Fresh Links Sundae encapsulates information I have come across during the past week. Often they are from the people whose work I admire or resonate with me. I hope you will find these ideas thought-provoking at the minimum. Even better, I hope these ideas will, over time, help my fellow IT pros make better decisions, be awesome, and kick ass!

Most leaders do not always get to build their own teams from scratch – they often inherit the teams from someone. Bob Lewis recommends that 1) hiring one outstanding employee and 2) micromanaging are the two techniques a leader can use in those situations. In defense of micromanagers (IS Survivor Publishing)

Reflecting from a recent discussion at HDI Executive Forum, Craig Baxter talks about what issues and challenges are involved in making effective marketing of the service organization. Tackling the Age-Old “Marketing Your Service Organization” Challenge (HDIConnect)

ITSM can be a highly dynamic endeavor, and what worked a while back might not work today. Gordon Brown outlines nine potential pitfalls when implementing an ITSM effort. 9 Pieces of Terribly Bad IT Service Management Advice (Plexent Blog)

Many organizations spend a large amount of effort installing the service management practice but fail to sustain it with Continual Service Improvement (CSI). Francois Biccard explains why CSI is a critical component in your service management practice. CSI puts the ‘taste’ back in Service Management (The ITSM Review)

In our rush to embrace cloud and virtualization across all aspects of the IT infrastructure, Tracy Corbo believes that the performance, visibility, and management issues simply do not magically go away. She cautions that the new infrastructure deployment options (e.g. cloud) should not cause us to lose sight of the original business and operational objectives. A Means to an End: Cloud & Virtualization Not a Cure-all (EMA Blog Community)

Many enterprise organizations are adopting strategic mobile, social, and cloud initiatives to empower and support employees; however, developing and distributing digital expertise can be a daunting challenge. Perry Hewitt suggests four approaches for developing digital competency within a large organization. Four Ways to Scale Digital Capabilities Beyond Your Team (Harvard Business Review)

As a keynote speaker at DevOps Days Mountain View 2013, Damon Edwards talks about a 3-step technique for introducing the DevOps practice in an organization. How to initiate a DevOps Transformation (Video) (dev2ops)

Many factors can lead to employees being disengaged in their roles. When that happens, the productivity and the quality of the work often suffer as the result of the disengagement. Pearl Zhu suggests active approaches that IT leaders can use to keep talent engaged. CIO as Talent Master: How to Engage Talent (Future of CIO)

Many companies have been reluctant to perform risk analyses due to the perception that measuring IT security risk is too difficult because it’s intangible. Jim Hietala suggests that companies still can get the data they need to perform meaningful risk analysis. Measuring the Immeasurable: You Have More Data Than You Think You Do (The Open Group Blog)

Business issues such as globalization, decentralization, and the rapid pace of today’s marketplace have forced companies to evaluate leadership programs and closely aligned them with corporate strategy. Marshall Goldsmith outlines the key areas to focus on when developing leader program within the organization. Future Leadership (Marshall Goldsmith Personal Blog)