A few friends and soon to be former co-workers of mine are setting up a Barcamp in Philadelphia focusing on technology issues in Higher Education. They’re hoping to attract anyone in Higher Education technology, not just the normal Barcamp/web developer crowd. They’re looking for volunteers, participants and sponsors.
Find out more at the Barcamp for Higher Ed in Philadelphia site.
Wow that took less time than I thought… So yeah, I’m joining Adobe. Specifically I’m joining Adobe’s Platform Evangelism group. I’ll be working under Kevin Hoyt with the team that includes Ryan Stewart, Lee Brimelow and Danny Dura amongst others and ultimately headed by Ben Forta. So it will take all of my composure to not, you know, break down into an Adobe fanboy in my first staff meeting.
What does that mean? It means that I will be working with the rest of the team to spread excitement about the Adobe Platform Products:
I’ll be promoting the entire platform, but considering my experience to date, I imagine that I’ll start with a slight focus on ColdFusion and AIR.
However in addition to that focus I will have an overriding goal:
Get Adobe Platform Technologies taught in the classrooms of Higher Ed.
It’s a big goal, and not a trivial challenge. I see a lot of different paths to achieving it. I can’t wait to work with all of you to accomplish it.
And as my first act of Evangelism I will remind you once again that both ColdFusion and Flex Builder are available free to Higher Education. All you have to do is go to one of their respective “freeriatools” sites, fill out a form, and upload a picture of your Academic ID.
Today I handed in my resignation from my position at Wharton Computing.
Wow, you have no idea what a major shock to the system that is for me. I have been working at Wharton since June of 1999. 10 years. 10 yeaaaaars. 10 years.
I started as an entry level desktop support person for some faculty and the student course pack print shop. I moved on to become a system administrator. Joe Cruz introduced me to ColdFusion. I helped setup classroom technology for two new Wharton facilities: Wharton West and Huntsman Hall. I took over the ColdFusion Administrators group. I moved on to WRDS, and ended at Knowledge@Wharton.
I’ve worked for almost every directorship in Wharton Computing. I witnessed 2 major technological catastrophes: the Exchange Disaster of 2001 and the Mother’s Day Craptaculon of 2005.
Wharton has provided me with the opportunity to meet and form relationships with about a dozen major vendors including Adobe, Microsoft, and Dell. It’s allowed me access to the wider technology community in Philadelphia. It’s allowed me the opportunity to work as co-workers with some of the smartest people in the technology community. Finally, it’s given me the opportunity to participate in the ColdFusion community which has given me a group of friends and colleges which straddles the entire globe.
As my year count at Wharton grew, I was often asked why I hadn’t moved on with my career. I think it’s obvious. I moved on with my career about 3 or 4 times, it just so happened that I stayed with the same employer. There’s always more to do, there’s always some place to go here at Wharton.
Add to the brilliant co-workers, and the career opportunities – an incredible benefits package, freedom to experiment and flexibility to live, and Wharton’s pretty hard to beat.
On a personal level, I met my wife here. We carried on a relationship for quite a few years before everyone knew we were together. I proposed during the aforementioned Mother’s Day Craptaculon. (At home though, not at work, that would be a bit too much.) We were married with co-workers amongst the crowd. We had the same boss at the time. My son was born while I was here, and was born in a hospital that was part of the same University system as Wharton.
This leads me to the University of Pennsylvania, where I have spent nearly every day (summers included) since 1995. If Wharton shaped who I am professionally, Penn shaped who I am personally. Penn convinced me that Clinical Psychology was no career for me. Penn has pretty much given me every one of my closest friends. (Except for a handful left over from high school.)
I was 18. That was 14 years ago. 14 years before that I was 4. It’s not hyperbole to suggest that this signals the next major section of my life.
So wow, I didn’t mean to get so sappy, but I guess I really do like this place. If you have the opportunity to work here, take it. I won’t claim it’s perfect, it’s not, and no place ever is. However, in this world and time of settling for a paycheck, it’s nice to have the opportunity to work for a place that encourages you to be part of something and to work to keep you with them while letting you take your career unfold the way you want.
I’m not quite ready to talk about what’s next, except to say that I’ve got something lined up. This is good, because I’d like this to be about my thanks to a place which has been so very good to me.
Thanks Wharton Computing, I’m going to miss you.
Spurred on by Kevin Hoyt, who commented on my last post I have some predictions for technology in higher education as a whole.
First, a quick background. The economy sucks. This is good news and bad news for higher ed. Enrollment and applications will be up. Bad news, is that most institutions arenapost entirely funded by tuition. Money comes into schools from state governements and the federal government in addition to money from their endowments and donations. All of those sources will be down in the next two years at least. Also in the picture is that fact that because of institutional culture of tenure, and the compliance issues that come from taking federal money, most higher ed institutions cannot cut budgets by trimming employees from the books. Good news, you’ve still got your job, bad news, remember Ed who quit, you’ve got his too.
Cost savings will be sought elsewhere. This is going to lead to a contraction of commitments. Upgrades will be postponed. Technology investments (big virtual machine hosting hardware, SAN’s) will not be pursued.
So what will all this lead to…
Hosting
Up until now, a penchant for open source technology, and educational discounts have made schools prefer to host their own services a little longer than the rest of technological community. However, that was before the financial craptaculon. External hosting will be considered for applications which would never have been outsourced before. It’s already started for student email, IM, web sites, and storage. It will accelerate and be targeted for smaller burdens like staff email, intranet sites, and public websites.
Virtual Classrooms
Virtual classrooms where schools could sell an unlimited number of seats to an audience for a set cost has been a holy grail for a few years now. With cut travel budgets hitting continuing education dollars, and the rise in applications coupled with the pressure to bring in revenue, they will have no choice to squeeze every dollar they can. Expect a lot of activity here.
Development Language free for all
Because of the rise of hosting for previously unhosted solutions, there will be no lock in for particular platforms or languages. Want to try Ruby or make the switch to .NET? No worries, you don’t have to build an environment, just rent it. It provides opportunities for highly productive languages and solutions to re-argue their case to the higher education world.
Students
Students are going to be looking to either stay out of the job market for as long as possible, or get trained in skills that will more likely get them hired. Any schools out there have Flex or Ajax content in their program, congrats, your students are still marketable. Expect more focus on vocational skills, like specific languages to be the rage.
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