Inside EDUCAUSE 2025: Tips, Tools, and Takeaways

Sophie White: I'm so excited for you to hear today's EDUCAUSE Shop Talk podcast episode. In this one, we really get excited for the EDUCAUSE Annual Conference in Nashville, and we talk with Eden Dahlstrom and Tracey Birdwell representing the EDUCAUSE and the institutional member perspective on conference planning. We talk about some really great tips for how to make the most of your conference experience, how to prioritize creating really great and meaningful connections with your peers at the conference, some various different ways to engage with each other, whether that's through brain dates or poster sessions or exploring the EDUCAUSE Commons and really how you can pack and plan and follow up with folks that you meet at the conference after the fact. Really loved having Tracey on the show too. Tracey is from Nashville originally, so she gave us some fantastic ideas for what to do there and what to eat. I know I'm definitely going to be checking out the pancakes that she recommended, so check it out and hope to see you all in Nashville.

***

Hello everyone and welcome to EDUCAUSE Shop Talk. I'm Sophie White. I'm a content marketing and program manager here at EDUCAUSE, and I'm one of the hosts for today's discussion.

Jenay Robert: Hi everyone, I'm Jenay Robert. I'm a senior researcher at EDUCAUSE and I am your other host.

Sophie White: Great. So today we're really excited to talk about the EDUCAUSE Annual conference for 2025. Working at EDUCAUSE, I think I've heard this referred to as our Super Bowl. This is a big deal. This is a big event for us, and it's such a great chance to get together with members of the community to learn and connect and build new relationships. So we're going to be talking to two of the folks who've been really instrumental in planning this year's conference. So I'll introduce them and then we'll dive into it. First off, we have Dr. Eden Dahlstrom. Eden is our Vice President of professional development and membership at EDUCAUSE. She's been at EDUCAUSE since 2011 and is a driving force for innovation and continuous improvement of the member experience. As the executive lead for the EDUCAUSE annual conference, she brings both knowledge of behind the scenes plans of how the conference comes together and insights about what to expect at this year's event. So thanks Eden for being with us. Eden is also famous for an INTJ brain date at the conference, which we'll talk about a bit more. So to all the introverts listening, there is a place for you at the annual conference. Tracey Birdwell, Dr. Tracey Birdwell, our second guest today. Tracey serves as the assistant director of the Center for Instructional Excellence at Purdue University. She's building an innovative teaching culture at the fast growing Purdue and Indianapolis campus. Her areas of interest include learning spaces, scaling student engagement in large enrollment courses in the future of higher ed. She frequently publishes and speaks about campus and classroom spaces and teaching excellence. Tracey has been active with EDUCAUSE for over ten years and is currently serving on the EDUCAUSE program committee helping plan this year's conference and grew up in Nashville. So Tracey, we're excited to dive into all of your Nashville tips too. So thank you both for being with us. Let's dive into it. Why are you excited about this year's conference in Nashville?

Eden Dahlstrom: I'm going to defer to our member representative here before I go.

Tracey Birdwell: Is that me? Well, I always see EDUCAUSE as my annual professional recharge and so this is the time of the year. I like the idea of the Super Bowl because it's huge, it's meaningful and it brings a lot of people together. So for me, I really appreciate the comradery, the energy of all of these different representatives of higher ed and educational technology coming together in one space for a distinct period of time. So it's like a common cause. But I also appreciate people are coming from community colleges, tribal colleges, large universities, R1 universities, medical schools, you've got CIOs, CIS admins, instructional designers, professors, all these different roles coming together at one time sharing ideas. And so for me it it's just how I start the year again.

Sophie White: Eden, do you want to add to that?

Eden Dahlstrom: Sure, I'll rif off that. And since I've been exposed as the introvert, I feel like I'm in an interesting position to be someone who plans the Super Bowl of events for EDUCAUSE but also really needs that time to recharge. I recognized during the pandemic that while I did really appreciate the rebranding of isolation as social distancing, it really was important to me to be able to feel like I connected with people and annual conferences really a way for people to connect. A few years ago we realized that our metrics had changed in terms of the evaluation for why people come to the annual conference pre pandemic. The number one reason why was learning and professional development and then post pandemic we started to see a shift that it was really connecting with others. And so we have changed some of our practices and provided more space and opportunities for people to meet up at the annual conference. Certainly there are learning components everywhere. The program is still completely robust and we feel like that's important for us to continue to do, but there's also more opportunities for you to learn from one another and connect with one another as individuals at the conference. So I'm excited to bring books together for that reason.

