Selected comments from the IT Skeptic blog for August 2007

This month I'm determined to limit myself to a few interesting comments. Let's see how successful I can be:

Another vision | Visitor (not verified)
...The itSMFUSA membership is somewhat aggrandized, and is more realistically around 4,000. As the planet discovered with the voting issue, most of their membership comes as a result their conference and most of them don’t renew their memberships...

itSMF | jvbon
..."The itSMF" is not the same as "the UK chapter of itSMF" although many of its members still seem to think so.
In 1994 the Dutch installed a legal entity called the ITIMF, which changed its name to itSMF in 1996 or 1997. So if you are right, that makes them the first official/legal itSMF.... ;-)

Members and mission | Visitor (not verified)
itSMFUSA members are a market to sell to rather that a population to serve.

Well said... | Visitor (not verified)
...Another sad realization, the crucial election debacle. To paraphrase the president, the bogus votes didn’t affect the outcome, so, no harm no foul. Excuse me, does anyone see a problem here? When the next great problem surfaces, will this be the strategy the board employs?

[More itSMF (and IoSM) comments here]

Over the ATOs' dead bodies! | skeptic
...there will be a battle royal between the ATOs and the universities over the Diploma-level certifications. And if the universities win, then I for one wouldn't be going to an ATO for the Foundation and practitioner papers either, I'd be doing 100 and 200 level papers at varsity.

V3 Foundations Syllabus - Yikes! | Liz (not verified)
...It is very much a mess with the sample exams that have incorrect answers, and no rationalization with each answer. My students were very frustrated...

[And many more comments on that thread.]

Yanks are engaged | Visitor (not verified)
It seems even the US government is getting into the services game. Section 1106 of the "National Competitiveness Act" is all about services with a heavy bent on IT and business strategy. http://forums.thesrii.org/srii/blog/article?blog.id=spohrer&message.id=2...

LOL | brian_dayton
...there is nothing wrong with ITIL taking a more academic flavour. It raises the level of discussion. My biggest worry is having people who are not challenged and motivated to think. They cost me money, so I want the most out of them...

public domain | jvbon
...The result of the CAR project has clearly placed ITIL outside of the public domain - which is not a problem, just a fact...

judge not by the cover but the content | ITMaturity
It will be a pity to judge ITIL v3 by bad experiences with vendors, ITSMF, or the authors. It is not about the outside or the package. It is about the content of the framework.

Lean and ITIL | Visitor (not verified)
...The key to Toyota’s success is not from a set of techniques but from its philosophy. Instead of copying what they do, manufacturers should have copied how Toyota thinks...

Virtualization and CMDB federation | Marv Waschke (not verified)
...the challenge in a CMDB for virtualization is the dynamic nature of the beast. Generally, I think you need to distinguish between configuration and operational state. Configuration is the relatively static side of a CI: set it, but don’t forget it. Operational state is what changes as a CI does its job. Generally, a CMDB is designed to manage configuration; managing operational state is for monitoring tools. Crisp, this distinction is not. CMDB users often want real-time status and monitors display configuration all the time. Virtualization blurs the distinction even more because you could say that the configuration of the VM is an operational status that changes as rapidly as any conventional operational status...

[And lots more meaty CMDB content on that thread.]

Coming of the Messiah | Visitor (not verified)
Good job man. You've made a name for yourself criticizing ITIL v3. Those who had axes to grind with various parties hailed you as their masked hero. You then emerged from the sky "unveiling" yourself as the Chosen One. And now you want "variations on the accepted ITIL wisdom"?! for a group that tried to discredit the v3 project simply because of OGC decisions regarding publications and certifications. You are now in a position to anoint entire groups, organizations, publications, and judge on what is "wisdom". Surely, you must be the Messiah we were all waiting for!! Wow! This would never happen in another industry.