January 2013 Archives

I recently became a fan of The Walking Dead on AMC. Even if you've never watched the show, you should be able to guess what it's about just from the title: it's yet another show about the "zombie apocalypse."

Zombies are almost a staple in Halloween lore, and now a popular Internet meme. And oddly, that leads me to a few leadership lessons from zombies. I sometimes like to look at things from different viewpoints to see what we can learn about leadership. Zombies provide an excellent lens for leading teams and building momentum behind your vision:

1. Zombies make it easy to join the group.

Whether you prefer the super-fast zombies from 28 Days Later or the traditional shambling kind, everyone agrees that a bite from a zombie is all it takes to turn you into one of the zombie horde. Twist that idea to how your form teams. Do you make it really easy for new folks to get in on the idea?

2. One zombie is easy to defeat; a herd of zombies is unstoppable.

When only one person is touting a new idea, it's not uncommon for that idea to get shot down. But if you can amass some support around the vision, and get lots of people behind it, that momentum will often carry the idea forward no matter what obstacles get in the way. Watch any zombie movie for proof. One zombie? Easy to take out. But a bunch of zombies—even a herd of the shambling undead—is nigh unstoppable.

3. Zombies have a clear vision statement.

Where are you going with your idea? What is the vision behind it? Does everyone on your team understand the "end vision" and how to get there? Zombies understand this on an "instinctual" level. And you have to admit, "Braaaaaaaaains" is a simple yet effective vision statement that every zombie can comprehend.

A few days ago, EDUCAUSE Review shared their most popular articles from 2012. Among their list, they included the top ten IT issues in 2012.

The EDUCAUSE annual publication of top IT issues has long resonated as a yearly snapshot of the most pressing issues for IT leaders in higher education. In 2000, EDUCAUSE changed the method by which the issues were selected and ranked, instituting a member survey. For twelve years, members were asked to select the five most-important IT issues out of a selection of about thirty in each of four areas:

• Issues that are critical for strategic success.
• Issues that are expected to increase in significance.
• Issues that demand the greatest amount of the campus IT leader's time
• Issues that require the largest expenditures of human and fiscal resources.

Their top ten IT issues:

1. Updating IT professionals' skills and roles to accommodate emerging technologies and changing IT management and service delivery models
2. Supporting the trends toward IT consumerization and bring-your-own device
3. Developing an institution-wide cloud strategy
4. Improving the institution's operational efficiency through information technology
5. Integrating information technology into institutional decision-making
6. Using analytics to support critical institutional outcomes
7. Funding information technology strategically
8. Transforming the institution's business with information technology
9. Supporting the research mission through high-performance computing, large data, and analytics
10. Establishing and implementing IT governance throughout the institution

If you checked the date on the EDUCAUSE article, you'll notice the list was published in June 2012. So that's six months ago. Yet the list accurately captures the key IT issues from this year. The trend here is the changing nature of IT, the introduction of BYOD and Cloud, the shift away from "servers" towards "services." IT Directors and CIOs no longer focus on servers in an organization; rather, they act as brokers to services. In higher education, this increases IT's direct support of research and education. And, arguably, that's really our mission.

I wanted to share this important update about Google Appointment Slots:

Shortly before winter break, Google announced that it would be discontinuing its Appointment Slots feature on Google Calendar.

Appointment Slots is a feature on Google Calendar that lets you set up blocks of time on your calendar that colleagues or students can then sign up for. Many faculty were using this feature for office hours and advisor hours.

We were quite disappointed that this feature was going away, so we immediately began looking for an alternative way to do Appointment Slots. Working together, the IMT Helpdesk and Computing Services had already begun the process of investigating options to replace this feature at Morris.

However, last week we received good news from OIT: Google will continue to support appointment slots in Calendar for all Google Apps for Business, Education and Government customers. Our voices were heard! Appointment Slots will not be discontinued for University of Minnesota users.

I've discussed the growing issue of BYOD on campus. We need to face up to personal devices entering the campus network; it's naive to assume this will be a passing fad. At the University of Minnesota Morris, we encourage replacing laptops and desktops every 4–5 years, depending on the user. But if you assume a 4 year replacement cycle, it's almost guaranteed that folks will have purchased a new device for themselves at home during that time. For example, Apple releases a new version of the iPad about once a year, and it seems everyone wants to bring their iPad to work.

In years past, IT Directors and CIOs would discourage users bringing in their own devices. It's about managing risk. When users bring in their own laptops and tablets to use at work, the IT department has little to no control over how that device is used. We also don't know what data could be stored there—yet if that user device is ever lost or stolen, the institution is still responsible for the inappropriate loss of any private data.

But IT departments need to embrace BYOD. We need to stop saying "no" to customers, and find ways to say "let me help you."

CIO Magazine recently discussed this issue of "consumerization" or BYOD, saying much the same thing: Embrace consumerization of IT and stop saying no. From the article:

"Today, business users are very savvy. They know what they want and what they need. They expect technology to be easy and intuitive, as simple as what they see on their iPad or iPhone. But what they don't understand is that it isn't easy for IT to make that shift."

"Consumerization of technology is an inevitability. It's an inevitability because of SaaS, because of broadband in the home and because every single technology vendor in the world targets individuals now. People harness technology not because they want to but because they have to."

The statement "People harness technology not because they want to but because they have to" reminds me of a saying from one of our faculty: "Technology should be like a rock. It should be that simple to use." I like to repeat that quote because it serves as a reminder that IT folks like technology, but most of our users do not. Faculty aren't bringing in their laptops from home, or their iPads, or whatever else because they want to. They do it because it helps them to get their work done.

