Pink President's Blog

Thursday, February 02, 2012

The IT Manager Says The Fighter Jet Can’t Take Off

I just received a wonderful note from my Pinker colleague, Alan McCarthy, who’s based in our UK office. He tells a brief story that begins at the itSMF UK Conference at the end of last year; flashes back to his work experience at British Aerospace in the 1970s; then culminates in referencing “Pink12” - our 16th Annual International ITSM Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas next month. All in less than 2 pages!

His story is extremely compelling. It’s about how he observes the same mistakes being made by our ITSM leaders TODAY that were made over 40 years ago in the 1970s. What a depressing thought. Anyway, his examples are spot on. But I won’t steal any of his thunder here - please read his story for yourself.

Are_We_Ever_Going_To_Change.pdf

So - the challenge is there! Are we going to change, or not? I profess that we need to look to our ITSM Leaders to take responsibility for the problem that Alan describes. Here at Pink the issue of ITSM leadership is a major theme of the research and work we plan to do over the next 12 months and beyond. If you have any thoughts on the strengths & weaknesses of ITSM leadership today, I’d love to hear from you - please post a comment.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Are You An ITSM Leader Or An ITIL Redneck?

Yesterday I was working on a presentation titled “ITSM Leadership: You Don’t Need To Be In Charge To Get Results”. One of the related themes I want to get across is that we need to get away from the mantra “Implement ITIL” (specifically implementing ITIL holistically). We should think about the specific needs we have and the opportunities ITIL provides us to meet those needs.

Change in our ITSM operations should be driven by an end result that adds value to the business (usually cost savings or revenue increases), not change because we’ve learned something new, or worse still just because it’s in the ITIL book. Too often I hear consultants as well as practitioners talk about what should be done because the book says so, rather than what needs to be done because it makes sense.

To lighten this up a bit, on my drive into Pink HQ this morning I heard a clip on the radio of Jeff Foxworthy doing some of his “.... you just might be a redneck” routine and it got me thinking. If you’re unfamiliar with Mr Foxworthy’s jokes, here’s a couple of examples:

If you’ve been married three times,
and you still have the same in-laws,
you just might be a redneck.

If your home doesn’t have curtains,
but your truck does,
you just might be a redneck.

I couldn’t help chuckling to myself as I thought about “ITIL rednecks”:

If you begin answering questions with phrases like,
“ITIL says ....” or “It depends ...”
you just might be an ITIL redneck.

or,

When your definition of an “Incident”,
wins the day in an argument with a co-worker,
you both just might be ITIL rednecks.

Please, show some ITSM leadership and do what’s right and makes sense for your business. Don’t just do what ITIL says!

Monday, January 23, 2012

Interviews With Speakers At The 16th Annual Conference

Last year, and now this year, Samad Aidane the Managing Editor at GuerrillaProjectManagement.com conducted a series of short 15-20 minute interviews with some of the speakers at the upcoming ITSM Conference. This is a really convenient way for you to get a little insight into their subject matter. Should help when you’re trying to figure out which of the 12-17 concurrent sessions we have going in each time slot!

How to conquer information overwhelm - a conversation with Dr. Joanne Cantor author of: Conquer CyberOverload http://bit.ly/y96zK1#pink12

Why Lean IT matters-Interview with Steve Bell author Lean IT: Enabling and Sustaining Your Lean Transformation http://bit.ly/wgZrVz#pink12

LOE Index: a Tool for measuring individual response to organizational change -Interview with Dr. Victoria Grady http://bit.ly/yasGqQ #pink12

How IT can deliver new business value every 12 weeks–Adobe Systems Case Study. Interview with Paulette Scheffer http://bit.ly/xo14zx#pink12

Social Media For Project Managers –A Conversation with Elizabeth Harrin (@pm4girls) http://bit.ly/xP5ftu #pmot #Pink12

Why Industrial Psychology matters to Project Managers – A conversation with Bernardo Tirado (@thePMObox) http://bit.ly/xbPf6W #pmot #Pink12

Why team building is not an event-An interview with Kirk Weisler(@kirkweisler) on team building for PMs http://bit.ly/zhBeyO #pink12 #pmot

Doug Moran(@IfYouWillLead), bestselling author of “If You Lead”, on what it takes to excel as a leader http://bit.ly/vZaAnz #pink12 #pmot

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

My Top 12 Tips For Developing Good Conference Presentations.

The past few weeks I’ve had my head down working on programs for Pink events later this year (and even for 2013!) - as well as reviewing some of the presentations we have lined up for PINK12 (the 16th Annual ITSM Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas next month.

I was even cheeky enough to give some “constructive feedback” to our Pinker speakers for PINK12. That made me think it might be a good idea to publish some of my opinions on what I think makes a good conference presentation. What you’ll see in the attached file is some advice that I’m sure you’d also get from many other people in the conference business - but I’ve also included one or two pet peeves of mine. Please try to avoid those if you see me in your audience!

