Unknown Speaker 0:01 Welcome to Engaging Ideas, the bi weekly podcast from Parsons TKO, bringing you conversations with mission driven leaders and luminaries to shift your perspective and challenge your assumptions on the art of the possible. Tony Kopetchny 0:16 Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of engaging ideas, Parsons TKO podcast where we talk to leaders and luminaries in the mission driven sector about their experiences, to gather insights and ideas to increase our perspectives and understanding. And to always make sure you know, your listener that you are not alone. And we are all in this together. Before we begin, please leave us a review. If you can on whichever platform you choose to listen to us. We greatly appreciate your feedback. We'd love to hear how you are experiencing our show, and what things you would like to hear more about on this podcast. And most importantly, thank you so much for listening. Today. I am delighted to be joined by Kathleen Hackman and Jeff Bartlett. They are both currently working at a University at Buffalo. Kathleen is serving as the Associate Vice President for Advancement administration. And Jeff is serving as the Assistant Vice President for Strategic Initiatives. Welcome, y'all. Unknown Speaker 1:13 Tony, good to see you again. Tony Kopetchny 1:15 Thank you. And as I mentioned to both of you, this is my first time interviewing two guests at once. So I'm quite excited. And we'll see how I make out today. But before I dive in, you know, one thing I had met you all at the ASB conference in the fall in New Orleans, I listened to your talk about the roadmap y'all built. And we're gonna dive into that today. But I think I remember as clapping out loud. One of the things I had heard during it, there were two things that were just great that I want to quote, you know, one was in the future, all business strategy will be digital strategy. And my eruption of clapping came to digital strategy is not a digital communication strategy. I was so thankful to hear that because I find it does really get played very easily in the nonprofit space that we have all these different tools we're using. Thank you all for sharing that publicly with the world. And as we get in, just to get started, I mean, the context has set the stage for creating a digital roadmap at your university. How did they get go? And was there a deadline was timing, why did that come out? Unknown Speaker 2:20 Yeah, well, there really wasn't a deadline or a date that we had to have a plan in place, Tony, for us. And I, unlike many of our colleagues in higher education, we are continuing a budget cuts, challenges hiring qualified staff, the expectation that we're going to do more with less, right, so we were contemplating as a division as a leadership team, how we can manage through those realities by how do we rise to the occasion and meet that challenge of doing more with less. And digital became a really interesting opportunity for us to leverage so that we didn't have to keep cutting definitions or cutting back on essential programming and tools that we needed. And the idea of leveraging technology to do more, and capitalize on that was really appealing to us. So it really does lead us to this idea of how can we embrace this, and really apply this to the work that we're doing in higher education, when many weren't yet doing that, right? We were probably historically behind maybe more of a slow adopter of technology. And the pandemic, frankly, I think, forced us and gave us a great opportunity to embrace this a little more fully, we had to learn how to use new technologies like we are right or this, or this podcast, we had to orient and just be comfortable doing things in different ways. And so we capitalized on that, and leverage that to also encourage our staff to think about the work that they were doing in different ways. So that was really the catalyst for this. And we took full advantage of of circumstances that were presented to us and tried to make the best out of them. Unknown Speaker 3:59 We were really fortunate, though, that our VP at the time, has a real passion for digital, and innovation. And so really challenged a group of us to think about how do we not just use it as a tool, but really think about digital as a core concept for the our work, how we think about who we are and what we do. And that's the as Kathleen said, the pandemic started, but those conversations were happening in advance. It just allowed us to really move it to the forefront, much more than what we had to build up. Tony Kopetchny 4:33 Thank you for that. Yeah, one thing that we always talk about too, with groups, is you got to have that internal champions somewhere at the executive level that's willing to say no, this is important. I also thought Kevin, just what you're saying they're fascinating to me do more with less. And then you started on this path. I think, for everyone listening, I hope they're taking notes on that where this really is, this does become important to how you can figure out that mandate that everybody asks about That's interesting. I've never heard anyone come up with that perspective before. I mean, it was that sort of a guiding principle in this is we have to do more with less, we need to recruit it. This roadmapping of our central figuring out is that kind of, Unknown Speaker 5:14 I would offer that there was probably more of a lagging indicator, we sort of came to realize that right, it certainly wasn't a driver. But I do think that we we had collected just as an aside a pretty impressive deck of technology. And we were not utilizing that as effectively as we needed to. So I think we recognize that technology played a role, but came to realize how significant a role that would be, as we got into this and really thought about how we could apply the different tools and options that were available to us to our work, we are hoping and we are starting to see, you know already, that by adopting this strategy and these principles, that we can elevate the staff that we have to do higher level strategic work rather than to be grounded in the day to day minutia that has been dominating their time. So for example, we have a constituent records team that is responsible for keeping our alumni and donor records up to date, right, tracking addresses and ceasing individuals when when they when they pass away. And they have over a million records in our database, right that they felt responsible for this has to be clean data, I'm responsible for this. And so we've been able to think about technology in terms of automation, right? If we can find a way to automate the dispensing of a record so that it ceases throughout the system. And it doesn't have to be deceased in every iteration throughout the system, right that that buys them time, right, so that they can then use that time on on other higher level activities. So we're really excited about the future and the other gains that we achieve over time. But that's just an early example of things that we've started to realize will be byproducts of, of this adoption of technology as well. Unknown Speaker 6:59 I think it's important, though, to sort of hit on this Tony, were doing more with less doesn't necessarily mean it's less expensive. Right? We're also finding that the technology can be really expensive. But as Kathleen says, what the trade off is, or the balances is that we're able to do everything, less transactional work, more strategic work, and letting the technology do some of that worked