March 2012 Archives

Once in a while, I like to look at something in a different way, and pull leadership lessons from unexpected sources. These are lighthearted views into leadership lessons, from places that are not your usual sources of leadership inspiration. Alex Knapp at Forbes had the same idea, and wrote about 5 leadership lessons from James T Kirk:

1. Never Stop Learning

No matter what your organization does, it helps to never stop learning. The more knowledge you have, the more creative you can be. The more you're able to do, the more solutions you have for problems at your disposal. Sure, you might never have to face down a reptilian alien on a desert planet, but you never know what the future holds. Knowledge is your best key to overcoming whatever obstacles are in your way.

2. Have Advisors With Different Worldviews

Organizations that allow for differences of opinion are better at developing innovation, better at solving problems, and better at avoiding groupthink. We all need a McCoy and a Spock in our lives and organizations.

3. Be Part Of The Away Team

When you're in a leadership role, it's sometimes easy to let yourself get away from leading Away Team missions. When you lose that perspective, it's that much harder to understand what your team is doing, and the best way to get out of the problem. At the same time, be careful of lead-manage-do.

4. Play Poker, Not Chess

For all of its intricacies, chess is a game of defined rules that can be mathematically determined. Chess isn't about strategy; it's about position. A far better analogy to strategy is poker, not chess. Life is a game of probabilities, not defined rules. And often understanding your opponents is a much greater advantage than the cards you have in your hand. In other words, successful leadership often relies on strong interpersonal skills.

5. Blow up the Enterprise

Kirk was very passionate about the Enterprise. We are often, in our roles as leaders, driven by a passion. But no matter how much that passion burns within us, the reality is that times change: different products are created, different ways of doing things are developed. And there will come times in your life when that passion isn't viable anymore, when it no longer makes sense to pursue your passion. When that happens, no matter how painful it is, you need to let go - to blow up the Enterprise. Change what isn't working and embark on a new path, even if that means having to live in a Klingon ship for awhile.

In his May 2011 article Stepping up to the Genius Bar in Campus Technology, John Waters reminds us of the coming age when "print" textbooks are outnumbered by e-textbooks. In our IT feedback sessions with campus this Spring, we heard from many students (and a few faculty) asking for us to move to e-textbooks in place of more expensive "print" options. Students also asked for more e-books in the library. So this transition to e-textbooks is certainly on our horizon.

Waters suggests that campus bookstores will eventually transition to an "Apple Store" model. In this concept, we won't recognize them as "bookstores"; instead, bookstores will sell "chunks of information" in the form of e-textbooks and other electronic materials. Waters raises these points:

The future of print

While there's a definite trend to e-books, bookstores shouldn't get rid of their "print" products anytime soon. In fact, "print" is still a preferred format for many. But the long-term strategy for a bookstore based on "print" materials will require updating in light of the growing favor of e-textbooks.

An emphasis on retail

Several colleges and universities have transitioned their bookstores to sport more "retail" items, not just books and pens. For example, South Dakota State is revamping its bookstore to move aggressively into selling computers, MP3 players, software, tshirts, jackets, and more.

The growth of textbook rentals

With the advent of e-textbooks, students no longer are required to purchase a book, and hope to re-sell it to someone else at the end of the semester. With e-textbooks, you can "rent" an electronic item for the duration of a semester, at a lower price. On average, a new "print" textbook costs about $75. An e-textook is about $44. (The article actually takes this in a different direction; this is my interpretation of the future of e-textbooks.)

A former colleague shared this article with me, Envisioning a Post-Campus America by Megan McArdle at The Atlantic. In the article, McArdle contemplates what the college system would look like if distance learning becomes the norm.

She makes 12 predictions about the future of online education. It's important to note that this is a speculation about online teaching and learning. While McArdle believes that in-person learning may diminish, I doubt it will happen with the rapidity she predicts. Although I agree that online will become increasingly prevalent.

1. Education will end up being dominated by a few huge incumbents. Economies of scale and network effects would compress the number of schools to a few - or at least, a few within each specialty.
2. Online education will kill the liberal arts degree.
3. Professors (course developers) will be selected for teaching instead of research brilliance.
4. 95% of tenure-track professors will lose their jobs. At these online learning institutions, very few professors will be needed to produce all the education.
5. The end of universities as research centers. For example, work with policy implications would likely move to think tanks or consultancies; basic science would continue to be funded by the government.
6. Young job-seekers will need new ways to signal diligence. There will be more freelancing, more try-out employment, and more unpaid internships.
7. The economics of graduate school will change substantially. McArdle's implication is that most students, especially outside of STEM, will have to pay for their PhDs.
8. Civil society will have to substitute for the intense friend networks that are built at college. Or will Facebook and other online social networking become more important?
9. The role of schooling in upward mobility will change.
10. The young will have a much lower financial burden in their 20s. That's hopefully going to translate into more investment, and more risk-taking, which is great for everyone.
11. The tutoring industry will boom. There will be lots of opportunity for those who can help an online student pull through a rough spot.
12. If the credentials become valuable, cheating will be a problem. For example, online test-taking may shift to proctored test centers.

