861: LIVE From Ellucian Live 2024 - with Pete Baccile, VP, Partnerships, Explorance

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business, making it your business here at E! Live 2024 in San Antonio, Texas. Shout out to our colleague, Jess Weston for handling us so far. She schedules the episodes. She makes sure everybody gets where they're supposed to be. Makes sure I get back to my microphone in time and that I don't leave guests waiting. All sorts of things that she helps us with. And I'm giving her a great shout out because we can't do it without her.

And in front of us, we have another amazing higher ed colleague who's going to tell us about the company and organization he works for. I think this is the first time we've interviewed anybody from this company. So it'll be interesting to hear all about it. Ladies and gentlemen, let's bring them to the microphone. I'm going to give you a minute, one second to pause while I hit my sound effect. There it is. He's Pete Baccile, the VP of partnership at Explorance. Explorance. Oh, I can't say it.

Pete Baccile: You got it. You're good.

Joe Sallustio: You're good. The button that says nailed it. Nailed it. Good job. Thank you, Pete. Love it. Nailed it. Now I feel better about myself. Thank you, sir.

Pete Baccile: Gotta break the ice.

Joe Sallustio: Tell us about Explorance.

Pete Baccile: Explorance has been around 20 years with a heavy focus on higher education. We consider ourselves to be the leader in feedback analytics, student feedback analytics to be precise. We often focus our interests on the course evaluations that are coming to the end of term, bringing that information in, aggregating it, and giving it back to the students and to the faculty as well. We've expanded that even more.

Joe Sallustio: You were going to say explored.

Pete Baccile: I was. You were going to say it. I kind of worked that in there. Come on. That's right. I'm an explorer as well.

We also take a look at... I'm sorry, I'm gonna stumble over my words now.

Joe Sallustio: Don't do it, don't do it.

Pete Baccile: I'm trying not to, I'm trying not to.

Joe Sallustio: I am the smartest man alive. I just wanna remind you of that.

Pete Baccile: I needed my ego boost and I appreciate that. Yes. So, we also have a product called Milly. Milly's been hot on the market the last couple years, really for a lot of colleges, institutions, community colleges, universities, with a focus on analyzing the comment data that's coming in from the students. So we take all the thousands of comments that might be going out from surveys throughout the course of the year. And then within minutes, we can tell you what to start doing, stop doing, alert recommendations, and so forth.

Joe Sallustio: OK, so let me see if I have it. So you're going to aggregate all of the student survey data that comes at the end of the course. So I'm evaluating my faculty member, I'm talking about the positive or negative experiences I had, times X amount of students, and it's all coming in and there's a lot of data, right? A ton of people want to see it, by the way. Faculty want to see it, the provost will want to see it, student success advisors, admissions, everyone wants to see it. And you're going to take like open field comments. So I got a short comment that says "love my course" and I have one that looks like a paragraph because the student says they have a concern and I've got to collate that data down to something that's actionable and figure out what it's telling me. And so you're going to take all that data and you're going to synthesize that somehow or show it to me somehow and then it's going to go into what? Into my SIS? Is it going to go into some dashboard reporting? Talk to me about how I see it.

Pete Baccile: So we have our own dashboards. And our whole goal is also to share data within the ecosystem. We understand that there are so many different applications, products, services that are out there. We want to make sure that it's being seen. And it's also being aligned with where the data is going to be important to be viewed. So again, we want the person in the office of institutional effectiveness to also be able to see this data and be able to aggregate it there as well.

Joe Sallustio: They may be doing the most with it by cutting it up and showing different views on it and everything like that, right?

Pete Baccile: Correct. You've got strategic planning going on. You have reaffirmations going on with all the institutions. So we want to make sure the data is being used effectively. So again, it's all the way down from the classroom level, all the way up to the institution level.

Joe Sallustio: So there's a lot of data to look at. What kind of technology is running behind it? Got like AI technology behind it? Is it connected to Power BI kind of stuff? I'm just making this up as I'm going here. Does it have that same kind of look to it? Like you're aggregating from multiple sources, you're telling it something, you're graphing it, charting it. How do I see it?

Pete Baccile: Well, the best part is if I yell real loud, I could bring over my VP of product.

Joe Sallustio: You didn't yell that loud. That's the marketing guy, right? Tell them like it is. I got you.

Pete Baccile: All right, so what we can do with that data, going back to your question about how you visualize it, charts, graphs, what does it look like? Well, that's one of the things that we consider ourselves to be a powerhouse in is how we visualize that data. And we can utilize it within our own systems from blue reporting, which is extremely agile across the board, which goes to the faculty all the way up to the institution level. So we have our own dashboarding features that do that as well. Same with Milly, which is our...

Joe Sallustio: Milly sounds like an AI.

