[00:00:00] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: Welcome to Higher Ed Conversations, the go-to podcast for higher ed marketers sponsored by EdTech Connect. And each episode, we bring you expert insights and explore the latest trends in marketing, advancement, and student success, all with a focus on driving real results. And leading the conversation is someone who's walked in your shoes. [00:00:19] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: With years of experience as a college administrator, now the founder of a higher ed marketing agency and author of Marketing is Mission Work, please welcome your host, Cheryl Broom. [00:00:28] Cheryl Broom: Welcome to Higher Ed Conversations. I'm Cheryl Broom, CEO of Gradcom, and today's episode is sponsored by EdTech Connect. I'm excited to welcome Justin Beck, CEO of Gravyty, to the podcast. [00:00:40] Cheryl Broom: Justin has spent his career working at the intersection of education, technology, and student engagement. His experience includes leadership roles with some of the most influential companies in ed tech, including Apple Education, Blackboard, Caltura, Salesforce, and infrastructure. Today, Justin leaves Gravyty, a company focused on helping institutions strengthen engagement across the student lifestyle, from recruitment and admissions to student success, fundraising, alumni relations, and beyond. [00:01:17] Cheryl Broom: This is a great conversation. So colleges are asking to personalize, are being asked to personalize communication, improve retention, support students more proactively, and build stronger relationships, often with fewer staff and tighter budgets. And at the same time, AI is moving quickly from something people are experimenting with to something institutions need to approach strategically. [00:01:44] Cheryl Broom: So today, we're gonna talk about what that shift looks like, how technology can support human connection, and how colleges can use AI and engagement tools to better serve students, alumni, and communities. Justin, welcome to Higher Ed Conversations. All right, Justin, thank you so much for joining me today on the podcast. [00:02:08] Cheryl Broom: I'm so thrilled to have you here. [00:02:10] Justin Beck: Cheryl, it's wonderful to be in your presence, and thanks for the invite. [00:02:14] Cheryl Broom: And you've had just a fantastic career working across so many different parts of the ed tech landscape, and I was hoping we could start off by having you walk us through your path and what really brought you to this work. [00:02:28] Justin Beck: Oh, awesome, Cheryl. Thank you. Midwest Catholic kid, always weird to talk about yourself, but I'll give it a go. So my career has spanned, like, 20 years across, like, enterprise software in the, primarily in the education space, from video engagement, learning management, and overall, like, customer/student and faculty experience. [00:02:46] Justin Beck: But I've stepped out a couple times to go work in other industries, but I always find myself drawn back to organizations where their mission is way bigger than the technology itself. So what's been, I think, unique about my 20-ish plus career is I've had the opportunity to bring, be a part of, like, several, several defining high impact moments in the higher education world. [00:03:09] Justin Beck: Think about early days of, like, Blackboard, and then I worked at a company called Caltura, which was in the video streaming space, where we were, it was the early days of online education and the rapid growth of, like, the consolidation of the LMS from being a point solution across the campus and across the community to a central managed service. [00:03:27] Justin Beck: And then I spent time at Salesforce. I was part of the higher education team there during the pandemic where student support, service, mental health awareness, and, and, and then a increase in the, you know, service response from, from the campus and communication level really took s- site. And then over the last few years, I spent some time in, in structure, the makers of Canvas, where I saw, honestly, the LMS become the digital backbone for student and faculty experience across the entire online and face-to-face and hybrid communities. [00:03:59] Justin Beck: And so when Gravyty reached out about the opportunity, I saw another major transition other way. Higher education continues to move from, like, isolated disjointed point systems that are floating around to a more concentrated and connected service engagement architecture. You saw this in maybe the corporate world about 15, 20 years ago, but it's really taken shape around the constituent lifecycle from prospect to student to ultimate alumni and donors. [00:04:26] Justin Beck: So the opportunity to help institutions navigate that change is ultimately what pulled me here, and I'm just really excited to be working in the student success and outcome