When you crowdsource your blog topics, you have to expect that you will get topics that you may not wish to discuss. Being an extroverted introvert though, I have a willingness to share what I am thinking about topics in the right context. So it is that I finally sat down to share with you some of my thoughts about Dr. Sally Jackson's resignation from her position as CIO of the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University of Illinois.

Disclaimer: While Sally is no longer CIO of the campus, I recently began working under a new agreement to split my time with the Office of Technology Management in Urbana and with the Provost's office under Sally's direction.

The Background

In the fall of 2008, CIO Sally Jackson and then Provost Linda Katehi launched the IT@Illinois project to gather input from faculty, students, staff and especially IT professionals on how IT could use more of its resources towards directly enabling research and instruction on campus. This openness to allow and encourage the participation of anyone with an idea and the energy to carry it forward was one of Sally's greatest strengths. Over the course of IT@Illinois and its various related projects, I saw IT professionals and other individuals step forward with ideas and to participate that would never have been heard had a more traditional campus approach had been utilized.

Another aspect of Sally that I felt was strong was her dedication to faculty and students. One of the objectives of IT@Illinois is to make each individual faculty and student the center of vast, unbounded networks of IT resources both in terms of people and technologies that they can utilize for their instruction and for their research. While she was the one most frequently stating that position, the position itself came from the input of many people.

Impact on Campus

The trend among leaders at the top of organizations is to focus on the whole of the organization. In terms of education, research and modern technology trends, the focus is on the individual. Yes, individuals come together in groups and teams, but as a general rule the needs of one student or one faculty member differ from the needs of all students or all faculty. This is sometimes called disaggregation or democritization in an IT context. The concern I have is that without a CIO strongly advocating for the needs of the individual, a one-size-fits-all (or most) approach to IT will become the dominant paradigm. See the discussion of rationally diffuse in previous stories.

Impact on IT Professionals

Governance is the big focus of the changing environment for IT at the University, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves. Not only will governance that attempts to control IT down to the individual fail due to resistance by individuals and units farther down the org chart, it will also miss the boat in how the modern person wants to utilize technology in their day-to-day life. I also worry that the average IT professional will become the governed without a role in the governing. Thankfully I am participating in the governance planning workshops and will have an opportunity to influence the direction and structure. Governance will definitely have an impact down to the individual and Edge IT, but that impact is yet to be determined. For IT professionals, it is even more important now to not sit on the sidelines less the world be redefined around you.

Impact on Me

Some might think the impact on me is huge, and it has definitely forced a change in career strategy. While I had been working to parlay my work on IT@Illinois into a position in the Office of the CIO with Sally, the impact of the change only goes that far. I am still leading important projects for campus, and I continue to grow and nurture my network of IT professionals and faculty throughout campus. I have a very compelling portfolio of strategic planning, project leadership (not just management) and activities that will serve me well in my career, and I am sure opportunity will come.