Wayne Bovier:
There’s a famous quote going around, AI’s not gonna replace you, but the person who knows AI will, it’s a precedent quote. And it is very true. I mean, I think today Google writes 90% of their code using ai. Oh, is that AI just writing code? No, it’s developers using AI development tools, writing, writing code. We’re gonna be able to do a lot more and have a broader, quicker reach using AI and being more thorough. And so, you know, it’s hard to discern exactly where this is gonna land and to what degree, but, but it’s gonna impact everything. And I encourage, you know, those that are listening, the, from higher ed, that don’t just look at it through a narrow lens. Don’t think like, how are we gonna control AI in the LMS with students and so on. You need to take a broader look is how’s it gonna impact your job?
Wayne Bovier:
How can you take advantage of it? How can you, as a, as a faculty member, free up some of your time to spend more one-on-one time with students? If you’re an administrator, how do you use it to provide better, you know, support? How do you leverage it to provide better operations? I mean, we’re, we’re literally right at the beginning of this. And this is like, you know, we’re on this, in this inflection point in the curve that no one really understands and knows exactly how this is gonna play out. But I do see it as a very big opportunity across the industry to achieve the things that we’ve always wanted to achieve. Again, lifelong learning, student success, all these types of affordability and access. This is where the technology it will play.
Joe Gottlieb:
That’s Wayne Bovier, Cwill o-founder and CEO of Higher Digital, describing the unpredictable, but certain impact of AI on the workforce, and how faculty and administrative leaders should reimagine their roles as they might be elevated by AI so that we can all accomplish more student success and administrative effectiveness. We talked about not just ai, but other massive changes affecting the industry, the need for institutions to think and act more like businesses, and some of the essential ingredients necessary for success. I hope you enjoy our conversation.
Welcome to TRANSFORMED, a Higher Digital podcast focused on the new why’s, the new what’s and the new how’s in higher ed. In each episode, you will experience hosts and guests pulling for the resurgence of higher ed, while identifying and discussing the best practices needed to accomplish that resurgence. Culture, strategy and tactics, planning and execution, people, process, and technology. It’s all on the menu because that’s what’s required to truly transform.
Joe Gottlieb:
Hello, welcome and thanks for joining us for another episode of TRANSFORMED. My name is Joe Gottlieb, President and CTO of Higher Digital. And today I am joined by Wayne Bovier, Co-founder and CEO of Higher Digital. Wayne, welcome back to TRANSFORMED.
Wayne Bovier:
Thanks, Joe. Happy to be here. I feel like we should be playing Welcome Back, Kotter as a, as a theme song on this. So what do you wanna talk about?
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, I’m glad you asked. I wanna talk about a really fun topic, which is back to the future for higher education. But before we get into that, let’s do a little bit of retro and, and talk about why we even started this podcast in the first place, ’cause I’d like to place that history in front of what we talk about today.
Wayne Bovier:
That’s, that sounds great. You know, and you know, I think it’s been close to three years since I’ve actually been back on the podcast
Joe Gottlieb:
And over four years since we started it.
Wayne Bovier:
Yeah. Yeah. So it’s super exciting. You know I, I mean, I remember it was ear relatively early days of Covid. Yeah, right? And you had relatively recently joined Higher Digital at that time. And, you know, we felt looking through the landscape of, of, of higher education and specifically podcasts. No one was really talking about this concept of transformation and change. We, you know, we, we described a little bit as digital transformation. Knowing software really kind of runs everything, but it’s been exciting to kind of see how our conversations, which we just published our hundredth episode, I guess this is 101 or 102, depending on how you wanna count. So, very excited to be part of that. But it’s been, it’s been a great journey and unbelievably informative for both of us and our audience about all the different institutions and what they’re doing to tackle transformation. And almost rarely do we ever talk about this actual technology.
Joe Gottlieb:
Yeah. That has been one of the things that’s been most, I think, stimulating and satisfying for me. We’ve tended to have presidents, provosts, and CIOs. So a really interesting cross section of the higher education organizational structure when you think about it, right? Highest level leadership, provost is in charge of the product, the value proposition of, of higher ed. And then of course, CIOs in this digital era. So instrumental in supporting both teaching and learning, which is the business of higher ed, as well as all the administrative support functions and systems and, and all the diversity of things that a higher education institution has to operate. Be it mental health services, residential facilities, medical facilities, sporting facilities. Right. You know, there are little mini cities of their own that, so that has been a, a wonderful context in which to talk to leaders in these organizations. But to your original point, while technology is often the driver for change, it always has a role in change. And the, what we’ve really been talking to these leaders about is just the crazy amount of change that’s afoot in higher ed from the tip top of the business to the lowest level infrastructure.
