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Building Your Network Through Community · Speak In Flow

• 0:03
  Melinda Lee: Welcome. Dear listeners to the speak and flow podcast where we dive into unique strategies and experiences to help you and your team
• 0:11
  Melinda Lee: achieve maximum potential connection and flow. Today, I have an amazing leader. I'm so glad that she's here because we're going to dive into work about communication and communities. And why, that's important. Her name is Jen Petey. She's the Vp of customer advocacy at People path. She's managed online communities, social media media communities for big names, such as Oprah Winfrey.
• 0:39
  Melinda Lee: She's the adjunct professor at Syracuse University School of Communications. She's had over 20 years of online experience or experience developing online communities. She's also managing a remote coworking meetup group in San Diego with over 1,500 people in it. Hi, Jen! Glad you're here.
• 1:01
  Jenn Pedde: Hi! Thanks for having me excited to be here.
• 1:04
  Melinda Lee: I'm so glad. Thank you for sharing your extensive experience and insights with us, and so can you share more with the audience what you do, and why you're excited about it.
• 1:16
  Jenn Pedde: Sure. So customer advocacy is maybe new to some people. Basically, it kind of bridges the gap between customer success and marketing. And what it does is realize that your current clients at a company are a goldmine of information, and they have stories to share, and they're excited to use your product or services. And how can you leverage all of that to use in marketing to share that story externally?
• 1:40
  Jenn Pedde: And so I love the job because I'm I'm working with others to share their stories and communicate out what they're doing and being proud of what they're doing along with our product. But
• 1:50
  Jenn Pedde: to get everything out in the world to inspire others to do the same. So it's really fun for me. I managed a corporate alumni community in a consulting firm years ago called Oliver Wyman. And so I did that for 5 years, where the company focuses on former employees to help them with talent, acquisition, and business development and bread advocacy, all this fun stuff.
• 2:11
  Jenn Pedde: And then, when I was leaving the company, the vendor that I worked for people, Path said, Why don't you come over here and work for us. And so now I get to work with all these big, huge companies.
• 2:20
  Jenn Pedde: We work with massive law firms and consulting firms and companies like Starbucks and Accenture and Deloitte, and all these really cool things and helping them share their
• 2:31
  Jenn Pedde: career paths of their former employees. It's just such a cool space to work in. And I'm I'm grateful to to get to share the stories of what they're doing each day.
• 2:39
  Melinda Lee: Wow! You! You have such an extensive network of people working for these big companies. Oprah, Winfrey, was it always like that for you
• 2:49
  Melinda Lee: growing up.
• 2:49
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah, yes, actually. So I remember in elementary school. My report card was always, I couldn't sit next to anybody because I would talk to people right? So, too talkative to this, that and then. Now it's my job so perfect. But yeah. So when I graduated college, I went to Syracuse, actually. And then I graduated and went to work in entertainment. So I was booking tours for some of the biggest recording artists ever. Ti
• 3:14
  Jenn Pedde: eminem. You name it like really huge.
• 3:16
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, wow.
• 3:17
  Jenn Pedde: I just loved putting those events together. Right? We're creating tours, and people get to go see these live acts. And it was incredible. And then I went to live in Korea for a while, which sounds like a very crazy pivot. But I wanted to travel, and then came back. And that's right. Around the time that social media was becoming a thing. So I really dived into the whole world of social, really understood Linkedin and Facebook and twitter at the time. I was always into myspace, and things like that before that. But this is when businesses were really jumping into it.
• 3:47
  Jenn Pedde: Learned how to do it, and and how to apply communication methods to everyday online activity. And then, just
• 3:54
  Jenn Pedde: when it blew up from there, it was right time, right place, you know.
• 3:58
  Melinda Lee: And so what is it that you're seeing right? Now is a different? The transition into this space.
