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Mac Uni CIO launches blog

New Macquarie University chief information officer Marc Bailey has launched a blog situated on the university's site, with the professed aim of increasing the "transparency, visibility and clarity" of his vision and thoughts.
Written by Renai LeMay, Contributor

update New Macquarie University chief information officer Marc Bailey has launched a blog situated on the university's site, with the professed aim of increasing the "transparency, visibility and clarity" of his vision and thoughts.

The CIO was appointed to the role in September last year, leaving his previous position as chief technology officer of Australian content management software firm Objective to do so. His first blog post was dated 14 October.

Bailey's blog is one of the first such initiatives launched by an Australian CIO, although other similar transparency pushes do exist. For example, Curtin University of Technology Peter Nikoletatos has an active Twitter account, and also posts a quarterly video update.

Internationally, a number of high profile CIOs run active blogs and Twitter accounts — for example, Network World in the United States has published a list of 12 CIOs who Twitter.

So far, Bailey has used the blog to publish a variety of information and comment. For example, shortly after he launched it he started to tackle improvement of Macquarie's internal staff directory using the medium. His next post drew inspiration from the presentation styles of Apple supremo Steve Jobs and technology evangelist Guy Kawasaki to publish an earlier presentation to staff.

A week later Bailey was blogging about the 2009 annual general meeting of the Council of Australian University Information Technology Directors and holding a competition to win an iPod Nano by naming the university's new network. He has even gone so far as to nominate his initial tactical priorities in his role.

The blog has also started to attract comments reacting to Bailey's posts.

Speaking about the blog today, Bailey said the blog had the potential to cut across the hierarchy within his IT department and make his views on issues very clear, avoiding the hearsay and rumour factor that could plague organisations.

He wanted to make sure he was writing content that was engaging, interesting and positive, and saw making the blog public as a way to moderate his voice to make sure it's was appropriate — steering clear of negativity.

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