space. [00:04:35] Cheryl Broom: That's great. You know, I was so interested when we first talked that you were with Blackboard really in the early days of online learning, because I remember the conversations around online learning, and there being a lot of doubt that it was gonna offer quality education. [00:04:51] Cheryl Broom: Look at where we are now in 2020. Look where we [00:04:53] Justin Beck: are now, where it's like, we are, we are at EDUCAUSE this past fall talking about that, and folks were like, that is like, it was 10 years of, of folks battling whether it was - Yeah. Online education was as good as face-to-face, and we moved on. And now we're in, uh, the AI era, and it's the, the same questions are abound a- around whether AI's impact is tarnishing the, the, the reputation of institutions. [00:05:15] Cheryl Broom: You're doing a lot of work with institutions in AI, and what are some of the trends that you're seeing out there? Like, how are colleges approaching using AI and being more strategic with it? [00:05:28] Justin Beck: Oh, gosh, great question. Great, great question. I think there's two sides to this, like, AI coin when you think about it. [00:05:34] Justin Beck: It's like, I've seen more acceleration from, like, the academic side of the house. Like, you think about the academic and administrative side of the house. So you've seen, you know, significant leaps of faculty two years ago, only 24% of them using s - AI technologies, and now we're over 50% are using technolo - the AI-assisted technologies. [00:05:56] Justin Beck: I would put the, and we, we all know students. I have three kids of my own two in high school, one in college. We all know they're using AI, sometimes good, sometimes nefarious, but I am seeing it a, a process by which they're starting to understand how to appropriately use a assistive AI, AI technology. So that's, that's the academic side of the house. [00:06:15] Justin Beck: On the administrative side of the house, it's been a little slower from an, from, from an adoption perspective. And I think primarily because you have these large institutional systems that power the campuses today of SIS, ERP, LMS, that need to be very cautious about how AI technologies are both from a student-facing or a faculty-facing perspective, or from a, or from a administrative workflow perspective. [00:06:42] Justin Beck: But, but, but, but awesome places like Indiana University who are now requiring all their students and opened up their course, you know, GenAI 101 to the world, they've had 114,000 used, are really starting to push a comfort level around this, and it's leading to an exploration of how we can better support our students, better support our constituents. [00:07:03] Justin Beck: But I think today we're gonna talk a lot about how it helps drive the outcomes for, for the institution as a whole. [00:07:07] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, for sure. Well, I actually had a guest on the podcast maybe about a year ago from American University from their college, I think it's the Kogod College of Business, and they've - uh-huh. [00:07:18] Cheryl Broom: Integrated AI into every single course for students. Fantastic. There's, yeah, there's components because their philosophy is they're gonna use it. Whether or not we're ready, it's being used. So let's start teaching it. Let's start doing some ethical and yeah, strategic implementation. So I'm really curious about your experience as CEO of Gravyty. [00:07:39] Cheryl Broom: Can you tell me a little bit about what the company is and, like, what your goals are and how you strengthen engagement? [00:07:46] Justin Beck: Sure. So, so I like to talk about Gravyty in that we operate, you know, at the 30,000 foot level as an engagement layer that helps support, like, constituent lifecycle, very personalized constituent lifecycle. [00:07:59] Justin Beck: That's pretty wording, but let's get down into the nitty-gritty of it. [00:08:03] Cheryl Broom: What's it mean? [00:08:04] Justin Beck: What's it actually mean? Exactly. It's like, that's like the, the nice billboard about how do we get into it. So kind of operate in two arenas. On one, one hand, about half of our, half of our business, we work in fundraising and alumni engagement technologies that integrate with Blackbaud and Salesforce and Ellucians of the world to power some of the most impacting giving days. [00:08:27] Justin Beck: Like Stanford University just wrapped up their giving day and raised over $9 million on our advanced platform. We have everyday giving tools to help with, like, athletic endeavors for NIL fundraising, which is a whole new world for, for, for, for, for, for the universe, as well as we run the world's largest alumni social network called Graduway. [00:08:49] Justin Beck: So 900 institutions partner with us s - to, to run a curated and could contained AI-powered social network that, that, that