After seeing that video I think you will agree Brenda is both interesting and fun to talk with.  Don’t miss her sessions at the conference.

Friday, January 22, 2010

ITIL® Service Manager Program Officially Retiring

Pink Elephant Scheduling Last Courses In North America

TORONTO, ON – January 18, 2010 – Pink Elephant announced today that it has scheduled its last ITIL Service Manager programs in North America. The move comes in response to an announcement from the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) that the Service Manager program will officially retire in August 2010. Pink Elephant will offer the last round of courses in four locations: Toronto beginning March 8; Chicago beginning April 12; Washington D.C. beginning May 3, and San Francisco beginning July 19.

The ITIL Service Manager is one of the industry’s most rigorous and sought after designations. The certification attached to this course is the highest level available in the ITIL version 2 (V2) training program. Coupled with the V2-V3 Service Manager Bridging course, it is also the fastest way to achieve the 22 credits required for “ITIL Expert” certification – now the highest ITIL qualification.

The ITIL Service Manager program teaches IT practitioners how to apply, manage and analyze ITIL processes in your organization. Program objectives are achieved through case studies, exercises, practical homework assignments and best practice teachings.

View more information about the ITIL Service Manager program.

Register for the course.

About Pink Elephant
Pink Elephant leads the way in ITSM best practices. Operating through many offices across the globe, it is the world’s #1 provider of ITIL and ITSM conferences, education and consulting services. To date, more than 200,000 IT professionals have benefited from the organization’s expertise. Pink Elephant has championed the growth of ITIL worldwide since its inception in 1989, and was selected as an international expert to contribute to the ITIL V3 project as authors of the Continual Service Improvement book and through representation on the International Exam Panel. For more information, please visit www.pinkelephant.com.

ITIL® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.

###

For further information, please contact:
Brent Artemchuk
Director, Marketing and Communications
Pink Elephant
Toll Free: 1-888-273-7465, Ext. 252
E-mail: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Education and Training issues - Part 1

I have been following a few exchanges about education in various social media environments lately. Most of them are great discussions. I am paying particular attention to those relating to IT, ITSM and ITIL. So far, it seems to me most participants in these exchanges (including myself) agree the ITIL literature and the ITIL certification do not cover everything. One of the most interesting discussion centers on soft skills and ITIL.

OGC and APMG are promoting ITIL, Project, Program, and Risk Management. It should not be expected of them to incorporate other well-defined framework and qualification into the mix. Others already do this. The scope of the complementary guidance in ITIL is for ITIL specific, specialized, and expanded literature and qualifications about ITIL topics. A great example is the Service Catalogue certification.

Conferences and trade-shows, blogs and webinars offer us *the educators and trainers) great platforms to push the envelope beyond “ITIL.”

There are no perfect frameworks or methodologies out there. You know this and I know this. A combination of the frameworks and methodologies will result in the industry shaping itself into what it should become.

It is my humble opinion that we agree something must be done. What we need is thought leadership and leadership to say enough is enough and tell organizations that additional activities (such as x, y, and z) need also be done. As I have mentioned in my blog a few times we, the ITIL education, consulting and vendor community) are doing ourselves a major disservice by insisting on calling everything IT-this and IT-that.

If you look at the five ITIL core books, they simply mention, and very briefly define, other frameworks and methodologies. Because of copyright issues and in order not to re-invent the proverbial wheel, the authors were instructed to mention only other frameworks and methodologies and their touch points.

In regards to the other frameworks and methodologies, such as CMMI, COBIT, PMI, PRINCE2, and SIX SIGMA, to name but a few, they all complement each other, as we all know. None of them is all-encompassing. Based on the readings that I do and the conversations that I have, I can safely say the other frameworks and methodologies suffer very similar issues such as perceived omissions in many areas especially soft skills.

