tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91418724242292335102024-03-13T23:42:48.085-04:00Turning Technology InvisibleA long time IT leader doing technology in a new way... by getting technology out of the way... turning it invisible like oxygen (necessary for life, but not thought of until it's not there).
This blog is about the leadership needed to transform IT.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.comBlogger176125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-40873065275418075162016-06-20T09:13:00.000-04:002016-06-20T09:13:18.224-04:00I've Moved!!!Thanks for taking the time to find me and my blog postings. It has been quiet around here lately.<br />
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I've moved my blogging time over to beBee.com, and find the level of engagement and feedback I get there is astonishing. Check it out at: https://www.bebee.com/@kevin-pashuk<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-76622714464985563052015-06-01T11:48:00.000-04:002015-06-01T12:54:18.492-04:00The Missing Word in IT's VocabularyIf you ask any IT leader to describe their schedule they would say it's full. Full of meetings, full of problems, and full of projects.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ln_Ka56DwNE/T8TF_KN1noI/AAAAAAAAAj4/F5LWRhPWmnk/s1600/Getting-things-done-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ln_Ka56DwNE/T8TF_KN1noI/AAAAAAAAAj4/F5LWRhPWmnk/s200/Getting-things-done-.jpg" width="200" /></a>They can go on and on about all the things happening in their lives.<br />
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Now ask them what they completed in the past year...<br />
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... as in finished, delivered, shipped.<br />
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I thought so.<br />
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It would seem that the word "<b>done</b>" is missing from most CIO's vocabulary.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Common reasons I've heard?:<br />
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<ul>
<li>Infrastructure projects are never "done", there are always ongoing upgrades.</li>
<li>Support services are never "done", they are ongoing.</li>
<li>New projects are incremental... you start small and keep going...</li>
<li>Users are always coming up with new requirements!</li>
<li>The technology has changed.</li>
<li>We ran out of money / people / time.</li>
</ul>
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Sound familiar?</div>
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If you don't understand the concept of "<b>done</b>", you are sabotaging your department's reputation and your chances to advance your career.</div>
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Without knowing when things are "<b>done</b>", how do you plan? How do you budget appropriately? How do you measure progress? How can you (or more importantly your team) feel a sense of accomplishment?<br />
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So where do you start?<br />
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Let's start with learning the basics of project management. I'm not talking about the "project management" I typically find in an IT department... "I'm in charge of this project, that must mean I'm the project manager!"<br />
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To be clear, I'm not talking about Gantt charts, ITIL, COBIT, PPM (Project Portfolio Management), Six Sigma or other tools (although they are useful to manage your projects and you should know about them). Starting a project with the purpose of "implementing ITIL or PPM" is not going to make you any more productive.<br />
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You need to "start at the end" and understand the concept of "<b>results</b>".<br />
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Using PPM and having documented processes will help you achieve results - they should not be the end product of the project.<br />
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So ask yourself:<br />
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<ul>
<li>What are services you <b>need </b>to provide to your organization? </li>
<li>What services are you <b>currently providing</b> to your organization? (Check out my previous post <i><a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-does-it-department-really-do.html" target="_blank">What Does the IT Department Really Do?</a></i> for a tool I used to document this.)</li>
</ul>
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Do the lists match?<br />
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Which items are mission critical?<br />
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Which ones differentiate your organization?<br />
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Where are the gaps? <br />
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Where do cumbersome IT processes hinder people from getting their work done?<br />
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What do you need to do to close the gaps?<br />
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What can you quit doing that consumes time, talent and resources that don't contribute to either mission critical or differentiating services?<br />
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Which of the mission critical but non-differentiating services can you outsource? (Perhaps email?)<br />
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If you've gone through this exercise, you should now have a list of what you need to do (tactical items) to deliver results (strategies) for your organization.<br />
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Now you have to lay them out on a timeline and prioritize them: (Hint: This is not a solo exercise.)<br />
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<ul>
<li>Which are most important?</li>
<li>Where do you need skills in your team to accomplish them?</li>
</ul>
<br />
<br />
Now it is time to break down the list into discrete deliverable segments, with the operative word being deliverable. <br />
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Gone are the days of the mega-project, the multi-year deliverables, the waterfall method of development. Today it's about agility, adaptability and responsiveness.<br />
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Once you've done this, your team can get to work. Be sure to review your progress regularly, and be flexible enough to adjust your list and schedule based on changing demands beyond your control.<br />
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In this way, you will experience the concept of "<b>done</b>". Genuine, actual completed projects that you can include in your quarterly report.<br />
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As you develop your skills in this area, you will have a track record of being able to deliver - on time, on budget and with well defined results. This is the kind of IT department that matters, that gets budgeted appropriately.<br />
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So I've said all of the above to say this... Simplify, and deliver technology that supports results.<br />
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<b>Related Posts:</b><br />
<a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2011/06/what-does-it-department-really-do.html" target="_blank">What Does the IT Department Really Do?</a>
<br />
<a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2012/02/reimagining-it.html" target="_blank">Blowing Up the IT Department</a><br />
<a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2011/12/start-at-end.html" target="_blank">Start at the End</a><br />
<a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2011/09/pursuing-service-with-passion.html" target="_blank">Pursuing Service with Passion</a><br />
<a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2011/08/310-crucial-survival-skills-for-21st.html" target="_blank">#3/10 Crucial Survival Skills for the 21st Century CIO - Collaboration</a><br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-78597622948228224542014-11-26T15:12:00.000-05:002014-11-26T15:12:18.384-05:00Give this to your IT department: Five Ways IT can help teachers be more effective.<span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial; font-size: 14.3999996185303px;">Let me start this post by stating that I am not a teacher. I am also not a geek in the traditional sense of the word. Now that I've</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: 'Segoe UI', Arial; font-size: 14.3999996185303px;"> discredited myself with both of the intended audiences of this post, let me explain why I might be qualified to give some advice in this area.</span><br />
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In my career I have worked to help organizations either start something big, or make big changes in how they do things. In the last 15 years, I have worked almost exclusively with educational institutions both as a consultant, and for the last 10 years leading their IT groups.</div>
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I have watched over the years as IT departments in partnership with vendors delivered educational technology “solutions” that were supposed to revolutionize the classroom and change the way learning happened. The long list of items included Learning Management Systems, Clickers, interactive whiteboards, laptops, tablets, document cameras, wireless networking, classroom management software, video conferencing, chat rooms, social media, etc., etc. etc. And while the promises (and budgets) were huge, the deliverables in terms of revolution were almost inconsequential.</div>
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What we did, was add complexity, frustration, and tremendous cost to the academic experience. While there were shining pockets of great technology implementation, as a whole we didn’t add any value or capacity to the teacher’s ability to do her or his job better.</div>
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Yet we in IT were undaunted, and were sure that we’d achieve results after the next silver bullet.</div>
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Does this sound familiar to you?</div>
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Now that I’ve painted such a bleak picture, let me say that it is indeed possible to teach an old IT dog some new tricks.</div>
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Two years ago my team rolled out an application that teachers could voluntarily use to deliver their curriculum. Historically we would expect a keener group of 20 to 30% to adopt a new tool, and then have about half of them drop it after a month or so. In this case, we were blown away that over 80% of the teachers in our school adopted this technology in the first month, and after two years we have almost 100% of the teachers using it, and enthusiastically claiming it has changed the way they teach.</div>
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What was different in this application? I’m glad you asked. Here are five key points to ensure your IT team can contribute to teacher capacity.</div>
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<strong>1. Understand the problem. (hint: it’s not about technology)</strong></div>
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Too often we try to shoehorn problems into an ed-tech ‘solution’. In our case, we (IT) met with the academic leadership of the school and asked them a simple question “Without using the words ‘computer’ or ‘technology’, could you describe what an exceptional learning experience is made up of?” They went away for two weeks and met with teachers and leaders. They came back and filled several whiteboards with diagrams, lists, etc. that became the foundation for what we needed to build. Not only did we have a good definition of the problem, we had the key success factors defined.</div>
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<strong>2. Mind the Gap: (Skills gap, that is)</strong></div>
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A year before this rollout, I was reviewing the skill sets in my team and realized that we had a huge knowledge gap. My team were experts in their fields, but there was no one who truly understood learning – the process of learning, the pain points of learning, the success factors, pedagogical issues and trends.</div>
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Other schools had created Educational Technologist positions, but often they were either technical people who thought they could teach, or teachers who liked to play with gadgets. I determined that we needed to be different and focus on the understanding of learning. So we created a position and filled it with someone who had deep pedagogical understanding, 20 years of teaching experience and several years of leveraging technology in his classroom. We installed him at a desk eyeball to eyeball with our development team. This allowed instantaneous feedback and input on the development of our solution, including information flow, user interaction and reporting.</div>
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<strong>3. Teachers are busy people.</strong></div>
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If you are a teacher reading this, you will agree that there is precious little time left in your schedule for anything that takes away from teaching. Any system that requires complex setup and / or administrative maintenance will likely not be welcomed into your world. Any ‘solution’ brought into your classroom is both intuitive to use and will not require administrative time on your part. The smart people in IT should be able to move all of that administrative work into the system and automate it. So that is what we did. When we deployed our solution, we had reduced the teacher administration down to a couple of clicks.</div>
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<strong>4. Your version of ‘intuitive’ is different than mine.</strong></div>
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A great solution shouldn't need a four hour training session, but neither will it be completely intuitive to all. In our case, a very short video introduction was all many needed, and there was drop in times set up for teachers to ask questions of our learning specialist. After all, it was one teacher talking to another, not a teacher talking to a techie.</div>
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<strong>5. Get ready for the ‘But…”</strong></div>
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We are regularly adding capability to our system in response to users who say “This is wonderful… but it would be great if…” That ‘but’ always comes. Be responsive. Have a way to incorporate user feedback. Our best ideas have come from teachers.</div>
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While not comprehensive, I would hope that you see that your IT department significantly help your school increase teacher capacity. But it likely means doing things a bit differently than they did before.</div>
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What was the tool we developed? Our academic leadership described an open, flexible platform for learning that would allow teachers to concentrate on the delivery of their material in a way most suitable for their area (math, science, art, phys-ed, music, etc.) and provide opportunities for students and teachers to collaborate from anywhere in the world, on any device.</div>
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Sounds simple? My team leveraged the power of Microsoft SharePoint and OneNote, added functionality to remove all the individual teacher setup time, and came up with the tool described in this video.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV_xvZEnPMU&list=PLcVuAxNuOfQ5OdlYDMBFa9bgsavLPCtBs" style="color: #0066cc; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV_xvZEnPMU&list=PLcVuAxNuOfQ5OdlYDMBFa9bgsavLPCtBs</a></div>
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By their own words, teachers say this has changed the way they teach. If you were to visit our school, you would see for yourselves what can happen when your IT team learns about learning.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-69302744927762465282014-10-28T09:47:00.001-04:002014-10-28T16:46:44.520-04:00The Mobile Workplace: 5 Things to considerDo you remember a time that when you made a phone call, you called a house instead of a person? If you were a teenage boy you dreaded the thought of getting that young lady’s father on the phone. I have yet to experience that type of terror in my adult life, but I digress.<br />
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A little later on when home Internet became somewhat common, the ‘Internet’ was usually accessed on a computer set up in a corner of the family room. One would ‘go’ to where the Internet was, and usually have to wait your turn to get online.<br />
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Nowadays, we don’t call houses, we call people. We don’t ‘go’ to the Internet, it’s in our pocket or purse and follows us around, and with the exception of a number of hotels I stayed at recently, is pretty much everywhere.<br />
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In my home, there are a number of devices that all play together well. I can browse the Internet, control my thermostat, share media, print from the comfort of my couch while playing music wirelessly over Bluetooth. We have ‘cut the cord’ on cable television and home phone services. We just pay for Internet and our monthly communications bill in the house has dropped by over $100.<br />
In my experience, the average technology in the workplace has lagged behind the features and functionality of consumer electronics due to a number of things including security, compliance, scalability and a number of other significant factors.<br />
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As you see below, I’m of the opinion that implementing a mobile strategy is not a choice, but something that needs to be on your organization’s project list.<br />
Here are five things to consider.<br />
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<b>1.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Your boss likely expects it.</b><br />
As I mentioned above, your boss likely experiences a high level of mobility and integration at home. Keynote speakers at the conferences she attended described this environment as normal. She doesn’t care about it being difficult to work on an enterprise level. That’s why she hired you. She will likely channel Jean Luc Picard and tell you to “Make it so”.<br />
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<b>2.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>It’s a lot of work.</b><br />
If only technology were as simple to implement as the marketing people would have us believe. We CIOs know all the reasons why enterprise level mobile solutions are infinitely more complex than a home office. Mobile computing is more than laptops, smart phones and tablets. It impacts your network, your development, your applications, practically every way you do IT is impacted. The convenience of having your corporate information available anytime/anywhere is offset by challenge of ensuring it’s not available to anybody. This was easy when the access points to the information was locked down on employee’s desktop computers, but not so much when the access points can be anywhere.<br />
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Today’s successful CIO cannot let complexity get in the way of moving forward – that’s why we hire smart people and keep their skill sets current. In addition, I hope you have a great relationship with your CFO, as your budget will definitely need to be adjusted for implementation.<br />
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<b>3.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Everyone else is doing it. </b><br />
Having secure anytime/anywhere access can enhance productivity in your workforce and enhance your interactions with your customers, but don’t expect that you will differentiate your company by implementing a mobile platform. <br />
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I you don’t do it however, you will set your company on a course to obscurity and falling behind the competition. <br />
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<b>4.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>When things go bad, it will still be your problem.</b><br />
A good mobile strategy will likely leverage a number of cloud based resources (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS). Make sure you deal with reputable organizations and ensure you have solid Service Level Agreements in place (especially the clauses about response time during failures). When you lose access to your ERP, you can bet it’s not the vendor the CEO will call.<br />
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In addition, you are still responsible for all the NBN stuff. This is an acronym I have made up – Nasty, but Necessary. In this category are all the things you cannot ignore, even though they may not be fun to do. They have incredible punitive implications. Things like security, compliance, privacy, etc. If you don’t account for it up front, you may have significant problems after you have rolled out your mobile solution. Take this NBN stuff seriously. Bring in the experts if you need to, but my sure you CYA (you know what that acronym stands for).<br />
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<b>5.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Things will break, get lost and be shared. Deal with it.</b><br />
The trouble with mobile devices is, they are mobile. They are easily lost, stolen, broken and even more insidiously, are treated like personal devices. On the same device as your monthly sales data are the selfie shots of the last vacation. Phones and tablets are handed to bored children in Chick-Fil-A so parents can pretend they have a semblance of adult conversation at the end of a meal. Having corporate computing devices at such risk does little to warm the cockles of a CIO's heart.<br />
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But in this new world of IT, of which anytime/anywhere access is the norm, you and your team need to have strategies in how you manage both devices and access to your system. Do you virtualize all your apps to isolate them from the personal data and applications on the device? Is little Suzie able to play in your sales forecast spreadsheet? If an employee’s phone or tablet is lost, how soon can you identify it and wipe it if necessary (assuming you’ve already protected unauthorized access to your corporate systems).<br />
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You can’t control these things, but you can certainly manage them through proper implementation.<br />
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If you are not well on the way to implementing a corporate mobile strategy, I have probably created more angst than you had before you read the article. In my case, I have strong people on my team that have the skills and aptitude to handle the questions and the issues I've raised. That makes my job easy.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-56020635559073172992014-07-21T15:46:00.000-04:002014-07-21T15:46:59.875-04:00Mileage may Vary: 5 Critical Things to Know about BYOD<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_73LN30nWQg/U81t20LePbI/AAAAAAAACi4/zHzUrTXPykc/s1600/1974+Thunderbird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-_73LN30nWQg/U81t20LePbI/AAAAAAAACi4/zHzUrTXPykc/s1600/1974+Thunderbird.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">If you are of
my vintage, you may remember the old car ads from the 1970's that would create
wanton lust for the latest iteration of two tons of steel, rubber and plastic
from Detroit? Along with promises of freedom and admiration came the claim that
this behemoth could subsist on a miniscule amount of gas. If you looked at the
ad closely, you saw the simple disclaimer in micro font…'<em>Mileage may vary</em>.' In
other words, don't hold your breath that you'll achieve anywhere near this fuel
economy.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">In my
opinion, all the promises of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) are much like the car
ad. Lots of efficiency promises, but you can be sure that '<em>Mileage may vary</em>.'
