OOPS! I’m sorry, you do not have root access to your culture
So, you have your organizational operating principles and system (OOPS): some cultural system which enables some mysterious blend of strategies, tactics, personal advancement, informal networks, formal hierarchies, self-interest, etc. In higher ed, you probably have at least three OOPSies in place: one each for faculty, students, and staff. For illustrative purposes only, let’s consider what those OOPS are likely to be, in the form of actual operating systems:
- the staff would be Microsoft Windows
- the faculty would be a delicious battle between a) Mac OS X, b) Fedora/Ubuntu/Debian, and c) Windows 95
- the students would be “Huh?” and “FACEBOOK, FACEBOOK, FACEBOOK! plus, oh yeah, MySpace”
Kyle said:
Aug 20, 08 at 6:09 pmThen there is Windows Vista running on a Pentium 2. The culture’s attempts to do new things fail because they don’t ever upgrade their infrastructure.
No, not us. Oh wait. Yes, us. 80 media rooms, no upgrades in 3 years, most in the 5 – 8 year old range, 5 failed TODAY, no money to do upgrades, but lots of discussions about social networking, portals, replacing our finance system, etc.
P.S. The network makes our media rooms look bright and shiny. But at least we have a brand new SAN, sitting mostly idle because the network is so slow…
rufusb said:
Aug 21, 08 at 8:24 amMy focus in the last two years has been on a) cleaning house and b) providing two and only two things to the best of my ability: desktop support (for three platforms) and safe, reliable storage. The rest the users can find either through other university sources or via the internets. Or at least this is what I tell myself.