Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

I have experienced two major technology shifts in my career: the web in the late 1990’s and social media, cloud and mobile in the last few years.  In both periods, I have been fortunate to have been given opportunities in my organization to be an early adopter/implementer of these technologies.  Along the way, I learned some lessons I carry along with me and I share with my team  in how to have some success when it comes to leading change.

• You need champions/advocates and adopters. You need allies.
• Distribute the work AND accolades.
• Recognition should be the byproduct, not the goal.
• Don’t ignore detractors, but don’t let them stop you either.
• Turn your detractors into your allies and you may have your strongest advocates.
• Learn to know when to ask for forgiveness and/or permission.
• You’ll need a plan, but don’t let the plan stifle progress.
• Better to make mistake moving forward than stagnate and do nothing.
• Embrace ambiguity.
• Know that you will make mistakes from time to time. Don’t dwell on them.
• Learn. Always Learn.
• Politics do matter.
• Develop thick skin. You will be criticized.
• Speak in the language of those you’re trying to convince.
• Ask why would folks want to invest time and resources.
• “No” is not permanent.
• Have fun. Hard to sustain energy for a long time if you’re not having fun.
• Anticipate tomorrow’s needs and build solutions for them.
• Look outside your organization/industry to gain perspective, inspirations.
• Dream.
• It’s more than technology. It’s about people and culture.

In your experience, what else would you add?

It is during this time of the year when front line colleagues who truly deserve the accolades for their student service will receive awards in front of a cheering crowd. I have personally received one myself for my work with student organizations as an advisor and so this post is not from a place of sour grapes. Oftentimes, I personally receive praises that should be reserved for the work my IT colleagues just because I am the one talking to the customers.  I do make sure to correct those giving me recognition and emphasize that for every application and service we provide, it requires team effort.

For every front line customer service professional, there is a layer of support behind them that makes their ability to provide service possible. In these days when most, if not all, business processes depend on technology, the IT staff is often involved at some point in the customer service process.  There are many roles within an IT organization, including  operations support positions such as help desk, server, and network admins. They often work after everyone’s gone home and during weekends to maintain and upgrade our systems. In my opinion, these are some of the hardest jobs and these are the positions that receive the least recognitions.  When our systems and networks are running well, they are invisible and only when the email system or the network goes down do people even know they exist.

I know that the colleagues I mentioned above are driven by their desire to be of service to others and not by accolades.  Appreciation of their work and their value to the organization does go a long way. Next time you have the opportunity to thank your IT staff, please do so. 🙂

In any technology dependent organization, IT units provide the basic infrastructure and operations such as networking, productivity tools, security, and servers.  Given this role, IT is often considered a utility just like water and electricity. However, IT has to play a greater role in today’s world of student affairs and higher education. IT needs to fulfill a higher role of a driver/partner in an organization’s innovation strategy simply because 1) if we do not evolve, we will become increasingly irrelevant in this world of consumer technologies, and 2) the expectations and demands of our customers require that business and IT units must collaborate to provide solutions that deliver at the very least, a satisfactory user experience, in a timely manner.

Consumer-driven innovations require a shift in how IT organizations must approach our role or we may see ourselves increasingly irrelevant. Will IT organization completely cease to exist in the near future? I highly doubt it just because there are legacy applications that require maintenance and operations such as networking, and help desk will continue to be needed.  However, I wrote about the trends in student affairs technology and their implications to IT last year, including the business units’ increasing reliance/preference on consumer technologies like cloud, social media and mobile to do their business.  One of the complaints I generally hear in my leadership role within student affairs IT is that sometimes it takes too long for us to provide our customers with the solutions they need and sometimes we are seen as a department of ‘No!”. For this reason, some of them have found it more convenient to use external services that are often free and faster to implement, with or without IT involvement. The challenge for IT however is that the need to keep up with consumer-driven innovations is constrained by the need to maintain legacy systems and “keeping the lights on” with limited resources.

The needs of our technologically dependent customers require collaboration between IT and business units to provide a good user experience delivered in timely manner. Our primary customers, the students and our staff are predominantly within the “Net Generation” or the “Millennials” generally characterized by their use of technologies. Studies by Pew Research on their use of social networking sites and Educause’s ECAR National Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology 2011 provide some statistics and insight on students and technology.  Along with these new technologies come expectations and needs that are different from even a decade ago when mobile, social media and cloud computing did not exist. For example, the ability to work remotely, for some of our staff, is no longer a convenience but a necessity. In addition, as we recruit more out-of-state students (including international students), the need to communicate and how we provide services for them have also changed. The use of web conferencing tools for group webinars and individual advising has increased at our university in the last year.

For IT to stay relevant in student affairs (and in any organization), we need to realize that the systems we design and build need to evolve from systems of transactions to systems of engagement. We need to design systems that go beyond automation and efficiency. Because of social media and mobile computing, our customers now expect real-time two-way communication conducted in multiple channels.  In addition, how we do business within IT and in student affairs in general must also change. I wrote this blog post last year about student affairs as social business. It’s a post about how the use of social media in student affairs will evolve so that it will no longer be limited to communication with our customers. Social media will be used for internal communication and collaboration to enhance the business processes of student affairs.

