Today things are winding down. We have group project presentations this afternoon and one speaker this morning. We start the day with Mitzi Montoya, Assistant Dean of Research at North Carolina State. She talked on “Marketing for Sustainability.” She too was a great speaker and really hit on some relevant marketing ideas for IT. For me, the key take-away was the cognitive cost of a service. That is best described as how hard it is to get to your service, or how many steps does it take. This is a lens that I want to use to look at what we provide. Two things come to mind — voice recorders and flip video cameras. We should pick models that are easy to use, reduce the cognitive cost. Other items included a reminder about “Good to Great for Social Sector.” I’ve read most of “Good to Great” but would like the tie back to nonprofits. The hedgehog concept came up which was a good reminder to think of us in terms of that concept.
The afternoon was filled with group presentations. My group presented on “Innovation.” We took the definition of “ideas applied successfully” and deconstructed that a bit for higher ed. Another group tackled “globalization” which made me ponder why we don’t leverage video conferencing, including desktop video conferencing, for remote support including Rochester. Another group presentation on “collaboration” and did this great exercise for getting to know each other. This exercise came from Jody as she uses it in her classes. I have a bunch of ideas for a user support retreat now. The group on “sustainability/green it” reminded me about the President’s Climate Commitment — I know Paul signed it but is the campus moving forward on it?
The day ended with a group picture, a graduation ceremony and 1 minute speech from each of us about the experience.
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