November 23, 2025 • 36 mins
What if technology could actually give you back 20% of your workday instead of creating more busywork? In this illuminating conversation with Michael Toguchi, we explore how strategic technology solutions are transforming higher education institutions and nonprofits.
Whether you're an educator, administrator, or technology professional interested in higher education, this episode provides practical insights on harnessing technology to create more efficient, effective, and student-centered educational experiences. Join us to discover how the right technological approach can transform frustration into empowerment.
🔗 Website and Social Links:
Please visit Michael Toguchi’s website and social media links below.
Join PodMatch!Use the link to join PodMatch, a place for hosts and guests to connect.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
💟 Designing with Love + allows you to support the show by keeping the mic on and the ideas flowing. Click on the link above to provide your support.
☕ Buy Me a Coffee is another way you can support the show, either as a one-time gift or through a monthly subscription.
🗣️ Want to be a guest on Designing with Love? Send Jackie Pelegrin a message on PodMatch, here: Be a guest on the show
🌐 Check out the show's website here: Designing with Love
📱 Send a text to the show by clicking the Send Jackie a Text link above.
👍🏼 Please make sure to like and share this episode with others. Here's to great learning!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jackie Pelegrin (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Designing with
Love podcast.
I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you
information, tips, and tricks asan instructional designer.
Hello instructional designersand educators, welcome to
Episode 66 of the Designing withLove podcast.
I'm thrilled to have MichaelToguchi, the Chief Strategy
(00:24):
Officer at Orchestrate, with metoday.
Welcome, Michael.
Michael Toguchi (00:28):
Hi, jackie, thanks, Glad to be here.
Jackie Pelegrin (00:31):
Thank you so much.
I'm so glad we got to getmatched on PodMatch and we have
so much in common, so I'm reallylooking forward to digging in
and getting started.
So, to start, can you tell us alittle bit about yourself and
share what inspired you to focuson helping higher education
institutions and nonprofits?
Michael Toguchi (00:47):
Yeah, as you mentioned, Mike Taguchi, I'm a
chief strategy officer at adigital company.
We have a platform calledOrchestrate that we've had for
over 20 years in the higher edand nonprofit space.
Space developed it, workedreally hard on it to make it
something that empowers folks,that allows them to focus on
(01:08):
impactful work rather thanmanual tasks and you know
paperwork, spreadsheets andother things that can be
frustrating to them, and youknow from our side our company
being a digital company we werearound when folks were there
weren't even really websites andit went from not having
websites to trying to figure outhow to make better websites, to
(01:29):
then implementing tools andprocesses that really affect the
work, create workflows,essentially, since technology is
infused and embedded ineverything that all of these
groups are working through andfrom our end.
We just saw so manyorganizations we started in the
Virginia DC area.
There are many associations,nonprofits with great missions
(01:53):
and universities that we wereconnected with where there was
just so much struggle tounderstand technology, to try
and keep up with trends, to tryand build processes, and that
just wasn't really theirwheelhouse and we felt like we
could take a mission that wascentered around not just
technology but creative problemsolving and strategy and give
(02:16):
folks the tools that they needfor both the short term but also
kind of help them guide andcreate roadmaps for the long
term so that they know what'scoming, and that really allowed
them to focus on, you know,whether it's a K-12 group that
is working with disabledstudents and needs accessibility
(02:37):
help, whether it's a universitythat's running a two or three
person program and they areunderwater trying to provide
services to students, or anonprofit that needs help
creating fundraising options sothat they can get grants and do
the work that they want to do.
That was where our emphasis hasbeen for the last couple of
(02:58):
decades.
Obviously, it's always anexciting time in technology.
Things are constantly shifting,tectonic shifts in the way
things are going, and so that'swhere we're at for myself
personally, just being able toprovide that level of expertise
(03:18):
and, as I've mentioned in otherplaces, we don't work in just
singular, you know one kind ofproject we don't say hey, we're
just.
You know just healthcare orjust nonprofit or just any you
know any singular vertical.
For our end, we're looking forgroups that are good partners,
groups that we can invest ourtime in to help them be
impactful and being able to seethe fruits of those labors.
(03:41):
Being able to solve differentkinds of problems and meet
different kinds of challengesacross the spectrum meant that
you know no day is going to bethe same.
We're not punching a clock.
We're always looking atdifferent kinds of problems for
people that want to domeaningful work from our end to
be able to help them solve thosechallenges, to see their
(04:06):
workflows work, see theirefficiencies increase and then
just see them achieve theirgoals.
Jackie Pelegrin (04:13):
Wow, that's amazing, michael.
I love that.
So you saw that there was aspecific need, not just in a
certain industry, but all acrossthe board, right?
So you were able to see thatneed and then be able to meet it
, so that you could help theseorganizations and these
institutions be able to, likeyou said, move forward and not
feel like they were gettingstuck and staying stuck in that
(04:34):
area, yeah, and in particularfor higher education.
Michael Toguchi (04:38):
It's a place where, obviously, right now,
higher ed is a bit under assault.
State budgets are crunched,there are challenges with the
federal government and grantprograms and even before that,
students were, you know, therewere less students matriculating
, there were questions about thevalue of higher ed and from our
(05:01):
end, you know, we saw that.
We saw staff that werestruggling, felt like they were
under siege, frustrated, facultyand programs that were just not
modernized from a technologicalstandpoint.
And that was a place where wefelt like our expertise and our
ability to do things in a costeffective way for them to, you
(05:22):
know, rather than beingfrustrated trying to work within
the university's confines orresources, that we could bring
that external expertise that wehad from other areas working
with larger companies, workingwith large nonprofits and large
associations, that we were ableto give them a piece of that.
And, you know, kind of bringsomething special that helped
(05:43):
them make more.
You know, kind of bringsomething special that helped
them make more, you know, sortof more bang for their buck.
It's not like they get to hiremore people, but it can make the
people they have more efficient.
It can provide, you know ourNorth Star.
The North Star things weusually look at are is this a
good user experience?
Is it secure and is itaccessible?
(06:04):
And that user experience inparticular for students and
faculty.
A lot of times they were usingreally outdated things or tools
that just weren't.
There's a frustrating processfor them, and so that's where we
can sort of modernize thetechnology in the process and
help them.
Jackie Pelegrin (06:19):
Exactly, and then they can focus more on
serving the students right andserving those within the the
organization if it's anon-profit or something like
that.
So that way they can, like yousaid, not have to focus so much
on the technology side of things.
Michael Toguchi (06:33):
Well, they can claw back their time if you're,
if your choice is to have ameeting with a student to help
help them uh, you know in intheir educational journey, or to
copy and paste stuff into aspreadsheet and try and sort it.
You know which one is morevaluable, and that's the way we
look at it is that any placethat we can help people save
(06:53):
time, create efficiencies intheir own, collaborate better,
not just within their team, butacross campuses, and something
that we've really been proud ofour work is finding ways that
people can use the data from oursystems to have actionable
business intelligence and then,across their departments, you
know, scale the efforts thatthey have no-transcript ranging
(07:36):
from universities to majorcompanies like Google and PG&E.
Jackie Pelegrin (07:40):
What are some common challenges you see when
it comes to managing complexprocesses Like we talked about,
scholarships, grants oradmissions, and how does
orchestrate help simplify thosechallenges?
Michael Toguchi (07:50):
Well, from a challenge standpoint, it is they
do all have some, some commonthreads or connective tissue.
You know one people can beadverse to change, like they
have a system in place and theyjust want to keep using what's
there, even if it's not really asuccessful one.
