SERC09 - Closing Panel - Community Dialogue - Best Practices, Emerging Trends, and Views of the Future - NOTES

Created by Lida L. Larsen (EDUCAUSE) on June 4, 2009

This session was recorded for podcast and is available at http://www.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/PodcastCommunityDialogueBestPr/173215

NOTES:

EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional Conference Closing General Session Panel: Community Dialogue: Best Practices, Emerging Trends, and Views of the Future

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Moderator:

Thomas L. Maier, Vice Chancellor for Information and Instructional Technology/CIO, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia

Panelists:

Barbara Draude, Assistant Vice President for Academic and Instructional Technologies, Middle Tennessee State University

Kathryn F. Gates, Chief Information Officer, University of Mississippi

William F. Hogue, Vice President for IT and CIO, University of South Carolina

Tom Maier opened the session describing the current environment for higher education IT professionals. Times are hard with the economic downturn but it gives us a chance to re-think core services and priorities. The panelists have attended all of the conference sessions and will address the evidence of change they have noted in the sessions. They will share ideas and things they saw from which we can learn from each other as we move forward.

Bill Hogue attended the Leadership Track sessions

He mentioned the unique ability this gave him to totally immerse in the leadership track which is one of the most important aspects of the business today. The key elements from the sessions were:

Transparency
Move back to basics
Seizing opportunities in down times to turn lemons into lemonade
Leadership outlook

He noted that transparency not as easy as it looks. Executive support, engagement, and more is required to have it. He told a personal story in which there were three possible meanings to a verbal exchange and said that transparency requires preparation, data points, and executive oversight. He asked the audience if their institutional settings were transparent. With clickers the audience says 55% high and 46% low transparency.

In the sessions he found back to basics, or coming back to fundamentals, as a key element. Questions such as, “Where is your money coming from?” “Where is it going? Risk management, accountability, and standards are more fundamental to our conversations. Many using ITIL. If you have controls plus communication, plus collaboration that equals coordination. In issues of Governance – true partnerships are needed. He gave a call to keep professional development and training in place regardless of funding and said we must talk to our customers and regularly. He noted that opening keynote speaker Joel Hartman visits Deans and Department Heads regularly and asks them to rate IT services from 1->10. If they don’t give him a “10” then he asks “what would it take for us to become a 10?”

From two of the sessions he mentioned

moving from oral to written culture
focusing on things that are the most irritating to the customers.

Seizing opportunities to work with others in, out, around the institution to improve services is evident. Relationships are opportunities to collaborate and people are more willing to talk during collaborations than at other times. He mentioned that the Georgia State University leaders’ presentations were exceptionally good and discussed how to reframe the debate as that “of investment rather than cost of IT” at the university level.

Leadership outlook: There is not enough talent in the pipeline interested in becoming IT leaders. Baby boomers will soon be retiring followed by the baby bust generation. He noted the University of Memphis presentation on characteristics of leadership – at any level – it was the best presentation. You need to make yourself useful in whatever domain IT needs to be done.

His final thought was a suggestion to continue to educate yourself around the business you are in which is “Higher Education” not IT. We help others achieve their goals in life.

He asked who in the audience would be willing to think about being a CIO and 51% responded positively.

Kathy Gates attended the Service Delivery and Infrastructure Track.

She said she was constantly sending notes back to her institution ‘Ole Miss’ about ideas in these sessions. She mentioned Jeff Burdha’s great presentation on virtualization and noted that he’s from the Northwest Regional Data Center (NWRDC) in Florida and said how great that the State of Florida had established these centers 30 yrs ago.

The University of Memphis presentation on application virtualization called for more sharing among universities which is a trend that she noted throughout

The session she was most interested in attending was the University of Alabama’s who discussed their “faculty activity reports” tool. One of their schools created it and then it was adopted university wide (except for business and law)

She particularly like the multi-institution panel presentation on the new methodology with SCRUM. They have developed a SCRUM U collaboration.

Email outsoucing and insourcing has been a topic of interest for many in recent years. Emory is moving to Exchange for faculty email and have consolidated 100 mail servers into one. They had taken the same kind of approach as you would for an ERP implementation.

She noted that there is a need to adapt even within even projects. Lynn University did road shows to help with office implementations. When they went into depts. it was like stones were being thrown at them – but this brought them back in to touch with their service goals and they created a new change management process that has been very helpful.

