Don’t Cry Because It’s Over, Smile Because It Happened

So says Dr Seuss, who happens to share a name with my son.

Today is officially my last day at JISC. As I’m not going too far I won’t get too whimsical on you, but as I’ve clocked up nearly 10 years on JISC projects and in the JISC Exec so far, it is time to reflect a bit.

I first heard of JISC when I applied to be a researcher on the JISC ‘Angel’ project, in a post based at Southbank and then at LSE. I was supposed to be drawing on my experience as a remedial support tutor to supported the ‘Learning Environment’ bit of Angel – however some bright spark decided that the environment needed authenticating. Some other bright spark mentioned Shibboleth. The rest as they say, is history.

I’ve had lots of highs and lows, but I shall try to focus on some of the highs for now as it seems more appropriate:

• Launching a service based on a standard that a lot of nay sayers said would never happen was kind of a nice achievement. Even better, it is used by nearly every HE institution in the country and over 80% of FE.
• Getting to see the epic dance moves of many of my colleagues and peers over the years has been a constant source of pleasure. The stylings of Stuart Dempster and Peter Burnhill have to be highlight, and I will never forget crashing another conference’s ceilidh with several 07/99 people back in 2003.
• I’ve heard some great people talking. Too many to mention but Lawrence Lessig was the absolute highlight closely followed by the Improbable Research people.
• My work seems to have taken me too near far too many animals for an IT job, from Koalas in Sydney to swimming with dolphins in San Diego and holding a baby crocodile in New Orleans.
• I’ve been involved in over 100 JISC projects as a programme manager and a service manager – everything from GRID projects and setting up OSS Watch through to many access management projects and the important planning of JISC Christmas parties
• I’ve worked with amazing people. Again too many to mention but it would be unfair not to highlight Hetesh, Caren, Liam, Tish, Stuart D and Helen Hockx as my earliest sparring partners in JISC. I’m going to continue looking forward to working with very clever individuals like Rhys, David H, Ian Young, Rod, Chad, Ken, Licia, Klaas….again far too many lovely people.

More information about my new role will be properly announced when I get back from holidays at the beginning of September, but I will be doing a little work for REFEDs, a little work for the Shib Consortium, a little work for JISC, running FAM10 and keeping up this blog for my two readers

So thank you JISC, its been an adventure. Its been fun, challenging, immensely frustrating, hysterical, tiring and at times dangerous! I can definitely smile.