There can be little, there canbe tribal knowledge where groups
(08:13):
, there's silos of communication, silos of information and you
have to break those things down.
And you have to break thosethings down, I think a lot of
times the creative part of theproblem solving to say like
let's actually, you know, let'swhiteboard this out, like, how
does your marketing team workwith the fundraising and
(08:35):
development team in order toensure that communications to
small and large donors areeffective or targeted?
And sometimes finding thoseintegration points within a team
is something that can bechallenging at a large or even a
small organization where youwould think everybody, you know
there's only a couple of voicesthere, but sometimes people have
their own lanes and it's hardto get them out of it.
(08:55):
But really, from our end it's amatter of like trying to break
things down to a foundationallevel, find the commonalities of
.
There are certain elements ofany workflow for any process.
It doesn't matter if you'retalking about a scholarship for
a student, an accommodation fora student with a disability, a
(09:16):
foundation grant that you'reapplying for.
The list goes on and on of thedifferent kinds of applications
that orchestrate can manage.
So we're always looking, youknow, we're looking at it from
the workflow standpoint ofefficiency and commonality, and
then we're looking at it fromeach user standpoint, almost the
you know the storytellingversion of, like what does this
(09:39):
look like from the user'sperspective?
Like, is this something that'ssimple for them to do?
Do they?
Do you have reminders to letthem know there's something
that's outstanding?
Do you have integratedmessaging to ensure that you
have communication with them andthat you know if Joe from that
side of the desk goes onvacation?
Is all the communication withone student just stuck in his
(10:01):
email?
Or is it in a platform wherethere's an audit trail and
somebody else can pick up things?
And so we're always looking atboth individual functionalities
down at that granular level butreally saying like, who's the
student here or the applicant,who's the faculty reviewer, who
is the administrative personthat has to, you know, manage
(10:22):
all the pieces of this puzzleand disperse them, so really
kind of going into thoseindividual users' stories and
understanding how any technologycan affect their day-to-day
operations and work, and thenput all those pieces together so
that you have one, you know,sort of finely tuned machine
that's working.
Jackie Pelegrin (10:43):
Wow, I love that, you know.
That made me think of what I dowith the curriculum design and
development department.
We have a department of 75individuals that consists of
curriculum developers,instructional designers, editors
.
We also have managers thatmanage, and so what they do is
they have each of the collegeswithin the university that we
(11:03):
help manage.
So I'm part of humanities andsocial sciences, and then we
have another management teamthat's part of engineering and
technology.
But each college kind of worksin silos and sometimes we do
have things that arestandardized across the board.
But it's sometimes difficultwhen you have different colleges
(11:24):
that have different wants andneeds.
So that's interesting.
Michael Toguchi (11:28):
We've worked within.
You know, there are differentsystems of colleges that are in
universities that are connected,but they have different ways of
they have different platforms,they have different ways of
solving problems, they havedifferent ways of collecting
data.
They don't standardize the dataand then when leadership or
board or board of governors or astate legislator wants some
(11:50):
information, it's like chaos oftrying to get, you know, collect
all of it and then andnormalize it so that they can
view it.
And so you know, we're alsolooking at those kinds of things
like what are the regulatoryand compliance issues?
Like, what do you need in orderto make sure that you can get
more funding and keep the lights?
You know, keep the lights on onyour side.
But really I'd mentioned earlierlike we want people to have
(12:12):
actionable business intelligence.
Like you don't have the dataand you can't say, oh well, you
know when, when a student comesin, it seems like it's taking us
, you know, three or four daysto finish their request.
Like, why is that?
Like where's where's the blockin the process?
How can we?
How can we help them?
But to your, you know, to yournote and point about design,
(12:33):
like that's, that's a bit ofwhat we look at and say you know
, there's plenty of stuff that'soff the shelf that you can just
kind of shrink, wrap and youget what you get.
And then there are people thatwill build something from
scratch, which is fine, but thenyou end up with something
that's almost so unique and hardto support and can bring on
technical debt you needsomething that sort of is in
(12:55):
that middle lane where you doget a little bit of that white
boarding and design principle.
Take solid foundation platformarchitecture and be able to work
within it and say, okay, well,our review cycle for, you know,
an application is one level ofthe selection committee and then
like a second level of vettingand this is our scoring.
And we'll work with groups, notonly to make sure you know we
(13:18):
can wrap our software aroundtheir process, but then also to
help them make sure that processis sound.
You know, as it has it justalways been this way that you
have, you know, 90 differentpeople scoring something.
Is there a more efficient wayto do that?
And so really try and do like atrue partner for them
evaluating, you know, evaluatingeach step of the way, creating
(13:38):
a strategy and creating thatroadmap.
Jackie Pelegrin (13:41):
Right, yeah, because if you have like you,
like you said, those processesor you have a system that is
bogging people down, that's hard, because then you get that
frustration from individuals indifferent teams right, that
where they they feel likethey're being, the process is
actually hindering them and nothelping them and not giving them
(14:04):
what they need to help studentsor help others, right so yeah,
and that is one of the other youknow common challenges is you
have to have someone that is achampion.
Michael Toguchi (14:15):
If you're going to have someone externally, you
know kind of help you create anew solution and enforce change.
You know change management andchange in an organization,
particularly in higher ed notalways the easiest thing.
People can get set in theirways.
You have to have people whetherit's, you know, a dean from up
high or a, you know, justsomeone who is owning the
(14:39):
project to make sure thatthey're communicating well, you
know, stating like here are ourgoals, this is why we're doing
it, this is how it's going tomake your life better or easier,
even if there's some transitionwork that needs to be done.
And so we always try and makesure that you know we're
communicating where we're hopingyou know we can bring value to
somebody's lives and hopethere's somebody on the other
(15:01):
end that's doing the same.
Jackie Pelegrin (15:02):
That's so important, right, and to get all
those different individualsinvolved that can be able to,
like you said, to have thatchampion as part of that,
because then what you probablyfind is that there's no clear
direction, and then people arejust scrambling and lost and
they're wondering why are wedoing this?
What is the purpose behind it?
Or you?
Michael Toguchi (15:22):
know, and again , in fairness to everyone, we
all think kind of from a notselfish but self-centered way,
like, okay, well, what does thismean for me?
Like, does this mean I have tolearn something new?
Do I have to change the way Ido this?
Like, what's the disruptionlevel?
But that's where it's importantto get.
(15:44):
You get stakeholder buy-in.
You doesn't mean you have amillion cooks in the kitchen,
but you get people's buy-inexplaining clearly why you're
doing things and help themunderstand the strategy and what
the end product is going tolook like.
So that there are those.
Hey, you're going to get back20% of your day.
Instead of working late, maybeyou're leaving early late.
(16:04):
You know, maybe you're leavingearly, exactly, and that that
can be a big buy in for a lot ofemployees and staff to be able
to, yeah, have that, buy in,absolutely yeah.
Jackie Pelegrin (16:10):
It kind of reminds me of this internal
system.
We have a lot of internalsystems where I work and we and
tailor them to what what isneeded and it helps save money.
But I agree with you thatsometimes that that can be a
hindrance.
And there's an example of thisparticular type of software
where we're trying to build ininstances where students can
(16:30):
have a experience, where it'swhere we can embed videos and we
can embed content and thingslike that and make it more of a
experiential type of process forstudents.
But then what ended up happeningis they didn't consult editors,
they didn't consultinstructional designers, so
we're all just going wait aminute, you're rolling out this
(16:51):
and curriculum developers allthey I mean they do have
instances where they go tomeetings and they consult with
subject matter experts to try tomake sure that the curriculum
is at its best, but at the sametime they don't know some of
them don't know higher educationand they don't know adult
learning.