for us. So it's that balance of investing in this. It's not necessarily, you know, a direct cost savings. But can we also then offload some other platforms? I think, where do we have at one point 70 Different platforms that we come up with. And that runs the gamut from Adobe and Microsoft to our CRM and everything in between? We were shocked when we went. That's a lot of technology that we we have for one division. Looking through this lesson going? Does anyone even know what that is? And what the one I always love is no one ever told something that our Oracle for us, it's a, it's a great tool that they always use. And we're going Oh, okay. Right. No one knows what it Tony Kopetchny 8:08 is. Yeah. Oh, that shadow technology that you start to find when you dig into these projects. It's amazing. Even just thinking about, because technology is expensive. And then I think a lot of groups too, that we deal with, they just forget about maintenance costs, once it's in place to you know, it's these are recurring costs that have managed, I love the way that it's bringing you up to do higher level thinking I had a friend years ago, and he was like, where's the promise of the technology supposed to make everything easier? I'm like, yep, think about what you're working on today. And the things didn't have to rise technology. It's there. It's just not doing everything. So just thinking about complexity of your organization, and where you'll sit within it. You know, a lot of the organizations we work with, the parts have to have multiple departments, different stakeholders, and everyone's sort of on the same team, but pulling in different directions occasionally. So I'm curious, you know, what did it look like with the departments and the staff roles that you had to pull together? And who had to be an informed stakeholder? Or what did that all look like to get this thing started? Unknown Speaker 9:09 Yeah, that's our reality, too, right? We have a lot of opinions and perspectives that need to be heard and met. So we knew from the beginning that it had to be a representative group of individuals who could broadly speak to the needs and the issues that our staff were dealing with. And so it's a basic level, our team is all about engaging in fundraising. So you know, of course, those two functional areas were represented in our work group. But then we also tapped individual members of the unit to support that forward facing work. So someone from our communications team, someone from our IT team, the ad budget and HR representative and those discussions to really broad, right, broad based nature. I would also say, Tony, that we try to tap individuals from those functional areas that were not necessarily the lead leader, the person who was responsible for the outcomes and outputs, but really the person on the team that had the passion for this conversation, because it was a changing dynamic. And we recognize that not everyone on the team had the capacity or the enthusiasm that Jeff and I have for this topic. And it is really necessary, I think, to ensure that a project like this is, is launched and then sustained over the long term. And, and looking back, I would absolutely say that was the right decision to make is to bring the right people at the table, not necessarily the right title to the table. Tony Kopetchny 10:30 Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, passion matters a lot during these change initiatives, and you need champions that are gonna go back and talk about it with excitement is the time it takes to do these. I don't know I run a lot. Everyone always uses sprint first marathon, but there really is something in that long term effort. You know, this isn't a one month project or a six month project. Right? Right. When we do under six months, eight months to get the roadmap is for a three year plan, Unknown Speaker 10:59 that Jeff and I have tried a little bit about the fact that we will never reach a destination, right? That's one of the our lessons learned, right? This journey is a marathon, not a destination, because it's ever changing, right? But the technology landscape is growing and adopting new ways and new methodology, we have to be always doing the same. If we're going to, you know, drive the success, we want to see so so we were excited about that. And yet, it is a little hard time to realize that right? It will never be done. Tony Kopetchny 11:34 Yeah, we always sort of pushed the once you prioritize your high fidelity is your one, your three is low fidelity. And the whole technology suites might start change by then. But at least you would know how it's connecting to that or why it's trying. How's it just for anyone listening? I really like that you had mentioned you folks in there who are from the budgeting team, and HR, I have not seen that in a lot of organizations that we work with, or they invited folks from those departments. But it seems pretty critical that as somebody from finance is starting to get an idea of what this is going to look like. And they're not just surprised at the end of it. Unknown Speaker 12:08 Right and HR two, and because when as we'll get into in a little bit, one of our things, concepts is that third step knowledge, right. And so you need to have that HR partner right at the beginning, as well to understand what it is that we're trying to do to build out those capacities and competences in the technology and the thinking as well. Because it's not just technology, not just how do we use the technology. It's really a mindset that we're trying to build out, along with the technology and the infrastructure and the policy that we you know, we're trying to really think of this in a much, much more holistic way than just the siloed approach that we typically Tony Kopetchny 12:44 developed when it comes to technology. That's brilliant. I love it. I'm loving this conversation. I mean, that is because capability is one thing, but we use capacity. It's not just capacity in the amount of hours somebody could put on something, but having the skill set that come in and work and sort of be within that system. And if you have to retrain, you know, what is the HR function behind that type of training their offerings, Unknown Speaker 13:06 and the curiosity behind maximizing the solution, right? We have, we had a lot of users that would use the basic functionality of the product. And we recognized that we were probably under performing, I guess, word views, we were not capitalizing on the the richness and the full spectrum of capability of any of our biceps, but that's part of someone's natural curiosity to learn and to grow and to challenge the system as much as I can. Oh, that's part of it as well. Tony Kopetchny 13:40 So I'm just for people in the audience. I mean, it sounds like y'all have the curiosity and interest in this. But you know, somebody might be listening, like after this fault. Is it sometimes it might just feel like a burden getting handed out with an organization? So yeah, how did y'all end up getting to be the people who Unknown Speaker 13:58 had to take a lead on? Rod asked for volunteers, everyone's? Unknown Speaker 14:09 Really how it happened? No. Unknown Speaker 14:15 Well, I think, definitely, you and I just naturally, I think had a real interest in this. We, we like to think about the work that we do, I would affect the division. So there were a lot of natural handle handovers and it just made sense. In the two of us really kind of taking on the lead. I mean, it was more than the