Cole W. Camplese

Where I am Spending my Time

It dawned on me just now that I haven't posted a thing here since moving to Long Island to Stony Brook University. I have been posting, but just not here in my personal space. Not much to say today other than if you are interested in some of the things happening in my life, you can catch up with them at my Stony Brook University blog on our emerging publishing platform, SB You. I should also mention that the transition is finally starting to feel like it is real -- like we live here as a family. Work is both amazing and challenging ... to the point where I am excited on a daily basis to be doing what I am doing. At the end of the day, all is good. I would invite you to follow along if interested and reach out to say hi.

15 Years & Moving On

I haven't written one of these since I left the IST Solutions Institute to become the director of Education Technology Services back in 2005. I think since I am wrapping up my last day at Penn State after 15 years I thought I should at least reflect on that to a degree and thank the people who have changed my life for the better. I've had quite a few jobs here at Penn State over the years, growing from an instructional designer with the World Campus in 1998 to my current role of senior director for Teaching and Learning with Technology. Each stop along the way has been a blessing ... not without challenges, but this has been truly a magical experience. Before I head off to Stony Brook University, it might be good to share a couple of thoughts on this whole journey.

We arrived childless in 1998 from Philadelphia after the sale and closure of a small training software company. I came for a job as an ID with the just launched World Campus and Kristin came to do her PhD. We were committed to staying just long enough for her to finish and then we were out of here. Obviously it didn't go that way and we are thrilled with the time that we have spent here.

After 18 months in the World Campus I needed something different and got a lucky break to join another start up, but this time in higher education, with the launch of the School of Information Sciences and Technology. I spent six years working with amazing people building teams, technologies, processes, and friendships. It was an amazing time in our lives -- we had our first child, we were enjoying success professionally, our friends were all around us, and my eyes were being opened to a whole new world of potential with the Internet. I discovered blogging, the social web, and relationships with companies like Apple. We were building and exploring as a team ... and learning so much along the way. Then some people left, including my dear friends and colleagues Eric Zeisloft and Keith Bailey ... and then my wife, Kristin, decided to leave PSU as well. There was still a killer team, but it left me wanting to explore more.

I again got lucky ... as I was ready, the director of Education Technology Services was open and I went after that position. I wanted to really test the things I was successful with at the College level in the context of a central organization. I wanted to see if we could replicate that level of innovation in a central IT services organization. I will be honest, it was a real struggle for me at first -- I had to build new relationships and help those around me see that we could transform the University and ourselves. It took time, but the work done at ETS has proven to be some of the best I have ever done. We built an absolutely amazing team ... one that I am proud of beyond belief to this day. We went from barely attending national conferences to dominating the agendas. From impacting a few students to supporting thousands. From offering services that were stable to ones that inspired. Truly a great ride.

In 2010 I was asked to step into the senior director role that I currently occupy. That jump was something that challenged me in new ways and pushed me into new leadership territory. At the same time I was asked to be faculty in the Educause learning technologies leadership institute ... another thing that pushed me in crazy ways. I amped up my teaching as well, taking the Disruptive Technologies grad class to new places with my friend and colleague, Scott McDonald. I have worked so hard with the people around me to get TLT into great shape and I am so proud of the collective work we've done. While my role has changed, I still believe so deeply in education and the power we have in our hands to make positive impacts on our institutions. That is something I will take with me as I head east to Stony Brook University.

It has been an amazing ride and I wouldn't change much of it. From the time I got here I wanted to be part of the bigger picture -- I wanted to build a community of people who were interested in doing great work. I know I have bothered some people along the way, but I've come to accept that as the reality we all face when we push. I will never forget my time here and I will lean on all that I have learned the last 15 years. It is an interesting thing feeling so much passion for a place that you aren't really from, but State College has been so good to us. We've been met amazing friends, have had the pleasure of seeing our two children born here and enjoy the surroundings, and we are so blessed to be leaving here with a sense of accomplishment and deep gratitude. I will miss State College, the people who have touched our world, and Penn State for the rest of my life. I depart with nothing but a deep caring for all that is Penn State and what it has given to me. I would need all the space on the Internet to thank everyone who has impacted my life here ... suffice to say I have nothing but gratitude for all of you.