So it's a challenge and sowe're trying to kind of get it
(17:12):
back to where we're able to dothat and able to make sure that
it meets the needs of students,so it's interesting.
Michael Toguchi (17:20):
Getting all those pieces of the puzzle, you
know, kind of flowing togetherin the right, in the right
direction, at the right cadenceand time.
It's a.
It's a huge challenge justmaking sure that everybody
understands, you know, thenature of the change.
Jackie Pelegrin (17:35):
There's good training, good documentation
right, exactly, and I love yourphilosophy that technology
should enable people not burdenthem.
That's that's a wonderfulphilosophy to have.
So how do you keep thatprinciple front and center when
making product decisions orbuilding partnerships?
Michael Toguchi (17:51):
We try and be as direct and honest with folks
as possible.
At the end of the day, we'recreating something for them.
And so what I was mentioningearlier, like we're going to ask
those questions like, hey, yousaid you wanted this kind of
application flow or you wantthis kind of review process or
(18:13):
this kind of acceptance for youknow again, any kind of
application or any kind ofworkflow, it doesn't.
You know, we work, we buildmany things in higher ed that
aren't really an application.
It could be a form, it could besomething where there's some
internal process to befundraising.
But we're going to ask folks,why do you need this or why do
you want this?
What business goal or objectiveis this accomplishing?
(18:36):
How is this helping you, yourteam?
Is this adding more time?
Is it saving time?
What value or benefit is itbringing to the student or the
audience?
And you know, really kind oftackling those questions, as
we're creating and designingsomething to ensure that a lot
of times people will say like,oh, hey, we hired a new person
to our new group in order to putsomething in place, and what
(18:59):
they really want is justsomebody new to do the old thing
again and it's, it's very,really like the software version
of lipstick on a pig typesituation, where it is like
you've just taken some old, notefficient process and and put
new software around the same oldstuff.
And so for us, when we come in,if a group has or an institution
(19:21):
has hired us, we're oftencoming in saying, like we want
to be accountable to what wepromised you we would do, and
that's ensuring that the staffthat you have gets the most out
of what we've created for youand that they understand you
know why we've built somethingor developed it, what the vision
is for it, that roadmap wherewe say, like what does this look
(19:43):
like over two terms or twosemesters?
Like, what will it look like inyear two or year three and what
benefits are you know what'sthe ROI on it?
What do we want to see?
Do we want to see an increasein applications?
Do we want to see a decrease intime to provide a service to a
student?
Do we want to see an increasein funds for something?
(20:05):
And so we're really trying totie some of those business
objectives to the choices thatare made in the design of the
solution and and bringing itback to them like say, like, hey
, if you, if you choose this,that's fine.
Like we're, we're not going totell you how to do this.
We could tell you what werecommend or what we think is
best, based on a couple ofdecades of experience and a
(20:27):
couple thousand implementations.
But if you see this and youwant this, then that's, you know
, you do that.
But from our end we're alwaysgoing to be saying, you know
again, are we saving?
Are we saving you time?
Are we making this better foryou or are we just kind of doing
the same thing?
And so that's how we stay trueto those ideas.
Again, you know, is it good forthe user experience?
(20:50):
Does it increase or maintainyour security level?
Is it accessible for all typesof audiences?
And you know, and then again,make those solutions as creative
and strong and diverse aspossible.
Jackie Pelegrin (21:02):
Right, I like that.
Yeah, because you're reallylooking for that sustained
partnership with thoseindividuals that you're working
with, and not just a one-timetype of experience.
Right, you're trying to makesure that it's sustained over
that long-term.
Michael Toguchi (21:16):
And that actually makes it nice because
it feels less like sellingsomeone and more like offering
to join with them to try andhelp them accomplish something.
Um, any, there are milliontechnology companies that can
offer you a platform andimplement it and then go, you
know, and just hang on.
You know, anybody can do thatif you want to bring expertise
(21:40):
that's specific about um, aparticular kind of group like a
university, a particularaudience like students or
faculty or staff, and say, hey,this is a way we can really.
You know, if you are againusing we work with a lot of
centers that serve disabledstudents and say you have
limited resources, you know yourcase managers are always kind
(22:03):
of overwhelmed as accommodationrequests increase, like how can
we create a workflow that helpsyou process those quicker?
Or if you're working with anadmissions program and you have
thousands of folks and you'retrying to figure out, oh my gosh
, we don't have enough staff toscore all of these, how can we
(22:23):
create a solution?
So, yeah, we're really tryingto join them on a journey
towards that business objectiveand ROI and be somebody that's
there at varying levels.
There are plenty of universitieswe work with where they
implement something and we kindof show up at very targeted
strategic times.
And there are other folks thatwe work with on a much more
daily tactical basis and so welike to have the flexibility and
(22:47):
offer that flexibility to thesegroups that we partner with and
help them kind of scale things.
Many groups start out withmaybe one fellowship program and
then suddenly there are otherfellowships on campus that want
to join with them and so theyget to leverage what we've done.
It saves the university timeand money.
They already have an approvedvendor that they're working with
(23:08):
.
It again increases thatcollaboration and so, yeah, we
really enjoy the lane that weoccupy in terms of finding
groups.
Jackie Pelegrin (23:19):
I love that and I love, michael, how it's not a
one-size-fits-all approach forevery institution or every
organization that you work with.
You really tailor your productsand services to that individual
and you really do a needsassessment, it sounds like, and
you try to find out what areyour needs, what are your wants
and how can we help you getthere right.
Michael Toguchi (23:40):
That's always the goal.
The goal is to do a veryintentional, in-depth discovery
and strategic planning with anyorganization.
It doesn't always work outexactly that way.
Sometimes you have the it's afire drill.
I need this before you knowfall.
We had plenty of those thisyear it's you know, we've got
three weeks until the termlaunches.
(24:01):
Can you put something in place?
So it doesn't always work outexactly process wise, but yeah,
I mean we want to.
We wanted to find that placewhere we had something to offer
that you didn't have.
Again, you don't have to do itfrom scratch, it's not.
It's not building, reinventingthe wheel every time we leverage
something that's there.
But we wanted that ability tosay, like we know, the three
(24:27):
person nonprofit versus the youknow conglomerate fortune 50
group versus even amongst likehigher ed and K-12, like you
have some groups that have tonsof money and resources and time
and you have others that are,you know, more strapped or more
stressed on those things.
And so we want to be able tofind those places where we're
going to be a good fit andprovide a benefit and, again,
finding places to do those coolproblem solving like that's one
(24:52):
of the things we're looking for.
Jackie Pelegrin (24:54):
I love that.
That's great, wonderful.
So, as we wrap up, what areyour top tips or advice for
listeners who are looking totransition into higher education
maybe even nonprofit too, orjust starting out in the field?
Michael Toguchi (25:44):
Yeah, that's a.
It's a good question.
I mean, we, you know we're heretalking about technology.
We haven't quite mentioned AIyet.
I certainly would say that'ssomething that is really, as we
all know, it's disrupting everysingle space.
But, in particular in higher ed,you have students who are using
it at, I believe, around a 90%clip in their personal and
(26:08):
school lives.
You have faculty that are, youknow, having to redo curriculum
and you know they're figuringout.
You know, can I use tools todetect this?
Should I give up on that andfind some other way to?
You know, should I embrace it?