• 4:04
  Jenn Pedde: It's it's crazy. So 20 years ago you were looking at things like forums and message boards and
• 4:12
  Jenn Pedde: really, niche communities in a lot of ways. It's coming back. The pendulum is moving back to that because it started with these small little communities around the Internet as people were really, you know, early adopters. But now that everyone is online doing something, mass media has really happened right now we're on to. There's like hundreds of social networks that people participate on these huge things like Linkedin and Instagram and Tiktok. Right? So
• 4:35
  Jenn Pedde: there's this massive switch to that. But now we're starting to swing back into smaller communities. People are kind of fearful of maybe algorithms or AI or.
• 4:44
  Melinda Lee: They just.
• 4:44
  Jenn Pedde: Want to participate in some fun, things that mean something to them. So these smaller communities, where they really have connections to other people, is becoming very important.
• 4:53
  Melinda Lee: Interesting. Wow! When you said Forums, that took me back.
• 4:57
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah, I know isn't crazy.
• 4:58
  Jenn Pedde: I do remember that.
• 5:00
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah.
• 5:01
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, that's funny. Yeah. So I love that. Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense, especially just to have more connection. You know, just you just want to be in a smaller group. It's hard to have real connections with a big, large network in a bit. So I think there's probably benefits to both right having being on Linkedin things like that, but also part of a smaller community.
• 5:22
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah, it's all important. And people are spending their time in all of these places. But where do they put their focus? Where do they really dive into? And where do they really let their attention kind of sit? Is really the thing. So these former employee groups are so huge because you have that connection already. We all worked at this one place.
• 5:39
  Jenn Pedde: And so now they are growing to this place where they're providing resources, events, networking opportunity, learning opportunities, just career growth. Because we know that people spend 2.7 years on average at a company if they're under the age of 35.
• 5:56
  Jenn Pedde: And so how do you kind of capture on this constant change in community and and employee tenure? So communities are where they're at.
• 6:04
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, how does people pass through that.
• 6:07
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah. So people, path is a software that works with major corporations to kind of keep that pipeline going. So most corporations would have a Hr system like a workday or peoplesoft or something. And then we connect our software to that. And so people that as an employee when they're
• 6:24
  Jenn Pedde: in the system they leave their last day. Companies typically lose all information after that. But people path will connect them into these communities. It has all sorts of features, events, modules and directories and job boards, and all sorts of stuff that help build community and keep that connection going because people opt into it, you know they give you your personal email address, and so
• 6:48
  Jenn Pedde: you can say a part of it pretty easily after you leave.
• 6:51
  Melinda Lee: So this is a software that helps keep the connection with people after they leave the company.
• 6:57
  Jenn Pedde: Yes, absolutely.
• 6:58
  Melinda Lee: And and then so there. The these events and these modules and learning are all sponsored by the previous employer.
• 7:06
  Jenn Pedde: Yes, exactly so. The company owns it. They're managing what that looks like. They have a team of people, usually.
• 7:11
  Jenn Pedde: Usually one person at least. But we've seen large groups of 5 to 10 people who are managing these massive communities of tens of thousands of people that have come and gone into the company. So you get people who maybe are in their twenties and just left, or people who were fifties sixties and are looking to join boards, or maybe be a part of contract stuff or nonprofit stuff, you know. So it's you have all kinds of different people in these communities at different ages and different experiences, who maybe left last year, or maybe left 20 years ago. But they still.
• 7:41
  Melinda Lee: Oh!
• 7:41
  Jenn Pedde: Called and connected to something. They were a part of.
• 7:43
  Melinda Lee: Wow! And and how are companies like, are is this a ramping up? I've never even heard of this.
• 7:50
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah.
• 7:51
  Melinda Lee: What's up?
• 7:52
  Melinda Lee: So what you know? What if, like companies don't do it. You have like information between companies that don't do it versus companies that do. What is the.
