Higher Ed Storytelling University

00;00;00;09 - 00;00;34;18
John Azoni
All right. My guest today is Doctor de Rico Lynch. De Rico has led units across the main campus in both two year regional campuses, also large public HBCUs and Ivies. His work spans higher ed and industry from positioning Brown as the number one pre-college program in the world to leading company wide campaigns at tech giant Salesforce. And starting his own startup today at Cincinnati, he's scaling their mission through strategic engagement and branding, leading U.S. to become the second largest public institution in Ohio.

00;00;35;03 - 00;00;37;19
John Azoni
So, Dr. de Rico, welcome to the show.

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Dérecco Lynch
Thank you. Thank you. It's always funny hearing those intros. I'm like, wait, that did happen. It seems like you're so far away, but glad to be here.

00;00;47;00 - 00;00;47;11
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah.

00;00;47;19 - 00;00;59;09
John Azoni
So I came across you on Alison Herschel's podcast application and started following you on LinkedIn. Maybe, I don't know, a month or so ago and you've posted some bangers since then. And so I, you.

00;00;59;10 - 00;01;00;09
Dérecco Lynch
Know.

00;01;00;09 - 00;01;20;02
John Azoni
I always appreciate people that, you know, higher ed marketing leaders that actually understand how to use LinkedIn because yes, it frustrates me to no end when you have marketing leaders that that are treating LinkedIn still like it's 2010 and they're just like, yes, that I wrote.

00;01;20;02 - 00;01;24;03
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah, go read it. Yeah.

00;01;24;09 - 00;01;43;19
John Azoni
So yeah. So kudos to you on your content for our listeners. Go follow De Rico on LinkedIn because he's a great follow but you let's see you were talking there was one post that I came across it was about the Apple keynote address that yeah, that was by the time this episode comes out, we'll be a few months removed from this.

00;01;43;19 - 00;01;49;26
Dérecco Lynch
So. Right. So we'll be preparing for the new Apple keynote. But yeah.

00;01;50;25 - 00;02;15;12
John Azoni
They're probably they've probably developed a new camera in the phone. The next one's going to have like a fifth camera lens or something, right? But yeah, you had this post about like, you know, connecting higher ed leadership and vision casting to, you know, how they ran this keynote event. And I thought that was really interesting. And there are several points in there that I felt related really well to this podcast that I resonate with.

00;02;15;12 - 00;02;24;14
John Azoni
So I'm excited to talk about that. But before we dive in, you know, so like to start on a tangent. So tell me about something that people might be surprised to know about you.

00;02;25;05 - 00;02;51;06
Dérecco Lynch
Oh, that's a good one. Um, I would say people are really shocked that I am an introvert. All I want to do is be at home, watch Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones and just chill. And I'm very shy, but nobody never thinks that. But I think it's the higher ed type A like higher ed forces you to be type A, especially in recruitment.

00;02;51;06 - 00;02;56;02
Dérecco Lynch
But I would say people really don't know that I am a big shy introvert.

00;02;57;04 - 00;03;07;22
John Azoni
Interesting that I would not expect that Peggy was that, but I'm exactly the same way. I mean, people my parents are shocked that I have I host a podcast. They're like, this kid.

00;03;07;22 - 00;03;08;11
Dérecco Lynch
Can talk.

00;03;14;07 - 00;03;28;29
John Azoni
Because I'm just like, I, I'm the type of person where, like, you could be my long lost brother. We were separated at birth and I recognize you in the grocery store. And I will go to the other end of the store because I don't want to make I don't want to make small talk with you.

00;03;30;16 - 00;03;31;21
Dérecco Lynch
So funny story.

00;03;31;21 - 00;03;42;09
Dérecco Lynch
That's like me. Take it out the trash. If I take out the trash and I see like four of my neighbors are also at it for their garage, I'll be like, okay, I'm just going to wait.

00;03;42;09 - 00;03;55;01
Dérecco Lynch
And so everybody falls off and then I'll go get my trash because I don't throw like have a conversation outside today. So I get it. I get it. Yeah.

00;03;55;06 - 00;04;18;17
John Azoni
There's always the couple, the neighbors I used to live in this neighborhood where there's a lot of old, older generations that have been there for their entire lives. I mean, some of the people are like, born in this house and inherited it. And there is this one old lady that would that lived a few doors down, Janet and God, if she was if she caught you outside, you're done for the next 30 minutes.

00;04;18;17 - 00;04;35;28
John Azoni
She's going to tell you all the same stories that she's told you before. She could tell you how her husband or her her dog was is always dramatic stuff. I have my kids were toddlers at the time and I'd be on a walk with them and she'd be like, Yeah, don't touch my dog. Because he was abused as a as a puppy.

00;04;35;28 - 00;04;38;16
John Azoni
And they used to hit him with a hairbrush. And I'm like.

00;04;38;17 - 00;04;38;29
Dérecco Lynch
Not.

00;04;39;01 - 00;04;40;10
John Azoni
Plugging my kid's ears.

00;04;41;14 - 00;04;47;05
Dérecco Lynch
Why do not listen to this? Yeah. All right.

00;04;47;05 - 00;05;10;17
John Azoni
Well, anyway, so take us to the keynote, you know, So what struck you about it? And for people I don't know, for Android folks, I guess out there that you don't know or care about an Apple keynote Every year, Apple does this big event where they launch their latest tech and kind of show off, you know, what's coming in the next version of the iPhone and whatever else.

00;05;10;17 - 00;05;22;18
John Azoni
So it's always a big to do. So take us to the 2025 keynote here. I think they they released the iPhone 17. What was it that that struck you about this as you were watching it?

00;05;22;27 - 00;05;44;11
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah. So I've always watched the keynotes and of course, my favorite was when Steve Jobs used to do them. I feel like Apple moved in a little bit of its innovation, but hopefully they can get a spark back. But really what I've always appreciated about all of them is they were not coming in and say, This is why Apple is number one.

00;05;44;12 - 00;06;06;18
Dérecco Lynch
These are fun stats, here are fun infographics, but they've always positioned the product as here's how the product will change your life and your day to day. And you really start to noise even out that it's apple and you start to zone in with, Wow, how can I face time? My granny now and talk to my granny more often?

00;06;06;18 - 00;06;32;01
Dérecco Lynch
Or how can I now manage my whole lifestyle in a mobile device on the go? But they really challenge you to see yourself using the product, whether it's the Mac book, whether it's the watch keeping track of your heart rate so that you know you can stay healthy. And if you're not healthy, it calls the cops. But instead of it being so product heavy, it's really about here is how our product can change your life.

