Track Title

Lessons on Leadership

Developing and Elevating Solid Leadership Expertise

Leadership

High Touch Solutions

High Tech Solutions

Advanced Technology & Insights into Industry Trends
 

Technology

Business Strategies

Best Practices in ITIL, Six Sigma, COBIT, Outsourcing, and Consolidation

Process

REGISTRATION & CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

Welcome & Introduction From Your Host, Ivy Meadors

Dr. Gunter has 20 years experience working as an educator and leadership development consultant. Her goal is to bring horses and people together to discover more effective ways of leading and creating healthy communities.

June holds a Doctor of Education degree in the field of Adult Learning from North Carolina State University. June attributes many of the lessons she learned about being a teacher and a leader to the horses she has loved from childhood through today. She is a Strozzi Ranch Certified Equine Guided Educator.

In 2003, June founded TeachingHorse LLC.  TeachingHorse provides leadership development workshops and individual coaching with horses.  We offer services at our home sites in both Rogue River, Oregon at Grace Mountain Ranch and in Apex, North Carolina at Centerline Farm.  Participants in our workshops experience a new model of leadership based on the skills and abilities that lead mares use to lead their herds.  Our clients include business, community and family leaders. We also work with people who want to improve their relationship with their horses. 

June is one of the co-founders of EGEA (Equine Guided Education Association). She is a professional educator committed to embodying the highest standards of adult learning. One of her lifelong goals is to contribute to the field of education by developing innovative ways to engage adults in continuous learning.

Visit our website at TeachingHorse.com.  For more information call June Gunter at 541-582-2715 or email junegunter@teachinghorse.com

10:00 - 11:00 &
11:15 - 12:00

Leadership Track

Advancing Your Leadership Skills Workshop (Extended Session)

Ivy Meadors, High Tech High Touch Solutions, Pete McGarahan, McGarahan and Associates, and Brad Worthley, Brad Worthley International

10:00 - 11:00

People Track

Eight Best Kept Secrets for Unlocking the Productivity of Your Workforce

Penny Reynolds, The Call Center School

It's not just about getting the right number of bodies in chairs anymore. In addition to matching the workforce to the call workload, it's also important that we make the most of those staff in terms of efficiency, service, and quality. This workshop will provide a variety of ideas for improving the workforce planning process in your center, but will go beyond the forecasting and scheduling basics. You’ll learn many related ideas and mistakes not to make in the area of workforce productivity. Just a few of the topics to be covered include: how to get the right people in place and the most common hiring mistake, setting reasonable performance goals, measuring individual and team productivity, increasing adherence, and motivating staff to perform at their peak.

Meet the Speaker:

Penny Reynolds is a Founding Partner of The Call Center School where she heads up curriculum development. She develops and teaches courses on a wide variety of call center topics, including workforce management, performance measurement, and call center technologies. Penny is a popular speaker at industry conferences and association meetings and a frequent contributor to industry trade publications. Her articles have appeared in print publications such as Operations and Fulfillment, Customer Interaction Solutions, Contact Professional, and Customer Support Management. She has recently published books entitled Call Center Staffing:

The Complete, Practical Guide to Workforce Management, Fundamentals of Call Center Supervision, and The Power of One, and has also co-authored the five textbooks for University of Phoenix’s call center certification program. An honors graduate of Vanderbilt University, Penny was one of the first recipients of Call Center Magazine’s prestigious Call Center Pioneer award.

10:00 - 11:00 &
11:15 - 12:00

Technology Track

ITIL Workshop - How to Turn Your Help Desk into a Service Desk Step by Step
(Extended Session)

Donna Holt, Help Desk Xlence

Is your organization adopting the ITIL Best Practices Framework? Wondering how you get on board the ITIL train? Join us for this look into the wonderful world of ITIL.

We will discuss the following points:

• Understanding the ITIL Best Practices Framework

• Why does it work?

• What part does the Service Desk play?

• How to justify the transition

• Where to start

  - Steps along the way

  - Technology

  - Staffing Issues

  - Training

  - Communication

  - Marketing

Take Away:  Tips for Success.

Meet the Speaker:

A much sought-after speaker, Donna Holt utilizes humor in her presentations as a method to stimulate the learning process. She has been in the customer support industry over thirty years, including more than twelve years in the Help Desk/Support Center arena. She is an active participant in the Support Center and IT best practices community, presenting HDI Authorized Certification Training, performing HDI Support Center Audits and is HDI’s Member Advisory Board’s Western Region Director. She is a trainer and consultant in the areas of call centers, support centers and ITIL Best Practices.

10:00 - 11:00

Business
Strategies Track

ITIL - What, Why, How

Brenda Iniguez, Pink Elephant

This session will give you the straight scoop on ITIL: what it is, who the players are in ITIL, why do it, and how to start or participate in an ITIL initiative. As ITIL was recently declared an international ISO 20000 standard (the worldwide standard for how companies should run IT), Service Desk and IT professionals worldwide are asking these very questions about ITIL: What, Why and How to do ITIL, and “WIIFY – what’s in this for You!” In straight and easy to understand examples and stories, Brenda will give you a very clear understanding of the What, Why, and How of ITIL, the key ITIL terms and processes, and the Service Desk role in ITIL, so you’ll be able to explain ITIL to all your colleagues when you return to your own organizations.

Brenda is a highly experienced IT practitioner who has first hand experience overseeing major IT projects. In her current role, she provides guidance to IT directors and managers who are seeking to start an ITIL implementation journey.

Benefits of Attending:

• Quick view of ITIL

  - What ITIL is

  • ITIL has also been declared part of ISO 20000, an international standard

  - Who the players are in ITIL

  - Why do ITIL … “WIIFY” What’s In It for YOU?

  - How should you start or participate in an ITIL initiative

• ITIL Leaders… doing the Tough Stuff

Take Aways:

• ITIL adoption rates worldwide, via geo graphic and number of actual certifications

• ITIL year-over-year increases, showing the substantial increased adoption of ITIL worldwide

• An introduction to industry term: CMM and the worldwide recognized CMM maturity scale

• Two valuable whitepapers

• And of course the beloved “pinkies” (our little pink elephants)

Meet the Speaker:

Brenda Iniguez is a seasoned IT Support Professional, with over 20 years proven experience in Fortune 100 companies, designing, building, consolidating, and managing their Enterprise Support Centers. In addition, she is ITIL Service Manager certified, and is well versed in the Service Management disciplines of Incident, Problem, Change, and Availability Management. Brenda is now Director with Pink Elephant, based in the SF Bay Area, leading Business Development for the Western US.

