The itSMF USA IT Service Management Think Tank AKA "The Revolutionary Network"

[stephenmann]

At this year's joint itSMF USA and HDI conference — FUSION13 — something is brewing.

I know it's getting close to Halloween but this involves creatures of a different kind: IT industry notables, pundits, prognosticators, and futurists. They are convening on FUSION13 with a mission — to help imagine a new future for ITSM and maybe the IT industry as a whole.

The Revolutionary Network is born

Charles Araujo — all-round IT and IT service management (ITSM) dynamo, itSMF USA board member, and author of The Quantum Age of IT — is running an invitation-only think tank called The Revolutionary Network (RevNet for short) designed to take advantage of the collected wisdom and creativity of event attendees; with the aim of imagining a new future for ITSM and maybe the IT industry as a whole.

Why?

To quote the Amazon.com introduction to Charlie's book:

"'IT as we know it is dead.' Forces are at work that are reshaping the very fabric of the IT organization. Driven by our own history, changing perceptions of how technology should work and newfound, but very real, competition, IT organizations are struggling to evolve - but into what?"

But it's not just Charlie's POV.

IT analysts and other industry pundits are constantly talking of the impact of changing business and IT landscapes. Including how, what Gartner calls the "nexus of forces" — social, mobile, analytics (big data), and cloud — along with other hot topics such as BYOD (bring your own device), CYOD (choose your own device), automation, multi-supplier environments, and the importance of customer experience (or as Forrester terms it: the "Age of the Customer") will affect the status quo.

So how exactly does the traditional enterprise IT organization need to change?

But does it even realize that it needs to change? And can it change quickly enough?

How will RevNet work?

It's an informal gathering with participants encouraged to use the time, space, and network connections FUSION13 provides to contemplate, discuss, and debate the future.

No doubt things will be tweeted as conversations progress. If you use Twitter then please follow the Tweet-stream using #smfusion13 and #revnet. You will probably have already seen people you know using these hashtags.

The itSMF USA will also conduct interviews and film in-flight conversations in an attempt to outwardly show the mechanics and lifeblood of the conversations.

Finally, there will be a final formal session for the group to report back on their thinking, and the required next steps, to the conference as a whole.

Want to say something about this?

If you have any burning questions, ideas, gripes, or advice for the group then please post them here or, as the Community sign up process isn't instantaneous, please contact me directly (via stephen.mann at servicenow.com [(add the @ in) or @stephenmann] or just Tweet them using the #revnet hash tag.