Jenay Robert: I love that. I think before I worked at EDUCAUSE, that was the big thing. I looked forward to going to EDUCAUSE conferences when I worked at an institution was connecting with people in different ways. And I also, not everyone believes me when I say this, but I actually am an introvert. I'm just an outgoing introvert. So I love spending time with people, but it's exhausting to me. But also I need it, but in certain doses. And so now that I work from home and I travel for work and connect with people at conferences, that is the perfect balance to me. I get it in exactly the doses I want. But yeah, that connection piece is just the most memorable thing to me too about going to conferences as a member was who did I talk to and what did we learn from each other and those professional relationships that I've carried for years.

Sophie White: Yeah, I do you identify as an extrovert, so I'm going to throw that out there to this group, but I have found more recently, last year I moved in by myself and got a cat. So I feel like I am declining maybe into an introvert habits that I didn't know I had before. I looked

Tracey Birdwell: For ascending, ascending. Look at that.

Sophie White: But my question to you all is I know the pandemic I think taught us from the teaching and learning perspective there was the emergency online teaching. We found out that maybe we are able to do more things online than we thought we could before and effectively, but we are seeing really great attendance numbers looking for the EDUCAUSE annual conference in 2025. We know a lot of people still really value coming in person, so what do you think that in-person experience gives us that we can't get online? Do you have any just thoughts or anecdotes based on your experience?

Eden Dahlstrom: I think we touched on this in the why we're excited part, it's the connecting part. I feel like the learning is more easily done in online or remote environments. Connecting is much harder to do. EDUCAUSE is a completely remote organization and so we are constantly experimenting with new ways to supplement for the connections and interactions and the relationship that you build with your colleagues. And so I feel like coming to the face-to-face conference is an opportunity for those people who can travel to that particular event or in a unique position to really grow their networks and their selves as individual professionals at the conference. We are going to experiment with some hybrid learning experiences at this conference. It's not published yet and so I don't want to say too much. There's a lot of moving parts that need to happen in the next six weeks to make it happen.

But one of the things that I recognize is that I haven't been to a conference that feels like they have nailed the hybrid experience in terms of really having interactive moments between people who can't physically attend the event and being at the event. And I think maybe we can take some points from our higher education colleagues who have filled out, who have flushed out the student experiences in terms of learning in a classroom where you try to connect with people who aren't there and are there whether it's high flex or hybrid. So we're constantly learning from our community as we build out our experiences at the conference as well.

Tracey Birdwell: I think for me the value of in-person is there's the juxtaposition of the intentional and the unexpected. I will intend to go to a particular session, I will unexpectedly sit next to someone who I will spark a conversation or professional relationship that may last years. And so I think it's the unexpected gifts and surprises along the way at a conference. EDUCAUSE are many and I think I have my plan, I use the app, I have my plan and there's a path, but there are all these sort of side stories that happen along the way and I think in person facilitates that rather easily. And I think that's a positive for that modality in terms of meeting together

Eden Dahlstrom: And I'm so glad you brought that up, Tracey. It's the serendipity aspect of it. It's the things that you don't plan for, you just provide the opportunity and it's the organic moments of delight that happen at the event that I think can be the most meaningful. That's awesome.

Sophie White: I love that. Do you have tips for how you can leave yourself open to those opportunities? Is there a way that you can almost plan a little bit to make those unexpected moments happen?

Tracey Birdwell: So for me, step one and attending the EDUCAUSE conference is the app and then I go shopping. I just go through and this sounds good, this sounds good, irrespective of date time. And then when I travel I narrow it down. So I've got eight sessions at one time. I narrow it down and then I actually like to go into the session with maybe two possibilities and that maybe I run into somebody and they're attending one or the other. So I feel like the app gives me the ability to guide but to make choices. And I have learned over the years to schedule some open times and then if I need to go and crash in the bed, I need some alone time. I can do that. But I really look for ways to find a place to sit at EDUCAUSE and sit down with people, meet other people, talk to people in line. So I think planning moments where you have some space to meet with people because that's going to happen and it's nice to give space to that.

Jenay Robert: Plus we're to that white space on your calendar. I do that too as much as possible. It's harder when you are an EDUCAUSE staffer at the conference cuz we're everywhere all at once, whatever that name of that movie is. That's how I feel like we're doing all the things all at once, which is awesome and exciting and exhilarating. But I do try to put in a couple of little blank spots and it just reserves. And then I think something you said Tracy touched on as well, which is maybe I need time to go be alone for five minutes or maybe I can on purpose kind of be in a place that's busy, be in EDUCAUSE Commons or something like that and pitch a tent in one of the neighborhoods for a little bit and just hang out and then you accidentally run into people and that's really fun too.

