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Doug Kaye's IT Conversations, one of podcasting's greatest resources, has a talk by Michael Disabato on "The
Michael Disabato, NTS Service Director for the Burton Group, on "The Evolving Technology Organization". It basically deals with ITIL, from what I've been able to hear.
The slides of the talk are apparently not available. I'm getting free content from a Burton Group conference, so I'm not going to weep.
ITIL is something I've been meaning to learn. With my background of successes in IT processes, including ISO 9001, ITIL makes the natural next step. It provides a good balance to the software manufacturing bent of the SEI's Capability Maturity Model.
Like the CMM, ITIL isn't a set as much as a set of recommendations and standards.
And it's bloody expensive if you're not in the company.
Here's a post I wrote awhile back that's worth looking at again. Not because it's such wonderful prose — although, frankly, I'm always surprised that I wrote things as well as I did — but because I think it makes sense.
There's nothing like living your life as "Ready, Fire! Now, aim, fire, aim, fire, aim, fire...."
And, oddly, it's from a year ago last Friday.
What could be finer than to spend your afternoon with middle-schoolers?
It was one of those rare days, when you've worked and worked and worked and worked on your relationships with the kids, the kids with each other, you with the parents. They started off screaming, throwing Doritos brand snack chips and playing the music loud. We even got it louder, so loud that we had to shout at the person next to us.
"It was great! It was like being at a concert!"
Loud, rowdy and obnoxious. I thought that I would surely be getting a phone call from a parent later tonight.
We did the book's games, which made us all uncomfortable. We did the "hot seat" interviews, which were just lame: the kids don't trust each other yet.
And then we came to the part of the lesson where I usually moan because it doesn't make any sense and is lousy doctrinally to boot.
Except it wasn't. It was golden.
Here's a hard learned lesson:
You are not going to change your personality very easily.
Some of you may believe that I am wrong. I would like to see some evidence before you go spouting off. The only way to radically change your personality is to undergo what psychologists call the Conversion Experience. It's not limited to Paul on the road to Damascus or religious zealots. Communists had them, going from non-believers or lackluster followers to hard-core activists, willing to die for Communism. For whatever reason, that really does transform your personality, totally and thoroughly. But let's be honest: almost no one undergoes these instaneous personality realignments.
The rest of us can benefit from understanding our intrinsic motivations, determined by our personalities, and instead of trying to change ourselves, work on using our own motivations to accomplish our goals.
After overworking and a sickness, including missing personal commitments as a result of both, L and I have arrived in beautiful Cary, North Carolina, outside of Raleigh. I'm job hunting and she's enjoying spending time with my sister-in-law.
Who has recommended an old friend whose business might be able to benefit from my experience and skills.
I needed to do something. I've had a lead on a job in Chicago that I'm only pursuing now. The retail sales job is more tiring than I gave it credit. Of course, working below your capacity is tiring. Hopefully, later I'll be able to get all my files together and all the old material re-integrated. After all, I don't make money at any of this. I just write about what I'm interested in.
I missed a funeral, a Christmas celebration, the kickoff of Cingular (and about $100 in SPIFFs) and a cheap training session in the midst of everything.
Well, let's be thankful that those horrid "holiday" songs no longer permeate that retail air with their rancid sounds....