Bob is in charge of allocating his IT team’s hours strategically, so that everything gets done and everyone is happy.
So every year, Bob adds up all the working hours that each of his team members will be able to provide.
He subtracts all the sick days and vacation time, and comes up with the actual hours left for work.
Then Bob has to differentiate between each employee’s unique skill set.
He may have 20 people who can work a total of 40,000 hours that year – but Sandra’s hours can’t be used interchangeably with Joe’s hours, since they each have different areas of expertise. And since every IT project usually needs a few hours of each person’s expertise to get done, Bob has to be sure to keep that in mind as he allocates those hours.
So Bob comes up with reasonable estimates of the time his team has available, and then starts making decisions about priorities.
He sizes and scopes all the IT projects across campus, deciding how many hours each department gets. Students Affairs gets a percentage of their hours, Business and Finance gets a percentage, and so does every other group or department that has a need.
Then, he takes a look at the hours left for the big projects necessary for the university as a whole. And then he talks to the people on the front lines, the functional techs who may just need a few hours of programmer time during the year.
Bob figures out which projects take priority and how he can fit them all into his available budget of employee hours.
And he does a pretty darn good job of it!
But here’s the thing.
The first year he allocates those hours, all is well.
There’s room for everyone’s projects to get done, and even time for his team to custom code a few of their own integrations so they don’t have to spend any money outsourcing integration, or buying an integration solution.
The next year, however?
Bob has to remember to factor into his time allocation the fact that his team needs to use a small percentage of their time maintaining those custom integrations. Not too bad, though, maybe 5-10% of their hours. Still worth it, right?
But that year, they also build a few more custom integrations. Still saving money! Whoo-hoo!
The next year, Bob’s team has to spend 15% of their time maintaining those custom integrations…and more time building new ones.
The year after that? Bob needs to hire a new employee, just to be able to keep up with projects at the same level that he did so effortlessly just a few years ago!
That build vs. buy mentality has an opportunity cost associated with it that gets progressively more expensive as the years pass.
But Bob is smart. He sees the problem, and decides to take care of it once and for all.
So Bob calls N2N.
He learns that N2N’s API Management Platform, Illuminate, is an affordable way to handle all of the integrations at his university easily and quickly, without any opportunity cost or snowball effect.
In fact, Illuminate actually enables Bob and his team to do more, as it frees up the time they would have used for custom coding and integration maintenance, AND makes it possible to integrate and try out new apps on a whim, and even develop innovative new programs that wouldn’t have been possible without it!
Bob is pretty thrilled to be using Illuminate – and hey, look! Bob just got a raise!
You know, the word ‘free’ has a lot of baggage attached to it.
“Nothing in life is free,” and yet, “the best things in life are free.”
It probably all depends on what exactly you mean by “free.” If we’re talking prices at a store, then yeah, of course, you can’t put a monetary value on love, family, good health, happiness, and so on. But if we’re talking “no cost,” then things get a lot more complicated.
Because that’s where the free puppies vs. free beer debate comes into play.
Free beer is free beer. Someone buys a round, you drink it, and it’s gone. Maybe you get a little headache the next day if you had too much of it. That’s pretty much it.
Free puppies however, as any parent knows, are anything but free. They require a large investment on the back end, both in terms of money for food, vet care, and other needs, and in terms of the time and energy spent caring for them.
And if you paid attention in your economics classes, you’ll know that there’s also an opportunity cost involved with getting those “free” puppies. If you’re taking care of a dog, it’s a simple fact of life that it takes time away from doing something else.
So what does all this have to do with your university?
If you’re custom coding your own integrations, you’ve opted for the free puppies.
Yes, it may be “free” to have your own internal IT team create integrations for the various apps and programs you’re using. But just like choosing free puppies, what you’re actually doing is committing to a lifetime of maintenance.
Maintaining your own integrations may not seem too bad to begin with, but the actual costs and the opportunity costs begin to snowball from year to year. One year, you’re just building and keeping up with a couple of integrations…the next year, you’re building a couple more, and maintaining twice as many. The year after that, you’re handling the maintenance on 4-5 integrations while you build a few more, and the next year, you’re beating your head against the wall because there’s just no way you can possibly add in any of the new apps you’re being asked to without hiring some new team members or outsourcing something in order to keep everything running smoothly!
Having to maintain all those custom integrations also means you don’t have time to work on other strategic projects that could be central to moving your university forward – the opportunity cost of those free puppies is far-reaching.
So what’s a CIO to do?
Buy, rather than build.
Building may seem smart initially, but the snowball effect is real.
Working with a partner firm to create integrations that they can then maintain for you is the smart way to maximize your productivity and optimize your results.
That’s why so many colleges and universities call N2N.
At N2N, we handle all your existing and future integrations, using our API Management Platform, Illuminate. That frees up your team to worry about issues more central to your university’s mission, while all your apps and databases are communicating seamlessly and reliably in the background.
If you’d like to try out a free demo, give us a call today. Our demo’s free as in beer, not free as in puppies, so you’ve got nothing to lose!
Sure, it shares a few characteristics with for-profit businesses…a few with nonprofits…a few with K-12 schools.
But the world of academia is unique.
You know this.
We know this.
And yet, so often, solutions and apps created to manage data for businesses or other kinds of organizations are marketed to colleges and universities as if there were no difference at all.
And since those solutions often come from well-known companies, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking they’ll work just as well in higher ed.
But the truth is…they don’t.
You know this.
We know this.
One of the most common things we hear from new clients is that they tried to work with a company whose services and solutions weren’t tailored to higher ed, and because that went so badly, they went out looking specifically for a company with two crucial attributes:
Solutions made especially for the unique needs of higher ed
Experience working with universities and colleges to set up and implement those solutions.
