It’s the start of a new year in your career, and whether you lead an IT service desk or a team of IT service management (ITSM) professionals focused on IT service delivery, it’s an ideal opportunity to take stock of where you are professionally and where you want to be in the future (along with the associated development needs).
There are, of course, many routes to becoming a better leader and to your future career progression. Whether it be formal training attendance, on the job coaching, taking on greater responsibility in your current role, an internal secondment, or attending industry conferences aimed at service and support professionals and leaders.
Then there are the many development areas, such as:
· Leadership and management skills – from helping others to be their “best self” to becoming your “best self”
· Personal development – from something like negotiation skills through to ensuring your personal wellbeing
· Technical advancements – from the opportunities of artificial intelligence (AI) to “the next big thing” in technology
· New approaches to service and support – from customer experience (CX) to the current focus on, the now very hot, employee experience.
Understanding what you need as an IT leader
Of course, not all of these will be relevant to you (in terms of what you need to achieve and where you wish to be). In fact, you might not yet know which of these and other development areas will be most important to you (or, indeed, where you wish to be).
It’s why we go to such great lengths to provide an annual conference for IT leaders that encapsulates a wide range of content that provides immediate insight and assistance, and also helps attendees to figure out which future development needs will be most relevant to their career direction (and perhaps even to figure out their career direction).
SDI21 Live & Interactive as a case in point
2021’s SDI conference for IT leaders continues to progress the event’s dual focus of providing attendees with a variety of keynotes and stream sessions that help with both the “here and now” and the future needs of leaders and the organisations they work in.
For example, the keynotes for SDI21 are:
Zena Everett presenting on “Crazy Busy: How to get more done in a day than you do now in a week” which has the strapline “Do you want to be five times more productive, collaborative, agile, successful? And to work less hours? Who doesn’t!”. Here Zena will explore ways to be five times more effective and the hijackers that can prevent this (and can waste 20% of your time). It’s the equivalent of getting one day a week back!
Jason Bradbury of The Gadget Show presenting on “2020 Vision – Predicting the next 20 years of tech”. This will include AI along with related disruptive technologies such as FinTech, Blockchain, and automated coding. Plus, The Exponential Growth model and how these models help us to predict where we’re heading in the next ten years.
James Dodkins of the company Rockstar CX – which helps companies to deliver “rockstar customer experiences” through coaching, training, and workshop facilitation – and host of Amazon Prime’s “This Week in CX” presenting “Rules for rockstars”. Seems it’s the world’s first and only musical CX keynote.
Scott McArthur of Sculpture Consulting presenting on “Who is paying for your attention?”. Which will introduce the growth and importance of a new economy – the attention economy – in which everybody wants your attention, from social media to tech companies. Scott’s talk will outline how these companies hijack our minds to determine what we focus on, and the choices we make, for their own profit. He will also suggest ways in which we can take back control of our attention and how to utilise the technology ecosystem to improve our personal wellbeing, productivity, and performance.
Plus, there are the various streams of best practice and forward-looking content including a keynote-like Metrics Workshop from Jeff Rumburg, President and CEO of MetricNet LLC. Jeff is always one not to miss.
Register for SDI21
If the above has piqued your interest, then please take a deeper look at the full speaker line up for SDI21.
Taking place live over four days from 16-19 March 2021 and then full access to the huge array of on demand contetn, the event will bring together a record number of IT service professionals from over twenty countries and every industry. With world-class keynote speakers, thought leading industry expert panels and multiple practical workshops and on demand session the event promises something for every IT leader.
Please join us at this unique gathering of IT leaders and professionals to discover how brilliant IT service can transform your business.
