I started my career as a systems administrator / systems programmer on Unix systems. Over the last 20 years, I went from a "hands on" role to a leadership role. I'm now the "CIO" of a small university (we don't have the title "CIO" at this campus, but that's basically my job.) Some of those transitions to a larger role were easy, others were more difficult.

I strongly recommend you read the essay "Taking on a new role" (PDF) from MOR Associates. In short, the essay gives this advice:

1. Share broad themes early: what general areas do you plan to address, what are your goals for the team, where are you headed?

2. Read the landscape: what does the culture of the organization look like, not just in the team you work with, but at the leadership level.

3. Build relationships: people who can help you in your new role, mentors, coaches.

4. Create a "SWOT" profile with your team, to understand the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

5. Assess the talent needed to get the job done: do you have the right people, and are the right people doing the right things?

6. Understand your financial situation: this is often the most-overlooked by new leaders.

7. Sketch out your priorities for the first 3-12 months: in particular, keep track of what you need to get done in your first 100 days.

I like do to the SWOT profile (see #4) without actually using the terms "Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats." I find it's easier to start with a "plus/delta" profile. If you haven't done that before: Draw a vertical line on the whiteboard. On the left, label it "plus"; on the right, "delta". Draw a horizontal line across this, making 4 quadrants. Above the horizontal line, label it "now"; below the line, "future".

Now you're ready for your team to identify what's working well (plus) right now, and what's going to be a benefit to them after another 6-12 months. They can also help you identify what needs to be addressed/fixed/changed/improved (delta) right now, and what can wait for another 6-12 months. Congratulations, you've built a SWOT profile:

• S = plus, now
• W = delta, now
• O = plus, future
• T = delta, future

I find the SWOT helps me to identify the key issues to focus on. What you must do is identify a plan to address the right-hand column (deltas) that leverages what you have on the left (plusses). Your team is critical to help fill out the SWOT, and the great thing about this exercise is that it helps the team to identify with you on your new level. But while your team helps you with the SWOT, you must build your own strategy to respond to it; that's your job as a new leader.

If you're having trouble picking out your top priorities (see #7) you may also consider doing an "affinity" exercise with your team. You can do this in different ways, but here's what I find works best for my team:

1. Give each team member a stack of Post-It notes, maybe 5 or 6 each. Have them write down what they think are the top priorities - but only one item per Post-It note. Not everyone can fill out 5 or 6 Post-It notes, and that's ok.
2. When everyone has their notes, talk about them in front of the group. See if any overlap (or are the same) as someone else's note. Combine any that seem to match up.
3. Then, pass them around the table. Each person at the table gives an independent score (0-10) for how important they think that item is to the team or organization. You aren't ranking them in a list, you're just giving them an independent score. Everyone gives their own score, and passes the note to the next person around the table.
4. When every Post-It has been scored by everyone at the table (i.e. when a person gets their own Post-Its back) add up the scores for a total for each note.

You can now identify (by score) what are your top priorities. Maybe you have 5 or 6 "top" priorities. Or maybe you only have 4 top priorities, and there's a big gap (in score) between #4 and #5.

In general, this is true of anything you post on the Internet. I look at it this way: try to avoid posting things on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Slashdot, Flickr, or any other site, that you might be embarrassed for a family member to see, or a future potential employer. If it's on the Internet, assume anyone can see it.

My immediate personal response to this Facebook flaw: ohmigosh! Then I remembered that my photos are pretty much my cats, work we've done on the house, flowers, speakers at events, and similar stuff. I may have them marked "private" but not that big a deal if this flaw exposed them.

I recognize that I am a minority of Facebook users, however.

Tehnically, that's actually covered by a student fee, usually a "technology fee" in most universities. So yes, this cost should already be built into the cost of attending university. Whether that fee is enough to cover everything, including email, I'll leave to Berkeley.

As another poster has mentioned, MD will eventually result in total loss of vision. So do encourage him to explore audio books.

But I think I know where your girlfriend's grandfather's is coming from on the audio book topic. Not every book is released in audio format, so you're kind of tied to only those titles that have an audio version. The latest cool book may take months to get an audio version, if at all. Also note that magazines, product instructions, medicine labels, etc. do not have audio versions. So having an assistive reading device is part of maintaining his independence.

I hope I do prove you wrong. Look at my other posts on Slashdot, or Google some of the other things I've been up to, and you'll see I've been doing quite a lot to fight against software patents. I fought especially hard against AIA, although that got passed anyway.

I've been working with Sen Franken's office throughout, he's been very responsive generally, moreso than other Senators. Right now, I'm working with Franken's office to send a message to USPTO, urging them to update their policies regarding software patents, to make it harder to award a patent for software, and raise the obviousness test in general.

You seem to have a problem with your caps lock.

I think part of the problem is that companies don't entirely want software patents to go away.

When I first started speaking with my Senator's office (Franken - D-MN) about software patents, I gave examples how software patents are a hindrance to American companies, how patent troll lawsuits use the US court system as their revenue stream.

The Senator's office said that they had met with several large US companies (Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc) and while the companies agree that software patents are a problem that need to be curbed, they also need them to "protect their business." I'm told Bill Gates said he's never worried about the next Google, he's worried about some kid in his garage creating the "next Big Thing". So these companies use software patents to sue or threaten the little start-ups before they can become a competitor.

I pointed out that Gates started as a kid in his basement, and Apple started as a couple of guys in a garage, and Amazon started as Bezos doing mail-order from his garage. All these big tech companies started that way. And if we block the next Amazon or the next Microsoft from happening, that's not going to help the US economy. The Senator's office had to agree it was a fair point.

I think if you reduced the term for software patents, you might have a workable solution. Certainly it would be better than what we have now, and I'm prepared to accept that as a next-step. In most cases today, anyway, it may take a few years for something to pop up on the radar, and a patent troll to realize that it's using something from their portfolio.

I also recommend the poster look at an example of how just changing the CSS can dramatically change the appearance of the size: CSS Zen Garden. Their HTML has maybe a few too many divs and spans (they did this to make it easier for designers to apply new styles) but it's a great demonstration of what CSS can do for you.

I have:

game console
2 Roku
2 laptops
iPad
backup server (old MacMini)
2 smartphones

That's 9. Wow, that's a lot more than I thought. Had to list them all out to realize I have a lot of networked stuff.

Bwahahahahahaha! That's a good one, man. Thanks for making my morning. If I had mod points right now, I'd give you +1Funny.