Just back from Fusion 2009 - “the best of shows and the worst of shows.” Some data points:

1. •This was the most Tweeted ITSM show ever it seems, with hundreds of tweets and even full motion video tweets courtesy of @ServiceSphere aka Chris Dancy.
   

2. •Beyond using social media for tweeting, social media concepts such as staying in touch with customers is emerging as a real and viable tool within IT (or at least people are talking about trying to understand the customer, which is good!)
   

3. •That these concepts (basically manifestations of service strategy) are so dimly understood gives me pause though.
   

4. •More concerning was the negativity expressed toward the Service Strategy book. This bothers me since Service Strategy is the one ITIL book based on sound science and academically validated concepts -- the rest of ITIL is good practice, which means what we have figured out by trial and error, not necessarily statistically validated however. That the one book based on science, and arguably the one topic that matters most to success (strategy) is so woefully misunderstood by so many is scary.
   

5. •The ITIL community is fracturing. The creators of ITIL are going to “fix” it a bit, with tremendous impact (not good) to the training industry; which impact does not seem to matter to the powers that be...Indeed it would seem the powers that be in ITIL don’t even take into consideration the ramifications of their decisions on those who arguably make ITIL work.
   

6. •The ITIL community is coming together in order to sustain the huge amount of change OGC (and APMG) is driving in the form of official refreshes, re-writes and updates to both.
   

7. •I got nominated for an award (unexpectedly as part of an itSMF committee I work on) which always makes one feel special.
   

8. •That so many asked me about strategy and business focus was very good.
   

9. •That so many asked questions like “We have great Change Management processes, but how do we make our people follow them?” makes me sad and/or want to scream. [Answer? Job descriptions and a 90 day plan to termination. Reference? Management 101. Next question?]
   

So, my feelings about Fusion 2009 can be best summarized by Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way."