Lisa Davis, CIO, Georgetown University
Lisa Davis was appointed as Georgetown University's Vice President for Information Services and CIO in February 2012.
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Lisa Davis was appointed as Georgetown University's Vice President for Information Services and CIO in February 2012. She came to Georgetown from the U.S. Marshals Service, where she served as the CIO and assistant director for information technology leading information technology programs in 94 districts and sub-offices nationwide and in Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan and the Virgin Islands. Davis' first task upon arrival was to plan an information technology vision and strategy that supports Georgetown’s mission and research through excellent technology services. With that plan now in place, Davis and her University Information Services staff are working closely with their customers across Georgetown's campuses to execute the Transformation Initiative with attention to continued delivery of high-quality service. “Lisa has been recognized as an outstanding leader and customer service-oriented expert in the design and delivery of infrastructures and applications to solve complex business problems,” said Christopher Augostini, senior vice president and chief operating officer.
Prior to her work with the U.S. Marshals Service, Davis served the Department of Defense in a similar capacity. Having worked for the U.S. Marshals Services since 2008, she said of her decision to come to Georgetown, “After a career in government service, I decided to come to Georgetown to embark on a new journey and join the leadership team at a world-renowned academic institution.” The recipient of the Superior Civilian Service Award, InformationWeek editors recently chose her as a leading innovator in their annual Government IT Innovators Contest. She was also named one of ComputerWorld’s Premier 100 IT Leaders for 2012. Davis lives in Arlington, Va., with her husband Phil and has three children – Katie, 23, Christopher, 11, and Alexandra, 10.
Michael:
(00:03) Hello, welcome to show number 79 of CXOTalk, and today we are talking about higher education, innovation and transformation in higher Ed. I’m Michael Krigsman, you host at CXOTalk, along with my fabulously friendly co-host Vala Afshar. Vala how’re you doing?
Vala:
(00:25) Michel, alright.
Michael:
(00:28) And we are here today with the Chief Information Officer of Georgetown University, Lisa Davis. Lisa how are you.
Lisa:
(00:38) I’m good, great Michael how are you?
Michael:
(00:41) I am excellent and Vala, how are you?
Vala:
(00:43) Fantastic, looking forward to speaking to a brilliant CIO. So with that Lisa, could you talk to us a little bit about your background and your Role at Georgetown University.
Lisa:
(00:55) Yes absolutely, and Vala, good afternoon and I’m really delighted to be with both of you this afternoon.
(01:03) I spent my entire career in technology. 23 years in the Department of Defense, the last three of Government service on the Department of Justice as the CIO for the US Marshals, and the last, almost three year have been here as the CIO for Georgetown University.
(01:22) At Georgetown, it really is a phenomenal place to be a CIO, especially during this time in higher education. I’m responsible for all aspects of our domestic and international Information Technology Strategy. Really leading IT and business transformation across the institution.
Michael:
(01:44) Give us some context about Georgetown, the size and so forth of the school.
Lisa:
(01:50) Georgetown is one of the top 25 academic and research institutions. We are the oldest catholic Jesuit University in the country, actually celebrating 225 years old last summer.
(02:06) We have about - Our headquarters our main campus is in Washington DC, be we have campuses around the world including in the Middle East, our campus school of foreign service in Qatar.
(02:18) We have about 8,000 students which include our undergraduates, graduates, lifelong learner students. And I wanted to share with you some of our famous alumni include the former president Bill Clinton, the hall of fame includes basketball which is Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning and the King of Spain. So we have quite a prestigious alumni here at Georgetown.
Vala:
(02:50) I absolutely remember Patrick Ewing’s dominance in basketball when he was at Georgetown. He majored in Latin, so being in Boston, remember Patrick Ewing and Robinson and others.
(03:07) I read a blog where it mentioned your mission and it talked about seamless teaching and learning and research at Georgetown, can you talk a little bit about you mission and vision in terms of IT’s role enabling this seamless ecosystem of learning and teaching and research.