title. As she said most of the time for fashion, the interests the the perspective, and frankly, the desire that we've had a lot of fun with. And I think I've had some really good conversations. Tony Kopetchny 14:48 Well, was it the type of thing though that got put into your hormones plans, somebody, you know, your supervisor say this is going to happen this year and I expect Was it something you suggested up Unknown Speaker 15:00 Supervisors. Unknown Speaker 15:02 All right, we both report to the Vice President, I would just say that it was one of those, you know, priority efforts for the division at large. And it was just, it just became part of the work that we were doing not necessarily that formally, Tony, looking at my performance program, do you see a line in there that said, you know, build a digital roadmap or drive this? Now, it's not there. But by extension of the work that I do every day that we tend to work that just does every day? It's a it's there, right? It's an asset. Philosophy, right, I, part of my charge in my role is to drive effectiveness and efficiency of the division at large, right. So I would definitely say that this, this session, we're having today fit within that, or I guess a little more less formal in that regard is that we still do things even if they're not in our programs, right, because, again, we buy into these ideas, we want the best of the divisions that feed and flourish. So Jeff, and I think our two members of the team that embrace that kind of notion that we're gonna go along with it, what we need to do, right, so willingly, that that was taking the soon as I've just said. Unknown Speaker 16:20 We're similar, but we're different enough that we also challenge each other to think differently, right? In our day to day responsibilities are also different enough. So I tend to be more I think, in the weeds with my team and managing the work and making sure that the resources and the people and the time is spent in the right way. And Jeff is able to do a lot of things in benchmarking and planning that I think is a really nice complement to that right. And so to gather, I think we form a pretty good team that brings the elements that are so necessary to launch successfully, an endeavor of this nature. It's Tony Kopetchny 16:58 interesting, just talking with both of you, and the energy you all have together and how you did this. And what we talked about earlier, the energy and resilience it takes to go through sort of major change project and pull a lot of these pieces together. It seems a lot of times I'm working with groups, and there's one champion who's in charge of it. So it feels like how much did it help the both of you to have each other Unknown Speaker 17:20 as partners? Tremendous. Unknown Speaker 17:24 Yeah, and oh, by the way, our Vice President is no longer with us. So if we had had not set it up in this way, I'm not sure we would be here today. Because rod, our VP was the champion, when we kicked off, right, it sort of evolved. I got on board, we took on more and more of the leadership and ownership, thankfully, right. As far as not here, our new VP is certainly interested in, you know, continuing to growth, interim VP, excuse me in growth and advancement, but doesn't have the same orientation to digital technology, AI types of things that we're wrestling with. And so I think that this easily could have gotten sort of put on the back burner had been not brought other people into the table to the table and sort of tasked them with ownership. So I'm thankful for that as well. In hindsight, you can see these things, and why they're so valuable moreso than when they're actually occurring. Well, yeah, Tony Kopetchny 18:20 we're often in the seat of talking to groups that have never done before. And trying to really explain that value that that you're seeing, as I know, is a you had mentioned, like getting other people involved. And one of the things y'all talked about in your presentation was the digital Governance Committee. And I think he talked a little bit about that, probably about a How did that come together? Did you were you tasked with finding those individuals bringing them in? And then like, is there a mandate of the committee? Did it have thority? How did you manage communications with all this people? A lot of questions on one. Unknown Speaker 18:55 So yes, yes. And yeah. And Kathleen, and I, and there, again, the partnership in developing this, we spent a lot of time talking about, you know, and imagining what this looks like, and what would the jars be, who should be involved? But I think it's important to kind of set the stage of our use the word, right, you know, if someone had budget, and they had an idea, and they got enamored by a platform, they would go out and buy it. And then would bring it back and say, Okay, I see, I've got this new platform, I need you to implement. It didn't necessarily have any say in it. At yo, they're trying to be good partners and would do the best that they could there was there isn't implementation plans, there wasn't adoption plans, there wasn't evaluations of the tool. There was really no conversation even around how does this support our large, larger divisional goals and objectives? Is it a strategy or a tool that we really need to adopt her strategy? So you know, we're missing a lot of really big important questions to answer before we will now and just suddenly we had your platform a, and then a year later, we're realizing well, no one's using platform. Yeah, I wonder why. So the whole concept around the digital governance committee really was trying to answer those big questions and get to get those folks to ask the questions and answer them. And so we really start with our charge being we're the body that that's tasked with ensuring that any new purchase aligns with what we're trying to do as a division. So we ask you, how does this support the strategic plan or or help us achieve our divisional goals? We asked about what's the implementation plan? Who else needs to be part of the conversation embedding the platform? What's the adoption plan? That was I think, a critical piece that we realized early on that that we didn't have. And we had a lot of examples of platforms. That sounded great. And no one did anything. And then also, as I said that that evaluation is well, you know, getting our to think about ROI. What are the KPIs? What's the ROI? Why should we adopt this, this platform, especially if it's going to take up resources that could potentially be used somewhere else? So again, it was just, I want to say clearing house, that's not quite the right. right word. But that that body that that was really fast to think about these things at a larger level, it was also about what's happening outside the, you know, the division, what's happening outside, you'd be what are the things that we should be thinking about? How, you know, looking through the all the platforms that we have? What makes sense? What doesn't make sense? Are we keeping track these sorts of things? So it was, it was also an opportunity for us to think about both internally what's happening, but then externally, are there platforms or concepts or ideas or programs that others are starting to adopt, that we should be thinking about as well. And that's kind of that that innovation piece of Rose, the industry going out, and we make sure that we're being responsive to it, as well. So that was kind of a charge of, of the digital Governance Committee. And like, the initial group that came