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Hello and welcome to the Designing with Love podcast.
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I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you information, tips, and tricks as an instructional designer.
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Hello instructional designers and educators, welcome to Episode 66 of the Designing with Love podcast.
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I'm thrilled to have Michael Toguchi, the Chief Strategy Officer at Orchestrate, with me today.
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Welcome, Michael.
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Hi, jackie, thanks, Glad to be here.
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Thank you so much.
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I'm so glad we got to get matched on PodMatch and we have so much in common, so I'm really looking forward to digging in and getting started.
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So, to start, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and share what inspired you to focus on helping higher education institutions and nonprofits?
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Yeah, as you mentioned, Mike Taguchi, I'm a chief strategy officer at a digital company.
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We have a platform called Orchestrate that we've had for over 20 years in the higher ed and nonprofit space.
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Space developed it, worked really hard on it to make it something that empowers folks, that allows them to focus on impactful work rather than manual tasks and you know paperwork, spreadsheets and other things that can be frustrating to them, and you know from our side our company being a digital company we were around when folks were there weren't even really websites and it went from not having websites to trying to figure out how to make better websites, to then implementing tools and processes that really affect the work, create workflows, essentially, since technology is infused and embedded in everything that all of these groups are working through and from our end.
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We just saw so many organizations we started in the Virginia DC area.
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There are many associations, nonprofits with great missions and universities that we were connected with where there was just so much struggle to understand technology, to try and keep up with trends, to try and build processes, and that just wasn't really their wheelhouse and we felt like we could take a mission that was centered around not just technology but creative problem solving and strategy and give folks the tools that they need for both the short term but also kind of help them guide and create roadmaps for the long term so that they know what's coming, and that really allowed them to focus on, you know, whether it's a K-12 group that is working with disabled students and needs accessibility help, whether it's a university that's running a two or three person program and they are underwater trying to provide services to students, or a nonprofit that needs help creating fundraising options so that they can get grants and do the work that they want to do.
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That was where our emphasis has been for the last couple of decades.
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Obviously, it's always an exciting time in technology.
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Things are constantly shifting, tectonic shifts in the way things are going, and so that's where we're at for myself personally, just being able to provide that level of expertise and, as I've mentioned in other places, we don't work in just singular, you know one kind of project we don't say hey, we're just.
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You know just healthcare or just nonprofit or just any you know any singular vertical.
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For our end, we're looking for groups that are good partners, groups that we can invest our time in to help them be impactful and being able to see the fruits of those labors.
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Being able to solve different kinds of problems and meet different kinds of challenges across the spectrum meant that you know no day is going to be the same.
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We're not punching a clock.
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We're always looking at different kinds of problems for people that want to do meaningful work from our end to be able to help them solve those challenges, to see their workflows work, see their efficiencies increase and then just see them achieve their goals.
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Wow, that's amazing, michael.
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I love that.
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So you saw that there was a specific need, not just in a certain industry, but all across the board, right?
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So you were able to see that need and then be able to meet it, so that you could help these organizations and these institutions be able to, like you said, move forward and not feel like they were getting stuck and staying stuck in that area, yeah, and in particular for higher education.
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It's a place where, obviously, right now, higher ed is a bit under assault.
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State budgets are crunched, there are challenges with the federal government and grant programs and even before that, students were, you know, there were less students matriculating, there were questions about the value of higher ed and from our end, you know, we saw that.
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We saw staff that were struggling, felt like they were under siege, frustrated, faculty and programs that were just not modernized from a technological standpoint.
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And that was a place where we felt like our expertise and our ability to do things in a cost effective way for them to, you know, rather than being frustrated trying to work within the university's confines or resources, that we could bring that external expertise that we had from other areas working with larger companies, working with large nonprofits and large associations, that we were able to give them a piece of that.
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And, you know, kind of bring something special that helped them make more.
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You know, kind of bring something special that helped them make more, you know, sort of more bang for their buck.
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It's not like they get to hire more people, but it can make the people they have more efficient.
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It can provide, you know our North Star.
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The North Star things we usually look at are is this a good user experience?
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Is it secure and is it accessible?
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And that user experience in particular for students and faculty.
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A lot of times they were using really outdated things or tools that just weren't.
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There's a frustrating process for them, and so that's where we can sort of modernize the technology in the process and help them.
