I did two presentations today. Audiences were small but enthusiastic (which I guess is better than large and hostile). The theme I kept hearing in conversations afterwards was how they wished they could do similar things at their college, but couldn't because they had an ERP. One person did say that he liked PeopleSoft, but that was the lone exception. It just affirmed once again that owning our architecture is the right way to go. It's a lot of work and carries its own set of risks, but I think we are on the right track.
I went to a session in the afternoon that made coming to this conference worth it. Mark Champion from Grand Rapids Community College did a presentation on the future of community colleges. He has a web site where he will post the slides within a week. It was everything a session at a conference like this should be: well researched, challenging and thought provoking. In a nutshell, community colleges are facing a huge challenge (which he backed up with demographic studies) and we need to change the way we do business to remain relevant. And (surprise, surprise) the best way for us to do it is through technology. He brought up a lot of the same points I have been talking about at our colleges - that this new generation of students think and learn differently than us and we need to leverage those differences to make learning a more compelling experience. Great stuff!
I'm heading back home tomorrow and am really looking forward to it. I do just enough business travel to remember why I would never want to do this on a regular basis.
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