Thoughts on technology, leadership, security, infrastructure, automation, and the systems between them.
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Leadership
For years, hiring managers were told to look for the "rockstar." The person who walks in and immediately stands out. The smartest person in the room. The one who can seemingly do the work of three people. But here's the problem with rockstars: Sometimes they know they're rockstars. And sometimes everything starts...
Leadership
One of the most important skills in IT leadership has nothing to do with technology. It’s learning how to talk about technology to people who don’t live in our world. Think about a box of cereal. When you walk down the grocery aisle, the front of the box doesn’t lead with a paragraph explaining every ingredient, how...
Leadership
One of the themes that continues to stand out to me through the NC CGCIO program is how much the role of technology leadership has changed. Being an IT leader today isn’t just about keeping the network up, protecting systems, replacing hardware, or implementing the next piece of technology. Those things still matter...
Leadership
First CGCIO class is officially in the books. I went into the UNC School of Government’s Certified Government Chief Information Officer program expecting to learn. What I did not fully appreciate was how valuable the conversations outside of the material would be. Over the first two days, we explored leadership, the...
Cybersecurity
I have a fun cybersecurity thought experiment: Could Zero Trust survive the Borg? Think about the Borg from Star Trek, or any future where humans somehow share knowledge collectively. Everyone knows what everyone else knows. Your password? Known. Your PIN? Known. Your favorite food? Known. Your mother's maiden name?...
Technology
Any parent probably knows this phenomenon. Mom has told the kids three times to settle down. “Stop.” “Leave your brother alone.” “Guys, I mean it.” Then Dad walks into the room. “Enough.” Suddenly, everybody discovers the ability to hear. It isn’t necessarily that the kids respect Dad more or that Mom was wrong. Dad’s...
Leadership
You do not always get the hand you want. You get the hand you are dealt, and then you figure out how to make it work. The more I think about it, the more that feels like working in higher education. The difference is that we are not all holding the same cards. IT may be looking at cybersecurity, aging infrastructure...
Leadership
There’s an old military style saying I’ve always liked: “The effective range of an excuse is zero.” In military terms, effective range is the distance at which a weapon or system can reliably accomplish its intended purpose. An excuse has none. I think the same principle applies surprisingly well to IT leadership. The...
System
It Started With a Discord Webhook... Some of my favorite technology projects don't happen during the workday. Outside of work, I'm part of a military simulation (Milsim) community that enjoys cooperative storytelling, teamwork, and creating immersive experiences around a game. What started as "making Discord a little...
Technology
If you've worked in higher education long enough, you've probably heard IT described as the "Department of No." I understand why that perception exists. Faculty are constantly discovering new ways to teach, collaborate, and engage students. Innovation should be encouraged. But innovation also needs stewardship. Every...
Technology
As community colleges prepare for another Fall semester, many of us are continuing to strengthen cybersecurity by expanding Multi Factor Authentication (MFA). It's the right thing to do. But here's a question I've been thinking about. Should owning a personal smartphone become a requirement for accessing a community...
System
I've been thinking about a term I recently heard: digital dust. It's the data we continue to keep because nobody has decided whether it still has value. As IT leaders, we're often asked, "How long should we retain backups?" The discussion usually turns into storage costs, licensing, or cloud pricing. Those are...
Leadership
One of the most interesting things about leadership is that most of us can describe the kind of leader we think we are. The harder question is whether the people around us would describe us the same way. In IT leadership, I’ve found most leadership styles tend to fall into a few common categories. Autocratic leadership...
Leadership
When our help desk had a vacancy, I had a decision to make. I could immediately redistribute the workload, or I could use it as an opportunity to learn. I chose the second option. For a period of time, every new help desk ticket was assigned to me first. Not because I intended to resolve every issue myself. My goal was...
System
That sounds obvious. But many organizations unknowingly build monitoring solutions that rely on the same power, network, internet, and infrastructure they are supposed to monitor. That creates a dangerous blind spot. If your primary environment fails, your alerting platform may fail with it. No power. No network. No...
Technology
Early in my career in IT, I believed technical skill was everything. The more you knew, the more valuable you were. If you could solve complex problems, troubleshoot systems, and understand the technical details better than others, success would follow. And to a degree, that was true. Technical skill builds...
Technology
One of the unexpected places I find myself thinking about leadership is while playing Fortnite with my son. Even though we are playing the same game and trying to achieve the same overall objective, we often approach it very differently. My approach is fairly direct. I want to land quickly, gather weapons, ammunition...
Infrastructure
One of the easiest traps for leaders, especially in IT, is confusing activity with progress. A day can disappear quickly. Emails need responses. Meetings fill the calendar. Phones ring. Teams messages arrive every few minutes. Unexpected issues demand immediate attention. By the end of the day, you may feel exhausted...
Leadership
I was listening to a leadership discussion recently that used a simple analogy that stuck with me. Imagine you're riding down the highway at 70 mph. If you're the driver, the experience feels very different than if you're the passenger. As the driver, you control the speed. You know when you're about to brake. You know...
Technology
You can teach anybody to be a technician. You can teach somebody how to reset passwords, replace hardware, troubleshoot networks, manage systems, follow documentation, or learn a new platform. Technology changes every few years anyway. If somebody is willing to learn, the technical side can be developed over time. What...
