Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
The Technology ‘Taste Test’
Oral Roberts University (ORU) has one technological focus: to be the best campus for 21st-century students. Why? Because the student is worth it. Michael Mathews, CIO and Vice President of Global Learning and Innovation at ORU, joins the October episode of Tambellini Group’s Top of Mind podcast series to share how he made his dreams for the future of higher education come to life on campus. From adaptive planning to technology “taste testing,” ORU is transformative and leading by example in the race for a modern, student-centric campus.
Welcome to the October episode of the Tambellini Group Top of Mind Podcast. I'm your host, Liz Farrell. In this episode, we're talking with Mike Mathews, who has served as the CIO at Oral Roberts University for the past eight years, where he also recently inherited the title as the Vice President for Global Learning and Innovation. Mike is an enthusiastic believer in the power of technology to improve teaching, learning, and the post-secondary education landscape writ large. He regularly presents in, writes about real world examples of how bleeding edge technologies are transforming education and research, including web 3.0, the Metaverse and AR and VR applications at Oral Roberts University and beyond. But even though Mike is optimistic about future possibilities and realities, he's also acutely aware of the current challenges his fellow higher education technology leaders face on a daily basis in their ongoing path to digital transformation. And that's why I'm so honored to have him here today as our guest to share his perspectives and advice for how his peers can work to move digital transformation forward at their institutions. Welcome, Mike.
Speaker 2:Hey, thank you so much, Liz, for the opportunity to help other CIOs, and illuminate the great part of working in higher education.
Speaker 1:Yes. I mean, there's so many exciting things going on. You're definitely at the forefront of a lot of them, but I'd like to start by level setting here. So can you tell us a little bit about Oral Roberts University, where it's at right now, its current strategic priorities, and goals for the future?
Speaker 2:Sure. Oral Roberts University is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We have approximately 5,000 students on campus, another thousand students online, and another 7,000 students studying a certificate-related program around the world. Out of the 5,000 who are on campus, they come from 126 other countries. And so one would say that ORU is probably the most diverse or diverse university in the country. People wouldn't think of that, but that's been the case for over 55 years now. 14 consecutive years of growth, which has been fabulous for us. And a lot of it really is how do we create a smart campus that people enjoy? How do we make it seamless? How do we make it simple? Not more complicated. And or you has over 150 majors, uh, from PhDs down to undergraduate programs and then the certificate programs I mentioned as well.
Speaker 1:So tell us about, I mean, that's all very impressive and as you said, might not think of that first. I mean, especially being in the middle of the country in Oklahoma, that's all really cool things to hear. But can you tell us about some more recent developments in terms of the current strategic priorities at ORU?
Speaker 2:So Oral Roberts University, when the president started here about 10 years ago, came up with a global strategy. And in that global strategy, he was like any other president, frustrated with strategic planning, which is a lot of wasted time. Strategic plan sits on a shelf, however, that doesn't mean we're not strategic. And so he created a plan called the Adaptive Plan. Every year we shoot for five years, but we change it every year, every six months—twice a year. We also change it to make sure we're tracking, right. We're competitive. And so an adaptive plan gives him the privilege along with faculty, the board of administration, myself included, opportunity to say, Hey, what, this isn't working. And we're not stuck and bound by the strategic plan. So we have great strategic initiatives. In fact, if you measured our KPIs, there'd be about 150 to 175 every year, and we reach about 98% of those KPIs.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. So my understanding is that the part of this, you're entering into a new phase of expansion here. As you had mentioned, theenrollments are the highest they've ever been. As part of this expansion, you, the leadership structure has changed very recently. In fact, I know you sent me this article from late September announcing the I wouldn't say the change in your role, but the addition in your role along with some others who are key in the top leadership and strategic direction of the institution. And you had said that this role was a dream come true for you. So can you explain to us how this role has changed and why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. This role has changed substantially from this standpoint. The president stood in front of all the faculty about a month ago and said,"We are now gonna let Mike do what he does best and that his dream. He's gonna dream about the future looks like for education." Now, he was aware that I've been to the White House on three occasions, United Nations speaking numerous times. And so he knows that I'm always dreaming, but sometimes the structure hinders the ability to carry out those dreams. And I personally believe the pandemic helped all of us see that things weren't as they are. And now people are willing to be a little bit more flexible, little more empathetic with students. And that opens up a lot of opportunities. So in my new role as Vice President for Global Learning and Innovation, it's really to, if you would drop the name IT, which is a 30 year old term and start saying, Let's do what we do best learning at a global level and be innovative with that.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's a very succinct explanation of something that encompasses so much. And it's interesting that you say like the term it has been around for 30 years, that that's an intriguing concept to think about it. It is a bit outmoded there, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yep, exactly.