• 8:00
  Jenn Pedde: Absolutely so. Part of my job is to do a lot of research each year we work with a university in British Columbia, and we do research on this. And so what we found is it's significantly growing. Most companies have started in the last 2 or 3 years, so it's never too late. We can date these back to the nineties. Microsoft is one of the 1st companies that started an alumni network, and they're going quite strong. And so what the benefits are. If you do this is that you
• 8:25
  Jenn Pedde: get
• 8:27
  Jenn Pedde: savings in talent, acquisition. So hiring people back to the organization are called boomerangs, so they save on recruitment costs, and they save on training costs millions of dollars. They save by doing this. They also have business development. So when somebody leaves. Maybe they go work for a client, and so when you go work for clients and you continue business with that client, they gain money. So there's a huge opportunity.
• 8:51
  Jenn Pedde: Some of our research says that one in 5 organizations will attribute about 18 million dollars of revenue to alumni assisted sales. So huge amounts of money are there to just make those relationships stronger.
• 9:04
  Melinda Lee: Oh!
• 9:05
  Jenn Pedde: And brands. People are out there mentioning the brand 7 or 8 times a year, so you can.
• 9:09
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah.
• 9:10
  Jenn Pedde: Kind of sentiment, you know, as long as it's positive, right, like you want to do more to make them feel included and welcomed and thanked. But yeah, so all these savings, and if you don't do it, you're just missing out because everyone has grown into the space like we're seeing such huge interest. And so you're missing out on on saved costs. You're missing out on strategic value. You're missing out on new clients. You're missing out on a lot of stuff. So.
• 9:34
  Melinda Lee: Interesting.
• 9:35
  Jenn Pedde: Starting to realize it, which is great.
• 9:37
  Melinda Lee: How long do people stay on there.
• 9:39
  Jenn Pedde: Say, in the community.
• 9:41
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, stay in the community.
• 9:42
  Jenn Pedde: Oh, once we've some of the research we found is that when it takes a little while to start, so you you join slow bits. And then once you're in, you're in, you never typically leave, because you've always worked there. Your history is. You've worked in this company and a lot of times. Even if companies get acquired, they get merged into other different types of alumni groups. So your alumni group sometimes gets bigger. But you never typically leave. I've never really heard of people opting out that often, maybe once or twice, but
• 10:10
  Jenn Pedde: and every life. And what we think in about next 10 years is that because people drop off so much that you'll be in multiples of these networks. So if you're a lawyer and you're bouncing from law firm to law firm. You might be in 3 or 4 alumni networks
• 10:22
  Jenn Pedde: by the time you're 40 or 50.
• 10:24
  Jenn Pedde: So.
• 10:25
  Melinda Lee: And do people go in and they post things? And is there a is there a chat feature? They get notified? There's the people. Path has its own chat, feature.
• 10:35
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah, so there's a messenger in there. There's groups. It looks like a mini Linkedin. And so.
• 10:40
  Melinda Lee: Got it.
• 10:41
  Jenn Pedde: We suggest, people have linkedin and make a group there, but always kind of bring people back to that community in that hub. And so yeah, it's really customizable platform. I don't want to sell it too much, but.
• 10:51
  Melinda Lee: Interesting, not interesting. I'm so fascinated.
• 10:54
  Jenn Pedde: It's really, really interesting. And it's gotten to be so so cool. It has so many features and fun things that, like.
• 10:59
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 11:00
  Jenn Pedde: We want people to be engaged and active, and create posts and polls and fun things, and have events to sign up, for the events are the best part I've seen people do
• 11:09
  Jenn Pedde: right, and golf outings and wine tastings you name it.
• 11:13
  Melinda Lee: Right, right? Right? I could see that.
• 11:16
  Jenn Pedde: So it's really cool.
• 11:19
  Melinda Lee: And so how did you? I remember you saying that you just always been curious about meeting new people and building your network like, how was that story between after college going to the media and then into supporting Oprah? Winfrey.
• 11:36
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah, absolutely so. My mother kind of instilled this in me in high school, which is, it's not what you know. It's who, you know, and she wasn't wrong. Right? I went to a great school, and I did well in all my endeavors, but it really was always about networking and being involved in stuff creating community was kind of a thing I was doing without realizing I was doing it.
