Using Vibe Programing with AI to Transform Black and White Data into Visual Dashboards
2025-05-30 09:00 - 09:30 (America/Chicago) | WI
Get the inside scoop on how we use AI chat, and agents to build code for calculations, analysis, and transformations to format dashboards.

Presenters

Dexter Fierro
John D Graham

Recording (with captions)

Recording (with audio description)

Redesigning Without Disruption: Transforming UW–Madison's KnowledgeBase Editor
2025-05-30 09:00 - 09:30 | WI
Discover how we modernized the document creation and editing interface at the heart of the widely used KnowledgeBase (KB) application. Learn our approach to balancing technical constraints with significant user experience improvements while ensuring seamless transitions for campus users. This session reveals the careful and thoughtful planning that guided our successful update of this popular campus tool.

Presenters

Leah Scheide
Weizhong Wang

Recording (with captions)

Recording (with audio description)

Unlock Your Creative Thinking
2025-05-30 09:40 - 10:40 | WI
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Join us to learn from A Whack on the Side of the Head by Roger von Oech about overcoming mental blocks to utilize creative thinking skills in your daily worklife.

Presenter

David Berg

What’s “Unconference” And Do We Need One Here?
2025-05-30 09:40 - 10:40 | WI
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Get an introduction to the concept of an “unconference” and learn about the philosophies and practices used to create an “unconference” experience driven entirely by attendees and the topics you want to discuss. Help brainstorm ways to bring this event format to our very own campus to enhance engagement throughout our IT community.

Presenters

Tomomi Imamura
Tom Jordan

Take the Next Step in Your Career with UW-Women in IT
2025-05-30 09:40 - 22:40 | WI
Discover the varied paths your career can take, whether it’s growing into leadership, exploring new roles, taking a step back or simply finding work-life balance. Hear real stories from colleagues in IT who set different courses to navigate these waters.

Presenters

Amanda Thornton
Jamie Gutkowski
Elizabeth Simcock
Kim Channpraseut
Kelsey Harrington

Recording (with captions)

Recording (with audio description)

Getting Started with Gitlab CI, Gitlab Runners and Ansible
2025-05-30 10:50 - 11:50 | WI
Join us in taking your first steps toward using Gitlab CI pipelines, as demonstrated with Gitlab runners and how our team uses Ansible.

Presenter

Phil Jochimsen

Recording (with captions)

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Continuing the Conversation: IT Support Symposium Virtual Meet-Up
2025-05-30 10:50 - 11:50 | WI
Did you attend the IT Support Symposium on April 16th? Were you unable to attend this year? We are hosting a virtual session for folks who attended as well as folks who didn’t to connect and talk about the event. We’ll share a review of the event and spend time meeting new people or reconnecting with people who met at the event.

Presenter

Ella Tschopik
Sarah Lien

Recording (with captions)

Recording (with audio description)

Improving Your Skills as a Technology Instructor
2025-05-30 10:50 - 11:50 | WI
So you’ve got the tech skills down, but now you need to help others learn it too? This session is for you! We’ll explore practical tips and tricks to make your training sessions and presentations shine. We’ll also crowd-source successful strategies to empower you to become a more confident and effective presenter.

Presenter

Cliff Cunningham

Recording (with captions)

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Object Storage (S3): Reduce Cost and Enable New Ways to Use Data
2025-05-30 12:50 - 13:50 | WI
The university generates data of all sizes, from a few megabytes to hundreds of terabytes. And let’s face it, storing all that data can be costly. In this virtual session, we’ll introduce Object Storage (S3), a campus-hosted data storage service offering lower-cost storage to departments and permanent staff, and no-cost storage for eligible researchers. Discover how this service can significantly reduce storage costs and enable new ways to use and distribute data. You’ll participate in a live demonstration of this service using a free file browser application, Cyberduck, and the Python library, Boto3.

Presenters

Casey Schacher
Kevin Kettner
Rushabh Vora

Recording (with captions)

Recording (with audio description)

Connecting Relationships to Results: Enhancing IT and Business Partnerships
2025-05-30 12:50 - 13:50 | WI
How can stronger IT-business relationships benefit your work, your organization, and the wider world? Drawing on 30 years of IT experience, including at the School of Medicine, we’ll use anonymized case studies and a visual “string map” to illustrate how focusing on relationships can save time and cut costs. You’ll learn actionable strategies to enhance collaboration, improve efficiency, and foster innovation. We’ll also connect these improvements to the Wisconsin Idea, showcasing the broader impact of effective IT partnerships.

Presenter

Ken Fanta

Recording (with captions)

Recording (with audio description)

Networking and Games
2025-05-30 12:50 - 13:50 | WI
Join us for fun games and network with your fellow IT professionals. Take some time to decompress, find new connections, and engage in some friendly competition in a relaxed atmosphere. Showcase your knowledge, learn from others, and enjoy a well-deserved break.

