The CTO Project

In part 1 I wrote about why I wanted to be an IT leader; now I’ll note why I wanted to move from a large research university to a small liberal arts college. Essentially, my reasons boil down to wanting to have the greatest impact with the least amount of political cruft. I think that if I”m successful, I could help this college be more competitive, be more innovative, operate with greater efficiency, and attract desirable students, faculty, and staff. Because this is a relatively small institution, I hope that it will be easier to pilot new technologies, discard outdated ones, and remain current with the current…. I am forgoing large budgets, research faculty and their lab entourages, as well as the joys of supporting a medical school, a health system, and numerous offsite entities. I am forgoing the wonder of a large and amazingly talented IT staff. I am forgoing an expensive athletics program to which tickets were often hard to find anyway…I am replacing prestige as a value proposition with intimacy. And I think this makes sense. The power of of technology and the flattening of our world suggests that intimacy may be a more significant value than prestige or efficiency. So, if we achieve this goal of providing personally relevant systems and services, ones which work for the individual and across work groups, departments, and the college, then we will be delivering value in a way that’s extremely competitive in our industry. And that will be cool.