In Plain English, Please: Effective IT Communications

In Plain English, Please:Effective IT Communications

Mur MuchaneExecutive Director, Information Technology ServicesDavidson [email protected]

Lisa TrubittAssistant to the CIO for Policy & CommunicationsUniversity at Albany, [email protected]

How we got here …

Met in Dallas at EDUCAUSE 2006

Discovered we were both “translators” for our organizations with a common set of challenges

Decided we wanted to continue our conversation with a larger audience

Why do we communicate?

To educate our users

Share information about programs/services

Notifications

Emergencies and/or service interruptions

Common pitfalls inIT communications

Hard for non-technical folks to understand

Too much information

Heavy on technical details

About Davidson

National Liberal Arts College

Located in Davidson, North Carolina

~ 170 faculty, 500 staff

~ 1700 students, all residential

10:1 student to faculty ratio

USNWR top ten

About IT at Davidson

Centralized IT staff of 38 reporting to CIO

Five teams: Business Operations Enterprise Applications Instructional Tech & Media Prod. Technology Help Services Systems and Networks

Communication at Davidson before …

Highly technical

Too detailed

Wrong tone

Monodimensional

Increase in Email Quotas before …

Subject: Important information about Faculty and Staff email accounts

In preparation for introduction of Office 2007 to campus later this month, a change to your email account will be made on Friday, September 21st. This change will affect faculty and staff email accounts. Students’ accounts were changed at the end of the summer.

Friday, September 21 at 5:00 pm, staff and faculty mailboxes will be moved to a new email server. The moves will be completed by 9 am on Saturday.

An individual’s email will be inaccessible for 15-20 minutes during the actual mailbox move. ITS cannot predict when a specific mailbox will be moved, but we will post an entry on the ITS News blog after all the moves are completed. The mailbox move will be transparent to Outlook users on campus. The next time they start Outlook, it will automatically “discover” that their mailbox is in a new location.

If you use Entourage, Smartphone/Active Sync, or Outlook full client from off campus (RPC over HTTP), you will need to make changes to your current setup after your mailbox is on the new server. We will send instructions about those changes next week.

If there is a reason your mailbox should not be moved on Friday, September 21, please let us know by Replying to this message.

The exciting news is that your storage space on the new server will increase from 100MB to 1GB. Enhancements to the anti-spam software are already in place to help better manage the influx of spam to campus. Information about Office 2007, Outlook Web Access (OWA),anti-virus software change, and Vista will also be forthcoming from ITS.

Responses will go to the Help Desk.

Increase in Email Quotas after …Dear Campus Colleagues, We are very pleased to announce larger email quotas. On Friday, September 21st at 5:00 p.m., faculty and staff mailboxes will be moved to a new email server and your email quota will increase from 100MB to 1GB. The move process will take15-20 minutes per account. Your email will be inaccessible during this short window. If moving your email account on Friday presents a problem for you, we’ll be happy to accommodate you. Simply let us know by replying to this message.

If you use Entourage, a Smartphone, or Outlook from off campus, you will need to make changes to your current setup after your mailbox is on the new server.

Please let us know if you have any questions by contacting our Help Desk.

Best, Mur Muchane

Communication at Davidson now …

CIO review of IT messages

Revised our vision statement

Multiple channels

Language appropriate to audience used

Simple and direct


From print to blog

Less IT email clutter

Trying to make it interactive


Podcasts

Light touch for “unpleasant topics”

Recent podcasts include:

Avoiding the RIAA

Online Privacy

Acceptable Use


Cable TV in residence halls

Take the message to the students

IT Podcasts on channel guide


Cable TV in residence halls

Conceptual messages vs. operational


Flat panel monitors

Conceptual and humorous IT messages


More face time

Academic and administrative departmental meetings

Faculty retreats

Technology advisory groups

About UAlbany

One of four University Centers in the SUNY system

10 colleges and schools across 3 campuses

~17,000 students (7500 residential)

~4,400 faculty and staff

About IT at UAlbany

Centralized ITS staff of 130 reports to CIOOCIO staffClient Support ServicesInformation Security OfficerResearch IT GroupSystems Management & OperationsTelecommunicationsUniversity Applications Development

~50 distributed IT staff in colleges, schools and centers

Communication at UAlbany before …

Internally …

Not enough to non-existent

Not coordinated

Not cooperative

Externally …

Too bossy

Too technical

Too apologetic

Communication at UAlbany now …

Keep it simple

Ask yourself: what do people really need to know?