You have beleaguered staff thatare like, feel like they, you
know, might be replaced by it,and so I say all that to say I
(26:30):
would be, I would, I wouldencourage anybody to be reading
and learning as much as you canabout, you know, llms and
generative AI and agentic AI andthings like that, because it's
on our end.
We're looking at ways toincorporate that into our
platform and into folksworkflows, so that you look at
universities that have.
(26:52):
You might want to be anadmissions officer.
Well, an admissions applicationnow should have a chatbot
that's helping prompt and getpeople dragging them further
through the process.
On the easy stuff, or if you'reproviding support services for
students, you know if you're notexperimenting with something to
help reduce, like again, ticketlevel, or you know the sort of
(27:15):
initial inquiries or gates thatstudents have to go through.
You're spending time that maybeother folks are not, and so
that would just be one note foreveryone, maybe the most obvious
one that the workforce theprofessional workforce in
particular, and the academic oneas well there's so much going
on with AI right now.
If you're looking to jump intothat space, I think, having
(27:39):
background on how AI can youknow how AI can be utilized in
whatever job you're looking forand having some you know, even
if it's just your own training,that I think would be immensely
valuable.
Like I don't think I would hiresomeone that came knowing
nothing about.
You know how some of these, howsome of those tools would be,
would be utilized.
Jackie Pelegrin (28:00):
That's a great advice.
I love that.
Michael Toguchi (28:02):
Yeah, you know.
A second thing again from fromour and we we do work with K
through 12, we do work withnonprofits of all sizes and we
do work with higher ed.
In terms of looking at thedifferent places, I would say
(28:37):
find your, you know, find yourarea.
I would say find your area, begreat at it, try and be amazing.
Whether it's operations or otherareas where some of these
groups are looking, groupsappear, at least from my end,
and I'm sure our company andother companies are they're
looking to find moreefficiencies.
Hiring is lower than it hasbeen because people are trying
(29:02):
to keep a lid on things, and soif you have a diversified
portfolio of skills, I would belooking at where you can provide
value to an organization, sortof in like a sports analogy,
someone who can play multiplepositions, but I still think
being great at your one thingand then having that
diversification, that's strikingthe balance there.
(29:23):
That's another area I would sayis important.
Again, I'm thinking aboutinterviews that we do, where I'm
looking for somebody that lookslike they have the eye of the
tiger and they want to be thebest at something, but they also
know that they're able to hopin and help other teammates.
Jackie Pelegrin (29:41):
Yeah, that's great.
I love that, yeah being beingable to diversify yourself and
have those different areas whereyou can be an expert.
Michael Toguchi (29:50):
Yeah, I guess the last part and you know, sort
of tying those two elementstogether.
I think higher ed is constantlyit's it's really changing, I
don't know.
I mean I have a five and aseven year old, I don't know
what, I don't know.
The college that I went to inthe nineties is going to look
like their college in, you know,in 10 years, 12 years.
And so I say that in terms oflike it's not a linear career
(30:15):
path.
It's not like you start as anadministrative assistant and get
promoted to research associateand then you become you know and
there's like a very straightladder that you go and then you
retire.
I don't think anyone's careerworks that way anymore.
In particular in higher edthere is just a lot of lateral
hopping around from departmentto department and that, to me,
(30:36):
gets to you know, knowing thenewest technologies in AI and
how it applies in the workforceand being diversified and
understanding you know how youcan move around in case there's
a shift in.
You know where your skills areneeded.
Jackie Pelegrin (30:52):
That's great.
I love that, michael.
That's so important.
Being able to have those tipsin hand, yeah, something you
know with AI.
We're utilizing it where I workand also within the institution
too, so navigating that, andnow they have clear guidelines,
which is great, so it's it'shelpful when you know what, what
you're looking at and how to beable to utilize it yeah right.
Michael Toguchi (31:15):
I mean, that's something across across higher
ed, the.
The people are struggling andjust trying to catch up on
providing guidance andguidelines for students on how
and what you know how.
Where do they need to sourcethings like what can you use it
for?
From a faculty standpoint, areyou should you be flagging
things if you know it's beenwritten by a chat?
(31:36):
You know chat gpt or there'syou could, we could spend you
know two to three hours justkind of going through some of
that stuff and yeah, yeah,that's so true.
Jackie Pelegrin (31:47):
Yeah, and the university is they don't want
faculty policing it, but theywant it to be a collaborative
type of approach where they, ifthey see a concern, then talk to
the student about it, right,and find out what, what do you
know, and try to inquire withthem and see where did you get
that information?
Not, maybe, not evennecessarily like that, but just,
can you tell me a little bitmore about that and really
(32:08):
inquire and find out a littlebit more from them and do it in
that manner instead of policingit?
Michael Toguchi (32:15):
I think a lot of the universities that are
embracing it.
They are going to find a way,way to.
They're going to be ahead ofthe game on things.
Um, the students are looking atit, saying like everyone's job
appears to be like.
They are smart, they understandthat jobs are, you know, in ai,
in ai and related to ai aregoing to be much more plentiful
(32:38):
than those that are not.
And and so they look at auniversity and say if you don't
have an articulated policy, ifyou don't have training for
students to learn how to use it,if your faculty are not
experimenting and your staff donot create efficiencies using it
, why should we be your customer?
I mean again, I don't like tothink of it in those terms.
The university is a benevolentenvironment for learning, but at
(33:00):
the end of the day, a lot offolks are going there in order
to learn so they can have asuccessful career, and so if the
university environment is notembracing AI, then the student
is going to look elsewhere andfind someone that is.
Jackie Pelegrin (33:15):
Absolutely right.
Yeah, and a good example ofthat is recently our
instructional design program atthe university was revised and
we have specific competenciesthat have AI technology in there
and I just finished teachingone of the classes in the career
.
Can I utilize it and where canit help me in that future work
(33:45):
that I'm going to do in thatarea?
So it's really great to seethat the university is embracing
it and they're looking at it asan opportunity to enrich their
experience and not hinder it.
So that's great.
Yeah, I love that.
Michael Toguchi (33:57):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Jackie Pelegrin (33:58):
Yeah, that's great.
So is there anything else youwanted to mention, Michael, as
we wrap up that?
Michael Toguchi (34:03):
you can think of.
No, just that, if there are.
You know if there's anyone outthere in K through 12 or
nonprofit or higher ed spacethat's interested in you know,
talking to us about what we dostrategy consulting, application
platforms, workflow, anythingalong those lines uh, our team
does that.
(34:24):
Um, we're a fully integrated,you know company that also has
an msp and we do marketing andbranding, so anything in that
digital space we really tackle,and so, um, you know I don't
know if my email will be on thisor something like that you can
always reach out to me.
Uh, would would love to chatand even if it's just to meet
and connect and learn about whatyour needs are.
Jackie Pelegrin (34:47):
Great, I love that.
That's wonderful and it soundslike, yeah, we have a lot in
common, because my undergraduatedegree is in marketing and then
I got an MBA and then I went toschool and got my instructional
design degree, so I have thatkind of that business education
background.
Michael Toguchi (35:02):
I think it's one of the best intersections.
You know have some liberal artsplus some business sense and
all of the all, everything goodin between.
Jackie Pelegrin (35:10):
So right, exactly, and like you said
before, that way you can harnessthose, those expertise and
those skills, in some differentareas.
Like you said, focus on whatyou're really good at, but then
have some other areas where youcan really shine, and I think
that's important.
I love that.
Well, thank you so much,michael, for sharing your
insights today.
I know your experiences, tipsand expertise are sure to
(35:30):
inspire my listeners.
So I appreciate it and I lookforward to having you back on
the show sometime and we canmaybe we can dive a little bit
deeper into AI and some of that.
