In this episode, Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae delve into significant themes, particularly those surrounding risk and the relentless pursuit of rapid success with AI. They explore the palpable divide between cautious, regulated approaches and a less regulated, higher-risk mindset focused on rapid reward and return. Many corporate mechanisms, often with good intentions, find themselves in the middle, slowing and delaying AI adoption, frequently out of sync with current demand and new capabilities.

The discussion also touches on new developments in lab-grown food. Another emerging story highlights the concerning fact that the AI world is becoming a self-serving soup of regurgitated materials, much like our oceans filling with plastic. As always, there's a lot crammed in, including plenty of trivia!

This episode IA and BR review some news about a firm re-hiring its staff after thinking that they could replace them with AI… This leads to a discussion around the value of the new and shiny and why we shouldn’t also just throw away the good stuff when some new shiny stuff comes along. This also relates for ITSM to some recent industry criticism, but is this actually a category mistake..? As usual we drift from trivia to philosophy with some service management in between…

This week Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae discuss the recent SITs show and the current themes that can be identified for the industry. Of course there is some trivial discussion about mice being given life enhancing substances… There is also some discussion around how new shiny things become mature and embedded, and that’s a good thing. ‘Agentic’ seems to be the current word of the moment although AI is now becoming more practical and specific. There is also discussion around how experience management and DEX are becoming part of the normal way of doing things. 
 

This episode is a quick SITS and MSP show preview – the show runs on 14th and 15th May at Excel London – it’s free to attend.  Our trivial intro this week includes AI Equestrianism (yes) and some grammar-police ranting. Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae run through some of the key points and expectations for this year’s show. The MSP part of the show is definitely evolving, and the show looks to be a good mix of vendors and types. They also discuss the speaker programme which looks to have a good blend of topics – and not just all about AI..! Look out at the show also if you can spot the podcast mouse and cockroach (podroach) – representations of these will be visible somewhere… 

This week Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae discuss fungi, taxonomy and what we really mean by ‘Metadata’. The discussion also looks at the complexity of some systems and how we could get more work done with a simpler approach to using tools. Just because we have great tools doesn’t mean we’ll deliver great services and we need to be clear on what we really need from our systems. We also encourage more passion in the ITSM world, and there’s also some talk about how mushrooms use language…

The podcast resumes discussing trivia, although this time its ‘serious trivia’. We also await news on the fate of the podcast cockroach…. Our guest is Martin Sadler an experience CIO, who currently runs a large public sector IT organisation. Martin also has written a book about being a CIO – Aspirationally Idle. This includes a number of useful tips and guidance about running IT,  presented with jargon-free examples and cartoons. It’s funny and can be used as a general management guide as well as specific tips to IT leaders. We discuss the equation ‘anger=frustration x time’ and many other simple nuggets of wisdom. 

This episode covers a few aspects of where the current Service Management industry is and is going – with feedback on THE SDI SPARK event and the sorts of topics and trends emerging from that. Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae also have eschewed trivia this week – apart form ‘meta trivia’ – although we will resume this in the next episode surely… There’s some good stuff in this episode on the difference between IT success and business value, as well as feedback on the SPARK event.

This weeks guest is Simone Moore, who is, amongst other titles, is AI ethicist, Woman tech ambassador, sassy minds and - Neurospicy… And indeed we get spicy talking about truth, data, empathy and many other aspects of how we build up knowledge and can make decisions. The conversation clarifies narrative from storytelling, and woolly mice from empathetic mice. 

This is a brilliant chat and well worth a few moments of your spicy time…!      

This week’s special guest is Stephen Mann from ITSM.tools, discussing the latest piece of research published with @peoplecert and @atomicwork. There’s some great discussion and insight into finding including the level of trust in AI – which is not complete but is increasing, as well as some practical insights into Governance and Risk –which are areas of increasing focus and which are more about doing the right thing than just enforcing controls… Somehow also we manage to include reference to headless, speeding cockroaches.

Here’s the link to the report: AI in ITSM 2025: The State of AI in ITSM 2025 - ITSM.tools

We have a mascot for the podcast! This is a hissing cockroach that needs a name – please send your suggestions…. Ian Aitchison and Barclay Rae also discuss the key elements of ‘Discovery’ as used in consulting and product management. There’s also some sage advice on how to build up a good summary and clear analysis of the information that you might capture – and move projects and operations and people to the next level… This follow the last episode where we discuss the Art of Listening – how can we use these skills in ITSM and beyond..? Listen in and learn more…