In the spirit of the somewhat overstated movie advertisement: “If you only read one of my blogs this year, read this one”; although I prefer the version for The Naked Gun 2 1/2: “If you only see one movie this year... you should get out more often.”

Anyway, so many blogs, so little time; and what did I say that was important (if only in my own tiny mind)? Each bullet links through to the original blog.

IT service management

• IT support … is not about the IT, that it has to be about the people and the business.
• When it comes to the service desk, we should recruit “better” people, pay more, BUT also expect more.
• Top 10 IT Service Management Challenges For 2012: More Emphasis On The “Service” And The “Management”
• Mobile-device-driven change is inevitable and I&O organizations need to be ready.
• Bench marking information … is the sort of stuff that the ITSM community (see my previous blog) is crying out for.
• Surely the modern service-savvy customer, whether corporate or not, is not prepared to be treated in this way.
• How happy are you with your ITSM tool?
• IT organizations need … a tool that moves at the speed that their parent business requires them to (or faster).

Plus:

• IT Service Management Metrics: Advice And 10 Top Tips
• Have You Considered BI for IT Service Management?
• Sharing The ITSM And ITAM Goodness Of CA World: 20+ Presentations To Download
• ServiceNow Knowledge11: ITSM And Social Learning For Us All

ITIL

• By far my most popular blog: Top 20 (OK, 50) ITIL Adoption Mistakes.
• I often describe ITIL v3 as the “Return of the Jedi” to v2’s “The Empire Strikes Back” (too geeky?), and my continued conversations with ITSM/I&O practitioners and ITSM tool vendors have left me still hunting for the unicorn that is ITIL v3 in the wild.
• Those with a vested interest in the success of ITIL should do more to assist with its real-world (rather than financial) success.
• I wanted service not “service credits.”
• Of the major ITIL processes, truly effective problem management activity can provide some of the highest returns to an organization.
• “ITIL: What Constitutes Success?”

Plus:

• Getting Started With ITIL – The 30-Minute Version.
• Where Is All The Incident Classification Best Practice?

People stuff and the ITSM Community

• The ABC Of ICT - The Top 10 People Success Factors For IT Service Management
• Take personal responsibility for taking ITSM to the next level.
• Getting DevOps right will address many of the issues enterprises consistently have with IT, such as applications failing to meet both functional and nonfunctional requirements, delivery delays, increased costs, and an inflexibility to change.
• Why shouldn’t people working in, and benefitting from, the ITSM community give back?
• The next time you're selecting a new ITSM tool, be cheeky and ask the vendor how they support the ITSM community. 

IT asset management and software asset management

• SAM is rising from the ashes of its compliance era, in many ways this time “it’s all about the Benjamins.”
• Remember, it's not just your assets that are on the line.

IT financial management and value

• I&O professionals really do need to have answers, however embarrassing, before the business starts to ask awkward questions about costs and value.
• Stories about CIOs and I&O execs fired because they couldn’t articulate the value their IT team delivered to the business will not be uncommon in the next one to three years. Make sure that you aren’t one of them.
• Not one person in the room admitted to knowing what their corporate email service costs.
• To compete in the new IT landscape I&O needs so much more of the “management” element of “IT management.”

Well, there you have it, my first six months blogging at Forrester.

It might look like the typings of an infinite number of monkeys but it is meant to be somewhat fun. Have a great holiday season.