I love that Great.
Michael Toguchi (35:39):
Thank you so much.
Jackie Pelegrin (35:41):
Appreciate it.
Michael Toguchi (35:42):
Take care.
Jackie Pelegrin (35:44):
Thank you for taking some time to listen to
this podcast episode today.
Your support means the world tome.
If you'd like to help keep thepodcast going, you can share it
with a friend or colleague,leave a heartfelt review or
offer a monetary contribution.
Every act of support, big orsmall, makes a difference and
I'm truly thankful for you.
Hello and welcome to the Designing with
Love podcast.
I am your host, Jackie Pelegrin, where my goal is to bring you
information, tips, and tricks asan instructional designer.
Hello instructional designersand educators, welcome to
Episode 66 of the Designing withLove podcast.
I'm thrilled to have MichaelToguchi, the Chief Strategy
(00:24):
Officer at Orchestrate, with metoday.
Welcome, Michael.
Michael Toguchi (00:28):
Hi, jackie, thanks, Glad to be here.
Jackie Pelegrin (00:31):
Thank you so much.
I'm so glad we got to getmatched on PodMatch and we have
so much in common, so I'm reallylooking forward to digging in
and getting started.
So, to start, can you tell us alittle bit about yourself and
share what inspired you to focuson helping higher education
institutions and nonprofits?
Michael Toguchi (00:47):
Yeah, as you mentioned, Mike Taguchi, I'm a
chief strategy officer at adigital company.
We have a platform calledOrchestrate that we've had for
over 20 years in the higher edand nonprofit space.
Space developed it, workedreally hard on it to make it
something that empowers folks,that allows them to focus on
(01:08):
impactful work rather thanmanual tasks and you know
paperwork, spreadsheets andother things that can be
frustrating to them, and youknow from our side our company
being a digital company we werearound when folks were there
weren't even really websites andit went from not having
websites to trying to figure outhow to make better websites, to
(01:29):
then implementing tools andprocesses that really affect the
work, create workflows,essentially, since technology is
infused and embedded ineverything that all of these
groups are working through andfrom our end.
We just saw so manyorganizations we started in the
Virginia DC area.
There are many associations,nonprofits with great missions
(01:53):
and universities that we wereconnected with where there was
just so much struggle tounderstand technology, to try
and keep up with trends, to tryand build processes, and that
just wasn't really theirwheelhouse and we felt like we
could take a mission that wascentered around not just
technology but creative problemsolving and strategy and give
(02:16):
folks the tools that they needfor both the short term but also
kind of help them guide andcreate roadmaps for the long
term so that they know what'scoming, and that really allowed
them to focus on, you know,whether it's a K-12 group that
is working with disabledstudents and needs accessibility
(02:37):
help, whether it's a universitythat's running a two or three
person program and they areunderwater trying to provide
services to students, or anonprofit that needs help
creating fundraising options sothat they can get grants and do
the work that they want to do.
That was where our emphasis hasbeen for the last couple of
(02:58):
decades.
Obviously, it's always anexciting time in technology.
Things are constantly shifting,tectonic shifts in the way
things are going, and so that'swhere we're at for myself
personally, just being able toprovide that level of expertise
(03:18):
and, as I've mentioned in otherplaces, we don't work in just
singular, you know one kind ofproject we don't say hey, we're
just.
You know just healthcare orjust nonprofit or just any you
know any singular vertical.
For our end, we're looking forgroups that are good partners,
groups that we can invest ourtime in to help them be
impactful and being able to seethe fruits of those labors.
(03:41):
Being able to solve differentkinds of problems and meet
different kinds of challengesacross the spectrum meant that
you know no day is going to bethe same.
We're not punching a clock.
We're always looking atdifferent kinds of problems for
people that want to domeaningful work from our end to
be able to help them solve thosechallenges, to see their
(04:06):
workflows work, see theirefficiencies increase and then
just see them achieve theirgoals.
Jackie Pelegrin (04:13):
Wow, that's amazing, michael.
I love that.
So you saw that there was aspecific need, not just in a
certain industry, but all acrossthe board, right?
So you were able to see thatneed and then be able to meet it
, so that you could help theseorganizations and these
institutions be able to, likeyou said, move forward and not
feel like they were gettingstuck and staying stuck in that
(04:34):
area, yeah, and in particularfor higher education.
Michael Toguchi (04:38):
It's a place where, obviously, right now,
higher ed is a bit under assault.
State budgets are crunched,there are challenges with the
federal government and grantprograms and even before that,
students were, you know, therewere less students matriculating
, there were questions about thevalue of higher ed and from our
(05:01):
end, you know, we saw that.
We saw staff that werestruggling, felt like they were
under siege, frustrated, facultyand programs that were just not
modernized from a technologicalstandpoint.
And that was a place where wefelt like our expertise and our
ability to do things in a costeffective way for them to, you
(05:22):
know, rather than beingfrustrated trying to work within
the university's confines orresources, that we could bring
that external expertise that wehad from other areas working
with larger companies, workingwith large nonprofits and large
associations, that we were ableto give them a piece of that.
And, you know, kind of bringsomething special that helped
(05:43):
them make more.
You know, kind of bringsomething special that helped
them make more, you know, sortof more bang for their buck.
It's not like they get to hiremore people, but it can make the
people they have more efficient.
It can provide, you know ourNorth Star.
The North Star things weusually look at are is this a
good user experience?
Is it secure and is itaccessible?
(06:04):
And that user experience inparticular for students and
faculty.
A lot of times they were usingreally outdated things or tools
that just weren't.
There's a frustrating processfor them, and so that's where we
can sort of modernize thetechnology in the process and
help them.
Jackie Pelegrin (06:19):
Exactly, and then they can focus more on
serving the students right andserving those within the the
organization if it's anon-profit or something like
that.
So that way they can, like yousaid, not have to focus so much
on the technology side of things.
Michael Toguchi (06:33):
Well, they can claw back their time if you're,
if your choice is to have ameeting with a student to help
help them uh, you know in intheir educational journey, or to
copy and paste stuff into aspreadsheet and try and sort it.
You know which one is morevaluable, and that's the way we
look at it is that any placethat we can help people save
(06:53):
time, create efficiencies intheir own, collaborate better,
not just within their team, butacross campuses, and something
that we've really been proud ofour work is finding ways that
people can use the data from oursystems to have actionable
business intelligence and then,across their departments, you
know, scale the efforts thatthey have no-transcript ranging
(07:36):
from universities to majorcompanies like Google and PG&E.
Jackie Pelegrin (07:40):
What are some common challenges you see when
it comes to managing complexprocesses Like we talked about,
scholarships, grants oradmissions, and how does
orchestrate help simplify thosechallenges?
Michael Toguchi (07:50):
Well, from a challenge standpoint, it is they
do all have some, some commonthreads or connective tissue.
You know one people can beadverse to change, like they
have a system in place and theyjust want to keep using what's
there, even if it's not really asuccessful one.
There can be little, there canbe tribal knowledge where groups
(08:13):
, there's silos of communication, silos of information and you
have to break those things down.
And you have to break thosethings down, I think a lot of
times the creative part of theproblem solving to say like
let's actually, you know, let'swhiteboard this out, like, how
does your marketing team workwith the fundraising and
(08:35):
development team in order toensure that communications to
small and large donors areeffective or targeted?
And sometimes finding thoseintegration points within a team
is something that can bechallenging at a large or even a
small organization where youwould think everybody, you know
there's only a couple of voicesthere, but sometimes people have
their own lanes and it's hardto get them out of it.
