Cheryl Broom (8s):
Hi everyone. I'm Cheryl Broom, CEO of GradComm, and today I have a really exciting guest on the podcast.
Alex is a senior leader at Hootsuite, and for those of you who don't know Hootsuite, we use Hootsuite a lot
here at grad com as we manage our clients' social media. But Hootsuite is a platform that allows for you to
do just amazing things, managing and overseeing and measuring the impact of your social media accounts.
And Alex is on the podcast today because Hootsuite has just launched a new social media certification, and
we dive into that certification. We talk about why it's important, what you can learn by doing the certification,
what it has to offer, but we also talk about some of the things that I think will help all of you, even if you're not
Hootsuite leaders when it comes to successfully managing and growing your social media accounts.
Cheryl Broom (1m 1s):
I'm thrilled to have Alex on the podcast and I know that you're gonna learn a ton from his experience and
expertise. Alex, thank you so much for being a guest on the podcast today.
Alex Wedderburn (1m 14s):
Oh, it's an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. I feel absolutely honored following on from
the last set of guests you've just had on the show as well. Such wonderful podcasts. Excited to be here. I
think this might be episode 37, if I'm right.
Cheryl Broom (1m 28s):
You've done your homework an A already.
Alex Wedderburn (1m 35s):
Well, honestly, yeah, I, you know, as I said, the work that you and the team do in this series is so enjoyable
to listen to. So yeah, as I said, an absolute honor to be here.
Cheryl Broom (1m 43s):
Well, thank you so much. So you come from Hootsuite and I think we at GradComm use Hootsuite as part of
our platform and helping clients, but for those out there who don't know what it is or aren't familiar with the
company, fill us in.
Alex Wedderburn (1m 56s):
Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting, like Hootsuite is one of those brand names. I think pretty much everyone at
some point in their life has either heard of or interacted with in some shape or form, but it doesn't necessarily
always mean everyone knows exactly what we do. So it, it is a very good question, but I guess for us, why
we kind of see ourselves as the forefront of social innovation. So we've been leading the way for more than a
decade. We were the first ever social media management company, so I think we, yeah, we just hit 14 years
now, and that's an incredible thing, and particularly in the technology landscape and certainly in the, in the
world of social media, 14 years is a very long time. So what that has allowed us to do as a company is really
build up like some unparalleled expertise around social media management as a technology, but thenoverlapping that with like social insights, employ advocacy, social customer care, range of strategic themes
aren't just really important to our customers.
Alex Wedderburn (2m 51s):
And actually really even more importantly, you know, so many of the students and the professionals,
particularly in the education space to take for our courses. So we kind of created the category, continue to
innovate in the space. It's given us an edge because of this like really detailed focus on education, which has
been such an important part of my journey here. And we offer like a, a slew of different solutions really for all
businesses. Obviously we're very tailored to the education space, but no matter what size or business you
are, whether you're focusing on employee advocacy, social listening, I know like crisis communications has
been something that's been brought up on this podcast a whole range of times. In that scenario, I'm really
passionate about through to, you know, sch scheduling and publishing, solution analytics, social customer
care, I missing social advertising, and even more recently around like helping with writer's block.
Alex Wedderburn (3m 41s):
So the introduction of our brand new tool, Ali Writer, which is an, a AI solution to support social media
marketers.
Cheryl Broom (3m 47s):
Wonderful. Well, I, first of all, I wanna, I wanna talk a little bit more about your role at Hootsuite and
especially about the work you've done in higher education. But before we get there, I just can't believe that it,
it's been 14 years, which is crazy. Know, I mean, that's insane. I mean, 14 years ago was 2010, and that
doesn't seem that long ago, but it was so long ago.
Alex Wedderburn (4m 12s):
I know, I know. It's, it's something like I always look back on and I think we see this world of social just
changing at such a rapid pace, and it actually makes it one of the hardest things for the modern social media
marketeer because how do you continue to keep up at the rate of a sector that has changed quicker than
probably anything we've ever seen before? Which again, I guess is such a why it's so valuable that we do
have like courses like we do to be able to support those in this landscape.
Cheryl Broom (4m 44s):
Great. Yeah, you know what, that's an excellent point is it does change so much and maybe that's why it still
always feels so new, but social media isn't necessarily new anymore. I mean, it's been around, I remember, I
remember being a teaching assistant in my master's program like 25 years ago, and everyone was on
MySpace and students give speeches about it. I mean, not say two decades ago. I know it doesn't feel new
every day.