Lisa:
(03:28) It was really about transforming technology here at the institution. And as we look at what our future University will be, what will the University of 2030. We think of it in terms of a seamless intuitive experience with our students between where they live, where they socialize and where we learn.
(03:48) So how do we bring technology to the forefront, how do we enable technology to really enhance our current academic research solutions and have launched a five year modernization strategy in which really from an innovation standpoint, Cloud first, mobile first, how we tie in all of the disruptive technologies that are occurring today into the University of today and as we build the University of the future.
Vala:
(04:20) It sounds incredible. Before we get into the details of your mission, what was the motivation from moving from public sector to Georgetown, other than the fact that it’s one of the top universities in the world.
Lisa:
(04:37) Absolutely, I had finished a career in government. I had reached the pinnacle of my career after 26 years of service. It was really trying to figure out what was next for me when this opportunity presented itself. And I was really intrigued with the amount of disruption that was occurring in higher education today.
(04:58) We all know what those disrupters are - Cloud, social, mobile. There’s anywhere, anytime, anyplace computing as well as the forces that are impacting higher Ed. Today.
(05:09) And Georgetown was looking for someone who would lead a transformation. I had led a transformation as a CIO in counter intelligence and in the US marshals, and I was really intrigued by these types of opportunities. The ability to affect change, to have impact from really an enterprise institutional standpoint, and when Georgetown opportunity presented and like you said Vala, a world renowned institution. It was really an easy decision.
Vala:
(05:40) Absolutely.
Michael:
(05:42) So you are very actively involved in educational innovation and thinking about the future of education and the business model of higher Ed. and so forth. that are driving change in innovation today. What are the underlying forces?
Lisa:
(06:11) We just told a little bit about those, so we all know consumerism right, so all the disruptive technologies of mobile and higher Ed. is a great place to look at with 18,000 students on campus. All of those students are coming to campus with their mobile device. We know the need for mobile and Wi-Fi and we have seen a 30% increase in Wi-Fi connectivity in just the last 12 months and that continues to grow year to year.
(06:42) Social really being at the forefront and not just social from the context of Facebook or Instagram. But how do we integrate social into our enterprise applications, of how we do our daily business. Social needs to be a critical component of that.
(07:02) Cloud technologies, Georgetown over the last 2 ½ years have led with Cloud technologies with Google labs. With our ERP, we were the first institution to take our HR payroll and finance into the cloud with Drupal and other Cloud technologies. And like I mentioned this anywhere, anytime, anyplace computing. But in addition to that it’s also about who are our customers.
(07:32) This next generation of students that will be coming to our institutions. And how are we going to serve and meet the needs, which is really a personalized experience when our students – now these digital natives that are coming on campus, how are we really going to be able to meet their needs and meet their expectations as they’ve grown up with technology.
(07:55) And the last pressure would be, and of course, we all talk about the cost, right, the cost of education today, the rising cost of student debt and I think the average is 25,000 per student. So how do we address those and how does Georgetown really embrace these disrupters and figure out who Georgetown needs to be for future University.
(08:24) I think what would differentiate Georgetown is that we as a thought leader try to leverage those disrupters that are occurring today, and really embrace them into how we are doing business, having a shape, how we think about our courses, how we embrace technology in those courses. And now doing a lot of experimentational and a lot of thought around the core curriculum and how that core curriculum will change.
Vala:
(08:56) We have a question from Twitter from Christopher Kelly, and Christopher asks, does the University of the future contain walls or is it flats. May be asking the question add a little bit differently, what is the value of a brick and mortar institution today?
Lisa:
(09:15) I think our president, John DeGioia says it best, and he talks about value of institutions today really being centered around three things. The formation of human beings, the ability to really explore life’s most important questions and then we do that for the common good. And I’m not sure that there’s any other institution that does those three things.
(09:41) So how do we embrace and stay authentic to that mission and our values as technology and these other disrupters keep really shaping us to build this future University. So, we do believe there is value in a brick and mortar institution because of those things that are president talks about. Yet, I think we are very open and adaptive to figuring out how do we embrace the rest that is occurring.