(08:55):
But really, from our end it's amatter of like trying to break
things down to a foundationallevel, find the commonalities of
.
There are certain elements ofany workflow for any process.
It doesn't matter if you'retalking about a scholarship for
a student, an accommodation fora student with a disability, a
(09:16):
foundation grant that you'reapplying for.
The list goes on and on of thedifferent kinds of applications
that orchestrate can manage.
So we're always looking, youknow, we're looking at it from
the workflow standpoint ofefficiency and commonality, and
then we're looking at it fromeach user standpoint, almost the
you know the storytellingversion of, like what does this
(09:39):
look like from the user'sperspective?
Like, is this something that'ssimple for them to do?
Do they?
Do you have reminders to letthem know there's something
that's outstanding?
Do you have integratedmessaging to ensure that you
have communication with them andthat you know if Joe from that
side of the desk goes onvacation?
Is all the communication withone student just stuck in his
(10:01):
email?
Or is it in a platform wherethere's an audit trail and
somebody else can pick up things?
And so we're always looking atboth individual functionalities
down at that granular level butreally saying like, who's the
student here or the applicant,who's the faculty reviewer, who
is the administrative personthat has to, you know, manage
(10:22):
all the pieces of this puzzleand disperse them, so really
kind of going into thoseindividual users' stories and
understanding how any technologycan affect their day-to-day
operations and work, and thenput all those pieces together so
that you have one, you know,sort of finely tuned machine
that's working.
Jackie Pelegrin (10:43):
Wow, I love that, you know.
That made me think of what I dowith the curriculum design and
development department.
We have a department of 75individuals that consists of
curriculum developers,instructional designers, editors
.
We also have managers thatmanage, and so what they do is
they have each of the collegeswithin the university that we
(11:03):
help manage.
So I'm part of humanities andsocial sciences, and then we
have another management teamthat's part of engineering and
technology.
But each college kind of worksin silos and sometimes we do
have things that arestandardized across the board.
But it's sometimes difficultwhen you have different colleges
(11:24):
that have different wants andneeds.
So that's interesting.
Michael Toguchi (11:28):
We've worked within.
You know, there are differentsystems of colleges that are in
universities that are connected,but they have different ways of
they have different platforms,they have different ways of
solving problems, they havedifferent ways of collecting
data.
They don't standardize the dataand then when leadership or
board or board of governors or astate legislator wants some
(11:50):
information, it's like chaos oftrying to get, you know, collect
all of it and then andnormalize it so that they can
view it.
And so you know, we're alsolooking at those kinds of things
like what are the regulatoryand compliance issues?
Like, what do you need in orderto make sure that you can get
more funding and keep the lights?
You know, keep the lights on onyour side.
But really I'd mentioned earlierlike we want people to have
(12:12):
actionable business intelligence.
Like you don't have the dataand you can't say, oh well, you
know when, when a student comesin, it seems like it's taking us
, you know, three or four daysto finish their request.
Like, why is that?
Like where's where's the blockin the process?
How can we?
How can we help them?
But to your, you know, to yournote and point about design,
(12:33):
like that's, that's a bit ofwhat we look at and say you know
, there's plenty of stuff that'soff the shelf that you can just
kind of shrink, wrap and youget what you get.
And then there are people thatwill build something from
scratch, which is fine, but thenyou end up with something
that's almost so unique and hardto support and can bring on
technical debt you needsomething that sort of is in
(12:55):
that middle lane where you doget a little bit of that white
boarding and design principle.
Take solid foundation platformarchitecture and be able to work
within it and say, okay, well,our review cycle for, you know,
an application is one level ofthe selection committee and then
like a second level of vettingand this is our scoring.
And we'll work with groups, notonly to make sure you know we
(13:18):
can wrap our software aroundtheir process, but then also to
help them make sure that processis sound.
You know, as it has it justalways been this way that you
have, you know, 90 differentpeople scoring something.
Is there a more efficient wayto do that?
And so really try and do like atrue partner for them
evaluating, you know, evaluatingeach step of the way, creating
(13:38):
a strategy and creating thatroadmap.
Jackie Pelegrin (13:41):
Right, yeah, because if you have like you,
like you said, those processesor you have a system that is
bogging people down, that's hard, because then you get that
frustration from individuals indifferent teams right, that
where they they feel likethey're being, the process is
actually hindering them and nothelping them and not giving them
(14:04):
what they need to help studentsor help others, right so yeah,
and that is one of the other youknow common challenges is you
have to have someone that is achampion.
Michael Toguchi (14:15):
If you're going to have someone externally, you
know kind of help you create anew solution and enforce change.
You know change management andchange in an organization,
particularly in higher ed notalways the easiest thing.
People can get set in theirways.
You have to have people whetherit's, you know, a dean from up
high or a, you know, justsomeone who is owning the
(14:39):
project to make sure thatthey're communicating well, you
know, stating like here are ourgoals, this is why we're doing
it, this is how it's going tomake your life better or easier,
even if there's some transitionwork that needs to be done.
And so we always try and makesure that you know we're
communicating where we're hopingyou know we can bring value to
somebody's lives and hopethere's somebody on the other
(15:01):
end that's doing the same.
Jackie Pelegrin (15:02):
That's so important, right, and to get all
those different individualsinvolved that can be able to,
like you said, to have thatchampion as part of that,
because then what you probablyfind is that there's no clear
direction, and then people arejust scrambling and lost and
they're wondering why are wedoing this?
What is the purpose behind it?
Or you?
Michael Toguchi (15:22):
know, and again , in fairness to everyone, we
all think kind of from a notselfish but self-centered way,
like, okay, well, what does thismean for me?
Like, does this mean I have tolearn something new?
Do I have to change the way Ido this?
Like, what's the disruptionlevel?
But that's where it's importantto get.
(15:44):
You get stakeholder buy-in.
You doesn't mean you have amillion cooks in the kitchen,
but you get people's buy-inexplaining clearly why you're
doing things and help themunderstand the strategy and what
the end product is going tolook like.
So that there are those.
Hey, you're going to get back20% of your day.
Instead of working late, maybeyou're leaving early late.
(16:04):
You know, maybe you're leavingearly, exactly, and that that
can be a big buy in for a lot ofemployees and staff to be able
to, yeah, have that, buy in,absolutely yeah.
Jackie Pelegrin (16:10):
It kind of reminds me of this internal
system.
We have a lot of internalsystems where I work and we and
tailor them to what what isneeded and it helps save money.
But I agree with you thatsometimes that that can be a
hindrance.
And there's an example of thisparticular type of software
where we're trying to build ininstances where students can
(16:30):
have a experience, where it'swhere we can embed videos and we
can embed content and thingslike that and make it more of a
experiential type of process forstudents.
But then what ended up happeningis they didn't consult editors,
they didn't consultinstructional designers, so
we're all just going wait aminute, you're rolling out this
(16:51):
and curriculum developers allthey I mean they do have
instances where they go tomeetings and they consult with
subject matter experts to try tomake sure that the curriculum
is at its best, but at the sametime they don't know some of
them don't know higher educationand they don't know adult
learning.
So it's a challenge and sowe're trying to kind of get it
(17:12):
back to where we're able to dothat and able to make sure that
it meets the needs of students,so it's interesting.
Michael Toguchi (17:20):
Getting all those pieces of the puzzle, you
know, kind of flowing togetherin the right, in the right
direction, at the right cadenceand time.
It's a.
It's a huge challenge justmaking sure that everybody
understands, you know, thenature of the change.