And then one thing that you didn't mention that I will say for me, and this might be different for this might be controversial. So hot take, you can't be a podcaster without having a hot take, right? Isn't that the thing? So I will usually prioritize face-to-face time with colleagues over going to a session. So if I have two things in front of me and it's like I could attend a session or I'm having this wonderful conversation with somebody in the hallway, nine times out of ten I'm going to just stick with that conversation or that group that I'm really connecting with on some exciting idea then break away into a session. But I don't know, that might be a hot take, it might not be, but that's kind of how I try to approach that.

Eden Dahlstrom: I think it's great. It's the putting people first aspect of it. You can always track down a presenter or browse a poster even if it's not staffed or find something in the agenda later. We have a lot of our presenters upload their materials that you can look at them as resources later. So put people first for sure. Put yourself first.

Sophie White: Yeah, I think that's a great point. I feel like I do the same thing, Jenay. I sometimes have to consciously tell myself it's okay if I've missed the session that I had planned to go to. I'll look at the resources afterward. I feel like I lean into perfectionism. I was one of those kids who always did my homework on time and never missed class. So I feel like there's a point for me where I'm like, oh no, I can't miss this session that I had on my plan, but it's okay. It's whatever you want the experience to be and what your goals are going into the conference is really what you should lean into. And maybe that's the connections and the putting people first is so important.

Jenay Robert: I feel like that's really common, Sophie like that feeling that I have to go to all the things and completely fill my calendar. So maybe that's a good thing for us to touch on here for anyone who's watching or listening who especially if it's your first time going to EDUCAUSE conference that you don't have to do every single thing the whole time and it's important to take breaks and it's important to actually eat food and stay hydrated and get sleep. So that's something that you sometimes have to be very intentional at least I know for me at EDUCAUSE and other conferences, I have to be very intentional about making that time and prioritizing my self-care.

Tracey Birdwell: Yeah, I think for me, I tend to prioritize the featured sessions because they make me feel like I'm part of the community the most. And I feel like you can continue that conversation throughout the conference. So it gives me a sense of belonging. And I also try to prioritize one or two brain dates because it gives me a tighter circle, like a smaller conversation. So I like the expansive and then the narrow and intimate. And so those are the two sort of experiences I like to have at the conference too. So if you're new, try to do a brain date and don't be afraid to make your own brain date. And it doesn't have to be on a higher ed topic. It could be I like cats, yet I'm allergic to them and I can't have them. That might be a brain date that I choose to do. And that brings lots of interesting people together for an unexpected conversation.

Sophie White: We have a coworker at EDUCAUSE who I think solely planned a trip to Ireland based on a brain date that she had last year. So there are some great topics. For those who aren't familiar with brain dates, do you all want to talk about just a little bit about the structure of what those are?

Eden Dahlstrom: Sure. And you can access this through the app or through the website. Once the marketplace is launched, which will be in early to mid-October, we'll definitely have some promotion around it and what a brain date is an opportunity to pick a topic that you're interested in. You can either be the brain dateer or the brain datee, the brain dater would put something in the brain date marketplace about what they want to talk about, whether it's the Cats or Ireland or my Funny INTJ meetup. And you get to choose if you want to have an individual brain date or a small group brain date, small groups or four or five people. And then that's put out into the marketplace with a little bio profile of you and whatever the topic is that you want to talk about and the date and time to meet up.

And then people go through that marketplace and they say, Hey, I want to talk about Ireland. I want to talk about cats. And they join your brain date and then after they sign up, they'll get a reminder at the conference that they're supposed to be at X place at X time to meet with these people to talk about this particular topic. It's one of the many ways where you take a giant conference with 7,000 people and you make it more intimate and digestible where you're just meeting up with a few people about some interesting topic that you all have interest in.

Tracey Birdwell: I've scheduled a brain date based on a poster I've done. So maybe to continue the conversation, I'm not sure if that is legal EDUCAUSE behavior, but I have done it on my own topic. So to continue the conversation or to make space for somebody who couldn't attend the session,

Sophie White: I've heard from a lot of folks, I support our young professionals at EDUCAUSE as well, which we can talk about that experience, but I've heard from several of them that they've had some really great conversations about technical solutions, like how to use specific products, really kind of in the weeds discussions that you might not see a specific session on, but you want to talk to other people who are maybe using that solution or implementing the same thing. A brain date can be a great excuse for that conversation to happen. I'm going to throw out that if anyone knows me outside of work, I love book clubs. I am part of several book clubs. I love reading books and talking to people about them. So I am planning to host a brain date about our general session speaker's book Unmasking AI, which I have right here. Tracey, I see it in your background as well. So I'm trying to get a thing going where I read the book every year of our general session speaker and then have a brain date about it. So if anyone wants to join that who's listening, feel free. That is great. Oh, go ahead Eden.

