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Sacramento meeting for itSMF at GTC, May 15, 2007

The local chapter of the global organization for Information Technology Service Management is meeting again in Sacramento on May 15, 2007 5:30 PM at the Sacramento Convention Center. More information at the Local Interest Group website.

While I've been busy with other things, I mostly saved ITSM and ITIL resources as tagged bookmarks at yahoo's delicious social bookmarking.

Recently I neglected cleaning out comments. I found many off-topic comments, some of which were offensive. One previous post was too difficult to remove comments one by one, and pertained to a conference several years ago. The post and the 7000+ comments went to the trash as they deserved. I'm baaaccckk and cleaning house!

Creating Passionate User Groups

Building the Service Management Community

Kathy Sierra wrote on "How to Build a User Community, Part 1" over at her blog Creating Passionate Users. What is your observation of participation levels in the IT Service Management Forum?

Czech Weblog on ITIL

In the Czech Republic, Arnost Katolicky posted a new weblog ITIL and ITSM resource. He's from AKAMonitor and writes in both English and Czech. After I experiment to see if Google translates mixed languages correctly, I'll offer you a link to translationa (if possible).

Update: December 2006: He updated in November, so if you want to understand more of the Czech, try translation online.

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ITIL in the Spotlight

ITIL Everywhere: CIO Cover and blogs

This month's CIO Magazine September 2005 has a cover and article about ITIL.

Evergreen Systems hosts an ITIL blog, moderated by Evergreen senior consultant Scott Townell. In Scott’s own words:

…it’s the Netscape where battle-hardened ITers blog about the joys and sorrows of doing ITIL-based governance and process improvements in the real corporate world. While other blogs talk about concepts and visions, we focus on practical, day-to-day aspects of putting ITIL into action.

Visit Scott’s ITIL blog.

American ITIL

ITIL IN America
You probably realize that ITIL stands for "Information Technology Infrastructure Library" from the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) in the UK. ITIL took a long-ish time to spread to the US, and even longer to cross the Mississippi River and reach the west coast. California-based Gov Tech Magazine had an article, "American ITIL".

Louisville Case Study makes a case for an ITIL training approach

Louisville has a good case study:
Louisville organization LG&E Energy LLC case study appears in their local Bizjournal, and includes good introductory material, like what the purpose of ITIL is. The article includes:

The cost [of ITIL training] varies depending on the needs of the client, but it ranges from $1,495 for the three-day foundation course to $7,500 for the 11-day manager's course.

Although the price tag might seem high, Van Hove believes the benefits far outweigh the costs. In fact, she said companies typically save at least 25 percent in IT after implementing ITIL. [emphasis mine]

Van Hove, a former University of Louisville professor, learned about ITIL while she was doing private technical consulting for Fortune 100 companies. Realizing it was the direction in which IT was moving, she formed SED-IT to move into the field.