Presenters

Phil Jochimsen
Mandy Morrow

This session was not recorded.

Check-In for In-Person Attendees
2026-05-28 08:00 - 09:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Garden Atrium (Lower Level)

Check in and then enjoy coffee, tea, water, fresh bakery selections, seasonal fresh fruit, and etc.

Welcome & Keynote - Ideas Run the World. IT Powers the Journey.
2026-05-28 09:00 - 10:15 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Hello World (Room 1570) & Virtual
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Welcome & Opening Remarks (9:00-9:15 am)
IT Professionals Conference co-chairs Jason Erdmann & David Berg will provide introductory remarks for the conference.

Keynote Address (9:15-10:15 am)
Ideas Run the World. IT Powers the Journey. – Presented by Patrick McDaniel, the Tsun-Ming Shih Professor of Computer Sciences in the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Recording:
Coming soon!

Building Trust in IT: competency, sincerity, and care, made practical
2026-05-28 10:30 - 11:30 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Hello World (Room 1570) & Virtual
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Modernizing platforms, improving security, and rolling out new services are rarely limited by technology. More often, progress is constrained by trust. Trust between IT and its partners, and within IT across roles and teams. In this session, we’ll treat trust as a strategic asset and a practical operating model for getting hard work done.
We’ll use a framework for defining trust (including the behavioral components of competency, sincerity, and care) and translate it into actions IT leaders and practitioners can take immediately.
We’ll explore common gaps in trust patterns in higher education IT, and how listening, transparent communication, and constructive dissent help teams build credibility, navigate conflict, and restore trust when things go wrong.
We’ll connect trust to today’s pressure points: IT Federation, AI adoption, cybersecurity progress, and supporting a growing set of faculty expectations. Attendees will leave with a simple diagnostic, a set of trust-building moves, and prompts to use with their teams and partners.

Presenter(s)

Todd Shechter
Elizabeth Simcock

Recording

How WiscWeb and StratComm combined forces to bring us the UW Theme 2.0
2026-05-28 10:30 - 11:30 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 1524 & Virtual
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Over the last year, two teams at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have worked together to prepare for thousands of sites to move to the new Gutenberg Block Editor.
These teams have collaborated in:
– understanding the new block-based development environment in WordPress
– creating a new design system for a custom UW theme and plugins
– migrating data from ACF fields into WordPress core and custom blocks
– building everything with accessibility in mind
– creating educational resources for users and developers across campus
In this panel, we’ll walk through our process, design, migration tooling, and user reports and experience in the new environment. We’ll cover decisions we made, why we made those decisions, and the pros and cons of each.
In covering the migration, we’ll talk about what date we decided to bring to the new system and what we’ve decided to leave behind. We’ll talk about the infrastructure and community that we’re building for.

Presenters

Andrea Roenning
Nate Finch
Scott Berg
Josh Ciolkosz
Jenna Klinner
Kedar Joyner

From Listening to Doing: Exploring IT Federation Together
2026-05-28 10:30 - 11:30 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room B2250 & Virtual
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Join us for an interactive session focused on shaping the future of the IT Federation program and how we work together across IT at the university. We will begin with a brief update on the program’s progress since its launch in January 2026 and use the remainder of the time for a facilitated discussion.
This session builds on themes surfaced through recent CIO listening sessions, which highlighted a strong desire for improved collaboration, clearer coordination, and more effective service delivery across IT. While those sessions were a separate effort, they surfaced important perspectives that directly inform the direction of the IT Federation. Participants will engage in facilitated discussions to reflect on their experiences, react to emerging themes, and help identify practical opportunities to strengthen how we deliver and coordinate IT services.

Presenter(s)

Crague Cook
Jamie Gutkowski
Brianna Kuhn
Peter Boguszewski
Deanna Schneider

Recording

Network with IT Mentors, Mentees and Friends
2026-05-28 10:30 - 11:30 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room B2590

Join us for casual networking and conversation with Mentors and Mentees from the UW IT Mentoring Program. Conversation starters will be provided. Everyone is welcome!