There are some things you could consider that would go a long way toward
better results when you implement a BYOD project at your
organization. Here are five of them.</span><br />
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">1.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Surf the
Tsunami.</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> The consumerization of
technology is a well-established trend. It should not surprise you that
your users are wanting choice of their devices in their corporate life, just like
they have in the rest of their life. If you do not have a strategy in place, or
are well on your way to implementation, you are seriously behind. As with other
significant trends, IT leaders should be on the forefront 'surfing the wave'
rather than being overwhelmed by it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">2.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Define the
Rules of Engagement.</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> BYOD is
not a free for all. It doesn't have to mean anything goes. It is about offering
choice. Think of your favourite restaurant. You can't just order whatever you
fancy, you select from the menu. Many IT leaders I've talked to have
resisted BYOD because it's messy and unorganized. It doesn't have to be that
way.<br />
<br />
Just like your favourite restaurant, great IT leader have come up with choices
and options that will satisfy most of their community. Set the expectations and
benefits of the program up front. Define the level of support your
helpdesk will provide for these devices. Will you have a loaner program? What
devices are not allowed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; tab-stops: list .5in; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">3.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">BYOD is More
than Saving Money.</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> If you
approach BYOD as a way to offload costs onto your users you may be in for a
disappointment in the results. (Many school boards I've seen seem to offer cost
savings as a justification.) It won't be business as usual with users
supplying the technology instead of the company. It's a whole new way to manage
the flow of information in your organization.<br />
<br />
You will need to invest in appropriate infrastructure and development to ensure
you can continue to securely provide the right information, to the right people
at the right time. Don't take on BYOD without looking at all the
implications.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">4.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What's Mine is
Mine.</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> When your user provides the
technology, she has every right to expect that her personal apps and data will
be on that phone right alongside your corporate data and applications. The
design of your network has to be designed to segment personal and corporate
use. This is a good time to be considering application virtualization,
SaaS, and other ways to insulate and protect your organization's data.<br />
<br />
You must also account for the fact that much of your software is licensed for
corporate owned devices, not personal devices. Ensure you remain in
compliance when you go to BYOD. <br />
<br />
You should also be prepared that people do not stay with an organization
forever. What happens to your corporate information when they leave and do
not have to turn in their computer / phone / tablet?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">5.<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Don't Leave
Them on Their Own.</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> BYOD is
not a 'set and forget' project. Might you be bothered that these BYOD devices
are likely to be loaded up with DropBox, Google Drive or MS OneDrive, where
your users may find it easy to quickly store corporate documents and data on
these unsecure platforms? (Hint: They likely already are… but that's a
different post). You just can't make a rule and expect people to follow
it. Remember the words of R. Buckminster Fuller, "you can't expect people
to do the right thing. What you have to do is make the right thing the easiest
thing to do."<br />
<br />
By entering into a BYOD model, you must commit to the user experience if you
want to retain control of your corporate data. At the end of the day you
are still responsible for security, data integrity and compliance. The
difference is now you are now also competing for the 'ease of use' experience.
This involves moving the management of all of this into the network layer
rather than managing it at the device level.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Good luck on your BYOD project. I know that an
IT environment that leverages BYOD is significantly different than your
father's IT environment. But then so are the cars you buy. One thing has
remained the same… mileage may vary.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-87727689937084029932014-06-24T09:18:00.002-04:002014-06-24T09:18:30.600-04:00The Hitchhiker's Guide to BI and Analytics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QjH1axgydQ8/U6l5zr_FgvI/AAAAAAAACig/eJMhyyb-J0Q/s1600/42.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QjH1axgydQ8/U6l5zr_FgvI/AAAAAAAACig/eJMhyyb-J0Q/s1600/42.png" height="200" width="320" /></a></div>
As IT leaders, there usually comes a time when we are called to a meeting with the senior executive of the organization to discuss business analytics (BA) or business intelligence (BI). This usually occurs the week after said senior executive has been to a conference and saw a shiny dashboard with dials, graphs and 'drill down data.'<br />
<br />
With the executive's face glowing, he or she says: "this shouldn't be hard, the speaker said [insert product name here] can connect to all our data and tell us what we need to know!" The glow soon fades when you have to explain the reality that the project may be a bit more complicated than that.<br />
<br />
You would also be tempted to remind that same executive that you have been asking for funding for the BA/BI initiative outlined in your strategic plan, but you realize your timing might not be the most appropriate. You do have a BA/BI strategy, right? The dollar figure for your initiative was much higher than the cost of the 'dashboard' the executive was so dazzled by. You have some work to do to bring reality into the conversation.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Let me provide a popular culture reference to help you in your discussion.<br />
In the 1970's, Douglas Adams created a radio program, which was later published as a book called The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There is one much discussed plot line revolving around the number 42 being the answer to the ultimate question of life, the Universe and Everything. Indulge me as I quote a passage from Wikipedia describing the number 42.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In the radio series and the first novel, a group of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings demand to learn the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything from the supercomputer, called Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7 and a half million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. Deep Thought points out that <b>the answer seems meaningless because the "beings who instructed it never actually knew what the question was.</b>" (source: Wikipedia - phrases from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). </blockquote>
I'm not sure about you, but Deep Thought kind of sounds like many BI projects underway now. Expending extensive time and resources to find the answers, but not absolutely sure what questions need answering.<br />
<br />
A side note... If Mr. Adams was writing the series today, Deep Thought may have taken much more than 7 and a half million years to crunch the data - we generate terabytes of new information every day (although I'm not sure the 'Yo' app is adding substantially to it). But I digress.<br />
<br />
Before you jump into a major BA or BI project, you may just want to lead the project to define the metrics - the performance and success metrics that your organization needs (hint: this is much more work than implementing the system). Once these are defined, then you should find the system that best matches your objectives. At my last position, we provided three vendors with a sample set of data and asked them via the RFP to "show us how your system can…" It did separate the wheat from the chaff.<br />
<br />
In my opinion, this front end work is the most crucial phase.<br />
<br />
Years ago, I read a book that contained a phrase that captures this well. I forget the exact name of the book which took leadership principles and reworded them as if they came from Genghis Khan. It was written as a parody and is now long out of print, but this maxim will stick with me forever.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">"A Chieftain who asks the wrong questions,</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;">gets the wrong answers."</span></blockquote>
<br />
(Gently) remind the executive to remember that before buying that shiny dashboard.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-34328740917657661732014-06-09T16:17:00.000-04:002014-06-09T16:17:09.288-04:00How not to Fail at Implementing Cloud Computing<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3QA01024O_Y/U5YVhsyOJqI/AAAAAAAACf8/49UchGjdrGg/s1600/KWP_0870.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3QA01024O_Y/U5YVhsyOJqI/AAAAAAAACf8/49UchGjdrGg/s1600/KWP_0870.jpg" height="214" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: www.flickr.com/photos/kwpashuk</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Today’s IT environment is about anytime/anywhere access to practically anything on any device. You can work from anywhere, and blend your professional, personal and private information into one seamless interface. And the magic sauce that connects you and brings it all together is…. you know it… the ‘Cloud’.<br />
<br />
<br />
At least that’s what the media and the vendor community would have us believe.<br />
<br />
But we are IT people. We know better. We know that you just can’t connect all the information together in a mishmash muddle and expect it to work. Add onto that authentication, controlling access to sensitive or confidential data, compliance and privacy issues, never mind the terabytes of legacy systems that just do not talk to any other system and you know that the dream world described above is just that, a dream world.<br />
<br />
We have launched ourselves on a crusade to educate the masses, to bring them to a realization of truth and restore control in our world.<br />
<br />
The problem is that the people we support believe it’s real… and possible… and it’s your job be make it so.<br />
<br />
Some of the people that believe it are also the ones who sign our paycheques.<br />
<br />
So where does that leave you?<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Do you jump on the Cloud Computing bandwagon as we are being encouraged to do by the media and vendors?<br />
<br />
If you create a project titled “Cloud Computing” I can assure you that you will spend vast sums of money without necessarily achieving any measurable positive impact on your organization’s bottom line. <br />
<br />
Why do I say this?<br />
<br />
In my years in this world of IT leadership, I saw many projects to implement ‘solutions’ such as ITIL, Rational Rose, Offshore Development, Outsourcing, and a litany of others that contributed to the very dismal statistic of failed IT projects. Cloud computing can be right up there on that list if not implemented properly.<br />
<br />
But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to change.<br />
<br />
Your job is to provide an IT environment that supports your organization. Not just support it, but deliver value by enhancing / streamlining existing processes and even creating growth by allowing your organization to differentiate itself from its competitors.<br />
<br />
You can’t get those results if you keep on doing things the same way.<br />
<br />
As an IT leader, it is critical that you sit down with your leadership team and reimagine what an IT organization would look like if it had to securely deliver anytime/anywhere/any device access to corporate resources. <br />
<br />
It’s not wrong that your users want this. It’s what they need.<br />
<br />
You will have to list all the key non-negotiables – security, compliance, data availability, etc. but at the same time figure out how make it all transparent to the users of the system.<br />
<br />
What are the barriers and the constraints to achieving this goal? <br />
<br />
Where will you get resistance?<br />
<br />
What would be different?<br />
<br />
What skills do you need on your team?<br />
<br />
What tools and resources are available? (Cloud computing platforms (IaaS, SaaS, etc.) are part of this).<br />
<br />
What are the real capabilities of vendor solutions and services?<br />
<br />
What can you offload so that your team can focus on delivering in this new environment? Before you say ‘nothing’ remember that at one time many manufacturers generated their own electricity to have a clean reliable source of power. Nowadays, with the exception of emergency power in critical situations (hospitals, data centres, etc.) electricity is a commodity. The majority of us would never consider generating our own. The electricity company does a reasonably good job at providing power.<br />
<br />
Think ahead five years. Perhaps (and this is my opinion) major systems like ERP, HRIS, etc. will become commoditized. We all need a robust reliable financial system, but there’s no differentiator in us maintaining it ourselves. If there were companies that could provide a stable, secure platform to access our institutional data, would we not be able to leverage it in delivering the flexible environment I described above?<br />
<br />
Many of us have already leveraged these platforms in applications such as Salesforce.com. <br />
<br />
I’m suggesting that if you have gone through the exercise of reimagining or reframing your IT department, then cloud computing will likely be one of the tools in your arsenal.<br />
<br />
If you make cloud computing the goal, you will fail.<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-40645661300655589452014-05-12T12:14:00.001-04:002014-05-12T12:14:55.295-04:00Five Ways IT can help teachers be more effective.<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D7flxsikC40/U3DzCaYfGaI/AAAAAAAACfk/nvzs9ARWeZA/s1600/JackBlack-Teacher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-D7flxsikC40/U3DzCaYfGaI/AAAAAAAACfk/nvzs9ARWeZA/s1600/JackBlack-Teacher.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image via: BusinessInsider.com</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="hotTopicPostBodySpacing">
Let me start this post by stating that I am not a teacher. I am also not a geek in the traditional sense of the word. Now that I’ve discredited myself with both of the intended audiences of this post, let me explain why I might be qualified to give some advice in this area. </div>
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</div>
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In my career I have worked to help organizations either start something big, or make big changes in how they do things. In the last 15 years, I have worked almost exclusively with educational institutions both as a consultant, and for the last 10 years leading their IT groups.</div>
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I have watched over the years as IT departments in partnership with vendors delivered educational technology “solutions” that were supposed to revolutionize the classroom and change the way learning happened. The long list of items included Learning Management Systems, Clickers, interactive whiteboards, laptops, tablets, document cameras, wireless networking, classroom management software, video conferencing, chat rooms, social media, etc., etc. etc. And while the promises (and budgets) were huge, the deliverables in terms of revolution were almost inconsequential.</div>
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What we did, was add complexity, frustration, and tremendous cost to the academic experience. While there were shining pockets of great technology implementation, as a whole we didn’t add any value or capacity to the teacher’s ability to do her or his job better.</div>
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</div>
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Yet we in IT were undaunted, and were sure that we’d achieve results after the next silver bullet.</div>
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Does this sound familiar to you?</div>
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<a name='more'></a><br />
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Now that I’ve painted such a bleak picture, let me say that it is indeed possible to teach an old IT dog some new tricks.</div>
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<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
Two years ago my team rolled out an application that teachers could voluntarily use to deliver their curriculum. Historically we would expect a keener group of 20 to 30% to adopt a new tool, and then have about half of them drop it after a month or so. In this case, we were blown away that over 80% of the teachers in our school adopted this technology in the first month, and after two years we have almost 100% of the teachers using it, and enthusiastically claiming it has changed the way they teach.</div>
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What was different in this application? I’m glad you asked. Here are five key points to ensure your IT team can contribute to teacher capacity.</div>
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</div>
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<strong>1. Understand the problem. (hint: it’s not about technology)</strong></div>
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Too often we try to shoehorn problems into an ed-tech ‘solution’. In our case, we (IT) met with the academic leadership of the school and asked them a simple question “Without using the words ‘computer’ or ‘technology’, could you describe what an exceptional learning experience is made up of?” They went away for two weeks and met with teachers and leaders. They came back and filled several whiteboards with diagrams, lists, etc. that became the foundation for what we needed to build. Not only did we have a good definition of the problem, we had the key success factors defined.</div>
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</div>
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<strong>2. Mind the Gap: (Skills gap, that is)</strong></div>
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A year before this rollout, I was reviewing the skill sets in my team and realized that we had a huge knowledge gap. My team were experts in their fields, but there was no one who truly understood learning – the process of learning, the pain points of learning, the success factors, pedagogical issues and trends. </div>
