Category: Technology

Categories
Business Technology

GusDay 2015 Recap

My boss, a coworker, and myself jumped into a school-owned vehicle before 6:00 am on Friday and started the 2-hour trip to Macalaster College to attend GusDay 2015. It was the first GusDay any of us had attended in the 15 years since the first GusDay at Gustavus Adolphus College in 2000 and 2001 and has bounced around various private colleges in Minnesota and Iowa since then.

I would estimate we had over 200 in attendance, which was pretty cool. I’ve been to both larger and smaller conferences than this, but I like the size sitting around 200 members. It isn’t so huge that you get lost in the larger group, but it isn’t so small that you can’t find someone to talk to.

The trip was uneventful and the location was great. Macalaster has wonderful facilities and staff and I would like to thank everyone who worked to put on GusDay 2015. It was a wonderful event and I hope that I can attend again in the future.

From here on out, I’m just going to recap the talks I was able to attend and then some closing remarks.

Opening Keynote

It emphasized collaboration, which is an important part of working in technology within any organization, but especially within higher education. The need to build partnerships both inside and outside of the organization is one big thing that I took away from it. I know that is something we have definitely been working on within our own IT department.

I will present this list:

  • think carefully why you work
  • don’t burn out
  • don’t work too hard
  • don’t waste your time on a job you don’t like
  • contribute to civility and kindness
  • pick up the phone
  • don’t become a product evangelist
  • do presentations
  • do collaborate

The “don’t become a product evangelist” hit close to home for me. I need to try to keep myself above the fray when it comes to turf wars within technology because it is just not worth it.

Session 1 – Just Checking In…How Do We Know How We’re Doing?

Great talk on making sure that you are checking in with people regularly, not just when things are going wrong (or getting pulled into an office every time you walk by).

The presenter uses a personal email to the people he supports at regular intervals just to see how things are going. I believe he stated that he supports around 170 individuals as part of his tech evangelist role. The idea is also to pay attention to changes that might be happening for those people and to check in after the change has occurred.

That is something I will try to get in the habit of doing after upgrades or major changes (like a few I have floating around in my head right now).

The discussion also changed quickly to how to get faculty to buy into technology and the answer was something I have heard many times: get some “pioneer faculty” to try things out and then go out and evangelize from there.

There was some talk of using a CRM to “manage” those relationships, but I have the added benefit of being at a small enough school that I could walk around and talk to everyone once a month or quarter if I just set up the schedule to do so myself.

Session 2 – Upgrading Campus Wireless

Not much I haven’t heard before but one item I had not thought about was the option of leasing the hardware to keep the budgeting consistent (at least through the life of the contract). I know that wireless is high on the priority list right now so it is something I will look into.

Concordia University started with around 80 access points (Cisco) in 2003 and this last summer pushed out over 200 access points (Aruba) as part of their upgrade. One thing they would do differently is not tear out the entire network at the same time. I would tend to agree.

Luckily, we did that last year.

One item I do want to look into is what vendors are available for cabling. They have a vendor to handle their cabling (and running fiber). At MLC, we traditionally pull our own cable and fiber. Something to look into, at least.

Session 3 – Extending Help Desk Support Beyond the Business Day

This is one session where my jaw dropped more than once. It wasn’t in a bad way, but it was a reminder about how different things can be for us at MLC.

That two presenters (one from Macalaster and one from Bethel) both manage more than 50 student workers each year. At MLC, we average one student worker … maybe two or three if we are lucky. That definitely changes how you would do things.

There was discussion around password resets, satellite stations in the library, and help desk software (which bled over into lunch, which was great). Some organizations are using a 3rd party to cover the hours when they are not open so that they can offer 24/7 support for online and distance learners. I don’t think that is doable for us, but it was interesting to hear how other places handle the help desk.

Session 4 – Creating an RFP

This was the surprise session of the day for me because it was so full of good ideas for us to implement at MLC not just when dealing with vendors, but when thinking through even internal projects. The amount of time spent putting together requirements was refreshing.

It really was more around project management in my head than anything else. You aren’t spelling out every minute detail of how things should work, but you need to have some requirements so that you know what you need (and to spend the needed time thinking through that before you even begin contacting vendors) and you also need to spell out your selection criteria so that you know if a solution will fit your needs or not.