Alex Wedderburn (5m 9s):It, it really does. I think about back when I was at university and yeah, that was still like the, the MySpace
was still the, the front and center, and then Facebook comes along and completely changes everything. And
as you said, it just felt so new and so like a, just such a, an open space at that time. And to think that, now
when I think about the modern university that I speak with, you know, so much of the feedback is, so what
do we, what do we do? Like where do we go with TikTok? Like how do I double down and what I currently
have? Do I invest in this new technology to be able to compete or do I just leave it well alone? And then as
that changes, Instagram does a new update to their algorithm and Facebook changes the way that business
manager operates and be real pops up and Snapchat comes back again and people are like, well, how do I
make sure ultimately I'm executing on the value and the strategy of my institution and ultimately delivering
what my audience expects us to do.
Cheryl Broom (6m 8s):
Now you have a background and Hootsuite has a great background in higher education. So tell us a little bit
about what your role is at Hootsuite and, and Hootsuite's intersection in the higher education world.
Alex Wedderburn (6m 21s):
Yeah, absolutely. I'll absolutely tell you like, this is the part for me that gets me, I guess fills me with like the
most, the passion and excitement about the what I do, because my journey in the education space into
Hootsuite has been a really, really long one. You know, we talk about how long Hootsuite's been around.
Well, that's actually kind of where my journey with the education sector began. So I graduated, I actually
studied digital media and communications at the University of Brighton in the uk and then I moved into my
first job at the Guardian National Newspaper. And when I joined there, this was a really exciting juncture in
the, in the digital landscape because newspapers, like so many other publishers in this world, had to operate
this brand new strategy environment, which was this transition from print across the digital.
Alex Wedderburn (7m 10s):
And that transition was a lot harder than a lot of people will remember, right? This was a, this was a time
where brands, particularly institutions of universities, had to work out ways to engage with new audiences
who had diversified away from that traditional, putting an advert inside of a newspaper or sponsoring a piece
of editorial content through to having this whole breadth of new ways of investigating institutions doing their
research about them, making choices about attending. And that's what really got me into the education
sector. I suddenly joined this brilliant team where we were helping institutions with this digital transformation
project. We were building out content marketing partnerships with these institutions that were allowing them
to reach new audiences in different ways and be seen as thought leaders.
Alex Wedderburn (7m 55s):
And we were helping ultimately look at this like global audience that shows content and then obviously
manage to like influence and redirect that through to institutions so that they could help them with their goals.
And that's, that got me, that was it. I was like, this is, this is, there was something so rewarding aboutworking for a company that is invested in education and driving outcomes that are really, really meaningful.
And that's what brought me to Hootsuite. So after seven years of working there, I had the opportunity to, to
join Hootsuite. And when I looked at what we were doing as a company, even back then, so this was in
2016, I could see that we were already doing something that was more than just technology.
Alex Wedderburn (8m 39s):
There was a, there was a genuine passion and a meaningfulness behind what we did, and there was this
natural alignment from the very beginning between Putri and the education sector. And for me, that was, that
was what pulled me across because I do believe in this life you could have the best, best technology in the
world, but if you don't have that education, the strategy, the experience, and the expertise behind it, to be
able to align those two things together, you know, you can't have one without the other, in my opinion.
Cheryl Broom (9m 7s):
Excellent. I mean, that is so true, right? And, and I'm really fascinated, I, you know, we used Hootsuite here
at grad com and I used it when I was in higher education too, but I really didn't understand or know until I
met you, Alex, that, that you have that Hootsuite really has this dedication to the higher education arena.
And it makes a lot of sense because at the core of social media, I mean, it's the name social, and we want to
build communities and we want to be social and, and there's no better place in the world to build a
community than on a college campus. So social media becomes such a integral tool of how we build
community and talk to students and get information out and share information.
Cheryl Broom (9m 51s):
And I can't imagine a college without it now. I mean, it's, it's part of our infrastructure. It's how students learn
about what's going on and what's happening and what's next. So I know it's smart, it's smart enough and
sweet to be, have such a specialty, but it's also so important I think, for the company to assist in that way as
well.
Alex Wedderburn (10m 13s):
Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. And as you said, I don't think there is many institutions now globally that at
some point won't have, you know, looked to what they're doing. I'm thinking there is so many areas that we
need to deliver on. How do we do that with efficiency? How do we lead with data-driven insights? How do we
scale, how do we actually become an efficient brand to our audiences without having this type of technology
in place? But it is difficult because for so many, you know, marketers in this ever-evolving space like ours,
like, is where they don't often have like the full support of maybe some more like commercially driven
businesses that may have, you know, 5, 10, 15 people supporting a, a marketing and communications effort.
