Networking for Young Professionals

Madeleine Renkin: I think the more natural the better for sure. Yeah. Even if it's someone sitting next to you waiting for a session to begin, you can make it not weird. You can be like, Hey, how's it going? I'm from this school. It doesn't have to be unnatural and awkward.

Wes Johnson: Welcome to the EDUCAUSE Rising Voices podcast where we amplify the voices of young professionals in higher education. I'm Wes Johnson from UC Berkeley, and I'm joined by

Sarah J. Buszka: And I'm Sarah Buszka from Stanford University.

Wes Johnson: And we're part of the EDUCAUSE Young Professionals Advisory Committee, AKA YPAC. We're in here and we'll be your co-host for this show. We're looking forward to hosting everybody. Sarah, how are you doing?

Sarah J. Buszka: I am doing fantastic today, Wes. We are recording our first podcast episode, our first one. We've been talking about this as a YPAC for a long time and the YPAC has been around since 2016, although I don't remember talking about it back then, but we're here, we made it. And it is a Friday afternoon and,

Wes Johnson: It is a Friday afternoon.

Sarah J. Buszka: Here we are rolling with it.

Wes Johnson: A beautiful Friday out this way. So I guess before we get too far, maybe we should tell them a little bit about what YPAC is and then head right into the topic. So would you like to do the honors? You are our fearless leader for the YPAC committee. I figured you'd be the best to do it.

Sarah J. Buszka: Thank you, Wes. Happy to. So for folks who may know and may not know, the YPAC or Young Professionals Advisory Committee was founded in 2016. I became aware of it around 2017, actually at one of the EDUCAUSE annual conferences in Philly and have kind of been involved ever since, but more formally have been serving as the chair of the Young Professionals Advisory Committee for the past two years. YPAC's purpose is threefold, to advise association leadership, to serve the young professionals community, and to cultivate and grow our community overall.

Wes Johnson: What a great mission it is. I'm proud to be a part of the group. Speaking of members of the group, we do have a guest here. Maddie, would you like to introduce yourself?

Madeleine Renkin: Hello everyone, I'm Maddie Renken and I'm an instructional technologist at McKendree University and this is my second year in YPAC and I'm happy to be here.

Wes Johnson: We're happy to have you too. Do we want to jump right into the topic you all?

Sarah J. Buszka: Let's do it.

Madeleine Renkin: Sure.

Wes Johnson: So first up, we thought we started a little fun. So I'm going to ask the whole group and I'm not going to go first. I want to hear you all's answers. Sarah, what's your superpower?

Sarah J. Buszka: What is my superpower? I, oh, man, I feel like we all have a lot of superpowers, but I think lately my superpower has been just reminding myself of the conviction I have in myself and my abilities to remain calm, to always be collaborative and to think of the bigger picture and to stay very organized. I really pride myself in how organized I am. It's a real, someone actually told me it's my love language, organization and I really take that as a compliment.

Wes Johnson: That's an awesome superpower.

Sarah J. Buszka: So what is your superpower?

Wes Johnson: So my superpower, so I'm super into superhero stuff, so I'm just going to tell you all that right out front. Batman's my favorite, so I like to believe that I don't have a single superpower, I'm just a regular human that's just really good at doing a lot of different things. I know that's a little prideful to say, but Batman's my guy, so I'm going to go with the Batman answer. There is no one superpower. I'm the colonization of many different things coming together that's good enough,

Sarah J. Buszka: I love that.

Wes Johnson: To get the job done.

Sarah J. Buszka: Go off Wes. You own your truth.

Wes Johnson: There you go. There you go. Got to own it. What about you Maddie? We got Batman, we got super organized. What about you?

Madeleine Renkin: What is my superpower? I would say probably empathy and it does serve in my job role actually. I can understand especially instructors situations on a basic level and I kind of use that as a frame of reference during my interactions with them. For instance, the other day I was talking to an instructor in nursing and she was just having a heck of a time with setting up the Zoom meeting for her class and she was so frustrated with having to add all of the class members into this Zoom meeting as participants. And I said, you know what? It's beginning of the semester, you're going through it. I'm sure you have several classes. Let's find an alternative solution here and make your day a little easier. So I suggested that we use a Teams course connector, which is an integration that my department set up a few years ago and that just went so well for her. So understanding how much she has going on and stuff, I feel like that's one of my few superpowers I'd say.

Sarah J. Buszka: That's a great one. I agree.

