Tracks

This track is for CIOs and senior business executives who are responsible for their organizations’ strategic direction, longterm planning, and support vision. The sessions in this track address provocative support perspectives and emerging trends and are designed to challenge established thinking, generate new constructs for excellence, and open stimulating dialogues with your peers. The Executive View track complements the Executive Connections networking package, creating a unique conference experience.

This track explores innovative approaches to operational efficiency and effectiveness, including process improvement, selfservice, knowledge management, change management, and proactive support best practices. Learn from others’ mistakes and successes to optimize your support center. The sessions in this track will explore a number of the most popular frameworks, methodologies, and approaches to service management, with a complementary blend of theory, application, and real-world case studies.

The timeless information and materials delivered in this track are designed for current and rising support managers in undeveloped or evolving technical support organizations. For experienced managers, the sessions in this track will be a refresher on the fundamentals of support center or help desk management.

This track focuses on key principles and strategies related to leadership, team building, motivation, and effective communication. The sessions in this track will cover best practices for handling key people issues, including staffing, resource maximization, and performance management.

Performance measurement is critical for any effective technical service and support organization. The sessions in this track explore what your organization should be measuring, what a key performance indicator is, how to discover the true meaning of your data, and how to effectively report the most meaningful metrics. This information will help you make the right decisions and take appropriate actions for continuous improvement.

This track, combining practical concepts and skillsbased sessions, provides valuable insight on how to create effective customer communications, connect with your customers, and empower them through self-service. The sessions in this track explore topics like creating a service culture, customer satisfaction, call center management, and more. They also focus on call center skills and related techniques that managers can take back to their offices for in-service training.

The sessions in this track examine the core processes, technologies, and metrics necessary for effectively managing the day-to-day functions of a desktop support operation. Learn more about key desktop support processes workflow management, performance measurement, and collaborating with the service desk to increase the IT organization’s overall effectiveness and improve customer satisfaction.

Learn about the latest support tools and technologies for optimizing support center performance, including social tools, remote tools, knowledge tools, virtual support, chat, and other support automation technologies. Discover how other organizations have implemented these technologies to improve efficiencies and control costs. In addition, get an inside look at the emerging virtual technologies that will directly impact support services in the near future.