I’m Shipping Up To Boston
While a fair number of higher ed web people are heading to Stamats today, I’m heading back to Boston for the 3rd and final session of the Educause and NERCOMP Workshop Series for IT Managers.
The series has been really informative and I’ve applied quite a bit of what I’ve learned in my day-to-day work.
Tomorrow’s sessions include on on managing up and one on performance management.
I wanted to blog the sessions, but I may be sans laptop for the trip. I picked up a new power adapter for my Macbook and while I was at the Apple Store in Crocker Park, Ohio, the genius said he could also replace the case around the trackpad as I had cracked it. I said sure, and 15 minutes later my laptop was done and good as new.
I didn’t use it until last night, when I wanted to live blog local elections results at ErieBlogs.com. I unwrapped the new adapter, plugged it in, press power and nothing happened. All I get is the sleep light blinking quickly.
I called Apple and with no store location nearby, I’ve got to mail it in. I’m going to try re-seating the RAM, as I’ve read some anecdotal reports on the web this has helped. Wish me luck.
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Goal Setting Via Postcard
As part of the IT Managers session back in September, one of the sessions talked about goal setting and prioritization. One of the activities had attendees writing down some goals and things to think about on note cards. When we finished, we put the cards in an envelope and addressed them to ourselves. We returned them with the promise they’d be sent to us at some point.
This morning, my cards arrived, a little more then a month later. I put 2 cards in my envelope - one saying “bring some thunder,” which I hope I’ve done, and the other was some ideas of how to best communicate ideas with upper management.
I’ve tried to do a better job of that lately. I’m not sure if I’ve succeeded, but this card activity was a great way to be reminded about a goal or idea and serve as motivation to complete the task if you haven’t.
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Managing Your Technology Career
In a post yesterday, I mentioned that Dwight Fisher, CIO at Plymouth State, lead a great session on project management. I’ve been reading through his blog and a post that really interested me was a post about how to effectively manage your technology career. As a CIO, he’s certainly in a position to talk about career advancement and development. I wrote about careers for higher ed web folks back in July.
Given the rising costs of technology in an ever-changing field, I strongly suggest that you have an ongoing career plan. Just because you currently have a job, benefits and a fair amount of job security does not mean things can’t happen down the road. Higher education is entering a period of much greater accountability. The cost of college is too great not to. Constituents will challenge us to prove our value, to cut our costs, to look at outsourcing and other possibilities.
This has been a topic of discussion during this trip. To those of you readers who are in your thirties and beyond, I’d be interested to know what knowledge, experience or nuggets of wisdom you can share from your career growth, especially during the early-to-mid thirties middle management phase. You can email me directly or twitter me if you’d rather not post a comment.
I’m going to ask this same question to some of my friends, former bosses and other colleagues as well.
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