Posted on Thursday 3 February 2022.
SDI would like to welcome Kim Blackmore to our team as our new interim Business Administrator! To get to know Kim a little better, we asked a few ‘just for fun’ questions, and a few about her work experience in the ITSM industry so far. We loved Kim’s answers so much we thought we’d share them with the SDI community, as we’re sure a lot of you will be able to relate to these changes in ways of working in just a short space of time…happy reading !
What’s your favourite film and why? My favourite film has to be Dead Poets Society. I find this film deeply touching and inspiring. Robin Willliams was a phenomenally talented actor.
What can’t you live without? Oxygen 😋 …Other than that probably the sound of my step children laughing and giggling.
Where’s your most favourite place that you’ve visited? The Grand Canyon was awe-inspiring by helicopter.
What was your very first job? My first job was for a large Investment House, working on their IT Helpdesk. I was fresh out of School having completed my A Levels and had an interest in IT and helping others. It was so exciting, and a little overwhelming at first being in the big wide world and working in the buzz of the City of London.
The Helpdesk as they were back then, was very busy every day, and I learnt a huge amount! We were located just off one of the server rooms… it was a tiny room and at times there was my team of 3, plus 3 or 4 others who operated the Mainframes, no windows and not enough chairs to go round! It was an interesting start to my career and after 12 months I was ready to move to Desktop Support as that seemed to be where I could learn a lot more and where the fun was!
What do you like about working with IT service teams? I love that people care, genuinely care about serving others and doing the best that they can to support people with their technology needs, the passion for learning and embracing new technology.
What’s the biggest change you’ve witnessed in the industry? There were three big shifts that I noticed during my career in IT:
The first one specifically to Service Desks was the introduction to remote desktop software. I think this was the most positive shift; suddenly the team had new visibility and could see what was going on rather than both parties trying not to get frustrated talking it through! This transformed the Service effectiveness and it was a buzz to be able to fix issues ourselves rather than passing them onto other teams.
The 2nd shift, I saw was to migrate Service Desks to other countries for cheaper resources and to save on other expenses. I have to admit, I took this one personally when the Company I was working for decided to do this. I had been managing the team for four years, and I was very proud of what we had created and achieved in terms of development and evolving the service and technical know-how of the team; I found it heart-breaking and a big dent in my ego!
The 3rd shift, I saw was the usage of self-service systems, tools, emails, measuring and the drive to improve service. What I see, is that service comes from the heart, not the head; when people have a clear mind rather than full of noisy thinking, they experience the world differently, they come up with fresh ideas, make changes effortlessly and are naturally compassionate, open to learning and to new ideas.
What do you think might be one of the next big shifts? What I see is the separation between humans; with a world of technology, processes and stats we have shifted away from what it is to be human. I see the next shift will be transforming IT Leadership in bringing about a new service culture of human connection, compassion, resilience, innovation, wellbeing, clarity and productivity; to keep up with the faster and larger leaps in technology.
What do you think would be another advantageous shift in the industry? A shift towards a human-centered approach, where IT teams are valued for the work they do in supporting businesses and organisations. Investment, support and development of people is fundamental to transforming the service which IT teams provide.
Are robots going to take over the universe? Will it be like Robocop, the Terminator or more like Wall-E, Robots and Ralph Breaks the Internet? Who knows! What I think is, it’s likely we will closely and even fully integrate with technology and it will become part of us. AI will change our lives in ways we cannot begin to imagine, humans will evolve as a result of the technological advances and ecological changes to our planet.
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