Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

Although I have never met or even came close to Steve Jobs and therefore should not have felt any emotions about his death other than feeling sorry for his family, in a weird way, I felt some type of a loss. It maybe because in some ways, he did have an influence on my life, if not personal, definitely professionally.  I learned about his death via twitter on my iphone. It seems only fitting that I learned of his death with one of the devices he created.  I am writing this post just as a personal reminder of this day and what I think about Steve Jobs.

For the last few months, as part of my job, I have been doing some research on how social media, cloud and mobile can be integrated into our business processes. Yesterday, I attended a webinar on “Social Media and the Enterprise” and today, I will be attending a webinar on “iPad: IT Support Considerations”. I think Steve Jobs played a significant part in shaping the culture of consumer technologies we enjoy today. Mark Zuckerberg of facebook considers Steve Jobs as his mentor and Zuckerberg’s seemingly cavalier attitude towards shaping social media and how focused they are in shaping and implementing their visions is consistent with that of Steve Jobs. Imagine social media without mobile devices? While Apple does not have the monopoly on mobile devices,Steve Jobs, through iPhone and iPad provided the path for other mobile companies by making this market cool and desirable for consumers.

Just a few weeks ago, I came across Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement address at Stanford University and I had read this book on “The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs” and what came across was that just like other great leaders I admire like UCSB Vice Chancellor or Student Affairs Michael Young, Steve Jobs is a story teller. He is able to tell stories that connect with his audience. In my mind, this is one of the many things that make Steve Jobs very unique.

In some ways, as I watched tv programs last night and as I read the comments on various social media sites, I was inspired by his view on life and his work.  What he shared at his commencement address really resonates with me:

“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.” 

The agility at which facebook can make changes is something I can admire. In creating company this big, facebook is not going to please everyone, but led by Mark Zuckerberg who at times is faulted for his naivete because of his young age – he has optimism and energy on his side. As a line in the Social Network movie says “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.” Facebook, in my mind, represents a new breed of consumer-driven organization who must continually adapt at a very high rate of change to satisfy their stakeholders. I realize that arguments have been made that facebook changes are made for the sake of revenue and to maximize advertising, etc and not for the sake of customers. That is most likely true. However, even with that argument, I think that facebook must make changes that will not completely upset its customer base as revenue would then suffer. Consider the following quotes attributed to another brilliant innovator, Steve Jobs:

• “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”
• “You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”

Apple and Facebook, led by these two innovators are probably rare companies in that they are able to define their products and services to whatever visions they have set, making mistakes along the way, yet are able to survive and even thrive.

As a facebook user, I sometimes get annoyed with the changes. Specifically with the latest ones released yesterday which makes the site looks very cluttered with all the different functions I can’t even name. It’s beginning to remind me of the cluttered myspace. However, as someone who is in a technology leadership position at a university, I sometimes envy how facebook can seemingly introduce changes overnight without having to go through committee approvals. This is not to say that the need for approval process and committees are all bad given security, policy and legal constraints that must be considered when introducing new technologies like social media. It is those instances when “paralysis by over analysis” cripple a project that bothers me a lot. Finding balance between making sure we are not introducing high risk but at the same time have the room to innovate is a challenge.

One of the guiding principles I have applied in my career is from a mentor I admire so much, the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs  at UCSB – Dr. Michael Young. He told me way back when I was just starting my career that “I’d rather have you continually moving forward, making mistakes along the way, than stagnate.“

One of the challenges I face at work (and life) is determining when to apply the principle of  “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”.  Looking back at what I have been able to accomplish throughout the years as a developer dating back to 1998 with our university’s campus calendar of events to the numerous applications I’ve built after, I wonder how much of it I would have even built if I had to ask for permission and if I had to prove the value of every single one of them every single time.

Do you agree/disagree with the idea that universities can learn from facebook or are we just different organizational models with different goals, stakeholders and customers?

I will be  attending a training session today to prepare for my role as a Transitions Course facilitator for STEP (Summer Transitional Enrichment Program), a summer bridge program for incoming first generation and under-represented students at UC Santa Barbara.  I feel really privileged to be invited back for my second year as a  facilitator. I attended STEP in 1991 as a student and I was also a Resident Assistant in 1994. For the past few years, I have supported the program’s technology needs which includes developing and managing an on-line application/registration system for students and a management system for the staff.  With all the services and programs I have been involved with at UCSB, STEP means the most to me. This is what introduced me not only to the university and its resources, but it was also where I met some of my life-long friends. As I review the agenda for the training, I find myself reflecting on my experience in student affairs as a student who used the services, as a student worker in multiple departments and as a professional. I think about the significance of my job to me personally, what really drives me and why I enjoy it so much.

I really don’t know what makes a good student affairs professional or what makes one qualified to be one. I don’t have an advanced degree in this area so I certainly do not have the theoretical perspective on student development, administration and thorough understanding of historical background, amongst other areas.  At times I feel inadequate because I don’t have the formal education so I read as many literature I come across with and I have several mentors to provide me perspectives. I have even gone through an entire list of readings listed in a syllabus for  a graduate course in higher education administration.  While I have thought of pursuing a Masters degree in Student Affairs,  life and financial circumstances have not been so accommodating.