Eden Dahlstrom: It's not in view, but the third day keynote speaker, Freeman Hrabowski has a book on the resilient university and I'm reading that right now.

Sophie White: Oh, very cool. I love that. We can definitely get some book clubs going.

Jenay Robert: Oh, and for anyone who's trying to read Unmasking AI, it's really good on audio. I listened to it on audio and the author reads it herself and it just really connects you to the content really well. So yeah, don't always like to read with my eyes. I'm in that phase where sometimes I just want to go for a walk and listen to a book. So highly recommend the audio version.

Sophie White: That's a great pro tip. I'll also say I'm not fully finished with the book, but I'm really enjoying it so far. Just looking at the coded gaze. She talks about a lot in the book how we're looking at AI and how it connects to these larger societal problems. So I feel like this is such a big issue for our community right now and I'm really excited for her talk,

Jenay Robert: I should say. I did ask on LinkedIn what people thought was the over under on us mentioning AI on this episode. Nobody answered me, which if you're listening or watching this and you follow me on LinkedIn and you didn't respond to that post, I'm salty about it. I just want you to know. But if you played along in your head what the over under would be, it was about nineteen minutes. So that might be a record on the pod.

Sophie White: That's pretty good. I wrecked it. Sorry everyone.

Jenay Robert: No, maybe you guys made someone's expectations come true. Who knows? Perfect. Oh, did we want to mention about the braindates too? We're doing one about starting a podcast. That's another thing we are doing. We are. Find us.

Sophie White: Yeah. Yeah, you can come talk to us in real life. Kelli Horan, our producer, she does a lot of magic behind the scenes, so she's really the person you want to talk to, a podcast. She's got this very impressive resume of film experience. She is presented at South by Southwest. So she's the person you want to talk to who makes everything happen. On an aside, so we talked about braindates, I'm curious about Nashville. So all of us are traveling to Nashville for the conference. Tracey, you're from Nashville. You said you went to school there. Do you have any tips that you want to share with us for how to make the best of your time?

Tracey Birdwell: Oh, you mean to visit the city?

Sophie White: Yes.

Tracey Birdwell: Oh, okay. Well, I'll think of it in terms of categories. So Nashville is the music city and you've probably heard of the Grand Old Opry, and this is a storied stage, but a little closer. I mean that's something that lead to drive to a little bit, but something that's a lot closer to the conference location is the Ryman Auditorium. Anytime I've seen an act there, I mean they basically will get down and kiss the stage. People want to perform at the Ryman Auditorium. They call it country music church or because it's all pews, it's not seats, it's pews. So the Ryman Auditorium, the Bluebird Cafe, it's very famous seats about ninety. So it's an intimate venue, a lot of songwriting. It's not unusual for somebody very well known and famous to make an appearance suddenly that night. So the Bluebird Cafe is, I think that could be missed. In places to eat the Pancake Pantry and the line will be very long, but don't worry, it's worth it and it'll be very quick.

So Pancake Pantry right by Vanderbilt University's a known quantity and you might see some famous people in the line and also the Elliston Place Soda Shop, I think it was established in the 1930s and it's still going as a soda shop, so check that out. That's also not too far away. And to be outside, go to Centennial Park, also next to Vanderbilt. And we have, I want to say life size, an actual a size of the Parthenon in the middle of Centennial Park. So it's beautiful. You want to just be outside, you'll have food trucks, it's a great place to be. And for something historical, we have this U.S. Civil Rights Trail in Nashville, so you'll be right downtown and you can check that out. And then on Sunday, I am going to fly in early and I'm going to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame. So if anybody wants to join me, I'm going to be there on Sunday. It's right by the conference. So definitely check out that very famous museum.

Eden Dahlstrom: Yeah, it's right across the street from the conference venue, so you will walk by it many times when you were there. And so we did a tour when you were doing our site visit, and I'm not super up on country music, but I was impressed by just the way that they have shown the experience from historical point of view. And I showed my ignorance about who different country music singers were and my profound comments were things like, oh, that person was shorter than I thought that person taller than I thought. That's about it. But it was pretty cool even for the non-country music fans in the crowd.

Sophie White: These are great tips. The Greek Parthenon has a piece this in Nashville. Do you know why is that?

Tracey Birdwell: No, they just replicated the Parthenon. So it's not a piece, it's invented. There was a World's Fair held in Nashville and they created a temporary replica of the Parthenon. It was so popular, it's made out of plaster, they tore it down and then made a permanent Parthenon so you can go inside and some maybe 30 years ago they created an eight foot statue of the Goddess Athena. So that's relatively new. And there's water you can go on a paddle boats around. I mean it's just a relaxing place to be.