Wayne Bovier:
Yeah. And you know, one of the things that, you know, before we even started this, there was a lot of uncertainty and unknowns about, you know, what we would learn, what we would get into. And you know, there’s, you know, there’s certainly a strong, you know, brand across higher education that, you know, we’re very much laggards as an industry and so on. But I will tell you that every, pretty much every single leader that we’ve interviewed, and just for the audience sake, I, I’ve been playing a major role behind the scenes interviewing presidents, provost and CIOs as a a, as a way to be able to kind of put together kind of the overall arching kind of theme and topic. But you and that person get really deep into that. But they’ve been really inspirational, right? About all, you know, and, and a real reality based awareness of what’s going on.
Wayne Bovier:
And, you know, the real, you know, part of the reality is, is that you know, and this gets into one of the con the parts that we’re ta gonna talk about, about more evidence of, of value problem, of, of the problem. You know, the, the, the structure of higher ed is pretty unique, right? Mm-Hmm. Shared governance, the organizational structure, the technology footprint is one of the most complicated across all verticals that are out there. You know, so there’s a lot of prevailing wins that are, you know, causing some resistance one way or another of really helping, helping these leaders really drive some change.
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, I think let’s dive into that. It’s a good segue into this sort of, this notion of how when we started this podcast, there were massive change of foot. We were right in the middle of Covid. And I remember some of the more interesting things being stuff like talking to Provost that had weekly calls, some of them with their colleagues, peers throughout like the Big 10 in one case, right? Like, like, you know, so they banded together in their networks to stay in touch, to be figuring out, gosh, what the heck are you doing? How did you tackle this particular problem of shifting things to remote and dealing with the threat of, of more outbreaks and, you know, testing or not testing and all, all this stuff, right? Meanwhile, trying to deliver the business and, and, and maintaining the operation was, was an immense shock.
Joe Gottlieb:
And I know we talked a lot on this podcast about, it was such a shock that forced every institution to change more dramatically than they had in the, you know, in the, in the memorable past. And, and, and that in its own right, developed some new muscle tissue that some institutions recognized they were stronger for it, and now were anxious and, and excited about how they could apply that new change muscle set to the future. And others were excited to get back to regular business and take a real rest, but all the above, regardless of, and you who could blame anyone for wanting a rest. But I agree with you that all of the folks that we’ve talked to are part of this, this community that has been grappling with this in a form that is more self-aware than that a critic might, might, might levy at the, at the industry.
Wayne Bovier:
Yeah. Yeah. You know all that’s correct. And I would, I, I would just add that, you know, I think per person there was a lot of pride, right? And, and a little bit of surprise of how quickly an in each institution that we’ve interviewed and spoke with, w you know, on, on the speed with which they were able to turn all their programs online. Hmm. You know, you’re talking days and weeks, you know, CIOs were like, we, we were there. It was emergency, we were able to get it up in 48 hours and dah, dah, dah, dah. And the faculty for their embracing of, of this reality, as stressful as, as it was. And, you know, I, I’m gonna, I’m gonna slightly, I’m gonna modify slightly what you said. You know, this concept of, you know, let’s go back. I think the reality is, and it’s a spectrum as always, but I, I, I think every institution was forever changed by that experience. And they, you know, the, you know, muscle all can atrophy, right? If you don’t practice that muscle mm-hmm <affirmative>. It will atrophy. And so it was a muscle that every institution had. And there are a lot of institutions that are continuing to flex that muscle. And the reality is, we get into this in the, and later on in this conversation, is that that muscle is even more important now than it was during covid.
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, let’s, yeah. So as planned, let’s dive into what has changed, what change vectors have actually sped up, or what new change vectors are afoot. I remember when we started, we were talking about certainly the, the demographic cliff. We were talking about resilience and funding. We were talking about depression in the perceived value of higher education in its traditional form. So there were a lot of things that were already active, but maybe you can rattle off a few that you’ve seen develop since, or maybe some of those older ones have taken on even more disruptive
Wayne Bovier:
Form. Yeah. I mean you know, for this recording, right, you, you know, we’re in, we’re in May of 2025. And you know, know, I, I describe it as a, as a perfect storm, right? Two category five hurricanes hitting the industry simultaneously. One is, you know, the role of the federal government and, you know, the dismantling of rules, regulations, department oversight, things like that, which are, are, you know there are arguments to be made on both sides of that. But that in and of itself is amazingly disruptive. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. For a very traditional industry, that organizational structure hasn’t changed for most institution in, in centuries. Right? The other, and that’s one Cat five hurricane. The other category five hurricane is ai. And that, you know, impacting every industry. But you think about, you know, ai, you think, go back to the industrial revolution.
Wayne Bovier:
You think about all these technology advancements, you know, replacing certain jobs. Well, this is the first technological revolution that is really having a major impact on the knowledge industry. And, you know, that’s what higher education is, right? And so, you know, trying to grapple with both of those simultaneously is pretty daunting. And, you know, in retrospect, we thought we were going through quite a crisis during covid <laugh>, that co covid feels a little bit, you know, pales a little bit in, in in comparison to these longer standing what I think are gonna be longer standing realities that we’re gonna have to face as an industry.
