IT Principles can accelerate a University's progress to a new model characterized by collaboration, trust, and a focus on enabling the effective utilization of technology. If a University is to realize a goal of viewing IT with a more global perspective, we require substantial trust and collaborative implementation efforts that transcend organizational units and stakeholder groups. New governance structures, metrics and transparency will continue to build a unifying culture for IT. This culture should be typified by a set of accepted IT principles. It is incumbent upon us, as leaders of IT at Stony Brook University, to care deeply about... Continue reading

I make absolutely no secret about the fact that I dislike email. I've been on a quest for years to reduce the amount of organizational work happening in email ... it just is not a good platform to manage the type of ongoing discourse required to arrive at decisions and get things done on a daily basis. I would much rather see teams of people using a platform like Yammer to make work happen ... but that is a post for another day. The screenshot below is of my inbox showing new SB You site registrations. Now that is an... Continue reading

Only a few weeks after opening the doors on SB You we've updated the platform to WordPress 3.8 and it is quite a nice change. I am writing this from my iPad right in my Dashboard -- no custom app needed. This is honestly the first version of WordPress I've used that really feels like it was designed with a mobile evidence in mind and that makes me happy. On the go publishing with SB You is now a reality. Even adding images is much improved! Continue reading

As we are seeing some growth in the pilot of SB You, I wanted to reflect on why I feel it is so important for a community to have a platform the powers simple publishing ... in doing so, I was drawn back to the post I made right as I was working at Penn State to spin up the original Blogs at Penn State project. At that time I was trying to move people to see that we weren't talking about blogging per se, but instead about personal content management and simple publishing. From a post on May 25,... Continue reading

It dawned on me just now that I haven't posted a thing here since moving to Long Island to Stony Brook University. I have been posting, but just not here in my personal space. Not much to say today other than if you are interested in some of the things happening in my life, you can catch up with them at my Stony Brook University blog on our emerging publishing platform, SB You. I should also mention that the transition is finally starting to feel like it is real -- like we live here as a family. Work is both... Continue reading

One of the reasons I love seeing blogging communities in higher education is because it gives me a chance to see the collective intelligence of that community come together.Even after only a couple of weeks, there are blogs popping up on SB You nearly every day. We've not done any marketing and have really kept things quiet so far as we kick the tires and figure things out around here, so to see people playing along is really very cool. To keep up, I've created a new Feedly account and have been adding new SB You blogs as they are... Continue reading

I cannot believe we've reached the end of the fall semester here at Stony Brook! The first four months of my time here has flown by and while I have tons of things to reflect on over the Holidays, the one thing I may have enjoyed the most has been the Coffee with Cole sessions. They filled up so quickly that lots of people got left out, so I decided to schedule another batch for the spring semester -- oh, and did I mention I really liked them? DoIT VP Coordinator's Office So do me a favor and jump over... Continue reading

I had the chance to address University Senate last week for the first time here at Stony Brook. It gave me a chance to share my strategic priorities and observations from the first 80 days here at SBU. I included a screen shot of the five strategic priorities I am targeting in a post prior to the meeting, but have since added one other for us to consider. I thought it would be a good idea to share the six priorities with a little more context. Here are the six areas of focus for DoIT that I am proposing and... Continue reading

I've been enjoying the Coffee with Cole sessions I've been doing every few weeks ... so much that I intend to extend them and open some more up (so look for an invite). Since I can only do so many and that space is limited to five guests I decided to add a new channel to connect. I created an open group in the Stony Brook Yammer space called, "Coffee with Cole." Please feel free to join the group and leave comments, post questions, or suggestions. I am subscribed to the group via email, so I should see everything that... Continue reading

I have so much I want to say about the experience of being the commencement speaker at Bloomsburg University this past weekend. I want to take some time to reflect on the whole weekend before leaving it here. For now I wanted to just share the video of the event and the transcript of the speech. What I will say is that this was a privilege and an honor. One I hope to never forget. Transcript Welcome Good afternoon, President Soltz, distinguished guests, faculty, staff, parents, families and friends, my own Mom and Dad who are here today, and to... Continue reading

Today I participated on the opening panel at the Ohio Higher Education Computing Conference. I was invited to represent the point of view of a research intensive private institution. I was joined on the panel by Brad Wheeler, CIO at Indiana University, Mike Hofher, CIO at The Ohio State University, and Craig Bantz, CIO at Ohio University. I was originally going to fly to Columbus, but with the amount of travel I have done lately, both Brad I appeared remotely via Skype while Mike and Craig were live on stage. The technology worked perfectly. I don't know if the event... Continue reading

The device I really was looking forward to getting for Christmas was a new Apple HomePod smart speaker. I wanted it even though we have already invested in the Amazon Echo line of smart speakers. When I say that we have invested in the Echo smart speakers, what I really mean is that we've spent money on few devices that let us do things like turn on lights, set timers, and play music out of an annoyingly poor sounding speaker. We really bought them to do stuff and they introduced us to the whole idea of just saying the name... Continue reading

