Recently Gartner held their annual Gartner Symposium where they discussed what they see as the onset of a “nexus of forces” descending onto businesses and forcing IT departments to change their perspective. PC Magazine has a great article here. These forces: cloud, mobile, social, and information are not new forces, but the impact of their peak and convergence in a focused way is new, and presents a real challenge for IT and businesses as a whole. While Gartner’s focus is often centered around the business world, it is easy to argue that education may be impact sooner given that their customer base is often comprised of a population that embraces new technology and trends.
St. Cloud State University like all other organizations will need to decide how to respond to this nexus of forces. Responding to the challenge will take more than just finding ways to modify our existing services. Instead, we’ll need to think outside of the box and develop new services. Below is a TED talk where Catherine Courage suggests using creativity, experiments, and storytelling.