• 11:56
  Jenn Pedde: And so then, when I went into working in community. Specifically, it was very easy to be like, all right. What brings people together? What does that look like? And for me it's always just who can I meet? Who can I learn from? How can I improve? My mantra in life? Is just constant education, right? So just, continuously learning, and so finding other people to talk to and learn from and hopefully build really strong connections to is super huge. And now it's my job. So it's kind of really.
• 12:23
  Melinda Lee: Yes, we do that every day. I love that, and I think it's so important to have that mindset to always, you know, continually learn continually, learn from other people and meet new people. Stretch yourself to go outside of the comfort zone, get out, go to networking events, go to events, go to groups, yeah.
• 12:43
  Jenn Pedde: It's really hard, especially as you get older, you know, exactly expecting in my as my career has advanced, but just, you know, making it an effort to do it. It really.
• 12:55
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 12:55
  Jenn Pedde: Re. It gives you rewards you wouldn't necessarily expect. And with the way the world is changing, it's more important now than ever to.
• 13:02
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 13:03
  Jenn Pedde: Meeting people.
• 13:05
  Melinda Lee: What are your thoughts about? How AI is going to change this landscape?
• 13:09
  Jenn Pedde: I'm of 2 minds on all of this. The academic in me worries about the ability to attribute right information. Make sure it's correct that kind of stuff. On the other hand, the operational side is so exciting. I think
• 13:21
  Jenn Pedde: it has time to free people up to do certain things, and that you might not have had otherwise. Small organizations might really benefit from tools that can help them achieve their goals. So I'm really looking forward to the way AI can save time. But I do have that reservation of an academic who is just a little leery that it's the right information, or that it's being fact checked in some way, or that the proper sources are being cited. So.
• 13:48
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 13:48
  Jenn Pedde: Sort of both. I.
• 13:49
  Melinda Lee: I totally see that. And how do you think it's going to change the way we communicate.
• 13:54
  Jenn Pedde: Oh, I have been thinking about this a lot. I don't know if I have a.
• 13:58
  Melinda Lee: And.
• 13:58
  Jenn Pedde: A perfect answer, but it will change because people are going to expect such immediacy, and we're already kind of seeing it play out in some different parts of dating people dating, talking to AI. So that's that's a whole new realm that has yet to even be studied that I'm aware of, you know. So how it plays out in connections online, and where people take their careers, I'm not really sure yet, to be quite honest.
• 14:22
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 14:23
  Jenn Pedde: Whole new world, that is, for sure. I keep telling my students that you may or may not be for it, but it's better to know where it's going. Learn how to.
• 14:31
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 14:32
  Jenn Pedde: Understand it. And if it goes way great, if it doesn't also great because you're gonna be at least gathering the skills to know how to use it in the future.
• 14:41
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's gonna go away. So.
• 14:44
  Jenn Pedde: They're not gonna go.
• 14:45
  Melinda Lee: It's not gonna go away. So going back to how to reverse rather than avoiding it, let's like, learn about it and do what we can to leverage it. And
• 14:58
  Melinda Lee: as a positive, powerful tool for change, positive change.
• 15:02
  Melinda Lee: And yeah.
• 15:03
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah. The hardest part is, there's so many tools out there right now, finding the time to research and understand.
• 15:09
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 15:09
  Jenn Pedde: Know what it can do is is the hard part. So I'm actually at the moment looking for courses to take myself on prompt writing on the tools to use, for you know, certain marketing aspects of things, just to kind of.
• 15:19
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 15:20
  Jenn Pedde: You know my head in it. Understand how.
• 15:22
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's here. It's here to stay.
• 15:27
  Melinda Lee: And I know that it won't take away the power of connection, like deep connection.
• 15:34
  Melinda Lee: especially in person. I mean, you can. Probably it'll change the way we connect online. But in person there's just we're going. It's like, remember, when we had Covid. And then we all went to Zoom. And we have like for me, when I train people on public speaking.
• 15:52
  Melinda Lee: learning how to do public speaking online is different from public speaking in person.
• 15:59
  Jenn Pedde: Absolutely.