What we are facing is attitude and contempt. People believe that cost cutting, outsourcing and asking personnel to work longer hours and to get the job done are the solutions. Wrong. Go to any bookstore and look at the self-help section. It is all about communication, self-awareness, and being at peace with the environment, oneself, and others. Go to the business section and you get so many books about corporate culture and business behaviors.

Then go the IT section and all you (mostly) see are technical books. There is very little about soft skills.

The issue s much bigger than we think. What we require is a major change in attitude by IT professionals and businesses in general.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” solution. However, I do believe that the more we push communication, including behavior and related skills; we will change the culture of IT eventually. It will be a long and arduous road.

I do agree that culture is a huge component of what we are faced with as instructors and consultants. One of the major obstacles to any of the above is that executives believe that you can simply plug it in, turn it on and voila!

POP quiz: what is one of the first items to be cut in tough economic times?
Answer: education and training.

Trainers must be careful not to thread outside the scope of the course syllabus. There is always a temptation to stray into exciting topics but they can distract the delegates (students) from their two primary objectives; acquiring knowledge and passing the exam. (NOTE: I understand that for many, the objectives are reversed and that acquiring new knowledge may be secondary or even irrelevant). If trainers spend too much time on other topics, such as “soft skills” during a class the students may complain the trainer did not prepare them adequately for the exam. However, the stories, the analogies, the examples and the additional “value-add” material were terrific and likely the best part of the course. By the way, I know first hand what it feels like as I made the above mistake a few times.

Organizations must incorporate soft skills education and training. However, they must first design, engineer and foster a corporate culture that will enable this to happen and empower the people to act on it.

To be continued…

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

The ITM10 Sponsor and First Time Exhibitor list keeps growing

Welcome to BMC, IBM, newScale, Numara Software who have signed up to be Gold sponsors; and Axios Systems, EMC, Staff and Line (EasyVista), and Stroma Consulting Services who have signed up to be Silver sponsors at Pink Elephant’s 14th Annual International IT Service Management Conference & Exhibition February 21 - 24, 2010 at the Bellagio, Las Vegas. 

Welcome to first time exhibitors Biomni, Fruition Group, Hagrid Solutions, Inforonics, Kovair, and Tec Access.

Platinum sponsor 
• Service-now.com.

Gold Sponsors
• BMC
• Booz Allen
• CA, Inc (previously Oblicore)
• FrontRange
• Hornbill
• IBM
• newScale
• Numara Software

Silver Sponsors
• APM Group
• Axios Systems
• Cherwell Software
• CollegeNET Inc
• CA, Inc
• ComSci, LLC
• Consulting Portal
• EMC
• EXIN USA
• Loyalist
• Monitor 24-7
• Staff and Line (EasyVista)
• Stroma Consulting Services

First Time Exhibitors
• Avocent LANDesk
• Biomni
• Fruition Group
• Hagrid Solutions
• Inforonics
• KACE Networks
• Kovair
• Matrix42 USA, Inc
• OTRS Inc
• Tec Access

Pink Elephant’s 14th Annual International IT Service Management Conference & Exhibition promises to be another successful information and entertainment packed event.  We would like to recognize the sponsor and exhibitor community for their important role in the success of this event and thank them for their support and participation in our conference. 

If anyone is interested in finding out more about being a sponsor at the ITM10 Service Management Conference or one of our PinkPERSPECTIVES, please call Lisa Lyons, Client Relations Manager at 1 888 273-7465 ext 228

Exclusive Offers For Select Cirque du Soleil Shows

Cirque du Soleil is pleased to offer attendees of our conference 35% off select performances of CRISS ANGEL® Believe™, KÀ™, Mystère™ & Zumanity™, The Sensual Side of Cirque du Soleil™ (for those 18 and older).  Known for the spectacular and awe-inspiring shows, a ticket to one these shows will complete your trip to las Vegas!  To secure your tickets, please call 866-241-2833 and mention DELEGATE OFFER. For Mystère™ orders, please call 702-894-7722 or 1-800-392-1999. Best available seating (no discount) is available for Viva ELVIS™, “O™” and The Beatles™ LOVE™ by Cirque du Soleil®.