She is active in several professional groups, including founding member on the Board of Directors for HDP (Help Desk Professionals), active member of the itSMF National Conference Board, serving as Chairman Emeritus of the HDI Member Advisory Board for HDI-National, on the Board of Directors for the HDI Strategic Advisory Board, the Officers Board of the San Francisco HDI Chapter (Help Desk Institute), Conference Committee Boards for HDP, HDI, GCSC, ITSM, and itSMF. Brenda is an active speaker at national Support Conferences and has been quoted in leading industry trade journals (Computerworld, Technology World, Help Desk-Online, and IT Support News), and was selected by IT Support News as one of the Service 25 recipients; the leading 25 Support Professionals.

11:00 - 11:15

REFRESHMENTS

Leadership Track

Advancing Your Leadership Skills Workshop (Extended Session)

Ivy Meadors, High Tech High Touch Solutions, Pete McGarahan, McGarahan and Associates, and Brad Worthley, Brad Worthley International

People Track

Special Study: Building an RCA-Based Business Case

Pete McGarahan, McGarahan and Associates

This session is designed to teach you how to build and present a business case utilizing Root Cause Analysis. This business case using root cause analysis as a foundation for validating symptoms, assumptions and trends, bringing clarity and visibility to continuous improvement areas is an extremely powerful management tool. Pete will share his Taco Bell RCA/Business Case presented to senior executives using data from the case management system as a basis for identifying high impact problems and formulating recommendations. This methodology is a must for support managers who are looking to gain senior management attention, visibility and approval for taking proactive and corrective action on the issues impacting their customer’s productivity.

Benefits of Attending

• Learn to apply practical Root Cause Analysis to an Issues / Recommendations presentation format

• Create a call to action business-focused presentation ready for senior executive approval

• Learn the methodology for writing and presenting a business case to senior executives

• How to sell, market and communicate this strategic value to senior officials

Meet the Speaker:

Peter McGarahan is the founder and president of McGarahan & Associates. Pete’s value to the service and support industry and business is his thought leadership. As a practitioner, product manager and support industry analyst and expert, he has influenced the maturity of the service and support industry. His passions for customer service led the Taco Bell support organization to achieve the Help Desk Institute Team Excellence Award. IT Support News also named him one of the “Top 25 Professionals in the Service and Support Industry” in 1999. Support professionals voted McGarahan “The Legend of the Year” in 2002 and again in 2004 at the Help Desk Professionals conference for his endless energy, mentoring and coaching and his valuable contribution to the support industry and community.

ITIL Workshop - How to Turn Your Help Desk into a Service Desk Step by Step
(Extended Session)

Donna Holt, Help Desk Xlence

12:00 - 1:00

NETWORKING LUNCHEON

Featured Keynote: Brad Worthley - "Leaders vs. Managers"

When employees are good at their task, the natural progression is to promote them into a management role. We teach the employees how to manage inventory, manage payroll, manage money and manage other things. We end up with "managers" instead of great "leaders". Do you know any person who wants to be "managed?" This session will focus on creating great leaders: Leaders that have vision and can inspire and motivate their employees to greatness.

Benefits of Attending

• Rethink Your Role as a Manager

• Leading by example

• Proactive vs. Reactive Leadership

• People Don’t Fail as Much as Systems

• Problems vs. Symptoms

Meet the Speaker:

Brad Worthley is an accomplished business consultant with over 31 years of management experience. He is also an internationally acclaimed leadership and customer service expert who has trained hundreds of thousands of people in a wide range of industries throughout the world.

Brad teaches businesses how to consistently build and retain both customer and employee loyalty by changing their culture and not just their people. Brad is an author, consultant and trainer working with small and medium size companies, and some of the largest corporations in the world. In his spare time,

Brad has volunteered as a youth soccer, baseball, and basketball coach for the last 15 years, and he volunteers weekly at a domestic violence shelter where he works with children. He has a 19-year-old son in the Army who is currently in Iraq flying unmanned spy planes in an effort to protect our troops.

Leadership Track

Leading a Multicultural Workforce

Details coming

Process Track

Eliminating the Virtual Walls Between Support Levels (Starbucks Case Study)

Mary Lou Blakely, Starbucks Company

Successful IT support must include good communication with your customers. Whether your customers are internal or external to your business, maintaining relationships within your IT organization is a critical component to meeting your customer’s needs. So how do you eliminate the virtual walls between IT teams?

In this interactive session, Mary Lou’s delivery of practical experience within Starbucks Coffee Company will provide you with solutions as a means to empower the service and support teams to provide the best customer experience, leveraging ITIL best practices.

This interactive session will:

• Identify key success factors in improving communication between the IT Service Desk (help desk) and IT Support Teams

• Discuss how Knowledge Management plays a key role

• Provide templates on how to make communication Plans Simple, not Complex

• Identify how you can measure team success

• Review the importance of partnership, ownership, accountability with RCA (root cause analysis)

• Discuss how project lesson learn reviews are critical to IT Support success

Meet the Speaker:

Mary Lou Blakely currently works for Starbucks Coffee Company as the director for the IT Service Management. She has the responsibility for the 24x7 IT Service Desk, Incident Management, Problem Management, Transition Management and Change Management. The IT Service Desk serves as the IT single point of contact for over 8,200 stores and 6,500 end users across the globe. This includes IT support for partners (employees) in North America, United Kingdom, Amsterdam, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, China, Hong Kong and Germany.

Mary Lou has worked at Starbucks Coffee Company for 8 years within IT in various roles. Where Starbucks maintains an aggressive growth curve, the IT Service Management team plays a mission critical role in the communications process for IT issues.

Previously Mary Lou worked for 8 years with Charter Behavioral Health Systems, where she designed and managed two call centers in Texas and Georgia. In addition to supervising the infrastructure support including quality improvement, human resources, training and the IT help desks. She has a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin and ITIL certification in IT Service Management.

Technology Track

Case Study: Help Desk Technology Selection and Design

Lloyd White, Michaels Stores

When its existing help desk system couldn’t provide the stability it needed, Michaels began searching for a new solution. At the time, Michaels faced two primary issues: product reliability and the ability to customize the application to Michaels’ unique needs and to provide end-user ease of use. They wanted an application with the customizability to meet their work flow process and with a price to fit their budget.

Business
Strategies Track

Best Practices - Putting ITIL and CobIT Theory to WORK-shop (Extended Session)

Greg Charles, CA

(This is NOT a vendor presentation. Greg was rated one of the top 3 best speakers in our last event and knows ITIL better than most do who do ITIL in the industry.  This is due to his extensive time working in the industry.)