00;06;32;08 - 00;06;57;16
Dérecco Lynch
And that's what I hope Institute Trends and more corporations start to adopt. It's less about the stat and we're selfish people. We don't care about your stats. We want to know what is our product going to do for me and how is that going to make my life better? And I just think we've gotten away from that and I'm just happy that Apple still holds on to that mission of here is how the product can change your life.

00;06;57;23 - 00;07;18;08
Dérecco Lynch
Here's how we're going to activate the world. Get the world excited, here's how we're going to roll it out. We're bringing in different people across our company with different expertise to speak to certain things. So you're not just here and one boring person for our 30 minutes talk about a vision. So those are some of the things that I think they're still holding on to.

00;07;18;13 - 00;07;23;14
Dérecco Lynch
And even this year did a good job at. Still bring in the product into your lifestyle.

00;07;23;14 - 00;07;36;12
John Azoni
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love that they do that too. And it's really that's I feel like the whole ethos of Steve Jobs was just like, you know, it's not like what was the thing that people always quote? It's like a thousand songs in your pocket, you know, when.

00;07;36;15 - 00;07;36;22
Dérecco Lynch
You're.

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John Azoni
Young. When the iPod came out.

00;07;38;12 - 00;07;39;14
Dérecco Lynch
I came out, yep.

00;07;39;23 - 00;08;07;09
John Azoni
This is how it's going to be used in higher Ed Loves loves to talk in higher ed jargon about, you know, their internal I was just talking to just just coming out of a meeting with someone just we were just chatting about that very thing where it's like higher ed builds their websites around like their internal structures as if students care academic advisor of dean of this is and what the history is and.

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Dérecco Lynch
Yes.

00;08;09;01 - 00;08;31;01
Dérecco Lynch
And I'm like I am painfully laughing with you because I kid you not. Lastly that's what we were in a meeting about because we're moving away from our website been structure like an org chart and move it into the student journey and to the customer journey. And you would have thought we were like blowing up someone's country by saying We're not going to do this like an old chart.

00;08;31;01 - 00;08;41;06
Dérecco Lynch
But it's funny that again, like you said, people are still just higher. Ed thinks everyone's a part of our world and they don't realize that the disconnect with the consumer.

00;08;41;06 - 00;08;49;24
John Azoni
Yeah, absolutely. Before we get too far into I realize I forgot to set up the actual post that you made so we can kind of frame the conversation.

00;08;49;24 - 00;08;51;00
Dérecco Lynch
So yeah.

00;08;51;00 - 00;09;15;00
John Azoni
So I want you to read the whole thing. But you said, you know, the Apple keynote is today. Higher ed can take notes. Visions don't spread by PDFs and memos they spread by activate means people can feel. And then you listed seven tips. So one don't confuse the The visions anchored to three simple pillars precede the message tie every employee goal to the pillar, host a campaign day, make it interactive and celebrate wins.

00;09;15;00 - 00;09;30;09
John Azoni
So how to just set that up? Because I think like 90% of people just listen to this. Listen to this in the background while they're doing dishes or something. So but anyways, my next question is related to that. What do you what do you mean by activations that people feel? Oh.

00;09;30;18 - 00;09;57;04
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah, So it was really self again. I always saw Steve Jobs do it from a far away standpoint, but I will say working at Salesforce, I really got to see how the community not only activate the internal team but also activate the world. And one thing that I appreciated is we would have a company kickoff and the CEO, Marc Benioff, he would drop his vision for the year.

00;09;57;13 - 00;10;23;16
Dérecco Lynch
He would help us understand his vision for the year. He would tell us why these are big bets and why this is our priority and more importantly, how we're going to change the customers impact in the world. And then from there, there's many activations per each team where now each team is talking about how does your role and the work that you do tie into what our company goal is and really activating everybody around the vision.

00;10;23;16 - 00;10;48;04
Dérecco Lynch
So they're not just reading a PDF and then thrown in and never looking back, but having intentional conversations with what is your role in this big picture? Let's zoom out and then let's zoom all the way in. And then from there, now you cascaded it throughout the whole company. Now let's go activate the community. And it's that same concept of how do we just show up to a park with our staff, with our people, and let's just get people excited.

00;10;48;04 - 00;11;06;18
Dérecco Lynch
They don't even have to buy anything today. But if 100 more people know what Salesforce is that didn't know what it was 5 minutes ago, that's the larger win. And it's activating people, getting them excited. It not only around the vision but around the product. So that's kind of why I say that, like you have to fill it.

00;11;06;18 - 00;11;30;27
Dérecco Lynch
We're tired of just getting a long email that you sent to campus that that's the size of a dissertation about what your vision is and what the priorities are. We have questions we don't understand, and a lot of people and I know presidents hate when I say this, people don't see themselves in the president's vision. And a lot of times people think the president vision is actually disconnected from actually where the institution is headed.

00;11;31;02 - 00;11;41;24
Dérecco Lynch
And I think if we activate people more around the vision instead of just sending an email and a PDF, they'll start to see themselves in it more and they'll start to take a stake in the vision as well.

00;11;42;01 - 00;12;03;17
John Azoni
Yeah, that's great. I saw someone commented on one of my LinkedIn posts that like presidents, it was a long time. We were like, Presidents create a vision that they wish students were. They gosh, I can't remember. I'm butchering it, but it's like no matter what the student actually wants, the president's vision is kind of like what he or she wishes the students would want because that's what makes things in their mind.

00;12;05;12 - 00;12;12;24
Dérecco Lynch
That please ask me and that becomes unfeasible. But that sounds about right.

00;12;12;24 - 00;12;31;27
John Azoni
So on that point, you know, your first point in your post is don't confuse visions. And, you know, talking about the president's a tagline, you know, maybe works for donors, doesn't necessarily work for, you know, students. If you have a successful like student student framework or student success framework, it's not going to resonate. So tell me a little about that.

00;12;31;27 - 00;12;34;18
John Azoni
What have you seen this, you know, go wrong in the real world?

00;12;34;29 - 00;12;35;16
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah.

00;12;35;16 - 00;12;55;29
Dérecco Lynch
So I will be honest and I love you see love dearly. But you see, I think we are a great example. We hired our new president, Dr. Pinto, and his vision is next. Lives here and we love it. It makes sense. But when you think about, you know, my thing is, if I have to ask, what does that mean?