Whether these are good things, I'll leave that to you.

On a related note, the Chronicle of Higher Education is running a very similar story, asking Could many universities follow Borders Bookstores into oblivion? It's an interview with Richard A. DeMillo and Paul M.A. Baker, from Georgia Tech's Center for 21st Century Universities. Some interesting quotes:

"You don't know where events are going to take higher education. But if you want to be an important institution 20 years from now, you have to position yourself so that you can adapt to whatever those technology changes are. Whenever you have this kind of technological change, where there's a large incumbency, the incumbents are inherently at a disadvantage. And we're the incumbents."

"What you're seeing, for example, is technology enabling a single master teacher to reach students on an individualized basis on a scale that is unprecedented. ... I think what you see happening now with the massive open courses is going to fundamentally change the business models. It's going to put the notion of value front and center. Why would I want a credential from this university? Why would I want to pay tuition to this university? It really ups the stakes."

"What it [changing landscape] means is that the university needs to rethink what it's doing, how it's doing it. And how it innovates in a way of surviving in the face of this."

"One thing that you might see is highly tuned curricula, students being able to select from a range of things that they want to learn and a range of mentors that they want to interact with, whether you think of it as hacking degrees or pulling assessments from a menu of different universities. What does that mean for the individual university? It means that a university has to figure out where its true value sits in that landscape."

I'd like to thank Dave Savela (Computing Services) and our partners in OIT for a very successful network upgrade yesterday. In this phase, we needed to re-route traffic from each of the campus buildings through the new network equipment. re-route traffic from each of the campus buildings through the new equipment. Our schedule involved changing about 10 campus buildings per hour. We chose the Monday of Spring Break to minimize the disruption to campus.

I'm pleased to report that the network changes went very smoothly. We were actually ahead of schedule in each hour, leaving some time to plan for the next set of changes. I'm not aware of any problems on the network as of this morning.

After yesterday's upgrades, we do not expect to have any visible changes on the network until after graduation in May.

Next steps

March:

• Review of remaining campus network wiring and equipment.

April:

• Upgrade network equipment in residence halls, campus apartments, and similar non-academic buildings.

May: (after graduation)

• Upgrade network equipment in academic buildings. Computing Services will coordinate with the summer program to minimize the impact of these changes.

During the summer, we will upgrade the wireless network across campus. Based on similar network upgrades at the Twin Cities, we expect to see a 20% improvement of our wireless network just by replacing the wireless access points with new devices. This will also give us a new wireless network for guests to use when visiting the campus. After the wireless upgrade, we will collect statistics and analyze our wireless network coverage, and work to improve wireless in areas that need the most help. Our focus areas will include the Library, Student Center, and HFA buildings.

We expect to finish all network upgrades before the start of Fall term.

Last week, I had the privilege of attending the MCSA TechFee hearings. I also attended last year, and it is a great example of IT governance and engagement by our student community.

Listening to the MCSA discussion reminded me of TechFee's mission. While funding of current technology is important, the students also clearly want technology that will bring us to the next level.

I spoke about this topic recently, how technology changes at a rapid pace. That's why we always need to look ahead to what is coming next. Ask yourself these questions: What is the next "new thing" that will have the biggest impact to teaching & learning? To research? And as stewards of the University technology (and taxpayer dollars) what will advance the campus to the top tier?

I've previously shared my vision of some coming changes: small computing devices, "BYOD" (Bring Your Own Device), mobile learning, application virtualization, responsive web design, and more. If we don't keep an eye to the future, to how the IT landscape is changing, then we'll find ourselves in a continual race to catch up, rather than breaking new ground.

I sent the following email to campus yesterday, but wanted to share the update here as well:

We continue to work with the Twin Cities network team to upgrade our campus network. Our next phase is to re-route traffic from each of the campus buildings through the new equipment. As discussed in Planning Committee, Academic Support Services Committee, and Campus Assembly, we have scheduled this change for Monday, March 12, the first day of Spring Break week to minimize the impact to teaching & learning.

