Dr. Jackie Freiberg
Best-selling author and thought leader 

BOOM! 7 Choices for Blowing the Doors off Business-as-Usual
Collective wisdom from some of the most innovative businesses, gutsy leaders, and accountable employees culminates into seven essential choices that cause culture, service, success, and business to BOOM. Explore why a company’s success is as much the will of the people as it is the CEO. Leadership is a choice, not a position or title. Blowing the doors off business-as-usual is about ordinary people – at all levels – doing whatever-it-takes to be extraordinary. Best-selling author and thought leader, Dr. Jackie Freiberg will share her BOOM message to help you think big, act bold, expand your influence, and become a positive force for change.

Dr. Jackie Freiberg is on a mission to help leaders re-recruit and retool their BEST people. She is continually recognized for her insight, passion, and ability to equip leaders at all levels with innovative ideas that help turn up the volume on leadership, accountability, client loyalty, and performance. 

Jackie was recognized as one of the Top 30 Thought Leaders by Leadership Excellence Magazine and is one of the most sought-after business speakers in the nation. Jackie will share innovative business and leadership strategies in stories that will be remembered long after itSMF USA Fusion 09.

David Coyle
Research Vice President – IT Operations, Gartner, Inc. 

VROOM! Running IT Like a Business
Running IT, similar to managing a business, requires an understanding of what your customers want, developing and marketing well-defined services at market competitive prices, and delivering on your service-level commitments. When you run IT infrastructure and operations with the same rigor and discipline of a business, you demonstrate the true value of IT to the enterprise and help transform IT from a black hole budget item to a strategic enterprise partner. David Coyle, research director for IT operations management at Gartner, will help you explore the building blocks of running IT as a business and the tactical and strategic steps required for this journey.          

David Coyle is a research director in the IT operations management team of Gartner. His research focuses on IT service management including service desk, incident management, problem management, change management, process improvement (including the ITIL framework), and service-level agreement (SLA) management. David helps clients understand the key metrics, best practices, and core processes required for IT to deliver meaningful service and support that aligns to the goals of the business.

Prior to joining Gartner, David spent nine years at Hyperion Solutions, where he held several director-level positions within the infrastructure operations organization including managing IT support services in Europe while living in France. He was also a network and e-mail specialist at Taco Bell Corp.

Executive Panel Discussion
Facilitated by David Coyle
Research Vice President – IT Operations, Gartner, Inc.

Striving and Thriving – Using ITSM to Run IT as a Business
David Coyle, Research Vice President – IT Operations, Gartner, will lead an engaging panel discussion on how ITSM can help you evolve IT from a cost center into a strategic business partner. You’ll hear firsthand how organizations have successfully run their IT departments like a business and what benefits they are seeing.

Kirk Weisler
Chief Morale Officer and Master of Ceremonies 

From Gloom and Doom to Bloom! The Power of Being Positively Contagious
The importance of corporate organization culture is often overlooked, resulting in low morale, high turnover, disengagement, and other human resources issues. Kirk Weisler, Chief Morale Officer, will inspire organizations and employees to create the culture they want. Learn how to take ownership of your environment by exploring the power of being positively contagious.

As a young man, Kirk Weisler believed that "work, all work, could matter," so he created his own job title, started his own revolution, and began to make real his vision of what culture building could do to make a difference. Kirk is an expert on creating culture, change, community, and connections in the workplace. His engaging, experiential, and passionate presentation style connects with worldwide audiences and leaves them enthused and armed with the tools to take themselves and their culture to the next level.

Kirk has shared his engaging message with corporations worldwide including People Soft, Lockheed Martin, Fossil, and GE. Meeting planners love bringing Kirk back again and again. Kirk brings more than expertise and content – he brings energy and excitement that enhances the culture of the conference itself, accelerating connections and creating a sense of community that enriches every aspect of an event.

Glenn O’Donnell
Senior Analyst, Forrester Research 

Zoom! Carpe Diem: Moving Forward as Heroes of IT
Each time an industry encounters a tectonic shift, losers cower and winners embrace the challenge. Cloud computing, virtualization, punitive outsourcing, automation, and new economic demands are clear indicators that IT is undeniably in the midst of such a shift. IT as we know it is over, and a new world order is taking shape around IT service management. Every ITSM professional is in the position to be among the next heroes of IT because ITSM offers a culture of discipline that is desperately needed to prove business value. Learn from Glenn O’Donnell, a top industry analyst, how you can emerge from this IT upheaval as a hero of the business.

A senior analyst for Forrester Research, Glenn serves IT infrastructure and operations professionals. Widely regarded as a top thought leader in IT Service Management, IT operations, and the broader social implications of technology evolution, Glenn co-authored The CMDB Imperative, a book on CMDB best practices. His specialties are in data center automation and operational excellence.

Prior to joining Forrester, Glenn was a major force in transforming EMC's resource management software business as a marketing lead and strategic contributor. He is also a former IT operations analyst at META Group. Most of Glenn's career encompassed 21 years in various companies within the Bell System, including Western Electric, Bell Labs, AT&T, and Lucent Technologies, where he held increasingly influential roles in technology development, IT operations, and enterprise architecture.