Wes Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. I found that empathy can be a very disarming way of handling some hard situations too. Sometimes someone's very frustrated and just saying you understand could go a long way in changing the whole conversation for sure.

Sarah J. Buszka: It really can. And I also wanted to just give Maddie a shout-out because another superpower of her is I think that she has is bravery because she attended the annual conference last year and I think this is probably a good segue into our topic, but it was Maddie's first annual conference that she attended last year and I think we all know as part of this EDUCAUSE community that attending that annual conference the first time, anytime it can be overwhelming. Right. There's thousands of people there, there's vendors, there's people talking about all these things, things going on. You're probably in a city or a place you've never been with people you've never met and it can just feel really confusing to navigate.

But Maddie did it with so much bravery and so much grace last year. It was so impressive just to see her get out and network and that's a big reason why we've invited her to join us on the podcast today to talk about networking and how do you do it. And I think, well maybe I'll pause there and ask Maddie if you have anything you want to add because I'm saying that you were brave, but I'm curious how you felt. Were you freaking out when you came? Because you didn't look like it.

Madeleine Renkin: Oh, I was absolutely terrified on the inside. I mean, shoot, I was traveling by myself from my school to a state I had never been to Colorado, a city I've never been to Denver and this conference full of people who are super high in their positions and people starting out, just all sorts of different people I didn't even personally know much less getting out of the airport alone was a struggle and a half because there's a whole shuttle and everything involved. So it was a lot, but it was quite an experience, quite an learning experience and totally worth it.

Wes Johnson: Yeah. I remember my first conference experience as well and it was very similar in that it was just a lot to travel for the first time to a new place. So I commend your bravery because I went and after the first day, I kind of took a break after my first walk in. The next day, I just hid in my hotel for a day, wasn't quite sure what to do with myself 10 years ago so.

Madeleine Renkin: That's all right. I totally understand. Honestly, it was YPAC not holding me together but also holding me together because I had the young professional's hub available to me and it was a nice place to congregate with my peers, my people I talked to almost every day here in this group. It was nice to see everyone in person and be able to connect and have kind of a home hub to hang around with between sessions. So that was super nice to have. And I would say even if you're not in YPAC, it's a nice place to congregate with other young professionals. I even met some people through that hub that I connected with online.

Sarah J. Buszka: That's awesome. Thanks for just indulging me, diving right in. But when I think of you, I just think of bravery because, of course. Yeah. And you're fresh out of college too from undergrad, so this really is whiplash almost too because you went through the last years of school through the pandemic. So to go from being so isolated in the pandemic to go into this massive conference, that feels overwhelming. Even for seasoned people like me and Wes and other folks on the YPAC, it still feels overwhelming. I think any of us would be lying if we said it didn't. I remember last year running between venues to try to get to all my things that I had going on and regretting that I overbooked myself because I always underestimate just how crazy it gets.

But yeah, but my first experience at the annual conference was actually in Philadelphia and that's fun fact how I met one of my best friends was at Philly at a young professional's constituent group meeting in 2017. And I remember being just terrified to walk into this space because I didn't really see a lot of people who looked like me, who looked like they were maybe in their 20s. And apparently there was this young professionals meetup happening and it was on the schedule and it was one of the last slots in the day at three or 4:00 PM. And I'm like, I don't know how many people are going to show up, but here I go showing up anyway. And I walk in and I see this kind of long row of chairs kind of in the middle of the room in the back, it's completely empty. And just one woman was sitting there and I was like, she looks nice. I'm going to walk up to her, sit next to somebody because I've been alone for most of this conference.

And I sat next to her and we just immediately hit it off and started talking. And we're still really close to this day. In fact, I was just talking to her earlier today and we're talking about how we're both going to be at the annual conference again this year, sharing our dates, when we're going to meet up, how we're going to spend time together. And there's just something so wonderful and magical about this conference if you do the networking right. And I'm just curious to hear from you two, how have you done the networking right at the conference or is there a right way to do networking? What are your thoughts?

Madeleine Renkin: I don't know if there is a right way. There's multiple ways to go about it. I think personally, the more natural, the better, the more authentic it feels. I was honestly on a train ride I think back to the airport and I saw a man wearing one of the name tags for the conference and I just struck up a conversation naturally like, oh man, when is this train going to take off? Oh, by the way, I see your EDUCAUSE name tag. Did you go to the conference? And he said, yeah, he was more on the cybersecurity side and we just started talking and eventually I even shared my contact information just in case wanted to converse after that. I think the more natural the better for sure. Yeah. Even if it's someone sitting next to you waiting for a session to begin, you can make it not weird. You can be like, Hey, how's it going? I'm from this school. It doesn't have to be unnatural and awkward.