Jackie Pelegrin (17:35):
There's good training, good documentation
right, exactly, and I love yourphilosophy that technology
should enable people not burdenthem.
That's that's a wonderfulphilosophy to have.
So how do you keep thatprinciple front and center when
making product decisions orbuilding partnerships?
Michael Toguchi (17:51):
We try and be as direct and honest with folks
as possible.
At the end of the day, we'recreating something for them.
And so what I was mentioningearlier, like we're going to ask
those questions like, hey, yousaid you wanted this kind of
application flow or you wantthis kind of review process or
(18:13):
this kind of acceptance for youknow again, any kind of
application or any kind ofworkflow, it doesn't.
You know, we work, we buildmany things in higher ed that
aren't really an application.
It could be a form, it could besomething where there's some
internal process to befundraising.
But we're going to ask folks,why do you need this or why do
you want this?
What business goal or objectiveis this accomplishing?
(18:36):
How is this helping you, yourteam?
Is this adding more time?
Is it saving time?
What value or benefit is itbringing to the student or the
audience?
And you know, really kind oftackling those questions, as
we're creating and designingsomething to ensure that a lot
of times people will say like,oh, hey, we hired a new person
to our new group in order to putsomething in place, and what
(18:59):
they really want is justsomebody new to do the old thing
again and it's, it's very,really like the software version
of lipstick on a pig typesituation, where it is like
you've just taken some old, notefficient process and and put
new software around the same oldstuff.
And so for us, when we come in,if a group has or an institution
(19:21):
has hired us, we're oftencoming in saying, like we want
to be accountable to what wepromised you we would do, and
that's ensuring that the staffthat you have gets the most out
of what we've created for youand that they understand you
know why we've built somethingor developed it, what the vision
is for it, that roadmap wherewe say, like what does this look
(19:43):
like over two terms or twosemesters?
Like, what will it look like inyear two or year three and what
benefits are you know what'sthe ROI on it?
What do we want to see?
Do we want to see an increasein applications?
Do we want to see a decrease intime to provide a service to a
student?
Do we want to see an increasein funds for something?
(20:05):
And so we're really trying totie some of those business
objectives to the choices thatare made in the design of the
solution and and bringing itback to them like say, like, hey
, if you, if you choose this,that's fine.
Like we're, we're not going totell you how to do this.
We could tell you what werecommend or what we think is
best, based on a couple ofdecades of experience and a
(20:27):
couple thousand implementations.
But if you see this and youwant this, then that's, you know
, you do that.
But from our end we're alwaysgoing to be saying, you know
again, are we saving?
Are we saving you time?
Are we making this better foryou or are we just kind of doing
the same thing?
And so that's how we stay trueto those ideas.
Again, you know, is it good forthe user experience?
(20:50):
Does it increase or maintainyour security level?
Is it accessible for all typesof audiences?
And you know, and then again,make those solutions as creative
and strong and diverse aspossible.
Jackie Pelegrin (21:02):
Right, I like that.
Yeah, because you're reallylooking for that sustained
partnership with thoseindividuals that you're working
with, and not just a one-timetype of experience.
Right, you're trying to makesure that it's sustained over
that long-term.
Michael Toguchi (21:16):
And that actually makes it nice because
it feels less like sellingsomeone and more like offering
to join with them to try andhelp them accomplish something.
Um, any, there are milliontechnology companies that can
offer you a platform andimplement it and then go, you
know, and just hang on.
You know, anybody can do thatif you want to bring expertise
(21:40):
that's specific about um, aparticular kind of group like a
university, a particularaudience like students or
faculty or staff, and say, hey,this is a way we can really.
You know, if you are againusing we work with a lot of
centers that serve disabledstudents and say you have
limited resources, you know yourcase managers are always kind
(22:03):
of overwhelmed as accommodationrequests increase, like how can
we create a workflow that helpsyou process those quicker?
Or if you're working with anadmissions program and you have
thousands of folks and you'retrying to figure out, oh my gosh
, we don't have enough staff toscore all of these, how can we
(22:23):
create a solution?
So, yeah, we're really tryingto join them on a journey
towards that business objectiveand ROI and be somebody that's
there at varying levels.
There are plenty of universitieswe work with where they
implement something and we kindof show up at very targeted
strategic times.
And there are other folks thatwe work with on a much more
daily tactical basis and so welike to have the flexibility and
(22:47):
offer that flexibility to thesegroups that we partner with and
help them kind of scale things.
Many groups start out withmaybe one fellowship program and
then suddenly there are otherfellowships on campus that want
to join with them and so theyget to leverage what we've done.
It saves the university timeand money.
They already have an approvedvendor that they're working with
(23:08):
.
It again increases thatcollaboration and so, yeah, we
really enjoy the lane that weoccupy in terms of finding
groups.
Jackie Pelegrin (23:19):
I love that and I love, michael, how it's not a
one-size-fits-all approach forevery institution or every
organization that you work with.
You really tailor your productsand services to that individual
and you really do a needsassessment, it sounds like, and
you try to find out what areyour needs, what are your wants
and how can we help you getthere right.
Michael Toguchi (23:40):
That's always the goal.
The goal is to do a veryintentional, in-depth discovery
and strategic planning with anyorganization.
It doesn't always work outexactly that way.
Sometimes you have the it's afire drill.
I need this before you knowfall.
We had plenty of those thisyear it's you know, we've got
three weeks until the termlaunches.
(24:01):
Can you put something in place?
So it doesn't always work outexactly process wise, but yeah,
I mean we want to.
We wanted to find that placewhere we had something to offer
that you didn't have.
Again, you don't have to do itfrom scratch, it's not.
It's not building, reinventingthe wheel every time we leverage
something that's there.
But we wanted that ability tosay, like we know, the three
(24:27):
person nonprofit versus the youknow conglomerate fortune 50
group versus even amongst likehigher ed and K-12, like you
have some groups that have tonsof money and resources and time
and you have others that are,you know, more strapped or more
stressed on those things.
And so we want to be able tofind those places where we're
going to be a good fit andprovide a benefit and, again,
finding places to do those coolproblem solving like that's one
(24:52):
of the things we're looking for.
Jackie Pelegrin (24:54):
I love that.
That's great, wonderful.
So, as we wrap up, what areyour top tips or advice for
listeners who are looking totransition into higher education
maybe even nonprofit too, orjust starting out in the field?
Michael Toguchi (25:44):
Yeah, that's a.
It's a good question.
I mean, we, you know we're heretalking about technology.
We haven't quite mentioned AIyet.
I certainly would say that'ssomething that is really, as we
all know, it's disrupting everysingle space.
But, in particular in higher ed,you have students who are using
it at, I believe, around a 90%clip in their personal and
(26:08):
school lives.
You have faculty that are, youknow, having to redo curriculum
and you know they're figuringout.
You know, can I use tools todetect this?
Should I give up on that andfind some other way to?
You know, should I embrace it?
You have beleaguered staff thatare like, feel like they, you
know, might be replaced by it,and so I say all that to say I
(26:30):
would be, I would, I wouldencourage anybody to be reading
and learning as much as you canabout, you know, llms and
generative AI and agentic AI andthings like that, because it's
on our end.
We're looking at ways toincorporate that into our
platform and into folksworkflows, so that you look at
universities that have.
(26:52):
You might want to be anadmissions officer.
Well, an admissions applicationnow should have a chatbot
that's helping prompt and getpeople dragging them further
through the process.
On the easy stuff, or if you'reproviding support services for
students, you know if you're notexperimenting with something to
help reduce, like again, ticketlevel, or you know the sort of
(27:15):
initial inquiries or gates thatstudents have to go through.
