As I nodded off to sleep on the airplane as I left Las Vegas, I did it with a smile on my face. A conference can be just a conference or it can be so much more. For me, it had all the great features that HP Marketing always delivers – real world case studies, networking opportunities, wonderful facilities and accommodations, and access to the brilliant HP resources who build and dream up the HP Software portfolio. As a strategist, I left with more ideas than humanly possible to implement…but just give me a year.

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What it also had for me this year was the opportunity to work and to play with Vivit volunteers from around the world. As a team we manned the booth, we distributed marketing materials for raffle prizes, we proudly wore our Vivit swag – shirts and buttons, we ate and laughed together, and we spoke to anyone who would listen about the magic of Vivit. As an IT professional who wears a lot of hats in my organization, I have many choices about which user community I can build my career with. At the end of the day, Vivit is the organization that calls me home. If I had to put my finger on it, it would be the genuine people who have invited me in to participate and have welcomed me to belong.

What better place to be than with Vivit in Las Vegas. The logical brilliance of the HP Software portfolio and the genuine warmth of the Vivit organization are a winning combination. In an effort to spread the world, five HP digital camera and printer combos were placed up as prizes. With the tag line, You Gotta Be In It To Win It, users were encouraged to become Vivit members and receive one of our pins. If spotted by a Vivit board member during the conference, all were eligible to win. Listed below are the winners by name, and occupation. Notice the pride of ownership of their oval Vivit pins worn on their conference badges.

Winner Nancy Ishii, Information Solutions, Raytheon, Fullerton, California was awarded by sneaky and digitally challenged board member Michael Collins.

Winner Hal P. Nyseth Project Leader, Tech Support St. Paul, MN (Potential future MN Chapter Leader!)		Winner Eric J. Swanson Technical Architect Herndon, VA
Winner Bill Allaway Sr. Director, Enterprise Systems Mgmt. Middleware App Eng. McKesson, San Francisco, CA		Winner Ajay J. Vaswani Performance Engineer, Digital River, Inc. Eden Prairie, MN

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Our Annual Meeting took place on Wednesday, June 17th. Retiring President Betty Smith updated the membership on the state of the union. As an incentive to attend, members could enter their names in a raffle for a WII. Congrats goes out to the WII winner, Bill Gilchrist, Senior Technical Analyst, TJX Companies, Inc., Framingham, MA.

Everyone goes to conferences for different reasons. If you recently left Las Vegas without a smile on your face after HP Software Universe, I strongly encourage you to come find us next year at the Vivit booth. We have a cast of characters from around the world that are seasoned professionals who are fascinating to talk with about HP Software and the rest of the story (life).

Vivit has three pillars: Community, Advocacy and Education. The Community pillar is the most physically visible through our global chapters. Chapters are groups of individuals who come together to talk about utilizing, implementing and integrating HP Software into their businesses. Chapters are where professionals who utilize HP Software can grow their careers through the opportunities to do presentations, publish articles, lead or host meetings, or hear the best practices or lessons learned from other customers.

With the HP Software Universe event occurring in June, it became the perfect time for the Vivit Board to dialog for a half day with Chapter Leaders who were at the conference. Represented were: Tim Foxton (London), Todd DeCapua (Delaware), Mary Kay Peterson (Oregon), Michael Collins (Kansas City), Brad Clark (Michigan), Viral Desai (New York\New Jersey), Karen Semonson (Wisconsin), Jim Copio (North Carolina), Rocky Pisto (Michigan\Ohio\Illinois), Bob Crews (Florida), Chris Scharer (Iowa), Christel Mes (Northern California), and Donna Farmer (Executive Director).

Jim Copio, the Vivit Volunteer Program Chair gave an awareness session on how the Volunteer Program has been structured to welcome our community members to share their strengths with Vivit. Rocky Pisto, the Vivit Membership Chair spoke about the upcoming Sponsorship campaign with partners, and about creating a relationship with HP Field Marketing to engage in local chapters. Volunteering for Vivit can be as simple as sharing your opinion, sharing a talent, or sharing some time (even as little as an hour). Some of us feel that one more thing on our plate is just not possible. If you volunteer for something you feel passionate about, it can be the distraction that energizes you to handle the mundane tasks of life and work that wear you down. Jim Copio and Rocky Pisto are fine examples of career Vivit volunteers with over 25 years between them. While Vivit would welcome a new Jim or Rocky on any day, we would also welcome a Jim or Rocky Apprentice Level also. If you ever get bored at work or bored watching television, volunteering for Vivit could change your life! Just ask Jim or Rocky.

