[00:00:00] Cheryl Broom: Right. Well, I'm so happy to have you join us on the podcast today, Aaron. So why don't we start off by sharing with me a little bit about your background in marketing and your path into higher education?
[00:00:11] Aaron Edgell: Got it. So I have done everything in marketing from building websites to SEO all the way to running commercial shoots and a variety of things. I've endlessly curious and so I've always chased experience wherever I can get it. So I've and I, I find it's effective to build teams if you've had hand on, hands-on experience.
[00:00:30] Aaron Edgell: And so I've tried to get that and try to maintain it as much as I can. Harder and harder with AI and all the other things going on. And the evolution of marketing, which is exciting. But yeah, that I've done a variety of the agency side in-house but primarily have gone to places where I build teams and help transform and grow organizations.
[00:00:49] Aaron Edgell: And I've done that across industries. So I've worked in a number of industries, including higher education. I took a break from higher education to work in healthcare and then made my way back a little hesitantly, but made my way back and, been very happy to be at Alliant.
[00:01:04] Cheryl Broom: And what was that hesitation all about?
[00:01:07] Aaron Edgell: Yeah. So, so you know, I've I love like many who work in higher education, you, you come for the mission, the purpose. You've seen it transform your own life, your family's life. You see what it can do to communities. And so there's a passion and a heart there. And what I found which is amazing. And you find that in other, other industries as well, where there's this mission, this vision statement, we're gonna, we do things differently, we're gonna change things. But once you're on the inside and, and you're making change they allow it to a certain point. But, you know, sometimes there's this hesitancy to, to really follow through. And quite often it's the, I'm making the hard decisions that require, you know. I always think about it in two ways. There's the heart side of what we do, that mission, and you know, there are so many good people with that heart. You also have to, to be able to have that impact long term, which requires kind of this operational rigor and, and thinking about the business financially sustainable. And so sometimes that requires accepting reality for where you're at and making the decisions that remove ego you know, kind of clear things out of the way.
[00:02:14] Aaron Edgell: And, and I found that that's not always true. And so I was hesitant because Alliant on the surface said all these wonderful things like many organizations do. And so the question mark in my mind was you know, do they, do they walk the talk? As, as it said, so, and what I found was that they do so, as I explored the opportunity, obviously hesitant, but explored the opportunity to to throw my hat in the ring to see if maybe this is something that I would take on.
[00:02:42] Aaron Edgell: I met with, I, I talked to alumni. I talked, I tried to talk to as many people and do the research as I could. To see see what was there, what's the substance behind that, that surface level message and, and leadership. And I found a few things that really drew me in. That one was the deeper I research, the more substance there was. And that's usually the opposite, right? You get past a certain point and you can kind of, you start to tell that, all right, there's a misalignment between that mission and that vision and how and how they operate. But I also, you know, I talk about the realities, embracing realities and evolving to the times so that you can do this for a long time, right?
[00:03:21] Aaron Edgell: You can, you can have the impact that your heart's drawn to for sustainable, you know, decades and decades to come. And I've, I saw that in leadership over the last 10 years. They had made decisions that really were hard and I imagine they were. But they made decisions to focus and to, to do things that were necessary to become financially viable and stable and to continue to, to do this work really well for a long period of time.
[00:03:49] Cheryl Broom: That's great. I, I love that you've had the awareness, both the self-awareness of what type of institution and where you want it to work. As a marketing professional, you wanna work somewhere that's willing to make tough decisions, to embrace change, to, to be a leader, but also the awareness from your background in higher education on what a challenge it can be.
[00:04:12] Cheryl Broom: For these institutions to actually embrace the change that they wanna make. And just this last week our company worked on a campaign that a chancellor said he wanted to be dynamic. And out of a one to a 10, with 10 being like innovative and fresh and new, he wanted like an eight and we gave him an eight.