Alex Wedderburn (10m 60s):
And in fact, more often than not, it might just be a one person team. So with that, how do you create an
environment that allows for an institution, no matter what size they are, to still be able to deliver the valuablelike information that's so critical to its audience, which is ultimately like students, parents, you know, people
invested, career advisors, whatever it may be. It's how about how you get that information to the masses in a
really efficient way when you might not have the full resources of other businesses?
Cheryl Broom (11m 31s):
Well, that's so true. I mean, that's probably one of the most common questions I get from clients is how do
we do this? There's only me, there's, yeah, right. College expects me to do everything. How do I, how am I
on TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and support the president and write the board presentation and take
pictures? It's just person doing it all.
Alex Wedderburn (11m 51s):
Exactly. I mean, you only have to go to LinkedIn to see the social, the very fair and very valid social media
commentary around, you know, the expectations of a education social media marketer. You know, it's, it's 10
jobs in in one. And whereas I see that obviously as a challenge because of obviously the amount of skills
and expertise needed. What a wonderful skillset to also be able to take away and say, Hey, you know, okay,
yes it is, it's a lot, but think about all of these incredible skillsets and ways I'm able to take information and
content and then put that into an environment that's obviously advantageous and, and beneficial to those
who need to see it.
Cheryl Broom (12m 29s):
Now one thing that Hootsuite's offering and that you've just revamped is a social media certification. And I
think I'm really interested in talking about this because first of all, a lot of colleges, especially community
colleges, don't have really a professional development curriculum for staff. They do for faculty as part of
faculty load, you have to continuously learn. So it's in the fabric of the institution, but there's not always a
budget or time for staff members or administrators to do certifications. So I love the fact that Hootsuite's put
something together that will, that I think is free right, or very low cost, and that can help people get better and
more efficient at their jobs.
Cheryl Broom (13m 10s):
So tell me a little bit about what is the certification, what, what does the cost, what does it do? Why would
people want to wanna get certified? What is it?
Alex Wedderburn (13m 19s):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, I think you nailed it there perfectly. Like when I look at what some of the most
common like, strategic themes that happen in, in higher education, and interestingly whether or not this, this
actually kind of applies to both staff retention and student retention. It's just around how you can use, you
know, certifications and professional development to really deepen relationships with your staff, particularly
in times when they might be a team of one or, or a smaller team as a collective to, to feel like they're being
invested in. And to understood that though is like a two-way exchange between taking a certification,becoming leveled up and have the insights to be able to develop and adapt in this ever exchange, ever
changing landscape.
Alex Wedderburn (14m 2s):
But also, I mean that your career opportunities are gonna be, you know, amplified off the back of it. So I
mean, when it comes to those certifications, this is where I talked about this, this wonderful blend between
Hootsuite having this like ha this technology and then this like Halo brand certification program. It just really
reinforces that idea that we are truly embedded in the education sector and we care when we want to give
back. So I'll answer your question in, in two ways there, because there are different elements that make up
this brand new course that we've just launched, which I'm really, really excited about and it's been an
absolute joy to be part of it. I was part of the original course and then I've been part of this revamped version
as well.
Alex Wedderburn (14m 44s):
But before I get into it, I just wanna share a really powerful start with you. Okay. Because I found this and I
thought this is exactly why we need to be helping support a new generation, a continuously evolving
generation of those who are building out social strategies and need to understand what's going on. So right
now, more than 4.7 billion people around the world are using social media, it's 4.7 billion, which is more than
70% of the illegible global population. So if you think about like how that is only going to continue to grow
there, that means there are audiences every single year who are more and more susceptible to social, who
are then gonna be using it as a form of researching an institution, engaging with an institution, and ultimately
informing the way that they're going to be at that institution throughout their entire time there.
Alex Wedderburn (15m 36s):
So social media has really become like the, the standard for higher education institutions, whether that's
from student relations to recruitment, Pluto like fundraising and crisis management. And really for us, we
wanted to make sure we were building programs and certifications that were gonna support those who are
either coming into the sector for the first time or maybe those who have been in it for forever, but need to
constantly, you know, update their skillsets and their understanding of it so they could go out and cater to
their audiences in the best way.
