During a conversation with my EDUCAUSE colleague Sophie White at the Security and Privacy Professionals conference back in May, I suggested I wanted to do more podcasts. I was invited to participate in this talk about “Adapting to the Future” that we recorded at the annual conference in San Antonio back in October. It’s now online and available for your perusal. It was great to be able to interact with my extremely smart colleagues on this topic and to be inspired to contribute. I hope people find the discussion useful.
Author: Mike Richichi
I'm an inveterate geek who's somehow become a leader in higher education information technology. These are some of my thoughts.
The Long Game
Great to have the opportunity to finally connect with old friend Miloš Topić on his podcast to do a deep dive on my leadership style and what I think is important. It really helped me put together some of my recent thinking on these issues.
I’m looking to do more of this kind of conversation and outreach. Of course the best idea is to do my own podcast, but I’m also happy to share with some of my friends; so if you have a podcast I’d love to talk to you. Let me know.
End of an era?
Sometime overnight on the morning of August 4th, my main X (Twitter?) account (https://X.com/chairthrower) was suspended.
Update: Around 3pm on August 5th my account was restored. I have yet to receive a communication from X about what happened. It wasn’t all at once–my follower counts were zeroed out for a few minutes after everything started working again. My thoughts below are still valid.
Continue reading End of an era?Back To EDUCAUSE
I’m ramping back up for my first in-person EDUCAUSE Annual Conference since 2019 in Chicago, and my first visit to Denver since 2019 as well.
Obviously we did not have an in-person conference in 2020, and I was unable to attend the in-person conference in 2021 due to institutional travel policies which still did not permit out-of-state conference travel (although I may have had dinner with some friends in a city 90 minutes from my house one evening, completely coincidentally.) 2021 had a parallel in-person an virtual conference; although they shared the keynote speakers most of the sessions were in fact considerably different, and that was somewhat disappointing to me as a virtual attendee. I think this year’s plan for two separate experiences is much more realistic (although it would be great if sometime we could truly have a “hyflex” conference experience like our institutions say we are offering for instruction, and for what our constituents seem to still demand, but that’s another topic.)
It’s not my first post-pandemic conference–we had a very successful NYSCIO conference this past July, and it was a great event for me to get back my “conference legs” (although perhaps not literally–there’s considerably less walking there than at a typical EDUCAUSE Annual Conference).
While I had hoped to attend this year’s event as an EDUCAUSE Board member, that was not to happen (and congratulations to Peter Angelos and Jane Livingston, the new board members). As they say it’s an honor to be nominated. And of course I’ll still be bringing my best thinking to the conference and hoping to help people have their best conference experiences, and look forward to continuing to support EDUCAUSE in any way I can.
I am looking so forward to seeing people I haven’t seen in three years in many cases, and making new connections.
As always, please find me (you can always reach out on Twitter if nothing else) and say hello. Maybe we’ll share a drink or a meal, or just have a great hallway conversation.
Please also remember to stay safe, while we will be interacting there’s nothing wrong with wearing a mask in crowds, asking to keep distance from other attendees, and of course being up on your shots.
Hopefully I’ll see you soon.
Ten Years Ago, Part of My Professional Career Ended
Today my former colleagues at Drew marked that ten years ago today was the last Computer Initiative handout.
EDUCAUSE 2018
Here I am, the weekend before the Tuesday morning I’ll be flying out to Denver for EDUCAUSE 2018. I’m getting ready–I made sure my spouse had my itineraries and conference information, I’m making plans with people, reviewing my schedule yet again, and generally getting in the frame of mind I need to be in to get the most out of the event.
This will be my 13th EDUCAUSE Annual Conference. My first was in 2004, and I’ve been to every one since 2010. I’m very fortunate in that I’ve cultivated a great network of people that I get to experience the conference with, and their perspectives continue to educate and amaze me. I hope that I give something back to them as well.
I’m looking forward to reconnecting with everyone, meeting new friends, learning great things (I’m particularly interested in diversity in the profession, data warehousing, furthering my professional growth, and the future of higher ed). I also love Denver–I lived in Colorado for a year and a half when I was in grad school, and driving to Denver for shows or tourism was always a treat. I love the crisp mountain air and the brilliant sunshine (although the weather forecast says that will be in short supply).
