Hello, Jerry, Jim. It's good to talk to you. Hi, Shannon. Hi, Shannon. Here we are at the
of Dream Teams and Apollo 13's session of the day. How are we feeling about Teams?
Quick hot take. I like Teams. I like Teams. I use it every day. Not Microsoft Teams. No,
this is, I will say that this happened. I was trying to explain to our colleague, Cartland.
We're doing a session on Teams. He's like, why are we going to talk about Microsoft Teams?
It's like, no, no, like, no, the broader concept of Teams. Yeah. So this was inspired a bit by Jim
Groom, as always, most good ideas are in life. And he kind of threw out like, why don't we get
together, you know, do a little nostalgic, but talk about Teams in general. So I kind of named
this session Dream Teams and Apollo 13's after the many iterations of Teams I've been a part of,
Jerry, Jim's been a part of. The Dream Team, if you are not familiar with, I think the original
one would be the Dream Team. I think the original one would be the Dream Team. I think the original
one would be the Dream Team. I think the original one would be the 1992 Men's Olympics Basketball
Team, right? Jordan, Pippen, I don't know, the long variety of them, right? They got together,
just dominated, dominated basketball. And, you know, it became a moniker that has been used
in past iterations. And currently, if you go into our Teams, actually, our one of our channels is
named Dream Team. That includes me, Jerry and our colleague, Cartland. But of course, you know,
not when teams get together, it's not always perfect.
Yeah, it's not always perfect.
So during COVID, we had another channel in the Teams called Apollo 13, because
when things got critical and you had to get it together...
Failure was not an option.
Failure was not an option, right? So this is an ode to the goodness of Teams, maybe sometimes
the difficulty of Teams. But why don't we... I mean, I know a lot of people know who Jim Groom is,
but I want to do a quick intro of everybody sitting around the table here. Jerry, do you want
to go first?
Sure. I'm Jerry Slazek. I'm the Director of Digital Learning Support at the University of
Washington and been here since 99 and an early colleague of Jim Groom. And Shannon was a student
aide of ours at that time, too. So I've known Shannon for a long time.
And I worked alongside Jerry Slazek, who hired me along with Martha Burtis and Gardner Campbell
and Andy Rush. And I work at Reclaim Hosting now, but a part of my heart will always be
at the center of DTLT.
Dream Team. And Shannon, I think you've mentioned already the highs and lows of being part of a
team. I think I was responsible for many of the lows.
But some highs. So, you know.
Yeah. And I'm Shannon, like Jerry mentioned. I was a student aide. I worked with Jerry and Jim.
But Jim just mentioned that Jerry hired him. And then in the same way,
I now work for Jerry. Well, indirectly for Jerry. I report to Cartman technically, but
was recruited into the team, you know, a couple of years back. So Jerry is the secret
orchestrator of many good teams. I think that have happened on this campus.
And good ideas for teams.
Good ideas for teams.
Set of designs. I mean, we could talk about that. But can I ask you, Shannon? Can I ask you a question?
Yeah. Go ahead.
What is your title?
I am currently the associate director of the Digital Knowledge Center.
So...
I guess this would be a good place to give a quick shout out to Martha Burtis,
who was the founder of the Digital Knowledge Center here at Mary Washington.
We did invite her, but she unfortunately had a conflict on her schedule. We also invited our
colleague, Cartland Burge, who is the director. But he conveniently had a dentist appointment.
So you can see how much he values teams. Choosing dental health over...
He does floss a lot.
He does floss a lot. So hopefully it'll be a quick dental appointment.
But, you know, why don't we get to...
A little bit of music and then we'll get to starting talking about teams.
Okay.
Okay. That was kind of a joke song, right?
No, but nobody wants to be all by themselves, do they?
Or maybe they do. I don't know. Maybe, you know, in the Discord, they're out there.
Maybe you are a unit of one and you're rocking it.
But I want to pose a question. I mean, how did we...
I think we're all in agreement. We think good teams are good.
But how... when and how did you discover the value of a good team?
Wow.
Uh...
I don't know. Well, Jim, go first.
Well, I can speak a little bit to this because when I came to Mary Washington in 2005,
it's December 13th, 2005. We're going to put a specific date. It was a Sunday.
I think I was very much about myself.
I was like, I'm coming here. I want to finish my PhD. I got a family. I'm just taking this job.
You know?
I had no... I was, you know, basically alpha number one.
And so I think it was... really took me about six months to working with these folks and then
hitting Faculty Academy in 2006 when I realized that all of us were doing something bigger
together. And I still was, you know, fighting my own demons about individualism and selfishness
versus the team. But I do think it was at that point,
that I realized everyone on that team was coming to the table, was giving their A game and was like,
really, there was a lot of love. And there was a lot of respect. And there was a sense that,
like, we could do something together that, singly or apart, we couldn't. So that was for me,
Faculty Academy 2006, where I got a sense of, wait, this isn't just, you know, a job to pass the time.
This is a kind of commitment to a group of people.
To do something bigger. And that was wonderful.
