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Office of the AVP & CTO

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

AVP & CTO Update November 12, 2018

Good morning!

I hope you had a great weekend. Sunshine, cooler temps, and snow in Guelph. As a reaction to the now, I finally brought in my lawn furniture (yikes) and have my snow shovel at the ready. Hope you are mentally prepared for winter, too!

What I learned last week:

  • I met with Norm Hawton from Facilities to discuss the opportunity for continuous engagement for IT stakeholders through the life cycle of a building project. It was a fruitful conversation. We are on the same page and will be working on setting up these processes as we go through some near term building projects.
  • I had an interesting call with Apple to learn more about their recent announcements about student ID cards in the Apple Watch/Apple Wallet. This is an interesting development and coincides with the Virtual One Card strategy that is part of the McMaster IT Strategic Plan.
  • Richard, Sue, Michelle and I met with our partners in the Library – Ann Pottier, Vivian Lewis, Chris McAllister and Lynn Service – to discuss an integration between UTS and the Library in their Learning Commons area on the second floor of Mills. We will be doing some assessment to better understand what this can look like, but we hope to launch a proof of concept for January. Very exciting. Thanks to Sue and Michelle for doing the heavy lifting.
  • I attended a CanSSOC Steering Committee meeting via Zoom. We are finalizing the documents that outline the project and are asking our institution’s legal department to review and sign off. We hope to have all the paperwork sorted out by the end of this calendar year. The Director for the project is setting up sessions with all of the institutions and we hope to have him on site in January as the PoC gets started.
  • I spent time this week recording responses to the IT Forum questions on the McMaster IT Strategic Plan – those should be posted soon. Big thanks to Tanya for her hard work on this. And thanks to Greg Atkinson and the Faculty of Science for the loan of their camera equipment.
  • Our Oracle business contacts came to campus to discuss the ExaData project with Kevin and I and Jacy Lee and Amjad Ghafoor from IAR. They had some questions about the design for this project and it made sense to have the discussion directly with Oracle. This project is underway now and is being tracked in Confluence.
  • I attended the TRT meeting on Thursday morning. It was a full agenda:
    • The Kaltura presentation from the MacPherson Institute was very interesting – thanks to John Xu and his colleague, Tony. This is a great tool for faculty and students to create streaming videos. You can learn more by visiting the online MediaSpace website.
    • There was also a vote for the Vice Chair position for TRT for the upcoming year. Randy Walinga will become the Chair and Michael Curwin was voted in and will become Vice Chair. I want to congratulate all of those who put their names forward for this position – it takes a great deal of courage and initiative – thank you to Courtney Sheppard, Greg Atkinson and Chris McAllister. Thank you also to Rocco Piro who will be exiting the Chair position in January. I appreciate all the effort that it takes to keep a committee running – well done!
  • Amanda and I were interviewed for an article in University Manager magazine, CAUBO’s quarterly publication. They reached out after the IT Services Review team won the CAUBO award last June, and wanted to follow up on where we are at with the aftermath of the IT Services Review, which of course is our McMaster IT Strategic Plan. The article will be out in January and we will share it with you then!
  • I had a very good discussion with Rebecca Jamieson, the President/CEO of the Six Nations Polytechnic. She is also a member of our Board of Governors. We are discussing opportunities of shared interest. Early days but great to touch base with her.
  • I attended the American Association of Anatomists regional conference on Saturday – at the invitation of Dr. Bruce Wainman. I thoroughly enjoyed it! I learned a lot about the type of work that anatomists do – a great presentation on Forensic Pathology – as well as some of the interesting ways in which Anatomy is taught – using Virtual Reality and other technological advancements. I also learned about the history of VR! The Stereoscopic devices of the past, including the ViewMaster, are really the root of VR. Who knew?! I had a ViewMaster when I was a kid – a Disney one. 🙂 There is an amazing collection of the Stereoscopic Atlas of Human Anatomy in FHS which is a very cool example of the images used in the beginning of pathology work. It isn’t for the faint of heart.

What I read last week:

Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. This is an amazing book, following on Brene’s other works on vulnerability, and courageous leadership. I am reading it for a second time this week. 🙂

What I will be doing this coming week:

  • I am in front of budget committee this morning at 9 AM. I am looking forward to the discussion. We only have half an hour so I am sure it will go quickly. Umer will join me and I am glad he will be there for moral support. Cross your fingers!
  • I am attending IT Executive on Tuesday morning to present the McMaster IT Strategic Plan for endorsement. This is a major milestone in the process and I am looking forward to the next stage, which is finalizing the plan and getting ready for our official launch in January.
  • At Provost Council this coming Wednesday am I will be presenting the Grad Admissions project along with Mike Thompson, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies.
  • I am off to a Mindfulness Leadership Retreat on Wednesday afternoon and through Friday. I imagine it will be well timed given all the high stakes meetings I have this week. 🙂

Have a wonderful week everyone. It is hard to believe that we are already mid November! Slow down time!

gg

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