Wes Johnson: Yep, I totally agree. To add to that first, the name tag is a solid strategy. I've used that a couple of times. You see the EDUCAUSE tag and there's instantly at least one thing you got in common, right, you're going to the conference. So that's been a solid one. I found that the most successful week I've had at the EDUCAUSE conference was the last year's one. So the Denver one was my second one. I went to one very early in my career and then 10 years later I came back. And the difference between that first one and this second one is I actually had prioritized just networking in general ahead of the conference. So there was a lot of connections I started to make before I got there with folks who were a little bit more involved than me. It's part of the reason why I joined YPAC as well. I also signed up for my first panel.

And what that did is it kind of created these opportunities where I was forced to interact with individuals. And so there were people that I met and then after hanging out with them at EDUCAUSE I would meet five other people who happened to be in the same group. I made a lot of assumptions if we were in the same panel that we were facing some of the same issues. I would sometimes throw some of my questions at folks in the audience that were with me and that led to some connections. And then just doing my first panel myself, sticking around at the end to actually allow folks to ask questions went a long way. I made some folks that I still talk to today, we made some true friendships through that process.

And I'm very excited about now that I've actually joined YPAC, I joined this year, I'm excited about connecting more with this group and then expanding out from there. So I will say a lot of it that helped me was doing some work ahead of the conference knowing that I was going to the conference with networking as one of my top priorities. I didn't want to just show up and learn the technology. I wanted to meet people. And so I had to invest some time ahead of it because I just wasn't as good as striking up a conversation off the name tag alone. Some of them were dead end, so I had to do a little,

Madeleine Renkin: It's a bold strategy, I'll say.

Sarah J. Buszka: Yeah, bold strategy, cotton, let's see how it plays out.

Madeleine Renkin: Right.

Sarah J. Buszka: Only millennials will get that joke I think. But if you do get it to our listeners, well you're smart. We see why you're here.

Wes Johnson: I'm curious for the group then. So we all seem to recognize that networking is an important thing to do, is an important part of the career. I can tell you early on I heard networking, networking, networking from my higher ups, but never got anything beyond that. So I'm curious from you all, why should a young professional care to network, why not just show up to the conference, get the information I need to do my job and go back home? What's the win here?

Madeleine Renkin: I think it serves a couple of purposes. One, again, you can meet different people that you've never met before and makes some solid friendships and relationships there. And two, we can also learn from those relationships. Maybe they know of tools you've never heard of. I've even made a connection at the conference last year with another instructional designer at a different school and she introduced me to more Microsoft products I had not heard of and some other options for training and such. So I think it can serve several purposes for sure.

Sarah J. Buszka: I agree completely with what Maddie said. And to add another layer on it, I think many of us have heard growing up, or from parents, or from other employers, or just around the whole, it's not what you know it's who you know phrase. And I think as a young professional, especially when I've kind of heard that, especially when I was an undergrad, I didn't fully understand it because when you're in school and undergrad, you're so focused on your studies and what you know that the who you know piece seems almost irrelevant or something that's so far off in the distance, in the future somewhere that it's a future you problem. And I think when I reflect on even my undergraduate career, granted this was a long time ago, but I really wish I would've been more intentional about keeping up with more of my professors, although I actually still do keep up with one of my Russian professors, which that's a beautiful relationship.

But I wish I would've done more of that. I think there would've been a lot more opportunities. And I realized it when I was in my super senior year of undergrad and graduation was coming upon me and I realized, oh my gosh, I have to find a job and everyone in my class is looking for a job at the same time with the same skills. How do I differentiate myself? What gives me that leg up, or what gets me in the room, or what gets my application to the next round quicker? And there's things like internal referrals. Right. You have to know someone to refer you. And that's where I think networking is just simply necessary. And a lot of folks kind of have that knee-jerk reaction to it, especially if we're shy since in technology stereotypically I think many of us are. But I think we have to do it.

Some people I think call it the necessary evil. I frankly love it. I love people, I love talking. That's why I'm here on this podcast. But it's also overwhelming and daunting. But I think it's a true skill for young professionals and anyone to learn how to network. And for me, what I've realized is I've had to learn who I am and what my preferences are and how I like to engage and where I'm comfortable and then find places to make sure that I can maximize that. And also, but learning to be a little bit dextrous with that too, because you have to be comfortable maybe striking up a conversation off of a name tag. And you also have to be comfortable with reaching out to people in advance. And you have to find ways to create those opportunities as well.