GeorgiaTech had a session on the accreditation process. The demands for technology have made changes to the process. They now need to provide a body of evidence in online formats which they did using Wordpress and Twiggy.

GeorgiaTech also presented on the Greening of their Data Center in which there was

A lot of good advice – particularly on the need for standardization and the ability to adapt. It was in this session that she learned a new acronym new term – “RGE” which means “Résumé Generating Event”

She said that service demands are constantly escalating and we must respond and adapt if we are to remain relevant to the university. At ‘Ole Miss’ the academic workflow, policy, and process huge – but we must modernize and continue to innovate.

She asked if the attendees centralized IT is relevant to their institution.

44% agreed their IT is relevant, 30% strongly disagreed

Barriers to being relevant question:

Poor alignment with university - 6%

Outdated technology - 6%

Outdated CIO - 14%

Inadequate tech staff - 22%

Resistance to change 50% (both in the staff and the university culture)

Other 3%

Take-home messages from this track were

How do we keep up and keep relevant
Constant self assessment and re-engineering
Need to be adaptable!!!
Relationships are the most important thing – and the key to success is being able to adapt.
Need to work together – collaborate
Good alignment with the mission of the university
Are we still having fun? This is very important !

The Teaching and Learning track was attended and summarized by Barbara Draude.

She said it was a fun way to go to a conference – she was able to get the info and networking opportunities she needed while looking more broadly at the field.

She commended all presenters – she loved listening to people who are passionate about what they are doing. Passion for learning – that is what we are here for! We need to pass that passion on to our colleagues. Share the info with others who could not attend.

Key themes she discovered were

Collaborationwas in almost every session and she affirmed that we can not work in isolation. We need all types of collaboration: in our own IT units, on campus between units, between institutions, etc. In some cases the collaboration was still in the discussion stage, others were facilitating faculty collaboration and student collaboration.

Lessons learned: there needs to be careful pre-assessment of what each collaborator is bringing to the table and how it will happen, we need careful communication to glue it together, and open & accessible assessment afterwards.

Best Practices – things that are proven to work well

Assessment– plan first and plan and integrate the assessment

Idea of creation, experimentation, innovation, is still going on - Flash cards on cell phones, SecondLife – these are really fun to see and learn about.

Lessons Learned

Must look for areas for collaboration and lay the foundation so they are successful
Must change some of the rules we’ve had in the traditional academy. Think about what will work not what will fit in the “rule”
How are we making T&L sustainable – accountability – how can we embrace it and build it in to everything we do?

Audience Questions

Have you seen an increase in collaboration?

Significant – 32%

Slight – 57%

All talk, no action – 8%

No talk – 3%

Have collaborative efforts been successful?

Strongly Agreed - 15%

Agree - 47%

Neutral - 35%

Disagree - 2%

Strongly disagree - 2%

Is your institution engaged in research in Teaching and Learning?

Strongly agree - 22%

Agree - 33%

Neutral - 24%

Disagree - 16%

Strongly Disagree - 4%

Draude said we need to give kudos to those who are doing the T&L research!

Tom Maier wrapped up the panel presentation.

He summarized:

1) Sharing of Success Stories

2) Seeing progress but a lot more needs to be done and with less resources

3) Risk Management – some shifts – may be willing to take a bit of risk because we’ve figured out how to see what the risk is

4) Innovation – we have to come up with new ideas

5) We need to step forward (more or again or for the first time) the common good, how can we interact more effectively, we are in the “solutions” business

6) New techniques we are exploring - - mentioned email outsourcing – cloud computing

7) Institutions thinking more broadly than their own silos

8) We’ve had a role as change agent (change by force) – but in our new environment we can step forward as change agent

9) We’re moving from cottages to collaboratories

10) (sacred cows -> tasty burgers comparison) There is now more openness and in being open-minded and looking for new ways to work – new solutions via these collaborations

11) Feels better about it all after hearing the “good news” in the conference sessions.

At the end of the session there were three additional questions for the audience

Planning for next year

How did you travel to the conference this year?

Walked - 3%

Swam - 3%

Flew - 21%

Drove - 69%

Teleported - 3%

How would you like to travel to next year’s conference?

Virtually - 17%

Fly - 22%

Drive - 55%

Walk - 2%

Other - 5%

Did you bring your family?

