Latest / Content, Briefly / Fordham University School of Law: Kisha Velazquez on a startup vs an academic setting

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Fordham University School of Law: Kisha Velazquez on a startup vs an academic setting · Content, Briefly

• 0:00
  How do you change this kind of thing? And then I'll just, like, go into ChatGPT to help me. Nice. [upbeat music] Hey, and thanks for tuning in to another episode of Content Briefly.
• 0:15
  Today, we're chatting with my friend Keisha Velazquez. Really interesting episode. It's kind of the same, but also very different of a lot of the episodes we do.
• 0:22
  So Keisha came into content marketing actually through entrepreneurship. So she built her own company, learned how to use content and SEO to attract visitors and customers to her website.
• 0:32
  Later went on to get her MBA, worked at a few startups, and now she is the web content manager at Fordham University's School of Law.
• 0:40
  So obviously we talk a lot about that, the similarities and differences of an academic setting versus startup setting. I found it to be fascinating. She's doing a lot of really cool work.
• 0:50
  She has many of the same challenges that content folks at startups do, but a slightly different charter. So obviously we get into all the details there. Keisha's been a staple in the Superpath community for years.
• 1:01
  We've gotten to meet and hang out a few times. She's awesome, really smart, really experienced, and I was so glad to finally have her on the podcast. As always, I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do too.
• 1:11
  [upbeat music] This episode of Content Briefly is brought to you by Superpath. I'm kinda half joking, but I thought I'd use this opportunity to give everybody a quick update on a few things happening over here.
• 1:21
  One is that there are some pretty significant changes coming to the community over the next couple weeks. We'll be making some announcements about that. Pretty exciting stuff.
• 1:29
  Basically, Herrick helped us run kinda informal survey. We collected a ton of really great feedback, though, and we're refreshing the offering, along with some other stuff. So I'll leave that teaser out there.
• 1:40
  More to come on that. On the Help a Baby writer front, we've made some pretty significant changes to reduce spam. That's worked pretty well. We're still chipping away at that.
• 1:48
  Kind of a never-ending challenge to keep that going. A few other things that are happening are we're gonna be consolidating the daily emails into a single digest.
• 1:55
  So if you subscribe to ten categories, you might get ten emails per day.
• 1:59
  We're gonna be consolidating that into a single email, and you will basically pull in the requests from the categories you're subscribed to each morning.
• 2:06
  In addition to that, in an effort to help with our kinda ongoing spam issue, we're gonna be rolling out a reputation management feature. Still working on this.
• 2:13
  There's more development going into it than I had initially expected. But basically, you'll be able to rate responses. Those responses will sort of be averaged out so that each sender will have a profile.
• 2:22
  You'll go to see their reputation score over time, and that will be visible in the emails.
• 2:26
  We wanna incentivize people to send great responses, to collect great feedback, and make it really easy for recipients of those emails to kinda filter through ones that are lower quality. So all that's coming.
• 2:36
  And then lastly, on the marketplace side, we've been running this marketplace for a while now. We have some really happy customers. It's going quite well.
• 2:43
  The gist of it is if you're a SaaS company or an agency and you need help sourcing and vetting freelance writers, we'll help you do it.
• 2:50
  Uh, we'll also deal with all the back office stuff, the paperwork, the contracts, the payroll, the 1099s, all that stuff.
• 2:55
  So not only will it reduce a lot of headache, but for some companies it solves a compliance issue as well. So if you need help getting a freelance team built up and onboarded, we can help you with that.
• 3:06
  Anyways, lots of cool stuff going on. If you have questions about any of that, shoot me an email, jimmy@superpath.co. I'll get out of the way and enjoy this conversation with Keisha Velazquez.
• 3:14
  [upbeat music] Content Briefly is produced by our friends at Minutia.
• 3:18
  To learn more about their podcast production service, as well as their other adaptive content marketing services, check out minutia.com in the show notes. Hey, everybody.
• 3:26
  Jimmy from Superpath here today with another episode of Content Briefly. Today we've got Keisha Velazquez. Well, I have lots of questions for you. You have a cool content marketing background. You have an MBA.
• 3:36
  You work at Fordham School of Law now, so there's lots of kind of career stuff to unpack there. I'm very curious about the work you're doing at Fordham too.
• 3:43
  But before we get into all of that, Keisha, would you mind just introducing yourself to folks? Tell us a little bit about who you are and some of the professional work that's gotten you to where you are right now. Yeah.
