Category Archives: IT Manager Institute

IT Manager Institute #47 and our first via webinar

Posted on December 2, 2011 | 4 Comments

This week I have been delivering an IT Manager Institute to managers in Croatia and Slovenia, , , all from my home office via webinar. The class is hosted by Housing Co., a Slovenia based company who has hosted three of our past IT Manager Institute classes.

I’ve been thinking of doing this for some time but was always concerned about the length of time students have to sit in front of their PC to receive the considerable amount of material I cover in the 5-day IT Manager Institute.

We have met for 5 to 6 hours each day this week and will complete the program on Friday. From my side, it is much easier because I don’t have to stand up all day. I’m interested in seeing the survey results to see how they match up with past students who have participated in the classroom version.

A webinar is more of a “one-sided” experience with less interaction, and I can tell there is not nearly the same energy level as I experience in the classroom. It is simply harder to get to know your students in this format. This is the biggest downside I think.

My sense is that webinars are better when they are no more than 1 to 2 hours in length, but our students expressed a desire to work through the program in one week rather than spreading it out over several weeks.

The upside is that we can deliver the class at a lower cost, , , requires no travel for students or myself, , , no airfare, hotel or food expenses, , , and it is less wear and tear on one’s body when you eliminate long plane trips.

Some of the students are working most of the day and attending the class in the evening, , , they are 7 hours ahead of me so when we start at 8:00am my time it is 3:00pm their time. This may be an additional benefit for students I haven’t thought about, , , or maybe not. :)

In 2012, I have plans to deliver a whole series of webinar classes on specific topics to help IT managers achieve more success. If the survey results are positive for this class we may add IT Manager Institutes to our webinar plans.

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IT Manager Institute – Webinar Series

Posted on November 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

The week of November 28 – December 2, 2011 I will deliver a 5-day IT Manager Institute via webinar so anyone in the world can gain access to a “live” presentation of our highly successful program.

Date:  Monday, November 28th through Friday, December 2nd, 2011
Time:  8:00am to 2:00pm each day (US Central Timezone, , , GMT -6) each day with breaks.
Where:  From your PC or laptop connection to the Internet

Seats are limited
and the price for this first webinar class
is reduced by 30%.

In 2012, I will deliver quite a bit of training via webinar including the IT Manager Institute. You will hear more about this training series in the weeks to come, , , I have been quite busy preparing for a major launch of new IT manager products and services in January 2012.

The IT Manager Institute webinar to be held next week includes 5 days of instruction and the ability to take the ITBMC exam upon completing the course. All you need is a good internet connection and time to sit in on the class. Registration fee is $1,950.00, , , 30% discount from my classroom format and will include the same instructional information, class materials and BONUS items you receive in a class, , , plus the ability to take the ITBMC exam to obtain your IT Business Manager Certification.

This will be my 47th IT Manager Institute class but the first one delivered by webinar. Take advantage of the discounted price while you can.

Spend five days with me and learn practical processes that will help you achieve more success and receive over 100 IT management tools to make it happen.

Program details are at www.mde.net/institute

Register now

$ 1,950.00
5 days of online training with Mike Sisco

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Practical IT Manager GOLD Series – Pre-launch offer

Posted on October 25, 2011 | Leave a comment

We are in major transition mode here at MDE Enterprises, so I thought it would be the perfect time to announce a new product to my Practical IT Manager Newsletter and ITLever readers, , , 

, , , and make you a very special offer, , , never offered before and never again.

Yes, we are upgrading our entire MDE infrastructure:

  • New web sites
  • New IT Manager Store
  • New products
  • New training services

WHY?

I just completed a major rewrite of my first ten books and we have needed to update our web sites for a while. So, , , we are taking the opportunity to completely renovate our web sites, shopping cart, and order fulfillment infrastructure using a WordPress foundation.

We will also be adding entirely new products and services soon.

I took most of 2011 off to focus on the “books rewrite project” and to do some things that will position our company for new product offerings and a renewed training focus for 2012 that will allow us to reach many more IT managers around the world.

Very soon you will start seeing announcements for new books, tools, training, , , and more like you have never seen from our company.

Here is the first offer and it is a significant one, , , and only available to our Practical IT Manager Newsletter subscribers and ITLever readers for a very limited time.

SPECIAL “pre-launch” offer

 Practical IT Manager GOLD Series

My first ten eBooks completely rewritten plus the IT Manager ToolKit containing over 100 updated IT manager tools and templates.

