Posted by Lisa Trubitt on February 6, 2010

Bad News Messages

Friday, August 14, 2009

Chat Notes

At the close of the Virtual Coffee Shop, we had all the chat notes emailed to Educause for archiving. The archive now exists in the IT Communicators wiki. Bad News Messages presentation (see PPT under Presentations page in this wiki)

• • Carlyn:Billy and I are setting up the pods, write on the white board.

  • Carlyn:FYI: I've put my cell phone on silent and forwarded my office phone so there won't be any external interruptions. Carlyn:some helpful links - Status of IT Systems: https://my.rice.edu/ITAppStatus/

  • Carlyn:IT Metrics (shows future work plans): https://my.rice.edu/ITMetrics/

  • Carlyn:Extended Outage Blog: http://itout.blogs.rice.edu/

  • Carlyn:RSS feed for all IT-Alerts: https://docs.rice.edu/confluence/createrssfeed.action?types=page&types=blogpost&types=mail&types=comment&types=attachment&sort=modified&showContent=true&showDiff=true&spaces=ITPUB&spaces=PUBLIC&labelString=IT+Alerts&rssType=atom&maxResults=30&timeSpan=90&publicFeed=true&title=Confluence+RSS+Feed Carlyn:wow, that was ugly! see the red outlined box for IT-Alerts on our [new] IT home page: http://it.rice.edu/ or our old one: http://www.rice.edu/it/ since we haven't announced the new one yet, still checking all redirects working

  • Carlyn:Hi first guest. log off and relog on using your name, please!

  • Carlyn:you can change the lobby music on your own computer. Use the double left and right arrows by the play/pause button Carlyn:Test the tools in the lobby area while you wait. You all have presenter priv's at this time. We'll take those away when I start the slideshow. Carlyn:nice! I like blue. :-)

  • Carlyn:what is that? UT burnt orange?

  • Carlyn:Good morning Larry! 6AM never looked better.

  • Larry Wiss, Univ of Hawaii, ITS:Aloha

  • Carlyn:To chat, just type in your note and hit return or the return icon. I can clear out chat notes before we begin then email the real notes out to the group.

  • Carl Flynn:I was looking for some sort of Brown. Was going for a "welcome mat" just as a form of play.

  • Carlyn:Hi guest, can you log out and log back in with your name? thanks!

  • Billy Norwood - EDUCAUSE:Feel free to ask me any questions about the tool as well

  • Carlyn:Good morning, Barbara!

  • Barbara:good morning

  • Larry Wiss, Univ of Hawaii, ITS:Is there a way to mute music, hard to hear dialogue

  • Carlyn:excellent!

  • Barbara:forgot to enter my school - Pittsburg State University (in Kansas) Billy Norwood - EDUCAUSE:i added it for you barbara

  • Carlyn:Anyone new, go ahead and play with the white board or other tools while we're waiting. You can add another pool. Look in the top tool bar.

  • Alison:I am from the University of North Florida - could you add it for me too,?

  • Carlyn:fix me, too, Billy!

  • Rice guest:I'm here now

  • Billy Norwood - EDUCAUSE:any other takers?

  • guest:Oops - Melanie from UTEP

  • LisaStephens@UBuffalo:Hi Everyone - it's a beautiful day in Buffalo!

  • Carl Flynn:Yes, my school is not indicated either: Baylor University

  • Carlyn - Rice University:Guest, can ou log out and log back in with your name?

  • guest:okay

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:And...it is still hot in Central Texas!

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Zoom!

  • Carlyn - Rice University:Since everyone has presenter priviledges you can pretty much destroy everything in here. I'm about to turn you back into zombies. :-)

  • David - Macalester:Must stop evil music...please help...

  • Carlyn - Rice University:gone!

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Just imagine you are in an elevator? Or a department store?

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor::)

  • David - Macalester:Thank you kindly!

  • guest:How do you log out? It just opened without a login the 2nd time

  • Billy Norwood - EDUCAUSE:guest - give you me your name and school i can edit your profile

  • Larry Wiss, Univ of Hawaii, ITS:Am I the only one not receiving audio?

