IAICU Technology Conference

Last Thursday and Friday I attended the IAICU Technology Conference hosted by Morningside College. IAICU (Iowa Association of Independent Colleges & Universities) is the consortium through which we obtain many benefits such as special pricing on SPSS and our Microsoft Campus Agreement.

The theme of the conference was “Collaborate and Share Information” and there was plenty of both throughout the two days. I attended the Educ Tech / Help Desk / Support discussion group which met both days and discussed topics of interest to the participants including: support for remote users (Simple Help was demoed), learning management systems, operating systems, equipment check-out policies, imaging workflows, lecture capture, print tracking, email systems (aka Norse Apps for us), service points, and document imaging, to name a few. It was very interesting to learn how others are addressing the same issues we are facing and to brainstorm future directions together.

Presentations I attended were Our Bird Pandemic was a Flood, Windows 7, Virtualization Choices for the Desktop, Microsoft Campus License Agreement, Adobe CLP Program, and the Best of
the Best.

Vendors at the conference included Microsoft, Dell Computers, Computerland of Silicon Valley, VM Ware, Apple Computers, Midwest Office Automations, Versatile Systems, School Dude, Sioux City Wintronic, NelNet Business Systems, and X-Wires Broadband. It was fun to see and touch base with many of the representatives with whom we’ve had direct contact including: Jeff Koh, Rich Seymore, and Jeff Olander from Microsoft; Dan Gould from School Dude; Andy Laake from Dell; and Tom Chytka from Apple.

Chances are good those of you involved in one or more of the above topics will be getting more information from me in the near future. The conference was very engaging and it was particularly rewarding to be able to put faces to the IAICU names I’ve been emailing and voices I’ve been in conversation with over the past years. I look forward to next year’s conference!