What I do know is that ever since I was a student in 1991 and when I became a professional as a student affairs webmaster in 1996, I have always enjoyed working with students, hoping to make a positive difference in their lives, and helping other colleagues in all areas of student affairs. Most of my colleagues at UC Santa Barbara and those I met  in the social media world know me as a technologist because that is my current professional role and have been the last 15 years. A colleague told me once “sometimes we forget that you’re more than a techie, we tend to put you in the IT box.” I typically have not shared my experience as a non-techie in student affairs so I can’t blame them for putting me in the techie box. But as much as I love technologies and the satisfaction of being able to deliver web applications, vendor systems, technology delivery is not ultimately what I think what my job is. My job is student service.

What I find rewarding about student affairs is that I learn so much about so many different aspects of life, not just student life, but life in general.  My role as a divisional level resource  has allowed me to work with all departments in UCSB Student Affairs. For example:

• When I work with the Women’s Center, MultiCultural Center and Resource Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity, I learn about gender, class, social justice and discrimination issues that still in our society.
• Working with Educational Opportunity Program and STEP reminds me of the issues first generations and under-represented students and families must face. I was a first generation student when I came to UCSB and I still see the same issues I faced back then with the generation students I interact with today. There was no one in my family who mentored me on how to deal with college life issues and that there is formal education to be pursued beyond my undergraduate degree.
• Working with Counseling Services, Student Health Service, Disabled Students Program and with mental health practitioners involved with Distressed Students Protocol remind me of the serious physical and mental health issues students must deal with in and out of the classroom. It also reminds me of the need to accommodate the different backgrounds of the students that must be taken into account when dealing with them.

Where I find most personal satisfaction is working with students and the other activities outside my technologist role. Serving in  student fee advisory committee, student resource team, reading admissions applications, and serving as student organization advisor provide me with reminders of who I am ultimately serving, the students, and that I am able to somehow make a difference in their lives is what motivates me. As an aside, moving forward with new technologies like social media and mobile web, I have also found these activities very critical to my understanding of the culture and trends of students today.

The fact that I am able to enjoy a career that combines my interests in technologies and student affairs is a blessing I don’t take for granted.  In my role as a leader in a central student affairs technology department, I do try to impart to my team members the perspective that we are student affairs employees and technology is what we contribute to our organization. In order for us to be effective in what we provide, we need to understand not only the business processes but the culture of student affairs in general and the sub-cultures that exist within each unit.  I left student affairs 3 times in the past to pursue other opportunities but I ended up coming back.  I am not sure what the future holds, given budget cuts and efforts to combine university units but what I do know is that to this point in my life, having a career in student affairs has been really great, professionally and personally.

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“Patience is the key, patience is the key”, a fellow fisherman says repeatedly as he and I both tried to untangle our fishing lines this last weekend at a local pier. As I was listening to him utter those words, I realized there were some lessons during the 5 hours of pier fishing (mackerels) with my brother-in-law and my two nieces (ages 8 and 11) I could apply at work. It just proves the point, one looks hard enough and there are lessons to be learned anytime, any place. Here are some work lessons I was reminded of:

* Patience is the key when dealing with problems/issues, especially when dealing with others. If you have ever had the chance to go fishing and have your fishing line caught with another line(s), you’ll quickly realize that tugging and just randomly trying different ways to untangle can make the situation worse. As a matter of fact, the more tangled the lines are, the slower and more deliberate you have to separate them. This lesson is very applicable at work, especially when dealing with co-workers and customers. Sometimes, you just have to slow down and look at the issue you’re presented with and deliberately work together to get the issue resolved.

* Heartfelt praises go a long way and it doesn’t take any professional training to learn how to provide effective ones. My nieces were very excited about the fishing trip and all through out the 5 hours we were fishing, they were very vocal in their encouragements. When my brother-in-law and I would catch a fish, they’d yell “Way to go Uncle Joe!”, “Great job Daddy”, “Now we’re in business!” There were times when we didn’t catch fish for long minutes and they’d yell “Don’t give up Uncle Joe!”, “We’ll catch some more soon!” and when we’d catch a fish but would fall back in to the the ocean as we pulled it up, they’d yell “That’s okay Uncle Joe, we’ll get some more!”  I think we could all need more positive feedback at work.

* Collaboration and defined system/role helps a lot to be efficient and leads to high morale. I had one of my nieces as my “assistant” while the other one was helping out her dad. They knew their roles and so when we brought up the mackerels (up to 5 at a time); they were ready to help us out by putting the fish into our buckets. They thought it was “yucky” at first but they didn’t mind holding the fish after awhile and they were more than happy to fulfill their roles.  My brother-in-law and I both encouraged them many times, thanked them for their help and they really accepted their roles. In my career, the two major disputes I have had with my co-workers were because our supervisors did not explicitly define our roles and the ambivalent boundaries created tension because my co-workers and I did not know where we fit in. Actually in one of the case, my supervisor told my co-worker and me separately that we both had the final say in our projects, which we didn’t realize until we finally talked about our issues.

* It’s easier to work with positive people. My nieces could have complained about how cold and windy it was but they didn’t. They occupied themselves by playing; looking at other people’s catches and helping my brother-in-law take the fishes off the hooks and into our buckets. That’s the same way I feel when it comes to work. Workplace is so much nicer when surrounded with optimistic and appreciative co-workers. A big part of why I enjoy my work is because of the positive attitudes of my team and my customers.

If you ever want a place to have fun pier fishing, catching bunch of mackerels and learning some work lessons along the way, try the Gaviota State Beach off the California coast, 20 miles north of Santa Barbara.