(10:07) And I think this institution without walls is a really interesting concept. You know, we think 10 years out and we think about 2030 and the seamless, intuitive intersection between how we live and how we learn, and how we work, how we socialize; maybe it’s not walls.
(10:26) You know we talk a lot now about clipped classrooms, where we’re not receiving the lectures, but we attend those classes because is discussion and its practical on application on the ideas and the theory that we are learning about in the textbooks. So things are really beginning to change.
Michael:
(10:45) So when you talk about educational disruption, it’s disruptive to your fundamental business model isn’t it, to the revenue and how you make money and your relationships to students and administrators, faculty, researchers. So this disruption in higher Ed. is very pervasive through the fabric.
Lisa:
(11:11) Absolutely, there’s a great quote that Forbes said. Forbes said that higher education is ground zero for disruption. And I think Michael what you just said and that quote really sums up what we are dealing with in higher education today. And the ability to embrace those and experiment and with changes in our courses, in our curriculum, and how we think about things.
(11:39) How we structure things across the University is all changing and Georgetown has been experimenting in this era, first with an initiative called technology enhanced learning. Where we had faculty submit proposals of how they would embrace the leverage technology in the classroom.
(12:00) And then that has gone onto another initiative called, designing the future University. Where now it’s not at a course level, it’s at a curriculum level. So now, a lot of the data shows now that a three-year BA is imminent. How do we change what we do structurally to be able to support changes in a traditional curriculum, where bachelors required for years to get a bachelor degree, can we do it in three years? Can we do a three-year BA/MA?
(12:37) If you think about the structural changes necessary to allow that curriculum to change, that’s really where the impact is. A lot of discussion with online learning, adult learners, and the revenue model now brought together with online learning and really catering to that adult learner.
Vala:
(12:58) Can you talk a little bit about of what may be perceived as competition, and indeed it may be and of course there are Coursera Academy and other massive open online courses that are offered today.
Lisa:
(13:13) Georgetown started, we have a partnership with EdX, which is the Harvard and MIT Consortium. We began experimentation in MOOCS two years ago and had put out three MOOCs, we had three new MOOCs coming out in the fall, and we really did a lot of analysis and researched to find out what was the best fit for us in terms of experimenting with this new platform.
(13:40) And it’s interesting with MOOCs because you know, if you think about it MOOC came out Massively Open Online Course in 2011 and MOOCs were all the rage and I think even some said 18 to 24 months, the universities would be extinct. Well, we’re still here and we haven’t gone extinct.
(14:00) You know MOOCs might have fouled, there were some problems with MOOCs, and MOOCs have followed this traditional hype cycle. It’s almost a perfect hype cycle. So I think we estimated in the year 2029, MOOCs will be back in vogue.
(14:15) But what’s interesting what MOOCs taught us and this is where the experimentation and the lessons learned really come into play, as we start building and shaping the institution of the future, is that MOOCs showed us what parts of our curriculum were generic and interchangeable and what parts can be pulled out of the curriculum and delivered at a lower cost. Such as, intro to statistics, intro to biology, 102 level courses. And really forced all of us in higher Ed. to think about how we would embrace and incorporate that as we start making these curriculum changes and building our universities for the future.
Michael:
(15:03) We have a question from Twitter, it’s an interesting question from Shelley Lucas who asks, how does seamless learning, this concept of seamless learning impact the curriculum, and she’s wondering in addition is there greater cost pollination between the academic natures.
Lisa:
(15:26) I think it’s a great question. You know, first and foremost you know, the technology has to be partnered with the pedagogy, right. So if you remember when we talk to about online learning back in the 1990s with blackboard diverse online management system very rudimentary.
(15:45) Many people think that online learning is viewing a PowerPoint deck online, and that’s not what online learning is anymore because the technology now is about synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. So you get to feel that you are sitting in a classroom where your faculty members and your students can have like what we are having today a conversation, an engagement on the material, questions, understanding of the material through online quizzes and really leveraging the technology data to see how are our students doing in the class.