Speaker 1:So how do these things, when you're talking about changing that role and, and dreaming bigger, how do those relate to these overall strategic priorities of expansion? Like I had seen, for instance, your president says that, um, what did he say here? He said, Our focus is to have the best campus for the 21st century student because we believe they are worth it.
Speaker 2:Yep. So really the new assignment is how do we truly become student centric, meet the needs of students and not the vice president or the business process area, the financial area, which is the case at many campuses, right? We can't do this. The ERP or student information system can't do this is excuse after excuse why we're not meeting students' needs. Not so much at ORU, but a lot of campuses, I think we're ready to take it to the next level. Now, keep in mind, seven years ago, we were the first campus in the world to have an enterprise addition of virtual reality or immersive learning. That's seven years ago already. So, you know, there's an old saying that after seven years, if I can't burn up what I did seven years ago and start fresh, I'm not much of a person. And so it really is, it behooves any innovators to start thinking every three years, what are we taking away in adding new but trending upwards in the right direction? You can't throw out things that really work well, but you should take care of those things, which are just a repeat and build upon them so that people can say, I know a university in Tulsa, Oklahoma who is like, no other, Why don't you come and experience it?
Speaker 1:It's interesting you say that that seven year thing that, that constantly iterating, um, you are unquestionably a strong and enthusiastic advocate for the power of techno technological innovations to transform education for the better. And I've, as I mentioned, I've reviewed your recent writings and presentations on some of these ar vr applications that you just mentioned. And even seeing like some of your alum who are working in, in the metaverse doing web three applications. But before we dive into those, I mean, we both know that when you wanna work on the cool futuristic stuff, it isn't really possible unless an institution has the technology fundamentals in place. And we know that's not about just getting certain tools, it's about having the right framework and having the right culture. So where is your institution on that and what have they done on this front? And by that I'm talking about, you know, not just being able to do those AR/VR things, but when talking about, you know, you mentioned the ERP system. That can be an excuse for not doing certain things. Where are you all on those technological fundamentals in terms of your systems and platforms?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. So, you know, the beautiful part of my career has been probably six iterations of being on another campus working for Ellucian for 12 years. And you just learn real fast. Don't make something that's back office, front office or act as if it's gonna be innovative. That's a mistake. And so the truth is what
Speaker 1:You mean by don't make back office front office, I love that term.
Speaker 2:Sure. It's this. The student information systems, a 35 to 45 year old system that everybody treats as if it's gonna do something different than it did 30 years ago. But it can't however it's needed. So if you put it in the back office and ask students the right questions such as I can go on any campus in America and say to the students, Hey, how is your student information system working? Oh, just fine.'Cause the truth is it is for them. That's why they call it a student information system. But once you start asking a registrar or a faculty member or the CFO about the SIS system, they don't like it. And now people are gonna start tweaking it. So one of my main goals starting eight years ago to ORU was to say, let's put the SIS system in its proper place in context and we can go places. And that context was let it function, the back office transactions the way it should and let's perfect it. But let's not act as if that's gonna be the new thing. So whether it's a company like Workday or some new company trying to sell something that's not realistic is a mistake. And so I know a lot of CIOs who felt trapped, now they have two student information systems on campus because they thought one was cooler than the other. And I said, What are they thinking? And who are these companies trying to help them pick another back office system to be a front office system when it was never a front office system? So I've had numerous people call me up, CIOs, and presidents. Probably talk to 200 college presidents. Mike, how did you know to just leave the student information system alone and let it do what it does? I said, Well I worked at that company for 12 years. Yeah, I never try and sell something that's not realistic. However, I believe that faculty want to help change the world. And if you can find those pieces that help change it, they're on board with you. And so think of this, we went from Information Technology Department six years ago to Innovation and Technology Department to this year, Global Learning and Innovation. You know what? Technology by this time should be a utility. So I believe that we treated everything like a utility. Don't touch what's working good already. Peter Drucker says, it's said it best. He said, don't try and make something more efficient that's already