Anyway, I’m publishing my tips here in PowerPoint format - so it’s easy for you to scroll through in slideshow mode. If you have additional tips you’d like to pass on, please put them in a Comment right here.

My_Top_Twelve_Tips_For_Developing_Good_Conference_Presentations.ppt

Friday, December 09, 2011

When Does A Reindeer Look Like An Elephant?

Remember, our friends at University of Texas Health Science Center are the recipients of the “ITSM Extreme Makeover 2011” project.

Well, it seems they really have caught the “extreme” bug. Each year at this time many of the UTHSC staff decorate their offices with scenes representing the holiday season. Check out what someone has done to their office door this year!

Looks like little “Rudolph” is in training!

Friday, December 02, 2011

Future of Industry Conferences

The past 2 days I’ve come across two industry events that impressed me.

First there was the 1-day salesforce.com event in New York which broadcast the keynote live via Facebook.

Then yesterday I received a notification of next week’s UP2011 conference from Cloudcor. This event runs for 5 days, the first two are live and in person, the remaining 3 days are virtual - with sessions delivered via the web. But it looks like even some of the live stuff will be broadcast via Facebook.

These are not the only industry events that have been incorporating live feeds to the web. Clearly the trend is there - and so we have to look at Pink’s Conference strategy and see what we might want to incorporate! I really like the idea of people all over the world connecting with us via the web in real time. What do you think?

Tuesday, November 08, 2011

Time To Connect With Customers & Fellow Pinkers On The Road

The last couple of weeks I’ve had my head down in the office working on ideas and plans for - amongst other things - Pink Conferences in 2012 & 2103 (yes - I did say 2013!)

• We have the 16th Annual International ITSM Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas this coming February. The program is complete now, but there’s still lots to do to get ready to create the usual “Pink Wow Factor!”
• We also have the 4th Annual ITSM Conferences in Kuala Lumpur & Singapore scheduled for July, 2012. The program is nearly complete and will be going on our website in the next few days. The participants at the 3rd Annual Conferences a couple of months back gave us lots of useful feedback, so we’re really taking those comments onboard with some exciting new developments for next year.
• Then, believe it or not, we’ve already been discussing and planning for the 17th Annual ITSM Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas in February, 2013! The world’s biggest ITSM Conference is now on a 2 year plan-to-delivery lifecycle. It’s just too big an event to wait until one year is over before planning for the next.

While it’s always exciting to consider new ideas for how we think we can improve, we have to be sure that what we think is a good idea really is. Fortunately, our customers are never shy in telling us what they think. That’s why, starting tomorrow, I’m looking forward to spending a couple of days with a few dozen of our customers and Consultants in San Francisco. We have a handful of ITIL Intermediate classes scheduled in a hotel at Fisherman’s Wharf - and that’s an opportunity too good to miss!

If you’re in one of the classes this week I’d really appreciate you taking the time to let me know what you think about the courses you’ve done with Pink, or our special events like the Conferences I’ve mentioned. And let’s not forget - it’s not just our customers that have opinions. There’s a handful of Pink Consultants I’ll be seeing this week who I know will not hesitate to say “Why don’t we do this?” or “How about we try that?”

OK folks, get your list ready - my pencil is sharp!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

What The Utilitarian Philosophers Can Teach Us About Prioritization!

I’ve been watching - and loving - the series of lectures on “Justice” (freely available online) by Professor Michael Sandel from Harvard, and I can’t help thinking that what I’m learning can be related to some of the aspects of ITSM we find challenging. In Episode 2, for example, he discusses the concept of Utilitarianism originally introduced by 19th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham (the “utility” pre-fix gives you a bit of a clue as to where we’re headed here!)

Professor Sandel explains that one of Bentham’s proteges, John Stuart Mill, went on to promote how cost/benefit analysis could be done to identify which of our collective values, or preferences, were more “right” than others! Sound familiar? Now if only we could apply this to how we prioritize Incidents, or maybe how one Service should take precedence over another when our systems are under stress. Well - at least I saw the parallels, even if you don’t!

To illustrate the challenges of such a cost/benefit anaylsis, Professor Sandel facilitates a sometimes hilarious discussion on which of three video clips delivers the “highest experience of pleasure”. The choices are an excerpt from Hamlet, a promo for “Fear Factor” and a clip from The Simpsons. You might be surprised at what the students have to say to justify their preferences. I was quite impressed. But after all, these are the folks at Harvard!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Pink Is Hiring In Asia!

We have a growing business and big plans for Pink in Asia. As a result we have the following vacancies:

• An Office Administrator based in our KL office.
• Business Development Managers based in Hong Kong and Singapore.
• Senior ITSM Management Consultants to serve our customers throughout Asia.

If you would like to apply for any of these positions please email your cv to our HR Department at resume@pinkelephant.com

Good luck!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

BYOD - Our Newest ITSM Acronym

At last week’s 3rd Annual ITSM Conferences in KL & Singapore we kicked off by showing the Pink video “Are You Ready?” and I talked for a while about how today’s corporate IT departments need to show more awareness of risks and opportunities associated with changes in technology & services, otherwise their value- and even relevancy - could come into question by their business leaders. We supported the discussion by referring to the consumerization of IT infrastructure & services and how some organizations ARE keeping pace with this trend. For example, see this CIO article about Ford’s experiences and vision in this area.

