Red Circle Strategies

I had the pleasure of chairing a session Mark ran at the itSMF UK conference.  Over the years I have seen many presentations purporting to demystify cloud operations, but Mark’s was the first to really deliver.  

His explanations were clear, his examples were credible and his suggestions both practical and pragmatic.  He easily engaged the audience and although representing a company selling cloud solutions, he never came across as selling anything other than his obvious passion for the subject”

As the program director of conferences, I have had the pleasure of having Mark speak and deliver his service catalogue workshop at our conference. Personally I can only agree with the attendees.

The workshop was very relevant, useful, exciting and practical. The humoristic approach kept the attendees concentrated, awake and focused during the entire workshop.

The variation between theory and assignments was perfect and had the attendees try themselves how challenging it is to use theory in real life situations. Mark received a score of 4.6 out of 5 from the delegates, the highest among the speakers.

Here are the testimonials from the attendees of the conference in Copenhagen;

Super entertaining and beautifully presented

Very good and relevant. Thank you

Good exercise and good overview of the topic to take with you

Good change between lectures and workshop

Relevant

Humorous approach

Lovely with involvement

The variation between theory and assignments was perfect and had the attendees try themselves how challenging it is to use theory in real life situations. Mark received a score of 4.6 out of 5 from the delegates, the highest among the speakers.

I can only give Mark my best recommendations, and I would with no hesitation call him again for another conference.”

“It’s Getting Cloudy in IT Service Management” by Mark O’Loughlin, presented at itSMF Canada’s annual event.

There were no clouds to be seen in Toronto on May 6th when Mark presented “It’s Getting Cloudy in IT Service Management” at itSMF Canada’s annual event! 

In the sphere of ITSM – Cloud best practices are still emerging.   Mark provided just the right amount of balanced insight and relevance into how Cloud is changing the role of IT in the delivery of services, and how it affects our relationship with our suppliers and the business. 

Judging by the terrific audience engagement during the Q & A period, Mark clearly hit a few key Cloudy points of interest – the importance of understanding up front the value of Cloud for the business; the costs associated with increased business demand over time; the new challenges of end to end SLAs and Change Management in a Cloud model; and the changing roles within IT – less control and more focus on being a strategic ‘broker’ between the business and external service providers. 

Mark’s presentation re-enforced to me that while Cloud introduces new challenges in the delivery of IT Services, the ITSM V3 framework becomes even more relevant in executing great service delivery.  A great presentation Mark!

I had the great pleasure to have worked alongside Mark in my previous role and to say it was an experience is an understatement. Mark is a true professional and I have never encountered an individual who can make learning about new processes and procedures so interesting and pleasurable.

I sat in on many of Marks workshops around the cloud and ITIL space and every single person in the room was sitting hanging on Mark’s every word.

He delivers immense amounts of relevant detail but in such a way that you actually enjoy it and you find yourself getting engaged in conversation, his delivery is professional, precise, and sharp whilst at the same time fun.

It was an absolute pleasure to have worked with Mark and hopefully our paths shall cross again in the very near future. I would highly recommend Mark to any potential client who is looking to implement new processes or revamp current.

Thank you for what was a very enjoyable and most worthwhile course, one of the best I have been on.