Pete Baccile: Right. Like an AI. Let me jump into that. Yes. So let me hold on Milly for a second. So Milly, going back to aggregating all that comment data that's coming in. So we have our own dashboarding system that does that as well. Now, of course, we can work on pushing that data and because we know that once again, going back to my original statement, being part of the entire data ecosystem is more important than ever, right? To make sure that we're feeding part of those data lakes, to make sure we're feeding the data warehouse. So, from our standpoint, we do have amazing dashboards that will aggregate it out and show you what it is right there.

Joe Sallustio: Interesting. So tell me more about Millie. What do I need to know about Millie?

Pete Baccile: It's a really cute logo. We'll start there.

Joe Sallustio: OK. So we'll make sure we get some logos for you.

Pete Baccile: Yes, so it's machine learning in the background. The differentiator for us is that we have models that have been specifically built around the student experience and student behaviors. If you think about it, if you use just general natural language processing, and you don't have these, you're still going to get all this. You're still going to get some machine learning behind it, which is going to give you some of the information. But if you're looking around specific language that's utilized in university systems and college systems, our models are built specifically to that. And it's also, again, customizable too, because we know that from one university to the next, they might use different lingo.

Joe Sallustio: For sure. So we can train it accordingly so we can start picking up on the lingo as well. Artificial intelligence can do a lot of things. Yes, it can. What do schools, when you talk to universities directly, colleges, and they say, "look, I don't know how to take all this data, but I'm just sticking it in an Excel spreadsheet right now and trying to run pivot tables on it." What does this sound like when you talk to a school who's surveying students, who's gathering data, and they go, "this is the way we do it." You go, "no, no, no, there's much..." you know, what do they do? How are they doing it now? Just manually?

Pete Baccile: I think there's a lot of norm to that.

Joe Sallustio: That's true. There's a lot of norm to that. Plus, there's a lot of custom built.

Pete Baccile: Well, that's the way we've always done it, right? And that's sitting there. This, obviously, when you take something off the shelf and then customize it from there, it becomes the ROI behind it becomes much more efficient, right? Not only from, say, a cost level or a labor level, but also between the quality of data that you're getting. Because the way that we look at it is this. I'm going to use a university in Australia that utilizes Newcastle, that utilizes Milly. They still are a fan of having humans with the data that comes back. But what did we just do? We just took all that data, all those thousands of comments, brought it in, were able to aggregate it for you upfront. They still might scrub through it, but it just saved them all that time, and it becomes more actionable. And when you talk about changing a culture, especially with the feedback culture at institutions, which is more important now than ever, is how quickly are you acting after you get those comments? Is it something that goes into this vacant hole and then maybe comes back a year later? Or do you see the university acting on those comments timely?

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, that's a good point, right? Because there's a big difference between gathering data and gathering data that you're going to take action on. You're spending so much time spinning it up and looking at it that you don't do anything with it. Another term goes by and you didn't address anything. Where if you actually had it on demand, it would free you up to take action. That's where your ROI is on a product like Explorance, right? Because you're going to actually be able to take action quicker.

Pete Baccile: Yes. Our old model was insights to action. And we keep evolving, right?

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, and I didn't just for the record. I mean, we've never spoken before, right? But I'm starting to understand the product from ROI because it's like, OK, the faster I can get information, the faster it gets aggregated, the faster I can visualize it, the more time I have to go do something about it, which is what I don't have now.

Pete Baccile: Correct. And then take that a step further, right? So, and again, it depends on who you're talking to at the institutions. You know, right now we know that student recruitment, student retention, student persistence are at the top of everybody's list.

Joe Sallustio: Need more of them, need to hold more of them.

Pete Baccile: That's right. Can't find them, can't get them, but need to keep them if you got them. Right, so it's a heck of a lot cheaper and more efficient to keep the students you got versus trying to recruit new ones, right? And so if we can help in that process, because at the heart of it, what we're trying to do is help student success, right? And that's what we're all here for. If we're in the education market, we're trying to help student success somehow. And so if we can contribute to that by leveraging data to provide to the universities to help that one student succeed, then we're doing our job.

Joe Sallustio: Amazing. What are you looking for out of this conference here at Ellucian Live 2024 San Antonio? What makes this a successful conference for you when you go home? Is it the conversations, the networking, the ideation? What does it look like? What defines success for you?

Pete Baccile: All of the above. And I think it's going to be very different based on which of my colleagues you talk to. Because obviously getting our word out to all the amazing customers that are here is top on our list to continue to spread our word, give knowledge and so forth. But on my end, from a partner perspective, it's really about growing our ecosystem. Because I'll tell you, the one thing that the education market has done extremely well from a technology standpoint is everyone plays well together. And the more that we can embed our ecosystems together, the more efficient we can become in the data that we're using.