Joe Gottlieb:
I think that’s a great comparison, right? With Covid, while it was super disruptive and pressing, it was explicitly, it was, it was mechanically solvable. It took a lot of work, it took a lot of change, but we could put the institution on our backs and, and, and rest it into a new direction necessary to address that particular change. With the changes in this administration and its posture towards higher ed, and then ai, these are things that are much harder to predict. And, and yet at the same time, they’re so, still so substantively, foundationally impactful on the structure of higher ed and its ability to, to sustain. And lest anyone wonder, we’re very proud of not being US limited, US focused only, right? So, while this new administration is a very important development for the US higher education market, and all the international, you know, derivatives and implications of that, even the UK where, for example, a lot of our businesses done as well, is going through a real, a real point of debate and discussion around what is the future funding model for, for higher education in the uk. And so there’s a different but similar effect going on in that particular market. And I don’t, I don’t believe any market is, is impervious to either of these two forces.
Wayne Bovier:
No, not at all. I mean, we’re seeing a, I mean, we’re seeing that globally, right? That, and that’s why I said federal government, yeah, right? Everybody’s federal government is you know, the cost associated with this and the impact that this is having across the board is, is is substantial. Everybody’s feeling this right? And this, and we’re still at the beginning, just at the beginning of this wave.
Joe Gottlieb:
We’ll be right back.
Speaker 3:
Hi, I’m Emily Rudin, chief Client Officer at Hire, digital and proud sponsor of the Transformed Podcast. Hire Digital is a full service product agnostic consulting company, providing strategic, functional, and technical expertise to help colleges and universities navigate digital transformation successfully. We believe true transformation isn’t about forcing change. It’s about unlocking the potential already within your institution. Our expert teams specialize in creating tailored solutions for your unique challenges, enabling meaningful and measurable progress. Higher education is evolving faster than ever. How is your institution adapting? Let’s start the conversation today. Visit higher digital to learn more.
Joe Gottlieb:
And now back to our program. Let’s talk a little bit about what’s going on with our federal government in the us. And we’ve always taken the position of identifying with higher education leaders. ’cause At the end of the day, right, this is a higher education is hard, every industry is hard. But we, we, we are particularly focused in on, you named it with your mention of the diverse technologies that are held by an institution. And I alluded to it with my notion about how, how diverse the operation is, be it, you know, not just teaching and learning, but you know, residential and, and medical facilities and the like. But so we see, we identify with these leaders that are, are wrestling with these changes and trying to deliver on their missions. And so to join, to, to avoid attention from the higher the federal government right now is an understandable posture to take and to stand up and fight is also a, a, a, a posture that we can understand some institutions taking. But let’s talk a bit about that, that conundrum, if you will. Yeah. Because I think that’s
Wayne Bovier:
You faced, and, and just for the audience sake, this is, you know, this is a very apolitical conversation, although
Joe Gottlieb:
Absolutely
Wayne Bovier:
Be interpreted. It may be interpreted in, in a variety of ways. And, but let me just start out by saying, you know, I think we believe, you know, I certainly believe that, you know, there’s a, there’s always a little bit of truth in whatever is going on, whatever motivating driving forces that there are. You know, when you, when you look back, you know, the reality, well, when you look to where we are today, right? The cost of education continues to skyrocket, right? And it, you know, this idea of lifelong learning student success, these are all things that we talk about as an industry. But the fundamental reality is that access and affordability remain outta reach for most people whether they’re in a rural location whether they have family duties taken care, you know, they can’t be full-time students, whatever it might be.
Wayne Bovier:
And and this has been going on for quite a ti quite a long time, but we’re at a point where more education, higher level of sophisticated you know, teaching learning, right? You know, certificates and badges, like, you know, to run a crane, right? There’s, you know, to be a mechanic, right? You gotta be a semi software guy or woman, right? Like, you, you gotta, like, software runs most cars, right? Like, mm-hmm. So that trend is continuing. And when you look at the, you know, when you look at the, the management of higher education institutions, you know, there’s a lot of, you know, you just go and do a Google search and research. There’s a lot of statistics out there, but, you know, administrative costs have skyrocketed as, you know, 70, like from 76 to 2018, basic figure that I saw, 164%, and that’s it.
Wayne Bovier:
Full-Time administrators, right? Meanwhile, cost of students, right? Has gone up significantly the cost, I mean, the cost of the tuition has gone up, right? And so basically it’s, you know, we gotta hire more people to, to do more manual manual support of things versus really leveraging, leveraging technology. So, you know, in some ways, and I’m not talking about the process or, or the approach or the, the, the tactics that the administration is taking here in the United States, but it’s, it, it, it’s rooted in a fundamental reality. And that reality is that, you know, some of the, there’s some structural changes that need to evolve and they need to change in order to help institutions become more agile, more nimble, and more supportive of their students. So anyway, I could keep going on about that.