00;12;56;10 - 00;13;20;17
Dérecco Lynch
That means that there's a slight disconnect. And when I think about next lives here to me that is very corporate driven, that is very donor driven, that's very alumni driven. We want everyone to invest in. The next is kind of where my mind goes. But as we've morphed and as we evolved, we started having conversations around what does it mean to have a forever to be a Bearcat cat forever?

00;13;20;17 - 00;13;39;23
Dérecco Lynch
And that evolved into bear cats for life, which is something, regardless of where you fall at, at the institution, whatever role you fall at, you can get behind. Yeah, we're back. I'm in this for life. I'm a bear cat for life. And that's where we saw. We have just started to see momentum shift even this year. The homecoming.

00;13;39;23 - 00;14;04;06
Dérecco Lynch
It's the homecoming thing now because they've adopted it. More offices are adopting it at scale. It looks good. And social media students are there saying hashtag bear cats for life, because it's they they see themselves in it. And I also think we do a horrible job of there's always a president's vision, but what is the framework to actually drive the excellence and drive the student impact?

00;14;04;14 - 00;14;25;00
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah, you can have your vision, but now how do we operationalize it and then how do we get people built into it? I think that's the most important part, again, of seeing themselves in it. But that's that that thing where it's like, like you just said, a president. Yes, we love your tagline, we love your campaign and we love your ideas, but let the marketing.

00;14;25;09 - 00;14;29;05
Dérecco Lynch
Folks do what they're good at.

00;14;29;05 - 00;14;32;19
Dérecco Lynch
Which is marketing to the consumer and all stakeholders across the.

00;14;32;19 - 00;14;33;02
Dérecco Lynch
Board.

00;14;33;19 - 00;14;41;00
John Azoni
If you're a president listening to this, bless your heart, That's that's what you guys say in every meeting. Just that's a great idea. Bless your heart.

00;14;41;00 - 00;14;44;01
Dérecco Lynch
You know, back And so if you're listening to this.

00;14;44;01 - 00;14;46;05
Dérecco Lynch
Meeting, I swear, Mr. President.

00;14;46;05 - 00;14;48;18
Dérecco Lynch
I respect your business. Yeah.

00;14;48;18 - 00;14;51;17
John Azoni
If anybody is hiring, you know, comment down below.

00;14;53;04 - 00;14;56;14
Dérecco Lynch
All right.

00;14;56;14 - 00;15;15;21
John Azoni
But how do you know? I think there's a lot of fear in in challenging the president's vision. And there seems to be just this, like if the president asks for something, we just drop everything and we do it. It doesn't matter if it makes makes sense. You know, I've seen this, you know, with Stark talking to a marketing director from a state school there.

00;15;15;26 - 00;15;37;17
John Azoni
They recently had centralized their their marketing team and she had a videographer that they were doing great work together for that sub school of the university. They plucked the videographer out, put put the videographer on the central team. And now that person just follows the president around to all these dumb engagements that they're speaking out, which make no sense to film.

00;15;37;24 - 00;16;00;03
John Azoni
They're not going to do anything with it. That's just all for posterity. It's just complete waste of a person's salary and their just seems to be that like it, just this reverence, but like too far of reverence for. Yeah, you know, for the president. So how do you navigate those maybe disagreements or with people have different ideas like how do you say this doesn't make sense?

00;16;00;28 - 00;16;19;12
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah, and you're right. I think we have definitely got into an area where there's a lot of yes people, and I don't know that that's fair if that's the climate. But I think we do need more of some more courageous leaders to push back. But what I've been shared on campus even with us is, hey, somebody can tell one AVP.

00;16;19;12 - 00;16;44;16
Dérecco Lynch
No, it's easy to tell one AVP. No, this is not a good idea. But if all 16 of us are aligned and 16 of us walk into a room and say that we're aligned around, this is the best decision. You can't look 16 people in the face and say, this doesn't make sense. So that's what I challenge. Even us internally is like, Hey, before we pitch something up to the top, let's make sure everybody is aligned.

00;16;44;16 - 00;17;01;22
Dérecco Lynch
Who needs to be aligned? Do we have an executive sponsor who's bought into this? What is the faculty voice of this? What's the administration? Have we even reached out to Paki to make sure, even down to the parking, that they have an opinion in this and then let's align aligned. This is what we want to do. Well, let's present up a point of view.

00;17;01;22 - 00;17;23;23
Dérecco Lynch
I think oftentimes we try to come in with our feelings that, you know, Mr. President, this doesn't make sense. It's not cool enough. They don't understand that they need to like, Mr. President, this is how we can drive revenue with a great brand strategy that connects versus your brand strategy that specifically revolves around your orbit. So I just think align helps a lot.

00;17;23;23 - 00;17;33;27
Dérecco Lynch
The more people and the more champions you can create, the easier it is for y'all to push back. But if you go in there solo, it's going to you're going to be a sellout. More than likely.

00;17;33;27 - 00;17;35;06
Dérecco Lynch
You're going to say, Well.

00;17;36;01 - 00;17;54;14
John Azoni
I think about my first job out of college was working for a big nonprofit, and we would do outreach to people who are unhoused in Detroit. And that's where I first learned about the term business case. You have to make a business case for something, and it irritated me to no end because I'd be like, We should do this like this.

00;17;55;00 - 00;18;02;25
John Azoni
We should just do it. And then my boss would be like, Well, make a business case. Like what? I'm like, Well, I don't want to stop and think about this. Like, let's just do it.

00;18;04;12 - 00;18;06;10
Dérecco Lynch
You know? Like, yeah.

00;18;06;25 - 00;18;20;26
John Azoni
So, so naive about and then like, about how corporate structures work, you know? And I would go to like the I.T guy and I would be like, we're all on PCs here. I think we should all be on Macs because this thing has a virus. It doesn't, it doesn't work very well.

00;18;20;26 - 00;18;21;17
Dérecco Lynch
It work.

00;18;21;17 - 00;18;32;29
John Azoni
Yeah. He's like, that's cute. That's cute. You said 122 year old kid is just going to be like, change the entire organization nationwide. Yes, in that case.

00;18;34;16 - 00;18;37;02
Dérecco Lynch
But but we need that drive, though. Even though.

00;18;37;02 - 00;18;40;19
Dérecco Lynch
You might hit a lot of rock walls, that's the drive.

00;18;40;19 - 00;18;42;29
Dérecco Lynch
We need and continue the need.

00;18;43;14 - 00;19;05;00
John Azoni
So they eventually fired me and I could I could see why I think I was pushing back too much. But your next point is, you know, the the anchoring to three simple pillars, you know, when when developing a campaign. And so tell me about that. What happens when the message is too complicated.

