International Speaker Panel Presenter Guidelines

Presenter Guidelines

1. Introduction

itSMF International has developed some policies for its authors and presenters. These are intended to improve the professionalism of itSMF meetings and conferences and to avoid unwanted controversy. This document outlines these policies.
If you have further questions, contact your itSMF Chapter contact.

2. What is a Product?

A product is defined as software, hardware, or services that are primarily intended for use to support IT service management activities.

Such products include service level reporting, performance, chargeback, asset management, change management, incident reporting etc. and some data collection tools.

A data collection tool is defined as a product unless the tool is:

• An integral part of an operating system, transaction processing system or a database system; or
• Provided for use with an operating system, transaction processing system or a database system by the vendor who produces the measured system.

To illustrate this policy, it is useful to consider a few examples:

• Operating systems like IBM’s OS/390 or UNIX are not defined as products since they are intended for a much broader usage than IT service management.
• Data collection tools like SMF and RMF are not defined as products since they are either integral parts of the operating system or are marketed by the vendor who produces the software system being monitored.
• BMC’s Patrol is considered to be a product since it has specific functionality that supports IT service management activities.

Authors with specific questions about the classification of a particular product are encouraged to contact the Conference or Event Committee.

3. Disparagement

itSMF promotes advances among the users and vendors of IT service management related products and services. While itSMF encourages scientific enquiry and experimentation that may result in comparisons of products and services among competing vendors, itSMF is not intended to provide a forum for disparaging comments. Hence, itSMF participants are expected to maintain a standard of professional conduct that avoids disparaging comments about any vendor’s products or services.
Although participants may indicate the advantages and strengths of a product or service methodology, they should refrain from making derogatory or defamatory comments and should not seek to employ itSMF as a forum to motivate a vendor’s response to any perceived weakness or omissions in a product or service.

4. Vendor Presentations

From time t time, concerns are expressed by itSMF members over the inappropriate use of conference sessions by vendor representatives for presentations that are primarily of a marketing nature. Specific instances have ranged from perhaps inadvertent references to sales statements such as “Let me describe our product that solves …”. It is not the policy of itSMF to exclude vendor presentations as they make a significant contribution to our conferences. Therefore, itSMF’s policy on presentations by vendor representatives is:

• Presentations that describe or introduce products are unacceptable as part of the general meeting or conference programme. This policy is not intended to restrict vendors from presenting studies that include references to their products. For example, a presentation on the use of a reporting tool to manage service levels would be encouraged, so long as the presentation focused on characteristics of the service level objectives, rather than the tool used. However, authors are encouraged to use generic rather than specific model names in their titles.

To summarize, we expect vendor representatives to be prudent in the selection of their subject material for presentation at itSMFI conferences and meetings.

If a vendor representative begins a flagrant marketing presentation during an itSMF function, the session chairperson will be instructed to halt the presentation.

Any author in doubt about the eligibility of their paper for presentation at an itSMF function should contact the Conference or Event Committee.

4.1 Vendor Stream

Vendors may choose to make a presentation in the vendor stream of the conference, when this is included in the conference programme. Papers presented in this stream are subject to the same conditions as that of normal conference presentations except that the restriction of naming and describing products is relaxed. The presenter may name a product or products and discuss its features in relation to their subject, however the presentation should not be construed as an opportunity for hard-selling. If a vendor representative begins a flagrant sales pitch, the session chair person will be instructed to halt the presentation.

5. Non-Vendor Presentations

Non-vendor authors are encouraged to avoid the use of specific product names in their titles. Generic terms should replace references to specific product names in the paper.

While the author’s choice of specific products may be a valuable reference for the attendee, the attendee could assume that the lack of specific references to alternative products implies that acquiring a particular product is the only method of solving a given problem. Therefore, the author should refer at least briefly in their paper and presentation to any available alternative products. Any author in doubt about the eligibility of their paper for presentation at itSMFI should contact the Conference or National Committee.

6. Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the use of another person’s work without acknowledgment. In academic circles, this is considered a serious breach of professional conduct, although it does not seem to be so seriously regarded in the business world.
If you use another person’s work, you should reference that work. Papers that report other people’s work with some extensions and commentary are perfectly acceptable, as this is frequently a way of making information available to a wider audience. However, such a paper should clearly state that it is a summary of existing work, and not novel in its own right. To a great extent, itSMF is dependent on the honesty of its authors in this area, as it is not possible for the organising committee to be familiar with every published paper. However, many attempts at plagiarism are discovered after publication, often by the plagiarised author. If plagiarism in a paper published by itSMF is brought to our notice, we will publish an apology to the original author.

7. Non-Sexist Language

Authors should as far as possible write their papers so that the language does not imply that men have all the bright ideas and women make the coffee. It is not difficult to avoid use of the pronoun “he”; two techniques are to use plural constructions and to use the passive voice. For example, instead of writing “The customer service representative must keep his wits about him when he negotiates with users”, you could write: “Customer service representatives need to stay alert when negotiating with users”.
Non-sexist writing is a habit easy to acquire and worth the effort.