• 3:54
  So I've been doing content marketing...
• 3:56
  Well, I count my years as an entrepreneur as part of my content marketing journey, so I was technically doing it before I even realized that it was called content marketing because I had my own business.
• 4:07
  It was direct-to-consumer. It was, like, a craft-based business where I would make hats and sell them on Etsy, and that turned into me, like, selling in person in New York City- Wow... at different live events.
• 4:18
  And yeah, I was part of, like, this whole Etsy New York team, and I did a lot of content because I was trying to drive traffic to my website. So I started blogging that way.
• 4:27
  And then I also, while I was doing my MBA, I learned about using things like Haro. Really? So I learned how to write pitches, and I would get, like, little news segments on TV. I also did more guest posting.
• 4:40
  So I, I used sites that I thought were, like, relevant to guest post, and I would also reach out to, like, influencers.
• 4:47
  Because it was a family business, I reached out to all the cute moms that were, like, trendy or the cute dads to, like, you know, help promote a post, that kind of thing.
• 4:56
  So I did all of that just to run my business for, like, six years.
• 5:00
  Eventually, I was like, "This business model is, like, really hard to scale when you have a product-based business," so I kinda wanna do something digital.
• 5:06
  And also, when I was working with other entrepreneurs, they would say, "You do a really good job with, like, your website and with your marketing." So I was like, "Maybe I should just do this full-time."
• 5:15
  So I decided to look into digital marketing accelerators, and I found one through Acadium Plus, and that's when I learned how to kind of be, like, more of a T-shaped marketer, and my focus was on content.
• 5:25
  I didn't wanna do social media. Like, my mentor was like, "You should do social media." And I was like, "No, it's for young people, [laughs] and it moves so fast. I will hate it."
• 5:33
  So I was like, "I like to write, so I'll go do that." And then I got my first job at a small business that had, like, 30 people.
• 5:41
  It was based in Utah, and it was in financial services, and I was their only marketer there. But I convinced the CEO, who was the founder, to hire me because I was like, "I've worked with entrepreneurs.
• 5:51
  I've been an entrepreneur myself. I understand the pain points of that and, like, how hard it is to get your finances in order." So from that, he gave me a job, like, on the spot, which, like, never happens [laughs]
• 6:02
  during an interview.
• 6:03
  And also, I was, like, a content writer, so I definitely started from the bottom and, like, worked my way up, and then he eventually promoted me to, like, a marketing manager.We do a lot of, like, demand gen webinars with thought leaders in, like, you know, CFO services, things like that.
• 6:17
  So from there, I pivoted into HR tech just 'cause I got really interested in issues like DEI and creating, you know, a happy workplace for employees, and I worked for, like, an Israeli startup that was just opening up an office in New York City.
• 6:32
  It worked in SoHo, so that was, like, definitely really good experience in being a leader and working with, like, external vendors, external contracted writers, but also internal writers.
• 6:43
  We had our own in-house social media marketer, so that was great experience being a manager.
• 6:48
  And then from there I kind of pivoted to other HR tech startups, and the last one I worked at, I, I got laid off, so I was looking for work pretty fast. So I found something through Creative Circle.
• 7:00
  They gave me an assignment with Fordham, which I thought was interesting because they did a lot of good, like, social justice work, and at a law school there's a big emphasis on service, which really aligned with my values, especially like working before in HR tech and DEI.
• 7:16
  So I've been there ever since as their web content manager. Oh my gosh, what an amazing story. Okay. I didn't, I did not know that you ran a business prior to all this, and I... Maybe we start there.
• 7:27
  I just have a couple quick follow-up questions. So you mentioned- Okay. You mentioned the term T-shaped marketer. Yeah.
• 7:33
  You know, and I, I, you know, we get-- like on this podcast, we talk to a lot of content folks who, you know, maybe they got a start in journalism, so, like, writing is really their core skill, and they kind of, they branch out from there.
• 7:42
  Or, you know, folks come in, you know, they're copywriters or they work in SEO, and then they make their way into content. But coming in as an entrepreneur, I mean, if you can run a business, you can do anything,
• 7:53
  I think. I mean- [laughs]... obviously writing is super important, and, uh, what I'm getting at is, how do you think of your own T? You know what I mean?