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Other schools had created Educational Technologist positions, but often they were either technical people who thought they could teach, or teachers who liked to play with gadgets. I determined that we needed to be different and focus on the understanding of learning. So we created a position and filled it with someone who had deep pedagogical understanding, 20 years of teaching experience and several years of leveraging technology in his classroom. We installed him at a desk eyeball to eyeball with our development team. This allowed instantaneous feedback and input on the development of our solution, including information flow, user interaction and reporting.</div>
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<strong>3. Teachers are busy people.</strong></div>
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If you are a teacher reading this, you will agree that there is precious little time left in your schedule for anything that takes away from teaching. Any system that requires complex setup and / or administrative maintenance will likely not be welcomed into your world. Any ‘solution’ brought into your classroom is both intuitive to use and will not require administrative time on your part. The smart people in IT should be able to move all of that administrative work into the system and automate it. So that is what we did. When we deployed our solution, we had reduced the teacher administration down to a couple of clicks.</div>
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<strong>4. Your version of ‘intuitive’ is different than mine.</strong></div>
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A great solution shouldn’t need a four hour training session, but neither will it be completely intuitive to all. In our case, a very short video introduction was all many needed, and there was drop in times set up for teachers to ask questions of our learning specialist. After all, it was one teacher talking to another, not a teacher talking to a techie.</div>
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</div>
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<strong>5. Get ready for the ‘But…”</strong></div>
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We are regularly adding capability to our system in response to users who say “This is wonderful… but it would be great if…” That ‘but’ always comes. Be responsive. Have a way to incorporate user feedback. Our best ideas have come from teachers.</div>
<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
</div>
<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
While not comprehensive, I would hope that you see that your IT department significantly help your school increase teacher capacity. But it likely means doing things a bit differently than they did before.</div>
<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
</div>
<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
What was the tool we developed? Our academic leadership described an open, flexible platform for learning that would allow teachers to concentrate on the delivery of their material in a way most suitable for their area (math, science, art, phys-ed, music, etc.) and provide opportunities for students and teachers to collaborate from anywhere in the world, on any device.</div>
<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
</div>
<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
Sounds simple? My team leveraged the power of Microsoft SharePoint and OneNote, added functionality to remove all the individual teacher setup time, and came up with the tool described in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV_xvZEnPMU&list=PLcVuAxNuOfQ5OdlYDMBFa9bgsavLPCtBs" target="_blank">video</a>. </div>
<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
</div>
<div class="hotTopicPostBody userContent" lang="en">
By their own words, teachers say this has changed the way they teach. If you were to visit our school, you would see for yourselves what can happen when your IT team learns about learning.</div>
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-21898800971544926112014-03-26T10:03:00.001-04:002014-03-26T10:03:40.747-04:00Storage and Stuff<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gb4IHXo98DI/UzLdqP0k5MI/AAAAAAAAA8A/b77uLdYA83Q/s1600/overpacked-car.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Gb4IHXo98DI/UzLdqP0k5MI/AAAAAAAAA8A/b77uLdYA83Q/s1600/overpacked-car.jpg" height="320" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Photo: http://funthingstodowhileyourewaiting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/overpacked-car.jpg</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Try and remember back to the day when you
could fit all of your worldly goods into your car and you moved into your first
apartment or non-parentally owned dwelling.
It was good to have all of that space for yourself and you could never
imagine having enough stuff to fill it up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">As you progressed through life you started
accumulating stuff. And more stuff. Pretty soon that dwelling was bursting at the
seams with your stuff. So rather than
get rid of your stuff, you got a bigger place to store your stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Then you had life events (marriage,
children, pets, hobbies) that forced you to get more stuff, which filled up
your dwelling even faster… so once again, rather than get rid of stuff, you get
a bigger place to store your stuff.</span></div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
But sometimes, you can’t afford a bigger
place to store your stuff, so rather than get rid of stuff, you opt for the
self-storage rental space and load a whole bunch of stuff in your car and drive
it over to the offsite storage location knowing that if ever there was a remote
chance you may need to access your stuff, while time consuming, you could still
get at it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">In many ways, this little story parallels
my life experience with institutional data.
In the beginning, most of what we needed to store and backup were on
floppy disks (yes, I’m THAT old). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Then network storage became available, and
we soon filled that up with our data, documents and other files. The challenge then became managing that
storage. It was expensive so we quickly
learned to archive old data and files to storage tapes, but doing so ensured
the files weren’t readily available. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Then the price of storage dropped like a
stone. Suddenly we could afford drive
arrays that would mirror our data over multiple disks to ensure continuity and
integrity, and make retrieval lighting fast.
We could buy appliances that indexed our data and files so we could find
things. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Even better, the price of offsite, hosted
storage became a viable alternative for the SME (Small to Medium
Enterprise). Climate controlled data
centers manned by an army of highly qualified and certified network engineers
(or so the brochures say) who would provide secure access to your institutional
data, 24 hours a day, 99.999% of the time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">It was the best of both worlds. I could keep all my institutional data
“stuff”, and potentially reduce my OpEx line in my storage budget. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">It made sense to move my data over there…
or maybe not… perhaps I should reconsider.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">On the ‘plus’ side:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">I have a scalable computing and
storage solution that can grow (and shrink) depending on business needs.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">My staffing requirement for
high end support techs is lessened.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">My power costs and space
requirements go down.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">I can store lots of stuff
cheaply, and be confident that it is backed up.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">On the ‘negative’ side:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Turnaround times for service
response can increase. You are now one of many customers in the queue.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">Internet connectivity can
impede performance. You are not likely
going to have 1GB connectivity to the offsite storage. Query responses will take longer. If you are
a user of big data, be sure to factor your network traffic capacity into the
equation. </span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">If your Internet connection
goes down, you do not have access to your data.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">If you try to save money by
leveraging a single site hosted storage solution, your enterprise will be
offline should the host site go down.
This has been known to happen with even the large players and is never a
good thing.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">I can store lots of stuff
cheaply.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">You will notice that being able to store a
lot of stuff cheaply is on both sides of the equation. Just like your household stuff, it is not
always a good thing to hang onto things.
You do need to purge occasionally.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">In the enterprise world, keeping data for a
long time can actually be a serious problem.
Should your organization ever find itself in litigation and the lawyers
start their eDiscovery process, you can be assured of a significant legal bill
if they get to sort through years of email, documents, and data. If you do not have an electronic document
retention policy (which includes emails) your proclivity to store lots of stuff
can come back to bite you… but that’s a topic for another post.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Personally, I have found a hybrid solution
works best for my institution. We have
struck a balance between the storage that support quick access to data, while
leveraging the benefits of offsite storage solutions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-CA">Now… if only I could bring some order to my
basement, or else consider moving again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-54299456157003706902014-01-09T09:38:00.000-05:002014-01-09T09:38:39.037-05:00Why the CES Matters to You.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ITBwbdq69lA/Us6z_SLonuI/AAAAAAAAA7U/FUqK6nl5PNs/s1600/CES+Logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ITBwbdq69lA/Us6z_SLonuI/AAAAAAAAA7U/FUqK6nl5PNs/s1600/CES+Logo.jpg" /></a></div>
It's that time of year again. When technical journalists flock to the warmer climates of Las Vegas to gorge on gadgets and hyperbole at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).<br />
<br />
While I have never been to this event (and have no immediate plans to start attending), I have developed an increased interest in CES, or more importantly, the resulting expectations around technology that it creates.<br />
<br />
The line between personal and professional devices has blurred significantly in recent years, but if the trends that show themselves at CES this year are any indication, there is much for you to sit up and pay attention to. Here are a few things I've noticed so far.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
<b>The Internet of Everything</b> (IoE) - In this world being espoused by CISCO among others, practically everything has an IP address and can communicate with everything else. While it sounds logical, you and I know what type of infrastructure is required to support this. In our organization, we already allocate four IP addresses per person. I can see we are going to have to increase this as well as truly manage both the security and traffic on our networks. Included in this is the number of vendors' technology - watches, glasses, shoes, belt buckles (the iChastity belt for parents of teenagers to track their children's proclivity for trouble (Just kidding…I'm making this one up but if anyone actually builds one, I want my cut…).<br />
<br />
<b>Bigger screens with 4K resolution</b> - 3D Television this year is as prevalent as my hairline. What was big last year is not even visible in 2014. In its place is ultra-high definition screens and video cameras. For those of us in corporate IT, this means file size of media files are growing exponentially. You may consider how much storage you are currently offering (either on premise or cloud) and determine how you are going to expand it.<br />
<br />
<b>Toy Robots</b> - I'm not talking about the wind up metal humanoids of my childhood or vacuum cleaners that terrorize the dog, I'm talking about an increasing number of machines that can do much more than entertain. They can actually do real tasks. It won't be long before the technology of CES makes its way into our organizations and we will find ourselves having to support these machines along with the desktops, tablets and networks we are currently supporting. Do you have the skill sets on your team, or the potential to develop the new skills needed for these networks of machines?<br />
<br />
<b>3D Printing</b> - It's not if 3D printing will come to your organization, it's when. This isn't really a CES trend, Gartner and others have been identifying it as key for a number of years. What has changed is the affordability of these devices that can not only streamline the prototyping process, but potentially change the manufacturing process as well. Have you included this on your technology roadmap?<br />
<br />
<b>Jello on the Wall</b> - OK, this is my category. The CES is full of devices that will never come to market, but are presented to gauge reaction from the press and bloggers. Some of it is really cool and some is absurdly weird and all of it is over-promised and under-delivered. But your users don't know that. The news is absolutely full of these oddities and what it does is create some misplaced expectations around what technology is available and what it is capable of. Most times, there will be a wide gap between what you offer and what CES is promising.<br />
<br />
Do you remember when IT leaders all around the world felt they could resist these expensive new toys called 'smart phones?' After all, the IT department could dictate which technology we 'allowed' on our networks.<br />
<br />
How's that working for you? Or, is BYOD one of your major projects right now?<br />
<br />
You may find that many of the trends being showcased at the CES this year will be knocking on your proverbial door in the not too distant future.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-54631283601310501822013-12-06T14:15:00.000-05:002013-12-06T14:15:02.246-05:00Two Things You Can Learn From a Stupid Commercial<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX0" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-h8rx-f5NAEo/UqIhVSebN4I/AAAAAAAAA7A/axnx3xpg1QY/s320/Chocolate+In+My+Peanut+Butter.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX0" target="_blank">Image: Via YouTube</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Years ago, there was a schmaltzy commercial on television where one person gnawing on a chocolate bar the size of a refrigerator collided into another person who happened to be eating straight from the largest jar of peanut butter you've ever seen. <br />
<br />
Their serendipitous accident showed us unknowing masses how delightful the combination of peanut butter and chocolate could be, and that you could conveniently buy a pack of peanut butter cups rather than run around the town with a big jar of peanut butter hoping to bump into someone.<br />
<br />
While I don’t for a moment believe that the commercial was ‘based on a true story’, I do see it having two important teachings for IT leaders.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
The first is the importance of messaging. This was a stupid, stupid commercial. But years later, I remember it, and even know what product they were advertising. The marketers found a way to take the thought of mixing two ‘incompatible’ products in a way that I would actually try the combined product. There was little science behind their message, and I clearly understood what they expected me to do. <br />
<br />
In IT, we too often take the “If we build it, they will come…” attitude and expect users to just understand all the wonderful things they can do with our ‘solutions’. We do not take the time to understand how we should best introduce our new systems, products and services in a way that is understood by those who are going to use them. Quit talking about feeds and speeds, big data, IoE, SasS, Cloud, RoI, etc. and find a way to put it into terms they will understand… like chocolate bars and peanut butter.<br />
<br />
The second thing we can learn from this commercial is that integration is as important today in the world of apps, BYOD and hosted services as it has ever been. <br />
<br />
The late Peter Drucker once said “Work is easy. Just get the right information to the right people at the right time.” In IT, one of our key responsibilities is making it easier for people to do the work they were hired to do. Having them log into several different systems using the apps of their choice on devices of their choice is completely counterproductive… never mind the loss of sleep for CIOs as corporate information is being shared and stored on various ‘open’ platforms.<br />
<br />
That’s not to say you should outlaw BYOD, but instead have a platform that gathers (and protects) your corporate information and gets it out to the people who need to use it. To make that happen, you need people on your team who can build the bridges and glue, and make them work together well – like chocolate and peanut butter.<br />
<br />
In the old days, we used to call these people ‘system integrators’. I’m not sure what you would call it today, but I do know that as my team have built an integrated, open platform that seamlessly glues together institutional data across multiple devices, we see a whole lot more tangible innovation coming from our users. The ‘blended’ systems and apps enable the magic to happen.<br />
<br />
I’m not implying that this is easy to implement, but it is certainly necessary, and it’s less work than running around town with a large jar of peanut butter hoping to run into someone with a gargantuan chocolate bar.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-91006796205224684022013-10-24T10:02:00.000-04:002013-10-24T10:02:35.655-04:00You Had One Job...<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.meonuk.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/48689343_shcool_ap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://www.meonuk.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/48689343_shcool_ap.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image Source: <a href="http://www.meonuk.com/">www.meonuk.com</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I’m not sure if you are into memes, but there is one that pops up occasionally on my Facebook page that more often than not brings a chuckle. It’s called “You had one job!” and is usually accompanied by a picture that shows something completely screwed up. You can get a glimpse of this meme at <a href="http://www.hadonejob.com/">www.hadonejob.com</a> <br />
<br />
If you clicked on the link, welcome back. I’m sure you’ve enjoyed the site. Now let’s get serious.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
If you sat down and created a list of all the things your IT team delivers, I’m sure it would be quite long. It would cover infrastructure, development, services, procurement, security, analytics, reporting, and a whole litany of other things. It can be overwhelming thinking about everything you need to do.<br />
<br />
It’s no wonder you are so tired at the end of the day after doing so many challenging, important things.<br />