efficient enough. That's not too efficient. So in eight years, our banner system being our SIS system runs perfectly. But we're not trying to make it something it's not. And that's tough for companies to hear, but that's what it is. Now, if I've got a new tool in my toolkit, I want to emphasize that. So in fact this past week you can see faculty are seeing me in the rooftop of one of our buildings in a avatar full body avatar. And I'm showing them what virtual really means and what the metaverse is all about. And they can taste test that they know. Now that's cool, that's good. But if I was out on the rooftop showing our student information system and how we can maybe tweak it and make it a little bit better, buy a new one, I'm like, oh my gosh. That's like, that's a 30 year old CIO. Hey, wake up people. We live in a different world. I watch my granddaughters who are eight, nine years old, play Roblox, which is a form of metaverse. There is today 220 million people on Roblox at the eight year old level to 18. Those are our students of the future. They're not on the SIS system, but they're gonna have to use it to get into ORU, but they're not gonna use it every day. They're gonna use these cool, innovative tools every day to succeed. And so we, I should mention our placement rate at Oral Roberts University is 98.6% unheard of. Why? For placement. Meaning get a job in your field of study or go to graduate school and that's three years running. But why? Well, it's because our students succeed and that's our goal. How do we help them be prepared? So imagine being an Oral Roberts University student and telling your employer, you know, how to use virtual reality. Or you can create in virtual reality, you're already of value to them at a different scale than their competitors. And so we're pleased we get companies, but right now we have maybe 15,000 jobs up on our job posting board for our students. And, but that's aligning all things well back to our adaptive plan. Are we meeting the needs of a society? And so our theme for Oral Roberts University is educate whole leaders for the whole world. And so when we educate whole leaders for the whole world, we, we've gotta prepare them for that. And so we take it a step above probably what a lot of universities may do. And technology plays a part because there's, there's not a company who doesn't know. A nd employee will come in and has to know how to use mobile, social, ERP systems. How to use data reporting, data analytics, data science. And so I believe we're the only university. We just want a data science award based on the fact that we can actually tell you how much b acon our students eat, how much soy milk product they drink. Okay. Oh, we can also tell the students and they can tell themselves if the washer and dryer is available for them to use if they're on the other side of town. Why? Because it's important. So when you go back to how did we fix all this? Excuse the language, broken pieces, well they weren't broken. We just put them in the right context in the right place of our campus ecosystem and said let's leverage those, but put a front end on it called a mobile app. And 98% of everything faculty need to see in students is available through one app that simplification. But we were wise enough to realize a student can go to Starbucks and have a smart coffee experience. They use the Starbucks app, they get reward points, they can go to fitness center and have a smart fitness experience the bank. So when they come here as a perspective student, they have to taste the fact that we're a smart campus, that they're not gonna have to stumble through something we call the SIS system. Yes. Or and we don't even use that term here I'm doing because I know the broadcast and what it's trying to accomplish, but I'm like, I hate that term. Nobody even uses it. And I'm saying, but the truth is, for the Workday or Ellucians or PeopleSoft, Jenzabar companies, their product is necessary, but don't make it something it's not, don't sell it as a Jaguar when it's really a Chevy Pinto or a Ford Pinto or Chevy Vegas. Some of the old timers will know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah. No, it's interesting. And there's definitely like that culture is pervasive through your institution. And I was intrigued by something that you had said in terms of they've got taste it. And you had mentioned that your university president would say the only two things that make a difference are food and technology. And you started to think of technology products as, or technology services, technology utilization as food. And how do people taste test that? Can you explain what you mean by that and give us some examples of how that works?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. So if I'm involved in a lot of things that are international, I'll be in Korea here this next week doing about 40 events. And those events are mobile, I don't get the privilege of being on campus. People will come there, but they come to campus the same way and they'll make, uh, evaluation at the end of the program or the end of their senior year and talk about food and technology. Did it work or did it not work for them? Because that's their immediate need. Everybody eats every day, everybody tastes the food. But wifi has become like oxygen on a campus or even in a meeting that I'm going to be in Korea. If people don't have good wifi, they feel like they can't breathe. That's, I mean, I hate to say it, but that's severe.
