From Donald Welch, NYU's VP for Information Technology and Global University CIO
The end of every academic year is a chance to evaluate the projects and initiatives that will become priorities during the next academic year. This summer, NYU IT worked with partners across NYU to identify our major undertakings, and I’m pleased to say that for the first time, everything we asked for has been approved […]
I’ve discussed Emotional Intelligence (EI) before, but I feel that it is something that we must continue to work on. Like any ability, I believe that we can get better, but it takes focus. EI is increasingly recognized as a critical factor for success in the professional environment. It encompasses the ability to understand, manage, […]
A number of people have asked about innovation and how we can be more innovative. This is an interesting question. Back in the 80’s and 90’s IT was new and a lot of innovation came from faculty, students, and staff at universities. IT has matured. Universities depend on IT and as a result are less […]
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni is a book I reviewed in 2022 in a 5-part series that began with this blog post. One point that I want to revisit is the concept of team membership and your “first team.” As administrators at NYU, we are all members of many teams. Some […]
The past week has certainly given us a lot to talk about in IT. The global outage caused by the Crowdstrike update thankfully had minimal impact on NYU as an institution, though some individuals may have experienced issues. I think there are some lessons we can learn, however. Follow Maintenance Procedures First, don’t overestimate “non-impacting” […]
Culture is very powerful. Like all things powerful it can be good or bad. My definition of organizational culture is a set of beliefs, values, and attitudes that result in the behaviors of members. Our teams have cultures as do our departments, schools, campuses as well as NYU. When we are in a situation with […]
September always seems far away, until it’s suddenly here. Yes, we are just settling into summer. Many of us haven’t taken our vacations yet, but now is the time to start planning for the return of classes. Over the years I’ve noticed the best planners are “glass half full” people. We all tend to assume […]
I think there are a couple of behaviors that have an outsize impact on our professional and personal success. The first is curiosity and the second is the “Power Law of Effort.” These are somewhat related to grit so I wanted to give you my perspective on them. “Curiosity killed the cat” is probably the […]
Last week we held the Digital Infrastructure and Systems Governance Committee (DISGC) meeting. We hold this meeting 4-6 times a year and it is the senior IT governance committee. We presented them with two decisions and some updates. We recommended that they approve the Data, Analytics and Insights Council as a new governance body that […]
The topic of “grit” has come up. This was a popular discussion a few years ago. Whether it’s trendy or not the value of resilience, sticktoitiveness, or grit can’t be overstated. To me, this means not giving up on a goal regardless of hardship, obstacles or setbacks. Paul Harvey, a radio commentator from a while […]