Cheryl Broom (16m 5s):
That's fantastic. I actually thought of you over the weekend because we have a internship program here at
grad com and we had, you know, we're looking at resumes and there was one young woman from Cal State
San Marcos, which is a university here in southern California, and she's Hootsuite certified. And everybody
on our team goes, ah, this interns hoot Suites, hoot Suite certified. Now she's our, you know, she's top of the
top of the pile
Alex Wedderburn (16m 32s):And we love that.
Cheryl Broom (16m 34s):
So we're all really excited. She's look at this on her resume and so she did it in college. So it's something
that anybody can do at any point in their career.
Alex Wedderburn (16m 43s):
Well, that absolutely melts my heart because this, this is, honestly, this is, this is why we do it. You know,
part of what I try to do as someone who is a specialist in the education sector globally for Hootsuite is that I
do believe that we need to give back, you know, if we are a partner to the education sector, then we also
need to be creating content and, and delivering experiences that mirror that, because it is a two-way
partnership. And the certification of students is something I'm extremely passionate about. I often actually
guess lecture a universities as well as part of like the, the partnership exchange. Because I think about when
I graduated in 2009, which dates how, how old I am now and I in, in a degree in digital media and
communications, I would've, I would've wished so much to have had the opportunity to have left that course
with a set of certifications from like a halo technology brand like Hootsuite that would've allowed me to have
gone into the workforce with a sense of understanding a skill set, a certification that I could reference on my
CV and on my LinkedIn and as, as something that I could go to an employer and say, I can do this without
you even having to train me.
Alex Wedderburn (17m 57s):
Yeah. And and to your point, what did that do that put that one intern to the top of the pile, right? Like, that's
what we should be, this is what we want to do this. We wanna equip a new generation to be able to come
out and feel that confidence that they deserve in arguably one of the most competitive job markets there,
there is at the moment,
Cheryl Broom (18m 14s):
Right? And everybody wants to be, everybody wants to be a social media coordinator where you're
marketing intern, like everybody wants to do it. So what a great way to stand apart is showing that not only
are you taking college classes, but you're taking the time to get certified. And that's the same for I think, staff
at colleges as well. Like we look at a lot of resumes when we hire, who's taking the time to really invest in
their own professional development that shows that you really care about, about growing professionally and
keeping up with the trends. I looked at your certification coursework and it's really robust. Share with us
some of the modules that people will go through. What will they learn as they work their way through the
classes?
Alex Wedderburn (18m 56s):
Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, just a, just a recap. I, I kind of referenced the, the course, but I'll give it it's full
official introduction title. So this is Hootsuite's brand new revised social media marketing course andcertification. And this is a, this is a course of certification available to everyone in every industry when it
comes to education. There's two ways to it. There's the student program, which I again, have been
personally involved in for many, many years now. The reason why I wanna highlight the student program is
that for any of your audience listening today, do know you can go to your academics, you can go to your
deans, you can go to your heads of school and say Hootsuite has a program designed for students where
we'll give access to the social marketing certification course, we'll give access to other platform certification
course and also the social advertising course.
Alex Wedderburn (19m 49s):
And this will allow a new generation of students to come out fully certified in the Hootsuite at no cost and
really stand out from the crowd. And then for anyone else, whether it's in the education sector or any other
industries, it's just $199 for the course, which for professional standard certification from one of the biggest
halo brands in the space. You know, this is the, the value exchange that so many of our audiences are really
taken advantage of over the years. And I'll leave you with this other statistic as well because this one blew
my mind. So we have delivered over 1 million courses Wow. To over half a million people worldwide. And
that's been in collaboration with over a thousand different universities.
Cheryl Broom (20m 31s):
Wow, that's fantastic. Now you haven't done, you haven't lectured at all thousand though.
Alex Wedderburn (20m 38s):
No, sadly not. I would've liked to have done so I honestly, it's, it's, i it gave me, the first time I was asked to
come and lecture our university, it gave me this real sense of like connection back to that, back to my time of
study and looking at this new generation of students and thinking what an exciting new chapter they have
coming into their careers because you know, you and I didn't have this when we graduated, like a career in
social media did not exist. No, it's so interesting to see how that's changed over the last 14 years.
Cheryl Broom (21m 11s):
It is. I mean it's just such a big part of our everyday life. It's fascinating. I wanted to ask you, I I wanted to talk
a little bit before we wrap up the conversation about some areas of the program that looked particularly
interesting that I think our audience would really like to learn about. Yeah, I think one of your new modules
has to do with d e i is that something new in this, in this revamped version? And what does that mean? Like
what does that particular course or module focus on? What can we learn from it?