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KÀ™
MGM Grand
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Mystère™
Treasure Island
February 17 – 28
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Zumanity™, The Sensual Side of Cirque du Soleil™
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Viva ELVIS™
Aria
February 19 – 28
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Subject to availability.  Seating is based on best available and no holds will be accepted.  For more information about the shows, please visit http://www.cirquedusoleil.com

Download the Cirque du Soleil special offer flyer.

Friday, January 15, 2010

EHOBOK Exhibit Assessment

Continuing our series of posts about EHOBOK, The Exhibition Hall Optimizer Body of Knowledge,  recall that we are already up to EHOBOK V2 thanks to a recent Refresh.  This describes four domains:

Exhibit Strategy (ES): planning your EH engagement to optimize the experience

Exhibit Engagement (EE): executing on your strategy by engaging with the EH

Exhibit Assessment (EA): determining the exhibit’s reliability and value to you

Exhibit Utilization-with-a-z (EU): realising (with an “s”) the value of individual exhibits

Today we present Exhibit Assessment: how to evaluate whether a booth is worth a visit.

Overall, we calculate the value of a booth in terms of its Utility and Warranty.  Utility measures how useful the product or service is to us, and Warranty the reliability of the provider.  So you might like to rate each booth in the Exhibit Hall (EH) on the sum of these two scores, then set some minimum threshold, or pick the top 10 or 20.

To assist you we present the Six “C”s of Evaluation:

Context

Your OWN personal needs and agenda: what’s in it for you?
Your company strategy, IT strategy
Current portfolio, future plans
BEST use of funds: how does this compare to other proposals?
Current initiatives: does this align with the bosses’ current fads?
Fit with the culture of your organisation: innovative or conservative?  Mature or cowboy?

Contribution

What will the tool or service do?
What value does it deliver?
What reference visits, head-office demos, conferences and overseas training courses does the vendor offer?

Compliance

In the ITSM world, product compliance is assessed by PinkVERIFY or by OGC’s ITIL process compliance accreditation evaluation endorsement scheme.
Pink has joined the OGC scheme, as well as offering PinkVERIFY.  Both assessments are conducted simultaneously using the same methodology.

The usefulness of these stamps of approval is hotly debated but the market demand for them is insatiable – it makes managers happy.  Hopefully these schemes will stamp out some of the more execrable faults in tools:

• Changing a record type from incident or request to problem or change (instead of spawning a separate problem or change record)
• No ownership of records (it is OK to assign a record to many people for multiple tasks, but the tool should separately identify one single owner)
• No workflow (how can a process tool not have workflow?)

Credibility

…of the provider:

Participation/contribution in the industry
Contributions to BOKs (bodies of knowledge: COBIT, ITIL, ISO20000 etc)
On the ground local skills – watch out for show ponies: the experts they fly in for the presales and then you seldom ever see again
Source of Crap Factoids.  Visit the IT Skeptic blog to see which vendors generate CFs: pure bull-excrement that almost sound like a fact, and will be presented so often that everyone will think it true
Silver-bullet solutions, promising OOTB (out of the box).  You only get these from Santa Claus.  Ensure they also provide process documentation and advice, training, consulting, and implementation services.

Caution

Don’t get swept up in hype.  There are so many fad waves: CMDB, SOA, federation, BSM, open, SaaS, on-demand, cloud, lean, green, social…

Don’t fall for anecdote: someone else’s ROI, vendor’s pet references.  The vendors pour millions into their reference sites in free consulting, cut-price software, and speaking tours.  And even if they didn’t, the fact that someone else achieved a certain ROI is irrelevant unless their organisation, goals and project happen to be absolutely identical to yours.

People Practices Things.  It doesn’t matter how cool the technology is: you gotta sell it internally, it has to stick with your organisation and processes.