WC Instructional Designer --> Manager of Instructional Design and Emerging Technologies --> Director of Education Technology Solutions --> Co-Director of IST Solutions Institute --> Director of IST Solutions Institute --> Director of Education Technology Services --> Senior Director of Teaching and Learning with Technology

Rapgenius for Textual Analysis?

I've not paid much attention to rapgenius outside of the noted investment of Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, but when I saw that they used the service to dissect and drive meaning from Andrew Mason's letter about his recent firing as Groupon CEO my attention was perked. All of a sudden it occurs to me that this type of service could be used for a whole lot more than lyrics. For those new to the site, this is what they are aiming to do:

You can listen to songs, read their lyrics, and click the lines that interest you for pop-up explanations – we have thousands of canonical rap songs explained (2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z – even the beginning of the Torah..) Our aim is not to translate rap into “nerdspeak”, but rather to critique rap as poetry.

Sort of a crowd sourced way to build understanding around the reification of thought (be it lyrics, a resignation letter, an essay, or other type of text) through word by word analysis. Imagine the power in any number of courses -- from english to poly science -- to get students to think more deeply about text. I can even see a group of friends using it to drive deeper and shared meaning from something like a political speech (or if that isn't your thing, Oscar acceptance speeches). Just an interesting thought on applying crowd-sourced critique in new spaces.

Changing Apps

Over the last several weeks I've been noticing how great some apps have gotten in the mobile space. I am especially amazed at the number of apps being released by small app developers that are so much better than Apple's own apps. In recent weeks I have moved from Safari to Chrome, from Mail to Mailbox, and most recently from iCal to Tempo. It is astonishing how much better these apps are at mobile tasks.

And in that is the thought that keeps running through my head -- people are designing for mobile to unlock the true affordances of the devices we keep in our pockets. What makes these apps better for me is that they support rapid, integrated, and organized workflow. Mailbox allows me to manage a ton of email very quickly by using gestures to move mail quickly out of my inbox, react appropriately, and stay very organized. Tempo actually seems to make my calendar smart by bringing salient and contextual information to each appointment I need to get to in a given day. These integration and workflow ideas matter in a mobile app so much more than on a laptop. I'm glad that we appear to be reaching the next step in understanding that delivering experiences for mobile are different. I'm simply surprised Apple isn't the one making that leap -- it almost seems the apps shipping with iOS from Apple are light versions of what mobile apps should be just to help people get from the desktop to mobile more easily.

Making TV ... Never Mind

I saw a screenshot one day in flickr taken by Andy Rush from University of Mary Washington of StationCreator and I honestly thought they were building some #ds106 platform. I left a comment about wanting to learn more and moved on ... I guess thinking that Andy would see my comment and tell me all about what was being built. But nothing happened. Then yesterday I was looking through flickr activity (what else is there to do when you have the flu) and I saw the screenshot again. This time I looked at the URL and it was just some service. I just checked it out ... nothing earth shattering I don't think, but interesting nonetheless. Essentially it lets you take content from around the web and build playlists of videos into channels that can be made available on a schedule. I guess sort of what TV was like back in the day -- you had to show up to watch it. That in and of itself is both silly and nostalgic. I instantly started to dream of running my own station, but quickly realized that the Internet has killed that. But it was fun to dream about yesterday fondly for a few brief seconds.

So, that's what it looks like. Sorry to waste your time. Blame the Internet.

In Memory, John William McKenzie Brady

John William McKenzie (Mack) Brady[/caption]

Please read more to know how to help remember Mack.

On Having Fun

Let me start by saying that work has not been all that much fun lately. And that is a terrible thing for someone to post on the Internet for the whole planet to see ... I say that fully knowing that no more than say 100 people will actually take the time to read at this, so I'm probably safe. That's perfectly fine with me for the simple fact that at some point this week I decided I needed to start getting back to what is professionally important to me -- having fun at work.

Thinking, talking, and sharing are all critical pieces of the puzzle and up until this week I had forgotten that I hadn't done any of it in more than half a year. Writing is one of those things and I find that I use it as a way to balance my thinking with the insanity that is the daily grind. Doing that has been quite literally impossible for me for quite some time. I've written only two times since October ... that has to stop. And just to track my own past half year or so I need to write some of this stuff down. So, read on if you want, but the rest is really for me.