I do not know what new technology will be introduced three to five years from now so building systems based solely on current technology and what we can only guess to accommodate a few years from now is a challenge.  However, creating an IT organization that is agile and responsive to the dynamic business needs is required for student affairs IT organizations to go beyond its role as a utility to a role of  a driver/partner in student affair’s innovation strategy. To be agile and responsive requires IT organizations and its leadership to take full advantage of the collective knowledge of our staff and customers.  It is imperative that we recognize their creativity and provide a culture that rewards innovative thinking as well as processes that promote free flows of ideas from all levels of our organization.

[Related blog posts on technology in student affairs/higher ed]

credit - monster.com

I initially hesitated to  comment on Ed Cabellon’s blog post “Listing Technology on Your Student Affairs Resume” because I wasn’t quite sure how resumes for IT positions differ from student affairs positions.    I do think there are general considerations applicable to both and so this post is to offer an additional perspective. Purely from my perspective as a hiring manager in a student affairs IT department and limiting the conversation to the technology portion of a resume, here are what I look for:

* Context of how an applicant used the technology. This means numbers and scope. Designing an application used by 2 people is different from designing a system used by 1000 people.  A list of technologies are good, putting some context behind the experience is even better. It helps to see specific versions of software and/or programming language(s) used.

* Experience with technologies relevant to the position. Listing technologies used 20 years ago is irrelevant. For example, if we are looking for a SQL Server database developer and I see FoxPro as the only database experience listed, that’s probably not a good fit. In addition, I think it’s probably acceptable to list other technologies like web development software, social media, desktop publishing as secondary information and they do not take focus away from required technologies to the position.

When interviewing an applicant, here is what I expect:

* I expect an applicant to be able to describe what the task/problem the technology solved, how technology was used. I also would expect them to describe their role(s) and their use of the technologies including from the context of business perspective.

* Instead of asking questions like “describe how you would use this tech?” I ask “how have you used this tech?” What I’ve found is that even applicants who list certifications like MCP, MCSD, etc, when asked practical questions, sometimes cannot answer questions that I would assume are fundamental knowledge. In other words, I obviously want to know that an applicant has some foundational understanding of how/when/why to apply technology but I also want to know that they’ve had some experience working with them.

* Do not misrepresent your level of experience. After having reviewed hundreds of resumes and interviewing applicants, I have found it easier to determine whether an applicant’s resume matches his/her actual experience during their interview.

The required level of experience and skill set vary based on the classification of the position we are trying to fill. My general advice is to represent your experience to match the job description and requirements for the position. In my career, I have been a developer, project manager, department manager and now a director. When the position I am applying for is a software developer, I would highlight my software development experience. As a matter of fact, if an applicant is applying for a software developer position and all I see is management experience, I would question whether the applicant is actually a good fit or if they’re even competent for the position.

When determining an applicant’s level of competence, motivation and fit with an organization, there are other evaluation processes that could/should be used including reference checks, questions about soft skills and coding exercises.

What’s your perspective on my thoughts above? Any other considerations to add?

The mission statement of the UCSB Division of Student Affairs, the organization I work for, has not changed since 1996, as far as I can tell.  Earlier this evening, I was looking at the original website for the division I created in 1996 via Wayback Machine and noticed the exact mission statement we have on our website now.  While our core mission has remained constant, the ways our various units and the division conduct our business have changed throughout the years. Shaped by technological advances including the internet,  infrastructures (virtualization, storage, networks), development tools,  as well as budgetary constraints, mandates and the demands of our students,  I think it’s safe to say our organization went through (and still going through) a technology (r)evolution.  My organization, in my opinion, is an example of how an organization can evolve and keep up with trends while maintaining its mission. This is not to say that keeping up with the trends has not had its challenges and resistance, but guided by the principle of innovation set by our Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Michael Young, we have been generally successful. When I started as a web developer in 1996, Dr. Young shared with me a principle I have used throughout my career. He told me “I’d rather have us moving forward and make mistakes along the way than to stagnate.” This is the same principle that has allowed our division to commit to technology as a key component of our division.

Throughout this period of transformation, I have seen the adoption of new technologies in virtually all aspects of our organization.  Just recently, I compiled a list of the systems (pdf – 4.55 mb) we have developed and implemented throughout the last 15 years along with some legacy mainframe applications we still support.  The more than 120+ information systems/web sites are products of a commitment towards technology that the leaders of our organizations made 15 years ago.  Some of the notable systems in our portfolio include:

• Integrated electronic medical system consisting of several vendor solutions for  our student health service and counseling services
• Enrollment management systems including online application status/statement of intent to register, electronic grades submission, academic progress, online application review, online catalog, course enrollment, document management system
• Student services systems including disabled student program online system (notetaking, proctoring management), alcohol/drug program enrollment management, online advising notes system
• Online events ticketing, recreation program integrated system including online course enrollment

A part of that commitment is to create a central computing department within the division which grew from approximately 5 staff to more than 40 today. The organizational chart has changed several times throughout the years to respond to the changing priorities and needs.

As the trend towards greater adoption of consumer technologies (social media, cloud, mobile) in student affairs continues, along with the increasing budgetary constraints, changing student demographics and greater financial burdens to students, our organization is now having to adapt to the expectations of our socially networked and mobile students.  This requires a move towards social business, integrating social networking technologies as part of our business processes.  As it was in 1996 when web became a serious business tool in our organization, it took some time for the entire organization to recognize the value of the web. A conclusion I’ve come to given my experience throughout this technology (r)evolution is that the pace of innovation moves at the speed of the organization. Undoubtedly, our organization will continue to remain dynamic and accommodating to new trends consistent with our mission.