October 2010 Archives

I keep an archive of Jim Bruce's Tuesday Readings emails to the IT Leaders Program. Yesterday, Jim posted a great item that everyone should read. EDUCAUSE released its 2010 study of undergraduate students and information technology. The study's ROADMAP, prepared by Judith Borreson Caruso and Shannon Smith, the study's authors, gives us a lot to think about. I encourage you to read the study.

Some of the key findings from the study are:

• 84% of students responding to the survey have laptops

• 99% have a computer

• 63% own an internet capable handheld device

• the average respondent logs more than 21 hours/week online

• 20% take some or all of their courses online

• 36% used web-based applications - think word-processors, etc. - in a course

• 70% used text messaging (compared to 24% internet messaging users).

Authors of the study made five observations from the data that they believe IT and other educational leaders should consider:

1. Web-based technology has arrived in course-work. Half of the students using these tools were using them to collaborate in their classes.

2. Mobile web use is growing. 43% of students who own internet-enabled mobile devices use them daily to access the internet. They expect institutional services to be available on their device.

3. Instructors continue to need training in the effective use of technology. Instructors are reported to have uneven levels of skills which institutions may need to address with training specifically designed for instructional staff.

4. Students also need training in technology. Some 19% of the respondents reported that almost none of their instructors provided adequate training for the IT used in their course.

5. With more online courses, IT services must be reliable, always available with ever increasing bandwidth when needed. The study reports that many institutions may find it difficult to ensure that their IT services are available when needed by their students.

Our role in campus IT is, ultimately, to help the faculty in their mission to educate students. This is a topic that I follow closely, so I was interested to read Jeffrey R. Young's College 2.0 blog post, In Wired Singapore Classrooms, Cultures Clash Over Web 2.0.

It's important to remember that our norms may not be shared by every culture. Cultural differences come to the fore when you have an increasingly international student population. Take "Web 2.0" interaction and social networking, for example. Young makes these comments:

Publicly oriented Web 2.0 tools, like wikis, for instance, run up against ideas about how one should treat others in public. "People were very reluctant to edit things that other people had posted," said American-trained C. Jason Woodard, an assistant professor of information systems who started the wiki project two years ago. "I guess out of deference. People were very careful to not want to edit their peers. Getting people out of that mind-set has been a real challenge."

Students are also afraid of embarrassing themselves. Some privately expressed concern to me about putting unfinished work out on the Web for the world to see, as the assignment calls for them to do.

Michael J. Bugeja writes in his article 12 Rules for New Administrators reflects on what he learned as an administrator over the past seven years. While this is geared for academia (Bugeja is director of the journalism school at Iowa State University) I see a lot of parallels into good leadership.

His complete list of 12 rules is a bit long, so let me pare that down to this list of 5, with my own comments that highlight the leadership angle:

Start serving others.
It's not about you anymore. In a leadership role, you need to focus on how you can help your team to prosper.

Get organized.
If you are confused in thought, word, or deed, you will create problems for yourself and fail in fundamental tasks. Stay focused, and you'll stay on track.

Appoint a leadership team.
Effective delegation of specific roles to the experts is an important part of making a successful team.

Be transparent.
Be open about why you make decisions, and where you are headed. Explain your vision, get buy-in.

Learn how to run a meeting.
Cancel meetings if you're light on topics, share the agenda ahead of time so people have time to prepare, and keep conversation on-topic.

A friend shared this link with me, about 10 principles for leadership communication - by Robert P. Gandossy, Hewitt. It's a decent article about the challenges and recurring themes facing effective leadership and communication.

Gandossy's 10 points are:

1. Communication isn't just words; consider the whole package.
2. Model the behavior you are looking for.
3. Have a point of view.
4. What you hear is as important as what you say.
5. You haven't communicated until you've been heard.
6. There's a big difference between "Communication" and "Information".
7. Communicate courageously.
8. Remember you are competing for attention.
9. If it looks important, it is.
10. Practice.

Read the article, then ask yourself: "Am I communicating the best I can?" What else can you do to improve your communication style? How can you make your message heard?

I particularly like Gandossy's message about the packaging - If it looks important, it is. Consider how you "wrap" your communication. Was it just another email to your staff? What was your emphasis? Did you do any follow-up? Too often, we see projects fall by the wayside because staff didn't understand its importance.

Fun Fact: In 1837, President Andrew Jackson's supporters gifted him with a wheel of cheese weighing 1,400 lbs. Jackson put this cheese in the Entrance Hall of the White House and invited the people of the United States to eat it - and thereby meet the people who represented them in government. According to White House history, the cheese was consumed in two hours, and the White House smelled of cheese for weeks.

I mirrored something like that on Thursday, October 7. I provided a 12 lb block of cheddar cheese, and invited students to the Student Center to eat it - and thereby meet the person (me) who represents them in Technology. As an added "draw", and because of my Scottish ancestry, I wore my kilt.

Lots of students stopped by. I talked about the campus 5-year IT plan, including our migration to Google and a future network upgrade. Faculty and staff showed up too, to lend support.

I'd like to thank everyone who helped in making Big Block of Cheese Day a huge success.

In reviewing some old posts from the ITLP Tuesday Readings blog (an archive of Jim Bruce's ITLP Tuesday Reading emails), I re-discovered a great item* about effective communication. The key: keep it short.

I think that everyone who reads a lot today asks, Where did the well-written, to-the-point memos go? In "The Key to Better Communication: Shorter Memos", Chuck Martin, writing in CIO, argues that many memos (and other forms of documents) are too long, and lacking in quality. He concludes "The reality is that written communication is an art, and learning to do it well can help a person in his or her career."

Consider what you are writing, and don't be afraid to remove extraneous content if the edits clarify the message. Shorter is more difficult and takes longer, but your readers will praise your effort.