I know. And we had started out as kind of a group, but we were all distributed all over the
place, right? And across campus in different places. And we would have our weekly seminars,
I think what we started to call them, because they felt a little bit like,
Gardener's going to lecture us on this this week. So it was... but we did kind of have an
opportunity to share. And then we found out that we really liked...
working together. And that all ended up, at some point, we all got to move into a common location.
And I think that's, you know, a few people quit. A few people got hired. And then all of a sudden,
it seemed like we had the right combination of people that all wanted to, you know, move forward
in a similar direction. Which is a big deal, right? You have to... if you have people with different
ideas about what they want to do and how they want to do it, then that makes it hard for her team to move forward.
Yeah. And I think on that point, one of the key design principles or physical realities
that changed how we related with each other was not only coming together in a common office,
but also all sitting together on, you know, a bullpen-like setup. Like, I can't overemphasize
how important it was for us to eight hours a day, you know, talking smack, going back and forth,
poking, but also sharing what we were doing that day. And there was... like, the walls had literally
and figuratively kind of come down. And we were in a big, almost like living room or den,
living together as a kind of work family. Yeah, all the desks pushed to the middle of the room.
It was... it reminded me of, like, the newsroom that I had worked in as an intern during my undergrad work.
And, you know, I remember floating that to all of you. What would you think of...
because we were... we were like... we knew we were going to space. Should we get cubicles?
You know, it was one of the things we talked about. And we decided to... to try and, you know, just
share everything. And let's be clear, that's not going to work for everybody.
Yeah, well, we'll... we can talk a little bit more about that when we get to...
No, no, it's fine. That's good. But yeah.
Yeah, it did work for us for sure.
Yeah, it definitely takes, I think, the right personalities. And I'll just give a...
quick answer here, because I did have the example in you all as a student aide, seeing
how a team... people could work together. But I wasn't working professionally at that point.
I was a student. It was... I mean, technically, I think I worked 10 hours a week. I was there way
more than that. Jim's often refrain was, are you off the clock or are you off the clock?
Because I was hanging around so much. But it wasn't until I got my curtain job, you know, and I had
been working at the university in the library. Big shout out to my library. Peeps love them. But it was...
it wasn't until I worked with Jerry and Kirtland, I actually recognized the collaborative nature of
teams, right? Everybody's kind of set up in a team, usually. Some sort of unit when you work, right?
You're never kind of alone often. But, you know, the idea that I could get feedback, and you know,
Jerry may attest to how hard that was for me at first to be like, we want to put out the best
product. So you're going to get feedback about it. And I think I was used to being like,
I have really good ideas and kind of a little bit of a rock star in the library.
And people let me run with things, which was great. But, you know, you can... I recognize
you get better by sharing those things and letting other people kind of, you know, hone that for you.
And it taught me a lot during that initial... I'm still learning. So not to say I'm not learning
still. But I definitely learned a lot at the beginning. Yeah. So I do want to broaden this
conversation to a little bit about... so I wanted to talk about teams. Because I think the concept
of a team is a little bit different. I think it's a little bit different from what we're used to in
society. I think we often valorize the individual effort of one or it's easy. I mean, like we like
to talk about, you know, I mean, Jim, you kind of maybe suffered a little bit of this in DTLT.
Like, you know, Jim Groom became the famous person from DTLT, right? Like, Jim Groom is DTLT. Or
even if we talk about societal movements, like civil rights, right? You say civil rights, you go
Martin Luther King Jr., right? And he becomes the icon, even though the work of civil rights is lots
of people. I mean, people... how many people can name who are even in the big, big four, right? That are...
you know, who are also civil rights leaders, right? So it's easier... we like... I mean,
nothing wrong with the individual, but do you think we undervalue teams and the work of teams
in general? I'll let Jim go.
Oh, you're on mute, Jim. Thank you. Thank you. That's why you need a team member. I would have
been 15 minutes on myself talking if it wasn't for you two. But it does... one of the funny
anecdotes based on your story that I have is, you know, I... the reason why I became kind of a
figurehead is because I blogged a lot, right? And I shared a lot of what we were doing. For sure.
And that's... that's the reason. But it was always funny to me that whenever people would
finally make the sojourn, and many did, to UMW, they were all like, oh, you have nothing to do
with what happened with this group. It was all these people around you. You were just a mouthpiece.
And so, that was kind of a... that was also a very good kind of, I don't know, balance. And
I think that's what a good team does is you have all different personalities. You have all different
types. And a good team is able to balance each other and kind of try and check some of that ego.
And also for those with the ego that maybe bring out the folks who wouldn't celebrate themselves.
So... yeah, you are always really good at giving other people credit.
Your kudos.
We're always good at that. You're still kind of good at that.
Yeah, yeah, he still blogs.
Yeah.
Do you have a blog?
People still blog? Do they talk, do it on the telephone?
Yes, they send messages to the web.
The web, web 2.0? Which web are we on these days?
The internet.
Yeah, the internet.
The internet. Well, I think maybe we can move into a little bit of a segment I want to call
underrated or overrated and I will put it out there. I'm going to throw out some topics and
I'll say underrated, overrated and we'll discuss. But if people in the discord would like to also
throw out things they would like us to discuss, I encourage that. So, Jerry, want to hit the...