Cost

People Practices Things.  Factor in human change costs, and process engineering.  If software is more than 25% of your costs, you underestimated the rest.

Look at TCO not just the sticker price.  E.g. some tools have many times the administrative staff requirements of others, or the implementation development effort, or the effort to upgrade.

Is all that stuff out there worth it?

As many of you know there is an ginormous (Extraordinarily large in size, extent, amount, power or degree – source: WordWeb Online - WordWeb Online- Ginormous) amount of information on the internet about all sort of Service Management related topics. They range from the “must-read” to the “delete-it-without-reading” and everything in between.

If there are some very good pieces of original work available, there is also a lot of pasting the official literature or the work of others and making it one’s own.

There are (in alphabetical order – and sorry if I missed anything) articles, blogs, books, book summaries, condensed versions, discussions pocket guides, research papers, reports, social media, webinars, and finally, whitepapers, (both live and recorded).

There are individuals and legitimate organizations promoting Service Management in a positive way. Then you have those who simply like to “trash-talk.” I do understand that everyone is entitled to his or her opinions but using the internet as a vehicle for personal attacks against someone or against an organization is, in my opinion, both tactless and classless.

I heard a radio commercial a few years back where the spokesperson said:

“Do you know what’s good about the internet? All that stuff all over the place.”
“Do you know what’s bad about the internet? All that stuff all over the place.”

One of the major obstacles is time. There is so much material available out there and I’d love to be able to read it all, but I can’t.

There are many categories of material out there such as:
• New ideas
• New products
• Analysis of what is good
• Analysis of what is bad
• Self-promotion
• Explanation of topics
• Rehashing of topics
• Old ideas spun as new
• Opinions of what should be done
• Opinions about what something should be or

Here is my twist; the plot thickens. I actually believe we need the whole spectrum of good and bad stuff out there as well as people expressing their views and opinions. How else are we going to make things better?

I have one request.

If you are going to complain, make sure you have your facts straight and offer a sensible solution.
If you have an idea for improvement, send it in. If no one hears from you, how can anyone improve his or her products or ideas?

Of course, you’ll need to schedule some time to do this. 

Sunday, January 10, 2010

What IT Managers Need To Know About Process Maturity

Today we talk to a Pinker who comes to our industry from a more left-field path.  Terry was an academic and before that an actor (“a very, very long time ago” says Terry), so he bring a creative, thoughtful and fresh approach to the subject of ITSM.  Personally I consider the acting classes I took to be one of the most important life skills I gained as an adult, certainly more so than my degree in computer science. I look forward to hearing more from Terry at the conference, where he is looking at organisational process maturity.  Are your processes “defined”? Are they fully “optimized”? Do you know what these mean and why it’s important to know? Attend Terry’s session and you’ll learn about the key concepts of process maturity. Terry will provide an overview of the different process maturity stages and explain why understanding a maturity level is a necessary step in implementing ITIL best practices.

Skep: Your session on “What IT Managers Need To Know About Process Maturity” is scheduled several times during the conference. Are you expecting a big audience?

Terry: This particular topic, “What IT Managers Need to Know About Process Maturity” is one that I’ve presented during past conferences to moderately large crowds and to generally positive response.  I suppose that’s one reason why the mighty Pink Elephant decided in its infinite wisdom to schedule the session again and send me yet once more into the breach, dear friends.

If you look closely at the schedule you’ll see that although the session is scheduled for three deliveries, two out of three of those deliveries take place at 7:15 in the morning.  Because of that, I’m well aware (and very appreciative) of the fact that anyone who shows up for this session is really – I mean really - interested in this topic and hungry for knowledge about process maturity.  For that reason, I’ve made it a point to revise my presentation and make sure I’ve added to my understanding of the topic.  Although I still cover some of the same basics as in previous years, I’ve updated the slide material and, of course, I’ll be talking about what I’ve learned from recent assessment experiences since my last presentation.