[00:04:33] Cheryl Broom: And he cut it back to a two. And I'm, it's like literally like your campaign could now be for any college in the entire United States. I could slap on any name and nobody would know that it was yours. And it's so disappointing as a marketer when you're told like, we're ready. We're ready for change. We're ready for something big.
We're ready for something different. And they're not ready. They're not. And it's, and it is very frustrating.
[00:05:00] Aaron Edgell: Yes, very much so. I've run that.
[00:05:02] Cheryl Broom: you finally found a place that is ready. And so I wanted you for those listening that don't know about Alliant, like how, how did they show, how did they show you that they're ready to do something different and how, what has your role been in helping them achieve these differentiations?
[00:05:22] Aaron Edgell: Yeah, I think, I think at its core, you know, we always talk about we wanna grow. Like I I mentioned, I like, I like to come in, build teams, we transform, we grow. I like to have that impact. It, it's satisfying and I, I feel great about it and that sense of accomplishment. But what I found with Alliant is they have evolved.
[00:05:42] Aaron Edgell: I talked about that evolution, making hard decisions, which gave me a signal that they were willing to do, do things that may not always on the surface be easy. But they've done that evolution without sacrificing a core identity that they've had a hundred years. And it's taken different shapes and forms on the surface, but this idea of, of being grounded in values of, of who we are, does not change even though the way we operate locations, the name that that can all shift around us as long as that identity stays true. And and so the, the way I approach it is if we can align on that identity and we're aligned on what the impact is, we're trying to have. are we open to what's around that? And you, and you can't push, you know, I, I also always said that you cannot drive growth. You can't force growth. If you think like, a plant, whatever it is, you can cultivate the environment for growth, but you cannot force it. You can try to artificially push something. So sometimes growth does take a little longer than I'd like, and I've had to learn that throughout my career. But when the opportunity in that window opens, you have to take it immediately. And so sometimes we push it, maybe it's a, a six or a seven this time around to, to allow, because that's, that's, that's where we're at.
[00:06:57] Aaron Edgell: Even though, you know, we might want to 10 we might say we want to 10, but maybe we're not ready. And it's using that judgment and that filter to say, you know, we, we talk about a 10, but that's, that's, maybe we're not quite ready for that. Here's what gets us closer to that 10. And there is a tension, especially in higher education with that legacy we belong, but also standing out and being different. And that tension is something I, you know, we've explored with lots in lots of areas, including how we show up visually in the brand. But, but even, you know, advertising commercials, how do we, how do we find that sweet spot in the tension of looking like we belong, but also being different. I think that's ultimately you know, that discomfort maybe is a little too far for some people perhaps.
[00:07:40] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, I'm, I'm, so, I have so many great questions around this. I'm actually gonna be doing a, a talk to community college trustees about how to break out of the sea of sameness. And at the end of the day, like I just feel like they, people say they wanna be different, but they don't, they just don't wanna be the same.
[00:07:59] Aaron Edgell: They're not comfortable with it.
[00:08:00] Cheryl Broom: They're not. So how do you as a marketer get them to see what makes the institution special and different? I mean, it's there but you have to help kind of bring it out and coax it out and have them recognize it.
[00:08:17] Aaron Edgell: Yes. Yeah. You know, I usually start with what do we say, you know, who are we, who do we say we are? And then there's like, there, there's two sides of that. So there's first that question, but then there's the character side, which is of those who know us best, do we show up that way? So are we really that. And as you do that research, you start to find out, okay, what's the common pattern? What's the common theme? Why did they choose you know, this institution or, or this organization, and why do they still love it? And what are the, what's the elements there? and then there's reputation, which is like how, how the world kind of that perception on the outside. Um, but first you, you focus on the character and the substance. But as you do that, you pull out, here's, here's how we're different. And I think you have to have the discussion around, you know, we, we, we have all these other things that are on our list, or we say we do well, or we're trying to do well, we wanna be you know, the Walmart, we wanna have all these products and program sets, because that's what the large players do, and we wanna be like them because that's how you scale. So you can go, you know, big and broad but you all, you have to bring people along to say, here's, here's how we're different.