Two guys pull together, it's teamwork.
In power.
Beautiful. Love that. And Jerry, I'll give credit to Jerry. You know, he is doing all the music for
us right now, being the DJ. He does actually have a radio show here on our campus that he does.
So underrated, overrated. So I'm going to throw out my first
one here. But like I said, other people want to discuss other things. And we kind of started
getting to this when we mentioned the bullpen and we may need to define that. But open office
layouts, underrated or overrated?
Hmm. I don't... I would say overrated.
Interesting. Do you want to qualify that?
Because I don't think they work... I think they don't work for everybody. I think that you need to have a...
A group that really wants to do that, but the whole idea of forcing people together
into an open environment I don't think works. We... worked for us because we wanted to be there.
And we decided to do that. And we had agency in that decision.
I don't think that if you were to say, okay, everybody, we're going to push all our desks
and in the other room, nobody gets an office anymore. I think you'd have a riot. So...
Yeah. No, good point. I, the, some of the...
One of the teams I've seen, obviously I'm biased because DTLT had a very good one. I now work in a team that really has never had an office. Like we had kind of a co-working space, but even it was it was not an office per se. But Tom Woodward had a team down in VCU, where they work together in a kind of pretty tight, connected three people. And they seem to work really well. And they each have their own space. So it's
it reminded me, you know, because I was now at Reclaim of some of that. So I tend to think underrated, because I think a lot of people just assume the office, and then they come out to socialize, but the office and I think that was my assumption. I had a hard time with the bullpen at first. I had to I went remember, I went to like Campbell Hall. And I disappeared for a couple of months, you know, with my journey in the woods, and then came back to the team. But I was suffering
for the team.
I was suffering for that, because I literally worked at CUNY, where no one had any space, and you always shared offices, and you were like an adjunct. And I was like, finally, I come to Virginia, where there's space, and I get an office. And this freak wants me to share an office with six other people. And I just want my own space. So, you know, I found it was, I underrated it. And when I got it and figured it out, what you were doing, and what you were thinking, I loved it.
What did you think, Shannon?
Yeah, it was hard.
I mean, I have an extreme bias towards this, I think, that early DTLT example. But e-learning techie in the Discord, I'm sorry, I don't know your real name. I just know you by your Discord name, points out that, like, once you get a little bit large, it could probably be a downside, right? There's probably a max number of people you want in an open, you know, office kind of setting. And it needs to be a group of people that want to be around the table, like you said, I think that makes makes the huge difference.
Plus, I mean, I'm, I'm able to focus in a way that I don't hear half of what Martha and Jim are arguing about when we were doing that. So, you know, I think that I was still able to get some things done. But that doesn't work for everybody.
Yeah, I mean, I know if Martha was here, I think she'd probably say overrated, because I know one of her gripes was sometimes like, you just need to focus. And then like, the person's waving at you across the table, and you're like, just leave them alone.
Am I allowed to curse them? I don't usually hear people cursing, but I might slip out.
All right, next topic, team retreats, underrated or overrated?
Well, if you're already hanging out all the time.
Yeah, aren't you always retreating?
Yeah, yeah, it feels like it. But, uh, we, well, I would say, I don't think we did much of that when we were in DTLT, but we have done it in the group that we work now.
So we'll take a couple days and not do the regular thing.
Yeah.
And I think that that really helps because it sets aside time to not do regular things and think about the other things.
I think they're under underrated.
You're on mute.
I know. Sorry.
I agree with that.
We did a retreat.
We invited Tom, and the whole Reclaim team, because we're distributed, got together in San Diego.
It was only for two or three days so everyone was like, why the hell San Diego?
Again, a selfish choice on my part.
But it was great.
It was great to get everyone together in the same place and work together and just kind of be together, especially when you're a distributed team.
So I think they're underrated.
I think retreats can be awesome.
I don't know if you remember this, Jerry, but do you remember that Gardner had us do a retreat?
It was like, what color was your parachute?
Or we read some book.
That's when I was coming from CUNY.
And I was like, struggling with my PhD.
I'm like, really?
You're going to make me read?
What color is your parachute book?
I was really indignant.
I can imagine that.
Yeah, I think I'll go with underrated.
Although, you know, this is hard because I've been to not good retreats.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.
It's kind of like the open office layout question for me.
I don't want to go to the retreat that's led by HR.
No, that sounds bad.
Oh my gosh.
But we've had some very productive retreats as a unit of three.
You know, I think we spent a good part of one of them debating what we should call our new UMW blogs.
You know, like that.
Just having that focus time.
So, all right.
All right.
Leadership by committee.
Underrated or overrated?
Oh.
I think that's hard, actually.
Like when we, you know...
You want to have everyone in a team feel like they have input.
But sometimes somebody needs to make a decision.
So, I don't believe you can actually have leadership by committee.
So, what would that be?
Yeah, I don't know.
Oh, that would be...
Fingers down.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Overrated.
You don't like it. Overrated.
I mean, I think leadership is important.
And I also think that being able to share that...
You want to share that leadership with everyone.
But sometimes someone needs to decide.