powers some of the largest and smallest universities. That side of the house also works with nonprofit and private K-12, but since we're higher education focused, we'll talk a lot about higher education toay. [00:09:07] Justin Beck: The other half of our universe is where, where AI's been more present for a number of years. We have a platform called Ivy and Ocelot, which provides virtual assistant chatbot as well as agentic capabilities across the student lifecycle, heavily used in the recruiting and admissions workspace, but also provides student support, IT support, so a way for, I like to use the term a front porch to the university or a front porch to the co - front porch to the college from a virtual omnichannel experience. [00:09:38] Cheryl Broom: Wow, that's great. Like, what, I just, like, so many applications, so many different things that you use the products for. I'm, I'm really curious about the work that you're doing in the alumni space. So a lot of our listeners are in community colleges, and I feel like a lot of our community college clients and those who I've spoken to have really just started to try to reach out to alumni. [00:10:05] Cheryl Broom: Mm-hmm. It's been difficult for them. I mean, they haven't even kept records. I think for so long, they didn't view their graduates as, like, alumni potential. Sure. And I think it's shifting. And do you have recommendations for how do they get started or what technology's out there for, to make this less, like, scary, like, less overwhelming? [00:10:28] Justin Beck: Less cumbersome. [00:10:28] Cheryl Broom: Yeah. [00:10:29] Justin Beck: Sure. No, w- w- wonderful question. I think, like everything, it's not just, like, one magic bullet that you say, "Hey, I'm gonna send out this email, or I'm gonna set up this social site." It's like a strategic, multi-pronged approach. When you look at the, obviously, community college is very career-focused, very outcome-focused, and some of the, you know, most fantastic community colleges, Cincinnati State, my hometown here, Columbus State right up the road, or Ivy Tech Community College, hundreds of thousands of graduates every year power the local workforce. [00:11:00] Justin Beck: And one of our, one of our advice, areas of advice and where we work with folks like community college or even two-year schools is to really focus on what data you're capturing about those students during their time there. The story I, I love to give is you think about, you capture the, not only the programs they're participating in, but you capture the, uh, the, the, the narrative of their experience, where they came from, how they started. [00:11:27] Justin Beck: Like, you have all this information at your disposal that most universities don't think about capturing this data or most colleges don't think about capturing that dataset because then you can repurpose that for engagement down the line. You know, the very common example is, like, at, at graduation, you are capturing photos, you're capturing narrative, you're capturing their connective points. [00:11:47] Justin Beck: That is wonderful stimulus to then re - use as they're exiting the, the, the, the college for future engagement opportunities. Think 24 months ago, think five years ago when Cincinnati State Community College made this big leap in your career opportunity. So my, my advice to institution is really get your hands around, like, the core data you have about your current student population and be intentional about using it for future, future connection points. [00:12:14] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, that is great advice because I know some people we've worked with in the past, they're just overwhelmed by, by this. But you can use data in a way that can help with that overwhelm. You can use it in a way to be more targeted, to be more personalized. You don't have to do everything all at once. [00:12:33] Justin Beck: No, 100%. [00:12:33] Justin Beck: 100, 100%. I totally agree. Totally, totally agree. And, uh, we've got a, you know, great four-year examples of folks grabbing graduation photos and the narrative that a student shared during the, the graduation time, and then using that in a one-year packet about getting them involved in the alumni association or requesting that they come back for a reunion. [00:12:51] Justin Beck: I had a community college I was talking to a few weeks ago that was going to run their first reunion weekend for students, which is not something that market segment would, would, would typically do. And so it's, it's really dusting off and making it appropriate for, for, for, for, for the students to come back and visit. [00:13:08] Cheryl Broom: And I think that's a great example of, like, personalization. And I think that's one area where higher education needs to catch up a little bit. Mm-hmm. As marketers, I think for a long time, marketers have thought of personalization