Presenters from the UW IT Mentoring Committee

Sabrina Messer
Ella Tschopik
Parker Harding
Conor Klecker
Lindsay Bolan
Carolyn Wilson

Unconference
2026-05-28 10:30 - 15:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Garden-Level Study Rooms (B2544, B2536, B2532, B2562, B2564, B2576, B2580, B2582, B2586)

If you enjoy open, unstructured conversations with colleagues about topics that matter to you, the IT Professionals Conference will be hosting an Unconference this year. The event will take place in person on Thursday, May 28.
Event details:

Format: 30-minute time slots
Schedule: 10:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. (excluding lunch and breaks), for a total of six sessions
Venue: Garden-level study rooms, each equipped with a screen and a whiteboard

What is Unconference? Unconference is an attendee-driven experience that creates space for the conversations that don’t fit neatly into the main IT Professionals Conference agenda. This intentionally unstructured avenue invites anyone to propose topics, ask bold questions, and even step up to lead a discussion—no prior speaking experience required. Expect spontaneity, creative energy, and a little productive chaos as ideas emerge organically, and discussions evolve in real time. Whether you have a topic in mind or a problem you would like to pose to the rest of the community, there is no wrong way to lead an Unconference session. The Unconference embraces flexibility and curiosity, making it the perfect place to explore emerging challenges, untapped opportunities, and perspectives you won’t find anywhere else on the schedule.
Here is how it works:

After registration, if you have a topic in mind, put your topic on the poster-sized sticky notes to reserve a spot.
Topics can be anything from “Your favorite tech podcasts” to something like “Asset management beyond hardware.” If you want to talk about your personal interests, that’s great, too!
Some examples of session formats include:

Group discussion on a particular topic or issue – Pick a topic and talk about it
Show and tell – Show off your latest project, a new tool, or anything else you are excited about
Q&A – Offer a chance to participants to ask questions and learn about your topic
Anything between

Whoever joins are the right people. Everyone has a chance to participate as they want.
Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened. Even though the session starts out with a topic, keep an open mind to the discussions that occur, and you might end up with a totally different outcome.
When it’s over, it’s over. The time slots help organize the sessions, but you can finish early if that’s how things develop. If a group wants to continue the conversation after your time slot is over, it’s up to the group to organize its own session to continue the conversation.
A Google Doc will be provided for note-taking so that if you miss a conversation, you can review the notes after the Unconference.

Lunch
2026-05-28 11:30 - 12:30 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Garden Atrium (Lower Level)

Enjoy a catered lunch and conversation with fellow IT Professionals.
For those attending in person, vegetarian and non-vegetarian options will be equally available.
Note: All classrooms and study rooms prohibit food. Please enjoy your food in the Garden Atrium, on the first floor in the cafe area, or take the elevator up to the 3rd Floor outdoor terrace.

From 'Do Something' to Demystified: The Learn@UW Roadmap for Scaling AI Training
2026-05-28 12:30 - 13:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 1524 & Virtual
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When AI exploded onto the scene, the mandate was clear: “We need to do something.” But how do you move from a vague shared conviction to a structured, campus-wide curriculum?
In this session, the Learn@UW team pulls back the curtain on the messy, iterative, and ultimately rewarding journey of building our AI training initiative from the ground up. We’ll walk through the essential stages of the rollout—from assembling the right team and navigating stakeholder feedback to the logistical “crunch time” of dry runs and Zoom refinements.
Attendees will gain a practical playbook for managing rapid scaling, including:
Building from Blank Slate: The process of defining learning objectives, mapping out a rough curriculum, and securing early stakeholder endorsement.
The Intake Engine: Navigating the transition from public sessions to a surge of private customization requests.
Operational Agility: How “regroup and revise” cycles turned early feedback into a polished product.
Whether you are just starting to “do something” or are currently drowning in demand, join us to learn how to turn AI chaos into a repeatable success story.

Presenter(s)

James McKay
Andy Posselt
Kris Olds

Recording

How I used AI to help with the IT Support Symposium
2026-05-28 12:30 - 13:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room B2590 & Virtual
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AI is still “new” in the sense that we’re all trying to figure out exactly what it can be used for. I’ll share how I used it while planning the IT Support Symposium and facilitate a conversation with attendees on how others in the room have used it as well.

Presenter(s)

Ella Tschopik

Recording

Kuali Build: Power Your Forms. Streamline Your Workflow.
2026-05-28 12:30 - 13:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room B2250 & Virtual
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Don’t settle for Google Forms or emailing fillable PDFs around for approvals; Kuali Build empowers non-IT, business-centric staff to easily build fillable forms that can then be sent for approvals, emails, and tasks. In addition, Kuali Build applications can leverage integrations across multiple systems, including PersonAPI, FinanceAPI, and Data warehouses. This allows developers the ability to validate email addresses, look up current jobs, look up and validate Workday financial information to pull specific data into their forms and workflows. DoIT’s Low Code Solution team is here to assist and guide you in the process.