It took me over a year to rewrite my first 10 books, , , and they are completely rewritten, not just a few cosmetic changes I initially thought I could do. The IT Manager ToolKit tools are also updated.

UNPRECEDENTED Pre-Launch OFFER

1 week only thru Oct. 31, 2011

This bundle has a retail value of $474.50 purchased separately and
will sell bundled for $279.00 on our new web sites.

See our progress at www.itmanagerinstitute

Sorry, our pre-launch offer ended October 31, 2011

Current price
279.00


Here is what you will receive:

A.  Ten new ebooks (all have been completely rewritten):
-  IT Management-101: fundamentals to achieve more
-  IT Due Diligence: merger and acquisition discovery process
-  IT Strategy: align your IT vision for business value
-  IT Organization: right-size your organization for success
-  IT Staff Motivation and Development: build a world class team
-  IT Budgeting: operational and capital budgeting made easy
-  IT Project Management: a practical approach
-  IT Asset Management: tracking technology assets
-  IT Assimilation: consolidating redundant technologies
-  What To Look For in a CIO: get more value from your IT investment

B.  IT Manager ToolKit (revised and updated):
102 tools and templates to help you in virtually every aspect of managing technology resources. Tools come with instruction and samples. Tools may be used “as is” or customized to meet your specific needs.

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New announcement coming

Posted on October 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

I’ve been working hard to introduce more training for IT managers around the world, and I’m almost positioned to do so. I’ve had a few major projects underway for most of this year, , , especially in the last 3 months and it is why you have seen a little less of me on ITLever recently.

We are about to make several new announcements in regards to products and services in the IT management space. 2012 is going to be our very best year and I’ve been hard at work developing the pieces required to help us achieve it.

There is something for everyone interested in improving IT management skills and achieving more success.

Stay tuned for major announcements in a few weeks and look for even more from us in 2012.

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46th IT Manager Institute

Posted on September 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

Earlier this week I held the 46th IT Manager Institute at Graymere Country Club in Columbia, TN. This has turned out to be a great venue for us and we look forward to delivering more training programs at Graymere.

This class was super with quite a diverse group of managers, , , a couple with many years of management experience and a few who are new to IT management, , , many different industries from mining to healthcare to manufacturing and distribution to newspaper media and banking, , , and from many parts of the world including Uganda, Canada, and Saudi Arabia.

This was a fun class, , , they connected on the first day and we had a great time.

Here are a few photos of the week, , ,

Class dinner at River Terraces overlooking the Duck River

Our class paparazzi on the left (Mark) about to catch Muj asleep at dinner

Lunch at Graymere, , , always a good meal

James and Amr traveled the farthest, , , from Uganda and Saudi Arabia

Hanging around after the first day deciding where to go for dinner

Amr and Randy having fun at dinner

Paying close attention during class

Getting ready to order a great meal at the class dinner

Muj and Karen at dinner

Robert and James posing for the camera

Getting ready to talk about budgeting

Special guest Jon Pyles, a founder of TechRepublic and IT Business Edge, shared the last two days with us

IT Manager Institute #46 – class photo

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IT Manager Institute

Posted on June 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

I’ll deliver the 46th IT Manager Institute in Columbia, TN on September 20-23, 2011. It is the only one planned for the remainder of the year.

Graymere Country Club – site of the 46th IT Manager Institute

I reduced my travel this year to focus on a couple of major projects and participants in this class will receive new products I plan to announce soon.

Reserve your seat now and join me in the most practical “how to” IT manager training in the industry. There is a simple reason we have 100% positive feedback from everyone who attends this class, , , it works!!

Details are at www.mde.net/institute

Read testimonials at www.mde.net/institute/page4.html

See photos at www.itlever.com/institute-photos

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Dinner at Moxie’s

Posted on March 31, 2011 | Leave a comment

The IT Manager Institute is highlighted with a class dinner toward the end of the program. In last week’s class we held the dinner the night of the last day. Everyone was very relaxed as you will see from the photos.

CLICK HERE or on the image above to take a look.

What a great time we had. All of our dinners have been fun and every one of them unique. This one was great fun and the photos prove it. Moxie’s turned out to be a super place and this group of Canadians made it all the more enjoyable.

There was some “jabbing” going on, but I always get the last jab, , , because I’m a professional when it comes to jabbing and having fun with people. See the dinner photo captions and you will see why I can say this.

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4:00am wake up call

Posted on March 29, 2011 | 2 Comments

I was up early to catch a 6:00am flight back to the US from London, Ontario Canada where I taught our 45th IT Manager Institute. Hard to believe there have been so many.