And they find precisely that at N2N – and more.
At N2N, we know higher ed.
We know your unique needs, your unique structures, your unique challenges and frustrations.
We provide integration for higher ed, by higher ed.
Not only were our integration solutions developed 100% with higher ed in mind, but we even have team members who come from a higher ed background themselves, and have firsthand knowledge of the exact issues facing higher ed in IT.
And perhaps even more importantly than that, N2N has years of experience working with higher ed institutions large and small, from single schools to statewide systems, addressing their unique needs and solving their unique problems with our flagship solution, the Illuminate platform.
So how exactly can we help your institution of higher ed?
We tame the chaos of data.
You’ve got cloud databases, legacy on-premise systems, and miscellaneous SaaS apps being added all the time. You need your data to flow seamlessly between them all – but right now, it’s not flowing.
Someone has to enter data manually into a certain program.
Someone needs to custom code an integration for that new app.
Queries take ages because they’re so complex.
Data quality is suffering because there’s no way to check it all as it moves from application to application.
Innovation is stalled because no one can make your new ideas a reality.
N2N solves each and every one of these problems, and more.
Our Illuminate API management platform makes integrating all your apps and programs a snap – no time-consuming and expensive custom coding necessary. We can automate data transfer, put data quality assurance protocols in place, streamline queries, support your innovative projects, and more. We’ll help you customize and implement the integration solution that’s right for you
We understand higher ed, and we’re confident that we’ll be able to help you with any challenge you’re facing. So give us a call today for a free demo and more info about how we can help your institution.
It’s not often that we share news of our own scholarly achievements here at N2N – we’re usually happy to stay mostly behind-the-scenes, supplying the tools and platforms that enable others to succeed academically.
But we recently made a discovery we’re too excited not to share…and grant us a wee bit of poetic license here 😉
On a recent trip to the UK, a member of the N2N team happened to notice a medieval-looking manuscript on display in the private library of a manor house. Upon further investigation, it turned out that it was written in Old English and had never been translated by an expert, for fear it would be damaged in transit.
Luckily, our intrepid team member happens to be fluent in Old English, and was able to translate the text on the spot.
Intriguingly, the manuscript contained references to modern technology, and the medieval poet seemed to have an astonishing grasp of the challenges today’s university and college IT teams face, “The Battle With Integration.”
Now, it’s true that said team member had consumed some fairly strong beverages before his translation was made, but in spite of that, we are confident that the below accurately reflects the poet’s words.
Enjoy!
Move Over, Beowulf!
Hark! We have heard/tales of IT Teams
Deftly defending/the mead halls they hold.
Their CIOs led them/to glory in battle
As war after tech war/was waged and won.
From clouds in computing/to wifi in walls,
These heroes have met/the challenge of change.
But now a new enemy/stalks CIOs.
From the mist-covered marshes/a monster comes forth –
Accursed Integration!/That bane of IT teams,
Devouring their treasure,/and taking up time.
One famed CIO,/Hrothgar by name,
Put out a call/to be saved from this beast.
A new hero answered,/move o’er, Beowulf!
N2N’s team/strode into the mead hall,
Boasting of besting/Integration’s foul wiles.
For they had the cunning,/the tools and the platform,
If you were really, really geeky, you could say that the One Ring, in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, was basically just an evil API Management Platform.
You’d have to be really geeky, though.
Fortunately, we here at N2N are pretty darn geeky. And it makes us a little giddy to think of ourselves as somehow connected to Middle Earth, so we’re gonna run with it.
Because with the One Ring, Sauron was able to integrate all of the other Rings of Power, communicate with them and control them.
It allowed him to efficiently and effectively run his evil “organization,” if you will, quickly and easily obtaining necessary information from all corners of the world, and communicating commands to those under his sway.
And that’s exactly what N2N’s Illuminate platform does, too! (Without the evil, of course.)
Illuminate acts like the One Ring, providing a single platform that integrates all the apps, programs, databases, and systems your institution uses.
It allows data to move freely, in real-time, to and from every part of your institution, without the hassle of manual data transfer or concerns about data quality.
Now, Sauron was pretty much a one-man show.
Sure, he had his minions, but when it came right down to it, he was basically running the whole of Mordor, including Mordor’s IT department, on his own.
That’s why he was so smart to make use of that ring. Can you imagine trusting orcs to handle manual data transfer? No way.
He needed a single, central tool that would be easy to use, and automate the integration, rather than requiring constant attention.
Our Illuminate API Management Platform provides the exact same convenience factor for non-evil CEOs and CIOs of smaller insitutions.
By using an Integration-Platform-as-a-Service, rather than your own staffing, to handle data, you can be every bit as efficient and effective as if you had a huge army of IT guys at hand. It’s working smarter, not harder, using tech to do a job you’d need to hire more employees for otherwise – and getting it all done much more quickly and easily than if you did have employees custom coding your integrations for you.
Another big bonus of using a single central platform for integration is that anyone in your institution can easily access and use it. Just like a hobbit was able to tap into the One Ring’s powers simply by slipping it on, your staff won’t be dependent on the one guy who knows how the integrations work, but is out of town this week. They’ll be able to log in and instantly, intuitively get the job done – or call N2N to help, if needed.
Leveraging the Illuminate platform, and the legendary (if we do say so ourselves) customer support that comes along with it, is the smart way to address data management needs at a smaller institution. We’ve helped institutions large and small with their integration needs – and not one of them has ever felt the urge to toss their computers into Mount Doom. Just sayin’.
So if you’d like to embark on your own quest for smart integration, contact N2N today for a free demo of Illuminate. Just speak friend and enter! (And if you got that reference, you’re just as geeky as we are. Congrats!)
