Today I participated on the opening panel at the Ohio Higher Education Computing Conference. I was invited to represent the point of view of a research intensive private institution. I was joined on the panel by Brad Wheeler, CIO at Indiana University, Mike Hofher, CIO at The Ohio State University, and Craig Bantz, CIO at Ohio University. I was originally going to fly to Columbus, but with the amount of travel I have done lately, both Brad I appeared remotely via Skype while Mike and Craig were live on stage. The technology worked perfectly.

I don’t know if the event was recorded, but after a brief introduction where we shared trends driving our work we were asked to respond to the following questions:

• Today, we’re exploring the myriad ways that technology can have an impact. What are the emerging practices or tools that excite you, less for their hype or supposed promise, and more for the evidence that they contribute to cultivating knowledge, drive efficiencies, simplify process, or reduce IT barriers?
• Thinking toward the horizon, what direction(s) might institutions like Indiana, Chicago, and OU take to impact future of higher education? Or: if we were to have this conversation five years hence, what are the considerations, issues, or topics you hope that we’re addressing?