mouse with the Highway Police, just listen to Gary go on and on about training IT consultants. Take a break Gary, we’re in Pakistan for heaven’s sake - look out the window!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Budding ITIL Experts in Pakistan

Earlier today Gary Case and I arrived here in Islamabad and almost immediately went into a meeting with one of the country’s largest telcos. The talk was more about “IT Governance” than “ITSM/ITIL”. Interesting.

We then headed off to the office of our prospective new partner here in Pakistan. We were impressed to discover the high degree of professionalism and commitment shown by the consultants.

At the end of our meeting I just couldn’t resist a group photo (me and Gary in the middle).

After looking at the back wall it’s no wonder I can’t get the phrases “new ITSM tools”, “employee compliance” and “demand management” out of my head!

Monday, May 25, 2009

Pink Perspective 2009 Hits The Road!

George Spalding and I will be heading off at the end of this week to visit with our most valuable customers in Singapore & Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sign-ups for our full day Perspective seminars next Tuesday & Wednesday have already exceeded last year’s levels. Clearly there’s a great thirst for Pink knowledge in South East Asia these days!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

On To A Good Thing With The “Heavenly Bed”!

Last week I stayed at the Westin Hotel in Auckland, New Zealand - very nice place.

If you’ve ever stayed at a Westin before you’ll know that one of their most popular features is the “Heavenly Bed”. When you think about it, staying in a hotel should be about the bed first – everything else is additional. Westin’s “Heavenly Bed” is super-comfortable and it’s become such a hit with customers that you can now buy one and have your own “Heavenly Bed” at home. Well Westin know when they’re on to a good thing with this “Heavenly” concept. In my room I also had little notices pointing out the “Heavenly Bath Tub” and the “Heavenly Bath Robe”. I didn’t use either, so I’m not sure how “heavenly” they might be.

I can’t help wondering what’s next - the “Heavenly Telephone”, the “Heavenly TV” or the “Heavenly Toilet”?

Saturday, February 28, 2009

On The Road Again

I’ve only been home for 2 nights and now I’m off to visit our team in Malaysia. First I’ll be stopping in Singapore to speak at a local itSMF Chapter meeting.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Are We There Yet?

Man - that was a long trip!

We left Kuala Lumpur at 11:00am local time on Friday and arrived back here in Toronto after 6:30am Saturday. That’s nearly 32 hours elapsed time. The 5 hour wait in Hong Kong and the 3 hour wait in San Francisco didn’t help!

With all the sunshine here at home I’ve tried to stay awake as long as I could. But I gotta go to sleep now.