Eden Dahlstrom: One of the other fun

Jenay Robert: Grand, oh sorry, go ahead Eden ing. I was going to say, I always make these grand plans to do all these things, especially for the annual conference. My eyes are bigger than my stomach, basically. I am like, I'm going to do sightseeing and I'm going to visit all these restaurants and maybe we'll get one thing done. But it's nice to have a whole menu. It's kind of like what we were talking about with attending sessions. If you have your menu of things and then you just feel it in the moment, what do you want to go to?

Tracey Birdwell: Well, the Centennial Park and the Elliston Place Soda shop are next to each other. So that's two for one.

Eden Dahlstrom: I like that. The conference, the official programming ends around five o'clock each evening and so there's still plenty of light out to go. Then there's also a substantial lunch break. We'd love for you to stay in the exhibit hall of course and browse round and grab some snacks. We also are serving lunch this year, but that would also be a time we'd love to keep you on site as much as possible. But Sunday, Monday, Thursday afternoon, all the things, do all the things.

Sophie White: I love that. That's a good segue, Eden. I'd love to talk a bit more about EDUCAUSE Commons and the plan for that this year. So I know in the past it's been the exhibit hall, there have been exhibitors talking about solutions. We've revamped it quite a bit. And our last conversation on Shoptalk actually, we were talking to the team from the California state system and OpenAI about their ChatGPT Edu implementation. And Ed Clark, who's the CIO for this system said we actually started the discussions by going to the EDUCAUSE conference and talking to multiple different exhibitors about if they could fit our need for this solution that we wanted to implement. So to me that was just a great example of how having so many companies who are working in higher ed and technology in one place is really a great opportunity to kind of hear what's top of mind in industry, how they can work with institutions to develop solutions together. Do you all want to talk about how to make the most of your time in the EDUCAUSE commons, if there are any things that are different that we should expect this year?

Eden Dahlstrom: I'll start on this and Tracey can validate or enhance as necessary. So similar to the program that we have, like an agendas program for all of the conference sessions, you can actually view a map of the exhibit hall with the exhibitor list. And just like you map out your your schedule to see the educational programming, you can map out who you want to check out as potentially who your current solution providers are, who some interests are. We also have emerging tech companies that display in the common as well. And so we really encourage folks to walk through those areas because that's an opportunity to discover something that you didn't know existed in terms of solution provider, but even more so than planning out similar to the serendipitous opportunities that you have when you're just walking through the halls and accidentally make eye contact with another community member who has the same name as you.

When you start up a conversation like browsing the displays and seeing what folks have to offer is really encouraged. That's unstructured time that could be used while you're getting a snack, while you're having a drink. We do have a reception and some posted activities in there as well. So that's one way to experience the exhibit hall. The other thing is that we have, starting last year we started to experiment with creating neighborhoods for different partners that are in the exhibit hall. And we have a teaching and learning neighborhood where we do our best to cluster all of the booths that have an interest in supporting the teaching and learning community. In one area we have an enterprise, an IT technical area, and we also have a security and privacy area. So if you do have a vertical that you're interested in doing some more exploring of, you can go to that neighborhood.

There'll be well signed and color coded in the middle of those neighborhoods. We have hubs or centrals that will have some EDUCAUSE staff there. We'll have the posters that are relevant to that topic area. We'll have the emergent ed tech of any that are of interest there. We'll have some interactive activities for you in that area so you can contribute to the community conversation around whatever that topic area is. We'll have meetups and places for you to sit. And again, it's one of those opportunities to make that very large conference slash exhibit hall at smaller so you can find your people and better focus on your time on what you might be interested in. So that's from a structural point of view, we've designed it with that intent behind it. This is the second year that we're doing it. So you called that EDUCAUSE Exhibit Hall The Commons, we've been trying to rebrand Exhibit hall as the commons area, sort of like a campus commons where you have many things that happen there because it's so much more than an exhibit hall. There's lots of other fun things that happen in that area. It also happens to be where our exhibitors display their company where,

Jenay Robert: So if you want to be one of the cool kids at EDUCAUSE is refer to the commons as the commons. Don't be caught saying exhibit hall, then people are going to know you're not an insider.

Sophie White: So, pro tip from this podcast. I love it. Can you all talk about, I feel like sometimes people have misperceptions about the posters, what they're going to learn from those. And I know that personally I've had some really great discussions going through the poster areas and talking to the folks there. Can you share any experiences that you've had talking to poster presenters that you want to tell the audience about?