You see, I work at Penn State and I'm not sure if you've read about the happenings at our great Institution over the last four months but if not, just type the words "Penn State Scandal" into your little google box and read up on it. It has been a horrible time to be a part of the Institution for so many -- the news out of my adopted hometown has rocked this entire community to its core ... and it isn't over. I am an administrator here at Penn State and while that doesn't make it any more painful for me to deal with the issues, it has certainly made the work I do much more complicated. The people I work with here are unbelievably strong and resilient, but biting the bullet and being that way for months at a time takes a toll on people at every single level of the Unviersity. Our students are still reeling, our staff are still searching, our faculty are still trying to come to terms, and our administration is still just trying -- just trying to make sense of it all and what it means to us all going forward.

Did you notice I haven't mentioned football? Well, since I just did let me say that we know this isn't about football. In some ways it was, but the reality is something that can't be boiled down to a game. While ESPN tries to tell us all what it is and isn't about, the fact of the matter is that this tragedy is so big, so complex, and so painful for everyone connected to this great place that it sometimes makes things easier to just go with the simple answer. The problem in that thinking is that it may work for a headline, but it certainly does nothing to shed light on the way my students, colleagues, and all of those connected to PSU actually feel. I really hate to say this, but if you aren't a member of this community the bullshit commentary and rhetoric of ESPN and the media at large mean absolutely nothing. Nothing. Sorry, that's the truth. I've listened over and over again to people tell me what is really going on from the outsider perspective and I have had to learn to just sit quietly and listen. You see in a way, we feel like we've earned that spot of shame, not because a single one of us did a damn thing wrong, but because we have, since I have been here, all looked at ourselves as different -- a place where we knew we were doing things the right way. The fact that we didn't is the shame. The being a part of the community is the great part. But when those people talk, I don't have anything to defend. How does one defend the inexcusable actions of the few? I can't and I wouldn't try.

Are things getting back to normal in Happy Valley? No. There is still so much lingering pain and confusion throughout all ranks. To be a little cliched, that day in November when the news broke was truly the day the music died. What we were prior to the breaking of that story is history, a thing of folklore. All of us are now focused on what we will become. We are actively trying to become something new, something better, and I can tell you from what I see, something much stronger. I'm not sure if you've seen that Chrysler commercial where Eminem is driving through the streets of Detroit and the voice over says something to the effect of, "from the hottest fire comes the strongest steel," well that is us. We are crushed inside because the place we have and continue to care so deeply for has been wounded in a terrible way. But from the intensity of that pain is coming a new strength. A strength that cries out, "we are" with a new sense of purpose. A purpose that I firmly believe will guide us towards a new beginning. In that is where I begin to find a strength I never thought I had. Tomorrow my family and I will go to the Bryce Jordan Center to visit our students at THON and we will see that strength and in a very real way we will realize that we are growing stronger from this.

In September, my hometown of Bloomsburg, PA was nearly destroyed by record setting floods fueled by Tropical Storm Lee. An event that changed me forever. The day I got to may parents' house that had nearly five feet of water in it, my Mom fell into my arms in a way that one never wants to feel. The intensity of the pain everywhere is depicted in the photos I took, but the real sense of loss and rage were emotions that I had never felt. In one weekend so much was taken from so many in a place that is my true home. It seems like forever ago now, but the days, weeks, and months that followed taught me so much about the human spirit and the power of community. If you've never seen much of your history be taken to a make shift dump in your hometown, you can't understand the aggregate damage. On the tennis courts I learned to play on as a ten year old I got to see the possessions of hundreds of families, the pile representing decades of love, memories, and importance lost.

The flood reintroduced me to friends all over the US that I had forgotten decades earlier. Friends that have helped form the foundation of The Bloomsburg Daily and the Flood of Silence projects as well as raise thousands of dollars and donations for families all over town. The flood helped me to connect to colleagues here at Penn State who wanted to show how much they cared about what had happened. The flood made me listen to new music and decode messages that I had long forgotten how to do.

