I’ve gone to big conferenwcea and learned a lot about products or solutions, but this conference, I’m learning about myself. When lunch is a highlight because I get to see people, I cannot do this anymore.Īnd perhaps that’s the big difference with this conference. I’ve got to get back to working with people, at least on a tight team. So with that and the fact I really ate working alone, this conference has made me reflect on what I am doing (or not doing with my career). Unfortunately, it becoming a larger part if my job, not diminishing. His example was speed reading, but mine would be the SLU project process I hate it and don’t really consider myself good at it. People who are naturally better and want to do something will generally outperform those who aren’t naturally gifted at it, even with great training. Which leads nicely to another of the opening points. After years in IT, I am still nit certain what in IT I cannot not do, but I do know some things I am not happy or good at doing. For instance “Do what you cannot not do”. It summarized a lot if things I have heard over the years, but put it in terms that I can remember. That’s not to belittle the terrific opening session. And while I fond some of the presentations great (the A.R.T if CMS training being the highlight Monday ), the highlight of the conference is by far the personal relationships here. It’s a conference more like an academic conference than many IT conferences with papers and presentations on those papers. This time it’s the SIGUCCS conference being held in Saint Louis. And maybe something that I “cannot not do”.Īs you can tell I haven’t written much, so perhaps it should be quite newsworthy when I do because it means I have something to write about. Maybe we could learn from each other locally too. Some of my colleagues, both at SLU and Webster are talking about perhaps some sort of regional collaboration group for higher Ed IT. I’m not sure if I’ll ever make it back to SIGUCCS (I’d really like to, especially if some of these other folk return), but I hope we can leverage some of what we saw and did here. And another on how the helpdesk, though essential, is usually left out of the planning and implementation of changes from the guys at U of Illinois. Another thing we have been struggling for years to do it seems. I saw a presentation on iTunesU implementation at Ithaca. Which made the whole thing of actually having sessions on Wednesday rather odd.īut we did, and they were good sessions too. The whole thing didn’t feel like a conference, it felt like a party with friends. There are probably going to be some pictures from the top of the Arch that will never see the light of day, or will be on a calendar.
#Apple higher ed store for slu movie
Who does that? We saw the movie Lewis and Clark, had some amazing Route 66 inspired BBQ and cobbler, and went up in the Arch. To me this was a weird connection for me, but one that made me realize there was a connection beyond colleague with these folks. Somehow it came out as we were standing around debating wether to do the poor man’s karaoke on Monday night, that many of the other folks I was often around were also big scouts (or guides for our Canadian friends). For those of you that know me, I was big into Scouting when I was younger, and still am active as an adult now. It was definitely the people, and some of these same people that I went to presentations or looked at posters with were the ones I stood around with for hours talking about work sure, but also about life. Now, I’ve said earlier that the highlight of the conference though wasn’t the presenatations though.
I know, not anything out of the ordinary for folks, but we’ve been struggling with it. Talking to these folks, they consolodated over 100 separate IT websites for the one, which includes a Service Catalog. The second place in my mind was the display from U of Chicago over their website. Things like “The answers to all my bank security questions are on facebook” and other inventive things peppered flyers and table tents that they had on display. My favorite, largely because it was completely off the wall and fun, was from Texas A&M. I also saw some amazing communications presentations at the poster presentaton. Intriguing to me, because it gives a clear way to solve many of the problems in IT, all without having to have someone call. The most intriguing presentation was one on this hosted FAQ/knowledge base from that York University is using called Supergeek. For me, the hardest part of Tuesday was that I had stayed up Monday at the conference. Tuesday had more presentations, some good some rather lackluster. The conference was a whole lot better for me than I ever imagined an in town conference would be. Well after whirlwind 3 days SIGUCCS is wrapped up.