Using Technology to Collaborate

If you'll indulge me for a few minutes, I wanted to start a blog conversation about technology at Kellogg, and more generally about technology to facilitate collaboration. This is a set of topics that I'm very passionate about - as Tech Rep for the Cash Cows, I've heard a pretty representative sample of the types of issues everyone at Kellogg is facing. More importantly, I spent the last six years before Kellogg working on developing collaboration software at Oracle, so I'm fairly invested in the idea that technology can dramatically improve the way we work together.

So there's good news and bad news. Let's start with the good news - Kellogg's CIO David Keown and the entire KIS organization have committed to supporting Microsoft Exchange for the 2007-2008 Academic Year. For those that have struggled with sending out scheduler spreadsheets and booking rooms through Meeting Maker, the introduction of Exchange will be a huge first step towards facilitiating true collaboration. Exchange will bring a new email system to Kellogg in addition to the calendaring and scheduling functionalities. It's going to be a huge amount of work for KIS over the next several months, but KIS has the right people and resources in place to get this done, and over the next few months they're going to continue to tap into the student body to get feedback on how best to implement the functionalities provided by Microsoft.

So now onto the bad news. Or maybe we should call it the "pragmatic news." Collaboration is about a lot more than email and calendaring, and building up a truly collaborative technology environment is going to take a lot longer than just one year. Things like blogs, community feedback sites, course scheduling and bidding integration, improved file and media sharing capabilities are all things that need to be an integrated part of Kellogg's technology whole. Every cloud has a silver lining though, and in this case the silver lining is that Dean Keown and KIS really want to gather feedback about what students need to be more effective at Kellogg.

With that in mind, Kellogg United wants to hear from you - what aspects of your day-to-day experience at Kellogg would you like to improve? Assuming scheduling meetings and meeting rooms is improved, what else would help you work in teams better? Keep checking back here for more updates and ramblings as the week goes on.

Thanks for listening - hope everyone has a great weekend - look forward to seeing many of you at TG and Charity Auction Ball!

-Ashish

Little. Brown. Different.