[00:09:23] Aaron Edgell: And then compare that against, you know, the, the industry and, and here's how we fit. And, and I think quite often many organizations look at themselves in isolation. They're trying to be everything. And we see each other as competition. But if you, if you change the perspective and realize we're part of an ecosystem of, of individÑlike organizations higher ed and otherwise, that are in some cases trying to solve the same problem, like our mission is aligned to solving the same problem. And if you see yourself as something that fits inside of an ecosystem. Then you're a little more accepting that maybe this is where we do, this is the specialty area that we're best at, and we can lean into. And then we go deep in that area. Maybe instead of trying to be broad or instead of trying to like, oh, this is nice.
[00:10:09] Aaron Edgell: It's a, it's a current trend. We could, we could jump on that. We need an ai degree or whatever it might be, a YouTube degree. But you have to have that filter. Who are we, what are we best at? And say, does that fit, even though it's exciting, how does that fit inside of what we're doing? And so like for Alliant as an example, it's AI and mental health.
[00:10:26] Aaron Edgell: Maybe there's something there where we can help. Mental health professionals, which we've been training for decades and decades, help them keep up with, with what's changing. That's how we fit with this current trend. And so, I think it's surfacing it, but bringing people along and, and telling, allowing. Allowing the leadership group and the commuÑthe entire community that's involved to see ourselves in a very specific way. And sometimes it's just that perspective that helps kind of connect those dots and then you can accept it. If this is true, then this, maybe this is true too.
[00:10:57] Cheryl Broom: I, I find I often reference this is killing students with kindness. Like, like there's so much, like people wanna do everything they, colleges we work with want to do everything and be everything for students and 'cause they really believe, you know, in their mission and, and they love students. But by doing that, it's often not helping either the student or the institution itself.
[00:11:26] Cheryl Broom: You know, there's so many shiny objects, there's, there's FOMO going on. Like, we gotta do this, we gotta do that, we gotta be this. And then they lose sight of what their actual mission is. And earlier in the conversation you had referenced that, you know, when you were looking at Alliant, you noticed they had made some difficult decisions.
[00:11:44] Cheryl Broom: And I'm wondering if some of those decisions were around offerings or direction of where the college was gonna go.
[00:11:52] Aaron Edgell: Yeah, absolutely. They were. So we, we only had, we had, they eliminated all undergraduate degrees. We've now reintroduced nursing as part of the mission. Very specific to preparing for professionals to fill roles where there's workforce shortage and we focus on licensure primarily. So we've reintroduced one undergraduate degree, but they eliminated those. They've downsized the international locations over the years because they were not financially stable. We still support international students. We actually have growth in our international student population on campuses. But they had to make some of those decisions to say, you know, how do we continue to thrive? Still, again, staying true to ourselves, we're still open to international. We're growing there. That's part of who we are. But maybe we don't need this location over here. And it's evolving with the, the changing times. When I, I think it was 2015 ish, it was like 1% of, of alliance population was online students. We're now over 60% and it continues to grow. So, also just adapting to the time, again, being real and then making those hard decisions. They've done that continuously and it's just, yeah, it's great to be a part of that. And yeah. 
[00:13:01] Cheryl Broom: Really big decision. I mean, eliminating undergraduate degrees, that's a, that's a hard decision to make. Right? There's, and I bet, I know that influenced the way, what your job was coming in. Cause you've, you've done a rebrand. And I want to talk a little bit about that. I think people are gonna be really excited to hear about that process.
[00:13:19] Cheryl Broom: But first, let's take a quick break and hear from our sponsor. All right. So before the break, we were talking about some difficult decisions that Alliant made. I wanted to segue into how these decisions led into a rebrand of the institution. So tell us a story behind that, and I think you came in and was, was one of the first things that you led was this rebrand.
