SAM Training – Can you re-wind and repeat your SAM certification training at will?

Probably not… One of the most significant drawbacks of a majority of Software Asset Management training and certification programs is that they’re essentially “one and done” in their delivery. This means that you attend a one- or two-day program, they teach you how to pass the exam, and you’re finished: “Instant Expert.” There is no provision for review, reflection, customization, or mastering the content.

The Institute for Technology Asset Management, with its Learning Management-Based online SAM Credential, takes you into the next generation of professional development.

For the first time in our industry, you, the SAM practitioner, can now:

• Attend an online professional development program that is self-paced – allowing you to learn when it’s convenient for you and for your enterprise.
• Attend a program that is based on the genuine competency needs of the individual practitioner – experience the knowledge you need to succeed in the real world of front line software asset management.
• Attend a credentialing program with a clear and publicly available professional development Roadmap that delivers genuinely supplier-neutral SAM skills.
• Attend this cutting edge professional development program from anywhere on the planet without leaving home.
• Attend a program that includes a workbook that is actually a Work Book – encouraging you to convert each competency covered into a customized solution for your unique enterprise.
• Attend a program that permits you to Learn to Mastery – view and review each competency module, each training page, until you are comfortable in your ability to actually use what you have learned.

What’s more, SAM and ITAM programs from The Institute for Technology Asset Management interface practitioner competency development with an Open Source curriculum, unique in the industry, allowing practitioners to apply local, or even in-house, training experiences to their credential growth.

Better yet: At ~175 USD, your TAMInstitute SAM credential exam is a fraction of the cost of alternative certificate options.

Institute programs are available in any of these formats:

• Online, self-paced: GO HERE for Core Competencies and GO HERE for Advanced

• Live Boot Camp Style – Either via our Norfolk, Virginia-based alliance with Infotectraining.com or delivered directly to your enterprise. (Check under Leadership and Management:  GO HERE )

• Combined Boot Camp, with live delivery PLUS access to the online, self-paced materials for extended review / reference.

Each program includes access to our best in class Workbook with over 500 pages of genuinely useful information (no fillers), allowing you to convert the coursework to customized solutions.

Has Your Business Been Victim of a Technology Disaster? Learn How to Prevent Being Hammered Again.

When nature slams your business, a repeat disaster could easily follow—this one of man-made origin. This 5-part Briefing Series helps you minimize the inevitable post-disaster software piracy audit risks. From where we stand there isn’t a whole lot we can do to relieve the misery each of you has encountered, but The Institute wants to help where we can. So, here is our offer: We can help you prevent the next catastrophe with advice and guidance via the Internet.

It is now painfully obvious to all business technology consumers that computers, software, documentation, and electronic data make pretty lousy submarines. In the average disaster, the very core of your business is most likely gone or virtually unrecoverable. You are about to rebuild your technology infrastructure from scratch—be it two computers or twenty thousand computers—and, if you aren’t extremely careful, the con artists are going to set you up to get hammered yet again. You do not deserve that kind of abuse, so our primary goal is to provide advice to help you avoid future software piracy and non compliance punitive audit experiences courtesy of the software police and copyright cops. Our secondary goal—a very close second—is to enable you to save money when you re-invest in new technologies.

This article series was originally posted on our site for the benefit of victims of Katrina and other disasters. However, we quickly discovered a serious need for accurate, vendor-neutral advice on acquiring technologies after crippling events. Read on and consider what we have to offer individuals and companies that have been disaster victims.

Hello! I’m Alan Plastow, founder of The Institute for Technology Asset Management. After a disaster, when you buy your new computers, very frequently you’ll be looking for maximum product at minimum price. You’ll have little choice: Money is going to be tight. Although this is a perfectly normal reaction to the misery you’ve gone through, you need to be extremely careful of the operating systems, software, and other copyrighted products placed on those computers. From where I stand, I can predict with nearly 100% certainty that within a year of any significant disastrous event (18 months at the most) the software police and copyright cops will conduct mass software piracy, copyright violation, and license non compliance punitive audits in the areas of devastation.

Companies that are trying to recover from a disaster are going to fall prey to the “easy licenses” and “bargain costs” of counterfeit software and other products—including hardware. As well, these same companies, with their limited financial clout, are going to begin using shareware products to delay some computer-related expenses. The result? You will be setting yourselves up as easy targets for litigation by the nearly thirty members of the software police and/or copyright cops that are active in the U.S.—nearly 100 globally.

Another key issue you will need to become aware of is that the documentation from your software purchases is very closely scrutinized during a software non compliance, or piracy, audit. If, when you purchase your new copyright protected products, you do not receive the correct license; proofs of purchase; stamps, emblems, marks, or certificates of authenticity, or master media you will become a potential disaster target all over again.

Of all the businesses in the world, you are in a unique position. As demoralizing as your experience has been, you now have the opportunity to rebuild your business into something bolder and better than it may possibly have become prior to the disaster. Please permit me, at no cost, to guide you with advice in avoiding the software piracy audits that can easily follow your efforts to rebuild.

Monitor the Taminstitute.org blog site to access these full Disaster Recovery Knowledge Briefings. It’s free and you, your employees, and your company will benefit through short- and ling-term cost and risk reductions in technology asset management. This is the place for Disaster Survivors where I will answer your questions and provide no cost advice. Don’t suffer through the pain of recovering your business technologies only to be blind-sided and hammered all over again for incorrectly licensed copyrighted products after you are back in operation. We can provide the advice that you need.

With great respect for what you are enduring,

Alan L. Plastow

Founder

SAM Certification? The Next Generation is a SAM Credential!

