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Jim Uomini was a normal guy. Now he stops speeding trains and changes in phone booths. He earned his cape and tights building apps. It wasn't part of his day job but now he's famous as the get-it-done guy who's faster than a speeding bullet.
Jim studied journalism. He taught WordPerfect and PageMaker. He was an IT drone then later a help desk manager and has owned ServiceNow at the University of San Francisco for the past four years. It wasn't until he discovered the power of apps that his career really took off. He now travels by motorcade and is introduced at CAB meetings with a 21-gun salute. The Queen of Denmark recently presented him with the fur of a mink and an albino tiger.
Jim's story…
Information Technology Services at The University of San Francisco is in the business of delivering great service to 15,000 VIPs. The university's mission is to shape young minds but all shaping halts when the network's down or Exchange goes on an early spring break. Keeping the systems running requires more than 65 IT heroes coordinating across more than 60 internal apps.
Many of those apps were aging, expensive to maintain, and hard to use before Jim came along. He questioned why everything doesn't work like Incident and Problem Management. Unlike the rest of the app sprawl, they're fast and easy to use. They have a common interface that requires no training. They live in the cloud and are always available. They're secure, role-based, customizable, and easy to manage.
Jim started by enhancing ITSM applications. He modified how incident tasks are processed then added items to the service catalog to take in requests for technical service and new equipment. He then realized the rest of the university had almost identical non-IT requirements. He took the old budgeting process to the woodshed and replaced it in a few weeks with a modern app built in ServiceNow. The community reacted well. Bras were tossed on stage. A surly facilities manager named her baby girl "Jim". He was inspired.
With little more than clicks and his Journalism degree he started on a journey that has since created or replaced nine other applications. His apps touch everyone in the university from students to faculty to staff. Jim's handiwork is chronicled here… and he's just getting started.
He'll be shaking hands and kissing babies at Knowledge 13. In fact, he's talking about his app escapades Thursday, May 16 at 10:10 AM. Introduce yourself then friend him on Facebook. Just don't feed him kryptonite.
The Index of PaaS Activity
IPA gained 4.4% this month on the strength of PaaS-related headlines. Notable news included Rackspace and Salesforce.com cozying up to mobile developers plus noise from smaller players Jelastic and Apprenda launching new versions of their PaaS products. Stock prices were mostly flat (+0.41%) despite a 2.1% gain for the S&P 500. PaaS-related job postings were up 2.42%.
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