For each building that is being activated, there may be a brief interval (about 5 minutes) where this work may be noticeable. For example, you may not be able to send emails in Gmail or do other online activities during these 5 minutes. Unfortunately, the Twin Cities network group is not able to make these changes on a weekend, so we have scheduled the work as follows:

Between 10:00-11:00am

• Pine Hall
• Spooner Hall
• Blakely Hall
• Gay Hall
• Indy Hall
• Campus apartments

11:00-noon

• Imholte Hall
• Imholte computer labs
• Student Center computer labs
• Library computer labs
• Science computer labs
• Behmler Hall computer labs

noon-1:00pm

• Briggs Library
• Science
• CSci computer labs
• Education
• RFC and PE center
• Bio-mass facility
• Humanities
• Camden Hall

2:30-3:30pm

• Residential Life offices
• Welcome Center
• Student Center
• Multi-Ethnic Resource Center
• Humanities & Fine Arts

4:30-6:30pm

• Bookstore
• T&T research labs
• Campus Police
• Computing Services
• Food Services
• WCROC
• Behmler Hall
• Transportation garage
• Security doors and cameras
• KUMM radio
• Wireless

We cannot provide detailed estimates of when in each hour your network might be affected. If you experience a network problem during the hour when your building is scheduled, this is likely due to the planned work, and you should not call the help desk. However, if you have problems on the network when your building is not scheduled, please do call us right away. We appreciate your patience and flexibility as you plan your work accordingly.

If you have any questions about this schedule, please feel free to call, email, or visit.

From the Office of Information Technology:

On Sunday, March 11th, from 6 a.m. - 6 p.m., the Office of Information Technology will be performing a reconfiguration of the University's GIGaPop and Network border complex. This is where all commercial Internet access, Research Network access, and institutional network peering accesses the University network system. Basically it houses the University's connections to and from the outside world.

We do not expect any service interruption. However, while we have planned this work to be non-service impacting, we do also acknowledge that issues can arise and failures can occur. Because of the sensitive nature of this work, we want you to be informed. We believe we have mitigated service impacting issues for all known scenarios. We are also adding additional staff support to ensure there is adequate coverage for communications, should it be needed.

Technical Details

OIT network Engineers have been working for several months to streamline and re-organized the GIGaPop/ Border complex, as Border Gateway Protocol routing is becoming more complex and routing tables too large to manage.

Specifically we are moving the internet commercial route-table into a virtual routing and forwarding table, implementing a redesign of the entire campus border complex. This work is being performed to streamline and simplify the configuration, further prepare us for IPv6, and provide improved peering capability with the State and other partners.

This change was attempted October 30th, 2011. During that change, a configuration table on one of the routers overloaded and became unstable. When that happened, the University was isolated from the Internet for approximately 2 hours while network engineers analyzed the failure and backed out the change. We have been in contact with the vendor to ensure this does not happen again and we have adjusted the plan to incorporate an additional router to help during the transition and provide us a more seamless service transition. In the end we expect to have a simpler and more robust GIGaPop for the University.

Since the work is specific to the Network GIGaPop, it should have no service implications to University internal network traffic or internal data center network traffic--only network traffic bound for outside our Network borders. Please note that this change is pending approval by the OIT Change Approval Board.

Timeline

• March 11, 4:00am - Begin the migrations
• March 11, 10:00am - Completion of the intended changes
• March 11, 12:00(noon) - Validation and cleanup
• March 11, 04:00 pm - Time reserved for back outs of and service mitigation.

I assume you have watched, listened to, or read President Kaler's State of the University address on March 1. In his speech, Dr Kaler encouraged the campuses to find new ways to leverage technology in teaching and learning:

Let me now turn to new initiatives. I'll start with our educational mission. I am asking today for faculty, staff, and governance to engage with me in two ways. First, I want all of our campuses to be leaders, in the state and nationally, in using technology to improve teaching and learning.

Our colleagues in Rochester and Crookston may have a head start, but I am establishing a process to request proposals from faculty on all of our campuses for innovative educational initiatives that will advance teaching and learning. I want our best thoughts about how to use modern tools to enable student success, and I want to pilot those ideas, adopt what works and spread it across our campuses. I would like to see a special focus on electronic textbooks as a way to reduce costs to students. I have asked senior vice presidents Karen Hanson and Robert Jones to lead this effort.

This dovetails nicely with a project that Jayne & I, together with several faculty at Morris, have been working on. Before the break, Jayne Blodgett and I discussed how to enhance teaching & learning through technology. Working with Kristin in the Grants office, we collaborated with Tisha, Heather, and Pam to draft a grant proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) for new classroom technology.

Our project proposal focused on the benefits of mobile learning, or "mLearning", and how to experiment with this at Morris. Grants are a wonderful opportunity to try new things, and we haven't had much experience with mLearning at Morris. This proposal requested monies to purchase iPads and network infrastructure to support a mobile learning initiative at Morris, using iPads to enhance college writing.