Tracey Birdwell: I know for myself, I have an EDUCAUSE poster rule and that is show up with two water bottles because whenever I've been delivering a poster, so many people walk by for two hours and it tends to carry over that I need the sustenance of the water because I have so many great conversations. But as somebody who attends posters when I'm not presenting myself, again, it's a way to find intimacy and focused conversations with individuals. I've learned to maybe put less text, more images, more titles and allow the conversation to kind of do the heavy lifting of how I want to convey my work or my colleagues' work and how I want to interact with others. And so I can't recommend enough to give yourself time to go through the poster session and even pass through once or twice. And it's just a great way to have a one-on-one or even small group conversation about a topic. So definitely make sure you find your poster sessions and if there's a bottleneck, let it clear out. It'll be empty in a minute.

Eden Dahlstrom: That's great. If you want to listen and learn, go to a breakout session. If you want to connect and share, go to a poster that's from the attendee perspective. If you want to talk at people, do a breakout session, be a presenter there. Again, if you want to connect and share and have a more intimate conversation and do a poster, we've doubled, tripled the number of posters that we're offering this year. I hope to even grow that even more. There's a lot of other conferences that use posters as primary content delivery. And I have found, and this is based on attendee feedback or presenter feedback, they feel like if they're given a poster, it's more of a consolation prize to a session. That is not how we see that at all. And we're trying to change the culture around being able to have more of those intimate conversations. So there's so many people that come to the conference and there's only so many breakout sessions that you can go to. Posters are a great way to really diversify the portfolio and meet individual's members needs and interests. So go to a poster. I challenge thee.

Tracey Birdwell: I've learned to put my contact information a bit more prominently than sometimes we do on a poster or sometimes it's very bottom, very small just to have it. I put it very large and I've had so many people reach out to me after the poster session whether we spoke or they didn't get a chance to further discussion. And so I find as is so often with the EDUCAUSE conference, you have these wonderful conversations during the conference, but there's so much follow up after an engagement that continues from the conference.

Eden Dahlstrom: And that's great. That gives people like me who aren't planners by nature where I will walk by a poster and be, dang it, I missed that session. But if you have your contact information up there, then I know I can track you down later. So thank you. Tracey.

Sophie White: Do you all have ideas or tips for after folks attend the conference? What are some of the best practices for how you can make sure that it's meaningful in your role at your institution? How can you stay connected with the people that you met at the conference?

Eden Dahlstrom: I have something that I do when I go to other conferences. I don't necessarily do this at the EDUCAUSE conference, but this is going to date me. It's going to sound really old school. I have a postcard a day that I write to myself and I actually mail it back to myself. And the reason why this works for me is because there's so much happening at the event. I get overstimulated and I write down too many ideas. I have too many follow up things. But if I give myself that dedicated piece of paper, that's only that big, I only write down the things that are the most important. And sometimes it's a reminder to connect with that new person that I met or follow up on that promise that I made or follow up on an idea for a professional learning program at EDUCAUSE. And so that's the way that I deal with it. Someone probably has a better tip using one of these that would help me. But for me that works because then I'm home and then a week later this thing arrives in the mail, which is always fun because it's not junk mail, it's not from the bank or whoever's writing me offering me a new credit card notice. It's actually, it's for me. And I'm always surprised. I'm like, oh yeah, I did have that really great idea. I better do it now.

Sophie White: I love that. And you physically mail them to yourself. That is with a stamp. I do.

Jenay Robert: I actually, while you were talking, I just opened a new window, went to Amazon, and ordered myself some five by seven index cards. I know myself, I'm not going to mail it to myself. I know that's not going to happen, so I didn't get postcards. But that's such a genius idea and I love it.

Sophie White: Tracey.

Tracey Birdwell: I keep that notebook handy and I look at, especially on the flight home is when I really like to kind of commune with my thoughts for the week. And then in terms of engaging people, I've oscillated between trying to contact everyone I met day of or the Friday right after the conference or wait a week. And so I haven't really hit my stride, but what I have learned is if somebody's new, if it's their first time at EDUCAUSE I will try to contact them that day because they might have some questions. Whereas if it's somebody I feel like I can have a conversation with and we've been here, we've been to EDUCAUSE a few times a week later sort of works. Or if there's somebody younger and I want to mentor, I will contact them right away. I want them to feel like when I said, well, let's talk later, I want them to know I meant it. And so that's something I try to do is think about engaging some people right away at the conference because that might facilitate future conversation or make them feel like, in fact, I do want to discuss, but sometimes the pile is so big, I need to wait until post-conference to do all my outreach. And I think we all struggle to email everybody that day too.

