ITServices

Growing Voices

/ Cole Camplese / Leave a comment

Just a quick post to note that Voices has crossed over the 50 sites and 300 users threshold. While that is still small, it is interesting to note that this has happened without really any publicity at all. There was a Chicago Maroon article, but that didn’t share the URL for the service. I am hopeful that we will see an uptick in use for the Fall Quarter. I think once we start to work more closely with faculty partners we will see enhanced growth. From experience, that is when things start rolling. I want to challenge the IT Services team to look at novel ways they can use the service for a couple of reasons … first, I believe a tool like this can lead to intergroup discovery in ways that are sometimes difficult. Additionally, I think if we discover interesting ways to use the service it makes promoting it that much easier.

For now we will use word of mouth as we continue to see how people are using the service.

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Lynda Campus at UChicago

/ Cole Camplese / Leave a comment

Right before the break we executed a license of Lynda Campus for the entire UChicago community. We replaced a small set of licenses that had been manually managed in a check-in/check-out scenario … I asked for a license and was told there was a two week wait for one, so we wanted to do something about that.

I’ve been a very strong supporter of providing high quality and accessible learning opportunities through online providers for a very long time. When I was at Penn State and Stony Brook we had campus wide licenses and worked hard to drive adoption and use of the service by all members of our community — primarily students.

While students are a big reason why we moved to a campus-wide license, I am seeing an incredible opportunity for staff to utilize Lynda to stay current, move forward, and develop professional skills. The catalog of courses offered by Lynda continues to expand in very interesting directions. In fact, I believe there are significant opportunities to increase engagement, retention, and save real dollars through the use of eLearning as a supplement to traditional professional development.

Take for example the course I just completed, “Holding Skip Level Meetings.” This course teaches a framework for better managing a skip level meeting … what is a skip level meeting? It is a meeting held with staff at least two levels below you without their direct manager in the room. I do this type of thing informally in my Coffee with Cole sessions and find incredible value in holding them. What I learned from the Lynda course is that I am not maximizing the opportunity and might even be creating unneeded anxiety in my direct reports — clearly not my intention. Going forward I will use lessons I learned in the Lynda course to make the meetings stronger and more comfortable.

I took this course over a series of days on a variety of devices — I watched on my desktop computer, on my iPad, and my iPhone. The total time invested in the course was a little under an hour, but I was able to learn in small chunks of time where I could find them. And I will add that I really did learn some very valuable pieces of information that will change my behavior. I will be challenging us all to take advantage of Lynda in structured ways as we move forward. I even earned a certificate and a badge (that’s a post for another day).

Lynda Certificate

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IT Services Town Hall

/ Cole Camplese / Leave a comment

Yesterday was the first IT Services Town Hall meeting that I have attended here at UChicago. It was a very satisfying experience and it was outstanding to meet everyone. I particularly enjoyed the chance to talk with you both formally and informally. It was so great to be able to get everyone together like that and I hope we continue to do just that. I have felt a little on the outside looking in, but finally meeting many of you has me feeling much more comfortable. Thank you all for your attention, questions, and acceptance. It was greatly appreciated. The view and location didn’t disappoint either!

Views from the all staff meeting.
I wanted to take a few minutes and share a bit from what I had to say yesterday so there is a record of it and in hopes that I will get some initial reactions from you. You should keep in mind that my comments yesterday were based mainly on my observations and conversations that have occurred both through the many meetings I had during the recruiting process and in the past six days of conversations that I have had with my new colleagues at all levels of the University. I don’t have it all right, I don’t have the whole story, and I certainly don’t yet have all the answers. What I do have is a sense of excitement about where we can go together.

My comments about the great expectations and opportunities presented at UChicago come from discussions with people at all levels of the University, from the President and Provost, to our IT partners, members of the administration, the ITS SLG and staff, as well as various other constituents we serve. It is clear to me, even after a very short time on campus, that we are in the service of a great institution that deserves our full attention.

I am not going to do a deep dive into the things discussed yesterday, but I do want to share the six primary areas of organizational focus I am pursuing in my early days. These represent a framework that will guide me as I work to align to the goals that are being articulated to me.

  1. Create a world-class teaching and learning with technology organization that can inspire faculty to enhance their use of technology to engage and enrich our students’ experiences.
  2. Work to enhance our overall information security stance to ensure a safe computing environment.
  3. Become leaders in the delivery of services and work across UChicago to transform the customer experience and work to delight the campus community.
  4. Impact a diversity of research activities that supports UChicago’s commitment to free and open inquiry.
  5. Enhance and grow a culture of operational excellence through our leadership in the deployment of enterprise solutions.
  6. Expand our use of the web as an organizational communication tool, both inside and outside of IT Services to more fully engage our staff and our partners.

Underpinning all of this is a commitment to encourage an agile, flexible, and forward facing staff who are leaders in their fields.

I will be returning to this list in an ongoing way to expand on them and to provide more opportunities to engage in discussion. I am very open to comments and feedback, so don’t be afraid to leave them here on this post or to send them to me in email. I am truly humbled by the opportunity to be a member of this community and want to make sure I am doing all I can to support, promote, and protect the work we do here at UChicago.