Sunday - October 23rd

Establishing a Service Desk According to ITIL Best Practices (3 day)
Click for detailed program outline

Measuring, Reporting & Improving the IT Infrastructure According to ITIL Best Practices (3 day)
Click for detailed program outline

Monday - October 24th

IT Service Management Essentials Course (2 day)
Click for detailed program outline

Certified Help Desk Manager (2 day)
Click for detailed program outline

Tuesday - October 25th

Tuesday - October 25th

9:00-12:00 PM

High Performance Service Desks: Creating Valued Services

Pete McGarahan, President, McGarahan and Associates, http://www.mcgarahan.com

Stop dimming your own star!  Most Service Desks are currently providing hidden business value that is unfortunately transparent to their customers. There are plenty of Service Desk success stories to go around – they’re just not being shared with the right people (customers and senior executives). Your mission – to deliver business impact services daily improving the productivity of your customers. This half-day session will challenge you to review and assess your services catalog, rate and rank them, determine which to deflect, eliminate or source and how to hunt down new, funded and strategic services and projects. Service Desks should be creating and communicating value always – to all stakeholders.

Benefits of attending:

• Learn to operate your support operation like a business delivering cost-effective, best practice services to your customers.

• Understand how to ‘win’ more strategic and funded business while deflecting, automating and eliminating targeted call volume.

• Focus on expanding your scope of services to include business-valued services that gets business results.  

• Easily engage senior management to champion the Service Desk as the SPOC for all IT products and services.  

• Learn to create a marketing and communication plan emphasizing business value to your stakeholders.

Meet the Speaker:

Pete’s value to the 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 service and support organization.  He passionately voices the importance of creating the value proposition and support story for support management and how to properly sell it to the business and senior management.  Simply stated, Pete has been instrumental in helping to create, teach and implement the support strategy, structure, best practices and roadmap for running support organizations like a business. 

Pete’s twenty years in the IT service and support industry go both deep and wide in all areas of IT, business and service and support.  His business and IT boot camp started at PepsiCo in 1984 where he worked for six years in various IT positions including implementing the first campus-wide Local Area Network and building the first PC and LAN Help Desk.  He spent the next six years at Taco Bell where his last position as the senior manager included technology planning, service and support for Taco Bell’s entire technology infrastructure from the corporate office to the restaurants.  Pete spent the next three years as Director of Help Desk Marketing for Vantive Corporation and the Executive Director of Help Desk Institute (HDI) before joining STI Knowledge and Help Desk 2000. Pete McGarahan held the following positions with STI Knowledge; Executive Industry Fellow, Chairman of Help Desk 2000, VP of Business Development and Chief Marketing Officer.

1:00-4:00 PM

Metrics: The Best Measures of Your Help Desks Performance

Dru Phelps, Vice-President of Certification, BenchmarkPortal, www.benchmarkportal.com

In this workshop, participants will identify, define, and critique various measures that impact the help desk. We will quantify the question “Is your help desk concentrating more on the internal cost efficiencies or effective caller-focused results? In review of the industry BenchmarkPortal database developed by Dr. Jon Anton, Director of Research at Purdue University we will review ‘real time data’. Finally, we map data to discovery on levels of service quality applied in case study report and results on Performance Matrix.

Attendees will take-away the best practice of:

• What strategic metrics impact key performance within Help Desk/Tech Support

• How to calculate a performance gap to improve efficiency and effectiveness

• Leverage three levels of service data: accessibility, skilled reps, knowledge

• Determine YOUR RealityCheckÔ Results in comparison to real-time industry data

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 in quality performance, assessment tools, and process assimilation. A distinguished graduate from Purdue University and USC, advisor, consultant, client partner, director, and speaker, Dru has been actively engaged in 180 Call Centers, 10 centers in Facilities Help Desk Quality.

Act NOW -Everyone receive a FREE RealityCheckÔ at www.BenchmarkPortal.com.  Simply enter your recent Help Desk data using promo code = DRU for an immediate rating. Schedule a review time to discuss results and you also receive a Reality Report, ($500 value).

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

Track Chair

Wednesday - October 26th

Registration & Continental Breakfast

Welcome & Introduction with the Conference Chair, Ivy Meadors, High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc.

9:00-10:00 AM

FEATURED KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Eric Chester

Employing Generation Why

Eric Chester, President, Generation Why, Inc., www.generationwhy.com

Ready or not, here comes Generation Why--68 million Americans born after 1980. With over 40 million of them currently working full time, your employees are changing right in front of you. Help Desk managers realize they can no longer use yesterday's methods to recruit, train, manage, and motivate this generation.

This exciting and revealing presentation will give you an in-depth look at Generation Why and help you understand what they value and how they approach the workplace. You'll then learn specific strategies for working with Generation Why, giving you a decided advantage over your competitors.

Benefits of attending:

• Gain a deeper understanding of the attitudes, values, and beliefs of Generation Why and their expectations in the workplace.

• Apply proven management strategies that will immediately impact how they recruit, train, motivate, and retain Gen Why youth.

• More effectively manage, market to, and connect with this huge segment of our population, Generation Why.

• Discover what leading organizations and major corporations are doing to recruit and retain new talent from this new generation.

• Understand how to merge generations in the workplace—explore how the three primary generations can form alliances and build lasting teams.

Meet the Speaker:

Nobody in America has a better understanding of Generation Why than Eric Chester CSP, CPAE, after all - he coined the term.  He's the author of Employing Generation Why  - Understanding, Managing, and Motivating Your New Workforce and the newly released Getting Them to Give a Damn—How to Get Your Front Line to Care About Your Bottom Line (Dearborn 2005).  His clients include Dairy Queen, Discover Card, and Toys R Us.

10:00-10:20 AM

Networking Break, Meet featured speaker & book autographing

10:30-11:45 AM
Leadership Track

Seeds of Innovation for the Support Industry

Patrick Bultema, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, vSpring Capital

The pace of innovation has slowed dramatically in the Support Industry. Most Help Desk organizations have invested in their core service management technologies; innovation from technology vendors has slowed as many continue to refine what they already have; so there just isn’t that much that is “new” for sale.  Is it any surprise, then, that most Help Desks have been implementing standards and certification over the last few years, rather than asking fundamental questions about the models and assumptions of their operations, or looking for innovative support technologies?

Still, the core challenge remains:  How can you provide the quality of service your customers want, at a cost your company finds acceptable? The answer to this question has changed little over the 15 years, but the pain persists.

For these reasons, a growing number believe our industry is on the verge of the next wave of innovations that will transform the face of our business.  Listen to what Patrick Bultema has to say about what these “seeds of innovation” might look like and how they will impact the industry.  He will provide advice and perspective on what you need to think about and what you can do now to position your organization for the changes to come.