This Best Practices Theory workshop is based upon both ITIL and CobIT education and participation in a simulated real-world scenario. During the workshop, students will see, discuss, and experience the benefits of applying ITIL and CobIT best practices while at the same time learning the basic principles of ITIL and CobIT, the relationships between processes, the different roles and the best way to implement these best practices into their organization. Attendees will follow the ITIL and CobIT best practice processes to react to a real-world scenario and design, implement, evaluate and improve their own best practice based processes.

Benefits of Attending

• Translate ITIL and CobIT theory into practice

• Recognize and understand the ITIL and CobIT processes

• Exploit the benefits of the relationships and dependencies between processes

• Apply, evaluate and improve ITIL and CobIT based processes within a simulated environment

• Recognize the role and responsibilities of a process manager

• Focus process improvement initiatives aimed at realizing a set of Key Performance Indicators

• Identify bottlenecks and improvement needs in your own organization

Meet the Speaker:

Greg Charles, Ph.D., is an Area-wide Principal Consultant at CA. Greg is in constant demand across the entire U.S. and Canada as a speaker and consultant on the topic of IT Service Management. Since joining CA in 1998, he has continually been focused on meeting clients' business challenges through CA's Management solutions on both distributed and mainframe platforms. Currently, Greg is the lead for CA's ITIL, Best Practices, and Compliance practices for the Western United States. Greg has been an IT professional since 1981, and holds a Ph.D. in Business Ethics, attained after completing his undergraduate studies in Information Technology.

2:45 - 3:00

REFRESHMENTS

3:00 - 4:00

Leadership Track

Stress Management

Brad Worthley, Brad Worthley International

Improving work performance and employee morale comes with finding balance in your personal and professional life. You cannot help others if you are not able to take care of yourself, so learn how to take better care of your emotional, physical, spiritual and intellectual needs. You will get step by step instructions on how to create more time in your day and live a more stress free life.

Learn how to:

• Reduce chaos in your life

• Reduce stress

• Increased employee performance

• Increased employee retention

Take Aways:  Reducing Chaos, Motivation to Change, Prioritizing Yourself, 12 Categories to Balance, Why we get out of Balance, Seeing the Big Picture, Celebrate the Small Victories.

Meet the Speaker:

Brad Worthley is an accomplished business consultant with over 31 years of management experience. He is also an internationally acclaimed leadership and customer service expert who has trained hundreds of thousands of people in a wide range of industries throughout the world.

Brad teaches businesses how to consistently build and retain both customer and employee loyalty by changing their culture and not just their people. Brad is an author, consultant and trainer working with small and medium size companies, and some of the largest corporations in the world. In his spare time,

Brad has volunteered as a youth soccer, baseball, and basketball coach for the last 15 years, and he volunteers weekly at a domestic violence shelter where he works with children. He has a 19-year-old son in the Army who is currently in Iraq flying unmanned spy planes in an effort to protect our troops.

Technology Track

Trouble-Shooting 101: Effective Information Gathering (Case Study)

Martha Lundgren, Texas Association of School Boards

Help desk analysts are constantly challenged with unique and complex problems to solve with and on behalf of their customers. Successful analysts use troubleshooting methodologies that insure they arrive at the best solution quickly and efficiently. This interactive session teaches simple, proven, powerful information gathering techniques that reduce trial and error and yield solutions more quickly and easily in any support environment.

Benefits of Attending

• Apply the 5 Key Questions to solve challenging problems more efficiently and confidently

• Recognize the customer’s real issue rather than just hearing the stated problem

• Accurately narrow the set of possible problem sources

• Resolve more complex incidents and problems quickly and efficiently

• Improve communications with Tier 2 and 3 support

Take Away:  Managers, trainers, team leads and technicians themselves will take home a turnkey method for teaching and institutionalizing an effective troubleshooting technique.

Meet the Speaker:

Martha Lundgren is Department Director of the Information Center of the Texas Association of School Boards. She and her team are responsible for all hardware and software purchasing, installation, support and training for 450 staff members.

Mrs. Lundgren has more than 20 years of direct customer service and training experience in the hotel, airline, consumer electronics and technical support industries and has won several awards for customer service excellence.

Business Strategies Track

Best Practices - Putting ITIL and CobIT Theory to WORK-shop (Extended Session)

Greg Charles, CA 

4:00 - 6:00

WINE AND CHEESE RECEPTION, VISIT EVENT PARTNERS, AND WIN PRIZES TOO!

Track Title

Lessons on Leadership

Developing and Elevating Solid Leadership Expertise

Leadership

High Touch Solutions

High Tech Solutions

Advanced Technology & Insights into Industry Trends
 

Technology

Business Strategies

Best Practices in ITIL, Six Sigma, COBIT, Outsourcing, and Consolidation

Process

MASTERMIND SESSIONS WITH CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

Mastermind Sessions & Continental Breakfast
(sessions may vary depending on attendee interests)

Workforce Management, Customer Service, VoIP, Self-service, Strategies for Calming Difficult People, Stress Management, ITIL, Inspiring on a Shoestring Budget, Customer Satisfaction Surveys

10:00 - 10:45

Leadership and People Track

Change Management

Pending details coming from speaker

10:00 - 10:45

Technology Track

Knowledge Management (Case Study)

Jerry Rice, Washington Mutual

Pending details from speaker

10:00 - 10:45

Business Strategies Track

ITIL in Use at REI (Case Study)

Dave Stockwell, REI

ITIL the process, ITIL the theory, ITIL the policy. But what about ITIL the actual implementation? While the Europeans have been doing this for years, it is all very new here in the states and actual examples are still hard to find. Join Dave Stockwell from Recreational Equipment Inc. as he walks you through the last 3 years their ITIL implementation. Holding nothing sacred, Dave will tell you what worked, what didn't, what they'd repeat and what they'd change as he discusses, training, consultants, vendors and adoption. This will be one very full hour you don't want to miss.

Meet the Speaker:

Dave Stockwell is the Service Desk Manager for Recreational Equipment Inc (REI) where he and his team are responsible for supporting all 9000 employees across 100+ stores, 5 different operating systems, AS400's, iSeries, Linux, Mac and a little thing called Windows. Living the REI life he is also a mountain biker, hiker, kayaker as well as a musician with a penchant for over-reaching his talent in a search of the ultimate bass riff.