Eden Dahlstrom: That reminded me of something else that wasn't asked. But it speaks to being at the conference, and especially if you're not a first timer or you know that, even if you are a first timer, if you know there are people that you want to connect with, there's always a spot that becomes really easy to identify. Last year it was around the big E, big EDUCAUSE E by the registration desk. And so if you loiter there, people will find you. They'll walk by people you didn't know that you needed to connect with or people that remember you from last year or remember you from that Zoom call or that committee that you were on or the job you had two jobs ago, they will find you at that conference. And so I made that connection when you were talking Tracy, because it's the connecting part and making yourself available.

Tracey Birdwell: I love that, Eden. As I set my intention for the conference this year, one of my bullet points is going to be loitering. I love that in a visible spot. I love that.

Eden Dahlstrom: Intentional

Tracey Birdwell: Approved loitering.

Sophie White: No, that's fantastic. I love how everyone has their different techniques too. I think one year I forgot my business cards, which is definitely bad. So while you're packing, don't forget your business cards or at least make sure you have your EDUCAUSE app to connect with people through the app. LinkedIn also has a QR code you can scan to connect with people. So make sure you're ready to network. I always schedule calendar invites for myself for the weeks after the conference and I usually break them up. So I'll say the Monday after, reach out to these five people and then I'll set myself one for the next week just so that I don't get completely overwhelmed by it. But it's always helpful to just share tips with other folks at the conference too. I think these type of conversations give me so many good ideas. I definitely want to send myself more mail. That's one thing I'm going to take away from this for sure. So I am thinking about packing. Do you all have a couple packing tips? Maybe talk three things that everyone going to the annual conference should make sure to pack before coming to Nashville.

Eden Dahlstrom: Number one, comfortable shoes. And for those of us that work at home and don't wear shoes often, I'm in practicing wearing my shoes for work shoes. I'm wearing flip flops today. That's for real. So I've been practicing wearing my shoes to get my feet ready for that.

Tracey Birdwell: I'm imagining a shoe training montage.

Sophie White: This is amazing. Yep. I am wearing slippers, so

Eden Dahlstrom: Yep.

Sophie White: I need to practice too.

Eden Dahlstrom: Practice your shoe wearing, you're going to get in a lot of steps every year. We're in a new city, so I guarantee you're going to get lost. I've been on two site visits to the Nashville Convention Center and I'm like, it feels like I just went downhill, but I am still on level one. So is there a sub level one? You are going to do a lot of steps at that convention center. So comfortable shoes. That's my one two, two, and three.

Jenay Robert: Tracey, do you have something you always bring?

Tracey Birdwell: I always make sure I pack a favorite comfortable sweatshirt, whatever I'm going to wear in the hotel room. I want to feel like I'm really cozy when I'm taking my downtime or in the evening after going out and talking with colleagues. And I always bring face masks too because it's dry and so I do some self-care. So if I look extra dewy at the conference, that's why

Jenay Robert: I bring, I always bring kind of an odd thing. A couple years ago I was at a conference and a colleague the day before returning home, a colleague of mine, they broke their phone and they couldn't get it fixed the same day. And so they really were in a position where they had to travel home and do Ubers and airports and all the things without a phone, which as an elder millennial, I may not have been born with this technology, but I sure do rely on it now. And so to think about trying to go home without a phone was just so terrifying to me that I took one of my recently upgraded from phones that still basically works, but I don't use it and I keep it charged and I keep it with me so that if all I have to do is swap out a SIM card, I have a backup phone if anything goes wrong. Thankfully I've not had to use it yet, but I do feel just a little more security knowing that I have it.

Eden Dahlstrom: I love that. I thought you were going to say you bring cash.

Jenay Robert: What is that?

Sophie White: That's probably a good tip too. I actually bring a portable charger on my phone so much using that. I have to figure out where things are making sure I'm sending messages to people that I found that really helpful so I don't run out of charge. I'll also say that EDUCAUSE has an info desk too. So if you run into a weird situation, feel free to go talk to the folks there. They can help you answer questions. I've been there and had people say something like, oh, my phone died. Could you look up a number for this and call it before? Hopefully that doesn't happen too much. But we do have some awesome employees at EDUCAUSE to help you out if you run into any issues. I'm trying to think if there's anything else we haven't covered yet. I'm getting excited though.

Jenay Robert: I know that we should mention that we're recording live at the conference. So I know have thousands of adoring fans of this podcast and we love you. But for those of you who enjoy watching or listening, doing it in person at the conference is so much fun. We did it last year for a couple of sessions and basically if you don't know what to expect, it's like you're going to walk in to a session. But we have the recording equipment there and we'll take live questions from the audience. So we have three sessions that are actually Shop Talk recordings. At least one of them last year ended up standing room only. So do try to get there a little early or at least on time? And yeah, I hope we get to see some of you who have been following along.