Skep: What does process maturity actually measure?  It is a bit like ISO9000 isn’t it in that it doesn’t say much about the actually quality of the output just the quality of the system…

Terry: First of all, I find the COBIT model (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology) to be a useful one regarding organizational process maturity measurements – if you’ll allow me to reference it rather than ISO 9000. 

Measuring process maturity is one way…and I stress that it is only one way among others…for IT Senior Management to look at how well IT is being managed.  By using the process maturity model to ask questions based on industry good practices – what their peers are doing – it can serve as a basis of comparison to identify an adequate level of management and control over an organization’s own IT processes.

Of course, cost-benefit should drive the level and degree of the process maturity assessment: what and how much should be assessed at this particular point in time.

Also, to some degree it depends on what an organization actually decides to measure in an assessment.  The bigger question an organization needs to consider before doing a maturity assessment isn’t necessarily just “what” but “why.”  There needs to be clarity around purpose because if there isn’t, it can sour the results of the assessment. 

Organizations can do an assessment to capture a baseline of how they currently go about accomplishing something and to what degree their efforts might be compared with another way of accomplishing the same thing so that they can then make some decisions regarding gap analysis, improvement (if desired) resource investment, etc.

A maturity assessment is not a report card or some kind of audit; it’s an evaluation that is not a judgment and that’s very important to stress because if people who are participating in the assessment believe they are being judged in any way, it can skew the data.  People will go into protection mode.  They will become defensive.  And you can’t blame them for doing so.  In such a case the baseline will be inaccurate.  The integrity of the starting point for future growth and improvement efforts will be compromised. 

I like to tell organizations this is the single most important time in the lifecycle of their improvement efforts and absolute honesty is required because every improvement effort and plan is going to be based upon what is contained in this assessment.  So it is absolutely crucial that the methods employed in conducting the assessment be honest, fair and as objective as possible.

What is actually measured in a good maturity assessment are outcomes that are the result of expectations regarding the performance of specific activities and the measurement and reporting of those activities.  The assessor looks for hard evidence (metrics, reports, documentation) that is related to those specific activities and their performance.

Skep: So what is the ROI on process maturity improvement?  Where is the business benefit?

Terry: Strictly speaking, ROI may be hard to demonstrate if by ROI you mean dollars-to-dollars.  But if we take a balanced scorecard approach or Value on Investment (VOI) approach, the benefits to the business of doing a process maturity assessment as the beginning of an overall approach to process improvement are easy to identify.

The maturity models used in a good maturity assessment provide a generic profile of the stages through which the organization evolves for management and control of IT processes.  They provide a kind of scale that allows differences of effectiveness and efficiency to be easily measured and which can lend itself to pragmatic comparisons.  They support gap analysis to identify what needs to be done to achieve certain levels of defined accomplishment that act as the basis for setting “as-is” and “to-be” positions.”

In general, Rob, once a maturity assessment is completed, an organization has valuable insight into how their IT organization is managed in the enterprise.

Skep: Is there something fundamental about the CMM maturity model of ad hoc-repeatable-defined-managed-optimized, or are there other equally useful process maturity models (I don’t know of one)?  Is there more than one path to the top of the mountain?

Terry: Good question, Rob.  I invite your curious, experienced, and well-informed readers to enlighten us both since I do not profess to be an expert in this topic, which means I am as curious as any of your readers to know about any maturity assessment models out there that are based on something other than the five levels of CMM. 

To my knowledge and within the range of my experience and study, I haven’t come across any that are not CMM-based.  Know of any others, folks?  If anyone mentions one now that checks out, I’ll gladly refer to it in my presentation and give proper acknowledgement.

Skep: What is in it for an individual reader attending your session?  How will they benefit personally? What will they take away?

