We’re excited about the new TableTopic networking breakfasts taking place at TSW on May 3rd and 4th from 7:30 – 8:30 a.m. We want to make sure the discussions are focused on the topics that are most important to you. Please take a couple of minutes to give us your input via a quick online poll. Thank you!
We’ve just added three new day pass options for the TSW Spring conference. If you can’t get away for three full days to attend the entire event, consider one of these great full-day alternatives. All the details can be found on the TSW Day Pass web page.
Improve the health of your services business by attending a TSW Workout! We’re not talking about a new fad diet, the latest exercise gadget or some new weight lifting routine. We’re talking about TSW Workouts – interactive conference sessions where participants engage in open dialog about shared business challenges. Each 75-minute Workout is facilitated by an experienced services practitioner and a TSIA staff member, both of whom understand the issues and have their own insights to share. Plus you’ll gain the perspectives of the other participants, including what techniques they’re using to address the same issues you’re facing. We have close to 20 Workout sessions on the TSW Spring agenda on Tuesday, May 3rd starting at 2:00 p.m. and running through the end of the day.
Come armed with your toughest challenges, then get ready to sweat the details with your peers and walk away with new insights to your most difficult services business issues. With problems to be solved and new insights to be gained, you can’t afford to miss these valuable peer-to-peer collaboration sessions!
We’ve added two exciting keynotes to our TSW Silicon Valley agenda. First is Jose Duarte, the new head of SAP services. We’ve also added New York Times personal technology editor, David Pogue, who will share his thoughts on how services organizations can help customers address technology complexity.
View the agenda for details. And be sure to register before February 27th to save 20% on the conference fees.
Over the years, I’ve observed that a number of companies regularly send teams of people to TSW conferences. It’s not uncommon to see groups of ten, twelve, or more individuals from the same organization attend the event, typically using a divide and conquer approach to cover all the relevant sessions on the agenda.
What’s even more interesting is that these groups take it a step further by extending their stay with a team follow-up meeting to compare notes, synthesize the new information they’ve collected, and assess their current plans and strategies against what they’ve learned. It’s a great way to integrate new ideas and act quickly on new information before it becomes lost or forgotten in the day-to-day shuffle.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s many of these same companies who are out in front and leading the way with new service strategies and offerings.
TSIA supports these organizations by offering a team discount (pay for 4 registrations and get a fifth one for free) and complimentary post-conference team meetings for groups of ten or more. If this sounds like something your company could benefit from, please contact Susie Hiner for more details. We’d love to help!
In case you haven’t heard, the agenda for this year’s TSW Silicon Valley conference is now live!
Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes of publishing the agenda? Six months prior to every TSW conference, we solicit speaker applications from TSIA members who collectively represent the leading edge of services. The difficult work of reviewing applications and selecting those that most closely align with current industry trends and challenges falls to the TSIA research team whose fingers are on the pulse of what’s happening in our industry.
Let me just say that it’s no easy task to sift through the many excellent submissions! If there’s a hot topic area where we haven’t received applications, we proactively reach out to TSIA members to engage speakers from the companies we know are doing great work that represents something innovative or a truly exceptional best practice. Then we add in sessions from TSIA research staff based on their most recent work, and voilà – an agenda is born!
We hope this year’s selections meet your needs.
We’d love to hear from you about which sessions on our new agenda have caught your eye. Please post your replies here.
If you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to invest in your career and professional development, then put TSW Silicon Valley May 2-4 on your calendar! Register by January 16th to save 30% on conference registration.
A new year, and a new TSW conference experience! We’ve made some exciting enhancements to the TSW agenda, including an earlier start time on the opening day (May 2nd) that adds two full hours of content to day one. First on the docket starting at 1 p.m. is the Innovation Tour led by John Ragsdale (TSIA VP of technology research) who will give a guided tour of the most cutting-edge technology and services on the Expo floor. We’ve also added an extra hour of breakout time on day 1 for the TSIA Power Hour from 4-5 p.m., immediately following the keynotes. Power Hour sessions are your opportunity to hear the latest TSIA research on everything from best practices for getting product reps to sell services to hot-off-the-presses industry benchmark data.
On day 2, we’ve expanded the Workout sessions to 75 minutes and have doubled the number of Workouts on the agenda. Workouts are facilitated peer-to-peer discussions around shared business challenges and are not to be missed! And because TSW attendees have asked for more structured networking time, we’ve added birds-of-a-feather discussions at breakfast on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings (May 3rd & 4th).
These are just some of the new features of TSW 2011. Stay tuned for the agenda details coming out in mid-January. Be sure to register before January 16th when our 30% promo runs out!
With only a few days left until the Spring conference we are excited to see very strong enrollment numbers for our Professional Development Courses. For those of you who haven’t attended one of these hands-on workshops before, they are one of the most popular and highest rated options available during the conference.
This week I’m highlighting RTM Consulting’s Value Realization Workshop. This workshop was designed to help solution providers address the challenge that their clients face in adopting all of the available features and functionality offered to achieve maximum value from their investments. The course is built around a framework designed to help you assess the value that your clients are currently achieving, and create a strategic services road map to systematically drive greater adoption, value, and differentiation.
And this is only one of the 6 great courses we’re offering at the conference. Here’s the full line-up:
These courses are only $495 with a full conference registration and offer a full day of interactive, hands-on training in a small group setting. That’s a hard value to beat, and just one more way to make your TSW experience even more productive and rewarding.
Due to the interactive nature of these courses, attendance is limited, so sign up today at http://tinyurl.com/tsw-courses!
See you in 4 days!
It seems that all too often, we technology services types learn by doing – an approach that can involve a lot of trial and error and add a lot of unproductive time to the process. But who has the luxury of losing time when the boss is asking for results YESTERDAY?
So how do you get to answers (and results) more quickly? Try borrowing from the experience of others who have already made the mistakes, learned from them, and are now on to enjoying the fruits of their efforts.
Helping members get faster results is one of the primary goals of TSIA conferences. The best thinking is showcased in member-to-member presentations – not the theories, but the nuts and bolts behind their work. Practitioners who have been there and done that share how they solved problems, what they learned along the way, and the results they’ve achieved – helping you accelerate your learning curve and get to the end result more quickly.
Our spring event (May 3-5 in Santa Clara, CA) is no exception. We’ve lined up great speakers on the pressing issues that members are focused on today, including:
We’re also rolling out a very cool new program called Service Revolutions where we’ll be showcasing the most cutting-edge, innovative work going on in our industry. And you get to vote – American Idol style – to determine who wins the awards. You don’t want to miss it!
So come for the great content, networking, and the chance to weigh in on who’s doing the coolest stuff in tech services.
I hope to see you and your cohorts in Santa Clara. Don’t forget to register before March 31st to get the 10% discount and preferred hotel pricing.
Trisha Bright
Vice President, TSIA Conferences
