Documentation is like sex…

…when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing.
- Dick Brandon

I believe the best way to measure the health of an organization—particularly one devoted to technology—is by how fast someone new can come up to speed with the who, how and why of institutional operations. It’s probably safe to say that, despite the efforts of both parties in the interview process, new members in an organization will not have too much institutional background or operational knowledge. I remember starting at UCLA in the Center for Health Sciences. The corny joke delivered to all new employees during orientation was, “you could run a marathon in the building” because there are over 26 miles of corridor. I couldn’t even find my way through the building to the PACS offices from the Oral Radiology Department , let alone determine the operations and procedures of, and between, the two departments, or the expectations for my role with each (which in the future of my employment actually became quite significant). Obviously this is a pretty common issue and everyone coming into a new role should expect a learning curve. So the specific question is, what resources are available to help those who are new to increase their learning rate? But the larger question is, how can these same materials measure the health of the organization as a whole?

CIOh-no, Here I go…

I thought it would be appropriate to begin my blog on Halloween; after all it could be pretty scary. I was debating whether or not to actually start a blog until two good friends, one a prolific—perhaps even powerful—blogger, Michael Feldstein and the other, Ken Udas who really values collaborative processes (and practices what he preaches, see Eduforge), convinced me to do so.

While they are both smarter and more successful than I, it was Michael’s point that, perhaps the conversations here would help others as we all struggle with the design, development and deployment of technology.

This is my first role as a CIO, and as one who has always embraced the tenets of community processes, collaboration and transparency, I would appreciate learning from the seasoned CIO, discovering their issues and sharing ideas: perhaps the experiences related here will help some future first-time CIO.

I also hope to learn from the larger technical and specifically academic communities. I have been fortunate enough to work with some very bright people during my time in the University of California and State University of New York systems, and my hope is that through future discussions I can meet, and learn from, even more.

So here I go, pretty scary…