As always, most of my conference suggestions are evergreen and are in this blog (just search the EDUCAUSE tag). Denver’s altitude and dry air means hydration is important, especially for those of us nearly at sea level. Understand you’ll be going full tilt for 12-16 hours every day, and plan for sleep and exercise to balance that. And don’t go too crazy with the food and drink (and, I suppose, other things.) But definitely go to dinner with people, and linger at the bar as well.
If you don’t know me, say hi. If you do, of course also say hi. We’ll do lunch, or dinner, or second dinner, or just hang out late at the hotel bar. Think of deep, profound questions to ask people you meet–they will be primed to give you deep, detailed answers, trust me. Keep the fires alive after the conference too–you can always meet up later on, and decide to collaborate on other things. (Related: Come to our poster session.) Also, I’ve never met someone–even the biggest “rock stars” of EDUCAUSE, who haven’t been happy to say hi and shake hands with anyone. That’s why they’re there.
Also, I apologize in advance for my Twitter being full of #edu18 starting Tuesday morning. If you really don’t care I would understand if you mute me for a bit. But not only do I like sharing with others, it’s also how I keep my notes of the conference.
See some of you in Denver!
Book Club — “New York 2140”, part four and wrap-up
I first link to Bryan Alexander’s posts:
Continue reading Book Club — “New York 2140”, part four and wrap-up
Remembering Alan
Alan Candiotti– my mentor, boss, and friend for nearly thirty years–passed away five years ago today. I think about him nearly every day. This post will be based on remarks I made at his memorial service, additional recollections, and reflections on my life since his passing.
Book Club — “New York 2140”, part three
A first for me, I’ve completed the book and now can blog about it leisurely.
This is in response to Bryan’s post about Part 3 of our reading (which is Parts 5 and 6 of the book). I’m calling this post “Part 3” to remain in parallel with that, even though it’s only my second post about the book.
Book Club– “New York 2140”, Kim Stanley Robinson
A Friday off in the summer is allowing me to catch up on Bryan Alexander’s book club reading, the expansive, immersive “New York 2140” by Kim Stanley Robinson. This is the first novel of his I have read, which is clearly a cultural deficit I should attempt do rectify soon.
The book’s title tells you what the book is about, largely. The New York of 2140 is dealing with the impacts of a 50 foot sea level rise due to climate change. New York is underwater to around 30th Street, and much of the story takes place in the Met Life and Flatiron buildings around Madison Square Park, which make the story especially compelling to me as my office is only a few blocks east of here on 25th street (and whose building would be partially underwater in the book, although my 9th floor office would be above the waterline.) Perhaps when Bryan told me I “might like this one” his is what he meant.
A few impressionistic thoughts:
- After reading “Walkaway” by Cory Doctorow, and thinking of my favorite book club perennial also-ran in voting, “2030” by Albert Brooks, we’re getting lots of scenario building and world building around the possible futures our present choices are creating. It’s also hard for me to read 2140 and not think about the current US administration’s easing of climate legislation and rollback of environmental protection laws. I worry that the events outlined in the book (and they are described with precise timelines) might be happening sooner than this book predicts; and also, although the Surges are catastrophic, Robinson outlines a viable world that exists after them (although the extent of devastation and displacement are not fully explored, since the story does not take place then) but a world where wealth inequality and the triumph of global capitalism are decisive and permanent.
- I am an amateur enthusiast about the infrastructure and architecture of New York City and cities in general, so the discussion of the changes in the cityscape that the book describes are intensely interesting to me. The book has a lot to say about present-day New York in its description of the New York of 120 years in the future.
- It’s also fascinating how Robinson describes both what has changed and what hasn’t changed. The day-to-day of the denizens of future NYC is not very different than present-day, except perhaps with a lot more water. Computing technology seems basically the same, and there’s some advancement in materials (carbon fiber and aerogels get mentioned) but these are still fundamentally New Yorkers, recognizable to us today as such. I find it helpful to think about how 2018 New York would look to people at the turn of the 20th century–as far back from us know as we are from New York 2140. New Yorkers would still be recognizable to us, the street grid is identical, and many of the buildings would still be there (especially north of the intertidal in the 30th-streets area).
I’m gonna get back to reading and hopefully comment more. I just wanted to mark a few thoughts while I can. This is an amazing book and certainly worthy of its Hugo nomination.