Speaker 1:Really great analogy. I was thinking way when I was in actually an airport this past weekend and I was having trouble connecting to their, you know, network and everything. And it's like, well what do I do? You know, I forget that there were times when you had to sit in an airport and you know, you brought a book or a magazine and you don't think to do those things anymore because it's all on your phone. I read the paper on my phone, all those things. I really like that analogy. So taste testing technology. So you, you had said when, when you took this framework to it, it changed how you, how you tested things with students or with anyone in the university community. Can you give us a little little more detail on that and do some examples?
Speaker 2:Sure. So if I really wanna know how things are working, I really hang out with the students. Okay. Our president got so good at this that he has something called resident president where he will go and live in the dorms for one week out of every year. And in that week he'll find out and he was shocked how many kids at night are gaming on their phones, two devices at the same time. And how important that was for them. Now my job though wasn't to downplay gaming and oh, they're breaking the wifi or using up our bandwidth. It was really to prove that gamers actually score better on their academic grades than non-gamers. It's a fact we've proven that with data science. So how do I help people now lighten up and say, hey, you may call study one thing, but when students are gaming or in eSports, their grades will end up better and everybody likes it then so how do you correlate everything you're doing back to the student success while you focus on the student? And so I've gotta be out there asking students, like when students came to campus this fall on their move-in day, ask a student from Italy, Hey, what'd you think of the wifi and the app that you got? Unheard of. We would never have this in Italy. I've been on every place on campus that got phenomenal wifi. Oh, he taste tested our experience. Now if he couldn't get that and it's worse in Italy, every other experience that he has is gonna be that same thing in his mind. Yeah. Right. And so I've gotta start their first thing out with how did they taste test technology? It was good. Now in their mind, everything else may be good too. And so I've got probably a hundred kids waiting to work in our department just to learn from what we've done different than other people. And that's the key. But here's, here's really how it all started. I knew, let's say 10 years ago, that technology's a science that has been proven. Moore's law, all the things that work in technology. I worked at a supercomputer company, you name it. But what I knew was not happening was the art of technology in a design economy where people want to design their own shoes, purses, boots, coffees, degrees. Now how do I let people feel like they're in a design mode? Well, I create an art of technology, meaning that how do I integrate things where people, we are the first campus to ever write the app or you can check your laundry on your mobile app. First one maybe, nah, maybe third one to do UberEats on that same mobile app. First one to check all kinds of things. But it was the taste test thought. But it's really integrating technology is the art. The technology itself is already a science. I don't need to rethink ASIS system or LMS system or even a CMS system. They're all been there. I mean even Salesforce is a 25 to 35 year old company selling the same stuff. No offense, Salesforce, but gosh, there's gotta be something better out there for students. And how many times will a student touch Salesforce? Zero. And so why am I paying attention to the things that are about me instead of the things that are about the student? It's their taste buds, not mine that matter. I like that. I've never said it that way.
Speaker 1:I like that too. Yeah. Well speaking of taste buds, there are also things you mentioned that the faculty can use apps for. Have you taken this taste test approach with any faculty apps?