Everyone who led at DTLT led on the ground.
They led with the work.
It was never like, you go do this and then I'm going to sit back and, you know...
Everyone was doing the work.
And I think that matters.
I think one of the big things that I did...
I miss a lot about UMW in my time there and people there.
But one of the things I don't miss is meetings.
When I came to Reclaim with Tim, our whole thing was like, no meetings.
Like, we have a 15-minute discussion about what we're going to do.
And we decided, we're done.
Like, there was no meeting.
There was no committees.
There was no nothing.
And we were small so we could get away from it.
That's changed now that we're a little bigger.
But I found that very hard because I felt a lot of the time was spent negotiating.
And very little time was spent deciding.
And I think at DTLT we were lucky because we had no oversight.
So we could pretty much amongst ourselves, while the university was kind of in turmoil over president after president after president, we could make those decisions and go.
And often did.
Yeah.
Sometimes I tell Cartland and Shannon, the best DTLT...
I think the best defense is a good offense.
Right?
So, like, if you are able to step forward and do good and interesting things, people won't sit there and tell you what to do next.
Right?
So, I think it's important that you have a good enough relationship with the people that are supervising you that you can build that trust to be able to say, look, here's what we want to do.
And here's the plan we have for it.
And here's how we're going to approach it.
And here's the results that we're getting.
And here's how we're going to evaluate it at the end.
And we're going to call it a pilot.
Remember that, Jim?
We called everything a pilot.
Everything.
So, and I think that was, I think that's important, too.
And I think there's some good, you know, questions in the chat from eLearning Techie and Nomad War Machine.
Just around, it depends.
Like, it depends who's making the decisions.
Like, we were not making institutional-wide decisions.
We were not like an unbridled, tyrannical president.
We had very kind of focused.
And I think, Jerry, you were kind of very good at managing that piece of it.
So there's the other thing about a team.
Some people will be more willing or able to manage some of that work, while other people who aren't very good at it don't have to.
And it was that distribution of allowing people to kind of do what they're good at and other people to take on pieces.
And sometimes that work is not very glorious.
Right?
And it's just, it's work that you got to do for the team.
And we were really lucky with that.
I mean, we distributed that load.
And you think about just the designing of the building you're in.
You, Martha, and Andy did a lot of work on that.
Yep.
And we're in a lovely Hurley Convergence Center, which has all kinds of technology and space for students and a digital knowledge center.
Don't you think it should be named the Groom Convergence Center, though?
Do you got money to donate?
Jim, I think you just have to donate it.
You can get whatever you want on the name of this building.
They're very open to that.
Kind of a joke, but I just, because I didn't do anything.
Well, I'm not joking about the donation.
Yeah, we'll name it.
We'll name the, you know, Digital Knowledge Center for you.
Wouldn't that be a good one for Martha?
Wouldn't Martha name it the Green Digital Knowledge Center?
She likes me right now.
Don't ruin that.
Yeah.
Eric in the Discord says,
everyone needs a Jerry to run flack against the administration.
And that is just, it's so true.
I mean, you spent a good part of your time fighting,
making sure the CIO did not get in the way of good work.
And you did it brilliantly.
I think you continue to also do a good job,
although we face an administration that likes what we do for the most part.
They leave us alone, let us do.
I think, you know,
maybe this is true at other people's institutions,
but for better or for worse at Mary Washington,
a lot of times you're left to do your own thing,
which is great when you want that freedom.
And then you look at other departments and they're like,
you should not have that freedom.
You are bad and somebody should tell you to do better.
So this is the opposite side of that coin,
is some people have a lot of freedom and are not making good choices.
But that's just my personal opinion on that.
Yeah.
Unless there's any underrated, overrated,
other people want to talk about.
I think we can transition to our next...
Can I make one more point?
Oh, yeah.
One of the things I,
and this is to Nomad War Machine's point about a team retreat with the DS-106 team.
One of the things I still want to do before I die is I want to,
and I proposed this to the Gates Foundation and they laughed at my face.
And I want to get a bus,
a DS-106 branded bus,
and travel around the country,
picking up people in various places,
maybe starting at Fredericksburg and then moving around the country.
And various people join us at various times.
And we go to universities and we kind of put on a performance of some kind.
I still want to do that.
That would be the retreat in a bus.
That's the tour.
The world tour.
Anyway.
Yeah, I support that.
So, you know, working in teams isn't always perfect.
So the song,
goes out to that.
Yeah, make them in trouble.
You know, it's not always sunshine and puppies.
So let's talk about how do we get on the same page?
How do you, you know, defining a common mission and reaching an agreement on it?
Is this, do you just luck into it or is there active work that can happen?
What have your experience been around this?
Because I think it's a key part of making a team effective.
And has it gone wrong in the past?
You want to go first, Jim?
Go ahead.
I'll let you go first.
I was hoping you'd go first, but...
You just want to play the music, right?
I'm queuing up things.
Okay.
You know, that communication is really important.
And I think we saw that when we started our group, you know, the early days of DTLT here,
because we had a couple of people that were not on board with kind of the way we were approaching things, you know?
And, oh, we're all going to blog.
We're all going to do this.