And a shameless plug, YPAC is a great place to do that. Right. We have our own community here, about 15 members on the YPAC where we can connect and network amongst ourselves and offer that. So I guess another shame, one more shameless plug and I'll stop here is EDUCAUSE volunteering. I think that's a great way to build your network in a safe space where you can really contribute your superpowers, your skills, things that you know in a community where you feel comfortable.

Wes Johnson: Yeah, totally agree. And just knowing that you're going to be involved with something, volunteering, YPAC, whatever it is, it just makes it a little bit easier to connect because you have folks who are intentionally coming together to do something at EDUCAUSE. It just opens a lot of doors for that. I totally, totally agree. It makes me think about, and then we can move on, it makes me think about, I'm going to do a lot of comparisons to music on this thing because I'm a music artist and one of the most awkward things with networking and music because it's so literal and in your face is you always want to do trade shows. So you're purposely meeting with other artists regardless if you all have a organic connection or not. But it's to get the show in the city that you're not from because you know they got to draw there and they want to connect with you to get a draw in your city.

And there is this, at least for me personally, this kind of awkward human element of just thinking of connections in that way. So sometimes when I in the past heard leadership say networking, networking, networking, it's not what you know it's who you know. It makes it sound very transactional, like I'm supposed to come in and have something to give to then network with this person to take something back. And so I know for some it could be a little awkward to when you hear it that way, you may think of networking in a more negative transactional light and that's not what it is. There is an organic piece to it, but there is a benefit to connecting with others. But I just wanted to speak to that. That's been my experience before in the past.

Sarah J. Buszka: I love that. I love that you connected that to music too. And because music is so important to you too and I love that you've made it work for you, framed it in a way that makes sense to you. I think that's the challenge for all of us, right, is how do we be comfortable with it? How do we make it work for us in the best way that feels the most authentic?

Madeleine Renkin: I think also,

Wes Johnson: Absolutely.

Madeleine Renkin: Piggybacking on that, Sarah, that's well said as well, sharing interests and hobbies with other people is another great way to connect such as I also am interested in music. So I can network even more with Wes offline here and be like, Hey, what kind of music do you listen to or produce? Stuff like that. Make it more natural so it's a more authentic connection there. That's really what it comes down to, I think.

Wes Johnson: Maddie, Wes album of the year upcoming. You heard it first.

Madeleine Renkin: You heard it here everyone. Love that.

Wes Johnson: I guess we can jump to our next question if we're all ready. So tips on how to start building your professional network. So I don't know where to start. I'm just going to start. EDUCAUSE, we definitely can go back down that, explain how that's beneficial to you. Are there any things additional or other specific things we could do within the context of the conference in between this conference and the next conference to build the network?

Madeleine Renkin: Yeah, I think at the bare bones definitely have a LinkedIn profile. That's one of the best ways to build your online presence. It's a great way to connect with other people. It's basically like Facebook for professionals. Another way, I mean besides EDUCAUSE I mean definitely have an EDUCAUSE profile, et cetera. I find that attending community group events is a great way to build my network as well. I take note of any conversations I have in Zoom meetings with people and try to connect with them on LinkedIn as well. I think finding other listservs and other groups online on other websites that are related to your profession also is a great contribution.

Sarah J. Buszka: Those are great. Wes, do you have any?

Wes Johnson: Yeah, I'm trying to think. I just started networking you all like last year, so I'm trying to get it together.

Sarah J. Buszka: I think that's such a relatable answer though because sometimes it ebbs and flows. Right. I mean how I networked before the pandemic changed vastly from when the pandemic was in full swing into now as we're kind of coming out on the tail end. But I will say I have done more networking in my career during the pandemic than I think I ever did before. And that's because things just became border less, right? I mean all of us were at home, so all of us were online, folks who had access to being online at least. And I found that to be so kind of relieving. I felt like, okay, I have access to everyone now. It felt like such an equalizer. I sent so many cold call emails during the pandemic and I got responses to all of them. I mean I sent dozens and actually I still keep in touch regularly with some of those people.

