Filemaker Pro and Cloud: the best web database software that you may never use

Tuesday, January 21, 2020 - 5:34pm
Author: 
admin

Blog Article by Keith Fowlkes on January 22, 2020
keith.fowlkes@hessconsortium.org

I know this might be a little rant and many of my readers may wonder why I care about this little company's software... but stay with me for a minute.

Over my years as a technology leader, I've used Oracle, Informix, SQL Server, Postgres and MySQL database platforms with a bunch of different development tools.  While these enterprise platforms have done well over the years, my favorite database product for smaller projects is Filemaker Pro.  Don't laugh.  The software is the best "point-click-design-publish" database software ever created.  While most database professionals might call it a "toy database," professionals and beginners can do some pretty amazing things with this software... and fast.

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Is Your ERP Platform Burning?

Monday, December 9, 2019 - 1:56pm
Author: 
admin

By Keith Fowlkes for Campus Technology Magazine
12/5/2019 | click here to see original article

I always learn something new when I am with my friends in the higher education and ERP industries. I learned yet a new term at Educause 2019 in Chicago this year: "BURNING PLATFORM!" It sounds ominous and brings to mind visions of 1990s oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. But what does it actually mean?

"Burning platform" is a new term used by some consultants and many competing ERP solution providers to refer (harshly) to companies that are continuing to pull their customers along with a dead-end, "legacy" solution. Having implemented some of these solutions in the past, I can attest that many are using the same core code as they did in the late '90s and early 2000s. While still functional, a burning platform is older and uses somewhat outdated programming methods to post journal entries to a general ledger, move student data into tables, and handle integration records being transferred between old ancillary systems. If you are familiar with running these older systems, I'm sure you can think of a number of routines and scripts you have used for years to manage your ERP.

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Article: Ellucian and the Wave of EdTech Buyouts

Friday, December 13, 2019 - 10:03am
Author: 
admin
I'm tagging a great article from Phil Hill on his industry blog "Phil on EdTech" linked here.  Take a read... very good insights on the recent industry shuffle and those to come.

While Instructure’s agreement to be acquired has generated the most interest recently, that company is not alone in having either private equity firms or larger technology companies looking to buy them out. Recently we’ve had a wave of actual and potential buy-outs in a consolidating market trend. Instructure, Civitas, Knewton, Pearson’s K-12 Courseware business, Trilogy, Parchment, Schoology. Berkerey Noyes tracks the M&A markets for education, and their recent report shows the trends of education-related activity. 2017 was the peak in value, with Frontline Education, Capella University, and EAB joining several other large companies. But the number of deals continues to rise.  

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E&I and Internet2: An Introduction

Wednesday, October 2, 2019 - 3:14pm

Keith Fowlkes, Vice President, Technology at E&I, talks briefly on the new partnership between E&I and Internet2.

Originally posted online at https://www.eandi.org/media-room/technology-insights/watch-introduction-....

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NEW COLLABORATION BETWEEN E&I AND INTERNET2 LEVERAGES EXPERTISE IN CLOUD SERVICES AND CONTRACT MANAGEMENT FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

Tuesday, October 1, 2019 - 3:15pm
Author: 
admin

by Sean O'Brien, Internet2 and Keith Fowlkes, Vice President, E&I Technology

We’re excited to have announced earlier today that E&I Cooperative Services (E&I) and Internet2 are collaborating on a pilot project to bring together E&I’s public procurement expertise and Internet2’s cloud expertise, as developed through the NET+ program.

A request for proposal (RFP) for cloud-hosted telecommunications and web conferencing services will be released as part of this pilot shortly. A committee consisting of mutual members of E&I and Internet2, along with staff from both organizations, are completing work on the RFP at this time. This blog post is intended to answer some initial questions and provide additional context for our members about the pilot project. We’re looking forward to the opportunities presented by this collaboration and are eager to hear feedback, comments, questions, and ideas from our members.

If you have additional questions on the pilot, please reach out to both of us at kfowlkes@eandi.org and sobrien@internet2.edu. If you have questions about the RFP process, please reach out to Cathy Goglia, Contracts Manager, Technology, at cgoglia@eandi.org. 

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NEW COOPERATIVE CONTRACTS BRING MORE TRANSPARENCY TO THE ERP INDUSTRY

Monday, September 9, 2019 - 9:46am
Author: 
admin

Earlier this summer, something very exciting happened in the higher education ERP industry. Through the hard work of our expert RFP team and a group of visionary ERP solution providers, E&I Cooperative Services signed a contract agreement that represents a giant leap in an industry with a somewhat antiquated pricing and licensing model.

First, I know that this may seem like a promotional article for my organization, but I promise that it is not meant to be that. I truly believe that what we have done here is the first step in an industry-wide shift in the way ERP solution providers engage educational customers.

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VIDEO: E&I's new ERP Cooperative Contracts!

Tuesday, July 30, 2019 - 2:54pm

Learn more about our new E&I ERP Competitive contracts with Mythics for Oracle Cloud, Unit4 and Workday!
- Workday: https://lnkd.in/eeQW3sr
- Unit4: https://lnkd.in/e7GxHfU
- Mythics for Oracle: https://lnkd.in/edJhFkr

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admin
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4 Ways the Higher Education ERP Industry Must Change

Friday, April 26, 2019 - 10:25am
Author: 
admin
It’s time for a new approach to enterprise resource planning in higher ed — one that involves transparency, cooperative contracts, a cloud-native strategy and more. 

As a veteran higher education CIO and now in a role of ERP industry evangelist for higher education enterprise and cloud systems, I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly in the ERP world — both from my own experiences and through the eyes of so many good CIO colleagues across the country. Over the years, I’ve implemented two ERP systems at two schools and have been a consultant for a number of other educational institutions, and you can bet that I have many wishes for an industry where I have so many ERP company friends who serve so many of my fellow CIOs.  

Change is needed in the higher education ERP industry … badly. Here are just a few key items that I believe are crucial to the industry for the coming years — and a cry (of sorts) for a true champion to change an industry so ready for transformation.

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Technology Professionals and the Path of Least Resistance

Monday, February 11, 2019 - 9:10pm
Author: 
Keith Fowlkes
by Keith Fowlkes, Vice President, Technology Contracts E&I Cooperative Services
Co-founder and Executive Director, The HESS Consortium

We have all been there! With the constant crush of projects, budgets, staffing issues and, well, life in general, the path of least resistance in our technology operations is inevitable. We have established vendors who we do business with on a regular basis for everything from network security to paper shredding. There is just not enough time in the day to make sure you are getting the best price, every time.

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Video Blog: E&I's New IT Services Contract with Columbia Advisory Group (CAG)

Wednesday, December 5, 2018 - 8:52am
Author: 
Keith Fowlkes
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