(16:26) So I think, you know you can’t talk about technology without talking about pedagogy, and I view technology as an enabler of that, it’s not a substitution. So how do we leverage the best of the technology into our teaching? Is it through the use of crowdsourcing tools, is it through 3D simulations of what technology can bring to bear. To really enlighten and make the subject material that much more interesting and easy to understand.
Vala:
(17:02) So I mean you hinted at this at the beginning of our conversation in terms of social is more than just social tools like one would think Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn but you have this social collaboration tools within the enterprise. Perhaps will we see unified communication technology, like video conferencing? Social collaboration tools Chatter, Yammer integrated with your CRM as part of what the foundational leads are in order to have a successful online curriculum, where you can actually not only learn but collaborate in real time whether it’s with students or faculty and others. You need the community to make this come to life.
Lisa:
(17:51) Yes, I believe you do and we are starting to see that already. If you take some of our platforms like the Canvas platform, the ability to hold a class, the ability to collaborate in real time, engage in the material.
(18:06) The technology allows that to happen today and I think that demand will continue to grow. So for us as technologists, we need to think about how we continue to integrate all of our applications, our services and capabilities. So really it’s delivered like from a single pane of glass.
(18:30) You know, right now how do we login into things and if you think about our core applications, our learning management system, our student system, our financial systems. You know, all of us whether we are in a company or organisation or institution, we have admin systems, we have our mission and our business systems. We have our systems that do our email and our calendar and our collaboration. How do we make that a single pane of glass for our customers and our users?
(18:59) So they don’t have to login separately to different applications so that they integrate seamlessly from a back-end infrastructure standpoint. And the GUI seems to allow them to move from one app to another to collaborate between these different applications.
(19:18) I think that’s going to become more and more prominent with Cloud solutions, mobile apps. This intersection is going to occur.
Michael:
(19:26) And you’re embracing cloud apps for your internal enterprise use as well.
Lisa:
(19:32) Yes,absolutely, we have a cloud first strategy, so when it comes time to modernizing an application or looking at a solution that we need, we always think cloud first.
(19:47) We have been leading in Cloud platforms from a higher Ed. perspective, like I mentioned we were the first higher Ed. institution to take our ERP into the cloud with Workday. We have Drupal, we have Google. We think about more and more of our core business applications moving into the cloud, so we embrace cloud.
(20:12) And of course, you have to take those precautions right, so when we think about cloud you need to think about where your data is. You need to make sure and tactually that you are protecting your data and all of those things you have to consider. Also that cloud solution or platform is integrating into your overall architecture.
Vala:
(20:32) Do you have a sense of all these changes, of all these disruptive megatrends of mobile social cloud, how it will impact the business model for education?
Lisa:
(20:44) I think it will have a tremendous impact and we are already seeing the impact. You know, our students, they expect that intersection of social and mobile now. You know, I think I saw a statistic from last week that students check their mobile devices 43 times a day. I was actually going to do a test to see how many times I checked mine, and I think I might be more than that. So I was a little worried. But I do need to actually do that test to how many times and checking my device every day.
(21:19) But you know, even although students are still bringing a laptop to campus is the number one device, we’re still seeing a growing number of mobile tablets being brought to campus today.
(21:37) So absolutely, I think it will change the business model, and it’s forcing us institutions to think about how do we embrace it, and it goes back to those structural changes that we need to make and how we do business, how we think about the business, what curriculum that we offer, which also then impacts the cost of the education as well.
Michael:
(22:03) Sure, we have another question from twitter from Zachary Jeans who asks, what is preventing the adoption of MOOCs. Is it regulations, the financial business model, something else? What are the obstacles to the adoption of MOOCs?