In fact, I've just caught up with two of my really close colleagues and women. We do a monthly kind of check-in call and we did that yesterday and we're still in touch. And I met Carolyn and Sarah just through email introductions that just kind of started proliferating. And what I did is I just would look at actually the EDUCAUSE website for open positions. Look at people who were sending open positions on LinkedIn and I would read positions that looked interesting to me and I wanted to learn more about and things that I might aspire to 10, 20 years out. And I just sent these people an email. Most of higher ed, right? Public accessible information. So I just send these people emails and say, Hey, your job sounds fascinating. Would you be willing just to talk to me about it? Two lines, not overthinking and not asking them to be my mentor, but everyone responded.

Everyone just, but people want to tell you about themselves and what they want to do. And I got so much just rich information and I truly felt like I was just gathering all of these perspectives and just like a sponge, soaking up all of these learnings. And I was reaching out to people in Arizona, at Purdue, in California, in North Carolina. That's actually how Kate Hash and I know each other and she's on the YPAC. Just kind of all this organic stuff that just started happening and it didn't stop. And I think that's one thing I love about our community so much is we all are here to support each other and if you just reach out, it's kind of incredible how far that can go and how much support you find coming your way. And I think that's really what my advice would be I think is just do something. Just don't be afraid to just put yourself out there. You'll find that putting just even your toe out there can lead to a lot more than you think.

Wes Johnson: That's great advice. I would throw out there too, one anecdote, one little story. So I've got two young children, a seven-year-old and a 10-year-old and they probably know more about networking than most adults that I know. They seem to be excellent at it. So I'll tell you all a story. So I used to live in Georgia. We were at a park and I had just had, they're probably five and seven or something like that. So young parent. All my friends don't have kids, so I don't have any parent friends right now and Covid's like right around the corner.

So I'm looking around at the park and trying to find a dad that I can relate with and connect with. I find one that looks like a cool dude, but I'm too shy and he don't want to come to me, I don't want to come to him. So my kid notices. He's like, oh look, there goes someone you could go hang out with dad while we go play. I'm playing with my friend, which was his son apparently, and I was like, oh nah man, I'm not going to go over there. And within five minutes my youngest brought the guy over to me and said, my dad wants to talk to you. So we met, we became friends, but he just did it, which is something I wasn't able to do, but my five-year-old was quite good at it so.

Madeleine Renkin: I love that.

Sarah J. Buszka: That's amazing. That's honestly, the bravery I was thinking about when I mentioned Maddie's bravery earlier. It's just taking that initial step just to put yourself out there. And I think if you think about it from the reverse is if you were that person, in your case Wes, that other dad, it's uncomfortable to not be receptive to it. Right. You don't want to see this interaction fail. We're human beings. We're wired for social interactions. There is mutual desire to have this go well and that's something that helps me kind of frame it well is okay, I'm putting myself out there. Other humans can recognize that you're putting yourself up there so then they want it to go well and at least that initial reaction will probably go well. Will you talk again? Maybe not. But the likelihood of them just turning around in this case, the likelihood of that dad just turning around and going the other way was probably low, right?

Wes Johnson: Right. That's a good point. Yeah. I never thought of it in that light.

Sarah J. Buszka: I think about that too when I do public speaking, is I had someone say to me, everyone in this crowd is going to feels so uncomfortable when the speaker is awkward and they're rooting for you. They want you to do well, they want you to succeed so that they can feel comfortable and not watch someone be nervous.

Wes Johnson: Right.

Sarah J. Buszka: They are your biggest fans, your biggest supporters. And that really helps me just kind of take off the edge a little, like we're all doing today, right? I'm taking off the edge a little. We're recording a podcast. It's our first one, but we know everyone's rooting for us.

Wes Johnson: That's right. I'm definitely rooting for us.

Madeleine Renkin: I think that's your superhero too, your super power there Sarah.

Sarah J. Buszka: What was that Maddie?

Madeleine Renkin: I think your superpower also is speaking Sarah. You're such an eloquent speaker and it shows. Going off of what you said though about people rooting for you, I know one of the speakers at the conference last year was having a bit of a coughing fit and someone actually brought her cough drops to help her go on with her speech and I just thought that was so amazing and everyone clapped during the whole exchange. It was wonderful. It was just like a beautiful glimpse of humanity right there.

Sarah J. Buszka: Yeah, I love that. Yeah. See, no one wants to see someone fail. It's just not, no one wants to see it. It's uncomfortable for everyone. That's beautiful.

Madeleine Renkin: Right.

Wes Johnson: Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. Yeah. No one wants to sit in the crowd and go through that either, like on either side of the crowd, right, the stage or the crowd. No one wants to go through that awkward moment. We all want it to go well. We want everyone to do good. Yep. Totally.

