Badges In Wonderland – 10 Things We Learned Gamifying a Conference

Following up from my earlier blog on the “how” of gamifying the UCISA Support Services Conference (USSC16) in Leeds this year, here’s (finally!) the notes on what I learned from the experience – things that worked, things that didn’t work and things I’d definitely do if I had to do it again! Note – apologies, …

Badges Badges Badges! How we gamified a conference

Earlier this month I ran an exercise effectively gamifying elements of UCISA’s Support Services Conference in Leeds, and there are two blogs that I’d like to do on the experience – firstly how we did it (this one – it’ll be a bit dry, but I’ll aim to stick to *what* we did rather than …

Right Question, Wrong Answer?

Earlier this week I had the pleasure (well, mostly) of visiting another University to spend the day talking about ITSM, Change, Organisation culture and generally trying to pretend I wasn't being interviewed for a job - something I'm evidently still trying to do. It's no secret I'm on the look out for the next exciting opportunity …

UCISA Support Services Conference 2014 – Part 2

Before I kick off Part 2, it’s worth flagging up some of the other great conference resources that are out there. Peter Tinson’s great Storify of the conference is top of the list, picking the cream of the Twitter debate and putting it together into a nice narrative. Mark Jacot has together a number of blogs during …

UCISA Support Services Conference 2014 – Part 1

The time has come to reflect one last time on this year’s UCISA Support Services Conference – an event that’s given me a lot in terms of new experiences, new contacts and new ideas. I’ll steer clear of the lengthy nanosecond-by-nanosecond breakdowns I've done in the past and try focus on the highlights. Try… As …

Some thoughts on speaking

My recent adventures have prompted a good deal of thought around standing up in front of people and talking. I'm loath to call it Public Speaking, because that’s a Thing. But maybe I should get past my issues of nomenclature… Preparing and delivering my presentation on Innovation and Idea Management to the UCISA Support Services …

Idea Management – A How To Guide (Part 2)

So back in Part 1... We had the thought to give Idea Management a go. We appreciated from the start that it's an investment. We set some reasonable expectations and prepared ourselves for the notion that the best bits might not actually just come from realising Ideas. We set out a nice clear process for how Ideas …

Idea Management – A How To Guide (Part 1)

I was excited, flattered and terrified in equal measure last week to be able to speak at the UCISA Support Services Conference about an Idea Management Programme we've been running at Surrey. There's loads of material from the conference available on-line and I have in mind a blog on the whole thing, but in the meantime (largely because my …

UCISA SSG Conference 2014 – Innovation & Idea Management: Appendix A

I've just finished speaking at the UCISA Support Services Group Conference in Crewe and (given I'm writing this in advance) I'm pretty sure everyone made it through the 100 slide marathon in one piece! At the start of the talk I promised homework - links to further reading on associated topics. Here you are! What …

Breaktime Blog: Brainstorming the next 5 years

Great end to the day, facilitating a session with our smartest techies discussing what Higher Education IT will look like in 5yrs. In no particular order: The end of the dominance of the managed workstation – but not its total demise Platform agnostic (or at least broad support) services are vital Conflict between supporting BYOService …