Each day during those early months I threw myself into both my on and above campus work. I don't remember much from September and October -- no sleep, no rest, and certainly very little joy. But I did it and I don't think I destroyed anything or anyone along the way. I just sort of found a way to be, but again it wasn't with joy that I did my work -- and I mean the work of the Unviersity and the work of The Bloomsburg Daily. It was a grind that needed to happen on both fronts.

If I haven't lost you by now, the last thing I need to document here is in reality the worst of the past few months. The health of my Dad took an incredibly unexpected turn in early January. While hitting a golf ball he heard a pop in the Humorous bone of his left arm. It turned out that he had a malignant tumor eating its way through the bone and the weakened arm finally gave way. Bone cancer. I hate that word -- it has taken so many and so many close to me in the last few years.

I went to Florida and spent a full week with he and my Mother trying to help him get the kind of care he needed to stay alive and healthy. Here's the rub, my Dad is my best friend. He means so much to me on so many levels. It hasn't always been that way. When I was a kid there was a distance there that was probably caused mostly by me, but it was there. But sometime around 14 or so, things changed and he went from Dad, to hero, to best friend. We talk all the time about our beloved WVU Mountaineers -- and honestly while he sat in his chair in FL with a severely fractured arm with a tumor in his body we watched an epic Mountaineer basketball game and laughed and cheered together. It was so emotionally draining that at the end of the game we both cried a bit. I was quietly praying it wouldn't be the last one.

It won't be. We went to one of the best cancer centers in the Country and at the moment we have a good prognosis. He had the tumor removed in tact and ended up with a full shoulder replacement, but he kept his arm and he is in amazing spirits. While we haven't sat down to watch a game together I fully expect us to do just that next fall back in Bloomsburg is his rebuilt home. I bet we even give each other a high five on that rebuilt left arm. I need to just write the following words down so I can express how I feel right now and how much everyone who sent prayers, positive wishes, and energy to me means -- thank you. And thank you doesn't even do it, but it is what I have.

The shit of it is that I know my darkest days aren't over. Hell, they've only just begun, but what I do know is that I can make it through them. I have an incredible family, incredible friends, and am a member of two amazing communities in both Bloomsburg and State College. So I will find time to read, reflect, talk, and share. I will find time to write and be a better member of the communities I feel connected to. I will be a better friend, husband, Father, Brother, and Son. I don't have any choice. The past six months have changed me, but not in the ways that I would have predicted. I have no bitterness or anger. I have a new sense of resolve and strength. I finally get it. I am the luckiest man in the World.

Trying to Map Stories of the Bloomsburg Flood

The Facebook group went from 0 to about 1,000 in less than 12 hours today. I'll keep updating this as I have moments. For now, follow @ccvoodr and the hashtag #Bloomsburg ... for updates. If you are from Bloomsburg, PA and you want me to add your story to this map for us to see, just leave a comment with your street address and story as a comment.

View Bloomsburg Flood Descriptions September 2011 in a larger map

A short story I recorded on the 13th of September. Flood Stories 09_13_2011

Steve

I met him once in the lobby at Apple headquarters as he spoke to Ive. Really the only person I have thought of as famous that I worked really hard to understand. Other than Michael Jordan he was the only famous person I cared about. But I cared about how he did things more than anything else. I hope Steve is OK and he can enjoy years of happiness going forward. I want to believe he is just stepping aside ... still it is a difficult story to read. I've bee an Apple guy for as long as I can remember, getting my first Mac in 1984 as a birthday present -- still the greatest material gift I ever received. With it came a free subscription to MacWorld ... the first cover?

Serious cool. To so many Apple is about product, to me it has always been about philosophy. The philosophy is what Jobs was always about. He wrote his own rules and has lived by them. I can honestly say that his approach to innovation is what continues to drive me. I know that sounds a little corny, but it is true. Seriously, here's to the crazy ones.

“I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know,” Jobs said in a statement. “Unfortunately, that day has come.”

I'll continue to watch and learn from Steve and hopefully a whole host of new talent that he has inspired. To Steve, I say thank you for giving me a career path and for inspiring so many through your work.

Keep it Going

Not one or two, but three busted strings. Why stop? Everyone is in it for the magic that is the performance. Lots to learn from this in my mind. Could you keep moving forward?

I am going to see the Avett Brothers with my wife later this Summer. I can only hope for such a perfect performance.