EVENT INFORMATION

Date:      Tuesday, July 21
Times:   9-10am US-Pacific
               12-1pm US-Eastern
               5-6pm Europe/London

Click here to register now for an informative and interactive session on the new HP Operations Manager i (OMi) software.  You’ll learn about the latest advanced correlation and visualization technology developed by HP Labs and how it can help you reduce downtime. HP OMi utilizes dynamic correlation rules which bring together infrastructure and application discovery data from HP Operations Smart Plug-ins and events from the monitored infrastructure to deliver unique views of how events are related. With HP OMi, you can identify the causal event and eliminate the duplication of effort that occurs when multiple people chase down symptom events.

HP Product Marketing Manager, Jon Haworth, will present HP OMi and answer your questions, including:

• What are the major differences between HP Operations Manager and HP Operations Manager i software?
• How does Topology Based Event Correlation (TBEC) work?
• How does HP OMi fit into my existing Operations Manager environment?

Register now for the Deep Dive Presentation: HP Operations Manager i Software, scheduled for July 21, 2009 at 12 noon US Eastern time.

No company wants to make cuts that will make it less competitive tomorrow.  We’ll help you find ways to optimize your IT resources and achieve breakthrough outcomes.  At this year’s HP Software Universe 2009 we’ll help you transform your IT environment, improve IT efficiency and achieve breakthrough outcomes for your organization.

Our event this year is designed to help you find new ways to optimize your resources to meet demand and deliver maximum value to your business. You’ll soon receive your invite to register online.  In the meantime please put the date in your calendar and bookmark the following site where  you will find more information:    www.hp.com/eur/software/universe2009

I look forward to being able to meet you in Hamburg.  We’ve got a great event being developed for you.

When: Wednesday, December 16th – Friday, December 18th 2009
Who: Executives and professionals in Business Technology and Information
Technology: Decision makers, operations managers, consultants.
Where: CCH – Congress Center Hamburg, Germany
Mark your calendar!  Registration will open on August 1st and you can take advantage of an Early Bird Booking Discount of €150 which will be applied to all registrations made for the full package before Sep 14th.

COMMUNITY BUZZ

You can download the new version of SiteScope here: https://h10078.www1.hp.com/cda/hpdc/navigation.do?action=downloadBinStart&caid=12830&cp=54_4000_100&zn=bto&filename=T8354CAET

HP Software and Solutions have launched a new site dedicated to helping HP Service Desk and HP ServiceCenter customers learn more about the benefits of trading-up to HP Service Manager.  On the site, you will find the most updated information on how to quickly and cost-effectively take advantage of the latest ITSM solution from HP.  You’ll also have a chance to read about real customer experiences. Visit www.hp.com/go/smupgrade today!

Todd DeCapua QA & Process Group Leader, ING DIRECT

Todd DeCapua is currently the QA & Process Group Leader for the leading online bank in the US.

His experience includes software development and project management with a primary focus on quality assurance and software testing. He has consulted both internationally and domestically for over 60 large and small corporations in addition to state and federal agencies with proven expertise in several industries including: Pharmaceutical, Biotech, Manufacturing, Financial Services, Insurance, and Government.

In addition, he is a recognized leader in software testing and quality assurance best practices, methodologies and tools, and an author of several ‘Software Testing Methodologies’ for specific organizations also creating and delivering ‘Boot Camp’ training curriculums, including several automated and test management tool suites. Todd provides training and interactive workshops, assessments, management consulting, and coaching in areas such as process definition, management, and improvement, software and performance measurement, project and portfolio management, software quality assurance, lean six sigma, and agile scrum.