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Exactly, and then they can focus more on serving the students right and serving those within the the organization if it's a non-profit or something like that.
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So that way they can, like you said, not have to focus so much on the technology side of things.
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Well, they can claw back their time if you're, if your choice is to have a meeting with a student to help help them uh, you know in in their educational journey, or to copy and paste stuff into a spreadsheet and try and sort it.
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You know which one is more valuable, and that's the way we look at it is that any place that we can help people save time, create efficiencies in their own, collaborate better, not just within their team, but across campuses, and something that we've really been proud of our work is finding ways that people can use the data from our systems to have actionable business intelligence and then, across their departments, you know, scale the efforts that they have no-transcript ranging from universities to major companies like Google and PG&E.
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What are some common challenges you see when it comes to managing complex processes Like we talked about, scholarships, grants or admissions, and how does orchestrate help simplify those challenges?
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Well, from a challenge standpoint, it is they do all have some, some common threads or connective tissue.
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You know one people can be adverse to change, like they have a system in place and they just want to keep using what's there, even if it's not really a successful one.
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There can be little, there can be tribal knowledge where groups, there's silos of communication, silos of information and you have to break those things down.
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And you have to break those things down, I think a lot of times the creative part of the problem solving to say like let's actually, you know, let's whiteboard this out, like, how does your marketing team work with the fundraising and development team in order to ensure that communications to small and large donors are effective or targeted?
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And sometimes finding those integration points within a team is something that can be challenging at a large or even a small organization where you would think everybody, you know there's only a couple of voices there, but sometimes people have their own lanes and it's hard to get them out of it.
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But really, from our end it's a matter of like trying to break things down to a foundational level, find the commonalities of.
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There are certain elements of any workflow for any process.
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It doesn't matter if you're talking about a scholarship for a student, an accommodation for a student with a disability, a foundation grant that you're applying for.
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The list goes on and on of the different kinds of applications that orchestrate can manage.
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So we're always looking, you know, we're looking at it from the workflow standpoint of efficiency and commonality, and then we're looking at it from each user standpoint, almost the you know the storytelling version of, like what does this look like from the user's perspective?
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Like, is this something that's simple for them to do?
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Do they?
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Do you have reminders to let them know there's something that's outstanding?
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Do you have integrated messaging to ensure that you have communication with them and that you know if Joe from that side of the desk goes on vacation?
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Is all the communication with one student just stuck in his email?
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Or is it in a platform where there's an audit trail and somebody else can pick up things?
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And so we're always looking at both individual functionalities down at that granular level but really saying like, who's the student here or the applicant, who's the faculty reviewer, who is the administrative person that has to, you know, manage all the pieces of this puzzle and disperse them, so really kind of going into those individual users' stories and understanding how any technology can affect their day-to-day operations and work, and then put all those pieces together so that you have one, you know, sort of finely tuned machine that's working.
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Wow, I love that, you know.
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That made me think of what I do with the curriculum design and development department.
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We have a department of 75 individuals that consists of curriculum developers, instructional designers, editors.
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We also have managers that manage, and so what they do is they have each of the colleges within the university that we help manage.
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So I'm part of humanities and social sciences, and then we have another management team that's part of engineering and technology.
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But each college kind of works in silos and sometimes we do have things that are standardized across the board.
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But it's sometimes difficult when you have different colleges that have different wants and needs.
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So that's interesting.
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We've worked within.
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You know, there are different systems of colleges that are in universities that are connected, but they have different ways of they have different platforms, they have different ways of solving problems, they have different ways of collecting data.
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They don't standardize the data and then when leadership or board or board of governors or a state legislator wants some information, it's like chaos of trying to get, you know, collect all of it and then and normalize it so that they can view it.
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And so you know, we're also looking at those kinds of things like what are the regulatory and compliance issues?
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Like, what do you need in order to make sure that you can get more funding and keep the lights?
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You know, keep the lights on on your side.
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But really I'd mentioned earlier like we want people to have actionable business intelligence.
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Like you don't have the data and you can't say, oh well, you know when, when a student comes in, it seems like it's taking us, you know, three or four days to finish their request.
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Like, why is that?
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Like where's where's the block in the process?
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How can we?
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How can we help them?