Dave's eight years in the support industry combined with an exuberant style, unending energy and enthusiasm along with his exemplary leadership skills, motivates his staff to do extraordinary work with a limited budget. As an experienced speaker, Dave is known for his engaging, thought provoking, style. With an eye to the future, Dave presents proven ideas that you can use right now in your own Help Desk with little to no budget.

10:45 - 11:00

REFRESHMENTS

11:00 - 12:00

Leadership  and People Track

Twenty-Six Nuggets You Must Know About Hiring, Firing, and Inspiring Your Agents

Michael Callahan, Microsoft

Perhaps no other management challenge is more  vexing than the magical mix of intuition, pragmatism, science and emotion that go into hiring and retaining great talent, and identifying and separating individuals who aren’t providing valuable contributions to your team and its goals.

As befits such a left-brain, right-brain experience, this session will mix analysis of recent call center hiring and retentions strategies, compelling leadership anecdotes about the value of intuition, and thoughtful guidance to help you identify potential, empower the valuable, celebrate the extraordinary and quickly but humanely let go of those whose strengths or inspirations lay elsewhere.

This highly interactive session will

• Enlighten you to the five most important questions you should ask every agent candidate

• Enumerate the six hidden messages you can find in every resume

• Inspire you with the four most amazing ways to celebrate individual success in a way that engenders excitement, not envy

• Illuminate the eight early behaviors you can identify in new hires and what they mean for the short- and long-term and

• Humor you with three inspiring lessons about “lost causes” that will teach you to always look three times at an HR situation: once with intellect, once with intuition and once with a gambler’s mentality

Take Away:  In addition to the 26 Nuggets, each attendee will receive a cheat-sheet analysis of several recent national call center hiring surveys, a booklist of valuable resources for you and your managers, and a copy of the three inspiring “lost cause” lessons to keep you and your managers inspired.

Meet the Speaker:

An award-winning playwright, performer and published author, Michael Callahan is the Senior Support Program Manager for Hotmail, the world’s most popular web mail service with 260 million customers. His twenty-one year career in Help Desk and Customer Service Management has included the stratosphere (as the customer liaison for the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) with IBM), the city (as the designer of the most popular municipal publishing software program in history) and the mainframe (as support and customer service manager for the Attachmate Corporation).  In 2006, Microsoft awarded Michael with one of 20 annual “Great People, Great Performances Awards” for his outstanding contribution, which resulted in historic Customer Satisfaction scores and cost savings of $1 million dollars for 2006.

11:00 - 12:00

Process Track

Remote Monitoring and Call Recording

Ronnie Mize

Pending details from speaker

11:00 - 12:00

Business Strategies Track

Today's Winning Practices and Tomorrow's Directions in Government Customer Support

Daryl Covey, NEXRAD

This interactive session will premiere the new white paper on "winning practices" from this year's Government Customer Support Award nominations and share the insights of the new strategic Cgov model for 21st Century Government's customer support. You can review the basics of the Cgov model in advance of the session at www.fedhelpdesk.osf.noaa.gov.

Join us to learn more about Government's newest directions in supporting customers, and bring your experiences to share!

Benefits of Attending

• The most effective new ways in which Federal, state, and local agencies are supporting their customers

• Creative approaches to ensuring a high performance customer support staff in a knowledge-centered culture of service

• A global framework for supporting Government's customers in today's evolving public sector service paradigm

Meet the Speaker:

Daryl Covey manages the NEXRAD Hotline which supports a global network of advanced Doppler weather radar systems for the U. S. Departments of Commerce, Defense, and Transportation. During his tenure, the Hotline staff has been recognized with the U. S. Department of Commerce Customer Service Excellence and Silver Medal Awards, the Vice President's Hammer Award, and the Federal Agency Excellence Award from Government Computer News.

As a longstanding advocate for progressive customer support in the public sector, Daryl facilitates the Government Customer Support Community of Practice and it's annual Government Customer Support Excellence Awards, edits the Government Customer Support News monthly eletter, chairs the annual Government Customer Support Conference, serves periodically as an invited advisor to government agencies on contact center initiatives, and is regularly interviewed by Government Computer News, Federal Computer Week, Federal Technology, Government Executive Magazine, and other publications for articles on public sector customer support. Recently he served as co-chair and primary facilitator for the Citizen Service Level Interagency Committee convened by the General Services Administration to create uniform customer service level guidance for all Federal agencies. Daryl is a graduate of the Universities of Oklahoma and Wisconsin as well as the Federal Executive.

12:00 - 1:30

NETWORKING LUNCHEON and VISIT EVENT PARTNERS

Keynote Panel Discussion: Developing Young Leaders

Ivy Meadors moderates an interactive discussion with Millennial panelists (Gen Y)

Do you have employees or teenagers ranging in age from twelve to twenty-five who are aspiring leaders? The Millennials, commonly known as "Generation Y", are the next most likely leaders of our corporations and government agencies. It is important to know how to effectively help prepare and develop these young minds for their future potential.

This is a rare opportunity to hear what is in the minds of young adults in an open forum to explore what it takes to develop young leaders from the Millennial Generation. The panelists, ranging in age from seventeen to twenty-four, will explore mentoring, behavioral styles of the different generations, communication considerations, and leadership techniques that are the most effective for the Millennials.

You will hear specifics and statistics about the different Generations and receive many resources. We will encourage audience participation for a highly interactive, thought-provoking and stimulating discussion.

Benefits of Attending

• Understand what is in the minds and how the Millennials think

• Learn what motivates the younger generation and get ideas you can use now

• Hear ways you can increase the productivity of your team

• Experience a rare opportunity to hear how Millennials view leadership and understand their career aspirations

Take Away:  Handout of resources for developing young leaders.  Also Eric Chester's book, "Getting the Frontline to Give a Damn" will be available to purchase at a reduced discount.

Leadership and People Tracks

Outsourcing from A to Z – Using 3rd-parties to Handle Help Desks and Consumer Support

Bill Price, Driva Solutions

There are more and more options for help desk and consumer support from 3rd-party specialists, both onshore and offshore from the US, some using agents at home and others on Indian reservations, traditional call centers, or even prisons. In this session, former Amazon.com Global VP Customer Service, Chair of the Global Operations Council, and contact center consultant Bill Price will describe how outsourcing works “from A to Z” including determining what to outsource, where to go, and how to make it work.

