The Relational Technologist Mindset

Where I live, I rarely take the highway. Two lanes going each direction can develop a two-mile backup in the time it takes to finish a cup of coffee, all because someone’s radiator decided this was the morning. I’ll gladly tack on an extra five minutes on the side streets every time. I know five different ways to reach my parking lot, and I’ve driven all of them depending on my mood, the season, and whether I need to make a stop. ...

Sometime in the early days of my career, I was having beverages with tech colleagues. With an ego approaching obnoxious at the height of my early-30s lack of filter in public, I blared the following declaration to the table: When I stage a coup and take over my university, one of my first acts as Imperial Wazoo is to ban ‘urgent’ from all communications. The table laughed. I didn’t smile, I meant every word. ...

None of them know my name. Not one of them has ever sat across from me, shaken my hand, or offered me advice over coffee. Four out of five I have not met in person, though I got the chance to speak with one on the phone over a decade ago. One of them spoke to a room full of high school boys in 1990 and has almost certainly never thought about it since. And yet between the five of them, they are more responsible for who I am professionally than any manager, colleague, or formal mentor I’ve ever had. ...

Early in my career I discovered something that felt radical at the time: saying “I don’t know” out loud to a client. It didn’t get me fired, and it didn’t even end the conversation. What it did was buy me something more valuable than a quick answer I wasn’t sure about. It bought me trust. Genuine transparency was the foundation. What I’ve built on top of it over thirty years is something a little different. ...

In December 2019, my wife asked for one thing for Christmas. She wanted me to read Jan Karon’s “At Home in Mitford” to her. One chapter a night, starting December 1, in the evening after everything was done for the day, as we approached bedtime. Karon’s book is a heartwarming story about an Episcopal priest in a small mountain town in North Carolina, surrounded by lovable quirky characters. My wife’s co-worker had recommended it. ...

In April 2024, the United States Department of Justice issued a mandate. Online content for public-facing websites, including course content inside learning management systems like Canvas, had to be made accessible for all learners. Every faculty member at my institution needed to know this was coming, what it meant for their courses, and what they were expected to do about it. Simple enough problem. Except the communication channels available to me were all broken. ...

There’s a scene in the movie Idiocracy that I’m reflecting on, and quoting, more and more. The president of the United States and his cabinet are meeting with the smartest person alive, a time traveler from 2005, to discuss why the nation’s crops are dying. The answer is simple: they’ve been irrigating with Brawndo, a sports drink like Gatorade, instead of water. When the smartest person in the room asks why they don’t just use water, the cabinet can only stare back and say, “But Brawndo has electrolytes. It’s got what plants crave.” ...

In 1998, I was in my second year as a professional technologist, I was 25 years old, high-energy, and carrying considerably more hubris than caution. A faculty member needed help with accessing their email. Back then, this was Microsoft Mail, a now-archaic desktop application that brought down emails from the university’s email server to the employee’s local computer. In those days the only cloud in the late ‘90s was a fluffy one in the sky that looked like a ducky or a horsie. ...

The rule of three is a writing technique in storytelling, speeches, and advertising. Evidently groups of three are effective for people to memorize, and it has a certain rhythmic flow to it. I developed my own rule of three in my tech work. One is an anomaly. Two is a curiosity. Three is a trend. The first time something unusual arrives in my inbox, I raise an eyebrow and internally say, “hmmmm…” The second time a similar report comes in, my internal radar activates. The third time, I come out guns blazing. Tech support with pew-pew-pew sound effects. ...

Back when I was a little shaver in fourth grade, I got pushed around and beat up by a few boys in my class, and I didn’t fight back. It’s a long story as to the why, but to this day I still chalk that up to being a failure. I’ve replayed so many times the image has gone soft, but I still remember the names — Sean, Matt, and Damian. The colors of their t-shirts are faded, their young faces blurred, and the emotional impact has worn thin from decades of life. I couldn’t tell you anymore whether the details are accurate or whether I’ve edited them so many times in my mind’s editing bay that what remains is more mythology than memory. ...