[00:14:00] Cheryl Broom: It's like, welcomeÉ
[00:14:01] Aaron Edgell: Actually, yes, but I was also hesitant. I I don't, I'veÑI'm always careful about the substance behind the action. And so what I, what I, I don't want to do is come in and be a, another marketing leader comes in and wants to change how we look. That AbsolutelyÑso I actually resisted it. In fact, it wasn't in the plans.
[00:14:19] Aaron Edgell: And I would push, kind of push back on even the idea of anything remotely close to that. You know, I, I wanted to surface the soul through storytelling. There was so much, you know, richness that again. I had to dig in the beginning to find, I, I don't want people to have to dig. And so that's part of this process of, of the rebrand.
[00:14:36] Aaron Edgell: That's actually what kind of led to it a little bit is that gap. but first we did that identity work. So who are we? Who do we say we are? And, so we did some brand research and then we audited how we show up. So not only the actions and some of the operational things that we offer, but visually.
[00:14:51] Aaron Edgell: So campuses, how many different logos are there? Do people even know what it means? And we found that there's this, there's, there was a gap between what we saw substance wise and how we were showing up in a unified clear way around Alliant. And so, yeah, I, I was hesitant. I always resist it, but it kind of organically grew into that need. And then yes, we, we led that, uh, by the end of the, my first year here, we had all the brand research and kind of had this, I couldn't not explore it. So we, we explored it and then that was last year's work. 
[00:15:22] Cheryl Broom: But this is really important too, like you started by asking questions. Right. Like we see a lot when, when our company gets hired for rebrands, it's usually I, I would say 75% of the time because there was a new college president and that president has decided that they're gonna rebrand and that's gonna be their mark.
[00:15:41] Cheryl Broom: And those questions haven't been asked. So we'll have to come in and say, okay, we need to take a couple steps back and do research first. And there have been times when the research has shown like, you don't need to be doing much different. But that can be hard for leaders to swallow too, 'cause they want the shiny, they want the, the bright, shiny object.
[00:16:01] Cheryl Broom: But you found opposite. I mean, you came in, you spent a year asking questions and you found there was a disconnect. So what happened when you, when the research pointed you in that direction? 
[00:16:12] Aaron Edgell: So when I, when I hire contractors or agencies it's very specific and I never, I never want us to outsource strategy or ownership of anything that certainly not a, not a brand, right? And so as we went down that path we, we compared everything against the, the current, right?
[00:16:30] Aaron Edgell: So we have that, and the question wasn't what's the new look going to be? It was, is there anything that better represents what we are against this current state? again, grounding ourselves in, into the who are we and is there something that gets us closer to expressing that in a more meaningful way and getting credit for, for all the goodness that's underneath all of this. And we didn't outsource, so we didn't, we didn't hire some big agency to come help us do this. I had a contractor and then we worked with a very small group, a design group that helped us with brand strategy and design exploration. And then the, the rollout itself was well that's a, that's another long process 'cause to do it right. Again, there has to be substance. There always has to be a why, for why change needs to happen. And if you can connect it to that, you talk about, Hey, I want to, I want a fresh look. I think the question is why? Is it because you feel like it's stale or it is, or it doesn't match something? But because I found that if you have the why, when you go through and, and we, we did rounds of revision, many, many rounds.
[00:17:30] Aaron Edgell: We went to every aspect of our community in this process to talk about it with them. At various, various stages because as you know, a brand isn't just a a logo. It is, it is how we show up. It's who, it's who the institution is. And that's every experience and touchpoint. The visual identity is part of that, an important part of it. So we, we made sure we had the why did the research and, and then went through that process to make sure that we had everybody aware and, and took questions to continue to refine. And, you know, as a marketer. You get a lot of, Hey, why don't we do this? Everybody feels like they're a marketer.