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But to your, you know, to your note and point about design, like that's, that's a bit of what we look at and say you know, there's plenty of stuff that's off the shelf that you can just kind of shrink, wrap and you get what you get.
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And then there are people that will build something from scratch, which is fine, but then you end up with something that's almost so unique and hard to support and can bring on technical debt you need something that sort of is in that middle lane where you do get a little bit of that white boarding and design principle.
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Take solid foundation platform architecture and be able to work within it and say, okay, well, our review cycle for, you know, an application is one level of the selection committee and then like a second level of vetting and this is our scoring.
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And we'll work with groups, not only to make sure you know we can wrap our software around their process, but then also to help them make sure that process is sound.
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You know, as it has it just always been this way that you have, you know, 90 different people scoring something.
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Is there a more efficient way to do that?
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And so really try and do like a true partner for them evaluating, you know, evaluating each step of the way, creating a strategy and creating that roadmap.
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Right, yeah, because if you have like you, like you said, those processes or you have a system that is bogging people down, that's hard, because then you get that frustration from individuals in different teams right, that where they they feel like they're being, the process is actually hindering them and not helping them and not giving them what they need to help students or help others, right so yeah, and that is one of the other you know common challenges is you have to have someone that is a champion.
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If you're going to have someone externally, you know kind of help you create a new solution and enforce change.
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You know change management and change in an organization, particularly in higher ed not always the easiest thing.
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People can get set in their ways.
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You have to have people whether it's, you know, a dean from up high or a, you know, just someone who is owning the project to make sure that they're communicating well, you know, stating like here are our goals, this is why we're doing it, this is how it's going to make your life better or easier, even if there's some transition work that needs to be done.
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And so we always try and make sure that you know we're communicating where we're hoping you know we can bring value to somebody's lives and hope there's somebody on the other end that's doing the same.
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That's so important, right, and to get all those different individuals involved that can be able to, like you said, to have that champion as part of that, because then what you probably find is that there's no clear direction, and then people are just scrambling and lost and they're wondering why are we doing this?
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What is the purpose behind it?
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Or you?
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know, and again, in fairness to everyone, we all think kind of from a not selfish but self-centered way, like, okay, well, what does this mean for me?
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Like, does this mean I have to learn something new?
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Do I have to change the way I do this?
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Like, what's the disruption level?
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But that's where it's important to get.
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You get stakeholder buy-in.
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You doesn't mean you have a million cooks in the kitchen, but you get people's buy-in explaining clearly why you're doing things and help them understand the strategy and what the end product is going to look like.
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So that there are those.
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Hey, you're going to get back 20% of your day.
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Instead of working late, maybe you're leaving early late.
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You know, maybe you're leaving early, exactly, and that that can be a big buy in for a lot of employees and staff to be able to, yeah, have that, buy in, absolutely yeah.
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It kind of reminds me of this internal system.
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We have a lot of internal systems where I work and we and tailor them to what what is needed and it helps save money.
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But I agree with you that sometimes that that can be a hindrance.
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And there's an example of this particular type of software where we're trying to build in instances where students can have a experience, where it's where we can embed videos and we can embed content and things like that and make it more of a experiential type of process for students.
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But then what ended up happening is they didn't consult editors, they didn't consult instructional designers, so we're all just going wait a minute, you're rolling out this and curriculum developers all they I mean they do have instances where they go to meetings and they consult with subject matter experts to try to make sure that the curriculum is at its best, but at the same time they don't know some of them don't know higher education and they don't know adult learning.
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So it's a challenge and so we're trying to kind of get it back to where we're able to do that and able to make sure that it meets the needs of students, so it's interesting.
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Getting all those pieces of the puzzle, you know, kind of flowing together in the right, in the right direction, at the right cadence and time.
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It's a.
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It's a huge challenge just making sure that everybody understands, you know, the nature of the change.
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There's good training, good documentation right, exactly, and I love your philosophy that technology should enable people not burden them.
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That's that's a wonderful philosophy to have.
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So how do you keep that principle front and center when making product decisions or building partnerships?
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We try and be as direct and honest with folks as possible.
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At the end of the day, we're creating something for them.
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And so what I was mentioning earlier, like we're going to ask those questions like, hey, you said you wanted this kind of application flow or you want this kind of review process or this kind of acceptance for you know again, any kind of application or any kind of workflow, it doesn't.