Speaker 2:A absolutely. So when, when I started eight years ago, faculty's biggest complaint was, Hey Mike, we gotta enter midterms twice in the LMS system and the SIS system. I said, Consider it fixed within one month. We are the first university to know how to take. In our case it was desire to learn midcourse and import those into the Banner SIS system and faculty. Wow, that was tremendous. Next step, let's make sure that they have an app where they get to see the photo of every student who shows up in their class. Because a lot of people don't think of this. Faculty really do care about students. But they can't see it in a roster text format as good as they could if they see the photos of the students so they know who's attending and not. So how would I help students success if I don't help them visualize who's in class? And that was so critical during what everyone would call ad-drop week. Okay. Who didn't make it. And so they would spend too much time trying to keep track of things, whether it be attendance, whether it be who's in the class roster, class seating charts. And so we simplified that in an easy way. Now, the other thing we did, this is probably a prime example of the art of technology. We were the first campus in America about eight years ago now to sign a Zoom campus wide agreement, Okay? Before Zoom was cool. And that meant that every student, every faculty, every parent, every staff member had access to a Zoom license. You could do anything you wanted with Zoom. Now, what we did different is because in the 21st century, technology won't fail until somebody touches it or forgets something. So guess what? People forget all the time, their login and password, right? So we created the first phantom login and passwords for Zoom where it became the faculty's phone number. Guess what? People don't forget their phone number, right? And so all they have to do is know their phone number and their logged in, single sign-on. Now technology works great, but before, if I forget my password, it's not working. Technology's not working. I hate this product. And a lot of companies don't realize that's the art of this technology. In fact, I've got enough study in the metaphysic area of life that the seven digit phone number developed an American and a lot of other countries was done in 1954 based off George Miller's law called plus or minus five, that the human mind can only process seven pieces of data plus or minus two. It really is. So that's his law plus or minus two. So if I could use their phone number, they won't forget it, and my technology won't be broken. So imagine doing that across a hundred pieces of software or applications is to simplify for the end user. And so it tease people a lot because I've been on a lot of campuses that if I said to a group of faculty members, Mike, man, my car looks dirty out in the parking lot, they said, Mike, can I wash it for you? And I said, Why are you being so nice to me? I've never had this happen in my whole life. And they said, Oh, Mike, you don't understand. You made our life easier. And so when you can make other people's life easier through the use of technology, everything changes. But if I keep insisting I'm right and they're wrong, or you should do it the way I do it, and then you need more training, that never flies. But remember, I don't think faculty would have to log into the SIS system at all all year long. I don't want them to. But that same equivalent would be, aren't you glad that your online banking doesn't force you to log into the banking management system and dig through data tables and figure out what your bank is? No. They, they were smart. They put it up on the forefront and said, We don't even want you to know what our system is. That's, that's hard for the companies like Ellucian and Workday understand. We can't let wave a flag on campus anymore saying, Look at our SIS system, look how beautiful it is and say that's, that's suicide. Yeah. Rather look at what we've done to make your life easier. Look at what we've done to make your data flow. Because here's the key. Oral Roberts University for four years was ranked in the top five universities in the nation for student engagement. Done by the Wall Street Journal and inside Higher Ed. Now, why we were, I believe is that every minute I can save a student or faculty from stumbling over technology is one more minute of engagement.
Speaker 1:Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, you go ahead.