[00:18:07] Aaron Edgell: That comes up a lot. But I've, I've found that good ideas can come from anywhere. And so I'm always open to those if we're all together, open to the fact that not every idea has to be executed. Some are tests someday. Some are, you know, that won't quite work, but appreciate it or we'll explore it. Or in many cases it's, you know, I hadn't thought of that. That will help us refine this idea and we'll get the best idea and so we, that was months and months and months of work. Even after the design was kind of settled with leadership and we felt like, okay, this, this is something that feels right and reflects us. And you know, you have the right idea when you continue to think about how it will have legs. Which is, which is how we ended up with, with this, with the design we currently have is we're looking at various variations. And then there was, there was something about this, this torch that we now have. And it's, and, and what it represented. And it was actually based on the academic seal that Alliant had, had the president's kind of seal.
[00:19:04] Aaron Edgell: There was a torch there. So we just explored it. We're like, oh, let's try this out. But it was comparing all these different designs and aspects. It was this the ideas just started flowing and that's when like a good idea is a, is a good idea when sometimes it's really obvious. And so, and so that we kind of just kept, kept rolling with it.
[00:19:23] Cheryl Broom: I think you said something really important that we all need to remember, especially in marketing and especially when people bring us so many ideas, is that just because you don't use an idea doesn't mean that it's a bad idea, right? We can have a lot of good ideas, but sometimes they're just not right or they're just not right for right now.
[00:19:44] Cheryl Broom: I think that's a really important lesson to remember is take all those ideas, take 'em in. But you mean, but just because you didn't use 'em doesn't mean that they're bad.
[00:19:53] Aaron Edgell: Right. I, I always say, you know, the, and I think I even heard this, I read it somewhere, I read a lot. So I always don't know where, where things come from. But I once read that the more ideas lead to the best ideas. 
[00:20:03] Aaron Edgell: You know, I, I worked with a colleague that would start off kind of creative thinking with, let's get all the bad ideas out first.
[00:20:09] Aaron Edgell: Because those end up leading you to some other thing. So yeah, you don't have to use all the ideas, but they'll, they'll refine your thinking.
[00:20:16] Cheryl Broom: And being in an environment where you can share your bad idea, like, and, and feel safe doing that. Sometimes those bad ideas do turn into really great things.
[00:20:26] Aaron Edgell: Yes.
[00:20:26] Cheryl Broom: Yeah.
[00:20:27] Cheryl Broom: I'm really curious too, you talked about closing the gap between who Alliant is and how Alliant was showing up. Do you have an example of, of some of the gaps that you saw that you uncovered in the research? 
[00:20:42] Aaron Edgell: Yes, there's, so, what we found was the, the values that Alliant has held for, like I mentioned, many, many, many years what we call them, you know, what they might be called on the surface, evolves over time in different environments in kind of, usually political environments can, can shift some of that too. But the values themselves were were one of the top reasons people chose to come to Alliant and they felt them in various ways. And, and again, no organization's perfect. So not everybody feels it in the right way. When we notice it, we listen and try to close that gap immediately at the, you know, at the real level. But then. You also, so when you come to the, when you came to the website, you, you wouldn't know that you wouldn't know that we have clinical psychologists in all the states in the United States, one, they've been one of the largest producers of clinical psychologists and a pioneer in mental health. Specifically in multicultural and underserved communities and the stories that started to surface around the impact faculty that have been through there and the impact pioneers in their field still have them. And you, you couldn't sense that when you look at the website or you just, you, you don't get that and you don't feel it.
[00:21:58] Aaron Edgell: And I think, you know, something that we've now termed surfacing the soul of Alliant is, is how do you get that up on the surface? And so we focused a lot on storytelling as a primary vehicle for that. We do podcasts now. Uh, that was something we initiated. We have over seven and it continues to grow. And we've done a documentary film. We've, we're doing short films. We'll continue to do more like, TikTok style content to also highlight it. But, but that, to me, it will above all things help close the gap to make sure that you'll see yourself if you belong, you know, if you're right for Alliant.