Meet the Speaker:

Patrick Bultema is Entrepreneur-in-Residence at vSpring Capital, a venture capital firm with a focus on innovation in the Support and IT Infrastructure Management space. In this role, he works with early phase, high-tech companies, both as a venture investor as well as strategic advisor to the businesses. Formerly, Mr. Bultema was CEO of XAware, as well as CEO for FrontRange Solutions, the maker of HEAT and GoldMine. He was also Co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Knowlix, acquired by Peregrine Systems. And he has served on the boards of over 10 different software companies, and has worked as an investor and advisor with more than 30 additional companies.

As a recognized industry expert, Mr. Bultema was Chairman and General Manager of the Help Desk Institute, and was the founding Executive Editor of Customer Support Management magazine. Extensively published, Bultema is recognized worldwide as one the most prominent experts in the business of high-tech start ups, and various segments of the software industry, particularly in the area of high tech support. He holds a bachelor’s degree from California State University and a master’s from Princeton.

10:30-11:45 AM
People Track

The Best Service is No Service

Bill Price, President, Driva Solutions, http://www.drivasolutions.com and first Global VP of Customer Service, Amazon.com

It’s all too easy to measure and report the classic call center or help desk metrics such as average speed of answer or average handle time, and they’ve been linked with “what the customer wants.” But isn’t a better approach to make everything work so well that your customer doesn’t need to contact you, and when stuff does fail, that they feel like they are really being heard?

Join Bill Price, Amazon.com’s first Global VP of Customer Service and now President of contact center consultancy Driva Solutions, for lessons learned from Amazon where his theme “The Best Service is No Service” became the company’s mantra to underpin its highest-ever customer satisfaction rating for any services company.

While most of Bill’s stories will be from the external customer space, he will draw clear connections with managing internal help desks (after all, we’re all “customers,” right?). Bill will shatter well-accepted beliefs such as “we need to reduce handle time year over year” and “all customers are created equal.” He will share examples of how Amazon, and now many other companies, are embracing this more customer-centric approach. You will be able to hit the ground running “on Monday morning” with the insights and solutions to apply this novel approach to reduce costs plus improve satisfaction for your customers, and for your employees.

What you will learn:

• Tired vs. exhilarating metrics

• Dynamic individual handle time

• Cutting costs while increasing Customer Satisfaction

Meet the Speaker:

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.

Bill formed and chairs the 24-company Global Operations Council whose members include Cisco, Dell, Delta Airlines, Express Scripts, Microsoft, and Charles Schwab; he also co-founded the 10-country LimeBridge Global Alliance to expand each others’ reach across Europe (UK, France, Germany, and Sweden) and Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and India). Bill is also one of sixteen global “CRM Gurus,” teaches CRM at the University of Washington Business School, and speaks at conferences all over the country but prefers chasing his daughters at home in Bellevue, Washington.

10:30-11:45 AM
Technology Track

Peregrine Case Study

Martyn Birchall, Director Worldwide Solutions Group, Peregrine Solutions,  http://www.peregrine.com

Peregrine's Customer Support organization has completely reinvented its processes and methodologies over the last couple of years and is receiving praise from customers for the dramatic improvement in services delivered. In this session, Peregrine's Director of Technical Marketing, Martyn Birchall, discusses the practices and systems implemented and the lessons learned. To create a truly service-oriented culture, Peregrine chose an ITIL - based solution with special emphasis on Configuration Management. But as Peregrine discovered it's not just about the process and the tools - it's also about the people. At this session you'll learn more about:

• Why ITIL is so important
• The in's and out's of Configuration Management and the CMDB
• How an external audit by SCP can provide customer assurance
• Why KCS is more than just a three letter acronym

Meet the Speaker:

Martyn Birchall has worked in the IT business for over 20 years spending the majority of his time working in service organizations or consulting with them. Birchall joined Peregrine Systems in April of 1998 as the UK Professional Services Manager. He currently works in Peregrine’s Worldwide Solutions Group where he and the rest of the team drive thought leadership and actively engage in consultation with Peregrine’s largest Commercial and Government accounts on service and asset management strategies and best practices methodologies worldwide. As a member of this team Birchall focuses on IT Service Management best practices. Whilst at Peregrine, Birchall has held responsibilities for UK Professional Services, EMEA Customer Support, World Wide Customer Support, Partner Enablement in Professional Services, and Product Marketing and Management for Peregrine’s Service Management Products and supporting the Alliances team.

Prior to joining Peregrine, Birchall spent 15 years in the UK Government starting as a hardware engineer and progressing through software development and support to Project Management. His last 5 years in the Government were spent working on ITIL based Service Management projects introducing ITIL best practices in the IT department. He spent a short time as an ITIL consultant before joining Peregrine.

Birchall holds a Higher National Diploma in Telecommunications Engineering and has won multiple awards during his tenure at Peregrine. He holds the ITIL Service Manager certification (sometimes called ITIL Master) which he was awarded in 1997 and has presented at many itSMF events around the world. Birchall has formal certifications for Database design and Business Process Engineering.

10:30-11:45 AM
ITIL Track

Improving Services by Implementing Service Level Management

Char LaBounty, President, LaBounty and Associates, http://www.labountyassociates.com

Developing and implementing a Service Level Management (SLM) methodology and associated Operating Level Agreements (OLAs) and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) can be among the most challenging, time-intensive tasks that you will undertake in your IT Enterprise and your Service Desk. But make no mistake, these tools are extremely valuable and worth the effort.

Fundamentally, the Service Level Management process provides a methodology for introducing and implementing reasonable expectations for the customers and your help desk or customer support center. SLM acts as guides for establishing good, sound business relationships. Before you can establish and maintain an effective SLM program, you must commit to a customer service culture then the organization must commit to an ongoing SLM management process.

What you will learn:

• Determine the protocols for introducing and implementing SLM between your Service Desk and the IT Enterprise

• Discuss how you keep Service Level Management alive in your organization

• Ensure SLM’s are providing you insight into how to improve your service levels and service delivery on a continuous basis

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.

Networking luncheon in the Carousel Room

1:00-1:50 PM

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Ivy Meadors

10 Seconds to Hello

Ivy Meadors, President, High Tech High Touch Solutions, www.hthts.com

The Help Desk is imperative to the business, yet alas, still struggles at times to reach the optimum level of success and recognition.  Success can be realized, and the Help Desk recognized for its true worth.  Ivy will present her personal viewpoint of the fundamentals to delivering progressive and unsurpassed service.  No matter what communication medium the customer uses, the goal is to get to "Hello" in the shortest possible timeframe and deliver the most accurate answer in the least amount of time.

We will be discussing many of these service influencers in this session including:

• People: Hiring, firing, inspiring, styling reminders to get and keep the finest professionals in the job

• Process: Embrace radical change and destroy the sacred cows to enhance service

• Technology:  The most necessary tools to afford the shortest timeframe to get the right answer

Meet the Speaker:

Ivy Meadors, CEO and founder of High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc., is a seasoned expert specializing in business, customer service and technical support in the Call Center and Help Desk industry.  Her industry roots are in customer service, computer operations, application service desks and support consolidation projects during her tenures at AT&T / Pacific Northwest Bell / U S West Communications and in the formation of IBM Global Services.  Today, she is recognized as one of the support industry's most respected leaders.