Sarah J. Buszka: Yep. I remember my twin sister. Just a quick 30-second story. I have a twin sister and she did a TED Talk, this was years ago now, but she did a TED Talk. It was at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee where she went to undergrad and she invited me to see, everyone came to see it and she got on stage and I felt so incredibly nervous. I don't know why. Maybe it's a twin thing because I was feeling like as if I was on stage speaking and I was feeling like I just was rooting for her so deeply in my core, but also feeling so nervous in my core. It was one of those experiences where I was holding my breath. I'm like, oh, I hope she does well. And she just knocked it out of the park. She was phenomenal.

And as she started going, you know those first 30 seconds you're like, I don't know. But then she started going and I felt myself fully relaxed and totally just celebrate her and feel so proud. But I felt like I was on that roller coaster and that experience too. And I think most people in audiences feel that. I felt it more intensely I think because it was my twin. But yeah, I don't think I've ever felt more nervous for a talk than I did watching her give hers. I don't know how that makes sense.

Madeleine Renkin: Twin empathy right there.

Wes Johnson: Yeah.

Sarah J. Buszka: Yes, I know. It's crazy. I think I remember that moment so viscerally and so clearly and that's kind of when it hit me like, oh people feel this way too sitting in the crowd and on the stage. It goes both ways.

Wes Johnson: Right.

Madeleine Renkin: I forget that so much.

Sarah J. Buszka: Yeah.

Wes Johnson: So we've covered a lot of really good stuff. I'm going to attempt to summarize because we're getting to the what advice do we want to give folks to network effectively at the annual conference? And I want to catch on to some of the tidbits, the nuggets that you've supplied so far. So I've heard one, be brave. So let's tap into Maddie's superpower. Let's be brave. It's okay to walk up if you see that name tag, their EDUCAUSE just like you are. Go talk to them. Getting involved in EDUCAUSE before, during, and after will make it a lot easier for you to connect and just being intentional about the fact that you want to network. It sounds like some things that have come up. Is there anything that you all want to add or I might've missed?

Madeleine Renkin: I think also joining the not speed dating, but speed networking events they might have available. That's a great way to have more one-on-one conversations and then it's not so intimidating because you're already in that space, that environment to have that sort of a conversation with each other.

Sarah J. Buszka: I think I'll add two more. One shameless plug, come to the Young Professionals hub. We are there. We welcome everyone. This is not a hub that's only for young professional people. This is for everyone. It's a space to gather, it's a space to meet people. And you are all welcome, our listeners. And finally initiate. Just initiate a conversation, introduce yourself, say hello. That's sometimes the hardest part, but as soon as you just introduce yourself and say hello, you'll strike up a conversation.

Wes Johnson: We should. So we'll put a challenge out to all the listeners, anyone who listens. Right. You go up and you meet one stranger, go meet one person at the EDUCAUSE event. If you're there this year, go up, tap them on the shoulder, say hey, I see you got your name tag. Have a conversation with them. You'll probably be surprised how much you got in common for sure.

Sarah J. Buszka: Yes. I love that. And then let us know how it went listeners.

Madeleine Renkin: Yes, let us know on our socials.

Sarah J. Buszka: Yes, or come tell us in the YP hub or both?

Wes Johnson: There you go. Yes. In the community hub. Talk to us. You can also share any ideas for different topics that you may want to hear on this podcast. We are watching, we are looking forward and we want to hear from you all because we want to make sure we have items that you want to hear out there in our community. For sure. So I guess we are wrapping up now. Do we want to share that we will be at EDUCAUSE doing an episode? Sarah, do we want to tell them anything about that?

Sarah J. Buszka: Yes, thank you Wes. We will be. So we be recording a podcast episode live in Chicago in a production studio that one of EDUCAUSE's very own and very best will be helping us with recordings. So we hope to see you there. It'll be kind of like a fishbowl. So folks walking by can literally look in, watch us, wave, say hello, make us laugh and mess up. All of that will be welcome and we look forward to seeing you all there. And you can follow us on the EDUCAUSE platform or wherever you do get your podcast and we look forward to seeing you next time. Wes, you want to close us out?

Wes Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, thank you to Maddie for joining us, for being brave enough to come on our first episode. We very much appreciate both your knowledge and your time. It's always an honor to work with my co-host, Sarah. And until next time, we are the EDUCAUSE Rising Voice Podcast. We will be back next month to give you more information.

Madeleine Renkin: Thank you.

Sarah J. Buszka: Thank you.