FROM THE CHAIR
3
Dear members
Our 21st National Conference was a fantastic event full of learning, fun and community. Once again we demonstrated that the true value of our community is the connections that we make with one another.
Our Conference Director, Aprill Allen, lead the way in her final year as Conference Director. She has now handed the reigns to Kathryn Howard who will be our 2019 Conference Director.
We delivered 41 speakers selected from across the itSMF community via our community lead submission process. I am absolutely delighted to report that the feedback on the speakers told us that, overall, the calibre of presenters was fantastic. We also branched out into newer topics like Cyber Security and Modern Managed services in the cloud.
Katrina MacDermid did an amazing job keeping us on track and with the format change using interviews to introduce the speakers. Matina Jewell hosted our Gala dinner and then brought many of us to tears with her amazing life story as our keynote speaker.
Our members also told us the conference was fantastic with quotes like “Gala Event amazing as always. A well organised and run event with a community feel. Outstanding!’
Another said ‘Every session I went to, I got something out of. Sometimes a lot more than others, but everything was useful. I have stored a wealth of URLs, learnt new frameworks, and reignited my desire to learn and improve just from two days at this conference.’
It is this sense of being a community that I particularly value; this is the unique contribution you, our members, make to the IT world. Each year our community grows stronger and our National Conference is a key opportunity to grow together while we learn.
Enjoy the magazine.
Bradley Busch
Chair - itSMF Australia