Vendor Partnerships

In the spring of 2008, students from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University (IU) and the Jenkins Graduate School of Management at North Carolina State University (NCSU) “virtually” came together, using a variety of Web 2.0 tools and the virtual world Second Life, to learn about managing the services lifecycle and to apply what they learned to two corporate-sponsored projects.

Learn how establishing a corporate relations function within your IT department can benefit your institution by leveraging technology investments to benefit alumni relations, enhancing institutional visibility, providing technology speakers for campus lectures, and offering support for internships, faculty exchanges, and grant programs.

CITES Software WebStore has become a highly effective self-service sales and distribution engine to provide a wide array of popular software titles to students and staff at significant discounts. This presentation will demonstrate the system, highlight its features and limitations, and discuss the many challenges encountered along the way.

In 2007, Penn's School of Arts and Sciences introduced Penn Live, a new student e-mail service developed in cooperation with Microsoft and based on the Windows Live platform. This presentation will provide an overview of our processes for the selection, implementation, and support of Penn Live.

Today's complex workplace and demanding IT environment mandate that traditional barriers between business units, in-house IT, and vendors be replaced by partnerships working toward common goals. Learn how UC Irvine's Facilities Management and Administrative Computing staff broke down these barriers and partnered with a vendor to build and implement a flexible project management system.

Recently a diverse committee of Berkeley campus leaders met with representatives from Google and Microsoft to explore the Google Apps for Education and Microsoft Live@EDU service offerings and to determine if these vendors' offerings in the areas of mail, calendaring, and web based file sharing are a reasonable alternative to UCB running these services locally (via the current CalMail, WebFiles, and CalAgenda services).

In addition to examining the benefits and drawbacks of outsourcing campus messaging services, such as email and calendaring, to one of these vendors, the committee also explored their associated collaborative tools offerings, such as collaborative writing; social bookmarking; photo, audio, and video sharing; and mapping, which may also be of considerable campus interest.

This is the report from that committee.

Too often, we as leaders in IT get caught up in putting out fires, personnel issues, budget problems and security that we forget that we are unique. More importantly, we do not take the time to look at our accomplishments and tell someone. When I refer to telling someone, this is not our customer base that responds with, "oh, thanks." What is really being said is, "I have no idea what it took to accomplish what you did but it works." I am referring to telling our vendors in technology what we are doing and why it is special. Leaving public relations (PR) to say what we do and how we do it is a dead end. Not that they are not interested, they just do not understand technology and what is being accomplished. Take control of your PR and let those who understand what you are doing tell your story. In 2006, CSU had 10 national press releases that originated from the IT department. This is what can be built with some imagination and the ability to effectively communicate technological advancements.