March 30, 2021
McMaster IT and âthe return to campusâ
March 29, 2021
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I hope everyone had a great weekend. I imagine some of you enjoyed (?) watching the Grey Cup and all that watching the Grey Cup entails. Sorry about the loss for Ticats fans! đ It wasn’t the way I thought things would turn out. If it is a consolation, there is a Winnipeg man who can wear pants again!
Now that the excitement of the Grey Cup is over, it is time to come to terms with the fact that this semester is rapidly coming to an end! I imagine everyone is feeling the same way I am – where did the time go and how can we get more hours in a day!? Or maybe you are just looking forward to the holiday break. đ I am already booking meetings into January – there is no more room in my 2019 calendar! That is hard to believe, however I am embarking on two weeks of travel starting tomorrow so that gobbles up a lot of time.
On Tuesday, I am heading to Montreal for the CAUBO/CUCCIO Cybersecurity in Higher Education workshop. Attendance will include higher ed IT personnel, lawyers, VPs, and others who share in policy development and strategy for IT security at our institutions. There will also be external partners, including regional area network organizations, and other IT security industry leaders. The IT security challenges that we face at McMaster are the same as those our peers face across Canada. These workshops give us a chance to talk about partnership initiatives, new directions and to share our experiences and hopefully learn a few things! You can check out the agenda and presenters here. I will also attend a specific meeting with our CanSSOC university partners while there so we can discuss some key areas like CanSSOC governance and business models.
The following week I will head to Toronto for two more days of CanSSOC meetings with the other project partner CIOs. As the CanSSOC pilot period draws to a close, we have a number of items to discuss to help determine what our next steps will be. We also have a CanSSOC webinar on December 4. Then I am off to Washington DC to attend EAB meetings. McMaster signed on for a full EAB portfolio this year and this will be my first opportunity to participate in one of their IT Forum National Meetings. The topic is Designing and Deploying the IT Organization of Tomorrow, which is well timed for our McMaster IT Strategic plan activities.
Back here at McMaster, three weeks from now, I will be looking forward to hosting our IT holiday gathering, taking place on Wednesday December 11, 2019 at CIBC Hall, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Please join us – and RSVP here! We have quite a few members of our McMaster IT community who will be participating to share some of the IT outcomes and highlights from this year! Don’t miss out!
However the time is going for you, and whatever you are trying to accomplish, I wish you a very good week and an ease filled end of November 2019. Thank you all for what you do every day to support our institution and our community.
That’s how I see IT for this week!
Take care
-gg
March 30, 2021
March 29, 2021