Terry: Before answering your question I reviewed some of the feedback I received from past sessions.  Although the comments were for the most part very brief (people were in a hurry to get to the morning keynote speaker who for two years in a row was a very funny Craig Ferguson), the comments below were frequently repeated in some form: 

1) “Lots of good ideas to take back to my organization for discussion about doing an assessment” (I hope that this remains so) 

2) “Wish there had been more time for more details about actual implementations” (sorry, but my time constraint remains and this is not a case study session)

3) “Excellent refresher about the Capability Model to carry into other sessions and workshops at the conference” (this session is designed in part as a “lead-in” to other sessions

4)  “Too much information about Pink Elephant’s maturity assessment tool” (I’ve eliminated all reference to our PinkScan product)

5) “The speaker was energetic, passionate, and knowledgeable about the topic” (I will get a good night’s sleep and show-up fortified with sufficient amounts of caffeine , I remain engaged and challenged by this topic and I look forward to seeing everyone in Vegas.)

Thanks for this opportunity, Rob.  If your readers have any other questions, please feel free to contact me at t - dot - sherman - at - pinkelephant - dot - com

Skep: Make this a must-attend session to help you better understand other conference presentations that refer to process maturity, assessments, and best practices for implementing ITIL processes.  I will.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

TIPs for TATs (Tool AssessmenTs)

The top 10 tips for vendor’s preparing for a PinkVERIFY IT Service Management Tool Assessment:

1 ITIL Training.  If the vendor strategy is to have an IT Service Management software solution start with the basics and provide ITIL V3 Foundations training for developers and product managers.  An understanding of the terminology and how the technology can support and automate the ITIL processes and activities will make the discussions and demos run more smoothly and efficiently.

2 Criteria Documentation. Provide a brief description of how the tool handles each criterion.  Screen shots are only a suggestion.  If there is a basic, “built-in” module and an enhanced module, provide a reference to this in the criteria description as applicable. Also include a reference to other modules, systems or tools which are required to enable the functionality.  These descriptions will assist the vendor in preparing the demo and will assist the assessor in understanding the tool’s architecture, functionality and workflows.

3 General Platform Criteria.  The first section of each process criteria document is the General Platform Criteria which is the same for all process criteria.  This section needs to be completed only once and can be copied into the other process criteria documents to be assessed or referenced in the other process criteria documents, i.e. which process criteria document the descriptions can be found. The general platform criteria can also be demonstrated once, usually at the beginning of the assessment session and then referenced for specific requirements which may be part of a process’ core criteria.

4 Core Criteria.  ITIL V3 is all about Service and Business relationships and integration.  Build in a Business Service example or two into the Service – System – Component structure, e.g. Payroll, Accounts Payable.  References to Services in the process criteria includes Business and IT technical services.

5 Integration Criteria.  The intent of the “Integration Criteria” section is to demonstrate the integration capability with other processes, systems and tools in order for the IT Service Management tool to gather / import data and to update / export data to fulfil the functionality requirement.  If an integration question refers to a process / module which is not being assessed, the response to the criteria question and the demonstration should focus on how the integration is handled or performed. 

6 Criteria Demonstration. The assessor will be scoring the demonstration of each criteria question (available or not available), the level of automation of applicable criteria (not applicable, not automated, partial automation, automated); and the availability of help description / instruction documentation for each criteria (no documentation, incomplete documentation, complete documentation).  With reference to the documentation the actual content is not tested / assessed.

7 Be Prepared.   Provide the person or persons who will be conducting the demo with a copy of the criteria and responses well in advance of the scheduled demo date so that they are prepared to demonstrate how the tool handles each process criteria / requirement, the level of automation (if applicable) and the help information documentation. 

8 Be Prepared. The demonstration must be on the commercially-available tool and its out-of-the-box functionality.  The assessment is on the tool’s ability to enable and support ITIL processes as described in the criteria.  It is not an assessment of the tool’s ease of configuration and capability to be configured to meet the criteria.