Today my buddy George Spalding sent me this link to a New York Times article citing a Forrester report which states that almost half of the cell phones in use in business today were sourced by the employee and not corporate IT.

It’s interesting how the researcher describes the gradual erosion of RIM’s lead in this market as some employees prefer Android and Apple devices. RIM made a huge impact initially by checking all the boxes that corporate IT wanted in smart-phones (security, integration, etc). Then the newer alternates on the Android and iPhone platforms appealed directly to the end user by checking a different set of boxes (music, photos, videos, social media, touch-screens, etc)

BYOD (Bring Your Own Device to work) is the way of the future for many of us. It appeals to the employee AND the employer - if managed well.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

I Love Receiving Notes Like This!

Just received this note from one of our most valued customers. Not only does it acknowledge the quality of work being done by our great team of Pink Consultants, but it’s nice to see that ITIL 2011 is appreciated ......

Hello David,

I’m getting my first look at the ITIL 2011 (update) this week.  I did want to pass on one of my first reactions as it relates to our work with your team.

It was really nice to see that our work on Change Management with Pink’s help really aligned us nicely with the updated flow and concepts of Change Management that were not shown or well defined in the previous V3 books (For example, iterative authorization).  We were already basing our design on this before it was ever published and clarified in the new books thanks to guidance from Rae (Garrett).

I feel like that shows the power and value of working with someone like Pink Elephant who has a level of understanding beyond the ‘words on the page’.  It also helps that many of your team are contributing authors to the publications as well.

Very refreshing to see a great update to ITIL, and the fact that there is no re-tooling of our brand new process to be aligned!

Thanks again for our continued partnership.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Thrilled To Have Nick & Sir Ken Back!

If you look at the program for PINK12 you’ll see we’ve finalized our line-up of keynote speakers. Nick Carr and Sir Ken Robinson have been keynote speakers at Pink’s Annual ITSM Conference in the past. They’re now part of a very select group of repeat keynotes (in fact Nick Carr is already a repeat keynote - PINK12 will be his 3rd Pink event).

You might wonder why we invite speakers back like this. I remember years ago when we very first considered inviting someone back we thought very carefully about how this would be perceived by our customers. Turns out there was nothing to worry about. In fact I don’t recall ever seeing any negative feedback about our trend for bringing back the best of the best. My justification is quite simple; we look for speakers who are educational, entertaining and inspirational - and if you can capture all three of these precious qualities in one person, then the chances are you’d welcome the chance to hear them again, and again. I’m glad many of you agree!

Nick Carr is one of the smartest people in our industry, his research and ideas are extremely thought provoking and entertaining. This coming year we’re planning to engage with him in a much more interactive way than either of his previous two visits. So, hopefully, that means some fun can be expected!

Sir Ken Robinson is quite simply one of the smartest people on the planet. Not only does he have a sense of humour which will have you laughing out loud for sure. If you haven’t seen his talks on the TED website then I can promise you’ll be both enthralled and entertained at the same time.

Don’t miss them. See you at Pink12!

Tuesday, July 05, 2011

11 New ITIL Experts in Malaysia!

It was great to get a message today from some very happy Pink customers in Kuala Lumpur. They recently completed their “Managing Across The Lifecycle” course and you can see in the picture - they’re all smiles! Thanks to Kerry Gilmore, Garry Rogers, Jen Wels & Anil Dissanayake (that’s him in the middle of the photo) for not only helping these folks, but also for making Pink look good!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Elvis Pinky Has Left The Building!

If you’ve ever attended our international conferences in February each year you’ll no doubt treasure your special edition Pinky! We’ve been producing them for about 10 years now and they’re always a closely guarded secret until you show up at the event and are given one in your tote bag. For 2012 our marketing team were very proud of what they had planned. Pinky as Elvis in one of his classic poses. Dressed in a silver one piece outfit with the wide collar, the dipping hair quiff and holding the mic up high - Pinky looks absolutely spectacular!

You’re probably wondering why I’m giving the game away on one of our most closely guarded secrets. Well, we had a mock-up made out of clay and it was shown to the folks who manage Elvis’ estate - just to be sure they were OK with everything. Oh-oh!

Unfortunately you’re never going to get to see it. I can’t even post a picture here (unless I’m prepared to run the gauntlet of the powers-that-be and their legal team at Graceland). Here’s what Priscilla Presley had to say about or planned special edition Pinky for 2012:

“We are very protective of Elvis’ image, and we would never allow him to be portrayed as an elephant, much less a pink one.  While we are appreciative of the humor in your product, elephants are often associated with obesity, and pink elephants often associated with drinking, neither of which are images we would like associated with Elvis. I hope you understand our position.”

Ah well, back to the drawing board. Ideas, anyone?

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