<br />
To the people in your organization, most of them would likely view IT much differently.<br />
<br />
Their list might only have one item.<br />
<br />
It’s not about you, and how busy you are. It’s all about them, and what they need from you.<br />
<br />
They don’t care about all the other things your team does.<br />
<br />
They really just need their problem solved.<br />
<br />
Simple.<br />
<br />
While I’m not telepathic, I can sense a number of you disagreeing with me at the moment.<br />
<br />
That’s ok. I used to think just like you.<br />
<br />
I also used to think that IT was about delivering technology.<br />
<br />
I was so wrong.<br />
<br />
I certainly talked about customer service, and was sure I got into IT because I liked ‘helping people’, but in reality it really was about really, really, cool stuff.<br />
<br />
So what changed? A book I read more than 10 years ago. In his book “<a href="https://www.google.ca/url?url=http://books.google.com/books/about/Good_to_Great.html%3Fid%3DQ7ja95uwUT4C&rct=j&sa=X&ei=6idpUr-CJ8TgyQH__oDQAw&sqi=2&ved=0CKgBEPwdMAo&q=good+to+great&usg=AFQjCNFEcz-PTo4Qpjzom_3WFM_zruGcTg" target="_blank">Good to Great</a>”, Jim Collins talked about Land’s End clothing and their attitude about technology. They had sophisticated systems in place to help them run their business, but to them technology was like oxygen… absolutely necessary for life, but not something you think about unless it’s not there.<br />
<br />
Land’s End was not about technology. They were about a great customer experience. Technology provided a platform to accomplish this. <br />
<br />
The people that interacted with Land’s End from the customers, to the employees to the suppliers were more concerned with the experience and the transaction, not the technology that delivered it. It didn’t matter to them that the platform was extremely sophisticated and required a thousand different tasks and several people to deliver it.<br />
<br />
They just wanted IT to solve their problem quickly if things went wrong.<br />
<br />
It doesn’t matter how well you deliver on everything else (which is important). <br />
<br />
In their eyes, you had one job… and you either passed, or failed.<br />
<br />
With all the KPIs and metrics in place, do you have this one?<br />
<br />
You can call it the “You had one job” KPI.<br />
<br />
Now that I’ve sufficiently drained the joy out of your day, let me remind you of that link again… <a href="http://www.hadonejob.com/">www.hadonejob.com</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-21825907274679683432013-09-16T09:33:00.000-04:002013-09-16T09:33:01.187-04:00How to Schmooze (when you are a Raging Introverted CIO)It’s conference season again.<br />
<br />
As an IT leader you know that you need to get out of the office and get some professional development. Regardless of the industry you are in, there are no shortage of great events that combine great speakers, relevant workshops, a chance to meet vendors, and hundreds if not thousands of delegates seeking to solve the same problems and who are faced with similar issues.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-broOJHRGxWI/UjcH187V_wI/AAAAAAAAA0c/_nkap5mAIbI/s1600/MP900442432.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="164" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-broOJHRGxWI/UjcH187V_wI/AAAAAAAAA0c/_nkap5mAIbI/s320/MP900442432.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image: MS Office Imagebank</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
For many IT leaders, therein lies the problem.<br />
<br />
Not the workshops or the show… but the number of people they don’t know. In a highly unscientific study mainly based on personal observation I would suggest that the majority of folks attending IT conferences as delegates are highly uncomfortable meeting new people and engaging in small talk, particularly if they have come on their own.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
I've attended many conferences over the years. Nothing I have observed has dissuaded me from this theory. If some appears to be thriving while working the crowd, they usually have a Vendor ribbon attached to their show badge.<br />
<br />
There are exceptions to every rule, and you can go to conferences and observe delegates who are engaged with others, who don’t stand around alone at coffee breaks and don’t eat dinner alone with their smartphone.<br />
<br />
Let me fill you in on something. I was one of those people I just described, only we didn't have smartphones in those days, so I’d take my computer to dinner. I know… sad.<br />
<br />
If you are an IT leader, one of the more significant things you need to do is schmooze… not to sell things, but to connect with a collective mind power and expertise that will help you learn and advance in your career.<br />
<br />
I realized that while attending the conference has value, I was missing out on one of the primary benefits of going to these events… to meet and network with peers. So I picked up a few pointers on making the best of my time away.<br />
<br />
Before you leave, plan your time. I know this sounds like a no brainer but I’m amazed at how many people show up not sure of which workshops they might attend. Picking the sessions that address your key issues will increase the chances of meeting peers that share your challenges.<br />
<br />
Reach out on social media to see if any of your contacts are attending the same conference. Usually these are the people you met at a previous conference. If you are active on social media, use the hashtag (likely posted on the website) and start informing people you will be at the conference. Quite often the replies you get will be from vendors looking to meet with you buy I’ve also made some connections this way as well with fellow CIOs.<br />
<br />
The first day of any event usually has a “Networking” session. Typically the offer of free beverages and food is enough to get people to attend, but the connecting part will be up to you.<br />
The key thing to remember is that most of the people in the room have more in common with you than not. Someone just has to start the conversation. Steel your resolve and decide it might as well be you.<br />
<br />
I usually look for someone standing alone and introduce myself “Hi! I’m Kevin… Is this your first time here?” I know it sounds like a cheesy pickup line, but it seems to work well for me. More often than not, the person looks relieved to actually connect with someone. The next part is a bit more challenging, but let me give you tip. Learn the art of the interview. I've fallen victim to it on a number of occasions, and have learned that if you ask someone to talk about themselves; what they are doing, where they are from, etc., they have no shortage of things to talk about it and quite often leave the conversation thinking how delightful it all was. And the best part is you don’t have to do much talking.<br />
<br />
You now have a familiar face at the conference and it’s amazing how many times you’ll run into this individual through the event. Do this a few times during the breaks, on the trade show floor, meals and networking events and you will soon have a whole cadre of connections. Because you are all in the same boat so to speak, it’s not long before conversations begin to turn to topics like “What are you doing about BYOD?” or “Big Data”, or how to make each dollar of your budget stretch.<br />
And bingo. You've just added a significant amount of value to your time at the conference. <br />
<br />
Once you are back home, reach out via LinkedIn or other social media platform and keep the conversation going. By doing so you've expanded your professional network which is one of the key reasons you attended the conference in the first place.<br />
<br />
Enjoy conference season. Perhaps we’ll meet at one of them. Look for the guy with his hand stuck out saying “Hi! I’m Kevin… Is this your first time here?”<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-86193008282832557782013-08-15T15:55:00.000-04:002013-08-15T15:55:18.370-04:00You’ve Done Your 4.1 Years… Now What? We CIOs are known to be a mobile bunch. Gartner Research recently pegged the average tenure for a CIO to be 4.1 years. At the end of this month, I celebrate my fourth anniversary in my current role.<br />
<br />
According to Gartner, I should be primping my resume.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PL1z3pH-o_c/Ug0x4UIghxI/AAAAAAAAA0I/a5YhLp-0T7I/s1600/MP900386035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="142" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PL1z3pH-o_c/Ug0x4UIghxI/AAAAAAAAA0I/a5YhLp-0T7I/s200/MP900386035.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image: MS Office Imagebank</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
But what if you don’t want to go anywhere? <br />
<br />
How do you still add value to your organization?<br />
<br />
You've picked all the low hanging fruit that generated great savings and by now you really should have lived through one total infrastructure lifecycle and four budget periods.<br />
<br />
<br />
You are an active and fully participating member of the senior leadership team.<br />
<br />
Your IT team has been restructured to meet the current needs and you’ve implemented Project<br />
<br />
Portfolio Management and rapid application development tools.<br />
<br />
You are fully up to date in all of your enterprise systems.<br />
<br />
You've adjusted your Service Catalog to ensure your team is only working on things that differentiate or add value to your organization. All other (critical but non-differentiating) services and systems have been outsourced or moved to SaaS, IaaS or PaaS.<br />
<br />
Your customers, clients and team are (mostly) happy.<br />
<br />
If you go by Gartner’s number, the next phase of CIO tenure is uncharted territory for many CIOs. It would probably be easier to go to a new organization and start all over, but if you are up to the challenge, here are five things to think about:<br />
<br />
<b>1. How’s it working for ya?</b><br />
<br />
Go over the idealistic list of accomplishments I've just presented. Are you missing a check box in any of them? That would be a great place to start and ensure you've addressed all the big areas in your portfolio. <br />
<br />
<b>2. Mind the Gap (between the data you input and the knowledge you extract)</b><br />
<br />
Peter Drucker famously said “Work is easy. Just get the right information to the right people, at the right time.” I don’t care how much you paid for your ERP software, there is a strong likelihood that there are areas where there would be huge benefits in better reporting, analytics, or BI tools. No matter where you are, you will never be done in this area as long as you are the CIO.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Never confuse motion with progress. Ensure you are doing the right things.</b><br />
<br />
Being busy at the wrong things is as bad as doing nothing. You are wasting the potential energy of your team. This would be a good time to review your service catalog. Perhaps your team is busy on things that had an important reason a couple of years ago, but no longer are needed as things have changed.<br />
<br />
<b>4. Define the future.</b><br />
<br />
If you plan on staying on, then the five year plan you gave the hiring committee is almost ready to expire. In any event, your five year plan is probably obsolete. Do you have the sequel ready? Better yet, has your IT plan been fully integrated into your organization’s strategic plan?<br />
<br />
<b>5. Is this the last stop? Planning a legacy.</b><br />
<br />
Everybody has an end date. Even you. <br />
<br />
It doesn't matter if don't plan on leaving, you will still have to attend your farewell dinner at some point.<br />
<br />
So what then? <br />
<br />
Who takes your chair?<br />
<br />
Believe it or not, this is as critical as almost anything else you do as CIO. Who are you coaching / training / developing on your team? Is there anyone who could take over for you?<br />
<br />
What are the skills they need to develop? How are they going to develop them?<br />
<br />
If one or two names don’t immediately come to mind, then you’ve got some work to do. <br />
<br />
<br />
There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit for a new CIO to deal with that have quick wins and very measurable results. Developing the strategy for the second 4.1 years is the challenge.<br />
If like me, you have decided to go for the ride… I wish you the best.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-77998367592985529032013-05-31T11:57:00.001-04:002013-06-01T09:16:49.851-04:00A Minute With Michael<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-glDy8KPVvDM/Uai-w8wPQCI/AAAAAAAAAzU/mi_MSe170UU/s1600/dell+logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-glDy8KPVvDM/Uai-w8wPQCI/AAAAAAAAAzU/mi_MSe170UU/s200/dell+logo.jpg" width="200" /></a>What if you had an opportunity to speak directly to one of the most influential people in technology in the last 25 years? <br />
<br />
If you had one minute to ask a question, or make a comment, what would you say?<br />
<br />
I had such an opportunity to sit around a small conference table with Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers last evening.<br />
<br />
As part of their 25th anniversary celebration, Dell Canada invited a dozen educational sector IT leaders from colleges, universities, and school boards. For reasons known only to higher powers, they invited me, opinions and all.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
We had one hour set aside to hear a bit from Michael, but more importantly to bring our "thoughts and feedback" (as was mentioned in the invitation) to share.<br />
<br />
What a gold mine opportunity for someone like me who has no shortage of opinions.<br />
<br />
Once I did the math - dividing the time of the meeting by the number of participants, and allowing for the usual preamble, I figured I would get a chance to ask one good question and make one good statement - which in my best estimate would work out to about 60 seconds.<br />
<br />
I spent the previous evening and much of the morning going over the three hours of things I would like to say, and then tried to distill them down to one minute. (Hint: For the importance of a CIO having this skill set, please read my previous post: <a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2011/07/before-you-pitch-your-proposal-take.html" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Before You Pitch Your Proposal, Take a Ride on Your Nearest Elevator</a>)<br />
<br />
In retrospect I'm happy with what I was able to share in my slot, but that's not what I'm really writing about is the missed opportunities I saw.<br />
<br />
Most of the IT leaders around the table had questions or comments which kept the dialogue going but there were at least three of the twelve who said.... nothing.<br />
<br />
Here they were in an invite only meeting with a key leader in the technology industry looking for feedback, and they said... nothing.<br />
<br />
You know the situation where you tell a witty (at least to you) joke, then several moments later someone in the group starts laughing because they finally get it? It didn't really hit me until the next morning that one quarter of the people in the room missed their opportunity to be influencers.<br />
<br />
How about you? What if you stepped into an elevator and came face to face with Michael Dell, or Tim Cook, or Bill Gates, or Richard Branson or another person who has a significant influence? And what if they asked what you did, and what's important to you? Could you give a response?<br />
<br />
What if it wasn't Michael, Tim, Bill or Richard, but your CEO or President? What would you say if you had one minute of his or her undivided attention?<br />
<br />
I can assure you that "nothing" is not the right answer.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-8619943116228538302013-04-12T09:28:00.002-04:002013-04-12T09:28:18.973-04:00First Impressions: Microsoft Surface Pro<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mVughwnwPnA/UWgLx8ANhzI/AAAAAAAAAww/rfyoS6lFhYo/s1600/ms+surface+pro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="188" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mVughwnwPnA/UWgLx8ANhzI/AAAAAAAAAww/rfyoS6lFhYo/s320/ms+surface+pro.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I have been intrigued by the MS Surface since they were first announced. Being able to actually touch one at a Microsoft conference only added to the intrigue.<br />
<br />
We are heavy adopters and integrators of Microsoft SharePoint and OneNote, so while the Surface RT model was sleek, I knew I needed to wait for the Surface Pro.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, I broke down and bought one.<br />
<br />
Here are my first impressions:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
I get many, many devices coming across my desk for evaluation, several of them in tablet format. Most end up in the "Nice, but not quite there" pile. The MS Surface Pro survived the first cut.<br />
<br />
The packaging is a work of art, and the device itself feel like driving a fine automobile given the excellent engineering and build. It shows that the design of the product was given attention even in the smallest details. I do have to admit I was looking for a sheet of stickers... like the one you get when you buy the other tablet.<br />
<br />
The screen is bright and crisp... even for (let's just say "mature") eyes like mine.<br />
<br />
<br />
I bought the Touch keyboard. It is easy to adapt to, and works well for touch typing. I didn't find any issues with the integrated trackpad... The buttons take a bit of getting used to but otherwise it's very useable. <br />
<br />
I did pair a Bluetooth mouse up and found myself alternating between the mouse, the keyboard, and touching the screen.<br />
<br />
It's fast... and takes on Adobe Lightroom 4 with no effort (a task which strains several of my other computers).<br />
<br />
It DOES work on my lap, as both a tablet and with the keyboard.<br />
<br />
I'm sure I will find more, but there are two things that would make this device exceptional:<br />
<br />
1. Lower the price. I know it's a REAL computer, but once the accessories are added (including the 2nd power supply - a must have) it's in the price range of a higher end laptop. Using my automobile metaphor - maybe the designers were thinking of a Porsche -- smaller, more expensive, but with better performance. It should be noted that there is currently no educational discount for the Surface in Canada...<br />
<br />
2. Give me a desktop docking station that connects to a monitor, Ethernet (I work with larger files and images and the 1Gb connection speed is appreciated), keyboard and extra USB 3.0 ports. The quick connector of the keyboard cover would be perfect to grab the tablet portion to go to a meeting.<br />
<br />
After several hours I was no longer comparing the MS Surface to the iPad... I was comparing it to my other computers... which certainly support Microsoft's marketing for the device.<br />
<br />
Overall, I feel I've bought a well engineered, but expensive personal computer. In my very short exposure to the Surface Pro, the phrase "You get what you pay for" comes to mind. This device will do well for people who appreciate this, but in the price sensitive consumer and educational market, it may be an uphill climb for Microsoft.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-31827790938198036232013-04-10T16:33:00.001-04:002013-04-10T16:33:59.571-04:00Sharpening the CIO SawYou are a smart person.
