Service Catalog Community Update 3/1/06

We have some exciting news for you about our growing service catalog community!

Many of you have already joined the Service Catalog Community that we launched on February 13^th at the Pink Elephant conference. We have received great interest and support in having a community for this topic and I wanted to share with you the latest news about the community.  

NEW FOR COURSE GRADUATES

The Service Catalog Community Graduate Level (those of you who attended the course) has added the following content since we started:

1. - An expanded Service Catalog Blog about Service Catalog-related topics is available for reading and commentary. This blog points you to other resources that you might find useful, relevant trends and thought leaders. It’ updated twice a week so it’s fresh. 
2. - Microsoft Word versions of the 3 tools we launched with the community are now available. For those who attended courses before December 2005, you will see updated versions of the tools we cover in class.
3. - A GREAT NEW TOOL. Do you need to show to others what a service catalog might look like? In our U.K.  course we introduced a new tool to assist you in demonstrating to others in your organization how a published Service Catalog might appear. It’s a PowerPoint Template ready to be edited, with smart links to take you through a complete demo for your boss or colleagues. You can find it in  the Tools section 
4. - A white paper called “The IT Service Catalog – Common Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them” has been added to the White Paper section.
5. - A webinar download called “Excelling in IT Operations through IT Service Management” has been added to the Webinar section.  

If you haven’t already joined the community, please do. We want to help you all succeed.

NEW FOR YOUR COLLEAGUES AND FRIENDS

From the day we launched requests to join from non-graduates have come in.

Because of the interest in learning about service catalogs, we are adding a level to the Service Catalog Community for people that want to learn about Service Catalogs but aren’t ready or able to commit to the course. The community will be the called the Service Catalog Community “Advocate Level.”  Membership will be by referral only. The Advocate Community will have its own Discussion Forum and access to most of the Resource Library. The Advocate Community will NOT have access to the Graduate Discussion Forum or the Tools – that remains available only to you.

If you would like to refer members to be a part of the Advocate Community, please send their name and email address to webmaster at servicecatalogs.com. Or, if you prefer, tell the person you are referring to email the webmaster with their interest and make sure they mention they were referred by you. So feel free to invite your colleagues, friends or managers; as long as they say it’s you who sent them, they’ll be able to sign up. And it’s free.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In closing, I’d like to remind you all again that we all want this community to help us meet our personal and professional goals. For that to happen, we all need to stay involved and get to know each other. If you haven’t already done so, we need you to complete a member listing for the Member Directory. 

Why not just drop by the Discussion Forum and post a hello? That will help everyone see who is in the community so you can network and collaborate.

I’d recommend you log in at least once a week to see what is going on in the Service Catalog Graduate Community Forum, or post a comment and ask that responses be e-mailed to you. Here’s a direct link to the login page that I suggest you bookmark:

Last but not least, I want to reaffirm that I am committed to your success. Let me know what we can do to make the Service Catalog Community work for you.