as let's put Justin's name in this [00:13:27] Justin Beck: Merge field here. Yes. [00:13:28] Cheryl Broom: Merge field, yeah. [00:13:29] Cheryl Broom: Yeah. But there's technology now, and including your technology, that brings personalization to a whole nother level. So I'd love to hear some examples of how colleges are, are thinking through reaching students, either reaching them or helping them succeed in personalized ways. [00:13:50] Justin Beck: Yeah. Well, wonderful question, Cheryl. [00:13:52] Justin Beck: I think, you know, it is amazing how student expectations have changed. I think back to, like, my undergraduate experience of having to walk to the bursar's office and key in, you know, the, the registration for classes. And now, like, my oldest son in college, just does it right from his phone. Yeah. And, and, and has it also script out there. [00:14:07] Justin Beck: So students are, of course, increasingly expect the, the things to be tailored to them wrapped around them. And one of the great examples what we have of this is that I'll reference our, our virtual assistant side of our house. You know, a student, I'll pick a use case example, is interacting with a, a virtual assistant or a chatbot in the financial aid realm, and they're asking some questions about their financial aid packaging or when they have to have certain dates in. [00:14:34] Justin Beck: Well, what's the next though that student might go to? They might ask a need to ask a question about enrollment, course enrollment, or they might have a housing question that pops up. Well, if that bot is only pointed at a certain bit of content for financial aid, they're gonna get the university tossover of go talk to a different department. [00:14:54] Justin Beck: If I'm a consumer and I'm talking to my university at a point in time, they should know everything about me at that point. They should know the grade I'm at, where I am in my, in, in my journey, what's the next steps I need to ultimately complete. So we're seeing institutions start to think more holistically about how their departments are operating between one another compared to thinking about them as, like, these siloed, disjointed units at this point in time. [00:15:20] Justin Beck: So we're really, uh, working with, you know, hundreds of institutions right now to, like, leverage, honestly, some of the AI intelligence that's sitting on the background, the, the, the backside of these systems to not replace advisors, faculty, or support staff, but help them to identify earlier in a student's process where some more substantive engagement can be supportive to them. [00:15:41] Cheryl Broom: Yeah. You know, I just read a case study that I found so fascinating. It was from Georgia State University. And they noticed that their graduation rate was only at 32% and it was even lower for underrepresented students. So they started asking questions and going into their data. And what they noticed was that students who were dropping out close to graduation had something in common, and that was that they owed small balances of money. [00:16:12] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, like $1,500 or less. Correct. So they built a system around that to alert them when a student close to graduation owed money, and they started proactively offering scholarships and grants to get them, to get that balance off the books, and they saw their graduation rates skyrocket. So something that students dropping out over this tiny, small amount of money, and they fixed it using technology and data. [00:16:43] Justin Beck: So I love it. Yeah. George State is a great customer of ours. They work with us on actually both sides of our business. But I, I love that example. I remember seeing that article as well. Yeah. Because I think what's so powerful about that is that, yes, that's using the data that's at your disposal, but it's also factoring in the human side of things. [00:16:59] Cheryl Broom: Yes. [00:16:59] Justin Beck: Like, this isn't just a boy, we had a technology that, that, that addressed a particular issue. It allowed the humans and those folks that have invested their careers into making that institution successful to be able to inter- inter- intercede with a student. And I, I know if I'm a student of an institution and they helped me get over that last hump that I thought was gonna be in- insurmountable, I'm a fan for life. [00:17:22] Justin Beck: Yeah. And I'm gonna be a great alumni, and I'm gonna recommend the school to everyone in my social network to try to drive more, more, more students to Georgia State. [00:17:29] Cheryl Broom: Yeah [00:17:29] Justin Beck: What a great story. [00:17:30] Cheryl Broom: It's such a great, it's such a great story. It's really impressive. And I wanna talk to you more about this human connection, but first. [00:17:37] Justin Beck: uh-huh. [00:17:37] Cheryl Broom: Let's take a break and listen