[00:22:35] Aaron Edgell: Not everybody is, but if you're right for Alliant, you want to have an impactful career. You want really good training that's hands-on. It's not an easy process to get to there, but you, you know, the heart's there and you just want, you want the skills to go have the impact. And you're, and you're deeply embedded with values that you hold dear.
[00:22:53] Aaron Edgell: And, and those align. You should see yourself in, in us very quickly. And, and so that's what, how we're closing the gap. There was also a lack of unity you know, shared values across multiple campuses, programs. And we had more in common than we did different, but there was still a very unique identity in many cases.
[00:23:14] Aaron Edgell: And I I feel strongly that unifying, that will also bring that, you know, surface that character and soul at every touch point to know that you all, we all belong in the same Alliant University is one unified front after the same things in unique ways locally, right? Every community is, is different in their own way, but we have more in common than we do differences.
[00:23:39] Cheryl Broom: And how fascinating. I was just thinking like, oh my gosh, writing down all these things about pod. You have podcasts and you've got a documentary and like what are great vehicles for telling stories and so in the beginning of the podcast you had mentioned that you, that's what you wanted to focus on when you came to Alliant is the story.
[00:24:00] Cheryl Broom: And you found some really great ways to do that. What, what other advice do you have to other institutions who are looking to, to tell their story better? What can they do? What can, what lessons can they have learned from what, what you've done at Alliant? 
[00:24:15] Aaron Edgell: I think. You have to be clear with who you are. And I think that's also being honest with the gap between what you say you are and how you show up each day. Because and this works at the personal level too, if you aren't honest with where you're at, you'll never have the right frame of mind to end up to, to where you wanna be. And so that, that self-reflection, self-awareness, and the embracing and accepting reality of where it's at is the starting point to help close that. Close that gap. And then, then you'll, then they'll, you'll see the stories will surface. And then, I mean, on the more tactical side, you just have to build a pro, the process, the talent and the, and the focus to be able to then have the vehicle to tell those stories. And, you know, we were very careful about the vehicles we chose. We didn't say, oh, we wanna do film 'cause I like filmmaking. We're, we have different levels. And in some, in some cases, it's getting our authoritative voices out there through podcasting because. We have so many intelligent pioneers in their field who have things to share, and we wanna, we want to get them more out there.
[00:25:25] Aaron Edgell: And so we could do videos, we can go film them, but why not create some kind of vehicle where that's an ongoing place for them to share that voice and that expertise and we also have student stories, and sometimes those are short. They're quick because they're at a conference or they're on campus and sometimes it's an amazing story that needs a little bit longer to tell. And so as they surface, like tactically, you just have to build the talent and the resources and focus to be able to, to do that quickly. You know, one of the core pillars three of attributes as we build built the team. I presented this when I first came into our board of trustees but it's intelligence, creativity, and speed.
[00:26:03] Aaron Edgell: And speed is, is really core. And it's not, speed is less about force and more about focus. And so it's not being busier, pushing harder. It is finding the right path and staying on that path to get to the destination quicker.
[00:26:18] Cheryl Broom: And part of, of being able to stay on that path is being confident, which gets back to making sure that who you say you are is who you actually are. And having confidence in that, both as a person, as as a representative of your institution, that lets you make decisions quickly because you're confident in your decisions.
[00:26:42] Cheryl Broom: So yeah.
[00:26:43] Aaron Edgell: You have a good filter for it. Very quick. You can. You kind of know. Mm-hmm. 
[00:26:47] Cheryl Broom: So in the last couple of minutes that we have, I did wanna ask you about the brand rollout. You had mentioned that that was like an entirely different beast, but was there anything that surprised you about the brand rollout and any advice you would give to other institutions who are rolling out something new?
[00:27:06] Aaron Edgell: I think what, honestly, it's so I've been a part of you know, a few of these and it wasÑwhat surprised me was it was actually better than I imagined so far. Not as many fires or things broken things rolled out pretty well you know, not without bumps and bruises along the way, but it has been one of the best that I've been a part of as far as rollout goes. Immediate impact, zero downside, essentially from performance standpoint and only seeing upside. So that that's oddly enough, that's what surprised me most. but I think part of thatÑ. 
