The CTO Project

The Summit was amazing. Very very cool. Here are my two favorite  moments:

1. Alan Kay telling us that, essentially, our work is just “pushing bits around” which isn’t leading to any sort of deeper understanding of anything–basically a form of “distracting ourselves to death.” I believe he said we’re “looking for the keys under a streetlamp”–doing what’s easy, not what’s right.
2. I called Adrian Sannier (see my earlier post about him) an ignorant slut in the Q & A to his presentation. I was, of course, joking. Which I think he and most people understood. Not everyone, I learned later.

This presentation by Adrian Sannier (UTO at ASU) will cost you about 72 minutes of your life. But it’s worth it if you’re interested in what the future holds for us IT’ers in higher ed. I’m considering showing it to all the IT staff at our next staff meeting and to the dreaded advisory group too. I think Sannier’s right on the money with where we should be going and what we should be doing. The question is: how much do we let our culture and internal politics affect these ideas, our plans, and doing … Continue Reading