Known for her engaging, spontaneous style, her energy is contagious and her messages inspirational, even profound, and sometimes controversial.  Referred to as the "Female Tom Peters" for delivering forward thinking, unconventional ideas, and challenging the norm, Ivy Meadors is an internationally renowned, award winning, speaker and consultant with over 28 years of experience in a full range of industries and organization sizes.  Together with her team, she has provided innovative solutions with extraordinary results to hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies and Government agencies throughout the world.

She is driven with a passion for the service and support industry and a desire to “pay it forward”.  She acknowledges the many peers and mentors who've contributed to her education and wishes you will join her participative session to help her pass the know-how on to others.  Learn how to revolutionize your business by successfully turning your Contact Centers and Help Desks into strategic corporate assets, using proven success principles and tools.  It truly is all about the people.

2:00-2:50 PM
People Track

Case Study: Bridging the Communication Gap Between Level 1 and Advanced IT Support Teams

Mary Lou Blakely, Director Support Services, Starbucks Coffee Company, http://www.starbucks.com

Successful IT support must include good communication with your customers. Whether your customers are internal or external to your business, maintaining good relationships within your IT organization is a critical component in meeting your customer’s needs. 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 team to provide the best customer experience within IT Support.

What you will learn:

• How the IT Support Center leveraged ITIL best practices in improving process and communication

• How good Knowledge Management plays a role

• How to make communication plans simple, not complex

Meet the Speaker:

Mary Lou Blakely currently works for Starbucks Coffee Company as the director for the IT Support Center. She has the responsibility for the 24x7 Enterprise Help Desk (EHD), Incident Management, Problem Management, Transition Management and Change Management. The EHD serves as the IT single point of contact for over 5,550 stores and 6,500 end users across the globe. This includes IT support for partners in North America, United Kingdom, Amsterdam, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Hawaii, China and Hong Kong.

Mary Lou has worked at Starbucks Coffee Company for 7 years within IT in various roles. Where Starbucks maintains an aggressive growth curve, the IT Support Center 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 certification in IT Service Management.

2:00-2:50 PM
Technology Track

Case Study: The Delta Dental Support Center Success and Challenges

Robin Beland, Regional Manager, FrontRange Solutions, http://frontrange.com

Brandon Caudle, Support Center Manager, Delta Dental of California, http://www.deltadentalca.org

Delta Dental has made a concerted effort over the past several years to not only improve the quality of their service desk, but also to align the entire IT organization to Delta Dental's lines of business to ensure access to mission critical services.  This presentation will be an opportunity for anyone looking to transform their IT Service Desk to learn from the successes and challenges at Delta Dental.  Some of the many topics that will be discussed include:

• On the road to "Centralization"
• Customer Satisfaction
• Adapting ITIL to "real world" requirements
• Communication and Cooperation: Service Desk, other IT Departments, and the business customer
• Statistics - What to measure, How do they help?
• Top Tool Requirements

Meet the Speakers:

Brandon Caudle is the Support Center Manager for Delta Dental of California.  During his six years at the Support Center, he has consolidated a number of help desks and been instrumental in the creation of Delta's 24x7 Follow The Sun support model.  Among his accomplishments at Delta are the creation of the Support Center training program, the introduction of scorecards to provide constant feedback to his team and the enterprise-wide implementation of an Incident Tracking tool and Knowledge Base.

Brandon is the past president of the Sacramento chapter of the Help Desk Institute and carries the HDI Help Desk manager certification.  He was an early adopter of ITIL within his company and uses his ITIL certification to improve processes and streamline workflows in supporting his customers on a daily basis.

Robin Beland details coming...

2:00-3:50 PM
ITIL Track

ITIL Workshop Extended Session:
Knowledge Management: ITIL'S Missing Link?

George Spalding, Executive Consultant, Pink Elephant, http://www.pinkelephant.com

Rick Joslin, Senior Consultant, IHS Support Solutions, http://www.ihssupport.com

Knowledge management is implied as a requirement within ITIL, but the links to knowledge seem to be missing. Learn the value of having a complete knowledge base and how that impacts business processes. Attend this session and learn where knowledge can be leveraged within ITIL and why it is valuable to your organization! And, learn the basic concepts of Knowledge-centered support (KCS), and how it complements the ITIL framework.

This session reviews the clues of where Knowledge is needed within ITIL. Attendees will discover the value of having a complete knowledge base and how it impacts Incident Management, Problem Management and Change Management. They will then learn about the emerging set of knowledge management best practices that fills a hole in ITIL. Attendees will be introduced to Knowledge Centered Support and understand how KCS compliments the existing ITIL Framework.

What you will learn:

• Where knowledge is leveraged within ITIL

• Why knowledge is valuable

• How KCS compliments ITIL

• Basic concepts of KCS

Meet the Speakers:

George Spalding: In addition to a decade-long commitment to improving the lives of IT Managers and Professionals on five continents, George’s irreverent blend of quick wit and high-tech humor make him a much sought-after presenter. His speaking credentials include keynote presentations at nearly every support-related conference on several continents. He has earned a plethora of technical certifications making him a self-proclaimed “alpha” geek.

Rick Joslin: Rick is a Principal Consultant with IHS Support Solutions.  He provides consulting services related to implementing and enhancing support operations with a focus on knowledge management and self-service.  Rick is a certified Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) instructor and guides organizations with the implementation of KCS.  He is also a certified instructor for the HDI certification courses.  Prior to joining IHS, Rick founded his own consulting firm, Joslin & Associates.  Formerly, Rick was the VP of Customer Care for ServiceWare, VP of RightAnswers.com, and VP of Knowledge Engineering. Rick was responsible for the production of the industry’s leading third-party knowledge bases, known as Knowledge-Paks. A winner of the 1999 Service 25 Award, Rick has been widely acknowledged as one of the most influential luminaries in the support industry.  Rick is the author of the HDI Focus Book on Knowledge Management, the HDI Focus Book on the Knowledge Management Maturity Model, and a contributed the Knowledge Management chapter in the HDI Service and Support Handbook.

3:00-3:50 PM
Leadership Track

Radical Leadership Solutions - "Rapid Fire"

Pete McGarahan, President, McGarahan and Associates, http://www.mcgarahan.com

Mary Kay Wegner, Help Desk Manager, City of Redmond,  www.redmond.gov

A bold and quick support team ready to embrace radial change, and provide forward-thinking ideas can be realized with strong leaders. Hear ideas how to become a leader of change using vital leadership techniques to respond to today’s changing realities.

