July 2007 Archives

This week a group was charged with making recommendations about how ITS should move forward with a framework for collaboration (an intranet, but I don't really like that word - too much baggage). The group includes people from almost all across ITS, and they've been asked to make their initial recommendation in about a month from now. That's a short fuse and I'm thankful for the can-do attitude in the group. We've got lots of "local" success stories to talk about that relate to embracing new methods for collaborating and it is now time to "organize" these efforts with some coherence to help us all find expertise, knowledge, passion in our own organization. This group has fun challenge to take on in August. I mean it - fun.

While this group takes its inventory, makes lists and checks them twice, etc. - the most important part of these changes rests all of the rest of us. Each and every person in ITS has to start to think about contributing to a knowledge/experience/think space. It takes time to find your voice, for a group to find its voice - but these things are only found by trying, doing. You can get a head start on learning to how to contribute by starting a blog - today. You can get a head start on learning how to contribute by commenting on someone else's blog. You can even get a head start by "just" reading blogs. And it isn't just about blogs. Bottom line is, let's get started with the hard part - changing old habits.

I'll point to my past entry regarding Compute:Communicate ratios. Everyone has a responsibility to contribute. If someone tells you you can't contribute or suggests that you shouldn't - whether it is blogging, commenting on blogs, using wikis, etc. - print this out, take it to them and tell them it's the direction into which we are trying to head. If you have knowledge, value, experience - you are bound by duty to share it.

I've been away from blogging way too long. I've got lots of posts started and queued up and I'm committed to getting some of them out over this weekend. There was about one week when it seemed like a lot of people went on vacation at the same time and the pace slowed down a little, but things picked up with a vengeance soon thereafter. As I did last time I took an unintended blogging hiatus, I'll try to do a quick, incomplete, informal recap of what's been going on over the last 30 days:

• sent 1,483 emails
  
• received 4,504 emails
  
• participated in 61 hours of meetings and phone calls
  
• kept up (mostly) with the 45 feeds in my Google reader
  
• traveled to Ann Arbor for a CIC-CIO meeting (had to drive back - grrrr)
  
• traveled to Denver for an EDUCAUSE Campus Cyberinfrastructure meeting
  
• participated in our first ITS Leadership meeting (formerly called second level)
  
• participated in our monthly ITS Senior Leadership retreat (from Kentucky, on a phone - grrrr)
  
• met with ITS Financial Services
  
• met with DLT
  
• met with MAC
  
• helped host a product demo from Sharestream with the University Libraries
  got a face-to-face eLion demo
  
• consumed the new ANGEL tutorial on-line
  
• co-moderated a Googlization brown bag with Mairéad
  
• hosted a Coffee with Kevin breakfast
  
• sat in on a CTSA Steering Committee meeting
  
• met with Peter Schiffer, the relatively new Associate Vice President for Research, Director of Strategic Initiatives
  
• lots of other meetings with lots of other people too
  

As we start a new year, let me thank each of you for helping to make
Penn State a great university for teaching, learning, research, and
service. As you can imagine, I have learned a great deal about Penn
State -- and about ITS -- as my first year as CIO comes to a close.
The transition has gone smoothly because each of you rose to the
challenge of sustaining momentum and supporting the new leadership
team. Jeff and I are truly grateful for your support.

Now that we've had some time to get our feet beneath us with all of
the changes that happen when there is turnover with the CIO position,
it is time to manage the other changes that we've tabled for the last
many months.

As you may recall, when Jeff and I first came to Old Main, we were
welcomed by the Provost with strong support for ITS, what we do, how
we do it, and how we were structured. To enable us to begin to get a
handle on all of the new challenges in the job and to minimize
changes and disruption, we asked Phil Devan to assume the role of
interim Sr. Director of ASET. Phil has managed this difficult role
with grace and enthusiasm and I am most thankful for Phil's deft
handling of this role over these last 10 months.

While we were able to maintain much needed and valued stability with
an interim Sr. Director of ASET, we now need to provide more
certainty while still minimizing disruption. We continue to have the
strong support of the Provost - there is no mandate for significant
changes within ITS at this time. Additionally, we want to soon begin
the difficult and important task of developing an IT Strategic
Planning process for Penn State. As you may know, we will be asked
for a plan that will take us from 2009-2014. This will require a
tremendous amount of energy from our entire organization and begs for
strong, dedicated leadership to be successful.

There are many options to consider to accomplish these goals of
minimizing disruption and creating cycles for planning and I'd like
to share with you what direction we'll take as we begin to head into
the second year of new leadership in ITS.

The three independent and distinct groups in ASET (Applied
Information Technologies-AIT, Emerging Technologies-ET, Graduate
Education and Research Services-GEaRS) will find new homes as we move
forward.

Applied Information Technologies will move into CSS. We believe that
this will enable AIT to continue to develop the many services it
provides and work more closely with the people in CSS who directly
support those services. Additionally, this will enable a tighter
coupling among a variety of Access Account management functions that
exist in the two groups.

Emerging Technologies will report to Jeff. ET has, since its
inception, served all of the service units in ITS by providing skills
and resources to take on the exploration of technologies and
capabilities that have direct impact on emerging services coming out
of ITS. By reporting into the Associate Vice Provost's office, ET
will continue to provide ITS-wide service - as do the other areas
that will continue to report to Jeff (Human Resources, Financial
Services, Marketing and Communications).

GEaRS will report directly to me as a Director-led group. GEaRS is an
area that I continue to work closely with in a direct way. At a time
when the major funding agencies are emphasizing support for
cyberinfrastructure and when Penn State has made a 3-year commitment
to the Institute for Computational Science, I want to remain close to
GEaRS as it will play a vital role in our ability to support these
emerging opportunities for Penn State.

Jeff will leave his position as Sr. Director of CSS so that he can
apply all of his energies into his expanding duties as Associate Vice
Provost, which will include leading our strategic planning process.
Soon, we will be announcing a process for beginning a search for a
new Sr. Director of CSS. Please send any suggestions you might have
about this process to Jeff and me.

A change will occur within CSS to combine Access and Accounts and
User Services. The new unit, to be called User Services, will be led
by John Williams. The new User Services group will provide improved
sharing of information across our help desk functions and allow a
more coordinated user support service. A new position of Associate
Director of User Services will soon be posted to assist John in
managing this unit.

Karen Hackett will continue to support the marketing and
communications efforts of those groups formerly in ASET but she will
do so as a new member of ITS Marketing and Communications (MAC) and
will report to Robin Anderson.

On the financial side of the house, Mel Rupert will continue in her
Financial Advisor role to provide support to both GEaRS and ET and
add support for DLT and MAC. Mel's role will also expand to provide
some operational support to Financial Services. Mike Yarnell will
continue to provide support for the new CSS unit as well as support
for Financial Services operations. Mel and Mike will be working very
closely with each other to effect as smooth a transition as possible
of all of these interconnected relationships. Both Mel and Mike will
now report to Pam but will work closely with the leadership of the
units they support.

All of these changes will occur sometime after we search and select a
new Sr. Director of CSS (a process which will begin as soon as we can
manage) with the exception of the move of GEaRS and the expansion of
User Services. GEaRS will report to me effective immediately and the
expanded User Services will take effect at the beginning of August.
Phil will continue as interim Sr. Director of ASET until all of the
changes are completed.

ITS faces a number of challenges in the next few years and I believe
that these changes will help position us to address these challenges.
We know that changes in leadership can be stressful but we also know
that with good will and trust, we will find our organization stronger
and more responsive to the needs of the University.