• 8:00
  Like, and the T-shaped marketer for folks who aren't familiar is basically you have, like, kinda like one sort of like pillar skill, right? And then you kind of build these other skills around it.
• 8:08
  So, like, if you're a writer, maybe then you're adding SEO or demand gen, things like that. How do you define that for yourself? Yeah.
• 8:15
  So I really define it in content as, like, my deep focus, and then within even content, I try to niche down a little bit more.
• 8:24
  So for a long time I really focused heavily on, like, webinars and thought leadership content for a long time, where you do interviews with people who are subject matter experts or do, like, customer stories, so that was more of, like, working with the customer success or the sales team to find those, like, really good clients and, like, highlighting their success, which was really helpful in, like, startups when you're trying to still solidify your business and show that it has, you know, proof to get people results that they're looking for.
• 8:53
  So I just know from running a business, it's really important to be able to position yourself and to be a little bit more niche to stand out, because there's so many talented content marketers, and there's different types of content that you could do.
• 9:06
  So just on a personal level for my own career, I've been trying to, like, niche down a little bit more. But the other skills that I've been trying to build up are, like, SEO.
• 9:16
  I feel like SEO and content go together like peanut butter and jelly.
• 9:19
  So especially now being a web content manager, I focus only on the channel of the website, whereas before I was doing a lot of different type of content.
• 9:27
  [laughs] Like I was doing, you know, e-books or one-pagers, pillar pages, top-of-funnel blogs, whatever, and now I don't do all those channels.
• 9:35
  I just focus on the website and making sure the messaging is clear there and that the prospective students or alumni or any other stakeholder that goes to the website can find what they're looking for.
• 9:46
  But I still lean on those skills that I started out with, like with copywriting or writing content, in order to understand, like, what to highlight on the page and make the experience on the page, you know, easy to follow.
• 9:57
  Yeah, yeah. I love it. Okay. Let's talk about Fordham. So usually we run through all these questions with people, like, uh, who's your customer? What's the business? How do you measure content?
• 10:08
  Do all those same questions apply? Is your primary goal to acquire quote unquote customers, in this case being law students?
• 10:17
  Yeah, definitely to acquire customers, but because it's a school, like with education, I think the product is not just the degree, but it's the experience that you have, the network that you build, and then also the quality of education has a lot to do with the faculty and the faculty scholarship, which is, like, what they call the research that the faculty does, because that attracts a lot of students from the graduate level.
• 10:40
  They're looking at the faculty pages because they wanna know who's gonna teach me. Mm. You know, three of the teachers there might have written the book that you're, you know, reading.
• 10:48
  So when you have that kind of prestigious, like, faculty, it definitely draws students there. And then also, law schools can be very competitive. In New York City, there's a lot of really good law schools in the area.
• 10:59
  There's NYU, there's Columbia, so we have to definitely still stand out and figure out what our unique value proposition is.
• 11:07
  You know, for us, we get a lot of students that apply, but we're really selective, but also we have really good faculty scholarship.
• 11:14
  I know we're, like, number two in the nation for the, the part-time evening program- Oh, interesting... which is really nice for, like, working professionals. Yeah, so...
• 11:22
  And also, we have, like, a really good rate of students that get employed ten months after they graduate, so they're like 93% of them, they have a job lined up.
• 11:30
  And, you know, part of that is, like, the partnerships that we have with the big law firms, so a lot of them turn out to be, like, lawyers in these big law firms.
• 11:37
  But also some of them do a lot of public interest work, you know, helping people who are low income, helping people who are immigrants or people get housing, things like that. Okay, so what you just described is like--
• 11:50
  I'm thinking of this from like the SAS perspective. It's like you have so much material to work with, so many stories to tell, and then you have to kind of grapple with all that and then turn it into stuff, right?
• 12:02
  So it's like- [laughs]... you're owning more than just content, right? It sounds like you're doing work on the website, too.
• 12:07
  Like, you have to, when students land there, or you're helping them land there, probably, potential students land there, and then they get there, and then you are...Trying to share all this, you know, faculty stories, you know, the, the full-time versus part-time options, scholarship, all these different things.
• 12:22
  That's kind of a lot to wrangle. What is a day in the life? What are, like, a couple things you're working on on, like, a, a day-to-day basis? Yeah.
• 12:31
  So on a day-to-day basis, working on new pages for, like, new programs that are being launched by different program directors.