What a great group of IT managers to work with. All ten managers in this class are from the same company and they wanted to standardize their management approaches to a certain extent, , , something I heard from most of them on the first day.

IT Manager Institute #45  -  London, Ontario Canada

There have been many senior managers I’ve worked with decide to do this from many industries including government, healthcare, banking and manufacturing. They keep sending more students to the program so it’s a good sign they are receiving value from their investment.

Canadians are always a fun group of people to work with, , , great sense of humor and very committed to what they are doing. I truly enjoyed this group and feel that I’ve known them much longer than just a week.

Good luck and best of success guys and gals !!

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Snow in London, Ontario

Posted on March 24, 2011 | Leave a comment

This morning I delegated responsibilities to a couple of our IT Manager Institute students. Ian Mackay got two assignments. First, he is responsible to keep the room at a temperature that everyone feels comfortable with. It’s a challenging assignment since the thermostat for our room seemed to work on either On or Off mode.

Ian’s second responsibility is to be our paparazzi and to take photos of the class during the week. He took the photo in the last post I added about an hour ago.

I told him I would like to have a couple of snow pictures to remember this class with so tonight he sent me the photo below. Like I said, , , it is very white and cold here.

Just saw on the news it is -7 degrees Celsius, , , that’s in the 20′s Fahrenheit. Brrrrrr, , , a stark contrast from my Tanzania class in December where it was in the 90′s every day.

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Quick results from the IT Manager Institute

Posted on March 21, 2011 | Leave a comment

One of the things that gets me excited and encourages me to work even harder is when I receive a positive message from one of my IT Manager Institute students or someone who is using one of my IT manager tools.

The best messages are the ones that talk about the value they are getting from something they learned from me.

Kelly Reed attended my IT Manager Institute class a couple of weeks ago, our 44th program since delivering the first one in 2003. He is getting some quick results and that’s exactly what we like to hear.

Here is what Kelly told me yesterday in an email message:
“Just wanted to let you know that I received my IT Business Manager Certificate. Thanks again for everything, I feel like I have true purpose and direction now as I embrace my new role.

On a cost saving note, I am in negotiations with our company’s wireless provider. Looks like we are looking at a savings of $18,000 per year!  My CFO has been so impressed with what I am doing now (Cost Savings, IT Assessment and even how I am talking to her with less detail), she wants me to make sure I take your class again next year as a refresher!“

This is what it’s all about, , , helping IT managers of the world achieve more success. Thank you Kelly for sharing with me.

We receive hundreds of positive comments like this one every year and it always “makes my day” when I hear about someone achieving more success in their company. GREAT STUFF !!

In a few situations, I’ve actually had managers tell me on the last day of the IT Manager Institute class that they have talked to people in their company about something they learned in class and have already started to find some cost savings or beginning to use a new management tool.

Do you think a CFO or CEO notices this when you start focusing on the business value opportunities that exist in managing an IT organization, , , or finding ways to save money in your company without being told to look for it?

You bet they do, , , and as in Kelly’s case his CFO noticed a change almost immediately upon his return to their company. What’s even better is that his CFO told him about it and realizes the value of the company’s investment in Kelly’s IT manager training.

Let me say this again, , , POWERFUL STUFF  for both Kelly and his company!!

Here are a few quotes from our most recent IT Manager Institute class:

“The value of this material exceeded my expectations. The course was exceptional and I would recommend it for any current or future IT manager.” 
Greg Horton, Nashville, TN

“Best seminar and learning class I have taken. Wish I had this class many years ago. I plan to implement several things with my team in the next couple of weeks” 
Ken Schernekau, Atlanta, GA

“Mike, I want to thank you for your class and your real world experiences that you brought to the table.  It very much gave greater meaning to the material being taught.” 
Steven Payne, Charlotte, NC

“Mike presented information thoroughly on a level of great understanding. This material will assist me as I grow and hone my skills as a leader.”
Kamela Breeding, Atlanta, GA

“Fantastic! Hit all areas of IT and business, really opened my eyes. The material and tools are priceless! This experience has by far gone way above and beyond what I could have ever expected.” 
Kelly Reed, Couer d’Alene, ID

The IT Manager Institute is available in classroom and in an online self study format, , , same material including the ability to earn your IT Business Manager Certification (ITBMC).

Details at:   http://itlever.com/it-manager-institute/
Class photos at:  http://itlever.com/institute-photos/

helping IT managers of the world achieve more success


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