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, I think what you got into there with the second part speaks to more of the management methods and choices that institutions, I believe, increasingly need to make to be effective. Actually our, our most recent guest, Dwayne Sterling, on episode 100, I believe he called it out, he said, look the cost of higher ed has, has risen, and it hasn’t changed that much, and everything else has changed, right? Everything else has had to evolve because of the market forces that impact value propositions and spending. And so that’s what’s left us with this decreasing perception of value in higher ed, because it hasn’t, in many ways kept pace as a, a, a, a, a, a value offering. Right? Now, technology could be part of that, absolutely will be part, is part of that equation. But how you manage an organization is also a critical part of this.
Joe Gottlieb:
And I think what you and I are both leading up to is, it’s probably time for higher education to actually let itself think of itself more as a business and utilize the, the methods that in business have proven to be helpful in not only driving change, but holding oneself accountable. Dare I say, even profitable. And there’s a, there’s a for sure equivalent even for not-for-profit organizations and, and Michael Porter in his work and strategy, you know, he, he anticipated this from the very beginning, which was, even if you’re not for profit doing, providing a social good, your ability to deliver that good at a value that the society needs for the cost that your donors or operations can support, is what your strategy now needs to be all about. So how do you do that, right? That, that requires good old fashioned strategy, right? And I think higher education institutions have often insulated themselves from those monikers, those, those metrics and some of those operating approaches. Do, would you agree with that?
Wayne Bovier:
I completely agree with that. And that’s something, you know, it’s operate as a business has been a, you know, one of those four letter words that most people in the industry historically hasn’t liked. But I think, again, when you think back to, you know, the, the past four years of this podcast and all the people that we’ve spoken with, right? They’re all intellectually aware and comfortable with this idea of change. I mean, I, I, there’s not anybody that we’ve spoken with and maybe they’ve self-selected. So, you know, we’re only, we’re only picking the ones that are already thinking this way because our podcast is called transformed, right? Like I mean, if you’re not somebody that’s looking to change, why would you go on that podcast, right? Unless you <laugh> wanna be a contrarian. But, but, you know, but again, I wanna bring this back to the, the, you know, the role of the federal government or government, right?
Wayne Bovier:
There’s, there’s things outside of these leaders control, right? And and in order to really, truly drive value, right? Like, here’s an example, right? Accreditation. Right Accreditation is usually that word. You know, you talk to a president and they usually go white, right? They get really pale. They, they, they need an extra breath, right? Because it’s a, it’s a scary endeavor. Why it usually takes three years, right? Of somebody, or a team of people almost full time pulling together the evidence, and then you getting self evaluated by your peers. Effectively, that’s what accreditation is. And you may or may not pass. And basically your lifeblood of providing students a high quality degree is it resolves revolves around that, right? And so it’s a high stress, expensive, all this type of stuff. And, you know, the original purpose in the idea of accreditation makes sense.
Wayne Bovier:
It’s like, you know, you don’t want just any, any institution, <laugh> to, and I won’t make any jokes here, but any institution to stand up to take advantage of, of students for any type of degree that is basically worthless, right? Mm-Hmm. Like, there needs to be some quality control in this. But on the flip side, right? And I know firsthand you know, there’s an institution that we worked with that was trying to, in the process of standing up a master’s degree program, and, you know, Bravo for them, right? They were, they were diversifying, they were traditional four year bachelor’s and they were standing, they wanted to first offering into a master’s program. It effectively took them three years and probably, you know, anywhere from a million to 3 million depending on how you wanna count upfront investment, that they weren’t guaranteed they were gonna get good accredited for all this upfront and including the technology investments, right?
Wayne Bovier:
And so, when you think about where we’re going, right? And this idea of change, and which is what we started this podcast on, you know, we, I think it was our first podcast, we were saying, change, this is accelerating. Well, boy, is it ever accelerating? I mean, we were right. And, you know, maybe, you know, maybe we underestimated how fast things were gonna accelerate and it’s moving faster. And here’s the reality. Like you have a structural issue as an institution that is desiring to offer up different degrees and serve more students, but they got a structural problem of how to do that, and they can’t control that. And that’s a, that’s a reality that, that’s one of these areas that I suspect is, you know, is, is on, or I, I know is on is kind of on the table to be reevaluated and re restructured. So, you know, going back, you know, going back to your point of like, yeah, higher ed needs to think of itself as a business, and they need to think in, you know, your traditional Michael Porter’s, you know, five points and philosophies around this. But the, the, the, the, also, the, the, the fundamental structure also has to change and evolve with it.
