Technology community building while 19 years old; transparency with non-IT stakeholders, and learning what motivates me.
After working in a school district where my office was based out of the elementary school helping kids obtain easier and reliable access to technology, I learned what was a great motivator for me in a position. Helping connect people; to information and comprehending signal vs noise.
While I was at my first district ('16-'19) I spearheaded several projects around software cost optimization, zero touch 1:1 deployment, securing and automating open source solutions. Those are among several inquisitive projects where my director extended a very long runway to operate within.
My favorite accomplishment there was tying student badges to our identity provider so K-3 students went from typing in 30+character email addresses and passwords over 12 minutes in a 45 minute period, to a 3 second scan which would pull a roaming profile to the local machine from the cloud. Rural CT was in cloud before cloud was hot, too! 2016?
The teachers and I had a great working relationship where I solicited feedback early and often, and iterated my IT processes until things were streamlined for everyone. I wanted IT to be invisible to the end user, where most things happened before they needed it.
Both the staff and myself (having just ran for Board of Ed at 18) knew where innovation was possible and where we were limited, which was productive to developing a feedback superhighway. I actively worked to provide value and ease in their workflow, communicate that, and they valued and trusted that process.
I held what felt like a contrarian thought from most technologists in Ed Tech. Why should a teacher be using a Smartboard and laptop over a book and chalkboard if it's not enhancing their ability to teach or process more data.
Why are we putting a Chromebook or iPad in every students hand if we're only adding an abstraction layer of logins, cookie notices, poorly developed rushed out digital curriculum on improperly accessible websites, standardized forms, and an ungodly amount of online advertisements between the students and direct knowledge?
That blew my mind when I saw the compounded wasted time not only in my district but by many districts' students nationwide heading down a tech-centric route. Many districts and smaller colleges are still dealing with this problem.
In comes Ansible. My mentor and I had just grabbed lunch a week before I started this job and I learned about Red Hat's acquisition of Ansible. I kicked the tires for a few months and then one day got to work. I cranked out several hundred playbooks doing things like Active Directory health management, server patching, (later) switch configurations, and then lastly automation on the tail end of our ticketing platform.
This new found tool and my pet peeve of wasted time on this level set me out to automate everything. For better or worst at times. Some things shouldn't be automated for the sake of automating.
Not all things were perfect in this system, mind you, however, most of these projects were successful due to:
- trust and open mindedness from my supervisor
- trust from my end users (teachers & admins)
- transparency of project expectations and outcomes both good and bad to stakeholders
We had hard, honest conversations sometimes that often lead to innovative low-cost high-value open source solutions. I had intentionally built a community filled with trust and transparency around these projects. I knew that I'd be facing an already uphill battle coming in as a 19 year old "subject matter expert" in title.
That didn't stop me in fourth grade though, so I knew it wouldn't stop me now. These staff members have ended up becoming some of my biggest supporters, and lifelong friends.
I coined the phrase while I was running for First Selectman (Mayor, for those of you not from New England) and say it often still, but I think we forget everyone we meet knows something we don't. We only stand only to gain by transparently communicating.