Peter Quinn Resigns

An anonymous reader writes "Andy Updegrove is reporting on his blog that Peter Quinn, CIO of Massachusetts and focus of the recent media feeding frenzy, has decided to step down. Quinn stressed that his departure does not signal any major changes in policy nor was he forced to resign. He did say that a large part of the decision was made by the Boston Globe's unfounded (and quickly disproven) charges."

Comments

Six conferences in two years?

[mschuyler]

I've read through over half the comments so far and seen some very good and cogent points on many sides of the issue. But what I haven't seen addressed is this:

Quinn is (was) a civil servant, though a pretty high ranking department head. He worked for the State. As a civil servant you are expected to do things like, you know, show up for work. You get only so many vacation days a year. Maybe he got 20 days (I don't know for sure, but that's typical). The point is that in an environment like that you are accountable for your time. You don't show up whenever you want to. So Quinn went to three conferences per year, some far away from home, dealing at least partially with ODF and at least partially because he was an upcoming 'star' for that agenda. Each one of these conferences took several days, including travel time, so I'm guessing a week each on average. In at least SOME of the cases the conferences paid for his way. Now it looks like his supervisors approved every one of these sorties, but that clears him of wrongdoing only in a technical sense.

Unless he took vacation for every one of these conferences, he attended them on the backs of the Massachussetts taxpayers. That is a legitimate issue to discuss and talk through. Over 5% of his working time was spent attending conferences to talk about ODF, which was HIS agenda for Massachussetts.

I've been in this sort of situation (though certainly not at that level) and the deal was always this: If I got paid by the conference, I had to take vacation, period, even if it were a speech for a measly $100. In some cases I was able to negotiate a "win-win" deal. If the conference paid my way (paid my expenses), but did NOT pay me for my presentations, then I could use my organization's time IF it were seen as pertinent to my position, or, frankly, brought glory to the institution. (e.g.: If I were a keynote speaker and my boss could brag to the board that I 'keynoted the blah blah conference') Even in these cases it ain't easy because it tends to cause dissent in the ranks. I once went to Sweden--at entirely my own expense--to receive an IT award and people griped that I was allowed to go.

I would think, however, that attending three conferences per year in any fashion like this would be really pushing it. I would think that a supervisor who was actually paying attention here would have said, "Hey, Quinn. You've been attending all these conferences, and, yes, I've given my permission so far on all of them, but it seems like every few weeks you are gone somewhere else and nowhere to be found. Now I find out you're pushing your OSD idea. We've talked about that and lets keep talking, but you know: this is not a done deal here and there are lots of issues to deal with before it is. Not everybody likes it and it's a problem when people see you pushing this on the outside. So I think that if you want to go to any more conferences, take vacation to do it. That way we avoid any sort of conflict of interest here where the taxpayer is footing the bill for your agenda. Deal?"

I think that pretty well would have taken care of the issue. And as has been pointed out elsewhere, in a dog-eat-dog environment, when you get into trouble, it's the little issues which normally slide that they'll get you on. You made a long distance call on a state telephone for a personal reason. You didn't fill out a silly form, that sort of thing.

So a pox on all the houses that deserve it here, including yet another journalist who thinks a B.A. in Communications makes him into a perceptive and worldly-wise person, but Quinn is not without some cuplability here. In hindsight, a little foresight might have prevented the entire affair.