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You know, we work, we build many things in higher ed that aren't really an application.
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It could be a form, it could be something where there's some internal process to be fundraising.
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But we're going to ask folks, why do you need this or why do you want this?
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What business goal or objective is this accomplishing?
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How is this helping you, your team?
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Is this adding more time?
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Is it saving time?
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What value or benefit is it bringing to the student or the audience?
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And you know, really kind of tackling those questions, as we're creating and designing something to ensure that a lot of times people will say like, oh, hey, we hired a new person to our new group in order to put something in place, and what they really want is just somebody new to do the old thing again and it's, it's very, really like the software version of lipstick on a pig type situation, where it is like you've just taken some old, not efficient process and and put new software around the same old stuff.
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And so for us, when we come in, if a group has or an institution has hired us, we're often coming in saying, like we want to be accountable to what we promised you we would do, and that's ensuring that the staff that you have gets the most out of what we've created for you and that they understand you know why we've built something or developed it, what the vision is for it, that roadmap where we say, like what does this look like over two terms or two semesters?
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Like, what will it look like in year two or year three and what benefits are you know what's the ROI on it?
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What do we want to see?
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Do we want to see an increase in applications?
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Do we want to see a decrease in time to provide a service to a student?
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Do we want to see an increase in funds for something?
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And so we're really trying to tie some of those business objectives to the choices that are made in the design of the solution and and bringing it back to them like say, like, hey, if you, if you choose this, that's fine.
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Like we're, we're not going to tell you how to do this.
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We could tell you what we recommend or what we think is best, based on a couple of decades of experience and a couple thousand implementations.
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But if you see this and you want this, then that's, you know, you do that.
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But from our end we're always going to be saying, you know again, are we saving?
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Are we saving you time?
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Are we making this better for you or are we just kind of doing the same thing?
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And so that's how we stay true to those ideas.
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Again, you know, is it good for the user experience?
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Does it increase or maintain your security level?
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Is it accessible for all types of audiences?
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And you know, and then again, make those solutions as creative and strong and diverse as possible.
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Right, I like that.
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Yeah, because you're really looking for that sustained partnership with those individuals that you're working with, and not just a one-time type of experience.
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Right, you're trying to make sure that it's sustained over that long-term.
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And that actually makes it nice because it feels less like selling someone and more like offering to join with them to try and help them accomplish something.
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Um, any, there are million technology companies that can offer you a platform and implement it and then go, you know, and just hang on.
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You know, anybody can do that if you want to bring expertise that's specific about um, a particular kind of group like a university, a particular audience like students or faculty or staff, and say, hey, this is a way we can really.
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You know, if you are again using we work with a lot of centers that serve disabled students and say you have limited resources, you know your case managers are always kind of overwhelmed as accommodation requests increase, like how can we create a workflow that helps you process those quicker?
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Or if you're working with an admissions program and you have thousands of folks and you're trying to figure out, oh my gosh, we don't have enough staff to score all of these, how can we create a solution?
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So, yeah, we're really trying to join them on a journey towards that business objective and ROI and be somebody that's there at varying levels.
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There are plenty of universities we work with where they implement something and we kind of show up at very targeted strategic times.
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And there are other folks that we work with on a much more daily tactical basis and so we like to have the flexibility and offer that flexibility to these groups that we partner with and help them kind of scale things.
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Many groups start out with maybe one fellowship program and then suddenly there are other fellowships on campus that want to join with them and so they get to leverage what we've done.
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It saves the university time and money.
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They already have an approved vendor that they're working with.
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It again increases that collaboration and so, yeah, we really enjoy the lane that we occupy in terms of finding groups.
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I love that and I love, michael, how it's not a one-size-fits-all approach for every institution or every organization that you work with.
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You really tailor your products and services to that individual and you really do a needs assessment, it sounds like, and you try to find out what are your needs, what are your wants and how can we help you get there right.
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That's always the goal.
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The goal is to do a very intentional, in-depth discovery and strategic planning with any organization.
00:23:49.625 --> 00:23:52.613
It doesn't always work out exactly that way.
00:23:52.613 --> 00:23:55.567
Sometimes you have the it's a fire drill.
