A friend recently sent me a newsletter article I wrote about thirty years ago. Young and naïve with a daunting task, I realized I wasn’t the only one who was solving the same problem. Instead of growing frustrated by lack of budget, lack of support and running out of time, I invited my friends to my conference room for idea sharing and a cup of coffee.
Not only did we solve our problem thirty years ago, we have walked through many technology paradigm shifts while supporting one another. Big data? We did it. Thick clients/Thin Clients? Ho hum. Ransomware and cybersecurity. Done that! ERP Implementations? Yesterday. Cloud infrastructure? Done it! Now it’s the AI era. We fully realize that we won’t be replaced by AI, but we could be replaced by people who know how to use AI.
I’m very proud of the successes represented in that paragraph because each project laid the foundation for the next one. I had to realize that my problem may have been technology, but my solution was people. The technology stopped being the problem to be solved and became the force multiplier because of the work of my colleagues.
There is a great story about William Booth, founder of The Salvation Army. In 1910, Booth was unable to attend a conference because of his health, but was expected to provide an encouraging and uplifting message. He chose the latest, most sophisticated technology of the day; a telegram! While the technology worked well, it was also very expensive, since it is charged by the word. He solved his problem by sending the most powerful, one-word telegram ever. It simply read, “Others!” This powerful reminder is relevant today and it is especially relevant to our service management industry.
The most cutting-edge technology of the day communicated a single, powerful word:
“Others.”
The technology was the delivery method that focused on people.
Your service desk exists because others have an error.
Your knowledge article exists because others will struggle later.
Your monitoring exists because others depend on uptime.
The future of service management will not belong to the organizations with the most technology.
It will belong to the organizations that use technology to care for others at scale. The most mature support organizations understand that knowledge shared is capability multiplied.
William Booth had a telegram. In 1910, a telegram was like the AI of its day. It was fast, disruptive, expensive and transformative. Booth used technology to sharpen our focus on people.
Today we have AI, automation, observability, DEX and predictive analytics.
According to Microsoft and LinkedIn’s 2024 Work Trend Index:
Looking back, the technology is about others. Looking forward, others will deliver the solutions. Consider this: a password reset solved quickly helps one person. Properly documented, it could help hundreds of people. Predictive and Agentic AI, built on that documentation, could eliminate the problem altogether.
And maybe that’s the lesson modern IT organizations need most.
AI, ITSM and dashboards are not the service desk.
People are.
Our technology platforms will always change. But the mission of Service Management will remain static: To help others navigate complexity quickly, with confidence.
Just like my 30-year-old newsletter pointed out, my problem is technology, but my solution is people.