Ninety (not 180) degree turn! Full throttle! The Charleston Gazette now is reporting that the State Office of Technology “has no intent of moving those [WVNET] employees” from the Morgantown area. It is not clear where they would work, however, as their building and equipment would be gone.
So much to comment upon it is hard to figure out where to start:
The latest plan is to consolidate WVNET, sell its property, and move the equipment to Charleston or Flatwoods? Why would you not consolidate everything to Morgantown where you have qualified staff and a machine room at the ready? [Insert obvious answer here.]- What about the 16 to 24 months West Virginia University needs to move services to its campus data center (which, by the way, was in a flood plain the last time I checked)? [Insert obvious answer here.]
- A proposed follow-up question to the statement that the Higher Education Policy Commission owns Bluefield State College and Concord University property, too: So the 2007 legislation was aimed at helping the Commission sell Bluefield State College’s and Concord University’s property, not the WVNET property? [Insert obvious answer here.]
Why doesn’t everyone just take a deep breath and admit one thing? There is no well-thought-out plan to do anything other than put up a “For Sale” sign on the WVNET property. I don’t mean to sound so bemused/ cynical/ sarcastic/ strident (take your pick), but seriously … technology is too important to our public schools, our colleges, our courts, our government, and our citizens not to have solid transition plans in place before selling property as important to the State as that on which WVNET sits. Even more important, the environment in which good plans are developed and implemented requires trust, and there’s not likely to be much trust after all of this.
There are lots of “why” in this debacle what have been recounted over the last week or so. If we can for the moment ignore the notion the proposed move was anything other than a feint to obtain the land while simultaneously increasing power in Charleston (please stop laughing), I think the prime answer to all is rooted in lack of understanding infrastructure.
Good infrastructure and those who provide it are pretty much invisible. Water comes out the spigot and goes down the drain. Our lights work. We have infrastructure, but that doesn’t mean we understand what is entailed in providing it.
In the pre-information technology era, our infrastructure was public servants in buildings, not computers and complex networks. Even faintly enlightened governments should be aware that times have changed.
Sure, we all understand the notion when a water main bursts – we see water shooting into the air and backhoes scurrying around. But information technology is more mysterious with few indications of trouble, other than our ATM card doesn’t work or our TV is dark. Information technology infrastructure workers typically type really fast at a keyboard rather than scurry. And they may be hundreds of miles or more away.
Sad to say, the WVNET imbroglio speaks to state government’s failure to understand its own information technology infrastructure. Selling the valuable piece of land would be laudable in the right circumstances. It is unfortunately tragic when those who would sign on the dotted line fail to realize or even think or ask knowledgeable people about potential moving costs or service disruptions that would far surpass the sale price.
If there is anything good that comes from this situation, it may be a better understanding of how interwoven state government, indeed all government and citizens, are in the fabric of information technology. Just as we storm and rail about water lines, electricity, and other utilities, so should we pay attention to information technology. Without it our public utilities come to a grinding halt.