We're all going to try that.
We're going to see how, we're going to see what these experiments end up at.
And some people are like, I don't want to do that.
You know?
And they...
And some of them didn't to the point where they found other jobs and they left.
And then that let us hire some other people that were like, oh, that sounds cool.
Let's do that.
You know?
And then, so, that whole being on the same page is, in that case, was fortunate.
It's not like we did things to make that happen.
You know?
They kind of happened on their own.
But I'm always of the mind that you work with willing collaborators.
Not everybody is ever going to always agree with you or want to do the things you want
to do.
So, you try to find projects that everybody does have some interest in and also feels
beneficial to your institution or your group.
Yeah.
Well said, Jerry.
I mean, I'm not going to debate you, Jerry.
I'm not going to debate you.
I agree.
And I think one of the things I always now, I think the wisdom I took from the discussion,
Jerry, just was kind of...
Yeah.
...setting up is realizing in the moment what you have.
And I don't think I always did when I was at DTLT, just how good it was.
You know what I mean?
And I think on my second rotation around the team world, right, I'm now 10 or 11 years
into creating a team at Reclaim Hosting.
And I feel like, you know, I'm mindful of that.
And we have a really great team.
And part of that, like Jerry said, is convincing folks that we have a shared team.
We have a shared vision.
We share principles.
We're not all always going to agree.
We're not always going to be on the same page all the time.
But we have to agree on the core principles about what we're doing and why we're doing
it.
And that's sometimes hard when you're running a hosting company, right?
Because it seems like people would want to come and just be like, let me answer tickets.
Leave me alone.
I don't want to hear about blogging.
I don't want to hear about this DS-106 thing that had nothing to do with.
Like, they get a little tired of the history, right?
But there's...
There's a group now that, as you can see from this week, and just from the work we've
been doing community building over the last two years, there's a real essence of kind
of the instructional technology, the idea that we're not just infrastructure, right?
We're not just support, right?
We're the kind of the spaces in between.
And we have that cultural and personal knowledge to make it a real community.
And the team we have right now, I really think is amazing.
And I'm fortunate, but how long does it take to create that?
Like, I mean, that's the other thing.
Like, it's taken us a decade.
Right.
Yeah.
And how do you do that without it feeling like you're badgering people?
Actually, I think this is where retreats can be helpful.
It's like a time where you can be like, right, what is our purpose here?
Right.
And kind of that refocusing.
Are the things we are doing aligned with the goals that we have?
Yeah.
And it becomes that point.
Because I think it's easy to get lost.
It's easy to get lost in that or feel like you're doing some weird sort of, I don't know, leadership thing where you're like, okay, let's define our mission and goals and like, you know, and like not make it feel cheesy, but a truly genuine buying in and having those conversations with people.
I think one thing that we've done with our current group is the 10% time.
You know, like Google did this whole 10% thing, right?
There's a 10% of your work time.
You should get to work on projects that you are interested in.
Right?
So, we call it, we call it here.
We call it professional development.
So, but it's like every week, you know, we have time that's like a regular time that's in Shannon's schedule and Cartland's schedule.
Jerry, is it in your schedule?
I was going to classes before I considered that professional development.
So, but I now I need to, you know, do something since I finished that.
But that gives you some time.
I think that's also important here, right?
To give someone space for the things that they are passionate about, even because sometimes they don't always mesh with what the group wants or feels like that direction the group is going.
But then somehow can have some influence on those things that are happening in unexpected ways.
Yeah.
Right?
Or that just start to, you know, help somebody think through something.
Oh, well, what about this lens?
Or what about that lens?
And then, you know, and if you're passionate about something and you get to enjoy it and share it with your team, even if they don't care, like you all got to listen to plenty of Tears for Fears while I was at...
It's on this...
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Yeah, I know.
But that's what, that's kind of what I'm saying.
It's like, I think that there needs to be some of that.
I mean, that's just...
I think in a workplace is helpful to someone to have that kind of thing and not think that, oh, that's 10% of time that you're wasting.
It's like, it's not just like you could do whatever you want.
We talk about it.
We're like, well, what projects do you really care about?
And then try to see if they have some alignment with the things we're working on.
So I don't know.
You do anything like that, Jim, with your group?
We do.
And I agree with you.
And I took that from DTLT.
Yeah.
Like when Tim and I came.
That was part of it.
And one of the things I realized is folks don't necessarily use it in the same way.
But everybody who's at DTLT now, and there's been a consistent group, Meredith, Taylor, Chris Blankenship, Pilot, you name them, right?
Across the board.
These folks are very mission driven.
They want to know that the work this company is doing and that they're part of.
It means something.
And the fact that they're supporting higher ed and they're part of a community, and I think they recognize that, right?
Meredith is a great example of this.
That's part of the value of working at Reclaim, but also of just being a professional.
And I found that definitely at DTLT.
And I think a lot of folks are finding it at Reclaim.
And I think the real proof is in the pudding is people stay with us for years and years.
And that's part of, I think, what makes a great team.
Them feeling that what they're doing matters.
Yeah, for sure.
What do you think, Shannon?