• 12:39
  So they could be, like, the associate dean of experiential learning, so they're working with the clinics, and they're starting new clinics if they get funding to focus on different things like the right to housing can be one of them.
• 12:51
  Another thing is we do a lot of experiential education and also continuing education.
• 12:57
  So once they're a lawyer, we do a lot of workshops, and they get, like, CLE credits, that kind of thing, to say that they're still a knowledgeable, relevant lawyer learning new skills.
• 13:07
  So we do pages for that, pages for different events and symposiums and conventions that we have there.
• 13:14
  Also, pages for development, so development in, you know, higher ed means the money that they get, so calling alumni, asking people to donate money because it is a private university I work at.
• 13:24
  I work at a Jesuit university. I mean, even at public school, 'cause I constantly get [laughs] calls from UCF being like, "Well, you wanna donate some money?" And I'm like- [laughs]... "No."
• 13:33
  [laughs] But, um, the development team, they constantly do a lot of programs to have the alumni networking and then also different campaigns like giving days, so working on things like that.
• 13:44
  But also a lot of edits and running accessibility reports because it is a website that is, like, a.gov or.edu.
• 13:53
  Accessibility is really important, so meaning, like, people who are maybe blind, they have to have tags on certain parts of, like, different forms or the website or images that are properly tagged.
• 14:04
  Not just good for SEO, but also for accessibility, so they can use screen readers and making sure, like, color contrast is correct, that kind of thing.
• 14:12
  So that's really important in higher ed that I didn't really encounter before. When I was working in SAS, that wasn't as big of a issue.
• 14:19
  It was more of, like you said, just, like, getting, you know, MQLs or getting leads. But here at the website, Fordham, one thing we have to focus on is accessibility. That's really interesting.
• 14:28
  Do you have other metrics that you track that are closely tied to performance, and I guess in this case, performance meaning number of applications submitted, enrollment numbers, things like that? Yeah.
• 14:43
  So I actually don't own those metrics because they have different offices, like admissions. Got it. So they own those metrics.
• 14:51
  So for me, I focus mostly on the website, so things like the accessibility score, trying to keep it at above, like, 90%, and then also things like the views on the site and the engagement on the site.
• 15:01
  Those are the ones that I mostly focus on. Interesting.
• 15:04
  We actually, kind of a side note, we, probably, I don't know, two years ago were trying to make the Superpath website more accessible, and I didn't realize this, but there's, you know, free tools out there where you put in your URL, and it will give you a score.
• 15:19
  And, um, pretty... I guess I was sort of amazed at, like, out of the box Webflow WordPress sites were not... They score really, really low.
• 15:29
  Like, in order to actually make a website accessible, there's quite a bit of work that goes into, into it that's custom, right? That doesn't come with whatever CMS you're using. And I was just...
• 15:38
  I guess I was, having not gone down that path before, I was surprised by how much work it was. It's really cool. It's, like, a real effort to make a website accessible. Yeah.
• 15:46
  And so thankfully, I work with not just my internal marketing team, but I also work with the university team, 'cause Fordham Law School is a part of Fordham University.
• 15:55
  So there's a marketing team at the university level, and there's a marketing team at the law school or each individual school level.
• 16:03
  So I do, like, maybe every two weeks standing meeting with some of the developers and some of the, you know, the director of digital marketing at the university and the law school IT and myself, and then they usually will help me with reporting.
• 16:17
  We use a tool called Siteimprove, which is probably, like, a really common one for higher ed, and they'll help me flag things.
• 16:24
  And they also have, like, a contracted developer too that will help me track things 'cause sometimes when I'm using, like, a certain content type that they create, like a templated content type, and then if you don't fill in all the proper URLs or tags, then they could see it.
• 16:40
  So sometimes I'm just, like, more focused on making sure the content is correct, and it's a good user experience, but then they'll come back and tap me, like, a week later saying, "Oh, this needs to be tagged," or, like, "Make sure this is, like, responsive in that way," that kind of thing.
• 16:53
  Yeah. So they help me in that way 'cause my role is very much so kind of sitting in between marketing and IT. Okay. Yeah. That's very interesting. That makes sense, too. I mean, the...
• 17:03
  You can't present good content without creating the right experience, which I won't say is totally overlooked in the SAS role, but it's, it kind of plays out a little bit differently. You know what I mean?
