Building an IT community at Louisiana State University

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In 2004/2005, Information Technology Services, LSU's central IT department had, at best, a tenuous relationship with the 150+ department IT professional staff on campus. Meager attempts had been made to notify campus IT staff of outages and policy changes, but no major headway had been made in devoting focused energy on building rapport and a focused customer relationship with these staff. Since 2005, through a consistent and persistent effort of the User Services department, we focused on a variety of services to reach our department IT professionals and thus, to change the culture of communications. As John Folse, Louisiana's famous chef would say, It is important to realize that cultures and cuisines must constantly evolve. This evolution process is brought about when new ingredients and ideas are introduced into a region. Here in South Louisiana, the evolution process may be witnessed at every turn. (Folse, 2009) Some would liken our collaboration and partnership strategies to John Folse's famous Cajun gumbo, a muddy soup consisting of several tasty ingredients. The recipe is posted in Section 2.10. Herein is our recipe to benefit the IT professional culture at LSU: LISTSERVs and discussion forumsEvents such as semester IT Forums, Tech Talks, Munch and Shares, NETCONsCreation of advisory groups and campus subcommitteesDepartment ConsultationsA secure, online portal for our IT professionals to share strategies, get current communications, get FAQs and tips, share policies, best practices, training resources, and profiles of campus IT professional staff.Social networking sitesBetter communications with the Help Desk and a new problem tracking systemNewly designed web site with Service alerts and outages and RSS feedsOther vehicles for improving customer relations (Open House, Summer Training series, Orientation video)The Information Technology Services User Services department has a more focused strategy now in which collaboration with the university's departmental IT staff, called LSU Technology Support Professionals, is key!