to our sponsor. [00:17:40] Justin Beck: Sure. Of course. [00:17:41] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: In higher education, marketing is often treated as the department that makes things look good. The campaign, the website, the email, the ad, but marketing is much bigger than that. Every message, phone call, form, handoff, and interaction teaches students something about whether your institution is ready to help them. [00:17:58] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: In her new book, Marketing is Mission Work, GradComm CEO, Cheryl Broom, challenges college leaders, marketers, communicators, enrollment teams, and campus partners to think beyond campaigns and consider the entire student experience. Through practical lessons, real stories, and field notes you can use with your own team, Cheryl explores how colleges can communicate with more clarity, humanity, and purpose. [00:18:21] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: At its heart, Marketing is Mission Work is about aligning the promise you make with the experience you deliver, strengthening trust, and making the student journey easier to understand. Because marketing helps make the promise visible, your institution brings that promise to life. Get your copy of Marketing Is Mission Work today at gradcom.com/book. [00:18:42] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: How do higher education decision makers find the right solution when technology evolves at light speed? Well, we usually start with our network. EdTech Connect is the network that's democratizing the higher ed technology conversation. EdTech Connect is free, so anyone with a. Edu email address can sign up and list the software and services they use in their role at their school. [00:19:08] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: Once you're in, you can find out what solutions similar schools are doing all over the country. Whether you're looking to find the hot new AI tool or maybe learn options you have to upgrade your campus search engine, or even get to your short list of marketing solution vendors, EdTech Connect is the place to go. [00:19:27] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: So visit edtechconnect.com and set up your free profile to get a pulse for what's happening with higher ed technology today. [00:19:36] Cheryl Broom: All right. So before the break, we were talking about some examples of institutions who have used technology and personalization to help with student success. And you had mentioned that Georgia's state example was great because it had this human component. [00:19:54] Cheryl Broom: And I think that is something that we really wanna make sure that institutions don't lose, is this human feel for students. So how are colleges using AI and technology without losing that, like, person-to-person human connection? [00:20:11] Justin Beck: Oh, gosh. Cheryl, I think the, the, the opportunity for AI and the opportunity for organizations like us and others that get to support the higher education community is that the, the technology and AI should help remove, like, the lower hanging fruit. [00:20:28] Justin Beck: Yeah. The, the, the simple question and answer, the simple workflow and process to free up, honestly, staff and team member time for the high value engagement opportunities. So there's a lot of buzz in the industry and space right now about, like, AI-supported advising right now. And yes, that'll help as a student to go on and say, "I have an academic question. [00:20:51] Justin Beck: How do I get to the next step of my, my academic journey?" But what it's going to point out very clearly is the student who is obviously struggling or needs to get connected with someone, so that advisor who's probably carrying a 500-student workload is able to focus on the 20 or 25 or the 75 that may, that are, that are at a critical juncture point. [00:21:14] Justin Beck: So it's going to allow educators and staff and, and, and having interacted with these folks over the years, 95% of the folks working in this space are here for all the right reasons. They're here for the student. They're here for those interpersonal connections and clearing the time so they know the right students to interact, i- i- interact with. [00:21:33] Justin Beck: Yeah. It, it, it, it just, A, warms my heart, and B, knows that those human connections are, are, are driving value for the student. [00:21:40] Cheryl Broom: So I think that the challenge for our higher education clients is you've got AI and it's doing things that maybe you used to have to do. So don't fill up your schedule with more menial tasks. [00:21:53] Cheryl Broom: Like I talk about in my keynotes, like, some of the most impactful moments in a student's life is just interacting with the staff or faculty member, like� [00:22:03] Justin Beck: Correct. [00:22:03] Cheryl Broom: Get up out of your desk, walk around