Author Archives: kcarroll

2012-02-29: Helpdesk Roundtable: Mobile Device Management

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Helpdesk Roundtable: February 29, 2012

All Customer Service and Helpdesk Directors and Managers are invited to attend the next Boston SIM Helpdesk Roundtable session on Wednesday February 29th from 2:00 to 5:30 p.m.

The meeting will be hosted at Management Sciences for Health in Cambridge, MA followed by a networking dinner at the Elephant Walk restaurant in Brookline, MA. The Elephant Walk serves Cambodian and French cuisine which should be an interesting and fun chance to enjoy different food while networking with peers.

The topics for this meeting will be Mobile Device Management and Recruiting, Hiring and Retaining staff. • Mobile Device Management – For this discussion, we are going to talk about the options around managing mobile devices, from BYOD (bring your own device) to fully managed solutions.

Please note: Both discussion topics will be a facilitated roundtable format, i.e. We will have one or two members lead the discussion, presenting their company’s methods and tools and example, but we want to share the varied experiences – good and bad, insights and challenges – from all participants. Therefore we ask that you each think about the topics and be prepared to give a 5 minute overview of how these work (or don’t work) in your company.

To register, please click here.

2012-01-24: Sharpen the Leadership Saw Roundtable

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Sharpen the Leadership Saw is a quarterly program offered to all current SIM members and all SIM RLF (Regional Leadership Forum) graduates, who are interested in evolving as a leader. Through facilitated book discussions, this program offers an opportunity to improve a fundamental understanding of leadership, and your own personal brand of it. For those of you who yearn to read, learn from and apply the concepts of leadership-related books, this program may be just the little push you need to make it happen. Join us at the next meeting and reconnect with your fellow SIM members and/or expand your network, “sharpen your saw” and practice continuous learning!

Date: Tuesday, January 24th

Agenda:           4:00 to 4:30 PM             Registration and Networking

4:30 to 5:30 PM             Facilitated Book Discussion

5:30 to 5:45 PM             Select Book and Location for Next Meeting

5:45 to 7:30 PM             Dinner

Book: Giving Back: Connecting You, Business, and Community, by Peter Economy and Bert Berkley

Location: The Marathon Restaurant, 25 Hayward Street, Hopkinton, MA 01748, 508.589.6400

To register for this event, click here.

2012-03-07: Providence CIO Roundtable: Panel Discussion featuring the Millenial Generation

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The CIO Roundtable has become one of the most popular features of Boston SIM membership for those individuals who are identified as the Chief Information Officer for their organizations. The Roundtables provide opportunities for CIOs to discuss topics of interest with their peers in a relaxed, informal setting.

The CIO Roundtables are by invitation only to those eligible Chapter members and are offered in the Boston and Providence areas. The typical Roundtable program is hosted by a CIO at his/her company. The program begins at 1:30 p.m. with a presentation by a CIO member or invited guest on a topic chosen in advance. Ample time is provided for discussion with the presenter and among the group. After the program, refreshments and dinner provide additional opportunity for discussion and networking. Four CIO Roundtables are held each program year. Following is a list of recent CIO Roundtable topics: Group Collaboration Using the Internet, How to Manage and Succeed in Your Career as CIO, ERP Implementation Projects, Managing Remote Network Access, Justifying and Measuring the Value of IT, and Managing the Human Resource

***CIO Roundtable Subscribers*** Apply the discount code you were emailed by Kate Carroll before checking out in order to zero out your cost for this meeting.

The next meeting will be on March 7; registration at 1:30pm and meeting kickoff at 2pm. The event will feature a panel discussion with participants from the Millenial Generation and it will be held at AS220 in Providence.

The meeting will run from 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM and the schedule is as follows: 1:30 PM – 2:00 PM Registration 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM Meeting 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM Dinner at a local restaurant TBD.

Registration links will be sent to qualified SIM members via email.

Photo credit: hao$

2011-12-01 Helpdesk Roundtable: Asset Management and Recruiting Staff

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Helpdesk Roundtable: December 1, 2011

All Customer Service and Helpdesk Directors and Managers are invited to attend the next Boston SIM Helpdesk Roundtable session on Thursday, December 1st from 2:00 to 5:30 p.m. The meeting will be hosted at Management Sciences for Health in Cambridge, MA. Networking will continue over dinner at the Elephant Walk restaurant in Brookline, MA.

The topics for this meeting will be Asset Management and Recruiting staff.