together, we really look to find folks that could represent different perspectives. In the division, that we have officers, we had IT staff, we had donor relations with communication, we had alumni engagement, or sadly, and I we're, we're involved with that. And we've gone through a couple iterations of it now from the original group that came together. And we've kind of reformed it as some folks have rotated off, brought it on, but in the same concept, that really want to be part of innovation. They want to think about how can we do things differently, and they want to think critically about the technology and how we can use it to make the work that we do better. Brittany Schwartz 22:44 This is another thing we blast about, Tony, because when Ron said, Okay, go here's your your people, right, we thought that through, go govern, right, there was nothing to govern, it was a math, right. So we had spent a lot of time month doing this store, putting the process plays, writing the card, writing the guidance, talking to staff, you know, sort of Unknown Speaker 23:09 making the broader team aware of what we're doing and why and why they should care. Right. So socializing the idea beyond the small group. And so, you know, it was a little frustrating initially, because we were so hungry to get started and actually start doing things, but we really couldn't. So we had to spend months, sort of putting the foundation together, which again, I think was really helpful and positioned us for where we are today. But, you know, when you start something people don't want that slow on ramp, right? They want to start at 90 miles an hour, right. And so we had to deal with that frustration, particularly with a leader who was very eager to get started until results. But I again, I think that time, and that work is just going to be significant as we move forward. Unknown Speaker 23:51 I don't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. But I think badly, and I probably tend to process much more than others do. But I think I'd rather start with more process. And then as we go through, we can loosen it up, but instead of going the opposite way. And I know that some of our colleagues who've started to utilize the process, get frustrated by the process, but you know, I think it's, it's showing value. And so it'll be an evolving process. But there's a lot of as Kathleen said, a lot of months or took a lot of thoughtfulness of of what this looks like and what are we trying to accomplish with Tony Kopetchny 24:26 massive listening to her a lot of times I think everybody doesn't everyone sit with it, let him vent out and see where it goes. You know, building that atmosphere for buy in. Unknown Speaker 24:38 And being honest with everyone to say, you know, this is evolving. What we're doing now we're trying to make it work and, you know, in reality, it might not work out the way we think that's okay. Unknown Speaker 24:50 Tony, I think you asked about the charge specifically but we we we determined Jeff and I think again another really smart thing We decided and I'm not sure we we made the decision for the right reason. But I'm glad we did that this group is not a decision making body. It's a review. It's a coordination. It's a recommending body, right. So we we review requests, we make recommendations to our leadership team. And then it's up to the leadership team to make the decision. Of course, we're informing that decision by our review and the knowledge that we have. But we did not want to put any of the team members in a place that we were telling a colleague, no, you can't purchase that new, wonderful system that's going to change the world, right? We will make a recommendation, we'll help you analyze, we'll assist in the due diligence that needs to be done, we will make a recommendation but ultimately, it's up to the leadership team to make the decisions about investment in new products and resources, not ours. Tony Kopetchny 25:51 How did you run this? Like? Is it an ongoing body? Did you all just you just meet once a month no matter what, because he talked about not only reviewing or asking those types of great questions for groups, but also then looking innovative, like what's happening in the sector? Yeah, what's your process, Unknown Speaker 26:07 we, we set up standard quarterly meetings, and we have kind of a running agenda of things that we want to try to accomplish each quarter. You know, review internal platforms, look at it, you know, the external landscape, those sorts of things. But then as these opportunities come up, we set up a process that will be more much more responsive, usually within three to five business days, we can at least have an initial review of the request and be able to try to set up time within a week or two, so that we can be more responsive to the requests that are coming in. So there was a little bit of ebb and flow to it as well, an ad hoc nature to it. But we also have those kinds of standing quarterly meetings where we as a group, and then think about more of the bigger strategy around what we're trying to accomplish. Unknown Speaker 26:52 We also have subgroups, subcommittees of the digital governance council, one focuses specifically on technology and the digital landscape. What's out there? What are people doing? What's exciting? What should we be thinking about applying to our work, even if it's not in the higher education sector, we have one group that's looking at performance Unknown Speaker 27:14 evaluation, we have a new group that's champions user group, we probably get into what that looks like, because we realized, we need to have an executive sponsor, but then we need to know who the owner and the champions words are creating a group around that. Unknown Speaker 27:31 And then one on security, implementation, right, just making sure that as we procure and implement, we are doing that work in the right way, right, we're adhering to university policy, our data secure, we're not transitioned or not transferring data in an appropriate way. So we've got a group that looks at well, so it's a pretty robust, I think, cycle of roles and responsibilities that enable us to look at this and implement in a pretty sophisticated way. Unknown Speaker 28:00 It also allows for a lot more involvement across the division. It's not just, you know, the six or eight of us at the Digital Governance Committee. It's all these other subcommittees. And while we're certainly represented on each of those subgroups, it really does pull in a lot more people so we can help to ensure that this digital first mindset that we're trying to adopt is not just being driven by Tony Kopetchny 28:26 everyone listening or that I'm curious how, if a request, like how to request them, and Unknown Speaker 28:31 somebody wants something, yeah, so so we actually have a Formstack form, it's actually two parts. Because again, if someone has an idea, or a platform, they'll fill out the initial form for us to say, this is what this is. This is how we see it fitting within the larger divisional goals and objectives and and how it will help support us. And then we'll have a cast that will say, okay, that makes sense for you for the implementation planning to get with it and have them do some due diligence. Think about adoption and think about communication, both internal and external. I mean, we're pretty robust requirement after that. We split it into two because we, we didn't want everyone to go through all that detail. And then say, what is this? Why are you even