That's why the article makes the important point that as IT departments "just say no" when their users try to bring in these new devices, they also turn off their users. In doing so, the IT department effectively creates an environment where users do their own thing, without involving IT. And if folks are going to bring in their own devices anyway, do you want them to do it with your support or without you knowing about it?

It's helpful to occasionally take a step back and look at your career highlights. We refer to this as a leadership journey. To start, a leadership journey should be distilled to just those events that hold the greatest meaning. These moments can be either "negative" or "positive". You may find that your leadership journey changes as you gain new perspectives throughout your career and life experiences. And that's okay.

For example, in 2011 my leadership journey looked like this:

Today, I would start my leadership journey at the "DataMap" point. But the overview looks the same. And I still find that my leadership journey has the most to say when I focus just on the peaks and valleys. These are the points at which I've learned something, through either a strongly positive or negative experience.

I generally encourage everyone to learn something, no matter where they are. Looking back over my career, I've worked with several different organizations. I can say that I have come out each company with a new experience. For example:

My first job was with a small geographics company, where I was the Unix systems administrator. I had a great supervisor; from him, I learned how to step back from a problem and plan my mistake strategy. Generally, no problem is unique. Even if you've just committed a huge blunder, chances are that someone else has done the same thing before. So take a breath, focus, and think about what you're going to do next before doing it.

My second job was at a small information management company owned by a law firm. I was the IT manager, reporting to the vice president of technology. I didn't get along very well with him; he was a bad boss. Even though we didn't see eye to eye, I learned quite a lot from him about how to do successful, in-depth interviews. So there's that.

After the law firm company, I moved moved to the University of Minnesota, in the first U of M Web Team. The director I worked for was a great mentor, and by watching him I learned the art of politics. (It is no surprise that he has since moved into politics, and now lives in Washington, D.C.)

As I've moved to other areas in the University, I have tried to learn (either directly or indirectly) from those around me. For example, before I joined the Morris campus, I was a senior manager in the Office of Information Technology. Through my director, I picked up some useful tips about project management and planning. And indirectly - I observed some counterexamples of how not to build teams; let's just say that this was not one of his strengths.

I encourage you to take some time out, and reflect on the key events that taught you the most about leadership. You can learn a lot about yourself by doing a leadership journey. The experience is wasted if you don't take away something from each step of your personal journey. What are the lessons you've learned? How will you use these to further develop yourself?

As you probably know, much of my background is in open source software. I have written or contributed to many Free and open source software projects, and more recently have discussed usability in open source software. On this blog, I've discussed open source software many times: questions to ask yourself when looking to open source software, integrating open source software into your operations, open source software on campus.

I'm encouraged to see open source being discussed in trade magazines. In November, University Business continued to raise awareness with an article that busts myths about open source software. The myths:

1. If you use open source, you're on your own. (False)
2. Open source gurus are tough to find — and they eat up IT budgets. (False)
3. Open source costs nothing, but it's also expensive. (False)
4. Open source is highly insecure, and also bulletproof. (False)
5. Open source is ideal for every institutional project. (False)
6. Open source makes your institution into a technology island. (False)
7. Commercial software and open source don't play well together. (False)

If you use open source software, you often can find robust support channels through companies such as Red Hat Software, Modo, and rSmart. Where corporate sponsored support does not exist, you can also find support via the development community. Post a question on their forums or email lists and someone can usually help you out. And if we're really being honest with ourselves, don't we usually do that anyway when we have problems with software from "big name" firms such as Microsoft and Oracle?

If you need direct support from someone on-site, you can easily hire that knowledge using a "rich ecosystem of contractors and service vendors that allows for an a la carte selection of developers, consultants, and support personnel."

Open source software is built on top of standards, which encourages competition and interoperability between systems. Through these standards, open source software and commercial systems can talk to each other seamlessly. In The World is Flat, author Thomas L. Friedman refers to this as a "flattener":

"The great thing about HTML, HTTP, TCP/IP, XML and SOAP is that once they were adopted as standards — and everything and everyone became interoperable and interconnected — software companies stopped competing over who got to control the fire hydrant nozzles and focused on who could make better hoses and fire trucks to pump more water. Once a standard takes hold, people start to focus on the quality of what they are doing as opposed to how they are doing it." (84)

So if you're an IT Director or CIO, don't dismiss open source software. Open source software can give you a competitive advantage as a way to advance your campus, especially in the current climate of shrinking budgets but increasing demands.

By now, I assume you have all seen the Wall Street Journal article Deans List: Hiring Spree Fattens College Bureaucracy—And Tuition about the rising costs of higher education, and the WSJ's focus on the University of Minnesota. But I'd like to highlight that we've been working hard since I arrived at Morris to reduce our campus technology operating costs, while increasing (or at least maintaining) the services that we offer to students, faculty, and staff. Our VPCIO, Scott Studham, has similarly been working over the last year to bring down operating costs across all IT areas at the University.

I am queueing a blog article for a few weeks from now, about what IT at Morris offers to campus (I wrote a similar post last year) and I now plan to work in some of our cost reductions. For example, our adoption of more centrally-offered services such as servers and web hosting allows our technology staff more opportunity to directly support the campus.

In the meantime, you may be interested in a few facts shared by VPCIO Studham that already reduce the University's overall IT costs:

• We have already reduced the number of IT helpdesks from 73 to 56, while consolidating support staff to offer a 24x7 help line. This number will continue to go down with ongoing effort from the Helpdesk Community of Practice. President Kaler's goal is to have one number to call for help.
• We have avoided a $14M data center construction project by better utilizing existing spaces.
• Independent analysis firm Gartner values the University of Minnesota's implementation of Google Apps (Gmail, Calendar, …) at $15M. That's a considerable savings. The University would have needed to invest significant resources in a new email and calendaring system, but now we can direct those dollars elsewhere in the University.