What's the buzz? Service management conferences and events

welcome to the service management show from the team here at effic code uh my name is Gary blah I'm a service manager practice lead with EIC code and I'm joined by two guests who I'll let introduce themselves my name is Max temp I'm one of the uh Jos service management uh solution Specialists here at alatan uh I've been in the the itm space now for about eight years working at various vendors um and yeah joined by my colleague a so yeah my name is a and I'm a principal solution engineer here at atlassian focus on service management um like Max my background has been in service management for many many years um and prior to joining atlassian uh and I think we'll probably touch upon this later on in the the discussion I was the product Ambassador for itle for uh working at axelos and I've been to many service management conferences Venda conferences as well as industry conferences and uh yeah I'm here to talk about what that could offer to uh you lovely listeners yes so as as actually said the topic this month and uh as you'll hear later on we've all just been to an event is is conference season so service management conferences so every spring and to a lesser extent every Autumn and Fall is really the the main conference season and within the service management world we do love a conference so we love to get together with our peers and discuss things and we thought we would share um you know with the viewers and listeners is sort of our take on those sorts of events what we've got out of them in the past ourselves and what we see the real benefit of those but so to kick things off um I'm going to go to you actually because obviously you've you've proba done more of these than anyone else what's you know what are these what are service management conferences and what do they tend to focus around sure so uh there's uh many different types of service management conferences really dependent on uh who is organizing them so perhaps one of the most traveling uh types of conferences around the world is called itmf or it service management forign uh there is a um an international body itmf International and there are several chapters in different countries uh so itmf UK it Finland iism of Australia Japan so on and so forth and these different chapters organize their own calendar of uh different events uh be it online be it in person um uh could anywhere from a big annual conference to a local meet up to like a Master Class A one day master class on a particular topic uh to to share information uh with the community and itmf tend to be uh volunteer driven um and uh very much sort of for the community by the community sort of thing uh you then have a couple of uh organizations which are uh for-profit organizations um or have a for-profit uh angle um and they host some really really good service management conferences as well um for example service desk Institute help desk Institute and others uh and then you have the vendor conferences there's a lot of conference uh lot of events hosted by the likes of alassian and other vendors in space uh I think uh Gary uh you Max and I we were at one just a couple days ago hosted by atlassian here in Luman and there are several different Regional ones um around the world and the last type is sort of local user group or community events um which tend to be focused on uh uh the tool set and specific problems that users of the tool set customers of the tool set are are trying to uh solve so at a broad brush stroke those are the four different types of of conferences yeah you've named quite a few um there already um uh Max um you know what sorts of events have you attended in the past that you feel You've Really Got You Know value from and that the other attendees have you know there's been some interesting discussions yeah it's a really good question I think every event offers something slightly different depending on on what it is obviously you know your your sits events are we'll probably talk about that in a bit more but that that's kind of your you kind of go to um event for anything and everything itm you've got some amazing kind of thought leadership stuff right I know that AE you've done several talks there and I think you're planning on talking again this year I think one or two I am yeah I'm doing one talk on on the second day of of six this year yeah perfect um in addition to that you've got every itsm uh itm vendor um all in one place giv you know attendees the opportunity to you know speak to everyone in the ipsm industry and really learn what's going on in addition to the likes of Epic code um offering Services aligned with all these vendors so I think you know going to the sits of the world that gives you you know a really kind of big picture of what's going on in the industry as a whole um and then as you know AE said you've then kind of got your your thought leadership so I've gone to some great SDI conferences for example that you know really focus in and dive in on on um AI usage and actually kind of move away from just you know vendor sponsored with loads of vendors there trying to ultimately sell something and actually Focus just on um what are people doing using regardless of what their their solution is um but what are they doing how is it benefiting their clients what's working really well and actually just sharing that knowledge that other people can go away start thinking about how that could work for their business and how to start utilizing it so um you know those are the ones that I really enjoy I think as actually said you've then got your vendor specific hosted by the likes of elium um where you can really dive into what's going on with that particular product um how a customers using that solution and and within their organization so I think there's something to be had from from all the events I tend to find that they all offer some real value um I suppose it comes down to just what is it that you're looking for at that kind of one time really yeah it would also just jump off the back of that I I realized uh you know a shame on me that I didn't mention the partner conferences so I know F code for example you've done loads of different events or sort conferences uh certainly across Europe I know of a few that you've done you know there's the devop SAA one recently for example um and you do loads of webinars and stuff like that so that tends to be focused on a particular solution area or particular uh technology the beauty of the partner driven uh uh events is that the vendors uh for example can't get to every single country or every single location in a vast