The other fresh idea in my head was the idea of managing your vendors. You, as an organization, need to set the agenda ahead of time along with any parameters. Otherwise a vendor can walk all over your people and your time. This was backed-up by talking with the IT director of another organization a little later about some of his experiences. The need to manage your vendors cannot be stressed enough.

Another item was how these things were driven: from the users, not directly from IT. We need to work on enabling people to better take control of their own workflows and then use IT as a means to getting their work done … better.

Session 5 – Nimble Storage

I was able to avoid the vendor sessions for the rest of the day, but the Nimble Storage session I was not going to miss. This directly relates to our current project of consolidating our storage on campus to a single vendor.

You can read more at their site, but my boss and I were impressed enough that we are going to be looking at them as our storage vendor for the future. I’ve heard only good things about Nimble from others so I’m excited to see what they can do on our campus.

Closing Statements

It was a great conference and I hope that we can get back there again in the future. While here are many differences between our institutions, it is always fun to get together and talk about what we are doing, how we are doing it, and what we are looking at in the future.

Macalaster can really put on a show and who knows, maybe Martin Luther College will host a GusDay at some point in the future

For me, the way forward is the same as it has always been … try to provide the best services we can in the most responsible way possible. GusDay is one way of doing that. If you don’t get out there and talk with people, how are you ever going to know what is going on?

Categories
Technology

I’ll see you at GusDay 2015!

I will be attending GusDay 2015 with a couple of my colleagues this Friday. I am looking forward to meeting and talking with a group of technology professionals working in the private higher education area.

It is always good to collaborate with friends.

Categories
Technology

Apple Is Always Doomed

2015 marks me being a Mac and Apple user, in one form or another, for a decade. While I’m an infant compared to many longtime Apple users, I feel like I am finally getting some perspective on the company and its products after using them for an extended period of time. Now that I do the math, I’ve been an Apple user longer than I was a Microsoft user before (10 vs. 7 years).

I’ll start with this controversial statement: Apple is not perfect.

Not even close, really,

However, Apple has never been perfect and you have always been able to find problems with every software release. The “it just works” moniker has always been marketing. This is nothing new.

What is new is the scale of Apple.

Today there are just so many more people using Apple’s products that you are going to be hearing from more people. It is much easier for opinions to find their way to the “surface” of the Internet today than in the past and the media is paying closer attention to what people are saying online in a bid to try to stay afloat.

That means we are going to hear of more problems.

Two articles featured prominently over the weekend. First came Apple has lost the functional high ground from Marco Arment (and more recently his following up titled What it’s like to be way too popular for a day). I can’t really disagree with much of what he wrote because there are issues with the software that Apple has been recently releasing.

My problem is that it has always been this way … and it will always be this way.

The Functional High Ground by Daniel Jalkut states it very well, and from a person who worked for Apple starting in the 90s.

And now it’s 2015, and in the immortal words of Kurt Cobain: “Hey! Wait! I’ve got a new complaint.” Don’t we all.

That sums it up for me. I’ve been reading about how Apple’s software has been horrible since I started using a Mac. I read about how Windows was/is/will be horrible since before my parents owned a computer running Windows 95 (thank you PC magazines). Software stinks. I deal with more issues at work from Google Chrome than any other piece of software right now (beating out even Adobe’s products at the moment).

Software stinks and there is no other way to state it.

Apple needs to get things figured out because they are burning up good will from some people, but they are not unique in that situation. Google is there for others (the Google Apps Admin interface is a mess). Microsoft has been there for many for a long time (and Windows 8 didn’t help in some respects).

Apple is always doomed, and to a great extent will always be doomed because they set the bar high for themselves. That’s a good thing, but lets cut the hyperbolic headlines and stories and get back to trying to make things better.

Image by Barry Goble from Flickr

Categories
Business Technology

Bringing Organizational Change

I think it is safe to say that every organization, no matter how big or how small, could improve in some way. Sometimes it is forced upon you by a large shift in the business you are in, or by turnover at the executive/management level with a mandate to “turn things around”.

More subtle is the constant opportunity for small but useful changes which can accumulate over time and make the organization much healthier. However, how can those changes come about?

Often I hear of “bringing in consultants” to come and spend some time within the organization and then provide a plan for the change. Usually you are then parted with an amount of money and left to implement the said plan on your own terms, taking the parts that you want.

