Each industry has a number of organizations that unify professionals and enable them to network, collaborate, communicate and exchange ideas and knowledge. For me, one of such organizations, is certainly Educause. Educause is an association that unifies all of us who are in higher education (higher ed) information technology (IT) and provides opportunities for collaboration with colleagues and vendors.
When it comes to Educause and their annual conference more specifically, two areas of value stand out ahead all others:
- Networking with colleagues
- Partnering with vendors
Both of the above areas are important with respect to sharing strategies and tactics in addressing common challenges we all face which range from talent management, enrollment, cyber-security, customer service, instructional design, enterprise applications, networks, systems…and so on. If you are in higher ed IT, get involved in the community via list-serves and knowledge management and give their local and annual conferences a shot, you will be surprised of what you may learn.