9 Be Prepared. The demonstration must be on the tool’s commercially-available and out-of-the-box set-up and functionality.  Again, the assessment is on the tool’s ability to enable and support ITIL processes.  It is not an assessment of a “generic” tool set up to address customer requirements that might not be aligned with ITIL. The strategy should be that the customer can configure the ITIL-based tool to meet their “unique” or non-ITIL requirements; not the other way around, i.e. configure a generic tool to meet their ITIL requirements.

10 Be Prepared and Enjoy the Process.   You will be spending a day or more going through the demonstration process so, if possible, arrange for a couple of people to lead the demonstration to help ease the workload. Have plenty of fluids available and call for breaks as required.  Above all enjoy the process.

Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Exclusive Offers For Select Cirque du Soleil Shows

As an attendee of Pink’s Conference, Cirque du Soleil is pleased to offer special savings off select performances.  Known for the spectacular and awe-inspiring shows, a ticket to one of these shows will complete your trip to Las Vegas!  More details coming soon!

Monday, January 04, 2010

HP Awarded OGC Gold Swirl for 4 ITIL Processes

Congratulations to HP!  HP’s Service Manager V7.1 has successfully completed all the requirements to qualify for the OGC Gold Swirl for Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management and Service Asset & Configuration Management processes.  HP is the first vendor to complete four processes in the ITIL Software Scheme.  Despite holiday season delays, the final trademark agreements have been completed and HP is now listed on the OGC Official ITIL Website

Pink Elephant’s updated PinkVERIFY website now includes an “ITIL Software Scheme Toolsets” section which will host HP’s accomplishments.

2010 Resolutions: Education, training and certifications

First, let me offer you my best wishes for 2010.
1. Health to you and your loved ones
2. Peace in these troubled times
3. Political and economic stability around the world
4. Employment for those looking for it

Ah the start of a new year, the start of a new decade, it is the time for resolutions. Sure, we have the usual suspects such as dieting, exercising, quitting smoking, spending more time with family and friends and others. But, what about corporations making resolutions? I believe that all organizations, both private and public, should make the following resolutions in 2010 (and every year thereafter actually)

1. Create and foster a culture based on the acquisition and sharing of knowledge, education and training
2. Provide the means (time, money, and material) to the personnel to achieve

above
3. Encourage the dissemination of the knowledge acquired via

above – Knowledge SHARING is power.
4. Enable the employees to acquire the required material such as books, white papers, articles, knowledge bases, etc.

I know that I have discussed this topic a few times already in this blog but please indulge me as I get on my soapbox again at the beginning of this New Year.

Pop quiz: What is the difference between education and training?
Education is the acquisition of new knowledge
Training is the practical application of the newly acquired knowledge
Training is the continual practical application of the acquired knowledge

Note from Pierre – There is a simpler, more direct way of explaining the difference but it is totally inappropriate in this blog. If you ever meet me in a beverage place, you can ask me then.

Don’t be seduced by certification for the sake of certification. In my humble opinion, a wise person would have the knowledge, abilities, attitudes, and aptitudes to take the literature on a specific topic and be able to apply it based on the needs and requirements of the situation.

We all have to be careful about certifications. A gentleman once showed me a 3 inch (about 7.5 cm) binder full of certificates he had achieved in his career. Did this demonstrate that he had both the knowledge and the experience? In my humble opinion and my dealings with him, he did not. Look, I personally have certificates on technology and software we can probably only find in a box in a basement somewhere. Are the certifications relevant for our current needs?

Too many people think that having a foundation level certification in any topic makes them an expert in implementing it.

If this was true than I should be an accountant because I took three introductory level accounting courses as electives when I was attending university. I mean no offence to anyone working in any accounting or finance department. They do a great job. I know that three measly introduction level courses in accounting do not make me an accountant.

To me certification means that someone can learn and acquire knowledge. To me, nothing beats experience. Some people are very good at taking and at passing exams. However, can they actually apply the knowledge? On the flip side, there are people who do poorly with exams but a very good at what they do.

