As the Dean of Information Services at Kansas City Kansas Community College, Dr. Baz Abouelenein receives endless daily messages, e-mails and tweets on his smart phone.
But nothing quite like a recent afternoon. “I was at home and suddenly my phone went berserk and I am getting all these congratulatory tweets from users I didn’t know.”
Which is how Dr. Abouelenein learned that he was picked among the “20 Rising Star CIOs on Twitter.” A Chief Information Officer (CIO) is a job title given to the person responsible for the management of information and technology systems within an organization.
Criteria for selection to the Top 50 list included multiple parameters such as number of followers, number of tweets posted, and how many favored tweets by followers.
“Since my Top-50 cut-off minimum thresholds—for example: minimum of 500 Twitter followers—excluded some amazing social CIO rising stars, I decided to include a rising stars section with 20 more social CIOs,” wrote Afshar. The list included International CIOs such as the CIO for the U.S. Government, the CIO of British Airways, the CIO of NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and the list goes on and on.
Dr. Abouelenein’s name appears at the top of the list of the 20 Rising Star CIOs. “This is not something I put in for, it certainly came out of the clear blue sky, so I am both honored and humbled to have my name listed with the world’s top CIOs,” said Dr. Abouelenein.
In an e-mail to his staff, Dr. Abouelenein said: “Please accept my sincere gratitude for all the services and support you have been providing our constituents and for allowing me to be part of the team. I am thankful to have friends and colleagues like you. Neither the college’s name nor my name would have made it to the pages of a national news outlet like the Huffington Post without your hard work and commitment to offer a first class-service.”
In addition, Dr. Abouelenein’s selection has brought further recognition from EdTech Magazine as one of the 13 Most Social Higher Education CIOs on Twitter. While many of his posts on Twitter (tweets) are shared with other technology professionals in Higher Education, his tweets reach out to other industries such as aerospace, retail management and manufacturing.
Through Twitter, CIOs have the opportunity to listen to feedback from technology users. “We discuss latest trends and best practices in technology and share our views on common interests and ideas,” says Dr. Abouelenein.
According to EdTech, “It has become abundantly clear that social media is a vitally important platform for communication, networking and marketing and CIOs have joined the movement.”
Born and raised in Egypt, Dr. Abouelenein attended various Computer Science classes both at the American University in Cairo and at Seattle-based City University. He worked for several technology firms where he was known for his love of innovation, excellence and technology leadership before coming to the U.S. to work for Community Action Partnership of Saint Joseph, MO. in 2002.
Named Director of Information Systems at KCKCC in 2005 and later promoted to Dean of Information Services, Dr. Abouelenein oversees the technology operations staff of 25 technologists building and maintaining a first-class technology environment.