thinking about this doesn't make sense at all. So having that first initial, got it? How can we help this makes sense? And it is worked to our benefit as well, because we had had one colleague come with a big platform big ticket item, and we thought it was just doesn't seem to fit. This is you're missing a lot of pieces here. And when we got to push back and we started working through all the rest of it became very clear that you know, what we were asking was not what he wanted to do. It allowed us to really say okay, Tony Kopetchny 29:59 well if you're not all You know, we're not going to set up a platform for fast right from the beginning. And why are we moving forward? And then I'm curious to your group, digital Governance Committee to you. And you talked about 70 Plus systems, all the different pieces out there is there is your team maintain like a master list of, and that then plays into your owners and champions side. So then you would actually, for governance sake know who actually is the owner of a system in case there's a question in theory, Unknown Speaker 30:31 and then work with those owners and champions to annually assess performance against the established objectives, right, we didn't have them when we started. So we created them for each platform, we know what we're trying to achieve. And then annually assess against that, are we achieving it or not a bigger strategy, we need to do something different to optimize solutions. We also track renewal and contract renewal date, so that we're not auto renewing, because we missed something, you know, that never would have happened, but it will never happen now, right? You have a better handle on all of that. So yeah, that we are doing all of that within. Unknown Speaker 31:06 But that was a real exercise as well just, you know, unraveling all of that. Because there were small platforms that were on auto renew on someone's credit card. And it took some work, figure out who has this, where's it being paid? You know, and to be able to finally say, Okay, now we understand, you know, what the system looks like. And again, maybe it's overkill, because you do have, you know, Adobe suite on on there. But I think it's important just to be able to say, No, and especially for Kathleen and her team, the IT team, and our support team to say, look at all the platforms that we are maintaining and involved in maintaining, in some way, shape, or form. And so when you come to me and say, Well, you know, why can't you just do that, you know, add one more thing? Well, look at what we're doing already, I think it's given everyone a greater appreciation for, it's not just three or four things that everyone thinks about it much more often. Tony Kopetchny 32:05 It's always big like that. And hope everyone listening, this goes back to the you're not alone, you know, the story, they're telling here about finding the different technologies, figuring out the renewals in the contract, like, it's everywhere out there. So don't don't feel bad. If you are in that place, just know that there is a way to move forward. And we're gonna get there. We've, I've talked to a lot of people and they've come and they want to get off contract, and then they're already so late, that they don't even have time, even. It's ahead of the renewal but not far enough in advance that they could get onto the contract. And they get stuck in for another two years. Unknown Speaker 32:37 Yeah, and that's the worst thing, I think, particularly in the technology space, because it's advancing so much. And new options are coming into the marketplace. So we really don't want to be locked into anything over the long term that would prevent us from from pivoting and capitalizing on other options. Tony Kopetchny 32:54 Yeah, but then yeah, to the point, and I'll work it and if you don't know, you just don't know. So then you're like, Oh, crap. Yeah. I'm gonna read to you. And in your presentation, you laid out nine goals or your roadmap when y'all were starting. And I'm going to read them for the audience and then pause at the end if you want to dive in on any of those. And I do want to get into your your lessons learned as well. So everyone can really relate to you and hear what happened there. But so the goals were, you know, increased digital competency and curiosity of our staffs and curiosity several times now. Also a huge fan of that are moving things forward, gain access to and connect siloed data and information enterprise wide. Again, on that one, identify and establish the technical platforms, underpin digital transformation, promote and enforce the adoption of digital standards and guidelines across all you a Unknown Speaker 33:46 unit. Again, love all these Tony Kopetchny 33:50 clapping up here in my mind when I say re envision the alumni donor journey for the digital age, align divisional objectives and design and decision making through a digital future. Establish greater collaboration across units on digital transformation initiatives, establish enterprise wide data integrity and maintenance standards, and strive to be forward thinking with the focus on digital innovation. But I think I hit all of them there how you know, as you set those goals, was that the team and the Governance Committee that put that together and then are you also sort of as that talking and listening to or were you putting those back out there and helping people understand even like what some of those Unknown Speaker 34:32 goals might have been? Yeah, yeah. We, Unknown Speaker 34:36 when we first started this conversation, as I had mentioned earlier, during the pandemic, we spent several weeks learning what we recognized when we first came together is that we all define digital transformation digital strategy differently, right. You had mentioned that right? Many people they think of it as a marketing strategy. So we we immersed ourselves in that As practices, we did a couple of readings together that talked about strategies, applying technology to business solution. And then we talked to peers that are in the marketplace, which by the way, there there's not a lot that really have formal roadmap that they're using, sort of emulate, right. So we talked to people that were further ahead than they were, but certainly there's not done dozens of people to, to model a program again. And we we kind of aggregated all of that, and then thought about where we were and where we wanted to go and, and throw these goals. Those right? Recognize where we are, you consider that realities of that equation. But then to also put that forward thinking mindset on it, make sure that we were driving and changing and evolving over time, right, we didn't want to be steady state. So we really tried to create a list of goals that would, would give it and drive our growth and advancement Unknown Speaker 35:54 over the long run. We were also in a fortunate position, Kathleen, that in the midst of all this, we had initially started a CRM RFP, the pandemic had kicked off. And in doing that, that interim period, the concept of a more enterprise wide solution called on campus, and so we were suddenly then thinking about this transformation is much more about much more than just what's happening within University Advancement. It's also what's happening within the university. And how do we make sure that the work that we're doing is supporting and a part of this larger conversation? So you know, that certainly identified throughout our roadmap when we were talking more about enterprise wide, that's where it