December 2, 2022 My very first full-time IT gig was as at the University of Tulsa, as the manager of campus computer labs (75-80% — which was essentially a specialized form of desktop support), followed by general campus desktop support (20-25%), not to mention having to wrangle 36 student workers across 5 computer labs. The…
February 4, 2020 It’s noon on the day after the Iowa caucuses, and we have yet to know who “won” thanks to a snafu with a smartphone app. Officials in Iowa have announced they’ll have an announcement by 5 pm. Politics notwithstanding, I’m sure we’ll learn in the days to come more about the app,…
“Man, the world ain’t supposed to work like this. I mean, maybe you don’t know that yet. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without having to ask you if I can. That dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you ripping him off. Everything is supposed to…
May 2, 2017 You know when you’re driving down a familiar street and you suddenly notice a favorite store or restaurant is gone? While you feel a palpable sense of loss, the demise can often be attributed to the following: (1) you and others didn’t shop there enough, or (2) mismanagement by the entrepreneurs. I…
March 7, 2017 A word to prospective employees: If you fancy a career in technology, you’re probably going to start off in tech support, maybe the Help Desk. You may find yourself better able to do the job if you’re a tinkerer, or have some sort of hobby that involves doing things with your hands.…
Stories abound about ways in which the Internet has been a disruptor to business and the status quo. Back in the early 90s I got to witness the carnage and bloodshed firsthand at the University of Tulsa. As I said in the About…History is written by the victors, and the folks who were the high…
This is very cool — my alma mater (and former employer) the University of Tulsa is installing an HUGE solar array on the roof of the Case Center in Tulsa. My Leadership Tulsa #49 colleague Jason Grunin tells me that the project will begin shortly, near the end of June. The 300-kilowatt array will belong…
From earlier: I joined TU in 1990 to run the campus computer labs. Since I was still young-looking, when Bob Chappelle hired me my first task was go undercover — bring a backpack and visit all the computer labs masquerading as a student lab patron: see what the student lab workers were doing, etc. etc. It…
I started working in higher education IT in February of 1990, when the Internet was still the private playground of academia. Because of our computer science faculty requiring access to supercomputer sites for their research, the University of Tulsa was connected to one of the original NSFNet backbones. Our upstream provider was MIDnet in Lincoln, Nebraska…
August 6, 2015: Today I had a great phone call with a former colleague in the Washington State Community College system. He joined our little band of 32 IT Directors about a year after I did, and was at a similar-sized college so naturally we hit it off. It was great to reminisce and recall personalities,…