  • LisaStephens@UBuffalo:I'm getting audio, but it's low

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Nope I get audio.

  • Rurik - Colby:My audio if fine

  • guest:Melanie Thomas - UTEP

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Sounds great.

  • Sherri @ Lehigh:I'm hearing fine

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:I'm on a Mac :)

  • Carlyn - Rice University:checking audio: anyone else not hearing me?

  • Lisa - UAlbany:Hear it in Albany ... on a PC!

  • Larry Wiss, Univ of Hawaii, ITS:So am I but she just faded away :-(

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:tradewinds?

  • Duane - Central Michigan:I think most of us are hearing you

  • Ben Woelk--Rochester Institute of Technology:just lost audio guest:lost the sound

  • Nick - OU:lost your audio

  • Sherri @ Lehigh:Audio left me now...

  • LisaStephens@UBuffalo:me too

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:I've used Adobe interface before with Educause presentations and audio has been a problem.

  • Sylvia - UWF:audio lost

  • Rurik - Colby:whoops I lost audio

  • Lisa - UAlbany:Ditto

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:And we just lost you.

  • Barbara - Pittsburg State U - Kansas:ok

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Ah, you're back.

  • LisaStephens@UBuffalo:yup

  • Lisa - UAlbany:ok

  • Alison - U of North Florida:hear you now

  • Sylvia - UWF:ok Rurik - Colby:OK now

  • Sherri @ Lehigh:internet gremlins

  • David - Macalester:Carlyn, just stay close to your microphone, please. Cuts down on echo.

  • Larry Wiss, Univ of Hawaii, ITS:Still silent on my Mac here in paradise

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:drop.

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:back.

  • Nick - OU:same...i see the volume icon by your name but no sound

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Sunday morning makes sense.

  • Alison - U of North Florida:lost sound

  • Alison - U of North Florida:back

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Do you have a call in status phone line?

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:At Baylor we have a DOWN line that serves as one of our lines of communication.

  • Rurik - Colby:At Colby we put a message on our Support Center and after hours have go automatically to message.

  • Rurik - Colby:At Colby we put a message on our Support Center PHONE and after hours have go automatically to message.

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Mobiles! I'd love that at Baylor

  • guest:Are the cell phones in your IT groups theirs or yours

  • Carlyn - Rice University:going to audio

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Exclusively phone?

  • Billy Norwood - EDUCAUSE:yes, please call the phone line

  • Heather:sorry can't hear anything

  • guest:we post on our IT home page, but also on portal home page - which actually works better

  • guest:can you do both becuase we can't hear you now

  • Carlyn - Rice University:everyone go to the phone line

  • Sylvia - UWF:no audio

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:I'm on the phone now.

  • Billy Norwood - EDUCAUSE:Sylvia, please call in the phone number listed on the left

  • Carlyn - Rice University:dial 8779442300 coed 99234#

  • Larry Wiss, Univ of Hawaii, ITS:Hawaii is on phone, mahalo

  • Rurik - Colby:We defined an outage procedure that defines emergency levels and how to respond to each.

  • Alison - U of North Florida:people may need to mute unless they are talking

  • Carlyn - Rice University:worst message you've had to send this summer?

  • Sherri @ Lehigh:If there's no power it's a sign you need to just go to the beach for the day...

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Well played, Sherri, well played.

  • David - Macalester:Arguably, we in higher ed ALL have children - whether we're parents or not.

  • Alison - U of North Florida:we took out phones in housing also

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Baylor also, I believe, pulled all phones out of rooms several years ago.

  • Carlyn - Rice University:How are institutions going to track individual cell numbers?

  • David - Macalester:We still provide telephones in dorms, but the rates of students using their voicemail boxes has plummeted below 20%.

  • Carlyn - Rice University:Ditto on the phone in dorms at Rice

  • Carlyn - Rice University:And we even offer free phones and domestic long distance on the dorm phones

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Will it be the cell phone, or something more like an iPhone. If that is the future and the Internet is completely pervasive and portable, what possibilities does that open for the future. Is there a "that which does not exist yet" service that could leverage the technology? That may be beyond the realm of this conversation

  • Ben Woelk--Rochester Institute of Technology:Would whoever is typing please mute their phone? Thanks!

