Latest News from the Chief Editor

After almost two months in the job I am pleased to report that some important milestones have been reached.

Our new "Knowledge Repository"

My primary responsibility is to establish a new collection of material for our members worldwide. We will offer much more than books, the "knowledge repository" is going to provide not only somewhere you can go to get information, but also a place where our members can share their own knowledge with the global community. Our mission is for this to be your first port of call when you are looking for any Service Management related information. Whether you want a PowerPoint presentation, a template for a policy, an academic research article or a book, we expect to be able to provide it.

Quite obviously this is not going to happen overnight, there is a lot of planning to do, authors to commission, publishing partners to find, delivery methods to devise.....but we believe that the effort will be worth it.
A key outcome of both the recent International Board meeting and the IPESC meeting was the decision to form a "Project team" which has been given the title of "Interim Editorial Advisory Board". This group of people is a crucial support for the Chief Editor's role, providing guidance on strategy, building the publications plan for the coming year and defining our service portfolio.

Being in Europe for the International Board meeting and the IPESC meeting has given me valuable opportunities to meet with some of our strategic partners and other key players in the industry to see where we can work together to provide unified services to our members.

I have been excited by some of the opportunities presented during these meetings and look forward to exploring these further in order to deliver a comprehensive catalogue of publications to our members.

While in Italy for the recent IPESC meeting I also took the opportunity to meet with members of the Italian Board who were in Rome for their conference. This was a good opportunity to discuss the proposed publishing direction and talk about how chapters can contribute and benefit from this project. I look forward to being able to interact with the boards of other chapters too.
Being at chapter events opens up a whole new world of potential authors. Have you ever sat in a conference presentation and thought "I wish my boss, colleague, team....could be here to hear this!" That is one of things we want to be able to make possible. There are so many conference presenters out there who do not realise that they have a book, a white paper, a simply a video of their presentation that the wider ITSM community wants to read or see. Part of my role is to mentor these potential authors and help them to share the skills and knowledge they have with all our members.

IPESC

IPESC is going to be a key support for my role in the future, with an important part to play in providing market intelligence from all of our chapters and recommending local subject matter experts who may be willing to contribute to our new knowledge repository.
Three working parties were formed from IPESC to look at key areas which will be important as we move into this new era in publications. One group will be looking at the question of endorsement and whether or not this is still a valid role for IPESC and itSMF International to play. Another group was charged with looking at options for chapters who do not wish to have their own bookstores. The final group will be looking at the proposed Academic Journal that we would like to launch in 2010.

TSO Publications

The International Board has signed contracts with TSO covering our co-branded publications and translations of the core and co-branded books into other languages.

We have had some major teething issues with the new contracts, with agreements on costs taking a long to time get through. The first two contracts for the Foundation Handbook translations took several weeks to finalise. I have to thanks the Japanese and Danish chapters for being the "Guinea Pigs" for this process and being extremely patient as the new contracts were bedded in. The next translation projects will benefit from this experience. So Continual Service Improvement at work.

The translations of the core books into Japanese and German were completed some time ago and sales for these books have been very pleasing. Translations of the core books into French, Castilian Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified Chinese are well underway, with the first of the French books now available and the second due out very soon.
Japan and Denmark are translating the ITIL V3 Foundation Guide into their respective languages. Negotiations are underway with other chapters for translations of various books. The Gulf Chapter has agreed to take on the translation of the Foundation Handbook into Arabic .

If your chapter is interested in translating either the core books, the Foundation Handbook or the Key Element Guides, please get in touch with me. I suggest that chapters start with the translation of either the Foundation Handbook or the Key Element Guides, this enables them to test the market, and their processes with a much smaller project rather than launching straight into the huge undertaking of translating the core books.

What next?

We will shortly be launching a survey, seeking input to help us form our final publications strategy. Your responses to this survey will help us decide what the intial offerings in our new repository will be. In October I will present the plan to the CLC in Barcelona.
Process plans which will explain how to submit your ideas for consideration will be published in August. These plans will show you what to expect when you offer to provide us with material for the repository.

In conclusion, the past 2 months have been a whirlwind of activity with a number of ups and downs along the way. I believe the future looks bright for itSMFi publications, and you can all be a part of that future. Your input is essential to making this a success and I look forward to hearing from you with your ideas.

I welcome feedback, book proposals, and whitepaper/presentation/case-study submissions. If you have some Intellectual Property that our membership could benefit from I would love to speak with you. This initiative needs to be owned by our membership, globally, to be a success. I need your support and input to make it work. Contact me at kirstie.magowan@itsmfi.org

Kirstie Magowan
Chief Editor
itSMF International