You wouldn't have gotten to where you are without being smart... But I
have news for you.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BaImsG4bwQQ/UWXLtlMkweI/AAAAAAAAAwY/fyJeABhVaEE/s1600/MP900309510.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BaImsG4bwQQ/UWXLtlMkweI/AAAAAAAAAwY/fyJeABhVaEE/s320/MP900309510.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image: MS Office Imagebank</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Your brilliance gets dull with use. Just like a knife. Or better yet a saw. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I grew up in a part of the world where a good number of
people earned their livelihood by harvesting the trees that became paper. (Our
field trips weren't to the museum, but to the pulp and paper mill.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was something one learned quickly. You couldn't fire up your chainsaw in the
morning and cut all day without the saw losing its 'edge', becoming dull, and
making it more work to use.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Workers who took the time to 'sharpen their saw' could
actually cut more wood than those who don't.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm not the first to use this metaphor. The late Stephen
Covey described it as:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>"Sharpen
the Saw means preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have - you. It
means having a balanced program for self-renewal in the four areas of your
life: physical, social/emotional, mental, and spiritual."<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For those of us in IT leadership, let me add a fifth -
Leading IT.</div>
<a name='more'></a><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As an IT leader, there are a lot of things that will dull
your saw. But let's talk about 5 ways you
can keep your CIO saw sharp.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>1. Read - Expand your
knowledge and be informed.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today's CIO needs to know more than feeds and speeds. You
need to know the issues faced by your industry, your market, and your
organization in order to find innovative solutions through technology. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You need to understand the trends that impact you, so you
can be ready for the disruptive technologies coming down the pipe. (BTW - if your project list still has
"Transition from XP and Office 2003" on it, I may be too late to help
you...)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Long ago, I gave up my ability to be informed about popular
culture and took the time to start reading about the culture of change - and
not just on the Internet. I suggest books, real books. Check out titles from Geoffrey Moore, Patrick
Lencioni, and Jim Collins.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>2. Put yourself in
the position of a learner.<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You are smart, but you can't know everything. Your job needs
skills and expertise that wasn't required when you first became a CIO. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Are you gaining new skills?
Do you have a mentor, or someone you respect and connect with regularly
to review how things are going, even at the risk of them disagreeing with
you? Do you take time to listen to
people with opposing viewpoints? Will
your hard and fast principles stand up to scrutiny?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We all know CIOs that were locked in their opinions
(platform choice / core services / etc.) that SHOULD have changed but didn't. Don't let that be you.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>3. Network – (The
relational kind)<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Get out of your office. There are so many reasons for doing
so.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Inside your organization… Connect with your staff in ‘their’
space. Get to know what keeps your President
and CFO up at night. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Outside your organization… Get to know others in your field
who are pushing boundaries. Pick great
events (like MES) to meet your peers. Look at local CIO organizations. The IT leaders that are making a difference
are out there, and in most cases quite willing to share their scars, callouses
and successes.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>4. Buy new batteries
for your Male Bovine Fecal Matter Detector<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Don't be caught up in the latest marketing hype (cough,
"Cloud", cough, "Big Data", cough "BYOD", cough)
and learn to discern what the real issues are behind these trends. You need to
be able to articulate how they impact or differentiate your organization and
better yet, how they are going to help your organization succeed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That doesn't mean that vendors don’t know what they are
doing. You need to develop strong partnerships with these folks. Just don’t rely on them to fully define how
their product or service will address your needs.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>5. Develop your Team<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This does a number of things... Most importantly, THIS is where you will find
the time to do all of the other things in this post.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It's time to delegate.
You are no longer are the bottom of the org chart. You have people to
delegate things to. If you've done your
job well, you've hired bright, brilliant people who are more qualified than you
in their areas of expertise, and you can trust them. (If you as a CIO aren't involved in designing
the skills and talent mix of your team, then you have much bigger challenges in
this area.)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I'm not a dancer... My
movement to music looks like a cross between electrocution and a heart attack. In
spite of that, let me use a dancing metaphor… You need to Salsa with the
Strategic and quit the Tango with the Tactical. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Quit immersing yourself in the minutia, which is why you
have Directors and Managers. You add the
most value to your organization when you are working at a higher level and your
team has the freedom to do their jobs without overbearing oversight. That doesn't mean you aren't in control, but
that you have planned your team well.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What would you add to the list? What do you do to keep your saw sharp?<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-69951316475816848692013-03-25T10:50:00.000-04:002013-03-25T10:50:43.247-04:00How to Create a Great Technical Team<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vYwZ9_apwCg/UVBjkXIB-bI/AAAAAAAAAvg/v_LXttW3-uU/s1600/MP900430707.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vYwZ9_apwCg/UVBjkXIB-bI/AAAAAAAAAvg/v_LXttW3-uU/s320/MP900430707.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Image: MS Office Image Bank</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I work with a team of magicians. They continually amaze and impress me with innovative ideas and solutions and have earned the respect of both the user community in our organization and with their peers in our industry.<br />
<br />
But it wasn't always this way.<br />
<br />
That's the one major area where I take the credit as CIO - in creating this team of magic workers. Some of my team were here when I started, others were hired since I arrived. But everyone's job has changed to get the results we do today.<br />
<br />
Let me be so bold as to say that this should be on the top of your priority list. Without it, you won't really be able to accomplish all the other things on your list anywhere near as effectively.<br />
<br />
At the risk of oversimplifying things, let me give you 5 tips for creating your team of high performers.<br />
<b></b><br />
<a name='more'></a><b>1. Know what you need to do.</b><br />
It is amazing how many CIOs assume their team is providing the right services to its organization - usually because they are the same services they have been providing for the last several years. The world has changed and the services you need to support have changed also. The skills mix you need on your team to support these services have changed as well. When I started in my last two positions I did a complete inventory of all the things we needed to provide from IT. Some would create a Service Catalogue, but a detailed list or MindMap will suffice.<br />
<br />
A hint? Talk to your team. They really know the operational things that need to be accomplished. Many of them likely know the technical, regulatory and workflow details for their respective areas that you will never, ever know.<br />
<br />
<b>2. Know who you have to work with. </b><br />
<br />
Once I had the catalogue of services, I then did an inventory of the skills we had on the team and to no one’s surprise - there was a substantial gap.<br />
<br />
Getting this information involved spending time with my key people. In my former organization, I interviewed every full-time person on my team - close to 100 people. Some would call me nuts but the investment of time in doing this paid big dividends later, and is absolutely essential in building a high performing team.<br />
<br />
<b>3. Get up close and personal with the HR department.</b><br />
<br />
Now comes the challenge. You need to make sure that all the job descriptions for your team are up to date, and include positions with the needed skills. This may involve creating new positions, eliminating obsolete positions and defining the training and certifications your team will need. If the thought of doing this seems scary and overwhelming, it is… but you'll never have a high performing team if you are not willing to do so.<br />
<br />
If job descriptions change, you will likely need to have them reclassified which may result in increased compensation requirements. You may find that you may not be able to negotiate an increase in your salary budget line, but may need to eliminate unnecessary or redundant positions to do so. Nobody likes this side of the equation, but you must be ready to do so if necessary.<br />
<br />
You will also need to lobby for training and development dollars. Your team is not about to pick up the required skills learning on their own. Today's IT systems are increasingly complex and require greater depth of knowledge than before.<br />
<br />
Don't tell me that it would never happen in your company because I don't know your organization... that your company would never allow this restructuring. I've done it in both unionized and non-unionized environments. It just takes longer. After all, making the right changes is why they hired you as CIO, isn't it?<br />
<br />
<b>4. Seek first to develop your existing team, but be ready to hire the talent and skills you need.</b><br />
<br />
This is the stage where it gets interesting. Don't be surprised if you find your team isn't anywhere as excited as you are about all these wonderful changes. IT people are like that.<br />
<br />
Make sure that people understand why these changes are necessary. Share your service catalogue and help them see where they fit in. Give them the support they need (including time to take courses and certifications). Set a reasonable schedule for them to complete their development goals. <br />
<br />
Sometimes, there isn't anyone on your staff who has the skills, or is capable of developing the skills you need. You may even have someone who refuses to change. This is where you may need to create a vacant position and unhire some people. You need to work closely with your HR department and do it fairly, with dignity and appropriate process and due diligence to all employment laws. You cannot afford to have team members who are not active contributors in delivering the skills and services your department needs.<br />
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This is indeed an emotional last resort, but necessary action. (Note: if letting someone go doesn't bother you, then you should seriously reconsider being a leader. )<br />
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<b>5. Release the talent in your team.</b><br />
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This step is difficult for many CIOs. It involves a signficant amount of trust. Ensure you have provided your team with clear expectation of results (e.g. WHAT needs to be done, WHEN it needs to be done by, WHY it is important), but leave the HOW up to them. Be an advisor and coach but not a driver.<br />
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Yes, they are going to make mistakes.<br />
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Yes, they are going to do things differently than you.<br />
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Yes, you will need to let them get the credit for their accomplishments.<br />
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Yes, you will likely have to stand in front of the President and defend them.<br />
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But without your trust, your team is hobbled.<br />
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I realize that these few words convey a lot of work, much energy, and call on every one of your strategic and management skills and certainly won't be accomplished overnight. I can speak from experience in watching my team perform and deliver solutions and services that are helping our organization succeed.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-62300638282170541692013-02-27T15:32:00.000-05:002013-02-28T15:53:11.049-05:00Why 1:1 Programs in Schools are Obsolete<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qq_FTNQt6ts/US5qpHDvRBI/AAAAAAAAAvI/a7MRFeyQ-Tk/s1600/No1to1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Qq_FTNQt6ts/US5qpHDvRBI/AAAAAAAAAvI/a7MRFeyQ-Tk/s200/No1to1.jpg" width="200" /></a>If you are considering a 1:1 program for your school, <b>you may want to stop and reconsider.</b><br />
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There are volumes written about the need to equip today's students with technology to ensure they have the tools necessary for success in the world today. For many schools, they look forward to the day when every student in the class has a computer.<br />
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But I’m beginning to think this isn’t enough.<br />
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First, a bit of background.<br />
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I work with a team of exceptionally bright and passionate people who are not constrained by the past and by the fear of doing things differently from others. As a matter of fact, they welcome big change that advances their goal of creating an exceptional learning experience.<br />
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Long before I showed up, they recognized that there was a significant advantage in providing every student, and every teacher with a laptop computer. That was 14 years ago.<br />
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In the ensuing years, I think the school is over the novelty of every student having a computer. (One of the best photo ops you will ever get is the moment after handing a student a brand new computer or tablet. The excitement in their eyes is magical, but don't let enchantment with the new toy be confused with engagement in the classroom.)<br />
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I was recruited 4 years ago to put the things in place to take the 1:1 program to the next level from a teaching/learning perspective. We've been spending a fair bit of energy determining how technology really enhances the learning experience.<br />
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We've learned a lot.<br />
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We have created an environment that requires students to use computers to receive, complete and submit the majority of assignments. There are no other options. Without a computer, the class cannot continue.<br />
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We have created an interactive collaborative learning platform that has added measurably better interaction and feedback between students and teachers. We are redesigning teaching spaces and integrating media creation in more than art programs.<br />
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We issue students and teachers pen-based tablet PCs (refreshed every 2 years), and have built up the supporting infrastructure to ensure that robust access to the Internet is available everywhere (could your network handle over 20 users all streaming video wirelessly on one access point at the same time?)<br />
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When computers break, and they do when you assume they are being used an average of 10 hours a day by teenagers, we have on-site warranty repair and a loaner pool. By choosing a technology platform that allows us to swap hard drives, we can get students with their configuration intact back to class in a minimum amount of time.<br />
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We have implemented applications that have a remarkable 90% plus voluntary adoption rate in their first month. We have automated many of the administrative tasks and functions saving valuable time for teachers.<br />
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But even with all this, we are not resting on our laurels.<br />
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I'm becoming more convinced the <b>next significant change</b> is going to be our 1:1 program.<br />
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First a caveat, because I'm talking about it in this blog doesn't mean we are actually going to do it. My team might be reading this and they tend to get a bit worried when I start having these kinds of thoughts… It usually means I stretch the limits of what they think their creative capacity is. (History has shown they always break through and amaze themselves and others).<br />
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I have often said that I'm very willing to share past and current experiences for others to learn from, to adapt or adopt the successes and avoid the failures of my team. I don't appreciate conference speakers who go on endlessly about projects they are “going to do” or have just received approval but have not implemented.<br />
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But I'm going to break from this just this once, and use this post to think out loud about what we are going to consider doing in the hope of stimulating feedback and discussion.<br />
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Let me give some more background to my current thinking.<br />
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Back in the days when I had hair, I was involved in helping organizations automate their engineering departments using Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) software. Back then, it cost close to $15,000 per seat to automate (in 1990 dollars). Getting the maximum value and productivity out of this investment was critical and all costs had to be justified against measurably increasing productivity.<br />
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I expanded the automation from CAD to desktop publishing. Once again, it was a significant investment and critical to maximize the productivity of the user.<br />
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In both these cases, it became apparent that a single monitor hindered the user from having enough working space. Adding a second interactive monitor measurably increased the production of the user.<br />
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Jumping back to the classroom, we have been used to working with two areas of focus – our notebook, and our textbook or other reference books. If we were working on a project, we would have multiple books open on our desk.<br />
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Since we've automated, we now have a computer screen, and a reference book.<br />
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More and more excellent reference material is now available in digital format, effectively replacing the textbook.<br />
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So why do we think we can cram all of that into one 9.7” or 12.5” screen?<br />
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The answer is not getting bigger screens (although the math department would disagree with me). The additional weight and price of the 15” displays make them impractical in our model.<br />
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Which is why I feel schools seriously need to forget about 1:1 programs, and start thinking about 2:1, or at least 1.5:1 programs.<br />