00:23:55.567 --> 00:23:57.411
I need this before you know fall.
00:23:57.411 --> 00:24:01.871
We had plenty of those this year it's you know, we've got three weeks until the term launches.
00:24:01.871 --> 00:24:03.041
Can you put something in place?
00:24:03.041 --> 00:24:08.424
So it doesn't always work out exactly process wise, but yeah, I mean we want to.
00:24:08.625 --> 00:24:12.866
We wanted to find that place where we had something to offer that you didn't have.
00:24:12.866 --> 00:24:15.961
Again, you don't have to do it from scratch, it's not.
00:24:15.961 --> 00:24:19.791
It's not building, reinventing the wheel every time we leverage something that's there.
00:24:19.791 --> 00:24:40.054
But we wanted that ability to say, like we know, the three person nonprofit versus the you know conglomerate fortune 50 group versus even amongst like higher ed and K-12, like you have some groups that have tons of money and resources and time and you have others that are, you know, more strapped or more stressed on those things.
00:24:40.054 --> 00:24:54.286
And so we want to be able to find those places where we're going to be a good fit and provide a benefit and, again, finding places to do those cool problem solving like that's one of the things we're looking for.
00:24:54.306 --> 00:24:54.826
I love that.
00:24:54.826 --> 00:24:56.611
That's great, wonderful.
00:24:56.611 --> 00:25:05.905
So, as we wrap up, what are your top tips or advice for listeners who are looking to transition into higher education maybe even nonprofit too, or just starting out in the field?
00:25:44.441 --> 00:25:44.901
Yeah, that's a.
00:25:44.901 --> 00:25:45.745
It's a good question.
00:25:45.745 --> 00:25:48.572
I mean, we, you know we're here talking about technology.
00:25:48.572 --> 00:25:51.720
We haven't quite mentioned AI yet.
00:25:51.720 --> 00:25:59.042
I certainly would say that's something that is really, as we all know, it's disrupting every single space.
00:25:59.849 --> 00:26:08.877
But, in particular in higher ed, you have students who are using it at, I believe, around a 90% clip in their personal and school lives.
00:26:08.877 --> 00:26:16.202
You have faculty that are, you know, having to redo curriculum and you know they're figuring out.
00:26:16.202 --> 00:26:18.105
You know, can I use tools to detect this?
00:26:18.105 --> 00:26:20.466
Should I give up on that and find some other way to?
00:26:20.466 --> 00:26:21.507
You know, should I embrace it?
00:26:21.507 --> 00:26:44.375
You have beleaguered staff that are like, feel like they, you know, might be replaced by it, and so I say all that to say I would be, I would, I would encourage anybody to be reading and learning as much as you can about, you know, llms and generative AI and agentic AI and things like that, because it's on our end.
00:26:44.375 --> 00:26:51.856
We're looking at ways to incorporate that into our platform and into folks workflows, so that you look at universities that have.
00:26:52.538 --> 00:26:54.102
You might want to be an admissions officer.
00:26:54.102 --> 00:27:02.897
Well, an admissions application now should have a chatbot that's helping prompt and get people dragging them further through the process.
00:27:02.897 --> 00:27:18.230
On the easy stuff, or if you're providing support services for students, you know if you're not experimenting with something to help reduce, like again, ticket level, or you know the sort of initial inquiries or gates that students have to go through.
00:27:18.230 --> 00:27:35.077
You're spending time that maybe other folks are not, and so that would just be one note for everyone, maybe the most obvious one that the workforce the professional workforce in particular, and the academic one as well there's so much going on with AI right now.
00:27:35.077 --> 00:27:51.816
If you're looking to jump into that space, I think, having background on how AI can you know how AI can be utilized in whatever job you're looking for and having some you know, even if it's just your own training, that I think would be immensely valuable.
00:27:51.816 --> 00:27:56.493
Like I don't think I would hire someone that came knowing nothing about.
00:27:56.493 --> 00:27:59.699
You know how some of these, how some of those tools would be, would be utilized.
00:28:00.380 --> 00:28:01.382
That's a great advice.
00:28:01.382 --> 00:28:02.144
I love that.
00:28:02.404 --> 00:28:04.310
Yeah, you know.