Speaker 1:Oh, I I was just gonna say, was thinking about when you were talking about the passwords and everything, um, having that be the four digits, because even when you have like, oh, you can reset your password, you know, you get that frustration of it doesn't come in, you know, you're supposed to get a link and then it doesn't come in and you get frustrated and it sounds to me this isn't so much about we've got to delight our customers, even though it sounds like you obviously do, but it's more about like, let's just make this work for them. Let's eliminate, They don't necessarily need fancy, as you said, the icons or a different interface or anything. They just want it to work and they just want it to be as efficient as possible. Yeah. So another thing that you had said was a CIO today is more like a sculptor. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Sure. So a good sculpture will actually, um, imagine what the future of the image will be. And they start chiseling away over here. They leave it alone, come over here, and then come back on the backside and they start seeing it take shape from a multidimensional perspective. And so there's so many things on a campus from perception to implementations to fine tuning different seasons of time in the academic year that I've gotta be able to not be stuck on one project and see things in a multidimensional fashion. But what I ultimately have to have is a vision of where I wanna go so I can start chiseling away here, over here. And over time I start seeing the creation of the vision materialize. But I, it's okay to start putting something back in because maybe I took too much off over here, but a good CIO doesn't tell anybody what they're doing. They're doing it without anybody knowing that that's what they're doing. Because as soon as you draw attention to yourself is when people start giving their opinion that you may not want. Now when I want it, I want to go talk to the user. So I've never insulted people by sending out a survey, Hey, we understand out a survey and you tell us what, how we're doing. Nah, I'm gonna go talk to them. I'm gonna find out and I'm gonna get more detail. Same thing, I'm sort of massaging what they're saying, but I wanna be them to be truthful. I don't wanna open the floodgates for a thousand opinions. Now I'm over here chopping something off that didn't need to be chopped off. And I tell vendors the same thing. Don't send me a survey because if you really are interested, give a call. I'll be honest with you, but I'm not interested in filling out a survey and trying to articulate. I don't have enough time. And so I do the same thing with our users. So hopefully that helps. Yeah,
Speaker 1:No, that's, that's super helpful. And it's fascinating to hear that you don't do surveys. And I'm thinking of, you know, knowing some people who, and having worked myself in, you know, marketing and PR agencies, you know, there's a lot of use of focus groups and we would always say, like, once you get a group of people and ask them what's wrong with this? They're gonna come up with something. And that may not be what they authentically think, but you've, you've gathered them there and you've said your opinion matters. So they feel like they have to share something on that end. Yeah, you're not doing surveys, but you mentioned like your president spends a week in the dorm, so there's that embedded experience. So how do you, how do you do that on a day-to-day basis? Like, are you just going up to, to random people on campus and asking them, like you mentioned, you know, you saw the student moving in, you're like, How's the wifi going? Like, how do you make that part of your daily habit? And I can see why the rationale for not having surveys, but you've also talked about data science, so you want a way to know, well, is this an anecdotal one-off or is this an overall trend I'm seeing? Is that something you're just doing informally or are you quantifying it at all?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah. So I got my ears wide open from this perspective. I have at least 15 student workers in our department who have their fingers out there as a student. Okay. And they come and say things real fast. Um, I purposely hire international students to hear from the international audience as well. But I'll also be watching social media If there's a problem on your campus, you'll know, i n social media. So in fact, if you Google Blackboard is down, i t's probably the number one hit on Google. Blackboard is down. And boy, I wouldn't wanna be that company that my number one hit on a campus system. But, so if I find one tweet that Wi Fi's n ot working, I've got three people on it right away. Wo w. One to gi ve m e s ome overnight stats. Was it down yes or no? That somebody unplug an access point, what happened? And then I'll go and apologize to the student no matter what happened. And word travels fast that, uh, if something went wrong, Michael, make it right for you. Now keep in mind, we're 5,000 students here on campus, so it's not like we're 50,000 students, but that would be impossible. But the truth is, 80% of all higher ed campuses are less than 5,000. Not, they're not all Ohio States or Purdues. Uh, and so, so it's pretty consistent is keep your ears open, but you've gotta be attentive. Now, I probably have to catch up on a lot of my paperwork at night because I'm doing that. I'm out listening to staff members, I'm listening to students. I would say I bump into 50 students a day no matter what I'm doing. And it's my time to ask them, Hey, how's it going? But they also know they can talk to me and I'm the person that would be willing to listen to them on new ideas or things that aren't working.