Benefits of Attending

• Outsourcing cost savings and operational advantages

• Finding the right outsourcing partner

• Integrating 3rd-parties into home company processes

Meet the Speaker:

President, Driva Solutions, and first Global VP of Customer Service, Amazon.com Bill Price was named one of the first wave of “Call Center Pioneers” in 1997 and has continued to innovate since then. Bill has over 26 years in the services business starting with strategic consulting with McKinsey & Company, CFO for a start-up IVR service bureau, VP & General Manager for four business units at MCI, and then almost 3 years as Amazon’s first Global VP of Customer Service. Since leaving Amazon in late 2001 to form Driva Solutions, Bill and his team have served more than 50 clients in the US, UK, Thailand, Japan, and Australia.

Technology Track

State of the Industry

Patrick Bultema

At exactly the point where your cost are the highest, and the risks and opportunity costs peak, your staff go completely disconnected from the quality processes and systems that have made you successful. They’re dealing with a critical problem at a remote retail site, or fixing a piece of critical medical equipment, or at the desk side of a senior executive across your corporate campus. And how can you possibly fulfill your service level commitments when your staff in the field go “un-tethered” at these critical moments. The truth is, this mobile gap is one of the ugly secrets of our industry. Join us for this eye-opening session that will both detail the mobile dilemma in most service operations, provide insights for addressing the mobile gap with examples for several different companies, as well as help you understand how you can leverage the mobile devices your staff already have in their hands. 

Meet the Speaker:

Patrick Bultema is Executive Chairman of Aeroprise. He is also a Partner with vSpring Capital, a venture capital firm with special expertise and focus on the IT Service and Infrastructure Management industries. Patrick was previously CEO of FrontRange, and Chairman of the Help Desk Institute. He is widely recognize as one of the premier experts on the business of support.

Business Strategies Track

Are you Chatting and /or Using Instant Messaging Yet? Case Study

Judy Hogan, Federal Aviation Administration

3:15 - 3:30

REFRESHMENTS

3:30 - 4:20

Leadership Track

How to Be a Mentor/Coach and Design an Effective Mentoring/Coaching Program

Pending details from speaker

People Track

Everything I Know About Customer Service I Learned From Writing Plays

Michael Callahan, Microsoft

What do playwrighting and the theater have to do with world-class customer service? What can an award-winning playwright and performer teach you about the power –and the peril – of technology?

How can a guy who knows stage drama help you master the art of employee drama?

Highly entertaining, compellingly real and human, but deeply invested in science and data analysis, this session will help you find the universal truths in managing your customer relationships.

If you attend this session, you’ll

• Learn that the words are the way, and how you write equals how well you support customers

• Find out how transparency – even in your weakest moments – engenders faith and confidence in your customers

• Learn how to balance the scope of massive support incident volumes with the personal touch every customer wants and deserves

• Be able to identify technologies that serve you (as opposed to vice versa)

• How to build the right reports and the right metrics to communicate your Customer Service success to your management

Take Away:  Each participant will receive a valuable 8-step guide to powerful customer service

Meet the Speaker:

An award-winning playwright, performer and published author, Michael Callahan is the Senior Support Program Manager for Hotmail, the world’s most popular web mail service with 260 million customers. His twenty-one year career in Help Desk and Customer Service Management has included the stratosphere (as the customer liaison for the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”) with IBM), the city (as the designer of the most popular municipal publishing software program in history) and the mainframe (as support and customer service manager for the Attachmate Corporation).  In 2006, Microsoft awarded Michael with one of 20 annual “Great People, Great Performances Awards” for his outstanding contribution, which resulted in historic Customer Satisfaction scores and cost savings of $1 million dollars for 2006.

Technology Track

VoIP and The Help Desk Professional (Extended Session)

Peggy Gritt, VoIP Institute

Do you have your San Antonio spurs on? Better get some - because we are going to DIG IN to VoIP!!! VoIP is in the help desk, around the help desk and supported BY many help desks. It is literally EVERYWHERE. Now you can learn what you need to know to influence requirements, understand the discussions, and better support your operations with it. This workshop is 2 hours to give enough time to beginners and many nuggets and planning concepts to those who have a heads start. We promise to keep this workshop fast moving – but targeted at your help desk needs.

Benefits of Attending

• Learn the fundamental approaches to VoIP and where your organization fits

• Jump start your own requirements

• Get a comprehensive viewpoint into the planning process for your network

• Learn the key terms and impress your boss

• Be better prepared to understand the value to your help desk organization

• Understand the basics of security concerns

• Value to the Help Desk professional

• VoIP is coming and your help desk WILL be impacted by it – understand the terms

• Take back valuable planning tools and concepts to your organization to drive better processes

• Be proactive with your IT group related to VoIP and the impact on the help desk

Value to the Help Desk professional:

• VoIP is coming and your help desk WILL be impacted by it – understand the terms

• Take back valuable planning tools and concepts to your organization to drive better processes

• Be proactive with your IT group related to VoIP and the impact on the help desk

Take Away:  The presentation is written as a guide with notes so that you have a complete picture of the VoIP planning process and key issues.  VoIP Institute – Reality Check Guide: VoIP Requirements Planning (checklist included)

Meet the Speaker:

Peggy is the CEO of the VoIP Institute, Inc., an international organization to bring together users and potential users of VoIP to share case studies, best practices, and management information. She has 17 years background in converged voice and data technologies with a particular focus in IP contact center. She also has her own consulting practice.

Business Strategies Track

Guerrilla Service Desk:  Tips and Tricks for the Shoe String Budget (Case Study)

Dave Stockwell, REI

Every Help Desk must perform the same functions regardless of size, staff levels or technology. But what do you do if you don't have the budget of the big shops? Do you flounder or do you survive? Dave Stockwell's years of experience and creative problem solving have led him to develop tools and tactics that allow even the smallest Help Desk perform like they have a 7 figure budget. Knowledge Managment, Self Service, Metrics and more can all be had with a few basic survival skills. With Dave on point, you will walk away with real tools you can implement immediately upon your return to your own Help Desk camp.

Meet the Speaker:

Dave Stockwell is the Service Desk Manager for Recreational Equipment Inc (REI) where he and his team are responsible for supporting all 9000 employees across 100+ stores, 5 different operating systems, AS400's, iSeries, Linux, Mac and a little thing called Windows. Living the REI life he is also a mountain biker, hiker, kayaker as well as a musician with a penchant for over-reaching his talent in a search of the ultimate bass riff.

Dave's eight years in the support industry combined with an exuberant style, unending energy and enthusiasm along with his exemplary leadership skills, motivates his staff to do extraordinary work with a limited budget. As an experienced speaker, Dave is known for his engaging, thought provoking, style. With an eye to the future, Dave presents proven ideas that you can use right now in your own Help Desk with little to no budget.

Leadership Track

Work At Home – Will this hot trend work for my operations?

