Today I read a really interesting piece in the EDUCAUSE Review by Josh Kim, Not a Future CIO. There’s a great deal in there to digest, and it’s worth your time to read. Josh presents the conundrum many higher education IT professionals (including instructional support folks) have. “Do I want to be a CIO?”
I saw a post today on Seth Godin’s blog about Scientific Management and how it is being extended to white collar workers. Loosely speaking this is extending the idea that factories measure everything their workers do to ensure they are as efficient as possible to include the work done by almost everyone. There is always a desire (and perhaps even a need) to measure the work being done in your organization, but if you aren’t careful you will fall into the measurement trap.
For folks working in higher education, it’s that time of year again. We are all preparing to welcome (and welcome back) our students and start the fall semester. Watching the students get to various offices and step through the myriad of processes, I can see that there are some things that work well and others that don’t. Some of these things are one time activities, so if they aren’t completely smooth that might be OK. But some are ongoing activities, and if they aren’t going well they will serve as a constant irritant for the student’s entire stay with us. It’s like gum on the bottom of your shoe. As an individual event this isn’t a big deal. But every step after that is a reminder that you stepped in gum, and at some point you’re going to have to stop and deal with it.
Today I read this really interesting piece from David Jones titled, “Homogeneity: the inevitable result of a strategic approach?” It’s short and worth the read. The basic premise is that defining the work we do based on a strategic approach yields a non-differentiated result (my words, not his). That is to say, every institution starts to look kind of the same. As I said, interesting.