00;19;05;10 - 00;19;27;11
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah, and I forget what the research is, but it's proven that humans we learn and memorize things in threes. If there's three things, it's easy when you make a decision. That's one thing I even use in my decision matrix. Any time I go make a decision, proposed the decision up to my VP, I give them three options because people just like things in threes, because it's easy to remember.

00;19;27;20 - 00;19;33;02
Dérecco Lynch
And it's that same concept of why do you have 14 pillars? We don't need 14 pillars.

00;19;33;02 - 00;19;37;17
Dérecco Lynch
Big Guy would be like, No one's going to remember.

00;19;37;26 - 00;20;02;09
Dérecco Lynch
Oh, we have our capital investment, then we have our this and we have our that. And that's what why I think visions get lost. Because if I'm looking at four pillars and I don't see a word or even a pillar that resonates with the work I do, I'm already not bought into anything that you're doing because now you're forcing my brain to go work and figure it out and to dive deeper into what it is and try to find my way.

00;20;02;09 - 00;20;27;03
Dérecco Lynch
And it's kind of like not, you know, I'm good, sounds cute. Good for them. But if you get anchored in those three pillars that really are inclusive to all of your audiences, that regardless if you're talking internally or externally, people can connect, I think you'll see more alignment and I think you'll see it land better. And then as you're making business cases, you can always tie it back to a certain pillar.

00;20;27;03 - 00;20;47;11
Dérecco Lynch
Well, if our pillar is I, this is my business case and I'm tying it back to the pillar of our mission, or this is our enrollment pillar. I'm tying this back to our Roman pillar. But now everyone is starting to memorize the pillars, because now they're tying our work to it. They're arguing for more funding around it. And then your external stakeholders, they get it too.

00;20;47;11 - 00;20;52;04
Dérecco Lynch
If you were to say it to them, they understand that even though they're not internal to the college.

00;20;52;11 - 00;21;06;24
John Azoni
Yeah. So your three pillars are creating. You see fans, employee success, College and community engagement. Just unpack those briefly for me and then I want to talk a little more specifically about creating U.S. fans. But but tell me, high level. But yeah, three pillars.

00;21;07;06 - 00;21;25;17
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah, absolutely. So I'll start with the last one, and that's where it will end with creating U.S. fans a little bit. So when I first came in, I went on a listening tour and one of the things that I heard was, Hey, Centro admissions, you all are not good at partnering like y'all do. Things got on, bring us along.

00;21;25;17 - 00;21;47;13
Dérecco Lynch
We're always been told what to do. The community felt that way, the colleges felt that way. So I said, Our priority is collaboration because we can exist without the academic colleges and our campus partners and the community. So we need to come up with an engagement strategy for engaging with these stakeholders. So that was number one. And then employee success.

00;21;47;23 - 00;22;09;27
Dérecco Lynch
I am obsessed with creating a high performing culture and creating a utopia. It's like I'm a millennial, I'm in a leadership role. We can make this a utopia. This does not have to be a division that people hate coming to and having to work at, but like, let's zone in on how do we make people happy? Because if people are happy, they do great work.

00;22;09;27 - 00;22;31;19
Dérecco Lynch
So stop trying to force them to do great work and focus in on their experience. So I made it a priority. I put funding behind it. I hired a chief of staff. We're doing enablement, but culture is our number one priority. And my tagline is, I want to make this the number one place to work. So your question around create in the U.S. Fan is sort of where did that originate and where did that come from?

00;22;31;29 - 00;23;02;17
Dérecco Lynch
It's because working with companies like Netflix and Disney and Google and even the Olympics, I got to get under their hood around fan engagement and I became super obsessed with like, how is Cinderella so popular? All these generations later? People still love Cinderella, and Disney just makes you happy. If you hear the word you smell. And even their experience, their customer service, and it's because they're obsessed with creating fans.

00;23;02;17 - 00;23;20;24
Dérecco Lynch
It's not about someone simply just buying a product. It's about how do you make people fall in love with your brand? And when I was at you, I was hearing the term We want to be one, you see, Yeah, we have three campuses, but we're one, you see, we're one, you see. And I'm like, Well, what does that really mean?

00;23;21;02 - 00;23;42;12
Dérecco Lynch
And depending on who you ask, someone would say, it means restaurant engagement. How do how do we better engage with our restaurants that are local to campus? Or if you asked an event person, they would say it means that when we market, we want to make sure everybody knows about all three campuses. If you ask faculty, they would say, We just want people to know about our research.

00;23;42;24 - 00;24;06;22
Dérecco Lynch
I was like, We're creating fans. We don't. It's not just about enrollment. If we can get more people to talk about you see tweet about you see light research, screenshots, stuff you're creating fans. And even if they never enroll, a fellow by a T-shirt, a fan will tell your story to somebody who doesn't even know your story. And now you're building brand affinity at scale.

00;24;06;27 - 00;24;27;01
Dérecco Lynch
So that by the time that people do in a row and become an alumni, they're given money. I always give this example. When I graduated from Marshall University, they started building brand affinity and me when I was in the third grade. So I have this little ID picture that I even cut out, made me a martial ID. So from the third grade, I always knew I was going to go to Marshall.

00;24;27;09 - 00;24;36;22
Dérecco Lynch
My experience was also they built loyalty to the point when I graduated and was only making $20,000 a year, I was sending these idiots $1,000 a month.

00;24;36;22 - 00;24;38;26
Dérecco Lynch
And it's because of my obsession.

00;24;39;21 - 00;24;59;15
Dérecco Lynch
With like, Yeah, you want me to support like the next person that to have a great experience. Absolutely. Even though I don't have any money, I want to send you my money because that's how engaged I am. And I had that vision here at UC. I just want to create people that love UC regardless of day, enroll, don't enroll.

00;24;59;15 - 00;25;11;03
Dérecco Lynch
Let's get people excited about our brand and the work that we're doing and let's lead to that. And by the ROIC, short term and long term will be increased enrollment or revenue. Just in general.

00;25;11;14 - 00;25;15;18
John Azoni
How did they engage you in the third grade? Like what does that look like?

00;25;15;18 - 00;25;41;24
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah, so they sent one. They would always come to like elementary schools and drop off like gear, just random gear to give to students in the elementary school. So we would have little heard like little Marshall stickers. We had the her teddy bears that they would give us. And again, it's like a third grader seeing that logo so early in the year, continuously seeing that logo.