campus, ask a student, about their experience, talk to somebody, spend a little extra time on the phone. [00:22:11] Cheryl Broom: That goes so far. It goes... And it's, and I think it's hard because we can't, like, quantify it always. We can't be like, "Oh, I, I walked Justin over to the counseling department, and on the way we talked about his career goals." Like, but that's, those connections mean so much to a student, and that's what makes your campus environment special and your brand so strong. [00:22:36] Justin Beck: Correct. Yeah. Cheryl, what's the, what's the, what's the number one determinant of a student's success during their, you know, first to second year transition, depending on the report? Of course, it's academic and physical ability, but it's sense of belonging. [00:22:49] Cheryl Broom: Yes. [00:22:49] Justin Beck: And when they, when they believe that the institution and those around them care about their outcomes, that's why it's so important that we, that, that we clear the space for faculty and staff to be able to promote and, and, and facilitate those, the, those connections. [00:23:05] Cheryl Broom: Yeah, that is such a key point. Like, we're not just taking work off people's plates. We're taking work off their plates so that they can go out and do meaningful, meaningful work with students. You know, things that are gonna change lives. [00:23:20] Justin Beck: 100%. [00:23:21] Cheryl Broom: That's the exciting part of the technology. Absolutely. [00:23:24] Justin Beck: Yeah. Absolutely. [00:23:26] Cheryl Broom: So one of the things that we, that we do see, e- especially, like, in marketing, is kind of a lack of trust in AI. So we talk about, like, AI, like, giving us this ability to have more meaningful human connections. But sometimes we notice that students don't want to interact with AI. And I'll tell you, like, one example. [00:23:46] Cheryl Broom: We were doing marketing for a consortium and, and we wanted to have a chat bot on the website. And this was a couple years ago, so maybe two or three years ago. Sure. And instead of using an AI chatbot, we actually used a call center. So it was really specialized programs where we wanted to have people who could answer questions live. [00:24:09] Cheryl Broom: And the number one question that we got, the first question everybody asked was, "Are you AI?" Or, "Are you a real person?" And we were like, "Wow." We were able to say, like, "Yeah, I'm a real person. I'm an advisor." Mm-hmm. "What's your question?" So we could see this, like, lack of trust. Like, they really wanna talk to somebody and not necessarily AI. [00:24:30] Cheryl Broom: So how do you build trust with students? If you are using AI tools, like, what's a good way to, to make them feel confident that they're interacting with something that's gonna help them? [00:24:41] Justin Beck: Yeah. No, great. Cheryl, I think, again, a m - a multi-pronged strategy here of, like, A, you named one. It's like, give the student the option. [00:24:50] Justin Beck: If they don't wanna interact with the bot, the webpage, give them the, the pound zero, give them the, the, the transfer and make it easy for them. Like, our virtual assistants have a transfer to case functionality that allows the university to then immediately have an individual, whether it's call center or one of the advisors, someone step right into the communication so they can get, like, human to human, human, human to con- connection point there. [00:25:16] Justin Beck: I think the other part of this is why we talked about taking away the, the, the, the, the low-hanging fruit, but I think one of the greatest opportunities that, that, that, that comes from this is... Oh, hold on. I just lost my train of thought on this one. I'm gonna have to come back to it. Give me just one second. [00:25:32] Cheryl Broom: Sure. [00:25:35] Justin Beck: So we were talking, so yeah, re- re - Cheryl, re- repeat the, the last part of the question and I'll, I'll, I'll dig into it again. [00:25:42] Cheryl Broom: So we're talking about trust, so how� [00:25:44] Justin Beck: Yeah. [00:25:44] Cheryl Broom: We can build trust with students when they may not wanna interact with AI. [00:25:49] Justin Beck: Yeah. So one of the best ways universities can lead towards a greater trust is that highly personalized the experience. [00:25:58] Justin Beck: Don't make them answer questions. You know, again, I, I'm, I'm leveraging a lot of, like, the chat virtual assistant agenda. Don't make them answer a lot of questions that you already have at their disposal, their major, where they're from, where they are in their, their academic journey. Once you, like, authenticate them and you put all the governance and security in place, which needs to be the wraparound here, clear those, like, minimum hurdles so you can get to, like, the, the crux of the issue. [00:26:24] Justin Beck: That's a way that you're showing students