Proper Care and Feeding of your IT Professional

The IT professional is a profound and complex beast. If you’ve worked with one, you surely have tales of triumph and despair that would make a grown man cry. If you ARE one, you’ve surely experienced the heartache and frustration of being misunderstood and underappreciated. So, how do we get to a place of mutual appreciation and respect without turning the office into a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross?

In this session we’ll explore ways to develop yourself and your team through motivational understanding, attention to physical space, reward-based project management, innovative professional development, and much more. While admittedly, if won’t teach you the most effective way to field strip a Mac Mini with nothing but a toothpick and some belly button lint, it may just give you the tools you need to thrive in your team environment.

 Key Concepts:

  • Identifying self/team motivation in the workplace (what makes you – and your teammates tick)
  • Project management techniques (the gamification of project management)
  • Effective use of workspace (it’s a space for work, not a space to forfeit your soul)
  • Meeting planning (you must have them, but they don’t have to suck)
  • Out of the box team/professional development (IT professional, heal thyself)
  • Team building for fun and profit (not all development should be professional)

Foundational Lecture – 75 Minutes

 Jim Rispin, Fuller Theological Seminary

Jim RispinI have been a technology professional since the tender age of 24, and I have been steeped in technology from the womb. Both of my parents were computer engineers at NCR and technology always surrounded us. I’ve been an Apple Sales Rep, a webmaster, a tech support grunt, a network admin, and even the lead singer of an all a cappella Twisted Sister cover band made up of tone deaf system administrators (it was a one time thing). My current role as Asst Director of ITS and Senior Sys Admin at Fuller Seminary affords me the unique balance of fighting from the IT trenches while still exercising out of the box management philosophies to improve the efficiency, effectiveness, and overall excitement of my team.

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