Bill Price, Driva Solutions

With “brick and mortar” and commuting costs rising, and new IP and desktop technologies advancing, many companies are taking another look at “telecommuting” by applying it to help desk support, for both internal employees and end users. Will this hot trend work for your operations? In this session, former Amazon.com Global VP Customer Service and contact center consultant Bill Price will describe how the work from home process works, profiles the economics to consider, and tees up where it makes the most sense to apply.

Benefits of Attending:

• Work at home costs and other advantages
• Risks with mitigation
• How to pitch work at home in your company

Meet the Speaker:

President, Driva Solutions, and first Global VP of Customer Service, Amazon.com Bill Price was named one of the first wave of “Call Center Pioneers” in 1997 and has continued to innovate since then. Bill has over 26 years in the services business starting with strategic consulting with McKinsey & Company, CFO for a start-up IVR service bureau, VP & General Manager for four business units at MCI, and then almost 3 years as Amazon’s first Global VP of Customer Service. Since leaving Amazon in late 2001 to form Driva Solutions, Bill and his team have served more than 50 clients in the US, UK, Thailand, Japan, and Australia.

People Track

Achieve Excellent Levels of Customer Service Thru Performance Management

Donna Earl, Help Desk Coach

In this workshop, you’ll learn the best coaching techniques for coaching your team and team leaders. Donna Earl, the Help Desk Coach, will share case studies, do’s and don’ts and strategies for bringing out the best performance from your agents. From specific guidelines for positive rewards, to coaching steps for poor performers, this session will help you gain consistent performance that generates positive customer feedback.
Attend this session and you will learn:

• 5 things every agent needs to perform optimally

• How to keep positive rewards positive

• Early signs of potentially poor performance

• Coaching steps to address performance issues

• How to use customer feedback as a coaching tool

Meet the Speaker:

Donna is an internationally recognized speaker, business educator and consultant, executive coach and author. Since 1986 her international consultancy has helped organizations strengthen leadership effectiveness, customer loyalty, customer retention, and employee productivity.

She is published expert on Customer Service and Management Effectiveness. The fresh insight, emotional intelligence and strategies she brings to seminars on Management Skills and Customer Service transform organizational and employee performance. She has presented to over 200,000 worldwide, and is recognized as the ‘Help Desk Coach’.

Donna is a faculty member of the American Management Association in the US and the UK, is a professional member of the National Speakers’ Association, the International Customer Service Association, the UK Institute of Directors, and is a professional associate of Oxford College business consulting unit.

Twice a year, Donna teaches Emotional Intelligence at a leadership program at Balliol College, Oxford.

She was a contributing consultant to Gartner Group’s research project on leading with emotional intelligence. The Gartner Group executive report Leading High Performance IS Teams acknowledges Donna and quotes her work.

She was a contributing consultant to the Wentworth Research (now Gartner Group) Publication Introducing Call Centers. Her interview about scripting and call guides was distributed with the publication.

Her seminars teach proven techniques, and her credibility comes from the trenches - real world experience in sales, marketing, customer service, and management. Donna has the ability to translate best practices into immediately usable techniques which transform performance. Her skill based seminars have been developed by interviewing and monitoring over 1,000 help desk agents and managers to identify current challenges and best solutions.

Technology Track

VoIP Workshop (Extended Session)

Peggy Gritt, VoIP Institute

Business Strategies Track

How to Build an Actionable Service Catalog

Char LaBounty, LaBounty and Associates

There is a lot being written about the need for Business Alignment, as a matter of fact, it’s one of many CIO’s top priorities for this year. In order to achieve this, one of the key components is for IT organizations to truly understand and publish what their products and services are, and to commit to service levels delivered in a timely and cost effective manner. Now, couple that with the recent increased interest in the ITIL framework there has been a great deal of discussion on the importance of developing a Service Catalog. To many IT organizations this is a new concept. However, when you think of yourself as the consumer, would you order new furniture or an appliance without knowing the costs, the various levels of warranty, or the dimensions? Probably not.

Simply put, a Service Catalog is a key component of Service Level Management. Without it, you have no way of identifying the products and services you are providing to your customers, the support groups that are relied upon to deliver them in a unified fashion, the timeframes to deliver them and at what costs.

One case in point: like many IT organizations, a US based company has adopted the ITIL framework to improve operational efficiency and attain higher service quality. As a foundation for defining standard services and communicating with the business, this company determined that the service catalog was critical to the success of its ITIL initiative. This company also discovered that the catalog offers a way to market available services, standardize service fulfillment processes, establish achievable service levels, determine associated costs and manage performance.

While the ITIL framework advocates that IT organizations produce a service catalog, it doesn’t provide concrete recommendations on how to build and implement one. This session will address that gap.

Meet the Speaker:

Char LaBounty is founder and President of LaBounty & Associates, Inc., a service management consulting firm focused on the growing field of customer support services, dedicated to providing quality technology support practices that enhance client’s business initiatives. Char is one of the preeminent experts on the development and deployment of Service Level Management throughout the IT Enterprise and writes and speaks extensively on the subject, throughout the world.

Prior to her current position, she was the Director of the Membership Services Division for the Help Desk Institute. Char joined the Institute from Disney Worldwide Services where she was head of the Business Services Division. As Vice President of the Customer Relations Group for Norwest Corporation, Char was responsible for establishing their two Support Center organizations, as well as managed all disciplines associated with customer training, implementation, marketing, support, and corporate acquisitions.

Char has authored several books and published industry research on outsourcing and published many articles on the topics of technology service and support. Char is a much sought after speaker at technology and service and support events around the world, and has dedicated her career to providing sound customer service practices. Char is the current chairperson emeritus to the HDI Strategic Advisory Board.

Track Title

Lessons on Leadership

Developing and Elevating Solid Leadership Expertise

Leadership

High Touch Solutions

High Tech Solutions

Advanced Technology & Insights into Industry Trends

Technology

Business Strategies

Best Practices in ITIL, COBIT, Outsourcing, and Consolidation

Process

MASTERMIND SESSIONS WITH CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

Mastermind Sessions & Continental Breakfast
(sessions may vary depending on attendee interests)

Workforce Management, Customer Service, VoIP, Self-service, Strategies for Calming Difficult People, Stress Management, ITIL, Inspiring on a Shoestring Budget, Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Leadership Track

People Track

Washington State Medical Assistance Customer Service Center: Working with the Helpdesk to Improve Performance

Seanna Sams, Washington State Department of Social and Health Services

Call center performance is critically impacted by technology. A partnership with the IT Helpdesk can bring a wealth of opportunity for improved performance. Just using the helpdesk when problems arise is not enough. Does the Helpdesk understand the uniqueness of a call center? Does the call center understand the technical language and challenges the Helpdesk faces? Sharing common challenges and differences can begin to build trust and success for both areas. In this study, the call center developed a plan to improve its relationship with the Helpdesk which resulted in improved performance in the call center.

