Jim Gogan
Title: Interim Director of Communication Technologies at Information Technology Services
Professional: Has worked for UNC-Chapel Hill for 38 years, including 28 years with ITS and other University central computing operations that predated ITS
A few weeks into his new role as Interim Director of Communication Technologies at Information Technology Services, Jim Gogan sat down to talk with ITS News. Gogan, who oversees networking for ITS Communication Technologies, picked up responsibility also for the other half of the division – engineering and operations—on January 3 when Rick Harden left that post for another job.
In Part 1 of the profile, which posted on Tuesday, Gogan shared how he got into information technology, what his job entails and what he likes about working at ITS and Carolina. Here is Part 2:
What work initiatives are you most excited about in 2015?
I’m actually excited about the new challenges now that I’m virtual Rick in terms of VOIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) rollout across campus. The complexity of that project—all the different points and contacts and the aspects of the complexity of phone services that have to be moved to a totally different platform. It’s scary, but exciting.
Technology changes so quickly. How does your group stay ahead of the needs of the campus?
Talking to people and listening to them. And not only on campus, also having good resources to communicate with our equivalents at peer universities. We’ve got a number of contacts at other large universities. We try to sound them out about new things we’re seeing on the horizon or really unusual requests that we might get from faculty or staff here on campus to see if anyone else is seeing this.
What’s the least understood aspect of what your group does?
The emphasis on service and the importance of service delivery, making sure that people feel that their needs are being met, that their problems are being resolved in a good way. So many of the folks in Communication Technologies feel that way and feel the importance of that as much as the technology. I will hear from folks in my group if they think somebody else in our group wasn’t as nice as they could have been.
I think Communication Technologies is phenomenal in terms of service delivery. Every single person in that group thinks about how they can help people do their job.
I try to get recognition for them wherever possible.
Why is there a lack of recognition?
I’ve tried to make sure that networking is a utility, so that you don’t really think about it being there. It’s like power and water and lights. When they’re not there, you notice. When they’re there, it’s taken for granted.