Fear, Loathing and ITIL in Las Vegas

Short’s keynote at the Pink16 ITIL/ITSM conference covered his early life, tragedy, his career in Hollywood and a few life lessons about overcoming adversity, and was liberally sprinkled with his trademark dry wit and deadpan humor. But it didn’t have anything to do with ITIL – sorry.

What I learned, though, from the other sessions I attended, was more relevant – that creating an atmosphere of trust and engagement in the workplace can be a grueling journey, but it’s one well worth the effort even if you have to break up a few fights along the way. That the ITIL framework can be incredibly useful for CIOs looking to get a handle on IT operations and make sure their users are getting the most value possible from IT, but that ITIL isn’t necessarily appropriate for every company. And that identifying leadership strengths, and building on those to improve performance and engagement is much more effective than focusing on weaknesses.

In a lot of ways, though, Short’s monologue at Pink16 parallels what I want to do in my blog. Bear with me as I try to explain. Short doesn’t have anything to do with IT, and yet, the wisdom he shared — about overcoming adversity, trying new things, using humor and wit to tackle serious subjects — is broadly applicable to most things human beings struggle with in their lifetimes, both at home and on the job.

I hope I can do the same with my blog — relate my own personal experiences as a women in tech who’s been observing and reporting on the industry since 2004, a working Mom and the wife of a software developer — to larger IT issues involved in IT careers, hiring and retention; diversity and inclusion, women in tech, software development and agile, and other topics. I hope you’re intrigued, and that you’ll stop by every Thursday to join the conversation.