Yes - 13%

No - 87%

This session was recorded for podcast and is available at http://www.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/PodcastCommunityDialogueBestPr/173215

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		SERC09 - Closing Panel - Community Dialogue - Best Practices, Emerging Trends, and Views of the Future - NOTES Created by Lida L. Larsen (EDUCAUSE) on June 4, 2009 This session was recorded for podcast and is available at http://www.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/PodcastCommunityDialogueBestPr/173215 NOTES: EDUCAUSE Southeast Regional Conference Closing General Session Panel: Community Dialogue: Best Practices, Emerging Trends, and Views of the Future Wednesday, June 3, 2009 Moderator: Thomas L. Maier, Vice Chancellor for Information and Instructional Technology/CIO, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia *Panelists:* Barbara Draude, Assistant Vice President for Academic and Instructional Technologies, Middle Tennessee State University Kathryn F. Gates, Chief Information Officer, University of Mississippi William F. Hogue, Vice President for IT and CIO, University of South Carolina Tom Maier opened the session describing the current environment for higher education IT professionals. Times are hard with the economic downturn but it gives us a chance to re-think core services and priorities. The panelists have attended all of the conference sessions and will address the evidence of change they have noted in the sessions. They will share ideas and things they saw from which we can learn from each other as we move forward. Bill Hogue attended the Leadership Track sessions He mentioned the unique ability this gave him to totally immerse in the leadership track which is one of the most important aspects of the business today. The key elements from the sessions were: Transparency Move back to basics Seizing opportunities in down times to turn lemons into lemonade Leadership outlook He noted that transparency not as easy as it looks. Executive support, engagement, and more is required to have it. He told a personal story in which there were three possible meanings to a verbal exchange and said that transparency requires preparation, data points, and executive oversight. He asked the audience if their institutional settings were transparent. With clickers the audience says 55% high and 46% low transparency. In the sessions he found back to basics, or coming back to fundamentals, as a key element. Questions such as, “Where is your money coming from?” “Where is it going? Risk management, accountability, and standards are more fundamental to our conversations. Many using ITIL. If you have controls plus communication, plus collaboration that equals coordination. In issues of Governance – true partnerships are needed. He gave a call to keep professional development and training in place regardless of funding and said we must talk to our customers and regularly. He noted that opening keynote speaker Joel Hartman visits Deans and Department Heads regularly and asks them to rate IT services from 1->10. If they don’t give him a “10” then he asks “what would it take for us to become a 10?” From two of the sessions he mentioned moving from oral to written culture focusing on things that are the most irritating to the customers. Seizing opportunities to work with others in, out, around the institution to improve services is evident. Relationships are opportunities to collaborate and people are more willing to talk during collaborations than at other times. He mentioned that the Georgia State University leaders’ presentations were exceptionally good and discussed how to reframe the debate as that “of investment rather than cost of IT” at the university level. Leadership outlook: There is not enough talent in the pipeline interested in becoming IT leaders. Baby boomers will soon be retiring followed by the baby bust generation. He noted the University of Memphis presentation on characteristics of leadership – at any level – it was the best presentation. You need to make yourself useful in whatever domain IT needs to be done. His final thought was a suggestion to continue to educate yourself around the business you are in which is “Higher Education” not IT. We help others achieve their goals in life. He asked who in the audience would be willing to think about being a CIO and 51% responded positively. Kathy Gates attended the Service Delivery and Infrastructure Track. She said she was constantly sending notes back to her institution ‘Ole Miss’ about ideas in these sessions. She mentioned Jeff Burdha’s great presentation on virtualization and noted that he’s from the Northwest Regional Data Center (NWRDC) in Florida and said how great that the State of Florida had established these centers 30 yrs ago. The University of Memphis presentation on application virtualization called for more sharing among universities which is a trend that she noted throughout The session she was most interested in attending was the University of Alabama’s who discussed their “faculty activity reports” tool. One of their schools created it and then it was adopted university wide (except for business and law) She particularly like the multi-institution panel presentation on the new methodology with SCRUM. They have developed a SCRUM U collaboration. Email outsoucing and insourcing has been a topic of interest for many in recent years. Emory is moving to Exchange for faculty email and have consolidated 100 mail servers into one. They had taken the same kind of approach as you would for an ERP implementation. She noted that there is a need to adapt even within even projects. Lynn University did road shows to help with office implementations. When they