Tuesday, October 31, 2006
My Favourite Airline
Phew! It’s a long haul up those stairs to the upper deck on Singapore Airlines’ 747s.
Friday, October 27, 2006
Pink Elephant’s 11th Annual Conference Update
With the program for Pink Elephant’s 11th Annual IT Service Management Conference and Exhibition now complete, this Pink Podcast offers an update on some exciting featured speakers coming to the world’s largest event dedicated to IT best practices – February 18-21, 2007 at the Venetian, Las Vegas.
Approximate running time: 7 minutes
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
I Could Make Quite A Splash!
Just down the road from Pink Elephant’s HQ in Toronto - Niagara Falls!
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Travelling With The Family
It’s not all luxury - especially when I’m traveling with the family! Here we’re all getting ready for a cargo class trip from Las Vegas to Mexico City.
Pink Elephant CEO Ranked 16th In Top 100 Canadian Female Entrepreneurs
BURLINGTON, ON – October 24, 2006 – Pink Elephant today announced that Fatima Cabral, CEO, was named one of Canada’s most successful business owners in PROFIT magazine’s W100 ranking of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs. Ms. Cabral, who has appeared consecutively on the W100 since 2001, was listed in the 16th spot based on the annual revenue of 100 female owned and operated firms.
“This achievement serves as a testament to the commitment of our people,” says Ms. Cabral. “Our success is due to superior customer service, strong marketing and sales, and great employees. As a team we strive for continuous growth and improvement, and acknowledgements like this confirm that we are on the right track. We are very proud to be recognized.”
“We’re happy to welcome the 2006 PROFIT W100 winners to this distinguished group of peers,” says Ian Portsmouth, editor. “Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs are generating economic growth both at home and abroad.”
Pink Elephant continued to demonstrate strong revenue growth last year. Notable achievements for the company included the 10th anniversary of the International IT Service Management Conference and Exhibition that attracted a record number of IT professionals from all over the world. Further, Pink Elephant won several large education and consulting contracts to help customers in the financial services and utilities industries improve IT operations and service delivery through the implementation of best practices.
The complete W100 rankings are posted online at PROFITguide.com, and will also be published in the November issue of the magazine.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management is a valuable addition to resources available to IT Service Management processes. But, Knowledge Management is a topic that is not the easiest to define or scope. This PinkPodcast is intended to serve as a primer on the subject of Knowledge Management – what it is and what it isn’t. This session will serve as a springboard for future programs which will begin to explore how Knowledge Management is useful for the various ITIL processes.
Note: Please be advised that this is an Enhanced PinkPodcast that contains a slide presentation and is best viewed with QuickTime.
Approximate running time: 9 minutes
Pink Elephant: Everything You’ve Always Wanted To Know, But Were Afraid To Ask!
Want to find out more about what a company with a name like Pink Elephant has to teach organizations about managing IT? Go straight to the source!
In this interview with David Ratcliffe, President of Pink Elephant, Executive Consultant and ITSM guru Troy DuMoulin digs deep to find out more about Pink Elephant including how they have been involved with ITSM and ITIL since inception and their plans for exploring the next frontiers of IT Management.
Approximate running time: 16 minutes
On The Great Wall
Phew!! It was a long way to the top of the Great Wall of China, but what a view!!
Seattle Cousin
Us elephants are a very enterprising lot, you know. I guess if I get tired of the IT service management business - I can always join my cousin in the car wash business!
Friday, October 13, 2006
Building a Business Case for ITIL Implementation
One of the challenges for any ITIL implementation is building the Business Case. Many organizations are comfortable with identifying the Value of implementing ITIL while others want to conduct a full business case complete with a Return on Investment (ROI) statement. The latter is often difficult in many organizations due to a lack of consistent metrics and measurements that can be used as a baseline to start building a ROI scenario.
Aproximate running time: 9 minutes
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Pink Elephant Announces Worlwide Delivery Of COBIT Foundations Course
Foreign Private Issuers Affected By SOX Benefit From Auditor-Designed COBIT Framework
BURLINGTON ON – October 11, 2006 – Pink Elephant today announced its COBIT Foundations course, launched in North America at the IT Governance Symposium in August 2006, is now available globally for organizations seeking a framework to meet legislative compliance. COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology) is complementary to ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) for managing IT services, and is an especially practical framework for US-listed foreign issuers who are subject to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX).
COBIT Foundations participants will better understand the levels of security and control necessary to protect company assets through the development of an IT governance model.
The in-class, instructor-led course format supports the intensive course content, which covers:
• An overview of the COBIT’s 34 control objectives within four domains: planning and organization; acquisition and implementation; delivery and support; and monitoring
• An understanding of how IT management issues are affecting today’s organizations
• An understanding of the benefits of using COBIT, including how it meets the requirement for an IT governance framework
• The fundamentals required to apply the core content of COBIT
• How COBIT is used as the umbrella framework and integrator for other standards (ISO 17799/27001, ISO 20000) and best practices (ITIL®, CMM and PRINCE2)
The Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), who created COBIT along with the IT Governance Institute (ITGI) in 1992, administers and marks the COBIT Foundations examination, which is scheduled on the last day of the course.
“As COBIT was originally designed by the auditing community to measure IT, it is not surprising to see public companies turning to the framework, especially to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley section 404,” says Pink Elephant President David Ratcliffe. “It made sense for us to extend COBIT Foundations to our global customers affected by the current legislative climate. Beyond the compliance aspect, COBIT provides generally accepted indicators of what a well run IT organization should look like.”
The full course syllabus with presentation locations, dates, prices and registration options can be found here. Customers can also register for COBIT Foundations by calling their local Pink Elephant office. There are no mandatory prerequisites; however, work experience in governance, process improvement or IT services is recommended.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Service Level Management Articles
Here are articles on Service Level Management:
- Establishing The Key Role Of Service Level Manager
- Planning A Successful Survey
- Service Level Management - A Process, Not A Document
- What’s The Big Deal About A Service Catalog
The Practicality of Prioritization
Let’s face it - everyday, the IT professional is bombarded with numerous demands on their time. First they have what are supposedly their own jobs to complete; then, they have all of those deliverables demanded by the projects they have been assigned to. Last but not least, they are called upon to fix incidents or perform root cause analysis or to be involved in a Change. What is a guy or gal to do with all of these demands upon their time?
Approximate running time: 11 minutes
Thursday, October 05, 2006
The Problem With Problem Management
Did you really implement Problem Management or just improved on mangaging incidents? Learn six of the biggest difficulties associated with implementing and managing an effective Problem management process and tips on how to avoid them.
The Problem With Problem Management
Do’s & Don’ts For Effective Configuration Management
This article contains some do’s and don’ts for implementing and managing the Configuration Management process, according to ITIL best practices. Check it out!