Dwight Fischer, Plymouth State University

We’re moving ITS front line services into the Lamson Library. This has been a long project in the making. It is well documented, we’re developing a Learning Commons. We’re taking the best of both library and ITS services and creating a better service. It’s all very exciting. Yet it’s also very challenging.

A bittersweet aspect of this project…this change…is that some of our colleagues in the library are not all that excited. This is an example of change being done unto you, where you are not as in control, that I wrote about in my previous post. Our library has some talented and smart people who have provided an invaluable service to the campus for decades. Suddenly, the very building they’ve presided over is being overrun by ITS, PASS and Sodexho. This is a LOT of change for them.

Yet this is change not driven by PSU so much as the library industry. The current issue of Educause is devoted to the The Academic Library as a Virtual Destination. It is provocative and highlights many of the reasons we are doing this project.

We’ve treated this effort as a project. It is fast-paced (for some) and slow (for others). We have an excellent group of people in the Project team, people from both organizations. Yet there are several others in the library with whom we have little interaction. I’d like to get beyond the project to a point where we can engage in meaningful dialogue with those in the library that feel disenfranchised. We’re going to be sharing the building soon, we may as well start now.

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Change is good, so long as it doesn’t impact me.

Those of us in technology live in a world of constant change. We like to think we ride the waves of changes, like surfers, and we make it look so easy and natural. New technology waves are mostly fun; we see, we paddle like hell, we ride the wave and yell!

But real change means changing behavior. New technologies often require us to alter something we are doing, or eliminating something to do something else. When we put in new information systems, such as Banner, it changes the manner in which we conduct the business of the University. We implement myPlymouth, and it changes the way we communicate to the campus community. We upgrade WebCT and faculty have to alter some of their habits in how they manage their courses. We install new security software on our network, and we force users to upgrade their computer security.

It all boils down to doing something different. And we geeksters just seem to roll with it.

Yet there is the human element of change. It’s my sense that we all cope with behavioral change differently, at different times in our lives. In our youth, bring it on. In our twilight years, we like routine and predictability. In between, much of it seems to depend on how much control you have over change. It’s one thing to be an initiator…it’s quite another to have change thrust upon you.

I’m great with change. I love new technologies, I’ve changed jobs and moved several times, I’ve managed several high profile projects that change organizations.

Now I’ve found a point of my own resistance: blogging. When I write, I write to my staff or to target audiences. I use email and the web. Blogging is so public, so open. And, I’ve yet to find many blogs that capture my attention. Sure, there’s a lot out there, but too many leave me wondering ‘where’s the beef?’ Too many appear to be spontaneous combustion about personal musings.

My real question: are blogs truly the path of future communication or just the latest fad, borne and supported by those most enthralled. Clearly they are only for those comfortable writing aloud.

But I work with a talented group in ITS. I learn a lot from them. We met on Friday in my living room for an animated discussion of Web 2.0 and the power of blogging. They have convinced me to change a behavior, to stop writing those long ITS reports and start piecemealing them into more routine blog updates. Also, this is probably a better way for a CIO to communicate to the campus on a variety of topics. The question is, will anyone read it. Will I produce some beef?

So here I go. I’m a bit off balance, but who ever said change was supposed to be easy.

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SECURITY
Incoming Freshman Unaware of Security Risks
Computer experts are saying that the average computer user, such as students and home computer users, need training in order to protect themselves from online security risks. 11,000 new viruses were documented in the first six months of 2005 according to Symantec, a security software firm. “There is an enormous need to educate non-computer professionals on computer security – there are a lot of naïve users out there,� said Bruce Schneier, Chief Technology Officer of Counterpane Internet Security Inc. A study found that 62 percent of homes with broadband Internet access d0 not regularly update their anti-virus software, which could carry over to their kids headed off to college.

http://www.apogeetelecom.com/resnet/jan2006/index.jsp

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