• 17:15
  Like, at a larger company, there's probably a web team- Yeah... that owns all that stuff, but at smaller companies, it's just, "Here's our out-of-the-box CMS. Just go as fast as you can."
• 17:24
  [laughs] Um- [laughs] Yes, exactly.
• 17:27
  I worked at, like, a lot of different startups where you're the only, like, marketing person or content person or person in the CMS, and, you know, taking care of, like, all the technical stuff was very, like, time-consuming, or you wouldn't always have time to, like, focus on that.
• 17:43
  So it, it is nice to be in a bigger organization that's, like, a little bit more of a, a built-out team that can help you focus on that one area. Yeah, totally.
• 17:51
  You know, like, gosh, probably 10 or 11 years ago, I moved... my wife and I moved to Tucson, Arizona. I applied for a content job at the University of Arizona, and it was in the department of, I think, optical sciences.
• 18:03
  It was so fascinating.
• 18:04
  Like, these people build microscopes and telescopes and stuff like that, and they really wanted to improve just communications and messaging and try to, like, tell people, like, what they do, and they needed someone to come in and do that.
• 18:15
  It ended up not working out, but I got to go there and have an interview and, gosh, just, like, these people are so brilliant.You know what I mean?
• 18:21
  Like, I don't think I'm smart enough to translate [chuckles] their subject matter expertise into something that, like, an average person could read but I-- the question I wanna ask you is, I mean, I imagine you're surrounded by subject matter experts, professors, other faculty, like, maybe you have access to current students.
• 18:39
  Like, does that or how does that kinda influence the content that, that you're working on and publishing?
• 18:44
  Like, are you interviewing folks, or are you able just to, like, absorb a lot of this 'cause you're in the office at least sometimes? Yeah. So there's a lot of strong personalities.
• 18:53
  [laughs] Lawyers, you know, they're very opinionated, they're very knowledgeable, but we, we normally just partner with them to get ideas of the programs and the things they wanna focus on.
• 19:04
  And sometimes it is, like, a matter of just kind of explaining the process of getting things produced as far as, like, pages or campaigns and things like that.
• 19:13
  So yeah, they're the expert in legalese and knowledge in that area, but we're the experts in marketing, so we're just trying to make them look good.
• 19:21
  Like, I come from a, a theater background, so I remember the days when I would either, like, be performing or be behind the stage in the wings in my tech blacks and, like, helping the talent look good.
• 19:32
  A lot of times I think about the lawyers. They're the talent.
• 19:35
  We're just trying to promote them whenever they get media mentions and communicate all their events and make them look really good and smart and help distill, like, these complicated ideas into language that's, like, easy to understand, and so the students know what the benefits of the program is and, you know, the world knows, like, all the cool events and programs that we're creating.
• 19:55
  Yeah. Super cool. You mentioned creating pages. Is a page, like, roughly equivalent to what a SaaS content marketer would call a blog or blog post? Yeah. So that's a good question.
• 20:07
  So we do have the website, the external website, where those are like marketing pages, so it's like a landing page where you explain a really cool program or, you know, 'cause we have the JD program, we have the international LLM program, and we have, like, the non-lawyer degrees that are online, like compliance and things like that.
• 20:26
  So we do create pages like that that kind of explain the benefits and then resources, how to find more information and, you know, captures the information as well. We also do have the editorial blog.
• 20:37
  So the blog is on, uh, WordPress, and we have the editorial team that does a lot of writing for that.
• 20:44
  So we have, like, in-house writer, and we have a contracted writer that we use regularly, and we have a editorial director. So they come up with a lot of ideas for the content.
• 20:54
  A lot of the times they're getting pinged, or they're getting messaging or messages rather from the people who are the program managers or the directors, so these are, like, the associate deans of different clinics or centers, or maybe it's the student
• 21:09
  association, or maybe it's alumni or development. So they're getting updated about, like, the different things that are happening in order to cover that.
• 21:18
  But they also have, like, reoccurring content around the students and different experiences at Fordham.
• 21:24
  So they have one reoccurring one called Future Fordham Lawyers, where they do interviews with, you know, 1Ls or, like, the first year of law students or maybe, like, the 3L that's kinda like the senior law students who are about to graduate, that kinda thing, the kind of cool things that they're doing or their background, like why did they decide to go to law school.
• 21:43
  So we, we do have, like, a mix of content on the editorial blog. Cool. It's really cool that you're well-resourced and that there's, it sounds like there's a lot going on. Yes. It's cool. Yes. It's actually... Yeah.