Oh, no, I'm just gleaning from everybody's wisdom here.
Oh, no, no, no.
You've been in your current position since 2019.
And you went through COVID and you went through a lot.
Give us your pearls of wisdom now.
My pearls of wisdom.
Yeah.
I don't know how to wax more philosophical than you all did.
I think it's because my experience has been the same.
That there's a balance between there's things that we do together as a team to move forward the things.
And then there's the things that, you know, the exploratory stuff.
Especially I feel like in ed tech, you want to stay on top of what is happening.
You need to spend time dabbling in things that you're like, I don't know if anything will come of this.
But it's important for me to know.
Maybe just put my feet in the water over here, like check in on this.
And like, you know, kind of just staying in touch.
Because it's easy to, I think, solidify and get caught, like just get stuck in the things that you're always doing.
If you're not trying to actually push yourself out of those spaces.
You know, and you can easily justify it by saying like, well, I'm doing what's expected of me.
Then suddenly you got stuck in place and you're doing what was expected 10 years ago.
And they're not doing things that are forward looking.
I think it's very easy to get stuck into that kind of...
Yeah, playtime is essential in the line of work, right?
You need that like bit and not to feel bad about it.
I think that might be the hardest part about that is not feeling like it's wasteful.
Right.
And I think that you're like what you were talking about there around, you know, keeping your toe in the pool, I guess, right?
It's like, you're very good at helping me do that by, oh, look at this thing that somebody did.
Or look at this project.
I basically just share everything that Tom Woodward shares.
That's how I just seem so smart with it.
So I don't need to listen to what you say.
Yeah, just start actually getting on that.
Oh, okay.
But I mean, this is like, this is why we were talking a little bit earlier on the Discord, like, or the session earlier.
Why I kind of, you know, missed Twitter and Mastodon has been kind of okay for this.
And actually the Reclaim Discord has worked a lot.
But like that, just that finding and stumbling across things that provoke your thoughts.
That like, I would never find this myself.
But because they're over there doing that thing, they share it.
It makes me think about things in a new way.
It's super valuable.
Right.
Like having that kind of community of people that are pushing your thinking.
And especially if you're in a small unit, like we are, we're three people, right?
And like, I am the web person.
So it's like, I don't, like, I'm expected to lead in this.
So I have nobody to turn to.
I have to be the person figuring this out.
So that, I think that's kind of been a switch for me and just in my professional career, right?
I'm at that point where I'm like, oh, like I'm not just, you know, I'm defined.
I'm getting to define these things.
So I better start defining.
Yeah.
And you do it well.
I agree with that.
To your great credit, you have always been an amazing team member and community member.
Like how many times have we gone to you in the clutch?
And like your clutch, like that's the best way to describe you as a team member and as a community member.
You're there.
And we've seen that also in the Reclaim stuff.
Like I love that about you, Shannon.
Thanks, Shane.
Yeah.
You know, I guess, you know, if we do, you know, we're kind of talking about the good stuff, the bad stuff.
I mean, there's successes.
It's always fun to celebrate successes.
But what about the blame?
Sometimes things do go off the rails or somebody was let down in a major way or something fails.
How do you handle that?
When, you know, who has the blame?
You know, how do you handle those kinds of things when it's a team effort, perhaps?
If anybody has any stories of epic fails, too, if they want to share.
I can't think of any of those.
Yeah.
I've never failed in my life.
Thank God.
So nothing to share.
I'll let Jim go first this time.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I'm thinking really hard.
Like I am thinking about I'm sure I've had an epic fail.
I don't know if it was DTLT related, but I was set up to teach a course in historic preservation, which I never should have been teaching.
But I taught it as like it was a technology class.
And that class, the students and there were like six of them by the end of the class.
Basically, they had left the building.
And I had lost them terribly.
And, you know, that was that was pretty much my fault.
You don't have anyone to blame because as a professor, it's your job to kind of keep them in line.
But part of what I learned, maybe from those experiences as a professor and through DS106 particularly, because there were so many failures along the way of DS106.
But there was such a sense of distributed network community.
That anything I failed at or missed or couldn't do well, there was someone else in the community who picked it up and made it better and just had fun with it.
And it didn't feel like I was in a situation where people would point the finger and be like, you, you screwed up.
You're a jerk.
They would basically say, probably recognize I screwed up and I was a jerk.
But use that example or opportunity to do something better.
And then move it.
And I don't know.
I found like that was a lot of my experience at UMW in general.
I never felt like people blame me or we sat and kind of pointed fingers at each other.
And same at Reclaim.
There hasn't been a lot of that.
So luckily, we've avoided it.
Yeah, I think that speaks to a healthy culture, right?
Like the idea like I've been in scenarios where people are like something goes wrong.
People are like quick to be like, whose fault is this?
Like rather than thinking like maybe step one is like, okay, how can we figure out how to make this better?
Right.
Not immediately point the fingers and be like, wasn't me.
I'm out.
I've found that if things go epically bad, it's because nobody said anything.
Yeah.
Right.
Because you, you know, if you have a culture that feels like you can share with your teammates safely.
You have a safe space, right?
That not that what you're saying is personal.