Presenter(s)

Joel Herron

Recording

What Good Leadership Actually Looks Like. A Story About Mental Health, Trust, and Teams.
2026-05-28 12:30 - 13:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Hello World (Room 1570) & Virtual
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A few years ago, I was standing on a bluff near my home. I had decided I was done. Two days later, I checked myself into the psych ward at the VA hospital.
I’m a DevOps engineer at UW-Madison and a US Army veteran with seven combat tours. The PTSD didn’t exactly come out of nowhere. But this talk isn’t really about that. It’s about what happened next.
My leadership team handled it right. Not from a playbook, but in the ways that actually mattered. That doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when a team has built something real, where people actually matter, and that doesn’t stop being true when things get hard.
Every team has someone carrying something heavy. Most of them are carrying it quietly. This talk is about what it looks like when a team gets it right, and what any of us can do to be that for someone else.

Presenter(s)

Dave Lyons

Recording

Normalizing Failure: How To Create Psychological Safety to Make Your Organization Successful
2026-05-28 13:15 - 14:15 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room B2590 & Virtual
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In our day-to-day work lives, it is common to want to celebrate our successes. Social Media (e.g., LinkedIn) is rife with examples of people boosting themselves and others, describing the successes and accomplishments that they’ve achieved. Similarly, résumés and CVs are full of our achievements, and, as these tend to serve as our professional introductions to one another, it’s no wonder many are afraid to talk about those not-so-successful outcomes that are as much a part of workplace life as the successes we achieve.
This is where normalizing failure comes into play! Creating an environment where team members are comfortable trying new initiatives, developing creative, innovative ways of tackling challenges, and then determining what works, figuring out what doesn’t, and helping others learn from the lessons we experience, helps to build a psychologically safe environment that people crave working in and that often celebrates ever-better achievements.
Learn creative ways to make this happen in your environment… even if you have been afraid to fail before.

Presenter(s)

Sean Bossinger
Amanda Thornton

Recording

Raised on Anime, Working in IT: How Japanese Anime Inspired Careers in IT and Cybersecurity
2026-05-28 13:15 - 14:15 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Hello World (Room 1570) & Virtual
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This session dives into Japanese Anime (Manga) and its influence on people like us in IT who are motivated to pursue careers in STEM, networking, and cybersecurity. We will discuss how specific Anime genres (e.g., big robots, cyberpunk, isekai, etc.) foreshadowed new technologies. Presenters Tomomi Imamura, Didier Contis, and Ryan Leavitt, who grew up in Japan, France, and Wisconsin (respectively), and watched a wide range of anime, will discuss their perspectives and how the anime shaped their interests.

Presenter(s)

Tomomi Imamura
Didier Contis
Ryan Leavitt

Recording

Wardley Mapping: An Interactive Workshop to Map Strategic Planning
2026-05-28 13:15 - 14:15 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room B2250 & Virtual
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Wardley Mapping is a powerful tool that allows for visually mapping strategic moves. We will go through a brief introduction, and then in the 2nd half, we’ll get our hands dirty by actually mapping an example problem space.

Presenter(s)

Phil Jochimsen

Recording

The Art of Adaptation: Real Stories of Navigating through Change
2026-05-28 13:15 - 14:15 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 1524 & Virtual
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We’re all experiencing change at a rapid pace, from leadership to major technical tools to campus structures. Being in and learning from the community can be both cathartic and helpful. This panel and conversation will explore how IT Professionals adapt, respond, and lead through uncertainty, organizational shifts, or personal transitions.

Panel

Stefan Wahe
Sabrina Messer
Phyllis Treige
Brian Lin
Dan Jacobsohn

Facilitators

Elizabeth Simcock
Chris Last
Laura Grady

Recording

AI Agents for IT Productivity
2026-05-28 14:30 - 15:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room 1524 & Virtual
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We will exploring how ‘agentic’ IT tools, including ones available to everyone today, can be used in powerful ways for personal productivity: first with an ‘agent-as-expert’ pattern with M365 Copilot, then automating a complex (and time-consuming) code migration with agent integration in an IDE, and finally showing how agent orchestration can simplify complex tasks like document processing.

Presenter(s)

Lucas Gallagher

Recording

Get It Out Of Your Head: Your brain wasn't built for this (and neither was Excel)
2026-05-28 14:30 - 15:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room B2250 & Virtual
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Your brain is great at solving problems; it’s terrible at storing them. Yet many of us are mentally tracking dozens of tasks, digging through reply-all chains, and marking everything as “high priority.” Your teammates don’t know where things stand, and on a bad week, neither do you. Externalizing your work isn’t about bureaucracy; it’s about protecting your thinking, making capacity visible, and building a shared system that’s easier than the chaos it replaces.

Presenter(s)

Ryan Horrisberger

Recording

Project Management for Messy People
2026-05-28 14:30 - 15:00 | Morgridge Hall, 1205 University Ave, Madison, WI, 53706, United States
Room B2590 & Virtual
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In IT, you may not always have a project manager, but almost all of us are asked to execute on projects as part of our work. This session will focus on how to make project management principles work for those of us with busy jobs and busy lives.

Presenter(s)

Rebekah Novak

Recording