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, I would, I would say this about accreditation. A couple things. One, having spent a lot of time in the, in the information security domain, what we learned about compliance was that while originally most enterprises thought of compliance as a nuisance, a costly nuisance at that, what we learned over time was that compliance actually forced you into a bit of a repeatable structure to demonstrate things that you’ve done to secure your assets in a way that’s, that comports with your role in society as a business or what have you. Right? And so, so it actually became easier to be secure. Compliance didn’t mean you were secure, but compliance gave you a framework with which to become more systematically demonstrably secure. And it was good discipline for the craft in security because there was a lot of craft in security. There still is, and there are people that defend that craft, and that’s part of their livelihoods.
Joe Gottlieb:
But, but the, the, the, the more, the more data-driven, compliance oriented effect was actually good for security in, in all enterprises and across all verticals. And I look at accreditation in kind of a similar way in that it, if you were actually really good with your ability to manage your delivery of education, and you knew all along that you’d have to demonstrate it much like a financial, a public company has to satisfy an audit, right? Then it’d be, you would find it less intimidating to go through that. It would still have high stakes, but you’d be more prepared. You’d enter, we talked about entering compliance audits with confidence, because your practice is sound and you’re, you are even willing to acknowledge what’s left to do, but that’s actually part of them validating that you are aware of your gaps. The same thing is true in security. I don’t know if that triggers any thoughts for you, but
Wayne Bovier:
No, I mean, I mean, I, I think we’re, we’re in agreement on this. You know, I, I, I think, you know, again I view accreditation as a quality control, right? And and it, it, there is a process there, there is a discipline that is is required about this. But the, but the, but, and I, and I know enough accreditors that are out there, right? And they’re also intellectually aware of their role in this ecosystem. And, and the, the, the, the, the reality is that they have to figure out a way to ma, you know, provide a service a quality service that doesn’t require an institution three years and many millions of dollars of rolling the dice that, you know, they may or may not have to stand up a program that may or may not be successful. There needs to be a faster nimble or a more agile way across the entire industry.
Wayne Bovier:
There’s too many historical barriers that are rooted in the 1950s or the 1930s that we, we gotta, we gotta shed, we gotta, we gotta really, you know, we need to move forward on this. I mean, it is, I think it is, you know, and this may oversimplify this, but I think, you know, like you, like this, 10 years ago you started to see Google and the Apples of the world and Microsoft coming out with their own coding bootcamps. Well, why did they do that? Because they looked around and said, man, we can’t find, we don’t have the supply of programmers or product managers that we need. And meaning higher ed is not delivering them, or community colleges aren’t delivering them, or whatever. So they had, they, they have their own needs. So they, they stood up. Did they wanna do that? I don’t think so.
Wayne Bovier:
It’s not like a winning business model for them. They just had to do it because they needed to fill these roles and the roles weren’t getting filled. And so that, to me, was a missed opportunity, although certain community colleges and other institutions are moving into that, into that particular space to fill that gap. But that is another reason why, you know, why did they, you know, big companies like that need to do, provide education when higher ed was supposed to be that play in that role. And I think that there are just structural issues that need to be, that need to be changed for not the digital world, the AI world.
Joe Gottlieb:
Yeah. You, your example highlights something that I think is worth emphasizing. And that is that if accreditation gets in the way of an institution’s ability to stand up new programs quickly, it means that accreditation is getting in the way of an institution’s ability to evolve its value proposition into the domains where it feel it can be successful, producing great value, great education for certain students. If we zoom out on this, this industry, and I know you and I both agree on this, but I wanna summarize it for our guests. We believe that particularly the advent of, it’s not new, but the concept of lifelong education and combined with the concept of making education more accessible to everyone, and the concept of making all the education more valuable, which by the way, starts to channel things like competency based and actual mastery, right? Which could, by the way, change the way accreditation is done in the future anyway.
Joe Gottlieb:
But let’s not digress there yet or today. But this market is a massive market. The planet needs so much more education in different forms, way more way. And not every institution can afford to try to deliver at all. They should not try to be a one-stop shop. They should figure out what they’re gonna be good at, right? And in a form that is sustainable fitting with their mission and their ability to produce financial resources and, and outcomes, right? And if that means adding new programs that they’ve discovered they’re gonna be actually good at delivering, we ought to free up their ability to do that while they maybe step away from things that they’re not so good at. Because that’s the only way the free market will address the global need for education.
Wayne Bovier:
Completely agree.
Joe Gottlieb:
And to that end, right? We know of a project called the Moonshot Project, which is intended to be a national strategy for the future of higher ed, specifically focused for the US on reclaiming our economic competitiveness, which we’ve, you know, many could argue we’ve lost a little bit of our economic competitiveness as a nation. And so it’s a very interesting project. I, I wonder and worry about what some of the turbulence underfoot right now might do to this project. But it represents, at least at the national level, how the United States might try to evolve the industry structure so that we can do a better job delivering on the promise of higher ed for the us.
