I am not sure if things have changed the way we celebrate the holiday season or that I am getting older. It just feels so different. I remember the excitement around looking forward to the month of December. I distinctly remember how happy I was walking along 5th avenue in NY City looking at all the displays and going to Barnes and Nobles downtown to pick up books on sale. I was in NY City last Friday and didn’t even occur to me to do these things or the Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas tree and watch the skaters in the skating rink. I am sure that all of these are still happening and that I am just geting old and my interests are elsewhere.

Our children have grown and the celebrations and buying gifts for them have changed so dramatically, partly due to technologies. I remember how I was running from store to store like a mad man trying to locate that one missing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Character that our elder son so badly wanted. I literally snatched it out of the hands of an old lady in one store after not finding it in seven stores. She was deliberating whether to take that one or another and the moment she put it down, I took it and rushed out. It was a rare commodity then! And boy, it was indeed a happy holiday when the little kid was thrilled to see it under the Christmas tree! Good old days!

A year has gone by since I began at Wellesley around the Holiday season. The creation of the Advisory Council for Library and Technology Policies coincided very closely with my official arrival date and I had a chance to review and comment on the legislation. The first meeting of the ACLTP Committee was held on Wed. 12/15/2010 at 4 PM. Happy Anniversary to ACLTP!

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I have been extremely busy (with meetings, some coding and a retreat) for the past several days that I have not had time to write a post. I was supposed to take this week off, but an important meeting today required my attendance, so I am working today and most of tomorrow. This will have an effect on what we serve for our Thanksgiving guests (just kidding). I love Thanksgiving and this year, in addition to the usual group of friends, another who has not been able to come will join us. For us, the celebrations extend into Friday and Saturday when groups of friends and extended family who each celebrate Thanksgiving with their own families gather in our house for more celebrations.

Many of us are deeply concerned and frustrated by the bickering taking place in Washington, the most recent one is the lack of compromise on deficit reduction. Rather than concentrating on trying to solve the economic issues which are crippling us, it appears that our esteemed lawmakers seemed to have found time to draft SOPA on the back of PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) passed earlier. The reason for urgency is partly related to fixing the stealing of intellectual property which is indirectly affecting the economy, however, it is so far reaching that we will all be affected severely if passed.

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We have reached a major milestone in our conversion to Google. With a few exceptions, all of our current students, faculty and staff have been moved to Google Apps for Education. Kudos to the hard work of the Google Team. They did a terrific job of planning, training, executing, responding to emergencies and most importantly providing the TLC where needed. We are working towards moving the Meeting Maker calendar over to Google Calendar. I hear that many departments are not waiting – they have already moved.

This transition, like all others, has brought changes in the way we use technology for communication. FirstClass, which was self-contained, was the single point of communication for the campus. We are trying to do the same with tools that Google Apps provides, but it is not the same and raising concerns.

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I was saddened to hear about the death of Steve Jobs last night. I have been a user of many of the Apple products from day one like many of you are. Steve was one of those rare visionaries who revolutionized the usability of computing devices by anyone. How many iPhone or iPod users ever used a manual to start using the device? I was also one of those folks who were in love with the NeXT operating system and I remember installing it and using it for a long time in the early to mid 90’s.  He will be missed very much.

Yesterday, I spoke at the Academic Council regarding the two major projects that we are currently engaged in – Sakai and Google Apps for Education. I showed the current state of affairs, such as how many courses are using Sakai, to what extent and which tools of Sakai are being used the most. It turns out that the resources and forums are the two mostly used with tools such as Assignments and Gradebook usage picking up.

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I can’t believe that it was a year ago that I interviewed for the CIO job at Wellesley. My first interview was on Sep 10 when I met with the search committee in two groups and then the second one was on Sep 17th, which was a day-long visit to the campus with some individual and some group interviews. This was followed by a student from South Africa giving me a tour of the College campus and then dinner with a few members of the search committee. During the interviews I heard about FirstClass a little bit, but the student talked a lot about it. Honestly, I had no clue about it until then. After I accepted the job in early October, FirstClass would occupy a significant portion of my life and it still continues, a year later.

I remember Sept 17th vividly – I was staying in a hotel in Needham and was trying to look up directions to the College and the website was down. I looked in Google Maps and left the hotel. I had totally underestimated the time it would take to get to the College. I parked in the garage and was desperately looking to see how to get to the President’s office for my first interview with President Bottomly and there were no clear signs. I asked a student who pointed me in the direction of Green Hall and I rushed, but no idea which entrance to use. Somehow, I made it with 5 minutes to spare. And praying that I will not get a crisis call from Pace University (where I was working)  during the day. And my prayers were answered.

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