Innovation

On April 1 we reached out to the MOR Leaders alumni on behalf of Ed Clark, fellow program alum and current CIO of University of St Thomas, with a survey on “IT Centralization and the Innovation Value Chain in Higher Education”.  This was part of his PhD dissertation work, in which I am happy to […]

Keep that “elevator speech” fresh!    Today’s Tuesday Reading, Missed Opportunity, is an essay by Brent Tuggle, Lead Windows System Administrator, in Technology Services at the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign. The essay first appeared as a program reflection early this year. I wanted to take a moment to share a recent experience I had and an […]

SCARF  ::  Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness In last week’s Tuesday Reading, we introduced the concept that our brains have developed in such a way that we are extremely sensitive to threats from change and ambiguity.  We noted how our brains are constantly scanning our environment to detect such threats at a rapid rate.  We […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading, “Plusing Up” and the Princess Doll, is an essay by Jerry Wood, Director of Information Technology, for Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Michigan.  The essay first appeared as a program reflection earlier this year.   One of my biggest professional passions is providing great customer service.  I think it’s an art […]

… at this year’s commencement exercises This year’s spring graduation season has come to an end.  About 4,700 degree granting public and private, two and four year institutions awarded some 2.8 million degrees at their commencement exercises.  And, every one of these gatherings had speakers that spoke of not giving into the darkness and despair of […]

Last week, many of us participated in the 2016 MOR Leaders Conference, Reimagining IT as University Needs and Technology Evolve.  There we were encouraged to think about our university’s IT and what it could become.  And, we were asked to identify one idea that we each could take action on?  I want to take this […]

The important thing is not to stop questioning…  Never lose a holy curiosity.         – Albert Einstein During World War II when I was a young boy, we lived with my mother’s parents while my father worked about 100 miles away in an oil refinery and commuted back to our small town […]

Today’s Tuesday Reading – Use the 4Is, or expect our history to repeat itself – is an essay by Richard Knepper, Manager, Campus Bridging and Research Infrastructure, Research Technologies, University Information Technology, Indiana University.  His original essay first appeared as a program reflection last year.   At the beginning of this year I was coming off […]

Among the essential skills we expect leaders to have is giving and receiving feedback.  Everyone needs to know how they are doing, what they might improve, what they are particularly good at, etc.  Feedback focuses on the past, and in particular on what you did recently.  And, that’s important in providing guidance on how you […]

In a recent coaching session, my client began by saying “I feel like I’m an impostor.”  What that means is that the individual felt that any successes experienced – admission to a prestigious school, a special job, a promotion, recognition, good fortune of any kind, etc. – was a mistake.  Any evidence of success is […]