Benefits of Attending:

• What can the helpdesk gain?
• Are there common performance measures?
• Can there be a collaborative approach?
• What is unique about call centers?
• Are there misconceptions?

Meet the Speaker:

Seanna Sams is the Operations Manager for the Medical Assistance Customer Service Center, a call center for Washington State’s Medicaid program. This call center handles over 300,000 phone and 70,000 non-phone contacts a year. The primary role of the center is to assist clients in navigating the complex Medicaid system to receive necessary medical and social services. The center also assists medical providers with billing issues and policy clarifications. In an environment known for limited funds and resources, Seanna is most known for her creative ability to “do more with less.” She has lead numerous teams in process improvements that met agency goals of increased production and timeliness. This resourcefulness has lead to numerous awards and consultations throughout government.

Process Track

How to Benefit from Using Dashboards in the Help Desk

Scott Kelly, Symon Communications

This is not a vendor presentation.  Scott will explain how to use dashboards no matter what product you have or purchase in the future.

This session is designed to show how dashboards monitor key transactional data in real time, enabling Help Desk Managers to respond immediately to improve performance.  Learn how companies use dashboards to make decisions and take corrective action - right from within the dashboard.

Benefits of Attending:

• Optimize case handling times and balance employee workloads with real-time monitoring of call and email queues.

• Examine data from multiple transactional systems with a single, unified view.

• Employ best practices around alerts and metrics with pre-built discovery visualizations for operations, time-to-red, and call resolution management.

• Empower helpdesk managers to set metrics and monitor operations.

Take Away: Gain a better understanding of how dashboards can benefit your help desk environment and learn simple steps to begin the process of creating dashboards.

Meet the Speaker:

Scott Kelly is a Regional Manager for Symon Communications and has over thirteen years experience working with Help Desk and Contact Center environments. Scott is passionate about the Help Desk and Call Center industry. His commitment is demonstrated by his volunteer efforts delivered to the two industry user groups Help Desk Northwest and the Northwest Call Center Professionals, which he co-founded with Ivy Meadors and Lisa Zerda. He is the Treasurer for the two groups and also performs a multitude of other tasks in the organization.

Help Desk Northwest and the Northwest Call Center Professionals have become the largest non-profit user groups in the United States with almost 1000 members.  The organizations are devoted entirely to the Help Desk and Call Center industry and are run by a team of volunteers. Scott's advanced sales skills and intimate understanding of our industry has made it possible to run the organizations with sponsorships forming the basis of revenue so all members can attend for no fee.

Scott's advanced expertise in the workforce management area, using system monitors of call queues and dashboards for monitoring and managing the team's workload balancing makes him a perfect candidate to teach the value of using dashboards in the help desk.  His exposure to so many companies in the Northwest affords him real world examples to share in his presentations.

Business Strategies Track

Securely Supporting Anyone, Anywhere

Joel Bomgaars, Network Streaming

Most help desks are under-equipped to meet the new support demands that a distributed, mobile workforce is making. The help desk is left facing today’s support challenges with yesterday’s support tools. Support tools like LAN-based remote control may work well inside the confines of the company’s network, but what about across the internet? As workers become more mobile, the help desk must find a way to keep workers supported and productive no matter where they are. The process of finding solutions for this problem is complicated by the constraints placed on the organization by federal regulations – dictating stricter controls on how, whom and where corporate data is transmitted. So what route should the help desk take? How do implement remote control technology to support a distributed, mobile user base while still maintaining strict data security and a thorough audit trail?

The speaker will discuss the changing needs of enterprise remote control technology – beginning with the high level trends that are pushing themselves via the needs of the end-user into the IT help desk.

Benefits of Attending:

• Learn how to implement incident-based remote control technology without compromising network compliancy or security

•  Increase the IT department’s help desk efficiencies and ROI

• How to simplify the incident resolution process?

• How to maintain help desk security?

• How to support users anywhere in the world?

• Analyze current remote control technologies to uncover inefficiencies.

• Understand the regulatory environment and how to achieve/deploy incident-based remote control technology that will raise efficiency while maintaining regulatory compliance

Take Away: The audience will learn how to navigate the changing needs of enterprise remote control, while understanding how to structure a help desk that can deal with the increase of the mobile workforce and the rise in security and compliance concerns.   

Meet the Speaker:

An IT support expert, Bomgaars honed his computer networking skills as a senior systems engineer for Business Communications, Inc. (BCI) prior to founding NetworkStreaming in 2003. At BCI, Bomgaars developed a remote control application that enabled him to provide technical support from anywhere in the world. Additionally, Bomgaars worked on networking IT infrastructures while spending 7 years in the Mississippi Air National guard.

Bomgaars has presented at several industry conferences including HDI and DEMO. A graduate from Belhaven College, Bomgaars holds a degree in Business Administration as well as 16 network engineering certifications.

REFRESHMENTS

Leadership Track

Master the Skills to Develop and Deliver Advanced Presentations

Ivy Meadors, High Tech High Touch Solutions

"People will consistently name public speaking as their number one fear—right up there ahead of spiders and death (Wallechinsky, 1977)."  

Do you get a pit in your stomach when someone asks you to speak in front of a group of people?  Do you spend hours, days, sometimes weeks preparing the slides for your presentation? Are you still using clipart on your slides?  This is your opportunity to learn how you can own the platform and deliver an exceptional presentation with fewer jitters.

If you are an advanced speaker or just starting out, Ivy will share techniques for delivering your first or enhancing your hundredth presentation.  The information you will learn in this session will contribute to your next presentation being awesome and you will be confident in your delivery. 

This is your opportunity to learn from a professional speaker, qualified by the National Speakers Association. Learn how you can own the platform and deliver a memorable speech. Overcome the fear of speaking by being fully prepared and understand how to "own the platform."

Benefits of Attending

• Key characteristics for the room setup (atmosphere, equipment, music, visuals, distractions).

• Learn about movement, appearance and positioning on the platform.

• Gain ideas about what to wear for different presentations and how your appearance is key to the message.

• Learn how to design excellent slides - lose the clipart! (color considerations, layout, use of transitions, etc.)

• Hear how to increase or improve audience interaction.

• Understand what defines an excellent speech.