Wayne Bovier:
I mean, it’s absolutely necessary, right? You know, again, you, you said it, and we’re in full agreement, right? Like, we need more education, not less. We, you know, going back to again, and not, and not to, and anybody listening that’s more on the accreditation side, you know, hopefully you’re not taking any of this personally and you’re in agreement with this. But, and not to beat up accreditation, but you know, when you think about the systematic and discipline approach that you mentioned earlier about what accreditation does well, it can’t be so rigid that you can’t come, or you, you can’t be creative and innovative right? There, there, you still should be able to deliver high quality in a more that is supportive of being, you know, Hey, we wanna stand up a new certificate program that does X or Y or whatever, right?
Wayne Bovier:
Like, oh, we’re, you know, we’re here in a certain state in a region, in a state that, you know, specializes in mining or whatever it might be that, so we’re gonna offer up, you know, degrees in this particular area. It’s a growth industry. Like these are the types of things. And again, going back to kind of your point is well, you know, in order to help leaders become more, you know, really drive the business as, as higher ed really is. ’cause There is a balance sheet. We know there’s a balance sheet. In order to drive that, that business, they need to have some creative freedom. Yeah. They need to be able to provide that quality and provide a broad set of services to all different types of students. Again, you know, I think that the positive out of all this is that this concept of lifelong learning, affordability and access that we as an industry have been talking about for a very long time, actually is in reach. Okay? and but it requires a lot of cooperation, not only at the federal government level, but all at the state government, local government. It requires leadership. The shared governance model needs to be more co cooper, you know cooperation across the board. So,
Joe Gottlieb:
Yeah. So true. Alright, well, let’s shift gears a little bit now. I wanna move on to a conversation about some of the, the basic principles and practices that we believe are so important to navigating all this change, right? And, and, and some of these have not changed, but I wanna, I just feel like it’s worthy of some, some review. What are some of your favorites that we’ve been talking about for, for years? And I’ll, I’ll compliment you, you know, your list with, with my list, but these are, these are principles about how effective change is managed.
Wayne Bovier:
Yeah. I mean, you know, I feel like I’ve been li you know, this is what, you know, this is why we built this company, right? And what we, what we really focus on, you know, the first is, you know, how do you align strategy to what you’re executing on? And, you know, yes, software runs everything, right? And you know how much technical debt you have, and you know, what you want to accomplish from a business perspective that we were just talking about is, you know, you have to have much stronger strategy and, and prioritization of that strategy. And oh, by the way, you know you know, you know, flash, flash news out here, if you’re still developing a five to 10 year strategic plan in today’s era, that’s, it’s gonna be outta date within a quarter. Okay? And so do you really wanna spend all that time and money?
Wayne Bovier:
In many cases it’s years in under development. And, you know, I applaud the approach of, you know, the inclusion of the community and all the different stakeholders that you have as part of that strategy. I think that’s always a good thing. But the reality is you have to be in a continuous strategic state, right? And you have to be in this place where you know, you need to be nimble, right? And your strategy needs to be reflecting that nimbleness because it may, it, it may or may, may not, it may change, it may not, but it, it, you need to be that. So the other thing is you know, cultural, right? You know, especially in such a decentralized world as higher ed is, and I, again, I don’t remember, or I don’t, I don’t care what size of an institution that you are you are decentralized.
Wayne Bovier:
There’s budget authority all over the place. Yes, many of you have shared governance, but you know, how do you really drive change across such a diverse group that are very independent? You gotta, you gotta understand the role of change management and, and it needs to be a sophisticated understanding of change management. And what I mean by that is you have your traditional project level change management which is really important, but it needs to be coordinated also at the enterprise level. And that’s the, that’s really, you know, for us as a company, that’s what we’ve always looked at in terms of digital transformation being a holistic approach. It’s not just the technology that changed, it’s the people, it’s the process, it’s all that type of stuff. And then, and then, you know, and then then better coordination and transparency across all these silos. How do you really enable that? So people are really coordinated. And, you know, in many cases that decentralization there are some stakeholders that don’t want to give up that budget. They don’t wanna be transparent. They’re very comfortable in their own fiefdom. And the reality is they’ve worked for an enterprise that has to be better coordinated to be able to provide better, you know, better better support to the students more efficiently than they ever have been. That’s what students are demanding today. So those are, those are the top themes in my mind.
Joe Gottlieb:
You hit, you hit all the big ones, and I would just add a couple of other points of emphasis. One being that doing fewer things aligned as an organization is always more effective than doing too many things that feel urgent, but aren’t being aligned across the organization. And so it’s, it’s human nature and it’s organizational nature to wind up grappling with the ladder when you don’t have a proactive, intentional discipline about achieving the former IE wholistically, aligning around fewer things and then measuring progress so you can celebrate that progress and become even more confident chasing the things that you know fit well with your strategic objectives and transparency. You, you, you touched on it, but I love emphasizing transparency. I truly believe it is one of the least tapped organizational superpowers. When you share information and you equip participants in your community to have a greater chance of accomplishing a shared understanding that you, that your organization stands for, IE all seeing things, all seeing the reality of what’s going on, that unlocks not only an ease with which people can overcome differences, but it just becomes this, this foundation for being able to then operate with that source of truth and, and move forward more effectively.