Sophie White: I also realized that I forgot to mention the Young Professionals Experience at EDUCAUSE, which I've been really involved in it, I'm excited to offer. So for folks who are newer to the EDUCAUSE community, early career professionals, young professionals or just folks who want to support younger professionals in higher education, we will have a young professionals hub again. It is a space near the escalators when you walk into the convention center where you can get to know other young professionals. There'll be some networking type of activities, some games and crafty type of things. And there will also be a happy hour after all of the programming ends on Wednesday that's open to anyone who's attending the conference and wants to get to know more young professionals. But I'm really excited about that. I think young professionals are the future of our association and our community. We really want to make sure that they're engaged with the work that we're doing. So if you are a young professional, stop by that space. If you want to support young professionals, it can be an overwhelming experience to be at the conference for the first time. So take someone under your wing, talk to them, maybe help them choose sessions that might be relevant to their role. And that's really a great way for you to give back as well to our community.

Jenay Robert: I'm wondering, Eden and Tracy, do you have specific sessions or anything that you want to call out if people want to find you and say "Hi, thanks for sharing all your wisdom on the pod."

Eden Dahlstrom: I have this session type that I'd like for you to look out for, and it is an Ignite model. So EDUCAUSE Ignite, we're doing two sessions for EDUCAUSE Ignite, and this is where we will stack, I think it's six, maybe seven presenters in one session block. And the Ignite model is where you have twenty slides that automatically advance every 20 seconds. And you get to talk about that topic in cadence with those slides. And the reason why that I'm excited about this is because you rarely have forty-five minutes in front of a board or in front of someone that's going to give you their time and attention. And so I'd love to be able to help our community cultivate the skill to tell their story in a short amount of time. So we're experimenting with these Ignite sessions. So look for the Ignites in the agenda.

Tracey Birdwell: I love that. Any, yeah, I've got a poster session. So I'm really hoping that you come talk to me at the poster session. And I have a lot of news to share from that. And I also co-lead the Learning Spaces community. So we usually get a hundred plus people each year talking about learning spaces. And you will see me at all of the featured sessions sitting upfront with the program committee. So I mean it when I say the featured sessions make you really feel like you're part of something and where we're all going. So definitely go to the featured sessions.

Jenay Robert: And Tracey's so good at making people feel comfortable and welcomed at the conference. So I also recommend finding her. We all do. But go say hi to Tracey when you see her. Thank her for help.

I'll bring this jacket.

Okay. Green jacket for those who are not watching, she'll be with the, I feel like we've locked you into something you don't need to be locked in, Tracey. I'm worried now.

Tracey Birdwell: I hear the conference program members may be wearing cowboy hats, so I may be visible in another way. So we shall see.

Jenay Robert: Okay. Oh, I'm excited to see what comes with that. I do have one session that I want to mention. Besides that I'll be doing these Shop Talk live recordings. There's also really exciting in my time at EDUCAUSE I haven't participated in one of these listening session types of sessions, but our new vice president for research, Crista Copp and the research team will be doing, we're calling it an insights tour and really learning about what our community needs from us as researchers at EDUCAUSE And so check that out. Would love to see you there and have some of those conversations.

I love that. And Tracey, I also love that you're sitting at the front of the sessions. That's a good tip as well. I always find that at least for myself, I am more engaged when I sit at the front of the room. I know the presenters are looking at me, I'm looking at them. I'm not distracted on my phone or something. So highly encourage you to maybe step out of your comfort zone a little bit, sit at the front of the sessions, talk to the presenters afterward if something that they said really clicks with you and just get yourself out there. And this is partly me making up for, I did not mean to say declining into being an introvert that was the wrong, or I love all of the different personalities that come as part of our community and the extroverts, the introverts, all of the folks with different interests coming together. So thank you to everyone who's coming to the conference and bringing their true selves.

This is going to be a headline, Sophie. Sophie White doesn't like introverts. It's going to be all over the news.

Sophie White: That's not what I want to leave you all with.

Eden Dahlstrom: Introverts like to have an extrovert that adopts them so then we can parade you around to be the talker. Yeah. So just open yourself up to that.

Sophie White: Yeah. I actually love Susan Kane's book about the power of introverts, it's incredible. I know she was one of our speakers before. So yeah, the introverts are so important to our community. Anyway, let's wrap up there before I embarrass myself and dig a deeper hole. So thank you all for being here today. Thanks for all of your work to plan our annual conference this year. I cannot wait to see you in Nashville.