• 15:59
  Melinda Lee: So communicating online, it's gonna be different with AI, I, it's and it's different in person communicating, connecting in person. And I don't think AI can.
• 16:12
  Melinda Lee: I think it can change it in a way where maybe you can look up what you want to say. But then, at the end of the day. It's about how you connect.
• 16:20
  Melinda Lee: Absolutely. It's about that. Yeah.
• 16:23
  Jenn Pedde: I've been teaching online for 10. 0, God! No more than 10 years, I think at this point. And so teaching online and zoom is great, because I can have all my.
• 16:30
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 16:30
  Jenn Pedde: In the side.
• 16:31
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 16:31
  Jenn Pedde: And I can. I can move things around. And I can do. I can think when you're in person, the you feel that pressure of the audience to a whole different ballgame.
• 16:40
  Melinda Lee: This.
• 16:41
  Jenn Pedde: I think we'll say that public speaking is our number one fear above death. Right? So it's something that there's something to that being this focal point, that center in.
• 16:51
  Melinda Lee: Right.
• 16:51
  Jenn Pedde: Charter than online.
• 16:53
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, I agree, I agree.
• 16:56
  Jenn Pedde: But I think we're gonna be good.
• 16:58
  Jenn Pedde: future. Sorry. I think those soft skills in the future are going to be the biggest differentiator amongst people like. If you can master that, if you can do online and offline and present and public, speak.
• 17:07
  Jenn Pedde: he'll be unstoppable.
• 17:09
  Melinda Lee: Thank you, Jen, and if you're out there you need help you. You let me know.
• 17:16
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah, that's true.
• 17:18
  Melinda Lee: You choose.
• 17:19
  Melinda Lee: The soft skills are important because a lot of the things maybe replace some of these technical skills.
• 17:26
  Melinda Lee: It may be evolve, it may be replaced and evolved into something else. New skills.
• 17:30
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah, maybe we'll see. It's a little.
• 17:32
  Melinda Lee: We'll see. We'll see. We'll touch base. I'll I'll reach out to you in about a year or so. We'll see.
• 17:36
  Melinda Lee: Yeah, that'd be great.
• 17:38
  Melinda Lee: Oh, okay. So, Jen, I'd like to ask you the the final question that I asked all my guests, what is that? One leadership, golden takeaway that you want the audience to remember.
• 17:48
  Jenn Pedde: Yeah, it might not come as any surprise if anyone's been listening for the last few minutes here, but I do believe, without a doubt that leadership is all about investing in people right, that listening to them and understanding them and helping them achieve their goals ultimately helps leadership achieve their goals that the more that you can build a team and create a sense of
• 18:10
  Jenn Pedde: excitement and understanding and trust amongst the people you're working with, the more. You'll see the results that you're looking for in the end, because people will be the ones that get you, even if you're using AI tools. I still think the people you're surrounding yourself with are the people that will get you to where you want to go.
• 18:28
  Melinda Lee: I agree.
• 18:30
  Melinda Lee: Yes, surround yourself with amazing people, just like Jen has. And look, she's she has an amazing work, amazing network of people, your your net worth is your network.
• 18:41
  Jenn Pedde: Absolutely. I love that statement. Yes.
• 18:44
  Melinda Lee: Yeah.
• 18:44
  Melinda Lee: continuously invest in it, even if you're not looking for a job or anything you just have to keep.
• 18:48
  Melinda Lee: Yes.
• 18:48
  Jenn Pedde: Everything warm and everything everything going well.
• 18:52
  Melinda Lee: Right? Right? Get to know your people around you.
• 18:56
  Melinda Lee: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Jen, and thank you. Audience, for being here. I trust that you've got your golden takeaway for today something that's actionable that you can implement right away. And remember, anytime you have an opportunity to communicate with someone. You also have an opportunity to connect and inspire and make a positive difference. Thank you for being here
• 19:18
  Melinda Lee: much love, until next time. I'll see you later.
• 19:22
  Melinda Lee: Bye.