This fast paced, rapid-fire, facilitated session is loaded with leadership solutions, delivered by industry experts Mary Kay Wegner and Pete McGarahan. Highly interactive, this seminar will include content-rich material from our speakers as well as from the audience’s active participation.

Join these two dynamic speakers to hear:

• Why using radical leadership techniques is imperative in today’s changing environment

• How to move your team’s mindset from “fix-it-after-the-fact” to “fix-it-before-they call”

• What makes leaders truly remarkable

• How ideas spread when leaders gain full commitment from the team

• Techniques to succeed in the leadership game

• Ideas to change the way people behave using radical leadership skills

Meet the Speakers:

Pete McGarahan’s value to the 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 service and support organization. He passionately voices the importance of creating the value proposition and support story for support management and how to properly sell it to the business and senior management. Simply stated, Pete has been instrumental in helping to create, teach and implement the support strategy, structure, best practices and roadmap for running support organizations like a business.

Mary Kay Wegner is an experienced IT professional with over 15 years in the technical support and training industry. After working as a Regional Training Manager for Computer City, coaching technical trainers, corporate sales executives, and developing marketing and sales programs, she turned to the formal IT environment where user support management brought these experiential skills together in a powerful way. In addition to managing the support operation in all of its diversity, she developed corporate training programs, e-learning initiatives, and elevated the Help Desk operation to “key player” status in the IT organizations she has served. Mary Kay is currently the Support Services Manager for the City of Redmond in Washington state.

3:00-3:50 PM
People Track

Building a Business Case for Selling ITIL within Your Organization

Malcolm Fry, BMC Software, www.bmc.com

Very often, the benefits of ITIL are obvious to those who have received ITIL education, read ITIL books, or attended an ITIL- focused conference. However, convincing others on how ITIL can impact the organization can be challenging.

IT managers often fail to adequately promote ITIL within their organization. Some promote it only at one level rather than at multiple levels in the organization. Others focus their efforts on one key department, rather than promoting the benefits of successfully implemented ITIL-based processes to all potential beneficiaries across the organization.

It is not a case of selling ITIL but of selling improved Service Management which should be the cornerstone of justifying ITIL.  This session shows how to approach selling improved Service Management using ITIL to all levels of both business and IT.

What you will learn:

• Why ITIL becoming ISO20000 has changed the perspective for selling ITIL

• How to identify the key objectives of each key corporate strata; strategic, tactical and operational

• Why understanding and approaching the cultural objections are so important

• A simple but effective scorecard to gauge the customer view of IT and Service Management

• Building and creating an expectations matrix to help determine selling objectives

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.

3:00-3:50 PM
Technology Track

Phishing, Pharming & Worms: Security Issues Faced by Today's Help Desk Professional

Ernie Hayden, Chief Security Officer, Port of Seattle, http://www.portseattle.org

How many times do you receive calls from your customers asking questions that have a computer security underpinning? Such questions as “Is it OK for me to open this file?” “I don’t use this vendor but they told me to update my credit card – is that OK?” These and other questions can be confusing to the Help Desk Professional unless they have a basic understanding of information security. This knowledge is key to assuring that the security of the user and corporation is upheld.

In this educational session, Ernie’s presentation will focus on such issues as:

• What is Information Security and what are Phishing, Worms, and other security terms?

• What does CIA have to do with security and the Help Desk?

• What are key security considerations for the Help Desk Professional?

• Why is a Help Desk Professional just as important as a Police Officer or Fire Fighter during emergencies? What’s that got to do with security?

Meet the Speaker:

Ernie Hayden has over 30 years experience as a technology manager and leader.  Ernie is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and has often given presentations and training on Information Security issues.  Ernie is currently the Chief Information Security Officer / Manager Enterprise Information Security for the Port of Seattle – one of the world’s busiest combined airports and seaports.  He also has broad experience in the Help Desk arena from his past role as Director Customer Fulfillment for a major software vendor in the Pacific Northwest.  Ernie has been recognized for his security knowledge and outreach in Information Security Magazine.

Cocktail Reception & Product Showcase Premier

Thursday - October 27th

Mastermind Sessions & Continental Breakfast

9:00 - 9:50 AM

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Brad Worthley

Blueprint for Success: Creating a Superior Customer Experience

Brad Worthley, President, Brad Worthley International, http://www.bradworthley.com

What if your customers couldn't imagine calling anyone else but your Help Desk?” How much would it contribute to the enterprise’s overall productivity if your customers rated your service as “exemplary? Learn a revolutionary approach how to deliver this level of exceptional service. In this interactive session, you will hear the blueprint for success to build a plan to exceed customer expectations. Brad’s engaging style, combined with real stories and hilarious examples of businesses that step out of the box, will give you practical ideas to make your own changes.

• Customers with less anxiety

• Customers that enjoy calling you

• Customers that express their appreciation

• Employees who enjoy their work more

• Reduced stress

Meet the Speaker:

Brad Worthley is an accomplished business consultant with over 30 years of business 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 leading corporations how to consistently build and retain customer loyalty, by changing their cultures and not just their people.  Brad is a consultant, trainer and personal coach who works with small and medium size companies, up to some of the largest corporations in the world.

10:00-11:15 AM
Leadership Track

Achieving Strategic Leadership Thinking

Pete McGarahan, President, McGarahan and Associates, http://www.mcgarahan.com

FLASH! It’s hard to think strategically while you're too busy delivering tactically!  Achieving Strategic Leadership Thinking requires time. It is also dependent on your ability to empower your team to manage the day-to-day operations.  As you shift your focus from managerial tasks to creating your aligned support strategy for delivering valued services, you must enlist the support and buy-in of key stakeholders.  You will learn first to make the time, make the plan and lead the execution of continuous improvement roadmap. Achieving Strategic Leadership requires that you open your mind and yourself to new ideas, take risks and expose yourself to new learning experiences. “Readers are Leaders” is the mantra for the strategic thinker, who can envision and communicate a clear and simple vision and strategy. 

What you will learn:

• Learn proven time management techniques

• Understand differences what  managers do and what  leaders do

• Discover leadership best practices

• Learn to think and focus on big impact initiatives

• Realize how to sell your ideas, strategies and business case to senior management

Meet the Speaker:

Pete’s value to the 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 service and support organization.  He passionately voices the importance of creating the value proposition and support story for support management and how to properly sell it to the business and senior management.  Simply stated, Pete has been instrumental in helping to create, teach and implement the support strategy, structure, best practices and roadmap for running support organizations like a business. 

Pete’s twenty years in the IT service and support industry go both deep and wide in all areas of IT, business and service and support.  His business and IT boot camp started at PepsiCo in 1984 where he worked for six years in various IT positions including implementing the first campus-wide Local Area Network and building the first PC and LAN Help Desk.  He spent the next six years at Taco Bell where his last position as the senior manager included technology planning, service and support for Taco Bell’s entire technology infrastructure from the corporate office to the restaurants.  Pete spent the next three years as Director of Help Desk Marketing for Vantive Corporation and the Executive Director of Help Desk Institute (HDI) before joining STI Knowledge and Help Desk 2000. Pete McGarahan held the following positions with STI Knowledge; Executive Industry Fellow, Chairman of Help Desk 2000, VP of Business Development and Chief Marketing Officer.

