Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

Using technology without a sense of purpose/direction leads to wasted resources and could even derail organizations from their missions. I came across a concept called Big M (Marketing) and little m (marketing) in a book (Marketing Management) for my marketing class. The idea is that in marketing, where the customer is at the core of the business, two elements must be considered – strategic (Big M) and tactical (little m). According to the book, strategic marketing is “a long-term, firm-level commitment to investing in marketing – supported at the highest organizational level – to enhance organizational performance.” The tactical element (little m) “serves the firm and its stakeholders at a functional or operational level.” As the book notes, since the customers are at the core of the organization’s business, all parts of the organization must play in the marketing efforts.

I see parallels between marketing and technology as they are used in organizations. Big T (strategic) and little t (tactical) must be considered for technology to provide value to the organization. Without a strategy, an organization may just be chasing “shiny objects” and/or using technology in less optimal ways. It may even be used counterproductive to the mission of the organization. Likewise, without execution, the best technology road map will be just a piece of document.

In education, one topic that surely illicit strong responses from different groups are using technology for educational purposes. One notable example of such a project that may have been caused by a lack or unclear vision is the Los Angeles Unified School District’s attempt to integrate the iPad as a tool in the classroom which somehow ended up in a fiasco. As this article would suggest on why LAUSD canceled the “pads-in-the-classroom” program, it’s not because of the technology, but rather, it’s because of lack of vision.

Another topic of discussion about educational technology revolves around the perceived lack of curriculum design and pedagogy when technology is introduced in the classroom. I believe technology can be beneficial or a distraction to the learning process. When technology is used in the classroom, the question must be asked is how does technology add value to the learning process?

Regarding student affairs, information and communication technologies play an integral role in how student services and enrollment services units conduct their business functions and communicate with students. With students at the core, the different functional units must work as integrated units instead of silos to effectively serve the students and their needs. The information and communication systems used in these units also cannot exist in silos, and neither should there be duplicates, as this could only lead to wasteful spending of tuition and tax money. Furthermore, these siloed/duplicated systems could also lead to inaccurate information and prevent student affairs staff from viewing a holistic view of the students they serve. From the student’s perspective, the lack of unified systems could lead to frustrations and hindrances to their success.

As I noted in this article about Chief Student Affairs Officers as Information Technology Managers, technology requires folks at different levels of the organization to be involved in the strategic and tactical levels. Technology use in student affairs (or any organization) is more than software/hardware as organizational and personal dynamics are involved. For technology to add value to the work done in student affairs, student affairs organizations must ask about the role of technology in student development and learning and, in addition, what would be needed to implement technology for this purpose.

In your organization, is the purpose of technology clear? What are the driving forces behind their uses? Is your organization providing resources/training so technology can be used to its fullest?

It is during the most challenging times of my job when I think how blessed I am to have my job in student affairs, specifically as an IT leader within student affairs. The sometimes convoluted nature of higher education bureaucracy, the pressure of delivering critical technology services with limited resources, and juggling competing priorities make it challenging some days. But, even with these challenges, actually, because of these challenges, I feel blessed to have my job. I can easily look beyond the day-to-day frustrations because I know that at the end of the day, what matters is that my colleagues and I, the work we do, have a very important purpose – to help students succeed.

My wife and I were watching a tv show this evening; it might have been Dinners, Drive-Ins, and Dives on the food network. The host asked a chef, “how much of what you do is work and how much is love?” My wife asked me the same question. My immediate answer is 100% love. That may sound corny and overly sentimental, but I truly believe it. Yes, my job provides my wife and me with income to live a life we enjoy, but frankly, if I were paid the same amount working outside student affairs, I don’t think I would have the same personal and professional fulfillment. The public may hear and read about UCSB at times that we are a party school. The reality is that I know many students who came from challenging backgrounds growing up, and they have had to fight through some adversities to get to the university. I also know that these students take their studies seriously as they have the burden of creating a future for themselves and their families. These students drive me. They motivate me to do my part to make sure they succeed.

I don’t think about this often, but from time to time, I look at our portfolio and the body of work our team has done through the years, and it’s amazing how technology impacts the lives of our students way before they even step on to our university. I think about how our online disabled student program system enables our students with disabilities to get accessibility resources (note-takers, proctors, adaptive devices), how our student health service and counseling and psychological service information systems help our clinicians and psychologists provide timely and effective service to our students, and how our other systems and applications assist our students from the application process and after they graduate. When I think about the value of these systems,  I realize how important our roles are to the success of our students.

Sometimes I read/hear others complain about the demands of our jobs as student affairs professionals, and I think I can sympathize with some of these complaints. But, personally, if one is to think about the amazing opportunities we have to make a difference in the lives of our students and their families, how blessed are we to be working in student affairs?