While the proposal didn't move forward this year (other bids for the same grant outpaced us with previous work) we are looking to other opportunities to promote mLearning. President Kaler's initative may provide a natural opportunity for us to advance our mLearning effort, using the University of Minnesota as a possible funding source. This is another way that we are working to support technology on campus.

Some of you have asked me about Google's privacy changes, which have been discussed in the news lately. Google's new Terms of Service explains that if users have a Google account and are signed in, that Google may combine information the user has provided from one service with information from other services.

It's important, first, to remember that there is a difference between University of Minnesota Google Apps accounts and personal Google/Gmail.com accounts. They are totally separate from each other, and fall under separate and different contractual agreements, as well as different terms of service. Institutions that use Google Apps for their email, calendar and the other core applications, have individual contracts with Google that define how data is handled and stored.

The University of Minnesota has a separate contract with Google, and Google remains in compliance with the confidentiality and security obligations provided to our domains under this contract. The new privacy policy does not change this contractual agreement between Google and the University.

University's core suite of applications - including Gmail, Calendar, Docs (word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations), Talk (instant messaging), and Google Sites - are not affected by Google's new privacy policy.

For more information, please visit OIT's Google page or this blog entry about what you need to know about the new privacy policy.

If you have a personal Google/Gmail.com account, and would like to prevent Google from tracking your web history via your personal account, follow these steps:

1. Sign into your Google account.
2. Go to https://www.google.com/history
3. Click "remove all Web History."
4. Click "ok."

Note that disabling Web History in your Google account will not prevent Google from gathering and storing this information and using it for internal purposes. With Web History enabled, Google will keep these records indefinitely; with it disabled, they will be partially anonymized after 18 months, and certain kinds of uses, including sending you customized search results, will be prevented.

For screenshots to help walk you through this process, please refer to the EFF's How to remove your Google search history.

It's generally true that "innovation happens at the edge." That is, new projects get formed by small groups, boundaries are pushed, new possibilities explored. This isn't to say that central IT or enterprise IT doesn't innovate, but they generally aren't set up to explore new avenues. That is often the value that small IT can provide to the enterprise.

The process usually breaks down like this:

1. A small group identifies a unique need, something not currently provided by existing services. Someone at the local level develops a new mode, a solution that fits just that problem. They have advanced an innovation.
2. Other, similar teams in the organization may see what the first group has achieved, and see the value it could bring them. Other teams collaborate and get involved in the new service, or they may share the solution for others to use on their own.
3. If the new solution becomes very popular, a larger IT unit may offer to provide it as a centralized service.
4. As the centralized service grows, it may evolve into a high profile application, with lots of different users. The organization as a whole may decide to adopt the new service. This is where a central IT unit turns the system into an enterprise offering.

In other words, popular IT systems often follow this growth model:

• Innovate - Shared - Centralize - Enterprise

Look at a few of the IT systems that are use at the University of Minnesota. For example: File storage.

Decades ago, the only way to share computer files with others in your office was via "sneakernet" - copying the data to a floppy, and walking it over to someone's desk. When computer networks became affordable, some departments realized they could dedicate one large computer to store everyone's files, for everyone in that department. As was typical, the local IT support staff would have set up a dedicated PC to act as a "file server".

It didn't take long for offices to realize the benefit of sharing files electronically. Larger units pooled resources and created a shared service. Today, OIT supports several enterprise options to store files on a network, and share them with others.

What will the next innovation be?

From Ramsay at the Helpdesk:

I'm sure you've all heard before to be on the lookout for scam and phishing email but I want to make sure everybody is still on the lookout for them.

Phishing emails are a common tactic that scammers will use to try and get any info they can from you. Many of these phishing attempts take the form of either asking you to do some type of account maintenance or to confirm your account information by sending your name, address, date of birth, etc. to them.

Any emails of these form should automatically tip you off that they are not legitimate, but the University of MN specifically will never ask you to verify or upgrade your account through email.

Here are 3 major indicators that an email is not legitimate, from a recent example:

1. The link in the email is not a University website. All U of M websites will have .umn.edu in them. In fact, if a link doesn't clearly state what address it's taking you to, you should think twice about clicking on it.
2. The wording in scam emails is often broken english and/or bad grammar. For instance, "use the link below by clicking on the link below"
3. "Copyright ©2012 Admin Helpdesk Centre" is not U of M branded or Google-branded. This is a major clue that the University did not send this email.

If in doubt, it is always safer to call the Helpdesk and get a second opinion than to possibly send your account information to a scammer or even to click on a link that may take you to a risky website where you could pick up a virus.