The sad, final word about my ITIL 4 videos. :-(

A few days ago I received this tweet:

@Knapp_IT Wondering when the online training on ITIL V4 would come up. Please let the community know. #ITILV4

— Akanksha Shrivastava (@Aks_Sh) July 25, 2020

And here is the news I had to report back via Twitter:

Sadly, I'm unable to offer ITIL4 training videos; it's hugely disappointing for me & my 1000s of loyal video students. @AXELOS_GBP implemented a rule requiring all training (even videos) to include an exam; but our video resellers (where you'd get the videos) can't sell exams.

— Jill Knapp (ITIL® and stuff) (@Knapp_IT) July 25, 2020

Axelos' rule (requiring all training to include exams) is a well-meaning rule that is great for the ITIL community, but sadly it impacts me very directly. Our video resellers are simply resellers; there's no simple way to accredit a streaming platform to sell exams.

— Jill Knapp (ITIL® and stuff) (@Knapp_IT) July 25, 2020

Until we can figure that out (and my video publisher @PearsonITCert has been trying for a very long time), I am unfortunately dead in the water.

We naturally want to do everything legally and in full compliance; there's just no way to accommodate our unique video situation.☹️

— Jill Knapp (ITIL® and stuff) (@Knapp_IT) July 25, 2020

And she kindly replied:

Oops! Thank you for letting me know and allowing my hope to stay up still. I hope everything works out soon for the all of us.

— Akanksha Shrivastava (@Aks_Sh) July 26, 2020

So, in case it wasn’t clear, here’s a bit more detail and some backstory:

Over the last few years, we ITIL trainers noticed there were a lot of fake ITIL training companies popping up online. They would offer ITIL Foundation training at ridiculously low prices, and unfortunately the trainers were awful. These fake companies would charge bargain rates, and budget-conscious students would take these bogus classes because it looked like a great deal, and they’d naturally flunk the exam. It was a huge problem, and it needed to be fixed. It was giving ITIL a bad name.

Axelos (the ITIL mothership) decided to fix this by implementing a well-meaning rule in November of 2019 that said (I’m paraphrasing) “All ITIL training, whether it’s in-person, on-line virtual training, or even self-paced streaming videos, must be sold with an exam (or an exam voucher).”

Here’s the deal though: Only companies that have gone through the rigorous (and expensive) process of earning “Accredited Training Organization” (ATO) status is allowed to sell exams and exam vouchers. Since these scammer training companies weren’t about to go legit, Axelos was able to shut the scammers down, and students were now guaranteed that they were spending their training dollars on an Accredited Training Organization (ATO).

So what does this have to do with my ITIL 4 videos?

Well, there’s a 95% chance you watched my previous videos on either SafariBooksOnline or OReilly.com. The thing is, Safari and OReilly aren’t ATOs, so they’re not allowed to sell ITIL 4 training videos, because they don’t have a way to sell you an exam… because only ATOs can sell exams.

Now, 5% of you watched my videos on the PearsonITCertification website. Pearson is my publisher, and they actually are an ATO, and they have the ability to sell vouchers! WHEEEE! So now you might be thinking, “Great! So why don’t we all just buy the videos and the exam voucher from PearsonITCertification.com? That’s perfect!” And the reason is, not enough people think to go there for video training. If only 5% of the people who bought my videos bought them from Pearson, that means we have to somehow market to 95% of the universe to get the word out. Pearson doesn’t believe that the amount of money we’d have to spend on marketing to get those 95% of people to buy the videos from Pearson would make the investment worth it. So here we are.

So what was actually a very well-meaning rule by Axelos, intended to shut down scam training companies and direct students towards the companies who invested in becoming ATOs because ITIL training is part of their core business… companies like Pink Elephant, or ITSM Academy, New Horizons, or Qual-IT/Knapp-IT, etc…. has wound up hurting little guys like me. I have no way to sell you videos through Safari/OReilly.

It stinks, but I doubt it was intentional.

So, until Axelos changes their mind, there’s no way to provide streaming videos through Safari / O’Reilly. And I absolutely want to comply (and must comply) with their rules. They’re good rules.

If anything changes, I’ll let you know. Until then, I will focus on consulting, and providing training as a subcontractor for other ATOs.

And now you know the rest of the story!