Rick, great article and lots to think about from both a public and private sector perspective. One of my target areas for my next CIO position is higher education. Several years back I was a finalist for the CIO position at Iowa State University and I’ve applied recently for the CIO position at the University of Wisconsin. I’ve held CIO and CFO positions in the private sector and public (Federal & State) so I share your appreciation for the cultural differences and the impact of lacking the profit motive.

Here is a thought, what does your university or college think about the growth of Phoenix University. Probably not liked, but a key issue for higher education is the budget crunch being experience by state and private schools alike. What if a university, focusing on its truly differentiating capability, for Iowa State I felt it was Agriculture, developed a first rate distance learning capability and marketed it. I think Iowa State had around 2,000 Ag students and they could have had 10’s if not 100’s of thousands of virtual students from around the world. I think the result would meet the goals of a land grant college and generate millions of additional revenues for the school.

Love to chat about this some more if you want. Bill

Rich has some good points. Do do have some minor quibbles.

Some universities are tuition driven and are often highly responsive to fluctuations in enrollments and competitive positions. In many ways, these universities are as focused on the market in the short run as many businesses, leading to short-term project priorities and pressures.

Our focus is also not on growth or pure profitability, but in the quality of our product (the student). The success our students have in the market and how well we are getting them through the system is a motivator for short-term initiatives.

We do not have a ruthless quarterly focus which does give us some leeway in terms of schedules and projects. Since I come from a corporate background, at times I do miss the quarterly focus. It can sometimes bring much needed clarity.

 A certain percentage of our customers (students) love to hack into us. And since we have more open security schemes as Rich points out, we tend to have to go much further in novel security approaches than corporations.

I think the biggest difference is in our customer base and the range of services we have to offer. We have students that eat, sleep, socialize, attend sporting events and go to school, so we have a lot of services that need to be provisioned quickly and work properly. In this regard, we're more like a destination resort or a Disney Theme park.

I concur with Rich that we are "bottom-up" not "top-down" entities. Projects are rarely motivated by top-down pressure, but bottom-up pressure. Normal hierarchical instincts don't always work.

I will point out that we do have one thing in common with corporations. We have fiefdoms as strong as any I've seen in large corporations. This does create interesting politics from time to time.

Henry Kissinger is thought to have put it aptly:

"University politics are so brutal, because the stakes are so low."

Vince Kellen

Vice President (CIO), DePaul University