College of Informatics

I like new things. I have an I-pod. When I read about blogs, I started this one. When I wrote my book, I choose to self publish with a print on demand outfit so all profits would be mine and all marketing would be mine and….there’s still 7 here on my desk and four at the mega-Barnes and Noble that I guilted the branch manager into buying that no one has bought yet. I'm positive about the future. I like new things.

However, I’m highly suspicious of universities. Look, they’re nothing but large corporations and have the same inherent problems. However, they cloak themselves into some higher calling b.s. so everyone gives them a break.

I bring this up because of this article I did on a new dean and new college at Northern Kentucky University. College of Informatics?

I have a general rule that I apply in my business. When someone comes to me with a new idea, concept, or product, if they can’t state what it is or does in, say, three sentences, and make me comprehend the basic. It must be b.s.

I asked three people in higher education what "Informatics" is and I still haven’t a clue. B.S.? I’m leaning that way.

Accounting degree? Got it. Understand. Management Information Systems? Got it. Understand. 17^th Century French Poetry? Got it. Don’t understand. But got it.

Informatics has the feel of something that NCAA basketball players major in. Communications. Sociology - that kind of thing. But then again, maybe I'm creeping into old fogey-dom. Damn kids and their damn colleges of informatics, by gum.

Although I’ve told my daughters that they will get a degree. I have also become high suspicious of the “No-child-left-behind” concept that everyone needs a college degree or they are condemned to unhappiness and poverty. I’ve met too many people that are successful and happy because they got some tech training and then just did it as opposed to (much like myself) get a degree, high GPA, and expect the offers and money to start rolling in.

I do want my daughters to get a degree. Something in the liberal arts. Something to make them appreciate the world. But I do need to instill in them that they have to know how to make a buck also.

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