We’re approaching the start of a new academic year, and that means the hard work we do is about to take center stage for tens of thousands of NYU community members. It’s a time when the value of our work becomes most evident, and it’s also an opportunity to think about the impact our effort has on NYU.
While effort is helpful ~ a meaningful, relevant impact is the goal. I was reading about innovation recently and the author made the point that the idea is the easy part. Delivering scale, reliability, affordability, and usability is the hard part. Innovation is built on incremental increases in knowledge and collaboration among many.
It might not seem like it, but we work as a very large and complex supply chain to deliver information technology to NYU. When any of the thousands of functions fail or don’t work as well as they should, NYU is not at its best. Understand that what you do has an impact. The larger picture may sometimes be obscure, but there is a larger picture. The end result may be the tip of the iceberg for how much effort goes into something, but the end result is often the only thing our users see. Your colleagues and team understand the effort it takes to achieve that final result.
You should feel that you own the end result. Even if delivery of the final product isn’t your direct responsibility, it does depend on you. Stay focused, and sweat the details, because what may seem like a relatively small issue may result in a huge problem for your users.
Remember that the work we do at every level contributes to the teaching and learning environment, to groundbreaking research, or to producing the next Nia DaCosta, an NYU graduate who was the first Black woman with a number one film at the box office. Take pride in what we accomplish. Every excited and scared first-year trying to find their classrooms comes to NYU in part because of what you do. You should be proud and let’s not let them down.