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:As I'm thinking more...I'm liking the mobile portal idea more and more...Baylor doesn't even have a portal. Very distributed communication infrastructure

  • Carlyn - Rice University:How we solved the campus spam problem to alldept and pres-fac mailing lists: moved all lost keys, found kitten, and general messages to the portal channel. Now the two major moderated lists have to have important campus-wide messages including event announcements, campus road closures, IT outages

  • Rurik - Colby:Uness it is an ermergency, we cannot use the broadcast email/phone/text options. We share planned outages on our college bulletin board email system. We also have a webpage that lists any outages - planned or otherwise that users can go to.

  • Rurik - Colby:We resubscribe all users to the General Announcements and Bulletin Board email lists at the beginning of the school year but they unsubscribe if they want.

  • LisaStephens@UBuffalo:Are any of you developing private IT staff communications as part of emergency or pandemic planning?

  • Alison - U of North Florida:Our Marketing & Publications dept handles crisis-oriented communications

  • David - Macalester:I agree that you absolutely must have backing from the top of the school's administration. You are more likely to get it if you can help those administrators understand what's at stake and what the effects might be of NOT communicating. Then, if/when you get the green light, build trust by using it responsibly. (Easily said, I know.)

  • Carlyn - Rice University:yes, we have a book I put together for the ride-out team and directors: IT Crisis Communications. I'd be glad to share templates, sample messages, outline, etc.

  • LisaStephens@UBuffalo:That would be incredibly helpful, thank you Carlyn!

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:We at Baylor also have an IT crisis manual/procedure with private contacts across our IT infrastructure. We review and improve this each year.

  • David - Macalester:Regularly-scheduled maintenance periods seemed pretty old-school to us, but increasingly we're thinking they might be the best way to go. We communicate these directly to major stakeholders (President, managers of Admissions and Advancement servers, etc.), then with all of campus; we pick a "good time" (usually evenings or after business hours), and we try to pack as much maintenance into those periods as we can.

  • Alison - U of North Florida:UNF uses 5 am to 9 am every Sunday

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Baylor really doesn't have a Window, although Sunday morning is usually a safe bet.

  • Carolyn - UTSA:Almost all of our maintenace occurs on the weekend or after hours. Every Thursday we send out ONE message that combines all of the notices for outages for the coming weekend.

  • Carlyn - Rice University:Where do you go to get communications (cable service out, garbage not being picked up by the city anymore?)

  • Carolyn - UTSA:Text messages

  • Alison - U of North Florida:me too, text messages

  • Carlyn - Rice University:Oh! good point and Rice is already doing the incoming student survey. We have an IT Expectations Survey that is on both the grad and UT portals and has a deadline of right before school starts. It has questions like "what are you bringing to Rice (laptop, iPhone, game console, etc.), and how do you want your instructors to communicate with you?"

  • Carlyn - Rice University:I am going to Denver for Educause in November

  • Cathy McVey - Miami, Ohio:I will be going to Denver in November, too.

  • Carl Flynn - Baylor:Have to "tap out" but great conversation. Can we send around the chat text?

  • Rurik - Colby:It is doubtful that I will be going to Denver.

  • Billy Norwood - EDUCAUSE:Yes Carl, I am saving it and pushing it to Carlyn

  • Alison - U of North Florida:and the audio if it was recorded?

  • Ben Woelk--Rochester Institute of Technology:I am planning on being there and will probably copresenting a session on Tuesday. It would be good if the constituent group meeting doesn't conflict with the Security group.

  • Sylvia - UWF:thank you

  • Heather:Thank you from Canada

  • Ben Woelk--Rochester Institute of Technology:Thanks for doing this

  • Rurik - Colby:Thanks for a great session - from Waterville, Maine!

  • Alison - U of North Florida:Thanks from Florida

  • Lida Larsen:great meeting! thanks