• 21:53
  It's, like, bigger in marketing team than some of the teams I worked at- Yeah. [laughs] -when I was at these, like, SaaS companies.
• 21:57
  Sometimes they'd have, like, you know, customer success or, like, demand gen manager or, you know, marketing ops, but I feel like this is, like, one of the biggest marketing teams I've ever worked on, so. That's cool.
• 22:07
  Are you thinking about SEO at all? Yes. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. We totally are. Curious, curious about that. Yeah.
• 22:12
  Funny enough, like, a lot of our, a lot of our traffic is direct, probably just 'cause it's been around since 1905. It's really old school.
• 22:19
  [laughs] So we have a lot of people directly going to the homepage, probably trying to find information about the programs, the different kinds of law degrees that you can have, but we also do optimize for SEO too on these, like, key pages that we have, so that's like the homepage, the JD program page, anything about curriculum, and then our fact sheet page.
• 22:40
  That's cool. Having a.edu domain to work with from an SEO perspective must be fun, right? Like, is it actually easier to get stuff ranking than if you're like a young startup website with no domain authority?
• 22:55
  I think so because you're already [chuckles] getting a lot of, like, backlinks from other, like, sites that, you know, list different law schools- Yeah... or the, like, US News report, things like that. Yeah.
• 23:05
  And just because it has, like, an established brand and, like, credibility, you're already getting a lot of traffic. So- That's cool...
• 23:12
  but we still monitor it, and we can see, like, the times because there's so much data from, like, years.
• 23:16
  We can see, like, there's normal times when it spikes, like, before graduation or around the time where people apply to law schools or when people are, like, you know, checking stuff about bar exams.
• 23:26
  You see those, like, normal spikes and then, like, lags during the summer, that kinda thing. Yeah. Yeah. Is your content stack kinda more or less the same as, you know, tools you've worked with in the past?
• 23:35
  Like, you mentioned WordPress. Are you also using like Ahrefs, Google Analytics, stuff like that? Yeah.
• 23:40
  So instead of Ahrefs, we use something called BrightEdge, which I feel like probably, like, larger organizations, they use BrightEdge, but it does the same thing. Yeah.
• 23:48
  [laughs] You can see, like, ranking, the keywords, that kinda thing, suggestions. And then for my CMS, I don't use, like, WordPress or before I used, like, HubSpot.
• 23:59
  I use something called TerminalFour, which is again, like, a tool that's just for higher ed.
• 24:06
  So there's a lot of tools out there and, like, vendors that are specifically for higher ed that, you know, these universities use. So TerminalFour is, like, more modular.
• 24:14
  It's not as, like, fun as picking like a Wix site or any other site where you can kinda drag things around. It's very, like, modular.
• 24:22
  Like, very rarely do I, like, go into the HTML, but sometimes I will and be like, "How do you change this?" kinda thing, and then I'll just, like, go into ChatGPT to help me- Nice... [laughs] to figure it out.
• 24:31
  But, like, yeah.We do have also, like, pre-made templates of different content types that are, like, used a lot, like certain column types or, like, you know, sliders for, like, slideshows, things like that that are used over and over again.
• 24:45
  Yeah, it's... I had to get used to it. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's criminal for a CMS. Yeah. You've done startups. Now you're in this academic setting. Could you compare and contrast? Like, what [laughs]...
• 24:55
  You know, I feel like the startups get the bad rap of, like, w- you know, move fast and break things. Or, I mean, I guess there's pros and cons to that. It's not all just bad.
• 25:03
  But I'm imagining, and maybe I'm assuming too much, that the pace is slower. Although it does sound like you have tons of work on your plate, too. So I'm just curious, like, what... How is that?
• 25:12
  And is the work/life balance, is that different? Yeah. So this is, like, a really big website with, like, 1,600 pages with 60 different stakeholders, so it's, like, always a lot of projects- Yeah...
• 25:23
  and everyone's always like, "My thing is the most important," which is not. So you're just creating the workflows and expectations, kind of like how I did when I was working at startups. We have, like,
• 25:33
  a content request form, but it's just, you know, on a different website. It's on something internal that we call, like, LawNet. But, so that's the same. [laughs] Setting expectations and helping...
• 25:44
  Being a good project manager, right? Yeah. But then also you just have more stakeholders to work with, and the...