that we're personalizing this down to you on a, on, on a, on a, on a power of one experience that is gonna let them know that we're intentionally operating at this level so we can be supportive of your journey. [00:26:39] Cheryl Broom: Oh, that's great. I can tell you from my own personal experience that it's really irritating if I call somebody and they don't have my file or ask me questions where I'm like, "Shouldn't you know the answer to this? [00:26:50] Cheryl Broom: Why are you asking me these questions? Like, isn't that in there, in your file?" So yeah, like it easy. I think we need to design experiences with the student in mind. Mm-hmm. And sometimes the institution designs them with the institution in mind first. [00:27:05] Justin Beck: C- correct. [00:27:06] Cheryl Broom: Yeah. [00:27:06] Justin Beck: Correct, correct. And, and I think that's, that's where this, like, siloed infrastructure, like, universities are some of the greatest places in the world. [00:27:14] Justin Beck: There's an energy, there's an optimism for the future. There's an exploration of your, your, your, your, your broader world thinking and your ultimate physicals, but they're also designed around, like, hierarchy and structure. [00:27:26] Justin Beck: And departments and le - and, and that breaking down of those departmental silos is one of the greatest unlocks that you can provide for the students so they can, they can most effectively navigate acro - navigate across that lifecycle and also allow signals that are coming from the various different departments to inform behaviors of other groups. [00:27:47] Cheryl Broom: How do you begin to break those silos down? Like, what's... I'm sure you have some technology that helps or some tips, but I've worked on a college campus for 12 years, and it is so siloed. It is, it was really difficult. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand's doing half the time, so... [00:28:06] Justin Beck: Yeah. Some of it's the old school, get everybody in the room together, get everybody in the Zoom together, and start with what's the outcome we're trying to drive to. [00:28:14] Justin Beck: If, if, if there's anything I love about the higher education is that if you dr - ground back to their mission statements, ground back to the their strategic plans, they're all wrapped around worldly mindset, ac- academic and professional outcomes, student success, research and development. Like you, you, you, you can pick apart the the eight or nine things that show up as common things. [00:28:36] Justin Beck: You start that, you work that down. It's quickly a unifying effort for those various departments, whether it's student affairs, academic affairs, operations to come together to take a holistic view at the student's pathway and the student journey and decide where, where are we putting friction in the process? [00:28:53] Justin Beck: You mentioned, the marketing journeys we all go on as consumers are highly curated. You know, if you don't think Amazon is well aware of your up and like your, your purchasing journey and what other recommendations they're gonna bring to the table, universities are sitting on all that same data and you could provide just the same level. [00:29:12] Justin Beck: So the, the same level of user experience, the same recommendations user experience, again, massive unlock where AI is gonna be supportive of harnessing that as well as automating some of those workflows. [00:29:25] Cheryl Broom: So as we have the conversation, I don't know, you've had so much experience in the ed tech world and hope maybe you can give an answer. [00:29:32] Cheryl Broom: This is a pretty big question, so - You know, you talk about Amazon. So like I, last night, I don't remember what I bought. I bought something on Amazon - Sure. And then it had like recommendations for other things I might be interested in. Mm-hmm. On Netflix, I go onto Netflix and it shows me other shows or other movies that I might be interested in. [00:29:55] Cheryl Broom: Even like if I go on Google Flights, it shows me other flights that might be cheaper at different times or different days. Mm-hmm. Why can't higher education do that? Like what has been so difficult for us to have an experience that personalized? That, [00:30:13] Justin Beck: Well, I, I do think you're starting to see that unlock at certain institutions. [00:30:18] Justin Beck: I'll, I'll give you an example. University of Cincinnati, right in my hometown here, I'm biased because I'm such a Midwest homer, but they, they have worked across 17 different departments to unify some of the support experiences. So that personalized experience when someone's interacting across their like student life cycle, they're able to get their questions, access to resources, uh, and as well as additional recommendations of things that could be supportive. [00:30:46] Justin Beck: So they know that if someone's asking