This morning I had my first opportunity to address the Stony Brook Council and share with them a bit about the work we do here at the University. I didn't want to do a standard, "this is IT" update so I tried to share with them a handful of contemporary challenges we face every day across higher education and talk briefly about how we are addressing them. I wanted them to see IT in a different light, as what it really is -- an enabler of success on our campus. To that end I focused my remarks on a few... Continue reading

However promotion by geo-location is only one part of our concept for promotion ByPlace, we are even more excited by the potential for ByPlace promotion using the iBeacons which have been getting significant attention since Apple’s endorsement of the devices with the launch of iOS 7. via Promotion by iBeacons | Exact Editions | Blog. This could provide some very interesting opportunities within education ... services, apps, and content that are unlocked based on location. In this scenario, a magazine publisher sells a subscription to a pub and those who enter can freely browse an unlocked version of the digital... Continue reading

Today at 3:30 I will be addressing the Stony Brook University Senate. I was invited by Senate President, Dr. Fredrick Walters to both introduce myself to the Senate and provide a brief update. I don't intend to spend more than 10-15 minutes talking, but will be sharing both my observations from the first 8o days here as well as my overall strategic priorities for DoIT. I think it will be interesting to see if there are questions afterwards ... and know that I will either update this post or do another one after the fact. I am making an overt... Continue reading

I was lucky enough to get a very interactive tour of the Consortium for Digital Arts, Culture, and Technology, or cDACT, lab by Margaret Schedel today ... she invited me over to see a bunch of the students in action. All of them are doing such amazing things with art, music, and technology. It was an absolutely inspiring way to spend an hour and a half of my day. I highly recommend checking it out! Continue reading

I haven't updated this space in quite some time and for that I am sorry ... my intention is maintain a space that encourages engagement and discourse and that only happens when someone starts the conversation. So while I haven't been great at writing here I have been spending a ton of time talking to people all over campus in real time. One of the things that has come out of those many conversations is the need for me to be available for all sorts of formal and informal get togethers. I was talking to a few colleagues the other... Continue reading

I recently keynoted Mount Union College's faculty fall convocation. I focused almost exclusively on the notions of digital expression as a form of scholarship, new forms of conversations, and various disruptors to higher education in general. As a part of that I do a bit of a deep dive into social computing and the social web as it relates to what we are being faced with as educators, leaders, and citizens. I mentioned at one point in passing that I had started a new blog as the Vice President for information technology and CIO at Stony Brook University and that... Continue reading

I have to say I feel a more meaningful connection to the 9/11 victims now that I live in the state of New York. Taking extra time to reflect as I do my work at Stony Brook today. Continue reading

As the new guy on campus I have been doing quite a bit of listening -- and watching. As I mentioned in my previous post I have taken time to walk around campus a bit, albeit not nearly as much as I had hoped during these first two weeks but enough to see the beauty that has become Stony Brook University. I read an old piece in the NY Times (funny that that is my new hometown newspaper) from 11 years ago talking about the efforts underway to make the campus a source of pride. Very interesting to see the... Continue reading

Is it too early to reflect on the new job? Maybe, but I do have some observations ... and not all are related strictly to the things I have been doing in my new post. First some easy ones. It is beautiful here -- and by here I mean both on campus and the surrounding areas. Each day I've made a point to check another part of both out. Walking around campus it is easy to see that there is a value placed upon the physical aspects to campus. It shows wonderfully and as I explore I come to appreciate... Continue reading

I've been blogging for quite some time and have always found it to be a great outlet to work through ideas, share thoughts, communicate my thinking, and invite comments and feedback. I will use this space as much as I can and I imagine it will change over time -- in the early days it will mostly be about reflecting on the learning curve and to share initial thoughts on my early interactions here. As time goes on I expect it to become more of an outlet to keep people posted on what I am working on, thinking about, and... Continue reading

Crazy thing is that most people probably don't know this, but I designed the ETS logo. I did it right after I started while at home one night. I wanted a mark that we could identify with. Here's the funny thing -- I got called on the carpet for making a logo and they said something to the effect of, "you can use it for now, but not for too long." I got off the elevator at Rider Building the other day (where the ETS offices currently are) and there it was being proudly displayed on the flat panel in... Continue reading

I haven't written one of these since I left the IST Solutions Institute to become the director of Education Technology Services back in 2005. I think since I am wrapping up my last day at Penn State after 15 years I thought I should at least reflect on that to a degree and thank the people who have changed my life for the better. I've had quite a few jobs here at Penn State over the years, growing from an instructional designer with the World Campus in 1998 to my current role of senior director for Teaching and Learning with... Continue reading

We make things all the time in this business ... websites, digital bits of stuff, documents, and everything in between. I have found that as my career arc has moved forward (and admidtely upward) the amount of tangible stuff I make has decreased. I post all sorts of stuff quickly all over the place, but I have gotten very bad at pointing to the things I am most proud of and wanted to try and challenge that. I was reminded the other night that I even though I am not making the same kinds of things, I have been heavily... Continue reading