00;25;41;24 - 00;26;04;26
Dérecco Lynch
And then by the time I get to middle school, they're still come in and engage in whether it's our hosted hosting, you know, athletic game for sixth graders, Marshall University's whole athletic game or they're doing professional development with the high school counselors. And you just see all these people dressed up in green. They're putting it in front of your face and subtle ways that you don't even realize how you're getting connected.

00;26;04;26 - 00;26;22;26
Dérecco Lynch
And again, by the time I became got to high school, I applied everywhere across the U.S., like and I was like, you know what? I'm going to apply everywhere. But because Marshall had that brand affinity, it didn't matter. Even though I got accepted everywhere, I was like, Yeah, I'm going to Huntington, West Virginia. I'm just going to.

00;26;22;26 - 00;26;23;26
Dérecco Lynch
Go out there.

00;26;24;03 - 00;26;44;24
Dérecco Lynch
I'm going to go down to Marshall, and it is what it is. So and we're also starting to get into that as well. What our colleges, a multi generation recruitment plan, we have to just stop focus and join a four grade and up. How do we start to recruit kindergarten literally even if it is just a bear cat buddy, slingshot?

00;26;44;24 - 00;26;45;14
Dérecco Lynch
I don't know.

00;26;45;20 - 00;26;46;26
Dérecco Lynch
Just give them something.

00;26;46;26 - 00;26;53;16
Dérecco Lynch
That has the bear cub fall on it so that they can start to recognize the logo and the experience.

00;26;53;24 - 00;26;56;26
John Azoni
You guys need to sponsor a little booboo. Have you seen this?

00;26;58;06 - 00;27;01;03
Dérecco Lynch
Have you see? I'm writing that down. Okay, don't.

00;27;01;03 - 00;27;05;17
Dérecco Lynch
Play with me, because I'll.

00;27;05;17 - 00;27;28;29
John Azoni
Yeah, my my daughter got invited going, I don't know, next weekend or a couple of weeks to I love Boo-Boo birthday party for her friend and everyone's going to get a little booboo in their little goodie bag and she's so she has told everybody like she cannot wait for this party. And she's like, guess what? Marlo's mom is going to give us a look because they're like, Really?

00;27;28;29 - 00;27;35;21
John Azoni
They're like, I don't know, 70 bucks or something. Yes. Like, yeah, they're the the modern Beanie Baby, you know?

00;27;35;21 - 00;27;40;25
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah, Yeah. It's a it's a serious matter. What, though.

00;27;40;25 - 00;27;42;26
Dérecco Lynch
It's the new Prada bag for.

00;27;42;26 - 00;27;45;18
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah. For the kids for sure.

00;27;46;04 - 00;28;02;06
John Azoni
And one of the things that I thought was cool when I was little, I discovered you on the application podcast you had told Alison about, like, you're like, going around the town and asking people if they had what was the question, if they had heard of you see, or if they were a fan of you see? Tell me tell me about that.

00;28;02;06 - 00;28;03;12
John Azoni
Because I thought that was a good idea.

00;28;03;20 - 00;28;26;29
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah. So I sold my car like back in 2019, and I've been Uber since. So within my first three months of being here, I was probably in at least 200 Ubers between May to August. And I would always ask, Hey, what do you know about you see? And I would always say nothing, but literally every, every single driver.

00;28;27;05 - 00;28;47;16
Dérecco Lynch
And then when they would drop me off AC campus, they would be like, Oh, this is really a college like, y'all are DA doing some work over here. Like, how can I learn more? So I went back to the institution and I said, I've done live customer research every day for 60 days about this city, not been familiar with our brand.

00;28;47;16 - 00;29;08;10
Dérecco Lynch
And I already felt that way because I've had people tell me they've came to Cincinnati for the Bengals game and the Reds game. FC Cincinnati, but they never knew the University of Cincinnati was actually located in Cincinnati. And when you get off the airplane and you look in the Cincinnati airport, we're nowhere. It's all Ohio State and Miami.

00;29;08;15 - 00;29;11;01
Dérecco Lynch
I'm like, Guys, how are we.

00;29;11;17 - 00;29;12;06
Dérecco Lynch
Supposed to.

00;29;12;07 - 00;29;32;24
Dérecco Lynch
Literally have the city in our institution? Name? Well, we're not president. No. Where throughout the community. And that's because, again, an echo chamber. Yeah, we're growing. That doesn't mean the community is growing with us. And that's what people would say, like, hey, you see is not attainable. And I'm like, that's not true. We're access driven school, we are attainable.

00;29;33;00 - 00;29;49;28
Dérecco Lynch
And that's what led to the big campaign that me and Allison was talking about was the own in our city initiative is I aligned a couple of apps across the board. We aligned and we went to our chiefs and we said, Hey, we want to own this city and this is how we want to own it. We want to redo the airport.

00;29;49;28 - 00;30;12;18
Dérecco Lynch
We want to come down, do more branding and more activations in the city. We want this off campus more, get behind this because we're losing our brand positioning. If we no other institutions have regional recruiters living in Cincinnati, we need to make sure no matter what road someone walks down, the bricks better be ready until they get to.

00;30;12;18 - 00;30;14;17
Dérecco Lynch
Dayton is kind of like my mission.

00;30;15;11 - 00;30;32;13
John Azoni
That's awesome. I love that. Yeah. So I want to skip down to your point about hosting a campaign day, getting back to our Apple event here, you talk about having your own Apple event. What does that look like for you see, what was the energy like when you've implemented that?

00;30;32;21 - 00;30;51;12
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah. So really the main process behind it was how do we have our own version of a company kickoff? And what I mean by that is it's the launch of a new recruitment cycle, which in corporate terms it's the launch of a new cell cycle. So the second part was like, well, what is our product and what are the big staples?

00;30;51;18 - 00;31;16;20
Dérecco Lynch
Same concept for corporate, What are our big bets that we need the company to know to go run? Also, the conversation was how do we get people excited about the work? They don't want to hear about the demographic cliff. They don't want to hear about what's going on. Like, let's talk about impact. Let's talk about how they can become champions in helping us drive enrollment and drive student success.

00;31;16;20 - 00;31;34;09
Dérecco Lynch
So what we did was we brought together a couple, quite a few offices similar to Apple. We brought all the different experts and we said, these are all the hot topics that we need to make sure the campus understands. We're going to host a big event. We're going to provide them with breakfast and lunch because, you know, everyone loves free food.

00;31;34;19 - 00;31;59;20
Dérecco Lynch
And we're just going to invite the whole campus and we're going to pretty much just be transparent. Here's where we're at, here's where we're going. We had our VP. He released his vision. We had financial aid to the success, the registrar's office, academic advising, institutional research. Everybody in this keynote style is release and sort of the high priority topics that are important for the campus to know and to get behind.