Lisa:
(22:20) I think what we are still dealing with in MOOCs is certification. So MOOCs are currently still free and I think Coursera has began some certification on MOOCs. So certifying the courses, applying a credit to the courses and then having universities embrace those courses for credit from whoever that vendor or platform may be.
(22:48) If you think about it that requires major structural change right. Right now, a university like Georgetown and I’m sure like many universities they accept credit from certain other higher Ed. institutions that meet a certain criteria and certainly, I’m not an expert on what that is.
(23:08) But, just being able to adapt and open up the ability to accept these courses on MOOCs, that may have a one, two credit or three credit and then how it is integrated into the curriculum and programs that we have here at Georgetown.
(23:29) So I think once that is figured out, then you’re going to see that opened up very wide as forcing universities to accept credit whether it’s Ed.x, Coursera, CON Academy, Edacity, you name it.
Vala:
(23:46) Sure, we have another question from twitter from Asalon Khan and asks, what did you learn at the US marshals that you used today at Georgetown?
Lisa:
(24:00) As the CIO at the US marshals, what an incredible organization and if any of my friends from the US marshals are listening in today, really, the unsung heroes I think of law enforcement and I miss the women of the US marshals greatly.
(24:18) I think what I learned and really in leading any transformation is really understanding the mission. Understanding the mission of the organizations that you’re serving, understanding the business of what they do. Being a great partner and listener. You know, I was fascinated by the work in the mission of what the US marshals do and figuring out how could technology meet their jobs easier.
(24:48) How could we make the marshals more efficient and more effective at what they do. And that’s very similar to what I think of now that I’m in higher education is, how does technology enable the academic and research missions. You know, I think a lot about how do we build a faculty toolbox so what that toolbox is comprised of tools that make that faculty member or Prof, the most efficient and effective faculty member that they can be.
(25:22) And we think about that in terms of our students when we develop our services and capabilities and we modernize our applications and we build our mobile platforms is, how do we enhance the learning experience for our students. How do we personalize that experience? And I think that’s where you’ll see institutions go more and more, and what will be a different differentiator.
(25:44) Because technology today in a higher Ed. you know, at one point may be technology made you have a competitive advantage. But technology today is table stakes, right, even to be relevant and to be competitive with the top 25 institutions that we like to compete with. Our technology really has to be enhancing the learning and the academic missions of the University.
(26:12) So that’s where I see the parallels, it’s really trying to figure out as a see you’ll and as leading IT organisation, so no matter what company and organisation that you work for, really understanding the business and the mission and figuring out how technology can really drive and enable that even more.
Michael:
(26:32) We have another question from Twitter, so let me ask that and then I would like to come back and talk about digital transformation, which I’ve been kind of itching to ask you. But first, we defer to our viewers first, and so the question is from David. J. Henson who asks, how do you govern Cloud services and billing among al the University departments such as Adobe, Send mail – whatever it is. How do you govern Cloud services and billing among all the University Departments?
Lisa:
(27:09) It’s a really good question, it’s a complicated question because most higher Ed. Institutions are very decentralized. What we’ve been able to do in Georgetown which really helps is centralize a lot of our core services and functions, and that includes centralizing our billing.
(27:26) So I’ll give you an example of what is currently doing, and that’s managing print services across the University. So we had a print function that we really wanted to modernize, bring mobile print to our students.
(27:42) At the same time improve our sustainability efforts and the first thing is to drive cost, find the cost efficiencies and if you think about managing a print, HP Xerox print services across the University.
First and fore most we needed to centralize (Blank audio from 28:03 to 28:07) on contracts across the institution.
(28:10) So we centralized the procurement and brought them into one contract. We’ve done very similar things to wireless. We did similar things with our ERP systems so I think the more that you can centralize, the government, the billing, the procurement and all those aspects of those systems, it makes it much easier to bring in those cloud solutions.
Michael:
(28:38) So nowlet’s talk about digital transformation for a moment, which in one sense that’s the challenge that Universities are facing today is how do we take advantage of all of these digital, internet, web-based technologies. So tell us about the link between digital transformation and cultural change inside the organization.