went into depts. it was like stones were being thrown at them – but this brought them back in to touch with their service goals and they created a new change management process that has been very helpful. GeorgiaTech had a session on the accreditation process. The demands for technology have made changes to the process. They now need to provide a body of evidence in online formats which they did using Wordpress and Twiggy. GeorgiaTech also presented on the Greening of their Data Center in which there was A lot of good advice – particularly on the need for standardization and the ability to adapt. It was in this session that she learned a new acronym new term – “RGE” which means “Résumé Generating Event” She said that service demands are constantly escalating and we must respond and adapt if we are to remain relevant to the university. At ‘Ole Miss’ the academic workflow, policy, and process huge – but we must modernize and continue to innovate. She asked if the attendees centralized IT is relevant to their institution. 44% agreed their IT is relevant, 30% strongly disagreed Barriers to being relevant question: Poor alignment with university - 6% Outdated technology - 6% Outdated CIO - 14% Inadequate tech staff - 22% Resistance to change 50% (both in the staff and the university culture) Other 3% Take-home messages from this track were How do we keep up and keep relevant Constant self assessment and re-engineering Need to be adaptable!!! Relationships are the most important thing – and the key to success is being able to adapt. Need to work together – collaborate Good alignment with the mission of the university Are we still having fun? This is very important ! The Teaching and Learning track was attended and summarized by Barbara Draude. She said it was a fun way to go to a conference – she was able to get the info and networking opportunities she needed while looking more broadly at the field. She commended all presenters – she loved listening to people who are passionate about what they are doing. Passion for learning – that is what we are here for! We need to pass that passion on to our colleagues. Share the info with others who could not attend. Key themes she discovered were Collaborationwas in almost every session and she affirmed that we can not work in isolation. We need all types of collaboration: in our own IT units, on campus between units, between institutions, etc. In some cases the collaboration was still in the discussion stage, others were facilitating faculty collaboration and student collaboration. Lessons learned: there needs to be careful pre-assessment of what each collaborator is bringing to the table and how it will happen, we need careful communication to glue it together, and open & accessible assessment afterwards. Best Practices – things that are proven to work well Assessment– plan first and plan and integrate the assessment Idea of creation, experimentation, innovation, is still going on - Flash cards on cell phones, SecondLife – these are really fun to see and learn about. Lessons Learned Must look for areas for collaboration and lay the foundation so they are successful Must change some of the rules we’ve had in the traditional academy. Think about what will work not what will fit in the “rule” How are we making T&L sustainable – accountability – how can we embrace it and build it in to everything we do? Audience Questions Have you seen an increase in collaboration? Significant – 32% Slight – 57% All talk, no action – 8% No talk – 3% Have collaborative efforts been successful? Strongly Agreed - 15% Agree - 47% Neutral - 35% Disagree - 2% Strongly disagree - 2% Is your institution engaged in research in Teaching and Learning? Strongly agree - 22% Agree - 33% Neutral - 24% Disagree - 16% Strongly Disagree - 4% Draude said we need to give kudos to those who are doing the T&L research! Tom Maier wrapped up the panel presentation. He summarized: 1) Sharing of Success Stories 2) Seeing progress but a lot more needs to be done and with less resources 3) Risk Management – some shifts – may be willing to take a bit of risk because we’ve figured out how to see what the risk is 4) Innovation – we have to come up with new ideas 5) We need to step forward (more or again or for the first time) the common good, how can we interact more effectively, we are in the “solutions” business 6) New techniques we are exploring - - mentioned email outsourcing – cloud computing 7) Institutions thinking more broadly than their own silos 8) We’ve had a role as change agent (change by force) – but in our new environment we can step forward as change agent 9) We’re moving from cottages to collaboratories 10) (sacred cows -> tasty burgers comparison) There is now more openness and in being open-minded and looking for new ways to work – new solutions via these collaborations 11) Feels better about it all after hearing the “good news” in the conference sessions. At the end of the session there were three additional questions for the audience Planning for next year How did you travel to the conference this year? Walked - 3% Swam - 3% Flew - 21% Drove - 69% Teleported - 3% How would you like to travel to next year’s conference? Virtually - 17% Fly - 22% Drive - 55% Walk - 2% Other - 5% Did you bring your family? Yes - 13% No - 87% This session was recorded for podcast and is available at http://www.educause.edu/blog/gbayne/PodcastCommunityDialogueBestPr/173215 Blogs \| Best Practices \| conferences \| EDUCAUSE Regional Conferences \| EDUCAUSE_SERC09 \| Leadership \| regional conferences \| SERC09 \| Service Delivery \| Southeast Regional Conference \| Teaching and Learning Lida's blog Login or register to post comments 117 reads
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