00;31;59;27 - 00;32;26;08
Dérecco Lynch
And we do a panel where the whole campus can access questions about how can they be champions, and then as our main keynote, we actually brought in the Chamber of Commerce that presented on how the University of Cincinnati is driving economic impact for the city of Cincinnati and how our institution has changed the face of Cincinnati. So for them to be able to hear that they're excited and they're engaged, we gave them resources as well.

00;32;26;08 - 00;32;45;23
Dérecco Lynch
While they're there, like, here are all the resources you need, here are all the important dates. And then we did optional sessions as well. So once the main event was over, you could all learn how to be a recruiter. You can go learn what Bearcats for Life means. You could go learn what credit prior to credit learned plus means based off of your interest.

00;32;45;23 - 00;33;09;04
Dérecco Lynch
So really this conference our company roll off company kickoff also professional development because people are learning and now they get it right and even from that they were excited. We've been invited some more departmental meetings to present about how can my office or my department recruit better? How can we use their cash for life better? How can we market better?

00;33;09;11 - 00;33;23;10
Dérecco Lynch
Can you talk to me more about the scholarship gaps? You see, but now that we've brought them into our work, their actively engage in with our work versus sending out a long email saying, Here's our recruitment plan for the year, let us know if you have any questions.

00;33;23;25 - 00;33;43;01
John Azoni
Yeah, that's cool. That's I mean, that seems like such a big investment. I mean, event planning is, you know, it's a big thing, but I love that format of like, you know, I think when when people can learn from each other, there's like just so much so much of a richer work experience that that happens. Yes, you can kind of expand your own knowledge of things.

00;33;43;01 - 00;34;04;09
John Azoni
I used to work for a company, video production company, and we'd have a retreat every year and they would ask us each to bring you have to present on something you'd have like 20 years minutes to present something so everyone would pick something. I think. I think I presented on like bad font choices, like, here's all the fonts, I'm sick of seeing.

00;34;07;05 - 00;34;07;29
Dérecco Lynch
You out somebody.

00;34;07;29 - 00;34;09;14
Dérecco Lynch
Else's wine. What's one item.

00;34;09;14 - 00;34;10;22
Dérecco Lynch
That you're sick of? See.

00;34;11;04 - 00;34;40;10
John Azoni
I see papyrus everywhere, and I know it's the cliche because there's like a whole SNL skit about it. There's a city in Michigan called Saugatuck, and it's kind of like Norther Northwest, sort of Michigan and it's this little coastal town right on the water. And I swear, it's like it's like all these, like boomers moved into this town and started little crafting and all were like, got together and like, this is the font we're using.

00;34;40;10 - 00;34;44;03
John Azoni
This is the Saugatuck five. It's all papyrus.

00;34;44;23 - 00;34;45;10
Dérecco Lynch
It's like.

00;34;45;20 - 00;34;49;00
John Azoni
Papyrus everywhere.

00;34;49;00 - 00;34;50;25
Dérecco Lynch
That's the letter. It's there.

00;34;51;16 - 00;35;03;02
John Azoni
So yeah. And you know, I see this multiple. There's a place by my house just at the corner. It's like a bakery and. Their entire sign outside is Comic Sans, and I'm like.

00;35;03;17 - 00;35;03;20
Dérecco Lynch
A.

00;35;03;27 - 00;35;11;01
John Azoni
Seriously, I like those are like piracy comics and sort of like if you have a piece you know, that everyone follows.

00;35;11;19 - 00;35;12;00
Dérecco Lynch
Yes.

00;35;12;10 - 00;35;20;25
Dérecco Lynch
I'm curious, have you ever seen the Instagram skits of the girl who acts like all the fights that are arguing in a group together?

00;35;21;01 - 00;35;22;25
John Azoni
Yes, I saw. I did see that.

00;35;23;05 - 00;35;28;21
Dérecco Lynch
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was always of crack. Because it's funny. That's like, see.

00;35;28;28 - 00;35;34;12
Dérecco Lynch
The personality of the fire play out on TV. But that's what this was kind of reminded me of.

00;35;34;27 - 00;35;41;19
John Azoni
Yeah, I think she did another skit, which was hilarious to me of like, what happens when you press enter in a Word document and.

00;35;41;19 - 00;35;44;03
Dérecco Lynch
Like, the whole thing just explodes.

00;35;45;07 - 00;36;09;18
John Azoni
It's like your format is all gone. So yeah, big campaign. Love that. The last point I wanted to mention was you talk in your post about building an interactive story hub, and I was doing some digging on UCS website and came across what I think it is that you're talking about. But this really got me interested. Like how have you guys implemented this story?

00;36;09;18 - 00;36;15;00
John Azoni
Hub What is the hope for, you know, getting students to the site, that kind of stuff?

00;36;15;08 - 00;36;21;19
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah. So actually the Story Hub, hopefully you didn't get access to it because it should be behind. So.

00;36;22;06 - 00;36;25;11
Dérecco Lynch
Oh, but the story Hub is actually it's.

00;36;25;11 - 00;37;08;06
Dérecco Lynch
Internal to all faculty and staff. And really the concept was, Hey, now we're doing the activation. Do we end this activation with handing them all a PDF of a printed out recruitment plan, all of our documents, or do we create something that lives that they can go instantly engage with in this moment? So what we did was we created an interactive recruitment plan and we brought in the colleges, we brought in Campus Partners, and we designed this interactive sort of landing page that can walk anybody through all parts of what it means to recruit a new student on board, a new student, get them and see it's live data.

00;37;08;14 - 00;37;26;26
Dérecco Lynch
So depending on your role, you can see the live data that you need to make decisions. You can see why data made some of our decisions that we made as well. So again, people can sort of go through it themselves and fill it and we can update it in real time and people can comment, they can like it, they can interact.

00;37;26;26 - 00;37;47;03
Dérecco Lynch
But now the plan isn't just living on someone's shelf, but it's a live. If we have updates, we can go tell that story when we want to celebrate a student, a milestone we're doing it all with in that interactive space so that everyone can see it. And I think like the last time I looked, we had had over like 1500 plus interactions.

00;37;47;03 - 00;38;07;09
Dérecco Lynch
So not even just views, but people who are playing with the data, downloading it faculty loved it as well because they're like, Thank you for putting this. And simple terms for someone who doesn't work in recruitment. We understand the vision. We get it. We know why you're how you're making data driven decisions. We're seeing how we're trending in real time.