Lisa:
(29:11) I don’t think we can talk about digital transformation without thinking about cultural transformation, because I believe they go hand in hand. I have a hard time believing this, it was seven years ago the iPhone was released and we look at the generation of smart phones that really have changed the way we work, how we do business, how we socialize, how
(29:44) When I came to Georgetown, two and a half years ago, we had zero mobile presence, which was hard to believe. Today, we have 35,000 students, alumni and faculty engaging on a mobile platform. When you think about the change and the use in the Cloud platforms, software’s and service, and social platforms, none of that would’ve occurred.
(30:12) I don’t think that innovation occurs unless first and foremost, you deliver and show results and provide the basics. I’m a big believer in first things first to make sure that IT is delivering on whether it’s keeping the networks running, delivering Wi-Fi services, making sure that our applications stay up and running and beginning to build that trust that IT is no longer a service provider, but IT is a partner.
(30:44) So I don’t think you can talk about innovation or digital transformation until you’re doing the basics, right. So we focused a lot on doing the basics and building upon those successes and delivering a record of results and performance.
(31:00) At the same time we leverage these digital disruptors that our students were demanding and were bringing them into the fold as well and the modernization and strategy, by delivering a mobile platform. And then figuring out where we engage with our students. So not making those decisions in a vacuum, but embracing our stakeholder community and our students to help us figure out what is important to you on these mobile platforms, and here’s a perfect example.
(31:31) What’s important to students, and I know you won’t probably believe this, but one of the most important acts to students is laundry alert! Laundry alert and where the next (Guts?) bus is. The bus isn’t coming to campus and how long they’re going to wait for a bus.
(31:49) But we’ve really evolved our digital transformation and our mobile platform. We do gamification with new student orientation, we’ve been piloting a mobile identity with our student for two factor authentication and access to buildings and dining halls and into their dormitories.
(32:10)So you know, one of the newest things we’ve done is brought an app called, Campus Quad to our campus, which takes all of the fliers on event management and it brings them into a mobile app with a social collaboration piece.
(32:28) So GPS tracking, so if I’m walking across campus around Georgetown, I am now aware of all the events that are happening around me and I can participate in those events. So you know, digital transformation is really at the forefront of what we do and how we embrace that into our technology strategy here.
Vala:
(32:52) I was recently talking to CIO, of Oral Roberts University, and at Oral Roberts and they’re using a combination of student retention analytics software package and a wearable, almost like a Fitbit wearable device and they are communicating student success metrics to the students on a wearable device. I thought that was fascinating, because I thought that was a combination of analytics and business insight aimed at improving the students ability to successfully to complete courses, and delivering it seamlessly on a wearable device. So when you think about the internet of things, which is another real trend and we’ve talked about mobile, social and Cloud.
(33:47) How do you think wearable technology will impact IT and the way you plan for the future?
Lisa:
(33:56) I am so excited about wearable technology, so I think I’ve tried every type of Fitbit on the market and I’m looking forward. I think I might be actually first in line for the iWatch when it comes out.
(34:11) I think the internet of things is going to have a huge impact and even if we think about the internet of things from a campus and facility perspective, sidewalks, being able to detect temperature or ice changes so that there is a heat automatically activating. How do we use sensors in our buildings to detect that there is no longer any people in the buildings so we can turn down the temperature.
(34:41) Some of these devices are being used in our homes today, and we are already looking at these devices really from a sustainability standpoint of how we can incorporate them into our planning and facilities. So again that merger of technology with facility planning and how that can have an impact – and certainly an impact on revenue, on what it takes to keep many of our institutions. We have building on our campus that are over 200 years old.
(35:17) So any opportunity that we can leverage some of these internet of things and some of these things into our buildings is a great opportunity and we’re beginning to do that now.
(35:28) As for you know, personalized devices I think the example that you gave me Vala was really interesting, and I mean, we use data for example with our new student orientation with the mobile app. What events are they attending, how are they communicating to one another and we’re really interested and how we embrace – how do we do better decision making with data.