Take Away:  Speaker resource handout loaded with tips and techniques.

Meet the Speaker:

Ivy Meadors is CEO and founder of High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc., a trade show producer and consulting firm specializing in help desks and call centers. Speaker-consultant, Ivy Meadors, has over 29 years of experience in call centers and help desks. She is considered one of the industry’s most respected leaders and is one of the top 5 most recognized names in the Help Desk industry.

The owner and producer of the Help Desk Professionals Conference and the Government Customer Support Conference, Ivy is the sole woman tradeshow / events company owner in our industry. Ivy is also co-founder and President of the Northwest Call Center Professionals Association and President of the Help Desk Northwest User Group in Seattle.

Ivy publishes the online newsletter, eSharings, has been published in the top industry magazines and newsletters, wrote a monthly column for Customer Interface Magazine, received the IT Support News Award for being one of the “Top 25 Most Influential Professionals in the Service and Support Industry”, Support Technologies awarded her with recognition for being one of the greatest contributors to the Service and Support industry, and she received the honor of being one of the Top 10 Legends in the Help Desk Industry.

Ivy’s presentations are rich with content and alive with humor and real-life examples. You may not always agree with her position but she will certainly challenge you to think of things from a different viewpoint as she challenges the norm and promotes the exceptional, and sometimes even unusual, solutions.

Technology Track

The Measurable Difference: Reality, Relationship, and Results

Dru Phelps, Benchmarkportal.com

A benchmark of performance can quantify the question “Is your help desk concentrating more on the internal cost efficiencies or effective quality results?” This helpful session provides you with results from a balanced scorecard of key performance indicators (KPI’s) that help to drive initiatives, brand your center, reduce cost, and an industry favorite, expand your knowledge base to allow for self-service capabilities.

Case studies from our Certified Centers of Excellence within the BenchmarkPortal database, developed by Dr. Jon Anton, Director of Research at Purdue University, identify best process/practices. Finally, we discovery the levels of ‘service/support quality’ as applied in case study results on a Performance Matrix.

Benefits of Attending:

• Reality to balance efficiency and effectiveness

• Relationship to integrate Performance, People, and Process

• Results from YOUR RealityCheck comparison to Tech Support/ Industry data

Take Away:  Act NOW -Everyone receives a FREE RealityCheck at www.BenchmarkPortal.com. Simply enter your recent Help Desk data with promo code = DRU for an immediate rating, $500 value.

Books will be signed by author, available at the event booth! DruPhelps@BenchmarkPortal.com

Meet the Speaker:

Dru Phelps, Vice President of Certification, conducts BenchmarkPortal's validation of Centers of Excellence. From her book How to Conduct a Call Center Performance Audit: A to Z, Dru shares pragmatic expertise with 26 assessment tools. A distinguished graduate from Purdue University and USC, advisor, client partner, director, and speaker, Dru has been actively engaged in 220 Call Centers, and managed 12 corporate centers in Help Desk Quality.

Business Strategies Track

Consolidation Case Study

Judy Hogan, Federal Aviation Administration

How do you consolidate multiple customers when the who, what, why, where, and sometimes “when” is already decided? Your CIO informs you to that they want to only have one national help desk for their Line Of Business for desktop support. Your Director requires all internal small help desk consolidated to one.

Application Managers approach you to be the first point of contact so they can free up Subject Matter Experts for more complex issues. Regional Administrator with multiple Lines of Business desires one help desk for desktop support. The Mainframe desires to have only one help desk number for all customers including global customers. At this time, consolidation is a major effort in federal government. Find out the challenges and solutions that the Customer Support Center at the FAA encountered.

Benefits of Attending:

• Develop processes of repeatable steps for implementation including gathering requirements, service level agreements, operating level agreements, training, user acceptance, etc.

• Identify standard metrics for customers.

Take Away:  An SLA template, repeatable steps document, and project management plan will be distributed.

Meet the Speaker:

Judy has 40 years of experience in Information Technology. She has a wide variety of experience in private industry and she has worked at the city, state, and federal levels of government. She has worked in the newspaper and insurance businesses; and, she was the Systems and Programming Manager for a manufacturing company located in Oklahoma City that had five remote plants.

Judy has worked for the Federal Aviation Administration at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City since 1990. She has served in many positions at the FAA including software development, mainframe security, process improvement, quality assurance, and currently the help desk.

"Happy" customers are a high priority for Judy no matter what position she is serving. Since October 1, 2001 she has served as Contract Officer Representative for the Customer Support Center (CSC). The CSC provides Level 1 “first point of contact” support to over 24,500 customers worldwide; and growing every day.

The Service Desk is Still About People!

Malcolm Fry, BMC Software

Remember years ago when Knowledge Technologies were going to eliminate Service staff? Well were still here! Still proud to be providing great service to our customers. Sure all of the technologies have helped and maybe reduced our numbers but were are not going away not for some time yet no matter what some people say. How we can continue prove our value is just one topic that Malcolm will discuss but in this session Malcolm shamelessly flies the flag for Service Staff people because it is about time somebody did! Learn and feel good that is the aim.

Meet the Speaker:

Malcolm Fry, a recognized IT industry luminary with over 35 years experience in Information Technology, serves as an Independent Executive Advisor to BMC Software, and Remedy, a BMC Software Company. Malcolm offers an unparalleled breadth of knowledge and experience in IT business and technical issues. Malcolm is the author of four best selling books on IT service and support, he has had many other articles and papers published, and is regularly used as a source of information by technology journalists. He is also the solo performer in a highly successful best selling video series made for the Help Desk Institute. He has Masters level ITIL certification.

Malcolm began his IT career in 1967 working for a major bank in London. In the following 13 years he performed many IT functions including system programming and a variety of management roles. During the same period, Malcolm worked in a number of industries including retail, production, oil and pharmaceuticals. This experience, coupled with his impressive technical background, gives Malcolm an unparalleled breadth of knowledge and experience.

Malcolm began his knowledge broking career in 1980 and since that time Malcolm has not only pursued a solo career, but has also been on the boards of various organizations, including Protocol International Limited and Help Desk Institute’s Strategic Advisory Board. He is currently a board member of two different technology organizations. During his long and diverse career, Malcolm has worked in more than thirty countries, lectured to over 700,000 people and is in constant demand worldwide as a dynamic, entertaining and knowledgeable speaker.

Closing Remarks From Your Host, Ivy Meadors

Key take-away ideas, give-aways, free future conference passes and more - must be present to win

         Ivy Meadors                           Lisa Prendergast

       CEO & Conference Host        VP Conference Management