You're spending time that maybeother folks are not, and so
that would just be one note foreveryone, maybe the most obvious
one that the workforce theprofessional workforce in
particular, and the academic oneas well there's so much going
on with AI right now.
If you're looking to jump intothat space, I think, having
(27:39):
background on how AI can youknow how AI can be utilized in
whatever job you're looking forand having some you know, even
if it's just your own training,that I think would be immensely
valuable.
Like I don't think I would hiresomeone that came knowing
nothing about.
You know how some of these, howsome of those tools would be,
would be utilized.
Jackie Pelegrin (28:00):
That's a great advice.
I love that.
Michael Toguchi (28:02):
Yeah, you know.
A second thing again from fromour and we we do work with K
through 12, we do work withnonprofits of all sizes and we
do work with higher ed.
In terms of looking at thedifferent places, I would say
(28:37):
find your, you know, find yourarea.
I would say find your area, begreat at it, try and be amazing.
Whether it's operations or otherareas where some of these
groups are looking, groupsappear, at least from my end,
and I'm sure our company andother companies are they're
looking to find moreefficiencies.
Hiring is lower than it hasbeen because people are trying
(29:02):
to keep a lid on things, and soif you have a diversified
portfolio of skills, I would belooking at where you can provide
value to an organization, sortof in like a sports analogy,
someone who can play multiplepositions, but I still think
being great at your one thingand then having that
diversification, that's strikingthe balance there.
(29:23):
That's another area I would sayis important.
Again, I'm thinking aboutinterviews that we do, where I'm
looking for somebody that lookslike they have the eye of the
tiger and they want to be thebest at something, but they also
know that they're able to hopin and help other teammates.
Jackie Pelegrin (29:41):
Yeah, that's great.
I love that, yeah being beingable to diversify yourself and
have those different areas whereyou can be an expert.
Michael Toguchi (29:50):
Yeah, I guess the last part and you know, sort
of tying those two elementstogether.
I think higher ed is constantlyit's it's really changing, I
don't know.
I mean I have a five and aseven year old, I don't know
what, I don't know.
The college that I went to inthe nineties is going to look
like their college in, you know,in 10 years, 12 years.
And so I say that in terms oflike it's not a linear career
(30:15):
path.
It's not like you start as anadministrative assistant and get
promoted to research associateand then you become you know and
there's like a very straightladder that you go and then you
retire.
I don't think anyone's careerworks that way anymore.
In particular in higher edthere is just a lot of lateral
hopping around from departmentto department and that, to me,
(30:36):
gets to you know, knowing thenewest technologies in AI and
how it applies in the workforceand being diversified and
understanding you know how youcan move around in case there's
a shift in.
You know where your skills areneeded.
Jackie Pelegrin (30:52):
That's great.
I love that, michael.
That's so important.
Being able to have those tipsin hand, yeah, something you
know with AI.
We're utilizing it where I workand also within the institution
too, so navigating that, andnow they have clear guidelines,
which is great, so it's it'shelpful when you know what, what
you're looking at and how to beable to utilize it yeah right.
Michael Toguchi (31:15):
I mean, that's something across across higher
ed, the.
The people are struggling andjust trying to catch up on
providing guidance andguidelines for students on how
and what you know how.
Where do they need to sourcethings like what can you use it
for?
From a faculty standpoint, areyou should you be flagging
things if you know it's beenwritten by a chat?
(31:36):
You know chat gpt or there'syou could, we could spend you
know two to three hours justkind of going through some of
that stuff and yeah, yeah,that's so true.
Jackie Pelegrin (31:47):
Yeah, and the university is they don't want
faculty policing it, but theywant it to be a collaborative
type of approach where they, ifthey see a concern, then talk to
the student about it, right,and find out what, what do you
know, and try to inquire withthem and see where did you get
that information?
Not, maybe, not evennecessarily like that, but just,
can you tell me a little bitmore about that and really
(32:08):
inquire and find out a littlebit more from them and do it in
that manner instead of policingit?
Michael Toguchi (32:15):
I think a lot of the universities that are
embracing it.
They are going to find a way,way to.
They're going to be ahead ofthe game on things.
Um, the students are looking atit, saying like everyone's job
appears to be like.
They are smart, they understandthat jobs are, you know, in ai,
in ai and related to ai aregoing to be much more plentiful
(32:38):
than those that are not.
And and so they look at auniversity and say if you don't
have an articulated policy, ifyou don't have training for
students to learn how to use it,if your faculty are not
experimenting and your staff donot create efficiencies using it
, why should we be your customer?
I mean again, I don't like tothink of it in those terms.
The university is a benevolentenvironment for learning, but at
(33:00):
the end of the day, a lot offolks are going there in order
to learn so they can have asuccessful career, and so if the
university environment is notembracing AI, then the student
is going to look elsewhere andfind someone that is.
Jackie Pelegrin (33:15):
Absolutely right.
Yeah, and a good example ofthat is recently our
instructional design program atthe university was revised and
we have specific competenciesthat have AI technology in there
and I just finished teachingone of the classes in the career
.
Can I utilize it and where canit help me in that future work
(33:45):
that I'm going to do in thatarea?
So it's really great to seethat the university is embracing
it and they're looking at it asan opportunity to enrich their
experience and not hinder it.
So that's great.
Yeah, I love that.
Michael Toguchi (33:57):
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Jackie Pelegrin (33:58):
Yeah, that's great.
So is there anything else youwanted to mention, Michael, as
we wrap up that?
Michael Toguchi (34:03):
you can think of.
No, just that, if there are.
You know if there's anyone outthere in K through 12 or
nonprofit or higher ed spacethat's interested in you know,
talking to us about what we dostrategy consulting, application
platforms, workflow, anythingalong those lines uh, our team
does that.
(34:24):
Um, we're a fully integrated,you know company that also has
an msp and we do marketing andbranding, so anything in that
digital space we really tackle,and so, um, you know I don't
know if my email will be on thisor something like that you can
always reach out to me.
Uh, would would love to chatand even if it's just to meet
and connect and learn about whatyour needs are.
Jackie Pelegrin (34:47):
Great, I love that.
That's wonderful and it soundslike, yeah, we have a lot in
common, because my undergraduatedegree is in marketing and then
I got an MBA and then I went toschool and got my instructional
design degree, so I have thatkind of that business education
background.
Michael Toguchi (35:02):
I think it's one of the best intersections.
You know have some liberal artsplus some business sense and
all of the all, everything goodin between.
Jackie Pelegrin (35:10):
So right, exactly, and like you said
before, that way you can harnessthose, those expertise and
those skills, in some differentareas.
Like you said, focus on whatyou're really good at, but then
have some other areas where youcan really shine, and I think
that's important.
I love that.
Well, thank you so much,michael, for sharing your
insights today.
I know your experiences, tipsand expertise are sure to
(35:30):
inspire my listeners.
So I appreciate it and I lookforward to having you back on
the show sometime and we canmaybe we can dive a little bit
deeper into AI and some of that.
I love that Great.
Michael Toguchi (35:39):
Thank you so much.
Jackie Pelegrin (35:41):
Appreciate it.
Michael Toguchi (35:42):
Take care.
Jackie Pelegrin (35:44):
Thank you for taking some time to listen to
this podcast episode today.
Your support means the world tome.
If you'd like to help keep thepodcast going, you can share it
with a friend or colleague,leave a heartfelt review or
offer a monetary contribution.
Every act of support, big orsmall, makes a difference and
I'm truly thankful for you.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.