Joe Gottlieb:
It really is elusive in a stovepipe organization or, or in organizations that either lack this discipline and or are controlled by people who have the most to lose by transparency becoming a principle of the land.
Wayne Bovier:
I, I think I, I think that’s exactly right. And I, and I, and, and it just, you know, jogs something that I, I, I, I thought, I think is probably important, right? Especially for the, the higher ed stakeholders in, in listening into this, is that, you know, one of the different, one of the changes that has happened since we started this podcast is you know, Gartner and Forrester have created a brand new enterprise software category for all industries, and it’s called strategic portfolio management. It is something that you and I have been building and working on since basically we started this company, right? And it’s a way, it’s a new method. It’s a new tool to be able to start to help stakeholders in such a decentralized environment, one, bring more transparency, but clarity across such a diverse group about what really are the most impactful projects that are going to have the biggest strategic impact that may be student success.
Wayne Bovier:
It may be retention, it may be a variety of these types of things. And so, you know, trying to tackle this in old methods I mean, this is good. This is the good news. Like, you know, it, it, it is daunting, right? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. It is daunting to try to think about, oh my God, how do I keep up with this when I gotta, I, I have an orchestra that wants to play in different, they’re different tunes all over the place, right? How do, how do I get them all to play together? There’s new methods and new capabilities that are really that, that are based in ai, that are helping organizational alignment and, and ultimately making people work better together more effectively. And eliminating things like, you know, oh my God, I got, this is my 10th meeting on our strategic plan, and I, I, I feel like this is a waste of my time. ’cause We’re never getting anything done like this is, this starts to solve those types of problems. And so, so I, I wanna give some encouragement out there that there are things that are coming that are new. It just requires an open-mindedness to embrace that newness, to drive some of that, some of that change internally. And that, you know, that takes you know, at, at this stage, it takes a little bit of a, you know, a, a a risk, even though that there are two category five hurricanes hitting the industry <laugh>.
Joe Gottlieb:
Well, and what we’ve found is that maybe predictably, that a lot of higher education institutions feel very overwhelmed. And when you’re feeling overwhelmed by change, it can be hard to do anything that’s new. And yet, aligning your organization around strategic objectives and the best projects, IE the things you should prioritize to, to make, maximize the use of your precious finite resources, having a method like that is actually the way you’re gonna work yourself out of being overwhelmed. And, and so finding a, a, a presence of mind to make just enough room, even to start small in adopting this sort of discipline is is just founda profound for, for any organization we believe. Alright, let’s shift gears one more time, and that is, let’s talk more about ai. So AI is this mega category five storm that’s affecting everything. Higher education is no exception. And what I’d like to talk to you about, Wayne, is particularly your thoughts on like, literally the scope and scale of what this means and how to, how to think about it in the context of an entire industry changing. And for any one given institution or the system, it’s part of how they’re thinking about change. Because we really are talking about a new era here.
Wayne Bovier:
Oh, yeah. And you know, to be honest, I don’t know if anybody truly understands how profound of a change this is gonna have, not only on higher ed, but every industry, you know the best, you know, the best kind of revolution that I can equate it to is the industrial revolution, right? Thi this is gonna be eight times that, right? And, you know, I fundamentally believe just, just, just for the audience to know, I’m, I’m a more of an optimist. I believe in historically the patterns of innovation and history creating more jobs effectively. Think that’s the, that’s really the umbrella of what we’re talking about here, is all this technology that’s happening that there are more jobs being created that are, that are out there in the world, but they require higher level degree in training, right? And that’s where more jobs are, are needed. And so when I think about ai, you know, simply put, it’s a tool you know there’s a famous quote going around and I forget who to describe it to about, you know, AI is not gonna replace you, but the person who knows AI will,
Joe Gottlieb:
I believe Richard Baldwin, Richard from the World Economic Forum’s Growth Summit in 2023. I had to look that up because we’ve been taking that quote in vain. But yeah, Richard, thank you.
Wayne Bovier:
Tha thank you. And that, you know, it’s, it’s a prescient quote and and it, it is very true, right? That it’s just tool, right? And I describe it to people that I speak with as like, okay, you know, oh, oh, oh, I don’t wanna use ai. I, I, I like writing my own papers. My, my, my response to them is like, oh, did you have the same attitude when Microsoft Word started to inject spelling check in automatically? Like, it’s just a tool, it’s going to help you. It’s not, you know, I mean, I think today Google writes 90% of their code using ai. Oh, is that AI just writing code? No, it’s developers using AI development tools, writing, writing code. We’re gonna be able to do a lot more and have a broader, quicker reach using ai and being more thorough.