Speaker 1:It sounds like obviously your president has, um, a lot of, a lot of faith in, in what you're doing and what you're doing is very aligned with the overall strategic priorities. But I'm just thinking again, of all our listeners, like you could go around everywhere and you could ask questions all the time and you could get good feedback, but how do you at the end of the day say you're successful based on all that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we measure, So everything in life is measurable until you get to work. Yeah. Meaning that people go bowling, golfing, swimming, drive a car, pay their taxes, it's all measurable, come to work and nobody measures anything. So we've created a lot of measurements against other institutions, uh, performance per employee, uh, digital apps, uh, digital transformation. So we created our own digital transformation index about five years ago and said, Let's measure how well we're doing. And we're proud to say we are, uh, underspending the average university our size by 1.5% of revenue and have the greatest amount of innovation. Why? Because we've got great relationships with vendors. I will get more back from vendors by going to speak at their national sales conference, uh, writing articles that include them. I wanna be a winner with the vendors, but I don't want to spend half my day listening to vendors brag about their next, next product. That may be true or not. I know what I need. I know what the students want. I can tell them upfront what they need and want and we go from there. In fact, you could probably search Oral Roberts University and see six vendor videos well done about, you know, how great Oral Roberts University is. That's great PR. Yeah. Now that's because we're doing the right things with them for the right reasons. So back to the survey is imagine me, I've been married 35 years, my lovely wife Pam, giving her a survey. How well I'm doing. How ridiculous that would be. Right. Rather I've got a trusted relationship with her where we share regularly. So it behooves everyone have great relationships. And in that you'll hear candidly, authentically and honestly versus hear Pam, my wife, write on a piece of paper how well I'm performing as a husband. Oh boy, I'm in trouble. I've got six to-do items now all because I was impersonal with it. Right?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's very interesting in, in how you look at it from, you know, it's gotta be in some ways holistic, even though you've got to track a lot of things. And, um, another thing that you said, you know, with vendors, the importance, it sounds to me like that's the importance of having partnerships, not a transactional relationship where they're selling you something and they're just checking i n to make sure you're happy on it. It's, it's seems like in a lot of instances you're, you're getting in there very early, like being the first institution to do certain things, s o that you can help build it and have that, that feedback loop so that it's made to actually work towards your needs.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:Well, I know we're, we're getting near our time here, but I, you've shared so much today. I wanted to know if you had any advice for other people in similar roles, whether it's in a role leading digital transformation separately, or as a CIO for how they can get closer to where Oral Roberts University is in terms of advancing on all these things and being very forward thinking.
Speaker 2:Sure. Two things I would say, number one in today's world post pandemic is be empathetic. People come to work, they're worn out, they're tired, they got issues at home. And the more you're sort of get my way or no way, it doesn't help anybody. So probably, uh, six years ago I came up and changed the theme of what a CIO really is. And I said it this way, my job is to help people survive and thrive in a digital world we all find ourselves in.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then two, I sort of coined the term chief inspirational officer. I may be a CIO, but I really want to be an inspirational officer. That didn't pick up right away. And I got introduced numerous keynote places and Mike's the chief inspirational officer. And I'm like, Okay, I like that.'Cause really I want to inspire the departments. And I wanna make sure that they don't think it's about the technology cuz they're smart enough to know it's not. But I still gotta make the technology work, but I'd rather be known for somebody who's inspiring other people. And so for every young CIO out there, keep working towards people skills, relationship skills, vendor skills, the technology will take care of itself because it's proven to work. I mean, if somebody's trying to prove a student information system works after 35 years, that's insanity. Of course it works. It wouldn't be around if it didn't, but don't make it do something it's not meant to do.
Speaker 1:That's all great advice. Well Mike, thank you so much for taking the time today to talk with us. I've really enjoyed this conversation and found it fascinating.
Speaker 2:My pleasure. I'd like to announce that Oral Roberts University will be recognized for probably its 20th award. It'll be out this December. I have permission to announce it and that is called the Education 2.0 Award. Very meaningful to me because we've been talking about going to the next level and I've always said technology is not labeled correctly. Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, or smartphone generation one, two, three, four. It really should have been Generation 1.0 or Society 1.0, 2.0 because technology should be helping us not giving the attention to technology, but the advancement of humanity. And so we're pleased to, uh, say we've made a big move in that area now and it's being recognized by numerous organizations.
Speaker 1:And who gives out this Education 2.0 Award?
Speaker 2:It's actually a conference that will be in Las Vegas. It's held in Dubai and in Las Vegas. Okay. And it's called Education 2.0.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:Right. The Education 2.0 Conference and we'll be speakers there with a lot of Fortune 500 companies and we find this is very meaningful to us. I will purposely try and win awards that we're the only university who got to win it. Everyone else was an industry because what if one day education thought this way? I wanto to be as experiential as Apple. I want to be as efficient logistically as Amazon and I want to be as innovative as Google. It's doable, but you've gotta be intentional.
Speaker 1:Well, where can people attend this? Find out more actually about this Education 2.0
Speaker 2:Las Vegas. If you go to Education 2.0, I believe. I will send you the link to it as well because I may have gotten that wrong. But it is called Education 2.0.
Speaker 1:Okay, great. Well thank you again Michael. And that concludes this month's episode of the Tambellini Top of Mind Podcast. Don't forget to check out our other resources at our blog, at tambellinigroup.com.