Enterprise Digital - the podcast

Our guest is Anthony Orr, who is an experienced and well-known member of the ITSM community, as a member of the HDI top 25, with BMC and other vendors, and as an ITIl author. Anthony currently works with SDI Presence, which is an MSP that provides local levels of support (not the Service Desk Institute…). The discussion moves from internal IT transformation and business value to the wider scope of ESM and the ‘Zero Moment of Truth’..! i.e. how we can get smart to support customer success, not just fixing tech. In IT we do a lot of the right thigs but they are not connected – how do we move from transactional compliance, to compassion and customer success..!? Well, as ever we end up wine-tasing… Definitely worth listening and quaffing to..!

This is a short Ian and Barclay only discussion episode, introduced with some valuable advice on armadillo-related honey - yes..!?.  Actually, we discuss the notion of how we can manage teams and plan the levels of staffing that is needed, and how this is a key element in much operational and management thinking. The regular cry is that ‘more people in the team will mean we get things done better/faster’, although this not necessarily the case. We also discuss some of the different approaches to getting work done and include governance, the ’why’, plus also how we still need management, no matter how ‘agile’ we are… Well of course. This is a very focussed conversation, given that we started with armadillos.

Our guest is David Wright from SDI – Chief Value Officer and keen supporter of all things alien, UFO and sci-fi… We try to set out an intelligent discussion around the future and present with AI, GAI,  AGI and much more. The potential is huge, being developed at a challenging speed, now with AI tools to speed up how we work. Should we trust this technology, or how much can we trust this..? We also look at what the practical service management opportunities are in the short and medium term, in relation to risk, LLMs in ITSM tools, ‘shadow IT 2.0’, and Increasing the time to value. Is Prompt Engineer the role that is redundant before anyone gets the job..? ‘Predict, prevent automate and realise’ as a teaser for some new innovations with AI. Should we stop and take a check before ‘HAL’ takes us over…? Or should we stop and go to the bar ??!! A sizzling conversation… scary, fascinating and much more.

This episode is a revisit to Glasgow University, who are well on their way to a mature ESM operation, largely through the work and steering of Mark Temple. Mark was an early guest on the podcast when he had already created a number of ESM capabilities and now there are many further areas added, hours of work saved and successes to discuss. There’s still more to do, however, we discuss some great developments and successes, where e.g. over time, previous naysayers are now keen to develop collaboration. One area for more development is in marketing and promoting the successes – some of which are quite amazing in terms of thousands of hours saved. Great discussion which of course ends up in the bar again…

Our Guest is Mitchell Pautz, Senior Service Management Analyst at the University of California – a ‘small’ university of over 50,000 people… 😊 Mitchell has a key role in the university, supporting a diverse community, He also has a good practical approach to managing expectations and delivering effective solutions – not just about trying to ‘delight’ users. We discuss a variety of topics around service delivery, catalogue, risk and experience. Mitchell is also a leading light in Educause – the University membership organisation in North America – we discuss the value of this and other sector-based industry networking.  There’s some great practical advice and discussion, ending in the bar of course…  

Val Wilson manages a team of over 1000 service management practitioners in BT, across the UK and India. Despite the challenges of this role, she is an active member of the industry, as an itSMF board member and SITS/SDI events. This is a brilliant discussion on how to lead and inspire a successful organisation and its people. There are some great nuggets of wisdom on authentic and supportive leadership. We also discuss Val’s passion for supporting ex-military people into service management roles. We also discuss Val’s particular connection to a well-known drink (at the bar)…

This episode is another host interview session – this time with the ebullient Ian Aitchison. We trace his early career, through Studying Computer Science, then managing (murky?) night clubs and spinning vinyl, learning management and some great life and service skills. Then moving into IT, running a police service desk and moving to the software industry – from service desk to software product management - all with a ponytail and earring of course..!  Key themes include helping people through technology and managing and supporting service experience and promoting the industry… It’s an enlightening discussion to hear of Ian’s journey to date.

This is a fantastic episode with Hank Marquis – who works with Gartner but is speaking here on his own behalf, mostly around the psycho-metrics of service and service management people. The conversation focusses around feedback, how it is gathered and used, and the tools and academic background used to make some sense and develop practical and useful strategies for improvement. There’s a bit of Star Trek, people and personality profiling and experience management in there, plus a whole lot more. Ian is also surprised at Hank’s choice of go-to drink…    

This is a discussion on the service management industry, based around a more broad and personal interview of host Barclay Rae. Ian provides suggested commentary on Barclay’s hair and sartorial style over the years, plus discussions about music, Glasgow, London, Mary Poppins, Live Aid, and his IT career, also, missing out some key bits like being CEO of itSMF UK. ..(senior moment). There is also some discussion around the life and challenges of working as a consultant. As ever we go to the bar where Barclay tries to dodge the idea of having a favourite drink.

This is a short episode and the first of an occasional series of ‘news’ or topical discussions around the industry. This Is with Barclay and Ian who talk about, well we can’t really say, but it’s about the stuff that’s going on in the industry, or what we can say about it, whatever it is…