But you're looking at the work.
And you're seeing maybe places where, you know, things aren't going as well as they should.
Or things aren't going in the direction we said we would work.
Or, you know, those kinds of things.
I think that's how you get into places where you have big failures.
And it's because you're not checking in along the way.
Or you don't have others that are willing to, you know, help shine the light on your blind spots.
Or, you know, help to...
You know, maybe readjust things or reconfigure things.
You know, I think that's...
I think like the big epic fails, I feel like they can be...
You know, when we were lucky because we didn't have people from the outside telling us the projects that we should be working on.
That's true.
Super lucky in that.
Still kind of am.
But I think part of that is because we were responsible about the projects we decided to do.
And the way that we approached them.
Yeah, for sure.
I feel like this might be a good time to segue into our final segment.
Because we're kind of talking about the things that go into making good team.
So, you know, the secret sauce.
What is the secret sauce?
If there is such a sauce, what would it be?
You know, we've got our
We're having a good time here.
I'm sorry to see that.
We're getting closer and closer to that three o'clock hour.
But, yeah.
Yeah, the question out there and, you know, people, feel free to chime in the Discord if you think you... What are the key ingredients? If you had to pick three, limited to three, this is like a nice simple dish we're doing, three ingredients. What would be the key ingredients to making a team successful? What do you think make a team successful?
And I can start this one because I did some pre-work on this, so I will jump on. I will... I'm going to throw number one, I think, well, I don't know if I can put these in order, but it's the first one I wrote on my list, but was trust. And I recognize that my current unit, as we are, one of the reasons I think we kind of hit the ground running, right?
I joined in October 2019. Cartland and Jerry were already in the unit, but they had also joined that year. There was a complete unit collapse, so three of us kind of get together. And you may remember a couple months after October 2019 was March 2020, right? And so we really had to work together and suddenly become experts in teaching people how to teach online.
Well, you and Cartland kind of had to pivot from student support to faculty support.
Yeah, students kind of lost it. But anyway, I think what was lucky for us, so, you know, full disclosure, Jerry, Cartland, and I all knew each other before we all started working together. We all worked at the university, all good friends. And I think we had a lot of inbuilt trust. And it made it, like, you know, Jerry was alluding to earlier, those hard conversations, because sometimes there would be hard conversations, you know, Jerry be like, this is what we have to do. Like, you had to make, we made hard decisions during COVID. And I'd argue because, you know, sometimes a little, I'm a little head in the clouds.
Like, I'm one.
I want, like, why don't we do this thing that is, like, probably in a vacuum, the most correct answer. But it's not the realistic answer for when you need to turn around and help faculty teach online. It's like, yes, we had to embrace the LMS during this time. We couldn't, just literally the three of us, how would we have done otherwise? I don't know.
And support that.
And not burn ourselves out. And kudos to people who didn't have to do that, because I think it's an incredible amount of work.
And it speaks to maybe the way people have continued to do that work. And we're able to support that. So trust, I think, is a big one. Shared goal and vision. We've already talked about this, right? And that, I think, is closely aligned with trust. Because, you know, we've, in DTLT, you all got into arguments. Sometimes I would get into those arguments. We still get into arguments. But I always...
They were debates.
Debates. Strongly worded debates. But I, you know, and I'll get mad. There's definitely, I don't even remember what...
You were arguing about it one time. But I definitely stormed off out of the office one time. And I'm not sure if I've done it in this current iteration.
You weren't the only one that stormed out of the office.
Stormed off. That happened. But at the end of the day, it didn't create a toxic environment, because I knew, OK, we ultimately all want the same things.
We're... we're disagreeing maybe how to get there or what's the best course of action, but like I trust they want the best thing, which makes doing the work much easier.
And I've definitely been in positions where...
I don't think this person feels the same way about that and then it becomes hard to, you know, then you actually avoid the hard conversations, because you don't know if you can come to an agreement.
And communication, you know, like you said, I, you know, especially I think around sometimes those hard conversations and we'll give kudos to you, Jerry, I try to take your lessons to heart, like, sometimes you need to tell people when it is going wrong so you don't have the massive meltdown.
I think you are absolutely correct in your observation that when things go off the rails it's because nobody was willing to say anything for a while, and communicate, because maybe it was hard to do that.
But communication, you know, is in general and I think that speaks to and we didn't really get to talk about this much and maybe, maybe there's time at the end but I think this is maybe the one value potentially of in person, sometimes, be able to just that all the things
I, you know,
like dropping into somebody's office, which feels different than maybe pinging people messages also works but if you work with somebody like Jerry who cannot multitask.
You want your question answered sometime today you will walk over to his office to ask him the question, because he will not get interrupting with your chat messages I know it's some people, you know, I mean I have the opposite problem where I'm like hyper.
This is why I was never good at Twitter. Yeah, that's, you have to fax Jerry.
But, I mean communication is also just like talking like just having that just random conversation to is like, which creates I think a good environment.
And I'll say this this, you know, Jerry mentioned that during coven I did not really our focus turned from students to faculty but we still had the digital knowledge center they were doing virtual consultations.