What if your ITAM or SAM certification was global and based on your competencies instead of some so-called standards provider’s proprietary programs? The Institute for Technology Asset Management is the ONLY global ITAM / SAM credential provider that integrates practitioner competencies into a training regimen that delivers precisely the knowledge you need to succeed - Short-Term as well as Long-Term. Here are some details:

The following is in response to Rory Canavan’s post on LinkedIn. You can read his original commentary here.

In the real world of technology portfolio management, there has been an unfortunate collision between SAM / ITAM training programs and applied process standards. The narrow practitioner knowledge focus, plus the initiative costs, linked with the unnecessary initiative complexity (for a clear majority of enterprises) translate into altogether too many failed asset management initiatives.

I think Rory hit upon the critical elementary roadblocks to both ITAM & SAM when he touched upon the nature of industry standards being sold by proprietary training providers. Standards should be easily accessed by any practitioner, from any sized enterprise, in any industry, anywhere in the world - not locked in to single providers who predicate knowledge of, and use of, those standards on only their own training/publications.

When there is a tightly controlled narrow range of intentionally divergent resources, practitioners are forced to choose one over another. If practitioners are continually locked in to their chosen credential providers, they may never gain access to alternative (less costly / less complex / more ROIC) options for reducing costs / risks while increasing delivered value and, ultimately, establishing the credibility of global certifications.

Within the Next Generation of SAM / ITAM training, practitioners no longer need to constantly fail in their attempts to “shoehorn” massive standards developed for multinational enterprises into their unique local small- to medium-sized business. Instead, The Institute empowers practitioners to scale down overly complex and unnecessarily costly standards to match their specific needs based on intelligent process management.

So? Here’s what we’ve done:

In 2006 the Institute for Technology Asset Management created the industry’s first “Competency-Based” SAM and ITAM credentialing programs (based on the original SAM/ITAM training systems Al Plastow developed in 2000). We’ve eliminated much of the groundwork for you by reviewing standards such as ISO & ITIL and ensuring that your practitioner training meets, and most frequently exceeds, the competencies needed to integrate those standards into your specific technology environment.

Competencies mean practitioners gain the skills they need to get realistic operational results while also competing in the asset management job market – based on skills / experiences employers are genuinely searching for. These competencies empower you to establish a core knowledge base or, if you desire, pursue a deep dig into a highly focused skill – based on services you can genuinely deliver.

Real World Example: The typical software asset management – SAM – training certification includes less than 20 minutes of actual contract-related negotiations coverage. The Institute starts practitioners out with six (6) times that level of skill. But we go significantly further than any other training option by opening your professional development to more localized training opportunities.

Competencies should know no knowledge borders. While (for example) the classic SAM certification body essentially forces practitioners to continue using a single source for ongoing professional development, The Institute encourages its members to pursue additional training at the local level as well as online, and that continual practitioner improvement is applied to your ongoing credential baseline. Further, The Institute will accept previous training certifications, integrating them into our existing competency requirements.

Real World Example: You can now “trade up” your existing proprietary certification to a global competency-based credential. The Institute will evaluate your previous training documentation, giving you credit for previous training toward gaining Institute credentials. Consider this the SAM and ITAM professional development version of a “competitive upgrade” – without all the strings attached. The same framework applies to your ongoing professional development.

When the typical practitioner, certified via the classic proprietary framework, wishes to continue or renew their “license” to practice, they are most frequently locked in to the original provider. To renew the certification, they’re usually expected to attend a costly conference, or attend a proprietary course (or six). As frequently, the renewal process will channel the practitioner into enduring software / hardware / or consulting industry-sponsored events, listening in to sales pitches rather than competency-based growth opportunities.

Real World Example: The clear majority of SAM training, certification, and re-certification opportunities are either directly sponsored by, or semi-controlled by, suppliers of IT goods and services. Does anyone honestly believe that these same suppliers are genuinely training practitioners to locate all opportunities for spending less, gaining additional value, or eliminating costly audits related to their products / services? The Institute programs are based on your own competencies, not on sponsor agendas. Institute credentials are 100% supplier neutral – about your skills, not on what suppliers want you to buy.

When practitioners consider the range of Institute competencies, a significant difference in credentialing becomes obvious: Institute credentials cover the range of reality competencies that any truly global credential should address. This enhanced range of skill exceeds, by a wide margin, any alternative SAM training program on the planet (we’ve narrowed the following focus to SAM to demonstrate the differences).

The Institute professional development credential is NOT for everyone. We’ve replaced – heavily supplemented – the classic SAM training to more accurately reflect the competencies you need to succeed - anywhere on the planet.

Real World Example: Most existing SAM training programs deliver less than ten (10) hours of actual instruction. That instruction includes any and all data entry into generic course handbooks – resources usually bulked up with extensive details that simply will not apply to a majority of practitioner needs. The Institute SAM program delivers over thirty-five 35 hours of focused time-on-task instruction that is supplemented by a comprehensive, self-paced, and customized workbook – where you genuinely apply what you have learned to your unique environment.

Real World Tragedy: In one globally recognized certification program, the approximately 12 hour SAM training session includes over an hour of indoctrination into the sponsoring organization as well as a two-hour tutorial on how to pass the certification exam. Neither of these time-consuming activities contributes to your actual practitioner competencies. What’s more, neither of these actions contributes to the credibility of your certification.

So… What are the competencies that The Institute delivers to our practitioners? Take a look at the list. Compare these competencies to the alternative training options. Keep in mind that The Institute does not deliver, nor will we deliver, the current “over-night” certifications that seem to be the existing standard. Nor will The Institute programs expose you to vendor/supplier sale hype in either instruction or communications.

 

Finally, and here’s a stunning concept: The Institute competencies also address mainframe issues, FITARA, and the MEGABYTE Acts!

Want more? Contact us and discuss our differences.