Practically, Todd furthers his passion for sharing and the collaboration of experiences within the Quality Assurance and Software Testing as the Chapter Leader for the Vivit (HP) Local User Group in Delaware. Todd has academically achieved both a Bachelors of Science degree and a Masters of Business Administration with a Concentration in Finance; and is a Certified Agile ScrumMaster, Certified Six Sigma Greenbelt, Shunra University Graduate, and Certified Agile Scrum Practitioner. He was also most recently invited to join the HP Performance Center Customer Advisory Board.

Please feel free to contact him directly with any questions, and join the Delaware Vivit Local User Group Chapter site by clicking on the following link.
http://www.vivit-worldwide.org/chapters.cfm?id=122&action=chapter&chapterid=181

Want to join the active ranks of Vivit volunteers? Click here for some ideas on how you can contribute your time and services or email volunteer@vivit-worldwide.org

VIVIT NEWS

Annually, the Vivit Board of Directors meets twice, once in June at HP Software Universe in the Americas, and once in December at HP Software Universe in Europe (EMEA). As a virtual organization, the rest of the board meetings occur on a bi-weekly basis via web conferencing. At the face-to-face meeting in Las Vegas, elections were held for officer positions for the 2009-2010 year as directed by the by-laws. Brad Clark from Herman-Miller will be returning as Secretary. New officers elected were Daniel Peake from Perot Systems as Treasurer and Karen Semonson from Foremost Farms USA as President.

“I am honored to represent the many, diverse voices of the HP Software community as the new President of Vivit, and will strive to lead the International Vivit Board to focus on the three pillars of our core strength; community, advocacy and education. As a global community of practitioners, we come together to share our knowledge and our passion for utilizing HP Software to give each of our organizations a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.”
Karen Semonson, President Vivit Board of Directors. 

“As practitioners, our professional goals are to make a difference in providing key business information to our leaders so that they can make critical decisions with solid analytical data or build our business processes on a foundation of Operational Excellence. At Vivit, we provide a place whether virtual or physical, where support, guidance and the wisdom of experience is shared.”
Karen Semonson, President Vivit Board of Directors.

“I am excited about the opportunities for the user community and value the chance to use my business background and years of experience to continue to help Vivit reach its highest potential. With new ideas and approaches, combined with keeping a continued focus on what really works, Vivit is poised for growth.”
Daniel Peake, Treasurer Vivit Board of Directors.

“Once again I’m honored to serve the Vivit community as Secretary.  This past year has been an incredibly unique experience, with countless challenges and opportunities.  It has been an absolute pleasure working together with such a diverse and professional leadership group as we strive to further our service offerings to our ever growing membership.”
Brad Clark, Secretary Vivit Board of Directors.

As an organization that transcends the brick and mortar world and stands apart as a volunteer-based, virtual community, it is important to show recognition for the builders who have contributed their professional experience and personal time and energy to create the legacy we call Vivit. As the retiring Treasurer and Board Member, Viral Desai has spent years as Treasurer, Secretary, Board Member, Volunteer of the Year, and all around involved gentleman. Through Viral’s participation, dedication and tenacious character, Vivit has remained an independent, viable community. Viral will continue on as one of the Chapter Leader’s for New York\New Jersey. .

As the retiring President, Betty Smith has spent the last two years building the relationship with our largest sponsor – HP Software. At John Hancock, Betty has made significant progress in creating an IT organization dedicated to process and governance utilizing the philosophies of the Business Technology Optimization (BTO) portfolio. As the customer keynote speaker at HP Software Universe this year, Betty exemplified a driving intellect and a cool confidence around running IT like a business. We are fortunate to have Betty as one of our board members helping us make the best decisions for our future.
 
Thank you Viral and Betty for sharing your vision and leadership with Vivit.

Over the last two years, Donna Farmer has acted as Executive Director of Vivit facilitating the migration from the originating organization Openview Forum International (OVFI) to the new organization Vivit. Through her warm, engaging manner, Donna has guided us through the strategic challenges needed to change our course. Donna’s last day with Vivit as Executive Director will be July 18, 2009. As members of a global community, we all know what a small world it can be, so please stay in touch with Donna at the following:

Donna Farmer
Cell: 1-646-414-9895
dfarmer@torllc.com
Join me on www.linkedin.com
Join me on www.facebook.com

Regards,
Karen E. Semonson, Vivit President, president@vivit-worldwide.org