Wayne Bovier:
And so, you know, it’s hard to discern exactly where this is gonna land and to what degree, but, but it’s gonna impact everything. And I encourage, you know, those that are listening, the from higher ed, that, you know, don’t just look at it through a narrow lens. Don’t think like, how are we gonna control AI in the LMS with students and so on. You need to take a broader look is how’s it gonna impact your job? How can you take advantage of it, right? How can you as a, as a faculty member, you know, free up some of your time to spend more one-on-one time with students. If you’re an administrator, how do you use it to, you know, provide better, you know, support? How do you leverage it to provide better operations? So, I mean, we’re, we’re literally right at the beginning of this. And this is like, you know, we’re on this, in this inflection point on the curve that no one really understands and knows exactly how this is gonna play out. But I do see it as a very big opportunity across the industry to achieve the things that we’ve always wanted to achieve. Again, lifelong learning, student success, all these types of affordability and access, this is where the technology it will play, providing more humans in this equation is not the answer to
Joe Gottlieb:
This. Well, and I think that you’ve just actually helped me advance my understanding of a part of this, and that is, it’s easy to ponder the potential threat of AI and even people using AI stealing someone’s job. But the different way to think about it, I believe is it actually, to your point, Wayne, as a tool, it should make everyone’s job in its current form easier, where the strengths of AI can actually elevate that person’s work. For example, what if you really did have so much more data at your fingertips as consumers have already inserted to enjoy first with search, now with gen ai, right? Like so in every role, your ability to quickly understand something that you might not have understood before, maybe understand the relationships access summary data or even detailed data that are gonna be necessary for you to do whatever you’re trying to do at any one moment. But what it forces the enterprise to do is to think hard and innovate around what’s possible if everyone can be better at their jobs. That’s right.
Wayne Bovier:
That’s exactly,
Joe Gottlieb:
That becomes the business strategy opportunity or set up for new competitive failure. If you can’t reimagine how your business can be better in the AI world, you will be left behind by those that do, and higher ed will not be insulated from this. And so, and meanwhile, higher ed has this amazingly important role to play in helping the whole planet participate in that society. So we not only have a need as higher education leaders to figure out what it means for us, our very value proposition needs to figure out what it means for all the students that we’re producing, all the education we’re producing, so that society can actually function in this new form.
Wayne Bovier:
And I, I, I agree with that. And I would, I would just add on the producing part, I just wanna clarify it, it is continuously producing because this idea that you graduate at 22 and most knows this, right? You’re gonna need to be retrained in in a couple years, right? That, that, that has been shrinking since the fifties, right? Like this idea that da da, I got my, my education DA and then I’m good for the rest of my, my career. Nope, you’re gonna need to get retrained and, and reevaluated. And it’s not like you gotta go back and lose your job for, or, you know, go without a job for four years. It’s not one of those, it’s like, okay, I’m gonna take a month off. I gotta get retrained, I’m gonna come back into the workforce, whatever it might be. And again, lifelong learning, that is the definition of lifelong learning.
Joe Gottlieb:
And so it’s now up to the students to reimagine what’s possible for them in this continuous growth universe, right? This continuous growth society. And that comes back to the responsibility of higher education. And we hear many leaders talking in this way, which I love. We have to help our students be prepared to lead productive, happy, healthy lives in this future society that AI will, will influence in many ways, many of which we can’t predict. Alright, let’s bring this puppy to a close. Wayne. What are three takeaways we can offer our listeners on back to the future for higher education?
Wayne Bovier:
Alright change is no longer a nice to have. It’s a must have to survive. And I think more importantly, drive success for tomorrow’s students. I think the second one is institutions really need to focus on their unique value and the strategy necessary to sustain it. And then the third one is to truly achieve student and operational success, AI must be an intrinsic part of your institution.
Joe Gottlieb:
Wow. Great summary. Wayne, as always, it’s a pleasure to have you on TRANSFORMED.
Wayne Bovier:
Joe. It’s been absolute awesome to be here with you. And let’s not wait another three years before I’m back on. This has been, this has been a lot of fun.
Joe Gottlieb:
You got it. And thanks to our guest for joining us as well. I hope you have a great day and we’ll look forward to hosting you again on the next episode of TRANSFORMED.
Joe Gottlieb:
Hey, listeners have transformed. I hope you enjoyed that episode and whether you did or not, I hope that made you stop and think about the role that you are playing in your organization’s ability to change in the digital era. And if it made you stop and think, perhaps you would be willing to share your thoughts, suggestions, alternative perspectives, or even criticisms related to this or any other episode, I would love to hear from you. So send me an email at Info@Higher.Digital or Joe@Higher.Digital. And if you have friends or colleagues that you think might enjoy it, please share our podcast with them as you and they can easily find TRANSFORMED is available wherever you get your podcasts.