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Technology

EDUCAUSE 2015!

Welcome to Indy, EDUCAUSE attendees!

Monday was my travel day to the EDUCAUSE conference, because I’m attending a couple pre-conference seminars on Tuesday.  After dropping off my two younger sons at their elementary and middle schools, I endured the typical bad traffic on the 405 and made my way South to LAX.  Many thanks to American Airlines for a very smooth and uneventful flight to Indianapolis!

Last Friday, I downloaded the Uber app so that I could try it on my My firstUber billride from the airport to my hotel (I know, I’m late to this party).   Small gripe about creating my account via the web site:  the prominent sign up button on the home page was for drivers, which I accidentally clicked first.  I know Uber needs drivers and that’s probably their #1 priority, but it took me longer than it should have to find the “rider” sign-up option.  Once I got over that hurdle, it was as easy as setting up any other online service.  Anyway, after grabbing my bag in Indy, I walked out to the ground transportation and submitted my request via Uber’s app, and I swear, not more than three minutes later, my ride was there!  My first Uber driver’s name was Joseph, and he picked me up in a black Cadillac (hey, made me feel snazzy).  His car was spotless, and he was extremely courteous.  Exactly the OPPOSITE of the typical cab experience.  As you can see from my receipt, it was less than 22 bucks!  Needless to say, I’ll use Uber again.

The Indianapolis conference center is BIG.  I’m confident it’ll easily hold the expected 7,000 attendees this year.  Today, I’m attending two pre-conference seminars:

  • Building an Emerging Technology and Futures Capacity in Your Organization
  • Cloud 101:  Tools and Strategies for Evaluating Cloud Services

So what am I here for?  If you’re a vendor, I’m glad you’re reading this 🙂  I have a few things I’m looking for:

  1. Campus OneCard solution.  In 2016, CSUN will finally embark on a OneCard project, and I’m gonna be in the thick of it.  At this point, I’m looking for what’s out there.  At a high level, CSUN has a Peoplesoft SIS, uses the Modo Labs Kurogo mobile product.  I’m very interested to know how your product integrates with these and other systems.
  2. Portal alternatives that play well with Peoplesoft and allow for robust media publishing
  3. Scholarship search systems
  4. Software for visitors to sign-in to a university office with an iPad kiosk, that notifies office staffers of visitor arrival.

As usual, I will cover the sessions I attend at this conference via live blogging.  This way, perhaps others will benefit from my experience.  At the end of the week, I’ll summarize my conference experience in the MEGA POST, with links to all my conference posts.  It’s great to be here…I look forward to meeting new folks and catching up with old friends.

By Paul Schantz

CSUN Director of Web & Technology Services, Student Affairs. husband, father, gamer, part time aviator, fitness enthusiast, Apple fan, and iguana wrangler.

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