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In the (not so distant) future, I see students carrying two devices – one of which may be a touch screen laptop and the other a lightweight tablet (or perhaps the mobile device already in their pocket).<br />
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But in our world, it is not as simple as adding a second device, or as I like to call it, a second screen. Doing so would exacerbate the very problem that most 1:1 programs have – the expectation that adding technology makes you more productive, or able to learn better.<br />
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In order for the second screen to be useful in education, it has to meet a few criteria. I’ll keep the points short for now and expand in future posts.<br />
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In order for the “second screen” to enhance teaching and learning it needs to:<br />
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-<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Expand the learning resource pool by bringing multiple ecosystems into the classroom. Both the Windows and Apple platforms have strengths and capabilities missing on the other platform. The ideal second screen would provide both ecosystems for the student, but be set up in a way that they seamlessly shared files, photos and other information.<br />
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-<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Play well in a non-homogeneous environment. There has been much talk of certain technology that performs brilliantly in the “walled garden”, but is less than stellar when it needs to play outside the walls. You should not design your system to be exclusively Apple, or exclusively Windows. You are robbing your students and educators of significant opportunities.<br />
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-<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Connect to school infrastructure (networks, projectors, etc. ) and allow teachers and students to easily display screens from either device without having to go through onerous steps. (Around our school the metric is “Easy as falling off a log”).<br />
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-<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Support our “Back to Class after breakage” metric. If you hand out technology to teenagers (and younger) you can expect things to break. When it does, can the students be issued a loaner and pick up where they left off? That means that the only copy of apps, data, and assignments are not stored locally on the device. Learning management systems needs to be device independent.<br />
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-<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Not be a “gold plated” solution. It needs to be simple and affordable.<br />
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-<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Have a seriously long battery life. By adding yet another device to charge, it’s important that the second screen last all day.<br />
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One last thought… is this just an answer to e-textbooks?<br />
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While the second screen concept creates a workable solution to electronic textbooks, it doesn't stop there.<br />
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By creating the sharing and interactivity between the devices, connected through cloud services, the potential is there to expand the toolkit for the learner is increased substantially.<br />
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Does this blow our technology budget out of the water?<br />
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This is where Moore’s law comes in.<br />
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It is not so long ago that a laptop computer suitable to run the applications needed would cost somewhere around $2000. In my 3-1/2 years at this school, I’ve watched the price point for equivalent power drop to almost half of that. (Remember these are commercial grade, not consumer grade devices). <br />
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The price differential to the program is not as harsh as it may first appear, if the devices truly increase the ability of the student to achieve desired educational outcomes. (There is no money better wasted than implementing technology without defining anticipated outcomes, but I digress).<br />
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Let me wrap up this post for now. I know I’ll be spending significant time on this subject with my team, my colleagues and partners to implement this second screen model in my current funding framework.<br />
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Hey! I know I said we weren't going to do this… but the interesting thing about blogging, is that it’s a great medium to process disjointed thoughts. Having people read (and hopefully) comment is just a bonus. In the course of writing this, I seem to have convinced myself as to its merit.<br />
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What do you think?<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-12179769939344543352013-02-08T12:19:00.002-05:002013-02-08T12:19:40.628-05:00Peering inside the Black Box of Learning<br />
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This is a guest posting by one of my team members. It covers some of the most interesting work we are doing here at Appleby College using Microsoft OneNote to enhance the learning experience. This is in addition to a number of other applications and technologies in place.
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Appleby College has been a 1:1 computer school for over 14 years. First as a laptop, then a pen-based tablet to support education.</div>
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We are delighted to share this story. The paper below has been shared on <a href="http://www.pil-network.com/HotTopics/virtuallearningenvironments/OneNoteatApplebyCollege" target="_blank">Microsoft's Partners In Learning Hot Topic site</a>.</div>
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If you are interested in further discussion on how this might be applicable to your school, send me an email (kpashuk(at)gmail(dot)com) with your contact information and I'll get back to you.</div>
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Comments and questions are welcome. Enjoy the post below.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Peering inside the Black Box of Learning</span></b></div>
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Calvin Armstrong, Educational Technology Advisor, Appleby College</div>
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It is often very difficult to see what students are doing when they work; you have to stand over them, crouch down, lean your shoulder in. Your mere presence changes the students’ behaviours – they freeze under observation, their thought processes get interrupted and many can be physically and emotionally uncomfortable with your close presence and observation.<br />
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Yet we know that in order to differentiate instruction and to ensure that students are progressing with their learning, we need to be able to see their work and provide feedback as often and as thoroughly as possible. <br />
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Oral feedback often fades away and is lost; the process of offering written feedback on developing work is challenging because it is either the transfer of a physical piece of paper (removing it from their possession) or the receipt of a digital snapshot of a Word document that doesn't place their material in context. If formative assessment (or assessment for learning) is to occur more naturally, teachers need access to students’ materials continually and they need a way to provide feedback <i>in situ</i> without interrupting the students’ work flow.<br />
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Teachers need to get inside the black box of student learning without disrupting it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Microsoft OneNote is already a great canvas for student work across all school subjects; it has an open format within a structure that teachers and students are traditionally familiar with – it has notebooks, sections reminiscent of Hilroy™ paper tabs and pages on which to write, draw, collect and compose. And it has the convenience of an infinite amount of blank, lined and graph paper to work with – ideas can grow without bound. <o:p></o:p></div>
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As a long-time 1:1 Tablet PC school, we wanted to find a way to leverage OneNote’s existing capabilities into a classroom environment that was an easy transition for teachers and students but promoted a climate of </div>
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sharing, provided for continual assessment and promoted information organization. Through the use of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 document libraries, the synchronization capabilities built in to Microsoft OneNote 2010 and a structured, programmatic approach to permissions, we created the OneNote Binder system.<o:p></o:p></div>
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When the Student Section Groups are created (automatically when a student enrols in the class) the system creates two Sections for them: The <b>Assignments</b> Section and the <b>Assessed</b> Section. The <b>Assignments</b> Section is a specific place that students know to place work that the teacher is deliberately going to collect; it’s the student’s personal dropbox for the course. We didn't want to require teachers to search through a student’s Section Group to find work they had asked for, so this Section is the common repository across the School in each course. Since OneNote time stamps any edits to a page, and maintains a version history of each section, teachers and students have a convenient way of tracking their work and submissions.</div>
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In the same way, the <b>Assessed</b> Section is the place where all work goes when it has been considered by the Teacher. It is set up, though, so that the student can read and copy out of the Section, but can’t edit any content in it; that D cannot transmogrify into a B with a well-placed pen stroke! Teachers move the student work from <b>Assignments</b> into <b>Assessed</b> and can provide feedback as required. The <b>Assessed</b> Section, over time, provides a digital portfolio for the student of their work from throughout the course. Students can copy the assessed work back into their other Sections and continue to work on it with based on the teacher’s feedback and resubmit it to the <b>Assignments</b> section to continue the learning cycle.</div>
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This Assignment<span style="font-family: Wingdings;">à</span> Assessed process has highlighted a need for a temporary holding spot, located within the Student Section Group where teachers can assess the work in stages; for longer pieces of work, teachers often need several days to assess and provide feedback and they would prefer not to have students see partial completed assessments. As this is development for the coming summer, in the meantime teachers move the student’s assignment into an external holding notebook and move it to Assessed when finished. Fortunately, Microsoft OneNote follows a convenient click and drop across and between Sections and Notebooks.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Since all of the students’ work is visible to the teacher as the student develops it, student work can be projected and shared with the class as a whole for discussion (provided, of course, the student is comfortable with that process). The teacher’s tablet, while connected to the projector, can show any student’s page and the student can interact with and explain their material from their desk while other students see it on the whiteboard. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Given a wireless environment, teachers traverse the room with their tablet pc, and by flipping to the appropriate student Section Group, determine the student’s progress on their page without having to be next to them physically. Feedback can be written and synchronized as the teacher moves around the room, with the comments appearing alongside the student work automatically. A conversation can take place without a word being spoken and questions can be asked and dealt with without a physical hand being raised.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Distribution of notes and materials is automatic and seamless. Previously, with independent Notebooks stored on their own tablets, students would have to retrieve material from either an online repository (SharePoint in our case) or via email. This was cumbersome and really didn’t indicate to the student any form of organization or place within their previous work. Teachers now create all of their materials within their Notebook in a way that structures their curriculum, and students copy the material directly into their Section Groups. There are no more lost handouts, absent students are aware of exactly what transpired in class and the full content of the year is available for perusal at any time, both as the teacher has presented it and the student has interpreted it. Teachers can provide feedback anywhere within a student’s Section Group – OneNote <b>bolds</b> the Section and Page names to let students know where there is new material and can ensure they have all the materials necessary. Teachers and students can also use the Tag and Highlighting functions built into OneNote to mark and find important materials. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Those materials can be anything on a computer: OneNote accommodates any kind of digital material either by embedding it directly into the page, providing the link to the material if it is too large or by “printing” it to a OneNote page so you write on top of a digital facsimile of the document. OneNote’s synchronization automatically distributes it to all students as soon as the teacher places it in their Section. While occasionally we have had to provide external sharing sites for teachers who are pushing the envelope when it comes to embedding large objects in the page, allowing a mix of digital artefacts within a OneNote page provides the teacher and students new and more meaningful ways to craft their understanding.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Since the permissions for all of these Notebooks (and their Section Groups) are set by the school’s server, we've been able to extend the reach of classroom work into the larger community. Teachers of other sections of a particular class can read (and copy) the Teacher Section Group of courses they’ve been invited to, Department Heads can see all of their teachers’ work and coverage teachers are automatically given temporary access to the class and its work. Parents, too, since they have login capability on the school network, can read the Teachers’ notes and see all of their students’ material (but of course, no other student’s). This has improved communication between home and school and has allowed a better articulation of a student’s progress and standing in the class.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Notebooks are created and stored on the school’s server – the teachers and students are working on continually synchronized copies of their materials. Unlike in previous years, when the Notebooks were stored locally on their tablets, the loss or failure of hard drives is no longer a cause for concern. Backups are done by the network and the community can easily switch between devices to access their notebooks. The synchronization occurs in the background and should there ever be a difficulty with synchronization, OneNote alerts the user and maintains backup copies until the error is fixed. <o:p></o:p></div>
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We've been experimenting with creating shared student work space, so that small groups of students can create together. The Teams Section Group can contain any number of Section Groups for each student collaboration and the teacher can provide feedback across the board. Because it is all stored on the server and Microsoft OneNote synchronizes continually, there is never the issue of “who has the notes” should a student be absent, and students can continue working on their projects when away from the classroom, or away from school. The synchronization occurs over simple web connections and the process is almost invisible to the students.<v:shape id="Picture_x0020_4" o:spid="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 19.5pt; visibility: visible; width: 468pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"><v:imagedata o:title="" src="file:///C:\Users\kpashuk\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image006.png"></v:imagedata></v:shape><o:p></o:p></div>
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The use of the OneNote Binder has also provided teachers and students with an opportunity to share information in other areas. Departments have set up similar notebooks so teachers could collaborate both within sections of the same course but also connecting learning across various courses. Student peer tutors have created OneNote Binders for their peer tutor groups to share resources and to provide their tutees with feedback even when not in face-to-face conversations. Sports teams have used them to synchronize across teams and coaches, especially given that many coaches are external to the school and aren't involved synchronously with our schedule. Students involved in math contest preparation no longer had to wait outside the mathematics department door for answers to their questions; discussion of challenging questions occurred on the Math Contest OneNote Binder whenever the teacher or student had time to sketch out their thoughts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Dylan Wiliam, the author of many insightful articles on assessment including <i>Inside the Black Box: Raising standards through classroom assessment</i> and <i>Working inside the Black Box: Assessment for learning in the classroom</i> is a leading voice on how best to ensure the professional growth of teachers. He once stated that “<i>Improving practice involves changing habits, not adding knowledge</i>”<a href="file:///C:/Users/kpashuk/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/61DL0BXC/Peering%20inside%20the%20black%20box5.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16px;">[1]</span></span></span></a> -- we've found that our teachers didn't need to be told new ways to assess or present information. They’re knowledge and teaching experts already. Instead, they need to have access to easier processes that will develop habits in the classroom that will improve the student and teacher experience and remove impediments from collaboration and feedback. These processes have to grow from their present understanding of tools and classroom practice, not from something completely new, so using a OneNote Binder has been a great entrée to organizing digital content in a meaningful way, distributing and collaborating with teachers and students and providing feedback. </div>
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Unlike other collaborative work spaces, Microsoft OneNote isn't limited to text, it doesn't require monitoring software that goes beyond inquiry into their academic work, and it doesn't segment student activity between several programs. The program is integrated and expansive so that the student can create and the teacher can provide meaningful feedback easily and at their convenience without invading physical space or removing the work from the student. Microsoft OneNote on a tablet computer transitions easily from a paper paradigm and the synchronization and security provided by Microsoft SharePoint allows for a more fluid formative assessment and digital portfolio system. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="file:///C:/Users/kpashuk/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/Content.Outlook/61DL0BXC/Peering%20inside%20the%20black%20box5.docx#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 16px;">[1]</span></span></span></a> <a href="http://www.dylanwiliam.org/Dylan_Wiliams_website/Presentations_files/ASCL%20conference%2009.ppt" title="Presentations_files/ASCL conference 09.ppt"><span style="color: #002060;">Designing teacher learning that benefits students</span></a>. ASCL Conference, Birmingham, UK: March 2009.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-39122910829777469612013-02-07T21:08:00.000-05:002013-02-07T21:08:00.870-05:00Working With IT Vendors – 5 Useful Tips<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In my last position I received so many phone calls on a
daily basis from vendors that I actually changed my voicemail to say “Hi!