geographically dispersed country and the partner Network essentially offers a way to be able to work with the likes of eon to run events or to get the message out there in as many channels as possible as well yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly yes we we we basically help facilitate that yeah the future software I think is in about 3 weeks which is our next one but uh yeah I know from you know when I I first died going to service management events I'm not quite as far back as yourself actually but about 15 20 years ago as when I first started going to them and uh I do remember um my kind of key takeaways were things like the ability to kind of network you know and kind of on the sidelines so you go to like a talk and it might be fairly interesting and you'll chat to someone who's next to you and then you find out about a bit bit of what they do and then you find out that something that they've done in the past you think oh that's interesting and they'll recommend you go and speak to someone and then you go and speak to them and you start to to Really sort of build up that that knowledge or fill those gaps that you may have had i' I certainly I found that the most useful when I when I was first sort of exploring this and I I do feel you know because we had two or three years where these events didn't happen during the blip and do feel um that since then it's been really good you know personally on the other side of the fence now obviously I'm I'm you know I'm hosting or participating in a lot of these events but I do feel there's a lot more uh energy and there's some really interesting talks that have been done which are helping folk in the industry think about things differently I mean actually you did the fantast I don't I don't want to blow smoke your way but that you did that fantastic talk at the itmf in reading about impostor syndrome which is okay not directly related to service management but something a lot of service management professionals recognize absolutely that there's there's two things that I always uh encourage people to get out of going to an event by the way Gary you started going to events way before I do my sort of my sort of uh baptism into the conference circuit really I mean I'd been to a few conferences before joining exos but it really kicked off once I joined oh yeah of course yeah and that was 2016 was when I really hit the the conference circuit uh because that was part of my job uh look it it takes a lot of investment of time but also you know money because you've got to buy the pass in many cases you've got to pay for hotels or travel or whatever and I always encourage uh conference gos to really maximize what they're getting over the conference and that does take a bit of bravery and indeed everyone has some f of impastor syndrome I remember when I first went to conferences I was afraid to ask a question because I thought well everybody else knows this stuff I don't know it and if I put my hand up and ask this silly question everyone's going to laugh at me um that's not the case that the people who go to these conferences are genuinely interested in spreading knowledge in Skilling everybody else up sharing their experiences and learning from from the other attendee because even though you might not have the many years of experience that you know somebody else might have that youre talking to they're still learning from you because they're understanding what uh challenges um you know the next Generation on is facing in terms of service management so they can then take that acquired wisdom back as a consultant back as a a director of it in their company or or whatever it might be so it does take uh courage to sort of speak up to network it it means putting yourself out there but that genuinely is the best way to get a lot out of these conferences yes the talks are brilliant in many cases you come away thinking I never thought of something like this um at the reading conference I attended a talk about how difficult it was to offer 24x7 by 365 Service uh Support Services in airports until they started explaining it and saying well you've got the different airlines you've got the gate staff you got the passengers you got the baggage handlers got the catering you got the pilots all of these people have different needs and we SC to somehow bring it all together and within a 15 minute response time in many cases so there are very thought-provoking uh FKS that can happen at these conferences but this the other side of that coin is the networking and yeah you put those two together conferences are an amazing place to learn and grow professionally I totally agree um max um what sort of um what do you think of the kind of hot topics I we'll go we'll go around the table and and pick a few ourselves what's the sort of Hot Topics do you think at the moment and the sort of service management circuits when it comes to conferences and events all it's still got to be Ai and it's funny I don't think that's probably surprising to anyone but I think I think it's changed because when it was only a couple of years ago you know we started talking about the AI subject and I think you know when kind of go into um the conferences and listen to people to speak I think it was still quite conceptual you know you you'd of course get um a great example of someone talking about how they have adopted it but I think they were still kind of the outliers a little bit in that they were the first what I think more and more what's happening now is actually uh the AI solutions that we're talking about a lot of the time in these at conferences during these talks are actually um automations and technology that people can adopt pretty quickly and actually the the level of kind of all the foundations that need to go it or the or the path to access that is is much quicker um so although we're still talking I think about the same thing that we have been for what feels like a couple of years now actually I think it's progressed really well in that actually this is AI technology that everyone can adopt and everyone can realize value from really quickly um and that's the key that's the key thing I think for me um and it's really interesting to hear these stories because you start to you know I think there's the the kind of generalized use cases that we're all starting to expect and to see and that's great um but then you start to see uh how someone's used it in a really unique way um and actually you start to stop and think oh great what what else can we do other than just sumarized tickets which really powerful really useful but you know we want to start thinking