• 25:51
  I would just say, like, internally, it's, like, more diverse as far as generations, so you're working with more generations.
• 25:57
  Like, people will stay there and retire until they, like, die, so there's people up in their 70s that don't know how to open a PDF, and then, like, when you do a Loom video, it, like, blows their mind.
• 26:06
  [laughs] Yeah, that's awesome. Because they just are not as, like, well-versed in tech. So learning to work with different generations, definitely interesting. There's definitely more politics.
• 26:16
  I mean, it's just the way it is at a larger organization, and I think higher ed in general is just more of a, like, a traditional mindset when it comes to work.
• 26:24
  So it's not as flat of a organization where you might have, like, the ability to, like, try a lot of things or just do things really fast, like you said, which I think is a benefit, especially for certain, like, new products and new startups and stuff like that.
• 26:39
  You do have to kind of go through some of the red tape, and it's more hierarchical, and figure out, okay, who's the point person? And it's very opaque as far as, like, who do you talk to?
• 26:49
  So when I first started in, like, in my first 90 days, one thing I did is created my own visual org chart, and I was like, "Why don't they have one?" [laughs] Yeah, yeah.
• 26:57
  Like, I feel like this is so obvious, 'cause they did that at, at all the startups I was at. Some of them had, like, their own, you know, intranets or a place where you could find, like, who to talk to.
• 27:07
  So I just created my own and created, like, a list of all the different types of content that we have and who's in charge of that and who's the point person.
• 27:16
  So, you know, learning all of that took a little bit of time, but just doing a lot of, like, interviews with different stakeholders when I first started I think was super helpful to get things moving, and establishing that trust early on has been, like, super important.
• 27:31
  That's really cool. I'm just imagining you, like, coming in, you have a startup background. You know, there's people who don't know how to open a PDF.
• 27:37
  They're probably like, "Oh my God, like, Keisha, no one has ever worked faster than Keisha does." [laughs] You know? Actually, yeah. Some, like, sometimes my manager is like, "Slow down."
• 27:47
  Like, 'cause she'll be like sort of a problem throwing out there in a meeting, like a priorities weekly meeting, and I'll be like, "Oh, why don't we do this?" Da, da, da, da.
• 27:54
  She's like, "Slow down, Keisha," and I'm like, "Okay." [laughs] So learning how to work with different people and their pace.
• 27:59
  Some people are like, "Yeah, you did that super fast," but I just, like, naturally wanna, like, pull in other stakeholders or have, like, a lot of meetings.
• 28:07
  A lot of people do these terrible email chains, and it just, like, irks me, so I do a lot of Loom videos or be like, "Let's have a conversation.
• 28:14
  Let's just have, like, a kickoff meeting," and it just makes the process goes a lot faster. Yeah, yeah. That's so interesting.
• 28:20
  I, I've never really thought about this, but in some ways, startups are, like, an amazing training ground for working efficiently. You know what I mean? Yes. I don't- Yeah. True...
• 28:28
  I've never worked at a really lar- and I guess I worked at QuickBooks for a little while and it was... But it's a tech company, so they sort of embrace a lot of this, like, move fast and break things type stuff.
• 28:35
  But it actually sounds fun to- Yeah... bring, like, the startup mindset to a organization that's maybe not used to that type of pace and experimentation and maybe automation and things like that. Yeah.
• 28:48
  I feel like, what is it? I don't know if it's Drucker who has, like, the norming, forming, storming thing.
• 28:53
  So it's like coming in, I was probably like, "Let's go really fast," and then they're here, so at like somewhere along the line I'd have to kind of, like, recalibrate and meet in the middle, and they kind of get used to me being, like, an agitator or making things go faster- Yeah, yeah...
• 29:10
  or a catalyst, whatever you wanna call it.
• 29:11
  And then at some point I kind of, like, learn how to kinda slow down a little bit or, like, figure out the red tape or the proper procedure to send things up the chain of command, that kind of thing, so. Yeah, yeah.
• 29:22
  Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. And so maybe this is an unfair question to ask you since you currently work there, but do you like it? Like, has this been a good transition for you?
• 29:30
  [laughs] Yeah, no, I really do like it. I like it because it's a lot more stable and, like, you were talking about the work-life balance.