00:28:04.310 --> 00:28:13.078
A second thing again from from our and we we do work with K through 12, we do work with nonprofits of all sizes and we do work with higher ed.
00:28:13.078 --> 00:28:38.840
In terms of looking at the different places, I would say find your, you know, find your area.
00:28:38.840 --> 00:28:41.581
I would say find your area, be great at it, try and be amazing.
00:28:42.042 --> 00:28:54.247
Whether it's operations or other areas where some of these groups are looking, groups appear, at least from my end, and I'm sure our company and other companies are they're looking to find more efficiencies.
00:28:54.247 --> 00:29:23.685
Hiring is lower than it has been because people are trying to keep a lid on things, and so if you have a diversified portfolio of skills, I would be looking at where you can provide value to an organization, sort of in like a sports analogy, someone who can play multiple positions, but I still think being great at your one thing and then having that diversification, that's striking the balance there.
00:29:23.685 --> 00:29:26.599
That's another area I would say is important.
00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:39.682
Again, I'm thinking about interviews that we do, where I'm looking for somebody that looks like they have the eye of the tiger and they want to be the best at something, but they also know that they're able to hop in and help other teammates.
00:29:41.790 --> 00:29:43.273
Yeah, that's great.
00:29:43.273 --> 00:29:50.356
I love that, yeah being being able to diversify yourself and have those different areas where you can be an expert.
00:29:50.677 --> 00:29:54.574
Yeah, I guess the last part and you know, sort of tying those two elements together.
00:29:54.574 --> 00:30:00.360
I think higher ed is constantly it's it's really changing, I don't know.
00:30:00.360 --> 00:30:04.119
I mean I have a five and a seven year old, I don't know what, I don't know.
00:30:04.119 --> 00:30:10.317
The college that I went to in the nineties is going to look like their college in, you know, in 10 years, 12 years.
00:30:10.317 --> 00:30:15.357
And so I say that in terms of like it's not a linear career path.
00:30:15.357 --> 00:30:25.563
It's not like you start as an administrative assistant and get promoted to research associate and then you become you know and there's like a very straight ladder that you go and then you retire.
00:30:25.563 --> 00:30:28.329
I don't think anyone's career works that way anymore.
00:30:28.329 --> 00:30:49.816
In particular in higher ed there is just a lot of lateral hopping around from department to department and that, to me, gets to you know, knowing the newest technologies in AI and how it applies in the workforce and being diversified and understanding you know how you can move around in case there's a shift in.
00:30:49.816 --> 00:30:51.360
You know where your skills are needed.
00:30:52.250 --> 00:30:52.711
That's great.
00:30:52.711 --> 00:30:53.453
I love that, michael.
00:30:53.453 --> 00:30:54.336
That's so important.
00:30:54.336 --> 00:30:59.654
Being able to have those tips in hand, yeah, something you know with AI.
00:30:59.654 --> 00:31:15.770
We're utilizing it where I work and also within the institution too, so navigating that, and now they have clear guidelines, which is great, so it's it's helpful when you know what, what you're looking at and how to be able to utilize it yeah right.
00:31:15.830 --> 00:31:18.755
I mean, that's something across across higher ed, the.
00:31:18.755 --> 00:31:27.519
The people are struggling and just trying to catch up on providing guidance and guidelines for students on how and what you know how.
00:31:27.519 --> 00:31:30.994
Where do they need to source things like what can you use it for?
00:31:30.994 --> 00:31:36.596
From a faculty standpoint, are you should you be flagging things if you know it's been written by a chat?
00:31:36.596 --> 00:31:47.279
You know chat gpt or there's you could, we could spend you know two to three hours just kind of going through some of that stuff and yeah, yeah, that's so true.
00:31:47.500 --> 00:32:03.678
Yeah, and the university is they don't want faculty policing it, but they want it to be a collaborative type of approach where they, if they see a concern, then talk to the student about it, right, and find out what, what do you know, and try to inquire with them and see where did you get that information?
00:32:03.678 --> 00:32:15.097
Not, maybe, not even necessarily like that, but just, can you tell me a little bit more about that and really inquire and find out a little bit more from them and do it in that manner instead of policing it?
00:32:15.318 --> 00:32:18.151
I think a lot of the universities that are embracing it.
00:32:18.151 --> 00:32:20.417
They are going to find a way, way to.