more now about okay what are the use cases that are going to add greater value but also be implemented in in a kind of really easy lowcost um quick time to to kind of Market almost approach um so I think yeah a automation AI still the massive buzzwords I don't think they're going away anytime soon um but yeah really Keen to kind of see how actually uh organizations and people are starting to utilize it even more yeah agrees um the one I've been really really pleased to see us come back again cuz I I actually majored uh from University in human computer interaction so I I'm That's my kind of initial background actually and one I've really appreciated I went to itm SMF Helsinki uh and there were a couple of really good talks there on human centered design uh and sort of you know uh using that in terms of because there's a kind of feeling that you know some elements of service management where Technologies become you know really uh you know uh almost too much start of stepping back and actually thinking about the user experience and what they're looking to get have and these things are Cy Cy every two or three years it comes back around again but it does seem the last year because it was the same in reading and a few other events I've been to it may also be I'm just gravitating towards those talks but um I'm just pleased to hear that you know that kind of putting the per you know with all the great stuff that AI does thinking about the human at the end of it is also good M yourself actually any any sort of topics of um picked your interest recently yeah um I mean Gary I think you're absolutely right in saying it kind of depends on what you're looking to get out of conference and you will start to gravitate towards certain conferences or certain tracks in a particular conference so yes there is a lot of Buzz about Ai and AI is showing up in a lot of different places whether that's AI Ops whether that's uh AI for service desk agents AI for end users uh and so on you'll find plenty of talks uh and they're they're very interesting some can to repeat what other people are saying but there are some real some diamonds that are rough if you can if you can find them um so for myself I have been greatly encouraged by um I mean this is probably uh just a few trickles of you know oh sorry a few Pebbles rolling down the mountain and I'm hoping it becomes an avalanch at one point I'm really encouraged by how uh certain itmf chapters certain other uh conference organizers are trying to lean into things like mental well-being of service management professionals service desk staff especially uh and you know I Ops uh Engineers as well have an incredibly difficult job in many cases that they have to do 24 by7 they they're working you know unsocial hours waking up in the middle of the night to respond to calls that causes stress at home that causes stress physical and mental to the individual um and it's never really been addressed added in a satisfactory manner um as an industry and I'm very heartened to see especially it Smith UK has really taken up that baton and makes mental well-being uh a track within their uh conference every year for the past few years in fact the the talk you referenced Gary about imposter syndrome that was sort of my world story and how I deal with imposter syndrome that was accepted under the sort of mental well-being track and it was very well received by the audience as well so I'm really encouraged to see that the other thing which I think I'm seeing a lot more uh chatter about is things like AI but how do we govern Aon what are the ethics around using Aon and I remember talking to um a gentleman by the name of James finister um here in the UK he uh he's a AI ethicist I think is is how he describes himself and he was saying well think about it from a facility managing stand ESN use case let's say somebody puts in a a ticket saying I can smell smoke uh from the electrical switch and the lights are flickering or all but an AI de prioritizes that ticket and the few days later there's an electrical fire and the building there's there's building damage and all sorts of other things where is the ethics and the liability therefore in such a scenario how do we govern the use of AI so we don't have that sort of a situation and I think that's the next level of discussion Beyond how do we summarize comments uh how do we duplicate alerts Etc there's also got to be the conversation of when is it right to use AI when is it not right to use and where are the human controls in the system and the other the third topic that I I think there's that's getting tractioned right now is uh I mean devops is now what uh 10ish years old maybe a little bit more than 10 years old at this point I don't want to say it's commodity but you know everybody's doing devop so in a way you know if everybody's doing it then nobody's doing it sort of a nobody special right everybody special nobody special um but product management as an industry continues to evolv and there's a conversation that needs to be had about how does service management Now update itself to sit alongside modern product management techniques and approaches how does it need to evolve and where what what's the direction in which it has to travel that's started to get a little bit of traction now and that's also encouraging to see yes yeah I had funny enough I had a discussion on that this very uh this very day this morning before we recording uh around that as well and also I want to also call out you mentioned the itmf and the mental uh health and uh well-being uh they've teamed up with the women of itm this year as well um the that group and I know they've got an event planned later this year because there's lots of again you know got a broad spectrum of topics around the challenges that women have faced in this industry you know particularly around things like child care and stuff so uh yeah we we interviewed a lady from that group um a few shows ago so I refer to refer fol back to that video as well um right so uh let's talk about atlastin connect so we've just come from that that was what two days ago now um max do you want to sort of just give a brief overview of what atlastin connect was just for anyone who didn't attend yeah absolutely so this was actually my first alasan uh certainly first ho uh alasan hosted event and you know for me it was always going to be quite interesting because you know haven't been to one of these I've done other vendors so it's always quite interesting to compare how you know how these are run and where that value is I think this was a great opportunity for um clients or or non-clients to really co