We have to look at two perspectives here. The first is that people attend certification courses to acquire the knowledge. They will start applying that knowledge once back at the office. Then we have the other end of the spectrum where very experienced people attend a certification course to “prove’ what they know about what they have already been doing for so long.

Which is better or best?
a) Someone learning something, achieving certification then applying it in his or her work
b) Someone with a lot of experience achieving a certification on something they already have a lot of experience with
c) Both
d) Neither
e) It depends

Pierre’s answer

is neither is better than the other is and there is no “best” answer here. Both situations are valid and useful.

Many organizations believe in continuous education for their personnel. They are not afraid to invest time, money and material (books anyone?). They understand that certification is but one-step in the grand scheme of things. On the other side, organizations refuse to provide education, training, and certification for their personnel.

Quote: “Why would I want to subsidize my competition or any other organization? As soon as my staff gets a new certification, they update their résumé (C.V.) and they leave.”

If you or your organization thinks that way, take a good hard look at resolution number one.

Additionally, which is better and more economical? Educating and training your personnel or hiring a consultant to come do the work then leaves without sharing anything.

In tough economic times, slashing the education and training budget is easy and immediately affects the bottom line. As I have said before, this is a huge mistake. Sure, some pundits out there are going to say that I am biased as I work for a company that sells education and training. These people don’t know me. I have always advocated education and training and I would do the same regardless of the industry vertical I worked in.

Keep in mind that an apple a day keeps the doctor away and that a gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure

Sunday, January 03, 2010

EHOBOK Exhibit Engagement

In an earlier post we introduced EHOBOK, The Exhibition Hall Optimizer Body of Knowledge: the framework for helping you make the most of your Exhibit Hall (EH) experience.

We described three EHOBOK domains.  Well, we’ve had an EHOBOK Refresh and today we present to you EHOBOK V2, where we introduce a fourth domain, Exhibit Assessment

Exhibit Strategy (ES): planning your EH engagement to optimize the experience

Exhibit Engagement (EE): executing on your strategy by engaging with the EH

Exhibit Assessment (EA): determining the exhibit’s reliability and value to you

Exhibit Utilization-with-a-z (EU): realising (with an “s”) the value of individual exhibits

We have already described Exhibit Strategy. Today we present Exhibit Engagement: how to work with the EH as a whole.  There are three practices:

1) Tracking

Know where you have been.  This is a challenge in a big EH.  Many of us have had the embarrassing experience of engaging with someone on a vendor stand only to realise we’ve talked to them before.  They all start to blur together: the men in corporate-branded golf-shirts in primary colours or slightly-loud-suits like garish bankers; and the power-dressed women in skirt-suits and heels, or identical corporate golf shirts.  (We discussed this in more depth with our recent post on Exhibit Plumage)

So you might like to tick booths off your EH map as you work your way through the route you planned as part of Exhibit Strategy.  As we said in the Exhibit Strategy post, you will want to walk the route at least twice, which makes tracking where you have been all the more important.  The only thing worse than talking to a salesman is redundantly talking to a salesman.

2) Definitive Exhibit Library

Store all your printed matter from the EH in a bag or envelope in your suitcase.  Its value as information is usually approaching zero but it has real value to you in helping prepare your conference report for your boss. So I usually keep it all until years later I find it on a shelf and bin it.

3) Exhibition Asset Store

Of much greater value are the assets gathered from the EH.  This refers of course to squeeze balls, USB chargers, memory sticks, puzzle cubes and other gadgetry.  Place these into four categories to determine how many you need of each.  An asset may be in more than one category:
• Personal desk toy
• Gifts for colleagues and friends (one each)
• Gifts for children (several each)
• Dog chews

At some conferences you may also receive clothing.  Very occasionally this qualifies as a wearable asset, but most of the time it has value only if you wash your own car.