10:00-11:15 AM
People Track
 

User Provisioning and Identity Management:  Maximizing Security and Service

Bridget Callahan, Identity Management Consultant, Courion, Corporation, http://www.courion.com

The process for user provisioning and identity management is one of the most manually intensive and inefficient processes in organizations today. This session will explore how improving and automating provisioning processes can provide a better, and more secure, user experience, thus alleviating the strain on IT support and security administration.

What you will learn:

• How to build a solid business case and ROI for justifying an identity management project focused on improved service efficiency, increased security, and reduced costs

• How to design critical processes and automate various functions of the provisioning process

• How to shrink service levels down to have accounts and resources available to new hires before they start, while immediately disabling accounts of users who have left an organization

Meet the Speaker:

Bridget Callahan is an Identity Management Consultant in Courion's Customer Solutions organization. In this role, Bridget has been responsible for more than a dozen Fortune 500 customer implementations achieving significant ROI, security policy improvements and end user satisfaction improvements.  Bridget has also led one of the industry's first ever customer provisioning implementations for a large global energy corporation. 

Bridget has ten years of consulting and training experience for major corporations assisting them achieve improved business performance through enterprise software implementation initiatives.  Prior to Courion, she held Software Migrations Implementation manager and Software Training manager positions with Newmarket International.  Bridget has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

10:00-11:15 AM
Technology Track

Case Study

Sponsored by Interactive Intelligence

10:00-11:15 AM
ITIL Track

How to Get an ITIL Initiative Started

Harpreet Virdee, Managing Consultant, Pink Elephant, http://www.pinkelephant.com

So you’re really excited about this ITIL thing – now what? What do you do first? You know about the processes and you have bought into the benefits of ITIL implementation, maybe even bought the books! – But really, how do you get an ITIL initiative off the ground? How do you start on the road to implementation? Attend this session and hear from ITIL expert, Harpreet Virdee, on how to do just that!

Harpreet has helped numerous organizations start up their ITIL implementation projects. If your IT organization is currently undertaking its education and awareness program, and not certain about next steps, come along to this session to ask Harpreet and to hear how other participants are managing the start of their ITIL journeys.

Meet the Speaker:

As a lead consultant for Pink Elephant, Harpreet Virdee has proven successes in providing strategic guidance and actively participating in global and local consultancy projects with clients in the financial, manufacturing, pharmaceutical and public sectors.  Harpreet’s broad range of ITIL consulting experience, which includes assessing ITIL process maturity levels, has enabled her to develop and present business cases that support and justify the cost-value for ITIL initiatives.  She holds the Service Manager Certificate In IT Service Management and is sought after as a highly qualified speaker for various industry conferences and public seminars.

11:30 - 2:30 PM

Luncheon and Product Showcase
Roundtable Discussions to be held on Showcase Floor

2:30-5:15 PM
Leadership Track

Leadership Workshop Extended Session:
Outstanding Leadership in a Service Culture

Brad Worthley, President, Brad Worthley International, http://www.bradworthley.com

Creating an environment where a service culture can thrive requires unique leadership skills. All eyes are on you to set the pace for others to follow; to help others recognize and cultivate the best that is in them. How do you position yourself to become an outstanding leader? Learn the specific tools and techniques from someone who has been guiding individuals and service organizations for over 30 years. Brad Worthley - speaker, entrepreneur, and coach - has brought together a wealth of information that you can apply right away for greater impact and better results. He will share specific systems, programs and behaviors you can employ that will move you from a focus on process to people; from the role of trainer to coach; from being a great manager to being a great leader. Through lively stories, examples and engaging discussion, Brad drives home the message of what works and why.

You will be provided with volumes of tools that you can use to create a strong service culture. This isn’t about theory, but practical strategies that have positive impact on your ability to motivate and empower your colleagues and employees. You will come away with a very detailed handout to help you retain what you learned, plus tons of notes. This is targeted to anyone who supervises people.

• Differentiate between Symptoms And Problems

• Develop Systems to Keep People from Failing

• Implement Rewards And Recognition Programs that Breed Positive Change

• Enhance Employee Performance and Increase Retention

• Achieve More Time and Balance in Your Day

• Handle Personnel Conflict With Greater Success

• Make the Tough Decisions When Needed

• Create Synergy in Your Organization

Meet the Speaker:

Brad Worthley is an accomplished business consultant with over 30 years of business 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 leading corporations how to consistently build and retain customer loyalty, by changing their cultures and not just their people.  Brad is a consultant, trainer and personal coach who works with small and medium size companies, up to some of the largest corporations in the world.

2:30-3:45 PM
People Track

Utilizing ITSM Technology Across the Organization to Improve Employee Satisfaction

Melinda Uhland, Product Marketing Analyst, Oracle, http://www.oracle.com

Organizations today are looking to cut cost, streamline operations, and improve service delivery to their employees in any way that they can. The more efficient an organization can be in delivering service to their employees, the greater their ability to remain competitive in their market. This session will discuss how today’s organizations are using IT Service Management technology and best practices in areas other than IT, such as HR and Occupational Health and Safety. By using the technology and processes that they already posses, companies can save substantial amounts of money, while improving employee satisfaction.

Meet the Speaker:

Melinda Uhland joined PeopleSoft in 2002 bringing with her 16 years of experience in CRM.  Over her career, Melinda has held positions in Sales, Product Strategy, and Engineering.  In her current role as Sr. Product Strategy Manager she oversees the functional and strategic product direction for the service management applications in both the PeopleSoft Enterprise product line, as well as the Oracle eBusiness product line.

2:30-3:45 PM
Technology Track

Assuring Quality in the Help Desk's Only Product: Knowledge Management

Rick Joslin, Senior Consultant, IHS Support Solutions, http://www.ihssupport.com

Support Analysts perform three key functions every day. They talk with customers, they record information into the incident management system, and they solve problems or create knowledge. Knowledge is the only product of the service desk. The services they provide relate to the delivery of their product and assuring that the right product gets to the right customer at the right time.

Service desks have historically focused on the quality of the interaction with the customer and the quality of the information captured in the incident records. They have implemented call monitoring and incident monitoring. Very few service desks have implemented a quality assurance program related to their only product, knowledge. This session will provide the structure necessary to implement a knowledge monitoring process.

Knowledge Monitoring is one of the best practices within Knowledge Management and is a critical component of Knowledge-Centered Support. As a result, analysts will receive a Solution Quality Index related to their production of the product. Driven by the quality criteria defined by the organization, knowledge monitoring serves both as a feedback tool and a quality assurance tool that enhances both the product and the services of the service desk. A quality knowledge base is a key component for enabling self-service and enhancing incident management, and is foundation for problem management.