And I will say, like, I know a lot of people could do work from home, all that like it literally just would not work.
So I'm saying we have to unlikely my work with a student every day and being able to just communicate be with them in person, like, the, the community we're able to build because we're all in person, it was students.
They didn't, I mean, didn't know what to do with that.
Weren't good at it. It's really I mean really hard to teach students to do, be effective workers.
And plus, we were busy but like I really deeply enjoy being able to just drop in, you know, and just chat with them and have those conversations.
Yeah.
You can't really just do, you know, in a virtual environment. So this is like, much as I wish, sometimes I'm like, oh, it'd be nice to work from whatever, like, just my job, the work wouldn't happen. I don't think it couldn't happen. So also, I get to see my friends at work. So I'm very lucky in that. But I'll let you all kind of chime in with your, what are your secret ingredients?
Well, I'll jump in. I think it's, it's kind of good to have some fun sometimes to know that it's not all.
Serious. We have a, we have a little, what is it, six inch tall sculpture of the queen that has a solar person, then she waves her hand. Right. So what we do is we take turns hiding it on each other. And like, you go to do something and there's the queen waving her hand at you. So, you know, stuff like that, I think is, is important to, you know, make the workplace feel interesting.
Transparency, I think, is really important in any kind of, you know, especially if you're the person that's trying to lead a group, because, you know, there, there's reasons why people want something done that might not always align with the reasons why you would or would not want to do them. Right. So, but knowing that sometimes like, look, we need to do this because the provost asked us to.
So.
Great request.
But then the question is, how do we, how do we adjust that to be something that's beneficial to us too? Right. And that not just feel like, you know, here's a task and we're just going to have to suffer through it because it's not, we don't get a lot of those.
No, although I will say it's one of my favorite, I think, mental exercises be like, okay, how can I meet the letter of what they're asking and still make it not horrible? Like, can I make this something good? Like, can I define this?
Yeah.
But I won't think it's deeply hurting my soul.
Yeah.
And I think it's also like the other part is like just being able to see each other and know that not everybody's having a great day all the time and sometimes people just need space. Sometimes they just need, you know, a kind word. Sometimes they need a talk, you know, but that I think that is important.
Yeah, I mean, I agree. I think your list, Shannon, was excellent. I love, Jerry, your additions of fun and transparency. I think, you know, that's a really, those are core principles.
eLearning Techie said in the chat that, you know, complementary skill sets. I like that a lot too.
Oh, for sure.
Hiring people for the right job so that you can all be stronger as a result. Great.
Yeah.
And I don't know if I have too many to add there. But I do reflect on this. And I think Pilot also said this in the chat is, we are a distributed group. And so we don't meet in person. And we have kind of had to, you know, that is, I think, a challenge.
Yeah.
You know, we're kind of, to create a sense of team and to create a sense of connection, you know, we have to work hard at that.
Yeah.
And you have to be intentional about that. And I think we have learned that. And we just don't assume everyone's all right. We have to over-communicate, right?
Absolutely.
We do trust each other. So I don't think there is a question, but we do have to also be transparent about why we're asking people to do this.
Yeah.
So all these elements, you know, are made triplicate.
And triply or quadruply is hard when you're working completely remote.
I agree.
And so that's the thing. And we've figured out a way to do it. But I think there are times when I'm like, man, I sure, I wish I was hanging out with these people in an office doing this stuff.
Because not only would it be fun, but it also would make, you know, some of the stresses we feel just because we can't fully understand each other through these media a little bit easier.
So I feel that. And sometimes I miss that. I have other benefits from not doing it, but definitely miss it.
Great. Yeah. We're, I guess, getting close to time.
Well, Tom Woodward's up next. And he doesn't care if we run over.
No.
Actually, this is...
Because that's usually...
You know what?
He usually can't fill an hour in.
No. Yeah. Oh, excuse me. I'll reclaim some time from him because at the Reclaim Open conference last year, he went a little into Carlin the last time.
Oh, yeah, he did.
But to be fair, he was asked to shorten his presentation because he was... we were the only people that volunteered.
Okay, we'll finish on time.
Sure. My final question was going to be, if we were on a desert island, A, would we survive, all of us together, three of us? And who would be doing what? So, quick answers. Go.
What was the question?
Cue and music.
Yeah, if we were all stuck in a desert island together.
A, would we survive for more than a month? And B, what would we, you know, what would your role be on this team? That's Team Desert Island.
Oh, I would be the chef.
Oh, okay.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Because if you control the stomachs...
You control the minds.
You control the minds. Yeah, that's good.
I would be the entertainment.
Yeah.
No doubt.
I think that's true.
We would need it.
Yeah, I'd be working my hardest to find a way to get rescued, to get off this damn island with you two. So, thank you both. This has been a lovely conversation. So, Jerry, I know you want to play us off with some hope. Just never stop believing.
So, just so you know, Jim, this should finish at the end of the hour. So, that way you get to listen to the whole song. So, don't cut it off. Even if Tom wants to get going.
Alright, I hope you all have a good day. Thanks for listening to us.
Thank you all.
See you next time.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Good night.
Don't stop believin' Hold on to that feeling
Stayin' like people