I like gadgets and discovering how I can use them beyond how they come out of the box. One fun part about having these gadgets is figuring out how to integrate them with other devices and services. This is where IFTTT (If This Then That) comes in. IFTTT is a service that, through triggers and actions, can enable different devices and services, including cloud, mobile, wearable computing, social media, and the internet of things, to work together. I use Evernote, Dropbox,  iPhone/iPad/Samsung Galaxy Note, Fitbit, Pebble watch, Google Glass, Nest Thermostat, Automatic app, and various social media platforms. I’ve experimented with some IFTTT “Recipes,” a combination of triggers and actions, just for fun and to see what I can use for productivity. Listed below are a few of the recipes I’ve used:

1) Fitbit activities to Google Drive. This recipe saves daily activity summaries to a spreadsheet on Google Drive.

2) Automatic/Nest Thermostat – turn on Nest with the car. This recipe turns on the Nest thermostat when my car, which has Automatic, is detected within a certain distance from home.

3) Automatic/Nest Thermostat – turn on the fan for 15 minutes when the car is home. This is similar to #2 above.

4) Twitter favorite creates a note in Evernote. This recipe creates an Evernote containing the tweet I marked as a favorite.

While this post is about IFTTT, I also want to mention an application I have used to issue commands to my Nest Thermostat using voice commands from my Google Glass. As this page shows, this app called “Google Glass App for the Nest” can be used to issue different commands, which include adjusting the Nest thermostat temperature to a certain temperature.

Klout recently gave me a Parrot mini-drone as a “perk.” Currently, there are no IFFFT recipes published for it, but just like the Google Glass App for Nest, I wonder if I can control the mini-drone with Google Glass. It seems some companies, including this one, have tried it.

It’s fun trying to integrate these technologies through IFTTT and other means. I do them mainly to explore what is possible for entertainment’s sake. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they do. But, I do explore these possibilities as part of my thinking of what the future may hold. There are ethical and privacy considerations with these technologies, and so as I do these experiments, I think about the implications. As I mentioned in this blog post about why I decided to buy Google Glass, to truly understand how these technologies work and the implications behind their use of them, one must have real-world experience with them. Just like golf, there’s no substitute for actually swinging a golf club to understand how a swing works.

Going back to IFTTT, there are thousands of recipes for you to try. Check it out and have fun with it!

Photo credit: http://blog.ifttt.com/post/55130449805/the-power-of-ifttt-now-in-your-pocket

About a couple of weeks ago, I bought some lunch from the UCSB Filipino-American student group to support their fundraiser. While eating, a student introduced himself to me, and we started talking about my association with the organization through the years. He also shared with me that he knew about me and, in particular, that I helped develop our online portal (GOLD) used by students to register and manage their courses, among other functions. He then asked me a seemingly simple question but one that I had to think about for a bit. His question was, “Can you tell me what’s different now with UCSB compared to how it was back then?” I responded with something obvious like, “these buildings you see around you weren’t here back then.” But, I also mentioned to him how technology has transformed how students find information and conduct their business with the campus. For one, when it comes to general information, students no longer have to rely solely on on-campus staff to obtain it.  Second, students no longer have to physically visit the departments to find information and conduct their business as they can now do many administrative (e.g., financial aid, billing) and academic transactions (course registration) online.

As I shared with the student when I was a student at UCSB in the 1990’s we had to visit the departments physically and speak with the staff to find information. They had a monopoly on the information since it was not readily available beyond their offices. There were printed course catalogs and pamphlets, but students could not share information they knew on a mass scale.

With social media and the web, students have become consumers and information producers.  Just observe the activities on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other social media platforms, and you will notice students exchanging information amongst themselves. Information students share includes deadlines, orientation, financial aid, housing, courses, and other campus services. Most of the time, the responses are accurate. Sometimes, other students will chime in and offer corrections when a wrong answer is provided. They offer advice to each other, including how to waive health insurance, how to get to the airport or bus stations, how to fill out forms, and which courses to take for their majors.

What I find interesting as I observe these information exchanges is that relationships and social networks are also being created. I’ve also seen some students assume roles as community leaders and credible sources of information. What is missing in all of these interactions is the campus staff. In a way, these online interactions somewhat change the dynamics of interactions between students and staff. I don’t have data to prove this point, but I wonder if the frequency of physical contact between staff and students is less now than how it was back then before the age of the web and social media.

There was one time not so long ago when I observed a student who seemed new to the campus since she was trying to figure out a campus map. I offered to help her and asked her what department she was looking for. She told me she was looking for the Registrar’s office. I asked her if she was new to the campus, and her response surprised me. She told me she was a second-year student but never visited the Registrar’s office.

As I think about how social media and the web have become platforms for information sharing amongst the students and not relying on staff, I wonder if there are still some staff who still see themselves as the sole source of information and maybe not be too appreciative of the idea that students do exchange information and provide help amongst themselves. I think it’s great that in sharing information, they develop networks and social relationships that may contribute to their success at UCSB.

I read Eric Stoller’s post about Connecting Technology Buckets in Student Affairs. It reminded me of some random thoughts I had a couple of months ago about what a “student affairs platform” would look like. I use an iOS mind mapping mobile app called iThoughts to document my ideas, and below is a pdf with my random/not-so-complete thoughts on what would be included in such a comprehensive/integrated platform. I would love to read your thoughts on this topic.

Student Affairs Platform