Business Chief USA August 2019

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM
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satisfy, but delight their expectations.”
“These are solutions that they feel that
they are a part of,” he comments.
Another motivation of the company’s
technological transformation is the goal
of easing the workload of both staff and
students. “Some of the ways in which
we have achieved this is by moving to
unlimited email, creating passwords that
don’t expire, and having unlimited storage,
as well as creating the fastest networks
and research computers in the state.
When you’re working with genomics
and personalized medicine, these small
factors make a great deal of difference.”
Carver cannot emphasize enough
the importance of listening to a variety
of people when devising a business
strategy. “On my first day as CIO,
we created a crowd-sourcing site,
and we had some 800 meetings in the
first 100 days. By creating a voice for
everyone, you can work towards the
best possible solution and provide
each aspect of the university with
its own competitive edge.” This level
of communication enabled staff
and students to be receptive to the
technical changes, because they
were solutions requested by them.
For example, one goal was to
leverage the faculty’s disciplinary
expertise. “We can’t treat faculty as the
most expensive typists on the planet,”
AUGUST 2019