Key learning objectives:

• Knowledge Monitoring is one of the best practices within Knowledge Management and is a critical component of Knowledge-Centered Support.

• Analysts receive a Solution Quality Index related to their production of the product.

• Driven by the quality criteria defined by the organization, knowledge monitoring serves both as a feedback tool and a quality assurance tool that enhances both the product and the services of the service desk.

Meet the Speaker:

Rick Joslin is a Principal Consultant with IHS Support Solutions.  He provides consulting services related to implementing and enhancing support operations with a focus on knowledge management and self-service.  Rick is a certified Knowledge-Centered Support (KCS) instructor and guides organizations with the implementation of KCS.  He is also a certified instructor for the HDI certification courses.  Prior to joining IHS, Rick founded his own consulting firm, Joslin & Associates.  Formerly, Rick was the VP of Customer Care for ServiceWare, VP of RightAnswers.com, and VP of Knowledge Engineering.  Rick was responsible for the production of the industry’s leading third-party knowledge bases, known as Knowledge-Paks. A winner of the 1999 Service 25 Award, Rick has been widely acknowledged as one of the most influential luminaries in the support industry.  Rick is the author of the HDI Focus Book on Knowledge Management, the HDI Focus Book on the Knowledge Management Maturity Model, and a contributed the Knowledge Management chapter in the HDI Service and Support Handbook.

2:30-3:45 PM
ITIL Track

Immediate Wins for ITIL Implementations

George Spalding, Senior Consultant, Pink Elephant, http://www.pinkelephant.com

Attend this session and walk away with information you can immediately use upon return to your organization. In this session, George will present you with tangible, proven techniques that you can begin to implement the moment you return to work! These techniques will significantly increase the productivity of employees, improve service levels, and strengthen relationships with internal business partners, and suppliers. You’ll get a lot more than theory here!

Meet the Speaker:

George Spalding is one of North America's most insightful and engaging IT service management and support experts. In addition to his decade-long commitment to improving the industry, George spent several years as a consultant to the White House on technical presentations and White House conferences. He also coordinated technical presentations for members of the President's cabinet, the Smithsonian Institute, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.  He currently serves on the HDI International Individual Standards Committee, the Advisory Board of Comdex and is a member of the International Who’s Who Historical Society. George has also achieved ITIL's IT Service Manager Certification.

4:00 - 5:15 PM
People Track

Don't Just Manage...Be a Player at the Big Table

Brenda Iniguez, Director, Pink Elephant, http://www.pinkelephant.com

With all the big initiatives at play in IT today, how do you as a Support Center Manager build serious clout to be invited to the Big Players’ Table? How do you get a seat and a vote on the tough decisions? How do you become a “Player,” recognized by your peers, colleagues and senior management as a force to be reckoned with?

In this session, Brenda Iniguez will teach managers how to build an effective support team to call the Support Decision shots. She will explore the power of branding and marketing, and share specific strategies on how to market your Support Center as a vital component for your IT organization and your business clients. She will also describe the pitfalls of allowing your Support Center to become the victim; how the disciplines of change management and change integration can become your strongest allies.

You need to know how to “get” and read the big IT picture and the strategic business picture proactively, and also about which new metrics to use with the senior execs and what to keep internal. Brenda will focus on the differences between tactical and strategic thinking, and you will walk away with some practical and tangible tools that you can apply immediately that will make a noticeable difference to you and your organization.

In this session you will learn how to:

• Read the ‘Big Picture’ Of Any Project Proposal

• Be a Leader in Your ITIL Initiative or Other Service Improvement Program

• Break Out of the Comfortable Tactical Role; Stay and Play Strategic

• Capitalize on Your Knowledge and Experience for “Clout Power”

• Channel the Power of Branding & Marketing Your Support Organization, Especially with Senior Execs

• Harness The Strength of Integrated System Management Disciplines

• Use The Magic Triangle of CPA for Greater Effectiveness

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 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.

Brenda is active in several professional groups, including founding member on the Board of Directors for HDP (Help Desk Professionals), 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 ITSC. 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.

4:00 - 5:15 PM
Technology Track

Creative Use of Technology Without Breaking the Bank

Dan Rickwalder, Incoming Calls Management Institute (ICMI), www.icmi.com

Today’s customer demands more service and today’s help desk is in a better position to supply it than ever! New technologies make the high cost of advanced support options a thing of the past while more internet savvy customers have opened the door to a whole new set of support options.  Today’s Help Desk managers are looking for cost effective solutions that deliver information to customers when and how they want it.

This session highlights emerging trends in customer support with a focus on easily implemented solutions that add flexibility to your Help Desk without breaking the bank in the process.  With a strong focus on how to use these new trends, this session will provide plenty of action items to take back to the office.

Meet the Speaker:

As a consultant for the Incoming Calls Management Institute (ICMI), Dan Rickwalder has focused on helping clients better use their existing technology to improve staff forecasting, call handling performance and customer satisfaction.  He’s worked with clients all over the country to improve data capture, design IVR applications, and better utilize call routing functionality. 

Dan was instrumental in developing ICMI’s Bull's-Eye Forecasting Service-the industry’s first web based outsourced forecasting service. Dan also brings over 10 years customer service management experience to ICMI.  Over the last seven years, he has focused on forecasting and data analysis for call center service providers. His experience includes budget and staffing forecasting and performance reporting development for inbound and outbound contact centers in North America and the United Kingdom.

4:00 - 5:15 PM
ITIL Track

ITIL Case Study:  The ROI of Service Management: A PEMCO Corporation Computer Services Case Study

Jed Woodward, Solution Center & Client Computer Engineering Supervisor, Pemco Corporation Computer Services, www.pemco.com

Find out how Pemco overcame change and implemented key ITIL processes to reap significant ROI benefits.

Jed Woodward will share the company’s journey and experiences with its recent organizational effort to implement ITIL processes, including Incident, Change, Service Desk, Configuration Management and Service Level Management. Jed will also provide information into the ROI benefits experienced as a result of these best practice improvements.

Meet the Speaker:

Jed Woodward is currently the Supervisor of the Solution Center and Client Computer Engineering departments for PEMCO Corporation Computer Services (PCCS, Inc.). Jed possesses more than 11 years experience in the IT industry. Jed has made great strides over the last 3 years by implementing repeatable processes in the departments he represents. Through the ITIL initiated efficiencies he has been able to deliver additional services without increasing support staff. This has increased profitability as well as customer satisfaction.

Exclusive: Bonus Networking Event  Night Prowl at the San Diego Zoo
Only $45 per person (family members welcome!) See flyer for more details
Night Prowl is sold out.