[00:27:43] Cheryl Broom: ItÕs not very often by the way that you hear. What surprised me was how good it was.
[00:27:47] Aaron Edgell: Yeah, well, 'cause I, you know, I was bracing for, you know, a lot of things. Like I said, I've, I've, I've been a, I've got some battle, battle scars. And so yeah, we, we, it, it went really well. And I think part of that is the team's focus on making sure that the rollout was for us. Internally as a community, before we focused on this external shout PR hoot and holler type type work we focused on making sure it was real and making sure that. We showed up. Like it's a, it's not just a here's a new visual identity, but it is a, is a commitment and a recommitment to who we are together as a community and what are we doing to show up more intentionally by that in, in that way. And so we focus more on you have scavenger hunts or, you know, what can we do for the community that activates this and gets it to the people who matter most to us before we start trying to look good to everybody else.
[00:28:45] Cheryl Broom: So what's next for Alliant? 
[00:28:48] Aaron Edgell: Well, soÑAlliant has built the, the talent and skill to evolve. And so, ongoing evolution, we continue to get focused on what we're best at and we'll continue to do that. We'll lead with the heart like we do and be financially responsible like they've done especially over the last 10 years, have been very smart about it, and we'll continue to do that. With the federal policy and higher education regulatory changes, that does hit many of our graduate programs pretty hard. And so we've, we've been you know, our, our president, Andy Vaughn, who I, I know you've talked with already and now he was very active in DC during that process and stays very close to the pulse of what's going on.
[00:29:29] Aaron Edgell: So, we're fortunate that we're ahead of it. So we're, we're helping students find alternative paths for how do you pay for, for college before it hits. That timeline's coming this summer for many programs. Are we making sure that we're getting the word out and people know ahead of time because many don't, many institutions still don't. And so we're fortunate to be proactive that way and and continue to do that. So we'll evolve with those changes to make sure that we continue to stay financially viable and that we can continue to have Alliant have the impact it has for the next a hundred years.
[00:30:00] Cheryl Broom: Okay, and I'm glad you mentioned Dr. Vaughn. He was on the podcast. He's actually episode 67. And so if you're interested, if the listeners are interested in learning more about Alliant, about what makes them unique, their differentiation, he spoke fantastically about that. It's actually one of our most popular podcasts to date.
[00:30:20] Cheryl Broom: So, Aaron, I can't help but pitch another episode, so maybe the two of, you'll break some podcast records.
[00:30:27] Aaron Edgell: Yeah, he's, he's amazing.
[00:30:29] Aaron Edgell: One of the reasons I chose to be at Alliant and continue to be here.
[00:30:32] Cheryl Broom: And for those people interested in maybe seeing some of your brand work or, or learning more about the process, how can, how can they do that? 
[00:30:41] Aaron Edgell: You can, I mean, I'm on LinkedIn. You're always welcome to reach out. Happy to connect and, and talk. If you go to our website, you'll see quite a bit there and how we show up now, which continues to evolve. This is just the first step. But if I think the best representation, so a new page that we put up and it's alliant.edu/community-sparks, and that's where we start to tell these stories.
[00:31:03] Aaron Edgell: You'll see the documentary we did last year, first of many stories we're gonna tell and you'll start to, to get insight into some of the other. We have trivets story rose starting to surface these, these stories as we surface the soul of Alliant. So. And also a call to to share stories which has been our primary focus of the brand rollout is there are stories to tell. Share those stories with us so we can tell them.
[00:31:26] Cheryl Broom: Wonderful. Well, it's been such a pleasure talking to you today. I really appreciate it.
[00:31:30] Aaron Edgell: Yeah. Thank you Cheryl.
[00:31:32] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, I'll be watching what's next.
[00:31:35] Aaron Edgell: Okay. Appreciate it.