• 29:37
  Like, I have a 10-year-old son, so it's nice to kinda just be able to, like, check out at the end [laughs] of the day and not, like, be worried or, like, checking Slack, you know, on the weekends, that kinda thing.
• 29:48
  It's definitely more work-life balance for me.
• 29:51
  I definitely feel like working in a startup was the right way to go in my, you know, earlier in my career, like, when I was first getting started, because especially as a career changer, I got a lot of really great opportunities working at startups where you could build a program from start to finish, like, you know, think of the idea and then execute it and then see the results really fast.
• 30:12
  And here I don't always get to see the results really fast just because things get slowed down just from the approval process. Right.
• 30:18
  So that part is like, oh, I wish, you know, sometimes I could go a little bit faster, but for me, I, I know the pace is better, and I don't feel as, like, stressed out about [laughs] money or, like, as far as do we have enough financial runway for our company to, like...
• 30:32
  Are we gonna be a company in, like, two to three years? Like, I don't know. Sometimes I would [laughs] feel that way working at certain startups. Oh my gosh, that resonates so much.
• 30:39
  I am just, like, constantlyWorrying about that type of thing. It's like I don't even... Sometimes I forget that, like, not every company is, like, may not exist [laughs] six months from now. You know what I mean?
• 30:52
  Like, my wife, for example- Yeah... works in healthcare, and she's not even allowed to have email on her phone. Like, it's not HIPAA compliant- Oh... so she can't.
• 31:00
  I'm like, "I just can't even imagine what that would be like- Yeah... to not worry about it." So anyways, that's really cool. Are you able to tease anything you're working on right now?
• 31:09
  You know, like do you have any, like, couple initiatives that you're kinda thinking through and starting to, to put into action that you're able to share? Yeah, definitely.
• 31:17
  So we're working on, like, a graduate degree finder. Like, we have one for the undergraduate programs.
• 31:24
  It's a, like, way that you could kinda drill down and, like, search for, with different keywords to figure out the different programs that you can have, just because when you're, you know, like, a young person trying to figure out what's the right program for me, and the school offers so many different types, it could be, like, overwhelming.
• 31:40
  But now they're creating one that's, like, a graduate level one for all the graduate schools, and it, it works very similarly, so they could, you know, type in keywords or interests, and they can see the different course options and, like, how they're offered, if it's, like, online or in person, the different specializations, things like that.
• 31:57
  And then just also, like, we've been updating the fact sheet, which is, like, a page that has, like, snapshot of all the, like, you know, things that differentiate our school from the other schools.
• 32:08
  So highlighting our different rankings and, like, what makes us unique, things like that. Super cool.
• 32:14
  I will, if it's cool, I'll grab a link from you that we can put in the show notes so people can go actually, like, check out the website.
• 32:19
  Like, I always encourage folks, like, okay, you've heard how the content works, the folks behind it. You've, you've learned about that. Like, now go look at the website. See what it looks like in practice.
• 32:29
  So we'll share that with folks. And how about you? Where, where's the best place to direct people to follow along with you and your work? Yeah, on LinkedIn. Cool. LinkedIn is, like, the best place.
• 32:38
  Usually the [laughs] only social media channel that I use, so just forward slash Keisha Velasquez. Cool. You know, everybody used to say Twitter, but now nobody says Twitter, and everybody says LinkedIn. [laughs] Yeah.
• 32:47
  Twitter got so weird. I could... I never, I never was, like, good at Twitter, but I hear, like, Threads is something that's, like, kicking off. Mm. I don't know if you've used Threads. I haven't- I don't...
• 32:56
  even, like, looked into it yet, so. [laughs] No, I feel like I'm too old. I, I don't know. I feel like LinkedIn feels like a very comfortable place for me. I don't know. But it's good. Like, LinkedIn for, like- Yeah...
• 33:05
  for, you know, for, like, marketing. Yeah. You know, it's a, it's a great place to- Yeah... talk to people and stuff. Cool.
• 33:09
  So we will definitely link to your LinkedIn profile too and encourage folks to go follow along with Keisha. Keisha, thanks so much, seriously. Of course.
• 33:15
  It's just, like, so cool and refreshing to hear about the work you're doing.
• 33:19
  Totally different than what we typically talk about on this podcast, but, you know, it's all, all these same principles, just applied somewhere else. So thank you for taking the time. You bet. I hope we can do it again.
• 33:30
  Thank you so much, Jimmy. Take care. [outro music]