Friday - October 28th

8:00 - 8:50 AM

Mastermind Sessions & Continental Breakfast

9:00 - 11:45 AM
Leadership Track

SLA / OLA Workshop Extended Session:

Building a Service Level and Operational Level Agreement

Eric Rabinowitz, CEO, DEMA Education, www.dema-edu.com

In this two hour workshop, session participants will understand the benefits of Service Level Management (SLM) including Service Level Agreements (SLA) between the Help Desk and the customer of the Help Desk and Operational Level Agreements (OLA) between the Help Desk, other IT service providers and the customer. An SLM primer will be presented during the first 30 minutes of the class followed by an SLA and OLA workshop.

Each participant will receive an SLA and OLA template that they will use within this workshop to start their own SLM documents and to build upon when they return to their companies. Different SLA and OLA examples will be displayed from different help desk operations and industries.

At the end of this workshop the attendee will:

• Be able to answer the questions, what is a Service Level Agreement and what is an Operational Level Agreement?

• Understand the Purposes of Service Level Agreements and Operational Level Agreements

• Realize the benefits of SLAs and OLAs and where they fit in their company

• Begin the process of developing SLM documents for use in your own organization

Meet the Speaker:

Eric Rabinowitz is the CEO of Dema Education, and has been a recognized leader in the help desk industry since 1989.  He created the first Help Desk Analyst training program and was a key contributor to HDI’s CSS, HDA and HDM certification programs.  He has appeared on television and radio as an advocate for the support industry and has contributed to several magazines and books.  Mr. Rabinowitz has also been featured in several articles on help desk related topics in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and a cover story in INC. Magazine. Mr. Rabinowitz is a certified Instructor and an Instructor Trainer as well as a much sought after speaker.  Mr. Rabinowitz is a member emeritus of the strategic advisory board, individual certification curriculum committee and site certification committee. His company Dema Education is a leader in innovative educational programs and real world consulting that that impacts a company’s ability to compete.

9:00 - 10:15 AM
People Track

Panel: Best of Breed Government Help Desks

Moderator: Mary Kay Wegner, Help Desk Manager, City of Redmond,  www.redmond.gov

When the measure of success is your family’s security and quality of life, you must give credit to Help Desks in the government sector. These are the people who support those on the front lines of government. From local and county Help Desks supporting Emergency-911 operations, your home utilities, parks and recreation programs; to state agencies responding to business needs, transportation initiatives, education and medical industries; to the federal government making our nation a safer and stronger environment. This panel represents all levels of government support operations.

• You think turnover is a problem? Try tenure.

• You think your budgets are constrained? Try taxpayer scrutiny of post-it notes and coffee grounds.

• You think cross-division communications are difficult? Try bringing together over twelve agencies working independently to the same measures and goals.

• You think your CEO is tough? Try serving a board that turns over (by design) every four years.

• You think you have trouble attracting best-of-the-best job applicants - try working against the stereotype of “government workers”.

These panelists have seen it all and have overcome these, and more challenging obstacles. Now’s your chance to see and appreciate how responsive, creative and flexible government support organizations have become. Agility; Consolidation; Security; Portals and Personalization - these are the hallmarks of today’s government help desks. Hear success stories from those on the front lines of government support: how they are working smarter not harder; collaborating across agencies and lines of business to provide easier, more convenient access to information. Data is secure and yet more accessible; provided in real-time; employees more creative and responsive, meeting citizen needs with one call, one stop, one click. Whether you are in government support looking for inspiration from your peers, or are in the private sector, open to best practices that will change your stereotypes for good. You will come away from this session with a heightened appreciation for how Help Desks can:

• Work Against Type – Sell the Value of the Help Desk

• Improve Customer Perceptions With Every Contact

• Provide Actionable Intelligence through Portals

• Identify for Others What Your Customers Need Now!

Meet the Facilitator:

Mary Kay Wegner is an experienced IT professional with over 15 years in the technical support and training industry. After working as a Regional Training Manager for Computer City, coaching technical trainers, corporate sales executives, and developing marketing and sales programs, she turned to the formal IT environment where user support management brought these experiential skills together in a powerful way. In addition to managing the support operation in all of its diversity, she developed corporate training programs, e-learning initiatives, and elevated the Help Desk operation to “key player” status in the IT organizations she has served. Mary Kay is currently the Support Services Manager for the City of Redmond in Washington state.

Mary Kay is ITIL-certified; and is also a certified Help Desk Manager. A Seattle native, she speaks at local venues and conferences across the country each year, sharing her unique vision, skills and strategies with others so that they can make an immediate difference in their own organizations. She has a knack for getting to the heart of the matter, translating complex processes and challenges into manageable, comprehensible, successful operations. Dedication, innovation and persistence have made a difference to her colleagues, staff and the industry at large. She is the VP of Programs for Help Desk Northwest, an incredibly dynamic community of support practitioners representing some major players in corporate America who happen to be home-based in the Seattle area. She is one of the original Advisory Board members for the Government Customer Support Conference, held in Washington DC, celebrating its fourth year in 2005. She is also on the Advisory Board for the Conference for Help Desk Professionals, now in its 7th year.

9:00 - 10:15 AM
Technology Track

The Technology Behind the Business

Ivy Meadors, CEO, High Tech High Touch Solutions, www.hthts.com

Are you doing the Blog yet?  It’s becoming the knowledge base of the future.  How soon until your cell phone will be replaced with a SIP phone?  VoIP, it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.  Did you know Online Assessments could help with your staffing needs?  Would you like to use Interactive Brochures to serve customer’s unique needs?

Learn forward thinking techniques that you can apply right now, using unique technologies, some that won’t cost anything to implement.  For instance, find out how to cut thirty minutes or more off your agent’s work time every day with a simple technique using custom email signatures.

In this very fast paced session, loaded with immediate take-aways, Ivy’s delivery of a potpourri of technology solutions will excite you to embrace these technologies and others.  This highly interactive session will:

Benefits of attending

• Get you exposed to and excited about Blogging

• Discuss embracing VoIP and review the pros and cons

• Stimulate ideas on using Notification Technologies

• Expose you to Interactive Brochures

• Unlock ideas for using Online Assessments

• Offer ideas that can be implemented at almost no cost right now!

Meet the Speaker:

Ivy Meadors, CEO and founder of High Tech High Touch Solutions, Inc., is a seasoned expert specializing in business, customer service and technical support in the Call Center and Help Desk industry.  Her industry roots are in customer service, computer operations, application service desks and support consolidation projects during her tenures at AT&T / Pacific Northwest Bell / U S West Communications and in the formation of IBM Global Services.  Today, she is recognized as one of the support industry's most respected leaders.