(35:51) We will be delivering our first VI and analytic platform next week, our first data warehouse.Partnering with Salesforce to think about a CRM from an enterprise standpoint and how we pull that data thread from undergraduate to graduate to alumni and really capture the data that is occurring and being kept whether it’s in spreadsheets or individual databases that’s non in our core data systems to really give us a better picture of who or customers and our stakeholders are on this campus.
(36:28) So I think personalized devices with the internet of things, we’re just going to see more and more of that coming to our campuses today.
Michael:
(36:38) We have another question from Twitter. we love getting questions from Twitter.
Vala:
Our third co-host.
Michael:
That’s right Twitter is our third virtual co-host. So this is from Tracey Zimmerman, who asks, how are you using technology to help drive or support student success? And do you have strong internal academic partners?
Lisa:
(37:05) We have very strong academic partners, so technology cannot do this alone. You know, technology as I’ve said many times in our conversation today, we’re a partner and an enabler. The academics have to figure out how we work together and really bring that technology and infuse it into our classrooms and our curriculum. So I don’t want anyone to think that technology does this alone, and we absolutely need strong partnerships to be able to do this on our campuses today.
(37:46) And I forgot the first part of the question Michael if you wouldn’t mind repeating it.
Michael:
(37:50) How are you using technology to help support student success? So what are you doing for the students?
Lisa:
(37:57) What’s beautiful about the online platforms today is that it really helps the students tracks their progress and helps the faculty track the students’ progress as well. One of the reasons we did the experimentation with the MOOCs and the partnership with ED.Ex is that we really wanted to understand and have access to the data of how do people learn, how do we improve the learning, how do we improve student outcomes, and we are very interested in that data that we are allowed to gain from our MOOC experimentation as well as our online platforms today.
(38:37) So the beauty of online platform, if you think about it from a student perspective is once that lecture is recorded and we post our lectures on a tool called lecture capture, and you know, how many times when we were in school we would sit in a classroom and try to scribble down the notes or record the notes of what the faculty member or the professor was saying.
(39:00) The beauty of the technology of online platforms today is that the lecture is captured, so that I can repeat that lecture as many times as I need to to understand may be better understand the concept of what was being discussed in class.
(39:15) If I was absent from class, it allows me the ability to have access to the class notes and the lecture that was given in the class today. It allows me to collaborate with students, so maybe not on campus but to create study groups, and may be creating a study group globally of how those students are perceiving the content and we are learning from each other.
(39:40) So that is social collaboration piece is hard, but again it is the data that we have that really helps us understand and, is the student learning the material? Am I being successful teaching the course in this particular format or method or how I’m delivering the information? Are my students being successful? Do I need to repeat material, mainly because I’m seeing that the success rate - comprehension rate is not where I want it to be as a faculty member?
(40:14) All that is now capable with online platforms and that’s really exciting for our students of today.
Vala:
(40:21) You know it’s clear Michael and we talk to successful CIOs like Lisa. Operational excellence is like you said at the foundation, you can’t have innovation, you know if you don’t have a robust, highly available, and your network and infrastructure.
Michael:
(40:39) That’s Kevin Stephenson’s term from the CIO of Intel, the foundation of operational excellence.
Vala:
(40:44) But when you talk about successful CIOs like Lisa in higher education, often, when you talk about success they talk about student retention, acquisition, fundraising, innovation in the classroom. So Lisa, what is the role of the CIO it’s like in the last 40 minutes I’m talking to a chief digital officer, talking about mobile and social, Cloud collaboration, the data, Internet of things. You know, very little mention of infrastructure, so you would think if we didn’t know who we were speaking to that we may not be talking to a CIO. We might be talking to a CMO, a CBO, so what is the role…
Michael:
(41:42) And then we need to ask your advice for other CIOs.
Vala:
(41:25) Absolutely.
