Today is the last day of the itSMF Fusion event. Since this has been my first it has been interesting to see others in my field of work interact. Overall the event was probably larger than I expected in terms of the number of attendees. Facilities were good as was the city of Charlotte, NC.

On one hand, the event itself was put together rather well. There seemed to be plenty of do to keep one busy. I did find at times, it to be a bit overwhelming and an exercise in Calendar Management. There was definitely something for everyone. 8 Tracks to choose from in terms of sessions being conducted per track. I copped out and chose the first track. Seemed the easiest to follow.

In retrospect, I probably should have chosen some of the other tracks that were more in depth in terms of covering areas of ITSM and ITIL. What I found in most of the sessions I attended was more of Case Studies around implementing ITIL. The companies that were presenting were not on the same scale as our efforts, but it was good to hear that even at the small players they have some of the similar hurdles to clear on the road to implementation. What has been one of the focal points of the event has been ITIL v3. Attendees are struggling with not simply what v3 means to their v2 efforts, but also what to do about certification.

Whether or not to jump on the bandwagon being driven by some of the training companies pushing to be the first in the neighborhood to offer v3 courses. The tricky thing is that there are still questions around the certification process that still has to be worked out. The bridging from Foundation v2 to v3 seems to be the only one that has some solid focus. However, to hear some of these training companies speak, terms like "We were the first to... bla bla bla." I am not sure I want to be involved in the first round of this. Our organization has decided to hold off a bit. We'll do the budget for '08 with a focus on v3 but will not commit to any training until at lease the first quarter of '08. For now, v2 is serving us nicely given the maturity of our efforts in deploying Incident and Problem.

So in a matter of hours the event ends for me. I do not regret attending, it has been a great opportunity to network with others who are focused on IT Service Management. The feeling of being alone in the effort has lifted. It was a good three days. I will probably attend next year as well as it moves to the Left Coast at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. I do know one thing. Next year I will be booking early to get one of the good hotels. No more staying in the boonies for me. Signing off from Charlotte...