Managing Mac Nerds! Or, how to be an effective leader of atypical employees!

Speakers: Andrew Kocur

Level: All Levels, Lecture

Excerpt: Who taught you to be a manager or an I.T. manager? Did you take a half-day H.R. training class with the rest of your organization? Managing I.T. folks is a skill unto itself, and managing Mac techs takes a special touch. Come be bored while our speaker reviews rudimentary management techniques then builds onto them with hard-learned tips and tricks picked up over 20 years in technology management.

Description: Leading and managing people is not easy. If you are lucky, you’ve had a bit of formal training or read a popular book you saw in an airport gift shop. Maybe you had a great boss during your career who was able to pass along some tidbits of wisdom? This presentation is a collection of basic management techniques mixed with marriage advice but customized for leading technical employees. Learn why running an I.T. shop is different from other business units.

A few of the topics include:

Are you a dictator or pushover?
One of my technicians just said something inappropriate.
Are you a manager or a mental health expert?
The customer is probably less than half right, but it doesn’t make them wrong.
Start firing your employees during the interview.
I just want to write code. Why so many forms?
Why don’t my Mac techs and PC techs get along?
What if I don’t want to be politically correct?
Just give me an admin account and then go away.

While the topics are serious and sometimes can be a H.R. minefield to navigate, this presentation promises to be entertaining and a lot of fun. Bring your questions about your problem employees!


About the speaker

Andrew Kocur – IT Manager – Florida State University

Drew Kocur’s career has touched on many aspects of technology, from directing at a broadcast television station, to selling Macs for Apple on weekends to distance learning and web steaming to his current role as an I.T. manager for Florida State University. Through it all he’s been lucky to have a Mac at every step, and even now is schmoozing the purchasing folks for an iMac Pro. Drew has an ability, though some call it a curse, to be able to say what everyone else is thinking but too scared to say themselves. You’ll find Drew pacing in the back of the sessions during MacAdmins since he doesn’t like to sit too long and his Apple Watch nags him at 10 ’til the top of the hour if he doesn’t.

During his limited free time he enjoys learning bass guitar, home brewing, flying his Phantom 3 quadcopter, sipping cask strength bourbon, stand-up comedy open mics and traveling to milder climates. Drew has owned 16 Macs, a Power Computing clone and eight iPhones, but still misses his Palm Pre at times.

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