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Dear Colleagues,  Brad Wheeler
The university is in the midst of rapid and extensive changes that affect its core missions of research, teaching, and service. A world of digitized books, open access scholarly publishing, open courseware, social networking, international alliances, cloud computing, and pervasive handhelds are among the trends that affect the university. The extended IT team – UITS and the IT professionals in academic and administrative units – must rise to the challenge to again ensure that our faculty, students, staff, and in some cases even alums have the best technology tools for their needs. We must balance our resources so that “edge” services near departments can focus their energies on excellent local services while UITS provides efficiencies through “leverage” of shared investments.
When I chartered work on our next IT Strategic Plan in response to President McRobbie’s direction, I called for this to be a human-centered plan to take IU to the next level in our effective use of IT for the university. Professor Frank Acito, faculty chair of the ITSP2 work, and I will preview for you the insights to-date for the ITSP2 and provide further opportunities for your direct input. We have much to do as we prepare to implement ITSP2 across all of IU.
Communication is essential within and between our IT units, hence we have invited Marty Clarke, a highly engaging and instructive speaker. Marty will address “Leadership Landmines” in a featured session after lunch. Marty deftly uses humor as he tutors on effective communication.
The roles and responsibilities of our Extended IT Team are varied, and we have added parallel sessions this year to provide relevant topics suited to the specific interests of attendees. The sessions planned should be highly informative across a range of IT endeavors at IU.
Finally, I encourage you to network-network-network! Meet your peers from other schools and administrative units or from across the many areas of UITS. Join us for the opening reception on Thursday evening and then have dinner with some attendees you’ve just met or haven’t seen in ages. Ask questions and engage in the sessions to make the most of this important IT conference for IU, and prepare as we collectively Accelerate the Journey for Indiana University.Sincerely, 
Bradley C. Wheeler, Ph.D.
Vice President for Information Technology, Chief Information Officer, and Professor
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