Alex Wedderburn (21m 43s):
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm so sorry we got so wrapped into it. That's ok. Uncover the last question. So lemme
lemme get back to us on that and then we'll dive into Exactly. Great, great. This brand new course, as I
mentioned has been relaunched and we did that because as I said, the, the ever-changing landscape of
social is one that so rapidly that we wanna make sure any audience that works with us has got the most upto date information strategies and techniques to be successful. So the course is actually compromised of five
chapters, building a social media strategy, social media, content marketing, d e i and accessibility on social
building a social media community and measuring success. And as mentioned, this is like a condensed
course.
Alex Wedderburn (22m 25s):
We actually started with about 80 instructional videos. We brought that down to 46. We did that so that this
course can be taken with greater efficiency and we just understand that people's, you know, day-to-day
we're all we're busier than we've ever been. So we need to build a course that reflected, you know, our busy
lifestyles. But we redesigned the content in our rebranded visual identity as well. We went through a recent
rebrand and we wanted to make sure we created an environment that reflected that and we also brought in a
whole set of new content as well. So we've actually updated a lot of the trends we talked about were before
and themes. We met with industry experts, we met with our instructional design team and we built out this
brand new course for our audience.
Alex Wedderburn (23m 6s):
But to your question, we talk about de and I like being one of the newer aspects of it. I mean, you know, you
and I, probably everyone we've ever spoken with on this podcast series or in our day-to-day lives, we know
how important this is as a theme. It's in every single strategic plan from any institution and quite rightly so,
like we need to create an environment in higher education that is more inclusive and supportive to foster
social justice, prepare students for diverse society. So this chapter's really gonna focus on the importance of
co incorporating diversity, equity and inclusion into one social strategy. We're gonna be looking at how
marketers will learn from experts about what that actually consists of what actually happens when you apply
that to social media marketing.
Alex Wedderburn (23m 50s):
And then by the end of the chapter, students will leave with foundational knowledge and needed to launch an
inclusive social media marketing program at their institution or whatever business are they going into. So
yeah, it's, that's fantastic chapter.
Cheryl Broom (24m 2s):
Yeah, that sounds, that sounds like fantastic coursework. I mean those are the, those are the exact
questions that people are asking right now. Sure. You know, how do we, how do we make inclusive social
media? What does that look like? What are the tactics? So I kind of wanna sign on and take that module
myself. So Yeah,
Alex Wedderburn (24m 20s):
Well I definitely recommend it, honestly. It's, yeah, it's really, really, really powerful chapter and followed
really by one that I'm sure you hear about all of the time and you know, how do I build a social mediacommunity, right? So, you know, in, in this environment, if you think about community, you don't even need
to look at higher education alone to know that every single conference that you go to pre pandemic during
the pandemic and after has the consistent theme that community is never going away. Yeah. But how you
build upon that in a, in an environment like education that was so obviously massively impacted by the
pandemic and how institutions had to find ways to, to continue to build community and connections when
students weren't on campus.
Alex Wedderburn (25m 7s):
I mean that's probably one of the biggest challenges that any educational institution has faced in the last,
you know, decades, generations. So we wanted to build a course that's gonna help support that and, and
give advice and best practices on how that they can continue to evolve and adapt that.
Cheryl Broom (25m 24s):
That's so great. And you know, that's such a good reminder to our listeners that social media is not just a
platform for you to post a flyer for every single that's helping on campus, which is we come in and help some
of our clients who've, who've lost a social media manager and somebody else on campus has taken it over
and like the entire Instagram feed is just like posting a flyers that you can't even read because they don't fit.
They're like, that's not about you. Just
Alex Wedderburn (25m 53s):
No, completely. Yeah, no, it has to be, I mean ultimately in my, in my experience, you know, leave with your
community. Yeah. Listen, listen to your audience, like pay attention to what they care about. Like we as
partners to the space, whether you are an institution now or you're looking to partner with someone like drag
com or or Hootsuite or whoever it may be, you need to think about who your audiences are, who, who they
are, and then you've gotta think about how you engage with them in the environments that work for them and
not necessarily what traditionally worked for your institution previously. And that's, that's hard because it
does adapt so quickly. If you think about where your students are, they are on social, that's where they
spend all of their time and they want to be able to exchange with your institution on the platforms that work
for them because that's what they're doing every day.