Different mechanisms used for different kinds of communicating

Centralized through Office of the CIO

Communication at UAlbany now …

Multiple forums for getting the word out

Input from numerous stakeholder groups

Becoming better listeners

Emphasis on relationship-building and learning more about needs in other divisions

Communication Challenges

Where’s the rest of the information?!

Remember: communication is an on-going process

Getting buy-in from executive management

Getting buy-in from IT staff

Daylight Savings Time Before …

Subject Line: Daylight Saving Time Impact on ExchangeDaylight Saving Time (DST) Change

As of March 11, 2007 Daylight Saving Time starts three weeks earlier and ends one week later than it has in the past. Any devices using date and time to function properly will be impacted, including computers, calendaring applications, mobile devices, and even home electronics like a VCR. The greatest impact on campus has to do with computer time changes and Exchange calendars.

What Customers May NoticeMicrosoft released an operating system patch last week which now has Outlook meetings during the period March 11 - April 1, 2007 appearing to be off by one hour. What ITS is Doing to Address DSTWe recognize this situation is highly problematic for our customers and are working to resolve it as quickly as possible. The national media has ranked the DST issue on the same scale as Y2K, with weeks instead of months to address issues. Microsoft just released their patches and ITS has begun the implementation process; the steps involved in this process are:Patches will be automatically installed on domain computers over the next two daysThe Exchange and OWA servers will be taken down for a brief period at 5:00 pm this Friday (2/23) to be patchedOnce the servers are patched a tool will be run against each person’s Exchange calendar to correct meetings scheduled 3/11-4/1. This tool will take several hours to run and may impact Exchange system performance, so it will be run over the weekend in order to minimize its effect on customer productivity. Exchange and OWA will still be accessible over the weekend.When people return to work Monday, they may have new meeting requests in their inboxes which pertain to meetings that were already scheduled on their calendars, during these three weeks; the tool is designed to send out replacement meeting requests reflecting the corrected meeting time.What Customers Can Do For the remainder of the week, customers may find inaccuracies in meeting times for the period 3/11-4/1. We ask that customers not modify these appointments manually, as once updates are made to the servers the appointment times should be corrected. In the meantime, for new meetings, we recommend that the correct meeting time be listed in the appointment’s subject line and that you verify the accuracy of appointment times for the affected calendar period. This Friday, we ask that you log off of your computer before leaving for the day.On Monday, we ask customers to accept the replacement meeting requests and also check their calendars and confirm any meeting times for the DST period as there is a chance that some meetings may not be fixed by the tool.If meetings are still incorrect after Monday, we encourage customers to contact their Technology Coordinator for assistance; ITS-supported customers can submit a help request at www.albany.edu/its/help and include a description of the problem.Throughout this new DST period, Microsoft suggests that “all users affected by the time change give extra attention to meetings and appointments scheduled between March 11, 2007 to April 1, 2007 and October 28, 2007 to November 4, 2007. People should view any appointments that fall into these date ranges as suspect until they communicate with all meeting invitees to make sure that the item shows up correctly on everyone’s calendar both internally and externally”.ITS will update its website, www.albany.edu/its, to cover the DST situation and solutions in more depth, so please check it periodically as information may change.Thank you for your patience and attention to this matter.

Daylight Savings Time after …

Daylight Saving Time Impacts Calendaring in Outlook!

Please be aware that Daylight Saving Time starts three weeks earlier than it has in the past. This will have an effect on your Outlook calendar between March 11 - April 1, 2007.

ITS is aware of the problem and has a solution. This weekend, we will take the necessary steps to accommodate the new Daylight Saving Time legislation. Please do not attempt to modify any existing appointments, as we expect calendars to be properly updated by Monday morning.

It is important that you log off your computer before you leave for the weekend. By Monday, February 26, 2007, you will have replacement meeting requests, which you should accept. We suggest that you check your calendar to ensure the accuracy of appointments.

For further information, please visit our website at www.albany.edu/its.

Lessons Learned

Less really is more

Lessons from the audience?

Solicit feedback from your users; then use it to your advantage

Expect to explain why messages are written “your way.”

What next?

Constituent group, anyone?

Other suggestions?

In Plain English, Please: Effective IT Communications

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