darrelhuish.net

Let us not let perfect be the enemy of excellent. I am happy to point out that ITS has an updated website with new content and a new look. Billie and Keli provided most of the firepower to make it happen. Check out the points of pride which highlights some of the good things we are doing each month. You may notice lots of things that could be improved. I think my photo is out of focus, for example. However, it is simpler and a bit more focused and helpful than before. That’s my story, and I am sticking to it.

I recently had the chance to read the book The Ultimate Question and it gave me something to think about. It talks about the difference between “good profits” and “bad profits” pointing out that a company that ignores customers for the sake of the bottom line in setting wheels in motion that will stifle growth. Consider a time when a hurricane is closing in on Florida: one rental car company looks at supply and demand charts and doubles prices. Bad Profit. Another company holds their prices steady but achieves tremendous good will for future rentals. Good Profit.

It makes me wonder about a certain Learning Management vendor, and two of their recent practices. One happened locally at the ‘copa; they proposed writing us some custom software, at top-of-the-market hourly rates, and then ALSO retaining ownership of the code and charging annual maintenance on the code. If we had said yes, they would have made a profit, but burning a relationship. The more general episode is that the same software vendor filed for and won a patent for (my crude understanding) the concept of web-based teaching and learning. Let’s say this is legal and that they might even collect royalties that outweigh the inevitable legal costs. Are those profits ever going to outweigh the bad taste that is left in the collective mouth of the academic community. Either there is something about this I don’t understand OR the brain trust at that company has not read the book.

Muchas gracias to those who helped me install the ability to view my Oracle calendar in Outlook. The world apparently still lacks a piece of software to sync directly from an Oracle calendar to the Treo 700, but while we are waiting for that several people helped me get a (slightly manual) path from Oracle to Outlook to Blackberry for an incremental PDA calendar. I feel like I jumped from rookie league to AAA ball. … waiting for my call up to the Majors.