9:00 - 10:15 AM
ITIL Track

ITIL Case Study:  IT Leadership Best Practices At Lockheed Martin “ How to be on the watch that being Good … doesn’t keep you from being GREAT”

Richard Hanke, Director, Enterprise Service Desk, Lockheed Martin

With over 130,000 employees world wide, Lockheed Martin is one of the world’s biggest organizations. Lockheed Martin’s IT organization – the US government’s premiere systems integrator and information technology services provider – specializes in providing enterprise-wide information solutions to government agencies worldwide in support of their critical infrastructure, business system, and mission system computing needs.  Their service offerings range from total program outsourcing and performance-based services to designing and deploying e-government and information assurance solutions.

As Director, Enterprise Service Desk, Richard oversees a complex, multi-site IT support function. In this case study presentation, he will provide examples of best practices used in his IT organization to manage, motivate, and lead employees in a very large, global environment.  Richard will review successful people management practices including reward and recognition programs, communication practices, and employee training and education.  In addition, Richard will share details of best practices used to foster teamwork and cement a strong service culture.

Richard and his colleagues are moving through the first leg of their ITIL journey.  During this session, he will also discuss how and why they decided to undertake their ITIL initiative, the steps taken to develop and deploy an awareness and communication campaign, an how they engaged their Executive support for their ITIL initiative.

Meet the Speaker:

Richard Hanke is the Director of Lockheed Martin's Enterprise Service Desk.  For the Service Desk; Rich provides strategic direction, oversight for operations, customer advocacy, consultation, business continuity and crisis management.  Rich participates on the HDI Strategic Advisory Board, Remedy Executive Advisory Council as well as a charter member of Service Strategies’ Support Center Practice forum.

10:30 - 11:45 AM
People Track

Hiring, Inspiring, Inspiring

Zoe Stamolis, Senior Account Manager, Parker Services, http://www.parkerservices.com

Keep Your Company out of the Court Room: Hire and Fire Right from the Start Did you know that 35-50% or more of employees are actively looking for a new job, according to recent employment surveys? Our economy is heating up into a "sellers' labor market" where there will soon be too many jobs and not enough people. The hiring and firing decisions made in the new six months will affect your organization’s success for many years to come.

How do you hire the right people, at the right time, for the right position? Firing can be the best thing you can do for you department. Zoe will walk you through the land-mines and suggest ideas for offering your staff a “career redirection opportunity.”

Hiring topics to be covered include:

• Before You Recruit
• Job Competencies
• Conducting Interviews
• Interview Questions
• Making the right hire

Firing topics to be covered include:

• The Disciplinary Process

• How to Determine the Appropriate Level
• Delivering the Discipline Message
• Documentation
• Termination Checklist

Join Zoe Stamolis for a fast pace interactive session where you will be able to take the knowledge you learned and apply to your department immediately. Zoe will take you step-by-step through the process for successful hiring and firing.

Meet the Speaker:

Zoe Stamolis has over 20 years of staffing and employment industry experience in the Puget Sound region having held positions in recruiting, management, operations and sales. Zoe joined Parker Services in 1995, a staffing organization. She specializes in Help Desk and Contact Centers placement and consulting in the Greater Puget Sound Region. Currently, she is Director of Sales for Parker, responsible for training and managing customer relationships. Zoe is involved in many professional associations including Membership Chair of the Northwest Recruiter’s Association and the Public Relations Director for the Northwest Call Center Professionals & Help Desk Professionals Northwest organizations.

10:30 - 11:45 AM
Technology Track

How to Audit Your Own Help Desk: Tips for Success

Donna Holt, President, Help Desk Xlence, www.helpdeskxlence.com

Ever wonder how your Help Desk measures up, but you don’t have the budget for a formal audit? · Are you tasked with “fixing” your help desk? · Are your customer satisfaction surveys results less than attractive? · Need to market the value of your Help Desk? Today’s fast-paced environment requires doing “more with less”. Best practices are key to our success. Self-auditing is the most cost-effective way to assess the current state of our Help Desk Operation. We will start you on your journey and address the pitfalls along the way.

Benefits of attending

• Learn to recognize the signs that indicate they are calling your operation, “Helpless”

• Reduce the cost of process improvement by performing a self-audit

• Determine where to begin your assessment; discover your weaknesses and strengths

• Avoid the pitfalls of self-assessment

• How to market your new and improved Help Desk

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.

10:30 - 11:45 AM
ITIL Track

ITIL Case Study: “Incident and Problem Management: The Internal Conflict”  Why should it  matter to IT Managers?”

Brandon Bell, Operations Manager, Autodesk (Problem Mgmt)

Todd Fong, Business Analyst, Autodesk (metrics and service improvement measurements)

Have you ever started a multi-year initiative … then had it stall? Has it just become the ‘flavor of the day’ ie Six Sigma, ISO… ITIL? Has Senior Mgmt put ITIL on Autopilot? .. How do you move forward after the ‘fad’ is over?

Now two years into their ITIL Journey, the Autodesk team will share with you their story about their successes and challenges in starting their ITIL Journey with Incident and Problem Management .. how their follow-the-sun Enterprise Service Desk fit into the equation and how they approached the process of changing their IT Culture.

When Autodesk implemented Incident and Problem Management, they encountered many of the typical problems that arise from the integration of these two processes. Incident and Problem Management work together to reduce the interruptions to business productivity. But while each process is beneficial to the other, they also lie in direct opposition to the goals of one another. When functional support organizations are asked to perform both Incident and Problem Management activities, prepare yourself for conflict!

Come participate as these two Autodesk vets share their candid story, and share how to avoid the inevitable pitfalls!

12:00 - 12:50 PM

CLOSING KEYNOTE ADDRESS: George Spalding

The Joy of Plumbing: How the Infrastructure of our Home Governs the Network

George Spalding, Senior Consultant, Pink Elephant, http://www.pinkelephant.com

In IT, we are entering an unprecedented age of compliance.  We’ve never before had to “comply” with someone else’s idea of what was right and good or even allowed in the way we designed and implemented our infrastructure.  Now our IT infrastructure underpin systems that keep whole economies running and keep people alive.  How long will we be able to “do our own thing”  Join George Spalding for this insightful look at the near future of our industry.

Key learning points:

• Will IT ever have codes and inspectors?

• What are the 3 “Ages” of IT?

• Will IT Governance spoil our “fun”?

• What can we expect in the IT shop of tomorrow?

Meet the Speaker:

In addition to a decade-long commitment to improving the lives of IT Managers and Professionals on five continents, George’s irreverent blend of quick wit and high-tech humor make him a much sought-after presenter. His speaking credentials include keynote presentations at nearly every support-related conference on several continents. He has earned a plethora of technical certifications making him a self-proclaimed “alpha” geek.

1:00 - 1:30 PM

CLOSING REMARKS: Ivy Meadors and Mary Kay Wegner

Valuable giveaways, final take-away ideas, and plans for next year's conferences.
Learn how you can be part of the event that is built by the people for the people in
the Help Desk industry.

Drawing for free HDP 2006 pass

Drawing for GCS 2006 pass

....And more.