Alex Wedderburn (26m 43s):
You know, 75% of students are researching an institution on social before they even engage with them on
the website before they even consider going to that open day because it's part of that research environment
that they're so familiar with. Cuz they're on it all day every day.
Cheryl Broom (26m 58s):
Excellent. And I always remind my, my clients that the average student takes a year before they make a
decision of what college they want to attend. So if the first place they're going is social media, they're gonna
be coming back and coming back and coming back. So you need to make sure that you are, you know,showing your brand and creating community and not just posting like junk.
Alex Wedderburn (27m 22s):
Yep. You're not wrong that Cheryl.
Cheryl Broom (27m 25s):
Well gee, I wonder this is why I do what I do and why you do what you do. We know what we're talking about
here.
Alex Wedderburn (27m 30s):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Cheryl Broom (27m 32s):
As we wrap up our conversation, you know, you've had such a fascinating career and obviously Hootsuite is
such an amazing brand. Do you have any tips for our listeners on how they can stay ahead of the curve?
How hoot Suite, maybe how you're staying ahead of the curve and what they could learn from from your
company as a whole? What advice do you give?
Alex Wedderburn (27m 51s):
Yeah, what advice do I give? Well honestly I think my main piece of advice is to remember you're not in this
alone for anyone who's in the education space, you know that it's one of the most rewarding and valuable
sectors in the world to work in because it is such a community and I know we've used that word a lot, but
you'll never know in my experience a community quite like education professionals who are all looking at
each other to say we are actually in this together. We may technically compete but really we are in a world
that is changing so quickly, there's rarely never enough of us to be able to execute it to the skill we'd like it to
do so. So what can we learn from each other and how can we ensure ultimately we're doing the right thing,
which is helping students make informed decisions, giving them hope and inspiration and information that's
gonna help them go to university.
Alex Wedderburn (28m 41s):
Cuz for me that's what this is all about. Like I want, I would love to know that part of the work that you and I
do and all of the people we work with may make the difference between that one student making that
decision to say, you know what? I can do this. I can go to that college, I can go to that university because
maybe some of the information and insights and experience I received by engaging with them on social. So
with that, there's often only, maybe we talked about it for maybe you're just a one person team, how do you
stay ahead, how you mentioned just a minute ago about how do you repurpose content? So I'll just leave
you with some thoughts here. So there's a lot of one person teams out there. You are not alone.
Alex Wedderburn (29m 21s):What we've tried to do is help build technology that's gonna help support those smaller, more nimble teams
to be really effective and scale. So for example, I mentioned earlier we just launched a new content
generation tool called Ali Writer and Ali Writer AI is the perfect solution for a one person team because what
it ultimately allows you to do is repurpose all of your best performing content you've ever had it repurposes, it
gives you the opportunity to scale out multiple messages based on a success recipe from the past whilst
giving you inspiration. It's like as a one person team, it's like life changing. You basically now have the, it's
like having multiple jobs all in one and it allows you to focus on the strategy part of the role.
Alex Wedderburn (30m 5s):
Scheduling content in advance is obviously extremely popular, but actually understanding what works and
what doesn't is probably more important than ever. So using data driven insights to inform your content
strategy, repurposing content that's already performed really well and telling a story in a brand new way,
keeping informed and ultimately, yeah, like looking at ways to enhance your professional development along
that journey. And that is by looking to, you know, companies like yours and ours where you can, you know,
level up, you can take certifications and you can build out a strategy accordingly.
Cheryl Broom (30m 42s):
Great advice. Well thank you. It's been such a pleasure talking to you and getting to know you and I think
that you will definitely have a lot of universities and colleges signing up for this new certification and I really
appreciate your time and your expertise. Thank you so much, Alex.
Alex Wedderburn (30m 58s):
Oh honestly, thank you so, so much for having me. It was a absolute pleasure and yeah, thank you for
everything that you do and yeah, I hope we get to work together again in the future. It's been great.
Cheryl Broom (31m 9s):
That wraps up this month's episode of Higher Education Coffee and Conversation. I hope you enjoyed the
discussion and learned something new. And if you like the podcast, I would love it if you would leave us a
review and make sure to take a screenshot and email me or hit me up on LinkedIn and I'll send you one of
our fantastic grad com shot glasses and a little something, something to go with it. On behalf of all of us at
GradComm, thank you for listening and thank you for working hard to make higher education a reality for
students across the nation. Until next time.