00;38;07;14 - 00;38;26;22
Dérecco Lynch
And that was another thing. I am very different probably from all of my enrollment management counterparts. I say give everybody the damn data. I don't care what story they I don't care what they walk away, think and show them what we're looking at and provide context around. This is what we're looking at. But why do we need to hide it?

00;38;26;29 - 00;38;44;08
Dérecco Lynch
If they have a question, they'll come in access. If something's in the red, they'll come and access. I don't, you know, give people the benefit of the doubt. We don't have to be the gatekeepers of data. And that was very new for this campus as well, because admissions would not give you nothing. You know, they always would be like, hey, we're up by 5%.

00;38;44;08 - 00;39;02;25
Dérecco Lynch
We're down about 5%. That's as much as you get. Or now they can see how we're trending on our targets where recruiters are visiting the heat map, whites up if we're active there right now, they're seeing where we're engaged in alumni. It's videos as well. Each director went and did a vision video, so you don't even got to read the play.

00;39;03;03 - 00;39;24;17
Dérecco Lynch
You can watch a five minute video. We kept the visions under 5 minutes as well. So like coming up what all of these different ways so that regardless of what type of learner you are or where you sit at institution, there is a way for you to engage with this work. And we want you to engage with this work because we need you to help us accomplishing roles.

00;39;24;17 - 00;39;25;20
John Azoni
So that's all internal?

00;39;25;26 - 00;39;29;18
Dérecco Lynch
Yup. So it's all internal. Okay, cool. That's all. I was like, I hope you didn't see.

00;39;30;00 - 00;39;38;06
John Azoni
No, I googled the University of Cincinnati Story Hub and the first page that pops up is just one that said student story. So this is something different.

00;39;38;06 - 00;39;39;22
Dérecco Lynch
It's okay. But now I'm.

00;39;39;22 - 00;39;43;29
Dérecco Lynch
Curious. Look how much I want to go check it.

00;39;43;29 - 00;40;08;08
John Azoni
It actually led me down a rabbit hole because let's see the one if you go on there and it says video, what is co-op really like beyond the classroom with five real U.S. students around the country? And then you had these five little profiles and each one, it's just like a little simple write up and then each one has their own like day in the life Instagram work done by that student.

00;40;08;12 - 00;40;38;04
John Azoni
And it's a collaborative post between between U.S. and that students profile. So you get both. I was like, this is a cool like, this is a cool format because I'm like, you're offloading the video on to the student. It's very authentic. You don't have to write this huge long article and just like Quick hits, like if I just want to see like, Oh, and you've structured it like, okay, beyond the classroom computer science, and then you go down, it's like architecture, and then there's engineering.

00;40;38;09 - 00;40;57;11
John Azoni
It's like and you just get a little snippet day in the life. I've been saying to schools, maybe I don't say it enough, but I think every department should have at least one day in the life, like get one student that likes to create content and pay them to do a day life, you know, and then post it on the landing page or something.

00;40;57;13 - 00;40;57;26
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah.

00;40;58;04 - 00;41;10;10
Dérecco Lynch
And I've been we're moving. I think I'll finally have us board in because we have so many influencers, like literally new students that are coming, that are in our funnel, who have more followers than the institution.

00;41;10;20 - 00;41;11;03
Dérecco Lynch
And.

00;41;11;16 - 00;41;20;01
Dérecco Lynch
Across all of its social media. But I'm like, Y'all, let's just repurpose their energy instead of them paying off of buildings. Let's use.

00;41;20;01 - 00;41;22;19
Dérecco Lynch
That. So to promote a institution.

00;41;22;19 - 00;41;41;11
Dérecco Lynch
Like Let's lean in. So the following So we're going to be start getting real creative as well of like what is a day in the life of applying or just, you know, doing pop ups where we're seeing students apply on the spot, but also just say like, tell us what you're thinking right now. Like what emotions are you feeling in this moment?

00;41;41;11 - 00;42;05;21
Dérecco Lynch
But building and curating the content, the peer to peer content, which is also what we're doing, we're piloting that with our recruitment team as well. So we pay high school students to actually recruit for us in their high schools now. So it's that same concept of like pay the influencer, Well, let's just pay the fan that's in the high school and they know all the people, like just let them go recruit.

00;42;06;01 - 00;42;08;22
Dérecco Lynch
So that's been really work and good for us. Also.

00;42;09;02 - 00;42;13;00
John Azoni
They like going like classroom or classroom, like Jehovah's Witnesses, just like knocking on.

00;42;13;00 - 00;42;22;29
Dérecco Lynch
Doors for every host beyond knocking on the classrooms for they they.

00;42;23;00 - 00;42;41;22
Dérecco Lynch
Also hosts programing twice a month for their peers. It's hard to get them excited about going to you see, answering questions. We train them throughout the summer. We train them as our rising seniors and then they come here for three weeks, pretty much become a recruiter at three weeks. And then we're like, Go out there all these different cities, they all have a target.

00;42;41;27 - 00;42;44;01
Dérecco Lynch
So no one, relax, We're not pressured.

00;42;44;18 - 00;42;49;16
Dérecco Lynch
High. It's to hit a target. Well, that's.

00;42;49;16 - 00;43;17;17
John Azoni
Cool. That's a great idea. That's a great way to use, you know, because the people respond to other their peers. I mean, obviously it's perfect, so that's great. That's a really cool idea. Lastly, celebrate the wins is your last point on this post. That's one thing that, you know, Apple does very well. They talk about where they been and kind of acknowledging that and and the success of that and before they talk about where they're going, how has U.S. gone about communicating the momentum you're building to other stakeholders and why is that important?

00;43;17;26 - 00;43;42;22
Dérecco Lynch
Yes, our team, my senior leadership team, we actually have a campus communication strategy. So around who communicates what, when and to who and what do we communicate. And we all have a cadence as well. So really a part of my communication strategy when I'm sending out a blast to the campus Monthly just around, hey, celebrate in this department because they did X, Y, and Z.

00;43;42;23 - 00;44;07;12
Dérecco Lynch
Hey, I'm celebrating this faculty because they showed off their research at a new student event. Here's the milestone that we're hitting so far. But we're literally all we're communicating throughout the full funnel about the wins that we're seeing that, you know, we do partner shoutouts now where we spotlight a partner and how this partner is driving impact. And then even internally, we've gamified it more.