  • For the Asset management discussion, we are going to talk about how the different organizations are handling Asset Management.  As we all know, asset management is difficult to get under control as the assets, their locations and dispositions are dynamic.  There are tools, but they some of them are difficult to administer (SCCM), while others don’t gather the correct level of detail needed. Any materials (ie spreadsheets) that can be shared will be very helpful in furthering the discussion.
  • The Recruiting staff discussion is the one we didn’t get to at the last meeting. Right now the job market is interesting, there are a lot of people looking, but how do you weed through the resumes and find the right person? Do recruiting agencies help? What about promotion from within?

To register, please click here.

2012-03-01 Practitioners & Consultants Roundtable: Mobility & Collaboration

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*** Please note: This meeting has been rescheduled from December 8th and it will be held in conjunction with the Consultants Roundtable. ***

Mobility and collaboration technologies are rapidly changing the landscape of our technical infrastructures and creating opportunities for businesses to foster an environment for innovation. Demand at our recent Roundtable events has shown that this topic is, indeed, hot on the list of many of our constituent Practitioners. We will have a special expert guest speaker at this meeting, David Price, from Meridian Group International, to add some insights to our discussions. Come join your friends and colleagues to talk about what’s happening at your businesses to address these hot technologies. 

Location: Babson College, Wellesley, MA

Date: March 1, 2012

4:00 PM – 4:15 PM: Registration, networking and introductions
4:15 PM – 6:00 PM: Program and discussion
6:15 PM – Dinner at Babson Executive Conference Center, Sorenson Commons

To register for this event, click here.

2011-11-15 SIM Silver Meeting

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Boston SIM Silver is an organization dedicated to members who are approaching traditional retirement by assessing, planning, evaluating and discussing the transition from their professional careers to a new stage of life.

The goals of SIM Silver are to:

  1. Facilitate discussion in the transition to a post professional career stage of life.
  2. Provide a forum for helping its members conduct an assessment of their life in preparation for a post professional career stage.
  3. Provide a forum to review and assist its members in developing a post professional career plan.
  4. Share its members’ experiences as a method to gain insight into a variety of struggles, setbacks and successes in a transition.
  5. Facilitate a social network of post professional career Boston SIM members.

Membership in SIM Silver is voluntary and defined as first being or having been an active member of SIM and currently a member in good standing. Those wishing to participate will contact the Boston SIM Chapter Administrator to be placed on the SIM Silver mailing list. Meetings are conducted 4 to 6 times a year.

In addition to meetings, SIM Silver has a collaborative web-site where members can share information, ideas, and thoughts. Relevant information from a variety of sources are available at that site. For more information, contact the Boston SIM Silver facilitator, Les Ball, at lesballscituate@gmail.com.

Registration

To register for this event, click here.

2011-12 Consultant Roundtable: Targeting your client base

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The Consultant Roundtable provides IT consultants with a forum for sharing best practices and growing their network. The roundtable started in the spring of 2006. Its participants are a diverse mix of IT consultants, ranging from sole practitioners to managers at large, international firms. They also cover all aspects of IT consulting, including strategy, application development and infrastructure.

The Consultant Roundtable is modeled after the CIO and Practitioner Roundtables. The program begins at 3pm with a brief presentation from the host company. This is followed by a facilitated discussion on a topic chosen in advance.

* This event has been rescheduled from October 27, 2011 to a date TBD in December 2011.

For more information, click here.

2011-10-19 Helpdesk Roundtable: IT surveys & analyzing the results

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Helpdesk Roundtable: October 19, 2011

All Customer Service and Helpdesk Directors and Managers are invited to attend the next Boston SIM Helpdesk Roundtable session on Wednesday, October 19th from 2:00 to 5:30 p.m. The meeting will be hosted at REIT Management & Research’s corporate headquarters in Newton, MA. Networking will continue over dinner at a local restaurant.

The topic for this meeting will be IT surveys and analyzing the results. We will have a guest speaker, Dr. Frederick Van Bennekom. Dr. Van Bennekom teaches in the Executive MBA program at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration in Boston and at Babson College. He has published a book called The Customer Survey Guidebook which goes through the end to end process of creating, administering and interpreting results of a survey. (For more information on the book, go to http://www.greatbrook.com/customer_survey_guidebook.htm).

We will also be having a roundtable discussion on what to look for when interviewing a candidate for the help desk and what techniques are being used to recruit quality staff.

To register, please click here.