starts to come in when we're talking about data. And we're thinking about what are the opportunities to get data from across campus that we might not have always had access to, or at least in the same way, because now everyone is having this conversation together, how we can be supportive and use that in a different way. So that was, I think, a really critical part of this conversation that really allowed us to think much more broadly than what we had initially even started our Congress Unknown Speaker 37:15 and think bigger, in many ways, right? When absolutely a unit within a bigger organization, you're limited by resource, technical capacity, right? Knowledge, time. But when you're aggregating all of that, from an enterprise perspective, it allows you to think about things in a much more robust and brand way. It also comes at a cost right there, there's a time element, it takes a lot longer to do business that way, right? So I've had to be a lot more patient than I like to be why because I still don't have that CRM that Jeff mentioned, because we've been on this journey with our partners across the campus. And at the end of the day, we will have a better solution for the university. But boy, it's hard to be patient when you really feel like you need something yesterday and you still don't have it. Unknown Speaker 38:03 It was awesome. Working with partners across campus, I had one of our colleagues that often is my office yesterday and said, Oh, you know, the VP that I work with, was asking about, you know, some data and why they have it, and they haven't shared it with us. I said, Well, it is because, you know, we've asked for it. And we've just not been able to get it. And you know, there's other circumstances around it. And suddenly, everyone because they're realizing, Oh, this is part of a larger conversation, this also supports one another and the work that we're trying to do, suddenly, what used to be behind the walls that we couldn't get through for various various reasons, is now part of full force. We're going to do this because this all and that's really exciting as well. Unknown Speaker 38:50 Earlier on, we talked about socializing ideas and concepts and getting feedback and input from other stakeholders. And so that was also part of our process. Tony's we came up with a list of draft, you edited, we iterated with our team. And then we also brought it back again to the larger division and got feedback from them. Because again, without that buy in and belief that it's reasonable and possible to achieve these things, and, and the ability to see yourself in these goals would be so we did a lot of that as well as socializing these ideas, getting more input from the broader division. And then ultimately, once we had the list of nine, we, we took it a step further. And we have a digital roadmap that is a standalone document, but we didn't think that was the right place is that we blended all these goals into our organizational plan. It's a standalone piece, but it's not right. So now when you look at our divisional plan, you see digital is a thread throughout the whole plan because it's not a standalone thing, right? It has to be part of the fabric of our organization and part of everything that we do so we took that next step as well to make sure that it was part of our Have the division part of everyone's responsibility. We did add to each person's program, digital, or technology proficiency, something along that line. So everyone has it in their performance program now that it's expectation, we hire for that. Now we have technical competency in our interview. So it is definitely part of the fabric, if you will, and we try to use this in all the conversations that we're having. Unknown Speaker 40:25 And you were asking about decision making. We had this recently, if we're going to be hiring position, what's the digital component that we're looking at, we're looking at hiring some positions, or digital gift officers that we probably wouldn't necessarily have moved forward as quickly as we did. But we realized, we're looking for some gift authors, we've met this digital component with a couple of different pockets that way. And so it's allowed us to really say, here's an innovative way that we can adopt digital and still be able to accomplish what we're trying to accomplish with with. And that's I think, our you know, some of that is happening organically in the decision Tony Kopetchny 41:05 to you know, it's there to just really started from you know, digital transformation is such a big term. And it means so many things, so many people randomly, it was almost 10 years ago, when we started, we were starting with the word digital transformation. And it was like a lead balloon on every table we went through. And now we're sort of coming back around to it. But you know, the thread I'm hearing and hopefully the audience is to as this isn't, this is almost culture change as much as technology implementation is secondary to what you need to do. As you're thinking about it. Unknown Speaker 41:40 We look at digital transformation three ways, is people as processing infrastructure. Unknown Speaker 41:47 We I'm sorry to overtalk you, Tony, but we have failed, because we have not appreciated the important role that people play, right, we have purchased tools that we thought were spectacular, we implemented them, user adoption was low, we didn't invest the time to drive user adoption, when invest the time to, you know, increase the energy and enthusiasm and demonstrate the application and the value of those tools. And we've just got them because nobody was using them. The outcomes were abysmal, the return on investment was non existent. So even tools and technology that have such great application and potential value are not valuable at all people behind you in that adoption. So I couldn't agree more. Tony Kopetchny 42:34 I in younger in my career when I was in house in new technologies, and I came up with this talk. And it was technologies easy, but people are hard. Everything was failing because I couldn't get people to buy into the program work Unknown Speaker 42:48 I was doing. I say on occasion that if it weren't for the people, I would love my job. Not often because I love my job, and I love my colleagues. But there are days boy, when people make it really challenging to Tony Kopetchny 43:02 do anything. It's it's it's that realization of how hard change really is. And it's difficult. And I that was part of the reason we started the company. We've just used to write it, we've seen impeccable technology delivery, completely muted, because no one understand understood why it was implemented, what they were supposed to do with it, what it meant for their job and like, money just going down the drain for that and all this design, okay, like stuff is important, y'all to end the patient's thing is interesting, too. And you need to be patient. I have two questions for you, that could roll into the next one too. But I wonder how much the patients are a lot of times, technology is we're so used to things being so fast that we forget what it takes to get to the implementation of purchase, the buy in and all these other pieces we talked about, but curious to know what as you all were wrapping or you put that first layer of the roadmap together? Did you go back and prioritize segments? So are what you're saying there's nothing you don't have a CRM yet. Something else prioritized above that is the CRM still on there? So you're like, Unknown Speaker 44:10 what's