about, you know, ma- make up a particular example, they're asking the questions about housing, they're also thinking about, you know, future enrollment considerations. So they wanna provide resources wrapped around that as well or a flag to their advisor that they're moving into this time period. [00:31:05] Justin Beck: What a great use of AI tools to do some of that lookup capabilities that is gonna allow. So we're not there yet, but I know leading institutions are very aware of this and, and, and they're working towards it at pace. [00:31:17] Cheryl Broom: I mean, I even see it for simple things like clubs, like, you know, you, you take a cl - a certain class and you get some recommendation, like maybe you'd really enjoy being part of the student club, you know? [00:31:32] Cheryl Broom: Like there's so many opportunities to make the student experience richer using that technology. Yeah, [00:31:38] Justin Beck: jump, Cheryl, jumping back to the academic, one of the things we were working on when I was at instructor was like recommendations for students based upon what high performing students were also studying and other courses they were taking [00:31:48] Justin Beck: And other things they were involved in. Again, that's a lot of just like basic lookup technology so you can make recommendations for students so they can, they, they can continue down that path. [00:31:56] Cheryl Broom: Yeah. Yeah. Hey, we've noticed that you, you know, got As in these three classes. Like you're, you know, clearly a high performer. [00:32:04] Cheryl Broom: Maybe you'd be interested in doing this or with an internship opportunity. Like there's so much potential to build a better experience. And I think frankly, this is what students are looking for and this is what they need out of education. And you've seen enrollment go down and trust go down in higher ed, and I think this might be one way for us to address that. [00:32:27] Justin Beck: It pops up in my head because William and Mary is, uh, is an organization we work with and they have this really sophisticated, but it's actually pretty basic behind the scenes, mentor matching of students as they're going along. They get them into their alumni engagement portal, essentially, to have them start matching with alumni. [00:32:45] Justin Beck: And it does it automatically. It's like, "Hey, based upon this profile, you could fit with these folks. Would you like us to make a connection?" And they have invested some people to actually get focused on continuing this curation. I think about that. Back from my integrated experience, I would have like lost my mind if somebody from Procter & Gamble or somebody from Adidas or Nike w - I would have been able to connect with, even just for a conversation. [00:33:06] Justin Beck: Just opens up so much vision and opportunity for our students ahead, all powered by that AI matching technology that sits underneath the hoods. [00:33:16] Cheryl Broom: Oh, that's great. I had a, I think I was, I, I don't know if you have UC Santa Barbara as a client, but I was matched with a, a mentee for just a one-on-one conversation and she's like, "I'm getting two bachelor's degrees and should I also get these certificates?" [00:33:32] Cheryl Broom: And I'm like, "Are you having fun in college?" Like, I think you need to go join a club or... I'm like, "I wanna hire..." I told her, I said, "I wanna hire students that have, that are well-rounded. Like yeah, you can go get another degree for 4.0, you know, get a 4.0 and another certificate, but let's see you have an internship and, and join a club and meet people." [00:33:56] Cheryl Broom: And, and I think I might have panicked her. [00:34:02] Justin Beck: That's a wonderful story. Yeah. [00:34:05] Cheryl Broom: Well, it's been such a delight talking to you. There's so much potential out there, and I think for some of the colleges listening, they might wanna learn more about you and what your company does, so how can they do that? [00:34:17] Justin Beck: Oh, gosh, www.gravyty.com. Just look it up online. It's not spelled the traditional gravity way because obviously all names are bogarded at this point in time, but it's gravyty with a V-Y-T that, that you can grab onto. [00:34:31] Justin Beck: Find me on LinkedIn. It's justinbeck@gravyty.com and I�m happy to connect with folks. But the show, it's been a wonderful conversation. [00:34:39] Cheryl Broom: Well, thank you so much for joining me. [00:34:41] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: That's a wrap on this episode of Higher Education Conversations. Thanks for listening. We hope you found value in today's conversation and maybe even walked away with a fresh idea or two. [00:34:52] Intro, Outro, Ad Read: Want more episodes like this? Be sure to follow Higher Education Conversations so you never miss a story. And please consider leaving a five-star review on your platform of choice. Until next time.