You’ve reached Kevin Pashuk. If this is an unsolicited call from a vendor,
please don’t expect a return call.”<br />
<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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I can’t say I’m proud I did that, but it certainly reduced
the call volume.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Now before you rush out and change your voicemail message,
you need to take a moment and consider the role vendors have in your ecosystem.</div>
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<a name='more'></a>Let me fill you in on a secret. In a former life… long ago… I was… a vendor.
(Why do I feel I’m in a 12 step program?)
I have a bit of experience on the dark side. <o:p></o:p><br />
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As a CIO, you can’t exist without vendors. While they are
not all great, as a CIO, you have a lot to do with establishing good vendor
relationships.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Here are five things to consider when working with them:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<li><span style="font-size: 7pt; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Some vendors can be annoying, overbearing,
obnoxious, and a general PITA. (If you don’t know what a PITA is… Google
it.) That’s because the newbies get
sales training that tells them this is effective. As CIOs, we know it’s not. </span><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;"><br />Most of the time they are annoying because they are selling a product that you don’t
need or want.</span><br />As a CIO, you should be aware of which
companies can help you deliver your mandate. Make sure you find ways to be
aware of the marketplace. This could be
trade press publications, or at shows like MES.
I personally find these useful since I’ve allocated specific time to
meet vendors, and I am there by choice.</li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Recognize that the sales folk are doing their
job, just like you are doing yours. But recognize that their job (despite all
the talk of ‘solutions’) is to move as much product as possible. Don’t be
offended if they ask you to buy something. You get a salary, and a pension, and vacation
days. Most sales representatives make
the greater proportion of their income from commission. They swim in the shark tank of quarterly
quotas and commissions. </span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Don’t abuse vendors by asking for detailed
quotations and proposals for equipment or services you don’t intend to buy.
It’s a lot of work to respond to an RFP, or to gather together a detailed
quotation on complex equipment. Make
sure that there’s a chance to win the business.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Vendors are a good source of reference
information, specialized knowledge and connections to other organizations
solving similar problems. While you can
assume the whitepapers may be a bit product biased, I’ve learned much in
talking to some of the reference contacts that were provided. Don’t be shy to
ask for these things.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-indent: -0.25in;">Finally, while it’s important to maximize the
buying power of your budget, stop the price haggling when it is fair. You don’t
need to make the vendor bleed and sell you items at a loss. That is not
building partnerships. That is being
abusive.</span></li>
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So instead of complaining about vendors, consider what you
will do to identify the vendors you need and work on developing a successful
relationship with them. You need them. That’s why building relationships with my key
vendors is on my ongoing task list.<o:p></o:p></div>
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As for the PITA vendors?
I’m afraid they don’t get much business from me. But I try to be a
little less blunt when I tell them no.<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-2954080177754745452013-01-11T08:37:00.001-05:002013-01-11T08:44:58.720-05:00Line of Business Leaders and the CIO - 5 Tips for a Successful Relationship<br />
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As you read this, you have probably just finished jettisoning, or at the very least ignoring the last of the New Year’s resolutions you have made (or your partner made for you). Before you fall back into familiar patterns, let me discuss one major resolution you should strive to keep this year.<br />
<br />
If you haven’t got a seat at the senior leadership table, let’s make this year the one in which you move closer to getting invited. If you are already on the senior leadership team, let’s work on strengthening your position and not become marginalized. (It can happen. In the Canadian College system, several CIOs have recently lost their direct report to the President and now report to the Administrative head.)<br />
<br />
Working well with your colleagues (or soon to be colleagues) at the leadership table is key to your success. Each of them represent a key line of business or operational function within your organization and you are in a unique role to represent the one line that touches each of their areas in a way that will help them achieve their goals. (I know that Finance also touches each area, but it is more of a cost control and management function than an enable and empower ability that IT can bring.)<br />
<br />
Now here comes the touchy/feely part… you have to build relationships with your colleagues. I know that for some of you, you would rather lick the paint off the wall than divert from your task-oriented, introverted tribe of technical types rather than schmooze with the head of marketing or HR.<br />
<br />
This my friends is the price of admission, and not such a bad thing. After all, I'm not suggesting you become best friends or invite them on a vacation. I'm suggesting that CIOs need to work on developing professional relationships with their colleagues on the leadership team.<br />
<br />
Here are five tips for doing so:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
1.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>First (and perhaps the toughest), <b>check your ego at the door</b>. The IT department is not a fortress or a bastion of rules to protect your users from themselves… your team’s role is to make the people in your organization more successful at what they are supposed to be doing, or finding innovative ways to differentiate your organization in its market. Simple.<br />
<br />
Get rid of the gatekeeper mentality on your team. Look at your IT department through the lens of the best customer service organization you can think of. What makes them #1 in your mind? What types of things do they do that gives them so much credibility in your eyes and causes you to recommend them to anyone who will listen?<br />
<br />
Could you say the same about your organization? If your organization could choose to use your services voluntarily, would they do so or go somewhere else? (Hint: BYOD is a harbinger of customer selected IT services).<br />
<br />
2.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Speak their language</b>.<br />
One of Stephen Covey’s highly effective habits was “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” This is wise advice for the CIO. <br />
<br />
People like geeks on TV, but don’t want to work with them.<br />
<br />
Your colleagues don’t care about feeds and speeds, Sarbanes Oxley, bandwidth, BYOD, Big Data, and a host of other things that consume YOUR time. They care about schedules, delivery times, sales cycles, customer satisfaction, capacity issues, supply chains and a host of things that consume THEIR time.<br />
<br />
Take the time to learn their challenges, issues, bottlenecks, aspirations. Find out how they measure success.<br />
Then, in their language, metaphors or vernacular, be able to explain to them, in a way they will understand, how your team can help them achieve that.<br />
<br />
3.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Get rid of the wet blanket. Stop saying no.</b><br />
Historically, IT has gained a reputation as a gatekeeper of ideas and innovation. We have become skilled at providing a dozen reasons why something won’t work (more often than not for very legitimate reasons).<br />
If you keep saying no, then people will quit coming to you.<br />
<br />
So the better way is to stop saying no, but rather put a price tag on ‘yes’. If it’s a capacity issue, or a budget issue, then ask which projects could come off the list for this brilliant project to be added. You get the picture.<br />
<br />
If the project advances the institutional objectives and/or creates differentiation for your organization, then find a way to make it work, but do so using solid project management to ensure you don’t compromise the areas where you have fiduciary responsibility (information security and privacy, compliance, operational budget etc.)<br />
<br />
The second part of this is to get out of the way. Stop making it necessary for their departments to have to come to IT to get access to data, generate reports, and implement workflows. Implement systems that moves the management complexity to the network layer, and empower their departments. Send the message that you trust them with their own data… while invisibly your network management ensures that only the right people have access and your organization is protected.<br />
<br />
4.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Deliver</b>.<br />
The best way to build trust with your colleagues is to deliver. If you say something will be delivered by a certain date, then move heaven and hell to do so. <br />
<br />
If your IT projects are not coming in on time, on budget and delivering measurable results, you have a lot of work to do. Anything less destroys your credibility at the leadership table.<br />
<br />
5.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><b>Don’t waste time at “the table”</b>.<br />
The worst thing a CIO can do when invited to the table is to say nothing. The second worst thing is to say too much, or talk about things that aren't relevant.<br />
<br />
If you are privileged enough to have a seat, then use it well. <br />
<br />
You should have a strong working knowledge of your organization’s goals and objectives, as well as well-developed ideas of the role technology can play in achieving them.<br />
<br />
You should come to the meetings prepared, with fresh ideas, and a willingness to (respectfully) challenge ideas that do not align with organizational objectives. <br />
<br />
Don’t be stuck in a maintenance mindset. Become known as the person on the team that helps others achieve.<br />
<br />
So in the end, it isn’t about your colleagues changing their errant ways and welcoming you to the table. There is a tremendous amount of responsibility for a leadership team to create an organization that delivers in their sector. If you want a seat at the table, you’ll find the responsibility for many of the changes falls soundly in the lap of the person you see in the mirror.<br />
<br />
There are numerous resources to help you in this growth. My personal favourite for a starting point is Patrick Lencioni’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Five-Dysfunctions-Team-ebook/dp/B006960LQW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1357911193&sr=8-1&keywords=five+dysfunctions+of+a+team" target="_blank">Five Dysfunctions of a Team</a>.<br />
<br />
Happy New Year!<br />
<div>
<br />
<i>Note: This post will also appear in UBM Channel's Monthly CIO Leadership Newsletter. Check out a previous edition <a href="http://www.xchange-events.com/files/9813/4402/1840/MES_Newsletter_11.html" target="_blank">here</a> where you can register to receive future issues.</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-67945292187514326512012-11-28T21:36:00.000-05:002012-11-28T21:36:00.037-05:00The Top 5 Challenges CIOs Will Face In 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This is the time of year when every blogger puts out a "Top 5", or if they are prolific... a "Top 10" list of the top issues / challenges / opportunities / predictions / opinions that we bloggers feel is important.<br />
<br />
This is my list.<br />
<br />
These are the things that I believe should be at the top of my "Pay Attention" list, and I'm bold enough to say that they should be on yours too.<br />
<br />
But before I get to it, let me go on the record with my problem with lists of this type.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>We love to read "How To" blogs, and "Top 5" blogs but the problem is... they never convince us to actually change. It's likely because we dash through them at the speed of light along with the latest sports scores, tech news, or trying to follow which senior executive has been fired from a major technology company.<br />
<br />
It's not your fault. You have a mountain of articles and information to deal with on a daily basis and don't have time to read it all. So you are picky. You skim.<br />
<br />
I suggest that for this one time, you take the time to read through this list and consider the impact it will have on your organization, your team, your staffing, your budget, and heck, even your career.<br />
<br />
Go get a coffee or tea to savour while you read. Don't worry, I'll wait for you to come back...<br />
<br />
The first caveat is that I don't expect you to agree with me. There is a considerable amount of my opinion here. All I ask is that you think on these issues before you hit the "Thumbs Down" button.<br />
<br />
Secondly, don't be one of the hundreds of IT leaders I've met recently at conferences that are consigned to believing that their organization can't change, won't change, or has a culture that is resistant to change.<br />
<br />
If you believe that, you will NEVER see the change you need. As an IT leader, you are in the best position to influence change in your organization. You may just not have the skills to do so yet. But don't ever give up that your organization can't change. You will need to be willing to gain a few more scars and callouses, but it is entirely achievable.<br />
<br />
I should note that I didn't pull this list out of thin air. It is based on excellent research from the folks at Gartner, Forrester, Info-Tech, Educause and a litany of other material I consume to stay on top of things.<br />
<br />
What you are getting is the distilled list, in reverse David Letterman order.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #990000;">#5 - Recognize you are at a crossroads in your career.</span></b><br />
If you are still 'doing' IT the same way you were five years ago, then the first thing you need to do is admit you have a problem. The world we work in is dramatically different, and it requires a new way of doing things. If you can't get by this step and are uncomfortable with change, I would suggest that you review your 401K. <br />
<br />
If you are an IT leader who has recognized that things are different? That's the good news. The bad news is that the end target isn't fully defined. But as an IT leader you are in the best position possible to be a catalyst for change.<br />
<br />
This is not a time for the faint of heart or those who want a quiet, comfortable career.<br />
<b><br /><span style="color: #990000;">#4 - Surf the BYOD wave.</span></b><br />
BYOD and the consumerization of technology are on everybody's radar these days. The problem is that much of what I read (from the non-vendor community) appears to be is a "Bar the Gates!!" attitude or at the very least a resigned reluctance that people are going to bring in their own devices.<br />
<br />
Rather than be resigned to this trend you should be embracing it. Organizations such as Gartner have been talking about this for 5 years. You really don't have an excuse not to be ready.<br />
<br />
In our case, we now anticipate that every user on our network will consume 4 IP addresses (computer, phone, tablet, and one other device that is IP enabled) and we have built our underlying infrastructure to segment BYOD traffic from core enterprise traffic.<br />
<br />
People want their corporate information, anytime, anywhere with any device. You don't get to decide whether this is right or wrong. You need to find a way to do it while keeping your data secure and stay in compliance.<br />
<b><br /><span style="color: #990000;">#3 - Work on the "Right" stuff. Stop doing the "Wrong" stuff.</span></b><br />
A few years ago at a conference, I heard Geoffrey Moore speak on strategy, and his presentation had a profound impact on my strategic IT planning. He had a Johari window with the two axis labelled Non Mission Critical / Mission Critical, and Non-Differentiating / Differentiating. (I wrote a whole post on this: <i><a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2011/05/most-important-post-on-strategy-youll.html" target="_blank">The Most Important Post on Strategy You'll Ever Read</a>)</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
He then asked us to plot our IT initiatives and projects on this chart. There were a number of items in the upper left quadrant that were mission critical but didn't really differentiate our organization from our competitors (e.g. email). In the upper right quadrant there were a number of project that would ultimately provide our organization an edge over our competition (in our case our Data/BI initiative).<br />
<br />
Geoffrey's simple message was this... spend your energy in the upper right quadrant, and look at outsourcing, or moving to a SaaS, IaaS, PaaS provider for the mission critical, but non differentiating quadrant.<br />
<br />
For the non-mission critical or non-differentiating items in the lower quadrant, Mr. Moore suggested that we not spend much (if any) energy there.<br />
<br />
How many CIOs do you know that won't give up 'control' of their email unless it's pried from their cold, dead fingers? Are you one of them?<br />
<b><br /><span style="color: #990000;">#2 - Find your voice. Be a valuable member of "the table".</span></b><br />
Only one-third of higher education CIOs report directly to the President or Provost (EDUCAUSE) and the number seems to be declining. Why are IT leaders being moved off the leadership team?<br />
<br />
I've had way too many conversations with CIOs around how they are being marginalized, and that they have no voice, that the union is too inflexible, the culture is change resistant... and so on, and so on. They feel that IT has been relegated to a maintenance role of keeping the lights on at the lowest cost. They like what I write in my blog, but could never see themselves implementing some of the ideas I bring forward.<br />
<br />
Unsurprisingly these same IT leaders can go on for (what seems like) hours about the feeds and speeds of their network, which computing or mobile platform is better (in their humble opinion) and how to tweak their Android device to make coffee in the morning while downloading all the content to their home media server.<br />
<br />