coming just out there? Yeah. Unknown Speaker 44:12 For sure. Unknown Speaker 44:13 How did that? How the Tony Kopetchny 44:15 priorities prioritization? Yeah, Unknown Speaker 44:16 and I definitely want to speak to this, but part of our plan is, was devised in that way, right from the beginning. We have timelines associated with each of our goals and objectives. So that we, we were thoughtful about, okay, this comes first. This is a later, you know, endeavor. If this is one that's in the future, we have to keep our eye on it, but we just can't right, CRM is a good one. But I also would say that we often with implementations of any product, there's there's a zero work, there's groundwork that needs to be done to make that implementation run smoothly. So we we've also spent a lot of a lot of our time preparing for that CRM is just as an example. So yes, it was delayed, but we've capitalized on it time to make the implementation smoother, so maybe the implementation will take less time. because we put more effort into data cleansing and, you know, workflows and you know, fixing some of the quirky things that we were living with, but just won't work when you implement a new system. And we don't often have that time to invest in that kind of thoughtful preparation. So again, I'm trying to look at it as a gift of time. And, and to prepare the team to actually have a more successful implementation when, when that class or that timeline are, a lot of it is how you perceive the project as well, and making the most of the situations that are put your way I tried to make lemonade with the lemons that I'm thrown, rather than just stack them up in a corner and get overwhelmed by them. And I think this is an example of when Unknown Speaker 45:42 we did that. And I think it depends on the complexity as well. I mean, long term, we know how to change and working with our colleagues around an enterprise wide to implementation solution is not a six month project, right? That's going to obviously be a longer longer term progression with you know, what are, what are the short term wins that we can start to see immediate results within a couple months. And so there were, as we went through all those strategies, there were delineations, between things that were just gonna take longer, because just by the nature, they were complex versus, you know, how can we get them to pick things up and running? And then the rest of it, we were able to just kind of sort through and frankly, it was a staff resource issue as well. As we look at these remaining things. Where do we really want to resource and prioritize versus other things? Again, not that other things weren't more important, but there was kind of a natural decision that we were able to quickly go through to be able to say, this is short term, this is more mid term, these are going to be longer term, Tony Kopetchny 46:45 two things that are popping up to me one word data has come up several times now. So just for anyone listening, I think there's that other part where each one of these tools is housing data, and how that data talk to each other starts become part of that roadmap, infrastructure processes. Where does this one flow to this one to this one? How do we make it all work? Even if even if a system of record is different than another? How can it all talk to each other. And then just the quick wins is really interesting, too, is making sure that you're keeping that momentum flowing, because of the longer term things that are that are going to be happening staff resource, too. I wonder, what I have found when we do this type of work, and maybe you were seeing in yours, too, is executives then can see oh, man, we don't even have the staff to do this, even though I thought it was they put it into your annual plan and told you how to be done. And then you're like, take a look at this. There's no one to do it. Have you found that to sort of hold you when you sort of look at the staff resourcing behind those initiatives? For sure. See smiles here. So Unknown Speaker 47:49 with the CRM in particular, it's on our mind, I think the challenge there, Tony is, again, going back to what we were talking about earlier on is in a resource constrained environment, you kind of have to live with some of that. It's not like I can say I need another person to do X, Y, and Z and the resources are there to give me that person. So we've had to really, I think, take a leap of faith implement with the confidence that when we absolutely need to hire, the resources will be there, right. So either through attrition and reprioritize reprioritizing, how we're using our existing dollars, or by making a case to the university for additional investment. Because the reality is when you start you often don't know the magnitude of the staffing matter are the scope of a work effort. And so I think time allows for your clarity, and then creates a stronger case for additional investment. So we've approached it more from that perspective than assuming the resources are going to be there from day one, Tony Kopetchny 48:49 we're gonna have to imagine with that move, y'all made it beginning of having HR within the Digital Government kind of got a little bit out of the Unknown Speaker 48:58 blue for them. Right. Right, absolutely. And budget as well, right. It's part of their thing, as well. And knowing that we need to be really, really thoughtful about how we're spending our dollars and trying to implement other cost saving measures whenever possible, so that we can liberate existing resources to invest in the future, right. So everybody has a role to play in this. Again, we've said this already. It's not just an IP strategy is not an IP responsibility. Everybody has to play their part, to ensure that we have everything that we need to be Tony Kopetchny 49:33 wonderful. Thank you all. So let's, if we could just for the audience, listen, I mean, lessons learned. You had a bevy of those listed, but I don't know if you just want to start talking to them things that you've taken to heart and are taken away and that you share with everyone listening is thinking about taking on this effort. And Unknown Speaker 49:50 so you started the conversation with digital strategies, digital communication strategies, I'm going to take that one off the top of my head. I love that one. So one of the lessons that I really have learned through all this, and I think Kathleen would agree with me is that it's the concept of if it's a destination, and it's not a destination, but a journey. And I think that's really hard for a lot of right, because especially those of us who work in in fundraising, it's a very metric driven, you know, we, we know what our goal is, we know what success is, because we've either hit a number, we haven't hit that number. And when you're talking about something like this, as we talked about, it's extra change. And that is going to evolve naturally over time. And so that mindset of we had this vision, and that was part of that process that we put together early on with the digital Governance Committee, because we were going through and Kathleen, and I kind of stepped back and went, What does any of this even mean? Where are we going, and, and not even have that you'll find that is our digital vision for the division, once we have that everything kind of started to fall into place. But you know, realizing, again, if it's not a destination, we're never going to get that vision, because the landscape is always going to change. What if it's the foundation and