However, maybe there is a better way to try to bring about meaningful and lasting change (hopefully positive as well) within an organization?

It starts by looking internally for ways to bring people together. I truly believe that current staff is a huge untapped potential for ideas and change that can sometimes go untapped. The impulse to bring in outside consultants should be buried, at least for a while, so that internal members can use their knowledge of how the organization currently works to try to come up with ways to make things better. There are obviously things that can be made better and maybe someone who is already there has an idea of what that might be.

Doing this can have two added benefits (besides the change):

  1. It is cheaper. You area already paying someone to work for you, so why not pay them to also try to make the business even better.
  2. It gives current staff some sense of “buy-in” into the organization if their ideas are taken seriously and results are seen. This is the more “fluffy” of the two but might be the more important.

Then try to put in place processes to encourage continual change within the organization. Plan regular gatherings with the sole purpose of trying to think of ways to improve things. Include department across the organization because, often, individual departments don’t know what the other is doing. Steve Jobs was rumored to have built the Pixar headquarters specifically to encourage this sort of cross-department talk to bring new ideas into play (not to mention the new Apple headquarters being built). Find ways to do the same within your own organization.

There is no silver bullet, obviously, but I recommend looking internally first before bringing in outside help who have a limited understanding of what you are currently doing. There are times for that, but exhaust current options first.

Image by allison from Flickr

Categories
Business Technology

My BrainShare Takeaways

From November 1 through November 5 I attended two events in Salt Lake City, Utah. I was able to attend and speak at the TTP Summit at BrainShare 2014 on November 1, 2 and then attend the main BrainShare 2014 conference from November 2-5. I had a great time at both events and want to thank everyone who was involved in getting them off the ground my thanks. I’m hoping to be able to come back in the future.

If you want a look at what Novell took away from conference, you can read Bret Fitzgerald’s post over at Cool Solutions. It has a good “30,000 foot” overview of the main conference. I had the pleasure of talking with Bret and other team members at Novell and NetIQ and enjoyed every one.

Below you will find what I took away from the entire week:

  • The development changes started at Novell not too long ago are pretty much fully implemented. Every division is talking about multiple releases over a given calendar year, beta programs, getting feedback from customers earlier in the process … all good things. I know that many of the headline products have received significant upgrades over the past 12 months already and that progress is not slowing down.
  • Vibe is maybe the most criminally underused product Novell has at the moment. Talking with the guys at Code and Concept was enlightening because of all of the things you can do with Vibe as a platform for more than just simple collaboration. I have in mind to spend some time this coming year to really dig into Vibe. I feel like it could fit into multiple areas on campus with little effort.
  • The Micro Focus merger can mean some good things for the company overall, but there is still a lot of work to be done and the prospects in the distance are unknown. Many of the education customers I talked to are quietly optimistic that a change in ownership is going to, overall, be a benefit to The Attachmate Group companies. It seems that “the market” agrees as shares have been up (quite a bit) since Micro Focus announced the plan.
  • Mobility is here to stay and Novell knows it. A lot of talk about expanding the capabilities of products like Vibe, Filr, iPrint (really excited about some of this stuff), and ZENworks to make managing mobile devices even easier. That is going to be a major focus here as well (at MLC) and those products will be central to how we get those things done. I had only my iOS devices along for the trip and so I was able to use the Filr and iPrint apps to get work done. They worked well and I’m excited to see where they go in the future.
  • GroupWise moving to embrace open standards to support the Mac is a great move in my opinion. Bringing first-class IMAP, CalDAV, and CardDAV support will allow them to integrate into the Mac platform seamlessly in ways that Google and Microsoft just are not interested in (sadly). I think it is a great move.
  • Good to hear some increased development around NetIQ eDirectory and iManager. Both will be getting major version updates in the coming year and as I like both products, that makes me happy.
  • There is an excellent community of IT professionals around the Novell and NetIQ ecosystems and I am happy to continue to try to embed myself in it a little more. I’m hoping that the continued effort on bringing great products to market to solve problems we are facing will grow the ranks again.

I’ll have more to talk about in the future as products start to be released. I am also hoping to talk briefly about my experience of going iPad-only for a week-long trip. More on that in the future.