00;44;07;12 - 00;44;34;01
Dérecco Lynch
It's like, yes, it's like, let's celebrate. Even though you feel like you got somebody a cup of coffee, ring the bell, like that person's life is a lot better. And it's funny because I was telling my staff and I don't know why I did this, but the first day of class and I wasn't even thinking that it was the first day of class, but I went outside to go meditate and I, of course, I had on my polo and like 16 freshmen came up to me and were like, Hey, we're loss.

00;44;34;11 - 00;44;38;07
Dérecco Lynch
And I was like, Oh shit, I'm supposed to be meditating right now, but I'm loss.

00;44;38;07 - 00;44;39;20
Dérecco Lynch
To this campus is huge.

00;44;40;02 - 00;45;03;12
Dérecco Lynch
But in that moment it became about them and me helping them. And I walked all of them, you know, to their classes. We found our classes together. I got an extended campus tour, so I learned about some new places on campus. But to me that was the win for the day. If I could help 16 people by just getting them to their classroom, which is going to help them be better people, let's celebrate that win.

00;45;03;12 - 00;45;29;01
Dérecco Lynch
So really just getting people in the mindset of let's win, let's celebrate it, but let's communicate to all stakeholders. So our CRM team, they communicate to CRM folks they campus are academic college team. They're talking to the colleges I manage in up to the whole campus and make it for the VP, and the cabinet knows the wins. But we have we're treating campus like there are consumer when it comes to communication.

00;45;29;09 - 00;45;53;23
Dérecco Lynch
And it's not just an update philosophy, but it's really what behavior are we trying to drive and how are we intent people closer to our goals? And then lastly, celebrating the win, operationalize and manifest is the vision, because now people are like. Yes, you see fans for the win. Yes. Employee success for the land, you know, so like now they're shouting out your pillars and it's a part of that.

00;45;53;23 - 00;46;05;11
Dérecco Lynch
Like let them celebrate people in the vision. And the more we celebrate people, the more they'll continue to strive and let people run so they can go win and have something to celebrate as well.

00;46;05;11 - 00;46;22;03
John Azoni
Because if you don't I mean, if you don't stop and celebrate how far you've come, I think it can just be lead to just burnout. I mean, I've been in, you know, previous job where, you know, we would just be hustling on deadlines and project after project and the like. You know, even the owner of the company was was hustle, too.

00;46;22;03 - 00;46;48;21
John Azoni
So everyone's just got their heads down. And I told my bosses, like at some point we should like, come up for air and like, be like, hey, like, go grab a drink or something and be like, Hey, yeah, we did it. You know, we that was we got through that one tough client or whatever it is, because it's like when you don't pay attention, when you don't make celebrating the wins intentional, then the reward everyone gets for trying really hard is just the next thing on a never ending task list.

00;46;49;04 - 00;46;50;29
Dérecco Lynch
Yes, seriously.

00;46;51;09 - 00;47;19;06
Dérecco Lynch
And another way to operationalize it just as an idea is we have a standardized one on one agenda template for our division. And the first the way every first meeting starts with, well, what are the three wins that your team has witnessed today or just this week? And that also has helped us make sure we're managing up, you know, because if you're telling your supervisor the win and then they're about to come meet with me and I'm asking, well, tell me what the winners are.

00;47;19;06 - 00;47;43;14
Dérecco Lynch
So now I know and even in the spaces I'm in again, shout in people out. So they'll come to an event and the vice provost is like, I want to give a shout out to operations. And they're like, I didn't know. He knew that I did that thing. And it's like, Yeah, he knows because we're making sure we're managing up so everybody knows and creating space to talk about wins intentionally so that it's not an afterthought.

00;47;43;20 - 00;47;52;00
John Azoni
That's awesome. I love that. Yeah. And just getting everyone excited and you know, when someone sees their name, you know, and it's like, Ooh, I want to do that again, you know?

00;47;52;00 - 00;47;52;10
Dérecco Lynch
Yup.

00;47;53;20 - 00;48;01;22
John Azoni
So what would be I mean, just give us a final, final thought. Put a bow on and this post that you made that got you a spot on this show.

00;48;01;22 - 00;48;03;16
Dérecco Lynch
Which doesn't.

00;48;03;16 - 00;48;04;14
John Azoni
Mean much, but.

00;48;05;00 - 00;48;07;02
Dérecco Lynch
It means alive. It's a win.

00;48;07;12 - 00;48;08;27
Dérecco Lynch
I will celebrate.

00;48;08;27 - 00;48;09;15
Dérecco Lynch
This when.

00;48;11;16 - 00;48;34;22
Dérecco Lynch
I think what I'm stressing and I even share this yesterday. What makes me nervous is and this is tough for people to swallow, but if industry decided tomorrow there was no longer value to higher ed, each corporation could go to market overnight. And still our students and skill our students out and we would be looking how we're looking at shutting down.

00;48;34;29 - 00;49;05;15
Dérecco Lynch
So I do think higher ed, you know, when I think about Colgate, COVID disrupted, that was a market disruption. I think we're at another education disruption now. And I know a lot of people are like, no, we've seen this before. It's all going to get better. It's not this is a competitive market. And if we don't start to adopt some of the plays from corporations and from industry, even around partnership engagement, I think institutions are going to start to see their doors shut.

00;49;05;21 - 00;49;26;22
Dérecco Lynch
So as creative as you can just get, step out of your box, We're not saying kill tradition, we're just saying reimagine tradition just just a little bit. Even if it's 1% of a re-imagine, let people be creative. Go after your market. You can't be passive. We got to be aggressive and we got to get creative with how we're going after this market also.

00;49;27;00 - 00;49;35;10
Dérecco Lynch
So that's sort of like my state that I'm holding everywhere. I'm like, We are. We got to win this market collectively or we're going to lose.

00;49;35;16 - 00;49;45;12
John Azoni
That's awesome. Yeah, I love your energy. That's been such a fun, fun conversation. Where can people connect with you if they want to? Yeah, they want to follow your LinkedIn content or whatever else.

00;49;46;02 - 00;50;04;03
Dérecco Lynch
Yeah. So they can follow me on LinkedIn or they can Google the excellence factory dot com as well. And that's where we talk about a lot of the work that we do at my startup, which is all about, as you see, getting people to be action bias. We have the ideas. It's the action and alignment where most ideas fall.

00;50;04;10 - 00;50;08;01
Dérecco Lynch
So I love this type of work and anybody who has a new idea, let's start.

00;50;08;21 - 00;50;14;02
John Azoni
Awesome. Okay, I'll check that out after this episode. Well, thanks for being here, man. It's great. Great to have you.

00;50;14;13 - 00;50;15;00
Dérecco Lynch
Thank you.