The issue here is that the President, CEO and other executive really don't care about this stuff. If you "geek" them out, you won't get invited to the table.<br />
<br />
You have to learn the language of the executive team and know what they need to accomplish. Then help them do it. They want to know how you and your team will help them hit next quarter's sales targets. They want to know how we are assisting people to accomplish things at a lower cost, or more effectively than last year, and how that is going to help the organization move forward. <br />
<br />
It is not an easy thing to de-geek, but it's very necessary and should be the second most important priority for next year.<br />
<b><br /><span style="color: #990000;">#1 - Create a team of professional magic makers.</span></b><br />
We cannot do this on our own. We need our cadre of brilliant men and women on our team to pull this off.<br />
In this changing world of IT, we truly need to become leaders and develop the members of our team. To me, this is the single most important issue for you to address in the next year. While I could go on for hours about this topic, I'll try and keep it succinct.<br />
<br />
What are you doing to find and keep the best people on your team?<br />
<br />
What are you investing in skills development to keep up with emerging technologies and changing IT models?<br />
<br />
Have you identified the skills gap on your team? How are you going to address it? Training? Recruiting?<br />
<br />
Does your team feel empowered? Do you tell them 'how' to do things as well as 'what' and 'when'?<br />
<br />
Do you hire people that are smarter than you?<br />
<br />
Do you trust your team? Would they say you do?<br />
<br />
OK, I'll quit... but I think you know where I stand on this. I spend more time on this than I do on technology issues. It's the reason that my current crew is producing results of teams twice their size and twice their budget.<br />
<br />
If you are going to thrive in 2013 (and not just survive), then I am convinced you need to address these 5 areas. I'm really not minimizing the effort and tenacity it will take, but the results are so worth it.<br />
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Happy Holidays! and all the best to you in the new year! <br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-62833823452012566302012-10-29T09:35:00.000-04:002012-10-29T10:50:31.592-04:00Are you Engaging or Enraging your Users?I am still amazed at the number of CIOs and Technology leaders I run into today that think their job has something to do with technology.<br />
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It doesn't. At least not in this century.<br />
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As a technology leader, you should spend much less time on actual technology (that's why you hire and empower smart people) and spend much more time on how your user's interact with the technology "solutions" your team provides.<br />
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When I first started in this industry (a loooooonnng tine ago), computers started arriving in offices as the realm of computing was liberated from the air conditioned room in the basement and distributed to various desktops across the enterprise.<br />
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Quickly following the arrival of computers on desktops was the following cartoon... faxed between frustrated users of the new technology. (There was no email in those days...)<br />
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I don't know who created this cartoon, but it certainly summed up the frustration we were introducing into people's lives.<br />
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But this was in the early 1980's.<br />
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There's been a lot of innovation since then, and a lot of opportunity to fix the things that frustrated users.<br />
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So why was it so easy for me to locate this cartoon that is still making the rounds?<br />
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As IT leaders, we have focussed on the wrong areas.<br />
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In today's consumer driven BYOD world, our users have been conditioned to have choice in their personal technology. When they come to work and are 'forced' to use the system designed by IT, their frustration level can rise exponentially. It's not their fault that they expect things to be intuitive and easy to use.<br />
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I recently attended a conference where Patrick Lencioni (Author of <a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/The-Five-Dysfunctions-of-a-Team-A-Leadership-Fable/9780787960759-item.html?ref=item_page:richrel" target="_blank">Five Dysfunctions of a Team</a>) gave one of the keynotes. He highlighted the difference between changing your airline ticket on SouthWest airlines vs. an unnamed (cough "United" cough) competitor.<br />
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With SWA it was "I'd like to change my ticket please." Representative quickly reviews core objectives of SWA (Make customer experience better...) and responds "No problem!"<br />
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With the other airline it was "I'd like to change my ticket please." Representative goes to terminal and starts typing... Click click clickety click click click clickety click backspace backspace backspace clickety click click click clickety click clickety clickety click click backspace backspace backspace backspace backspace backspace click click clickety click clickety clickety click.... etc. and says "Sorry, we can't do that."<br />
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If you want the whole story, check out Lencioni's new book <i><a href="http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/product/9780470941522-item.html?ref=google:sayt" target="_blank">The Advantage</a></i> about organizational health and why it is so vital to your organization's ability to thrive in chaotic times.<br />
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Maybe it's just me, but I feel that we as technology leaders have focussed more on the "clickety click click" than the response to the question of whether it advances our organization's core goals and objectives.<br />
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When was the last time you sat down with people who used the systems and technology your team has implemented? Do you actually use the systems in your department that you make mandatory for everyone else in the organization? (See post on <a href="http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com/2011/06/eating-your-own-dog-food.html" target="_blank">Eating Your Own Dog Food</a>)<br />
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If you are developing new systems, when do you engage your user community? At the start of the project when you "gather" "user requirements"?<br />
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When do you see them again? When you "deliver the system"?<br />
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This is a great recipe for disengaged, or potentially enraged users.<br />
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I'm a huge fan of a modified Agile methodology for software and system development. It engages the users early and often... and continues right through each and every phase of the project. It is more about defining expected outcomes than "requirements" and seeks to provide measurable improvements (as defined by both the organization AND the actual user community.)<br />
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We recently rolled out a modification to MS SharePoint and OneNote. The integration that my team deployed both added significant functionality for our teachers and students, but also got rid of a number of time consuming operations. When we presented it to the core project team (with representation from the user community), they actually applauded.<br />
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When we presented to the whole teaching community, they applauded the development team.<br />
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In all my years I have never seen the user community actually applaud the programmers.<br />
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It was a great moment, and a great lesson on the power of engagement.<br />
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So let me get back to my first point.<br />
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As an IT leader, have you put User Engagement as one of your key objectives this year?<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9141872424229233510.post-24662963300532504362012-10-02T16:00:00.001-04:002012-10-02T16:00:31.472-04:00The ‘P’ List for IT Project Management…<br />
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Occasionally my brain starts a thought that just keeps going.<br />
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Like it did when I started jotting down some ideas around project management for software projects. <br />
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Each of these thoughts are key considerations in each and every IT project.<br />
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So here they are in no particular order of importance.<br />
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See if I've left any out. I'd be delighted to hear from you in the comments section.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Problem<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
It all starts with the realization that there is a problem to be solved. If there is no problem that can be articulated, then there is no real need to apply technology. <br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Purpose<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
You have to go beyond defining that a problem exists. You must also be able to define the benefit of fixing the problem.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Priorities<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
Does this work really need to be done? What other items are competing for resources and budgets. Be ready to provide the answer.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Principles</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
How would fixing the problem assist the organization to achieve its core business or purpose? Does this project align with the ‘big picture’?<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Pathways</span></b><br />
Is there more than one solution? Perhaps there is a simpler solution than technology (e.g. a process change).<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Potential<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
What are the potential benefits that may be derived from implementing this solution? (Other than the obvious) (e.g. making data available to other divisions/ departments)<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Payback<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
You can’t really use productivity as a reason for implementation of technology, since there is a tremendous amount of data proving the contrary. You must be able to define realistic cost savings or increased potential for income.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Principals<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
Does the project have executive sponsorship? If not, success is unlikely. Who are the stakeholders in the success of the project?<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Preaching/Persuasion</b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><br />
There will always be the nay-sayers who resist change. You must have a clear message as to what the need is to do the project<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Politics</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
Who needs to be lobbied? Just because a project is logical and has great value for the company doesn’t mean you will get buy in. Politics is a very real risk to any project. Ensure you are not pushing this project for personal political gain. If so, there will be those waiting in the wings to ensure your failure. <br />
<i>“Great things can be accomplished, as long as it doesn't matter who gets the credit.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)</i><br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Preferences</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
Involve the stakeholders early in the process. Get their needs and preferences defined. What do they need out of the system? The system won’t be used if it doesn't add value to the users in the trenches.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Personal value</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Not everyone will buy in to a project just because it adds to the organization bottom line. Each participant must have a personal benefit if the project is completed.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Pacify<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
If possible, disarm those who would seek to scuttle the project. If the benefits are well defined in light of corporate objective, then most opponents can be convinced that the project is not being done for the political gain of an individual or department.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Promises<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
Under Promise and Over Deliver. Most expectations are mismanaged based on over promising the benefits and capabilities of technology.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Price</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
Projects have both direct and indirect costs such as hardware upgrades, software licenses, travel, training, etc. Many custom developed applications have an ongoing maintenance fee of 10-15% yearly. Specialized hardware purchased for the project will likely need to be upgraded every few years. Ensure these are accounted for in determining the cost of the project.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Professionalism</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
Play by the rules… Document, document, document. Have a clear statement of work that outlines deliverables, expectations, time frames, etc. Don’t hold meetings without agendas. Keep a paper trail of all decisions. Don’t change the scope without a change order.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Prevention</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
What are the risks associated with doing the project? Avoid being blind-sided by events that could have been prevented early in the project. Most risks, once identified should be prioritized as to their potential impact. Most risks can be mitigated with planning early in the process.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Prerequisites<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
Is this project dependent on any outside factors? (i.e. Budgets, other projects, personnel, etc.)<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Permission</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
Are there permissions (both internally and externally) that need to be secured before the project proceeds? (e.g. permits)<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Personnel<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
What skills are needed to complete the project? Do you have the skills in house, or will you need to hire additional people or an outside firm? <br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Prodding<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
Once you get into the thick of things, be ready to take on the role of coach, taskmaster, etc. to keep the project on track. Things will spin out of control quite naturally if the project is not continually managed.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Pace</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
Managing projects is a fine balance of Time, Resources and $$. Set realistic time frames for delivery that takes these factors into account. It is extremely difficult to recover the goodwill lost when a delivery date is missed.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Participation<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
This has to be a team effort! Share the pain, share the gain, and share the glory.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Policies & Procedures</span></b><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span><br />
Formalize responsibilities and develop group policies (but don't get bureaucratic!). This goes a long way in mitigating personal conflicts.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Package</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
If you are developing software, the presentation of the interface is key to how effective the application will be to use. If the interface is not intuitive, and does not follow accepted practices, then the potential for introducing errors increases substantially.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Picture</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
A picture is worth a thousand words. Use screen prototypes to convey functionality before the application is built. This is an essential part in managing expectations.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Process</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
Work to a defined project management process. Adapt it to suit the scope and scale of the project, but ensure the stages are well defined, with clear exit points for each stage, so that everyone knows what to expect next.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Pilot<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
Never jump into a full scale project without testing the waters first. Prove the concept with a pilot project.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Parlance<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
Use the vernacular of the organization. Ensure that users know what they are getting, what will be fixed, replaced, etc.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Prove<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></b><br />
End Users are NOT the Beta test team. Make sure the application works before it is released to the end users. If users do not trust the application, they will not trust the accuracy of the data, and find alternate ways to manage the information.<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Publish</span><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></b><br />
Leverage the success of your project by telling others. Use blogs, tweets, press releases etc. to provide the institution with some positive PR. Where practical, be willing to share with your peers.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08155111021685548216noreply@blogger.com7