Lisa:
(41:27) I think the role of a CIO has changed dramatically. You know we are no longer the chief infrastructure officer. To be a successful CIO today, you have to play many roles and you have to ware many different hats. Maybe that’s a chief integration officer. You’re the chief innovation officer. You need to be a chief digital officer you have to understand and know these technologies and you really have to grow with those partnerships, with your stakeholders across your companies and institutions.
(42:03) So absolutely, you have to be a jack of all trades and I think that’s what makes the job so fun, it’s that IT is not just being a bout a service provider. IT today are brokers and partners and there is not a company today that technology is not a critical component of what they do, and how they much embrace and enable technology to really drive their businesses.
(42:31) We do the the same exact thing in higher education is driving those successful students, driving the advancement function that you mentioned Vala, really interesting. You know, from an advancement function we finally understand that that the data thread from prospective students (No audio from 42:48 – 42:50) digital alumni is so key in improving our advancement function. So we play many many different roles.
Michael:
(42:58) Lisa, you know we only have a few minutes left and we have more questions from Twitter, but you’ll have to come back and we’ll answer those questions. But you know, I talked with CIOs in higher Ed. and in some cases the institutional leadership is not within IT, but outside IT is not as willing or as flexible as what your institution is,in terms of adopting cloud and other technologies. So, you can have a situation where a CIO really wants to do this but there is organizational resistance.
(43:59) What can you suggest to a CIO that is in that kind of very difficult situation?
Lisa:
(43:46) Well I think that is the beauty of Georgetown right is that is that Georgetown is a thought leader in these spaces and allows the ability to experiment and really drive technology and innovation across our institution, But you’re not in an environment that allows that I would say first and foremost, we start with operational excellence, right. And we already mentioned that.
(44:09) You start with operational excellence and you start with learning the business and really establishing those key stakeholder relationships and those business relationships.
(44:20) Once those partnerships are formed, and you are operating at that level that you should be, then you are really having those conversations of IT as a business partner. Now you understand their business, how can IT help you think what you are trying to do and drive your business outcomes making them more efficient and more effective in your business. And I would say you don’t have to boil the ocean.
(44:48) You know, many times you know everybody thinks you have to do everything at one time, and I would think you start from an innovative mindset right. How do you incorporate innovation into the business? Can you start with small steps with that particular business or stakeholder and then really show some results. And then build upon those results to establish that momentum in your companies or organizations.
(45:19) As you build, and noticed this goes back to John Carter and the famous book on change management, is that once you have built that momentum and you show results and you show business outcomes, and you show that you are making a difference, I believe you will have more and more people standing in line waiting to partner with you.
Michael:
(45:40) We’re just about out of time, but will we take just one more question.
Lisa:
Absolutely.
Michael:
(45:45) A question from Nitch Lieberman who asks, is it possible in some cases technology is getting in the way or preventing in-person collaboration?
Lisa:
(45:49) Well you know, it’s an interesting question because I actually view it as technology is enabling that in-person communication to happen anywhere, any place, at any time. So look at what we are doing today, we are having a face-to-face you know, in-person conversation. You know, whether it is faced timing my children, Skyping or timing, synchronous collaboration within the classroom. I think technology is actually doing the opposite and its allowing us to do that more and more.
Michael:
(46:36) All right, well I think on that note we’ve run out of time and that was a very very fast 45 minutes.
Vala:
It definitely was.
Lisa:
It really was.
Michael:
(46:45) So thank you so much Lisa, we have been talking with Lisa Davies, who is the chief information officer at Georgetown University and I’m not sure whether we have lost Vala.
Vala:
(46:57) You have me here in Lisa’s voice.
Michael:
(47:01) So we have the disembodied Vala to say goodbye and Lisa, I’ll hope you come back and join us another time.
Lisa:
(47:07) Absolutely, I look forward to it.
Vala:
(47:08) Thank you so much.
Michael:
(47:09) And for everybody who’s watching, thank you so much for spending an hour with us or 45 minutes with us and we will will look forward to seeing you again next time. By by.