the functions and the structure that we put into place, they can take advantage of that changing landscape? Unknown Speaker 51:21 Yeah, I said this already, I'm just gonna repeat it. But I'll pick a different one, not the responsibility of it, right? It has to be broader. Everybody in the organization has to play a role. But what I really like is, well, we have to be nimble, right, we have to be constantly planning, and we have to have an awareness about what's going on around us. We can't just build the plan, and then work the plan and say we're done. So that's hard for a lot of people to write. But at the book, one of those lessons learned is that we're never going to be done, we're going to have to constantly scan, we're gonna have to constantly change and evolve and adapt, and don't get too comfortable with any one solution, because you're probably not going to have it a year from now, two years from now, right? Something new is going to take place. And that that's a hard lesson to deliver right are, especially for people who have seen a lot of change. And they just want to say we have right now we just need to live with this. It's a hard thing to get people to understand. No, this is the new paradigm. And we have to be uncomfortable. I would agree. Tony Kopetchny 52:22 Change fatigue within our work lives and a society, right? Yeah. It's just exhausting everywhere. But it's, yeah, it's interesting, too. I mean, the technologies will change, but just thinking about policies to fundraising work, what right? What data can you capture on somebody? What is the security? What is? What are the laws on that? Unknown Speaker 52:46 Yeah, another one of my favorite ones is if you build it, they don't necessarily come right to the dreams by there. But we had an example, I said this before we launched new technology that was aI driven, and really saw great potential for increasing our gift officer productivity, right? The promise was that the next best prospect would be identified for them. So they didn't have to scour through lists of names and figure out who to call. So we stopped using it right? We don't have that technology anymore. And we learned really the hard way, I think that you have to have that product champion who can get people excited about it and demonstrate that show case, studies, we're using it right? spark the imagination, if you will, because without that, even the best technology doesn't do anything. At that point, probably one of my favorite lessons learned is that you really have to put the time and effort and have those champions, and keep saying things after you think you've said them way too many times. Because you don't know if everyone is yet. Unknown Speaker 53:50 And I think it's also about making strategic and deliberate choice. It's not just the most exciting newest thing on, you know, on the market that the salesman is is you, we really have to think about what are we trying to accomplish, and what's going to be the best solution generically to help us do that. Tony Kopetchny 54:11 So I went to film schools and undergrad. And I remember when they were talking to us about putting together a film or when to edit, and when you make it, you're making a choice. The world might not like it, but at least you know why you did it. And then you can adapt. I feel like what you're saying here too on the it's a it's not a destination, it's a journey and then the ability to stay nimble. You know, a lot of people will think process candor that I find process helps it if you don't know where you're supposed to be a can't evolve, and then you actually don't know when you're being nimble or you're just scrambling, Unknown Speaker 54:44 right. And there is a difference. We were doing a lot of scrambling before reacting, right and we're trying to get out of the reactive mode and drive our group to be proactive and thoughtful about not just a P Use a colleague who as I think I said this already who has found a new solution that they really want to implement, because it's great, and they're really excited about it. It doesn't negate the value of the tool. But what we need to be more thoughtful about our procurement decision. We can't just go with the motion, right? Tony Kopetchny 55:15 It's like, we're all just growing up from the disruption is cool. It's not disrupt. Right? Unknown Speaker 55:21 Right, right. Tony Kopetchny 55:22 You have to have plans, people need to work and then you need to pay. Well, I have greatly appreciated this conversation. I've been very excited. Looking forward to this for quite a while. I saw your amazing presentation, ASB. I am so glad we've met. And thank you for joining us today. I hope our audience got a lot out of this. And for anyone who's a regular listener of the show, you know, we have started a Spotify channel. And we do end every episode by asking our guests the same question and Kathy, I'll start with you. What is your go to song when you need a boost? And why? Unknown Speaker 55:56 Yeah, this this is this was a tough one for me because I don't I don't have a go to song I was a have a go to type of music. I do like country pop kind of music. And I like it loud. And with that strong solid beat. But if I had to pick an album, that was the closest I could get to it, and this isn't even country. I love the greatest showmen. I don't know if you've heard it. But I love the music in that and I just turn it up, it empowers me and gives me the energy that I need to tackle whatever I'm doing. So I often have that on on the weekends when I'm cleaning the house, because it's not one of my favorite things to do. And it gives me the energy I need to enjoy what I'm doing. Tony Kopetchny 56:36 Thank you for sharing. I am very familiar. My wife is in the performing arts and my daughter's following her footsteps. And that is one of their favorite albums as well. Yeah, it's great. Right now over to you, Jeff. Unknown Speaker 56:47 So I I'm, I'm from a similar answers athlete. And when when I saw him, I could pick one song when I really want to get into a groove. And I'm in particular when I'm like getting into data, because I'm a data guy, and I just feed off of that. And I just really want to get into that groove. I love this little radio station on New Orleans, WW OC, and I'll stream it and it's like traditional New Orleans music, Cajun Creole brass band. And I'll put that on and like Kathleen, probably and turning it up a little louder than than what I showed in the office. Right? You know that music is just, it's just energizing. And it's great. And it just really kind of helped me get in the right mind and I can really then dive deep into that. Tony Kopetchny 57:37 Thank you for sharing that with us. We will we will pick a few songs probably from a WWE Ozy genre dividend Spotify channel a couple from the album. Appreciate your time today. For anyone who was listening, got some feedback on this episode. Let us know we'd love to hear from you. And thank you Alec. It's just wonderful. Unknown Speaker 57:54 Yeah, thanks. It's great. Talking about this great opportunity. Tony Kopetchny 57:59 Wonderful. And dear audience. Thank you for listening and I will see you next time. We'll hear from you next time. Bye. Oh. Unknown Speaker 58:08 Thank you for listening. Join us again for more engaging ideas with your host Parsons TKO CEO Tony Kopetchny. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a comment and share with your friends. Send us your feedback at create change at Parsons tko.com. Transcribed by https://otter.ai