I have been pondering what to do after my doctoral program for a while. I do have a number of outlets both at work and volunteering, but I have also been thinking through what to do with my research and continued study of leadership. I have finally come to some sort of idea … or at least an experiment.

Living Water Leadership is some part Substack publication, some part consulting business, and some part experiment around what can be done with slow, steady progress over time. At the moment I plan to write articles, post notes, offer consulting-like services, and see where it takes me. The introductory post, Introducing Living Water Leadership, provides a little bit of an intro to the entire endeavor, but there are not a lot of details to share at the moment.

The first series of articles will focus around some of the challenges facing higher education IT teams at this particular moment in time. Everyone in Higher Ed IT is not OK: Part 1 sets the stage for what I have been hearing over the past 12-18 months of speaking at various conferences and gatherings. Future articles will start to dive into how we might be able to meet these challenges in the future.

I do not plan on cross-posting items here unless there is a major announcement. I will also keep most of my leadership material over at that site. If you want to see those items, I’d recommend subscribing so that you do not miss anything.

This site will continue to be more of a hodgepodge of different topics over time of a personal nature.

Thanks!

I received my bound dissertation copies after we got back from a conference this week and … it does feel a little surreal to see the work printed and bound in a physical artifact. I am used to working in the digital realm that having something like this to hold in my hands is just a little bit different.

However, I do want to share a picture from right after the defense. I was not expecting my coworkers and family to be there to celebrate right after I had completed the degree and it was a really touching, if unexpected, gesture.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and I would imagine that what is shared in this article is probably a shared opinion by a good number. Here is the central idea:

But now that the iPad Pro is an M1 system, I don’t see why it can’t run macOS apps. 

Not wrong, from a technical point of view. However, Apple, please don’t put macOS on the iPad. Please keep working on the iPad as the unique device that it currently is. I like the iPad where it currently sits.

She mentions the Surface Pro line of devices, and I know many who like them, but the schizophrenic nature of the device causes me more grief than either the iPad or any macOS device. There is a lot of iteration that needs to be done before the final, complete fusion of touch and non-touch devices.

This is, however, just my opinion.

It is a nice visual reminder.

I am unreasonably happy about the future public release of Zotero for iOS. I have been using Zotero for years to manage my doctoral research as I continue through my PhD program, but finding a decent workflow for reading, annotating, and then cataloging has been very elusive.

However, Zotero for iOS may, MAY, just fix that issue for me … and not a moment too soon. As I stare my dissertation in the face, Zotero for iOS should allow me to have access to my entire Zotero library, reading PDFs within the application, annotate that PDF, add notes, etc. and then have those changes synced to my Zotero app on my various other devices. That’s a potentially game-changing addition to my workflow.

So I have been able to get on the Zotero for iOS Beta and I am working with it on my iPad Pro right now. If you are interested, I recommend signing up as well and seeing what the future may hold!

I just finished this book while walking on the treadmill this morning and I am torn. There are definitely parts that I find insightful, especially as an overall look at the struggles open source communities, founders, contributors, maintainer, etc. run into as it pertains to the continual creation and curation of code and other resources, but I find the emphasis on platforms as the savior of these communities somewhat concerning.

That may entirely be my own bias showing, but looking to technology and platforms to fix what are inevitable human and interaction issues seems shortsighted but also quite understandable today. Who doesn’t like the idea that technology will solve our issues!? However, as we continue to place more and more emphasis on platforms and technology, I fear that we begin to lose the human aspect of what we do. If platforms are our savior, they then are almost inevitably our masters.

So. Torn.

As I continue working toward my own PhD I have found the discussion around the worth of a PhD to be interesting, if not terribly exciting. However, this specific article I think is well-balanced and, in the end, brings it all together with the fact that every educational endeavor’s worthiness is ultimately up to the individual.

I have been spending more time working from home recently and so I have also been splitting my work across an increasing number of devices. On a given day, when I both work from home and on campus, I may use any combination of the following devices:

• Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1
• Lenovo ThinkPad T495
• Apple 12″ MacBook
• Apple 9.7″ iPad Pro
• Apple iPhone 11
• Apple Mac mini
• Apple 13″ Retina MacBook Pro
• Microsoft Surface Pro 7
• Intel NUC
• Kindle Paperwhite

That does not include accessories and other smart devices (Apple HomePod) or any devices my wife or kids use during a given day either. Needless to say, I have a goodly number of devices sitting around and I move between any number of them fairly consistently.

I also have started to feel the weight of having all of these devices around. It is almost too much. Some tasks can only be done on certain devices and if I don’t have it nearby, then I need to go find it. In some cases the platform differences mean I spend more time thinking about how I might accomplish a task instead of doing it.

Recently I have started testing a Thunderbolt 3 docking station from Plugable with my ThinkPad Carbon X1 and it has worked pretty well. The hope is that in the future I can eliminate entire swaths of devices and consolidate down to just a few. However, which platform do I ultimately end up using? I am truly torn at the moment.

So … how many? I think I’m past that limit but I am unsure of exactly where I am going to fall in the near future. What I do know is that at the current number I am spending more time thinking about doing work and not the needed time actually getting down to do it. At this point, where the tools are getting in the way, it is time to start making some difficult decisions.