Working with technology in higher education, you’re never confronted with the problem of having too much money. Reduced staffing and budgets are widespread. In these scenarios how do IT professionals stay proactive and innovative, while trying to shoulder their current workload and/or budget lines?
An interview with Scott D. Anthony was a good place to start and I’ve copied down these takeaways.
- Innovation is a necessity, not a nicety. If you choose not to innovate, you’re on course to fail.
- Before innovating, make sure everything you currently do is operating smoothly.
- To start doing new things, you need to prudently stop doing some old things.
- Bring discipline to your innovation efforts.
- Open up innovation beyond your department. Include students, faculty, and other colleges. Create partnerships to share the risk.
- Try strategic experimentation.
- Expose yourself to new ambiguities / challenges.
- Learn outside of your discipline.
- Tap into your network (follow cool, random people on Twitter).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SGnqHiclJg#t=16
Since this blog covers both educational technology and libraries, we’ll shift the conversation to those areas. What are some services and/or products you’d like to start or experiment with? How do you envision them serving your users? And, finally, how might you get there?