Joe Sallustio: As you're talking to schools and you have somebody come up to you, is there desperation? Is it confusion? Normal, you know, because there's so much stress on enrollment, so much stress on retention, right? Because if you can't recruit them because they're having a cliff and all this stuff, then you better keep what you have. If you keep who you have, you better understand what they're looking for. Is there desperation in schools right now to hold students where your product comes in and says, we can help you do this? Or is it hesitancy to bring in new technology right now because of exactly that? Like you'd want to bring in something that might not give you what you need. And so you're hesitant. What's it like for the people that you're talking to?

Pete Baccile: And again, it really depends on where you're talking at the institutions.

Joe Sallustio: So I think there's always going to be a fear coming... Like institutional type, you mean? Like some are better off than others?

Pete Baccile: Yeah, well, and I'm just saying, even within their own. So if you're based on if you're talking to academics, or if you're talking to student affairs, or campus life, or finance, or the CIO's office. And so what you find is that there's a lot of them that are... the one thing, I have to say, that's happened a lot better is that they're communicating more effectively together now within them. They realize.

Joe Sallustio: Surprise. Thank you. It's not, I mean, it doesn't have... we're very siloed in higher ed. That's part of the deals. We're very siloed. The one thing that can break down silos is student information. If you're going to share information, if you can take it and you can collate it and share it quickly, it breaks down a lot of those silos, but you had to do it quickly. You can't wait on things. And that's the slowness factor of higher ed.

Pete Baccile: It is. And then when you, and then, of course you enter in the whole, when you talked about it earlier, the whole AI and the machine learning. When you consider those things that are in there, there's a lot of, and again, fear. And I think the corporate industries might move, they might take a little bit more risk. You see what's there. When you take those cautious steps in higher ed, that's why, and it might be a little bit, and again, when I say cautious, I'm saying it out of kindness, meaning that they want to make sure that they're going to implement something that impacts faculty or students, that they're doing it with the technology that's proven, right? And that's one of the reasons why having these conversations are important, because we're still trying to give you that expediency of that data. But what ends up happening though, the expediency with it comes from trust in the technology that you're providing. And so the one thing that we keep telling ourselves is that we're the, I would say the safe bet going into dipping your toes into AI. Why? Because we have humans in the background still measuring the data. We still have humans building our models and working with it. And humans are flawed. We get that. And there's no silver bullet. But at the same time, they can still have their humans on their end still working with it as well. And so what happens is we end up working together to enhance our models.

Joe Sallustio: Some humans are flawed. I am the smartest man alive. Not me. Elvin wanted me to play that one a couple of times. Bringing it all back full circle, since we started with that sound effect or one like it. What else do you want to say about Explorance? Open mic, anything you want to add in that we haven't talked about, take us home.

Pete Baccile: Well, I'll tell you this much. I worked in higher ed for years, right? And then made the leap over to Explorance. They're one of our vendors. The one thing I have to say about Explorance is when you talk about the growing family unit and the way that we interact and work together internally, okay? We are a global company, six offices globally. Yeah, we've grown rapidly. But at the same time, at the heart of it, our mission remains strong. And that is to see student success. And we all internally take that to heart and work both independently and together to make that happen as part of our own individual missions. And that's the reason why I made the leap from coming from higher ed over to the private sector, because they believe in, I believe in what they believe and so do the employees. And so the impact then goes back on what the institutions see.

Joe Sallustio: You know what I like about what you said too is that we all do work in higher ed to serve students and sometimes people who transition from higher ed in a school to a global company like Explorance, you're now helping many schools and many students. So you have a bigger impact and you can impact students in a much different way, maybe behind the scenes a little bit, but maybe on a greater scale. So there's a lot of people that are transitioning from higher education out into ed tech companies for that very reason, because you see opportunity to take your impact and multiply it.

Pete Baccile: You know how empowering it is to now, again, you think about it, when I was able to celebrate with my institution, we had these wins, right? But now on a weekly basis, when we're celebrating with these universities and the colleges globally, when they have their wins, I mean, that lifts you up, keeps you going.

Joe Sallustio: 100%. That was my voice. That was your voice. We pre-recorded it. It's funny because I've got all sorts of, you know, this is kind of my schtick. I got sound effects to try to make it fun, but it should be fun. This has to be fun or else what's the point of working in higher ed if we're not gonna have fun when we do it. It is serious, serious work. But the impact we can have is incredible and you're somebody having a great impact, Pete, and we appreciate you coming on the podcast today. Anything else you wanna say to take us home?

Pete Baccile: Yes, I will, because that's the one thing I love about this conversation, and I appreciate you bringing us here, is that, again, we want to change the dialogue. There's so much positivity, right? Sometimes we focus on the negativity that's going on and the doom and gloom and everything else. There is positivity that's around this. We're part of that positivity. And so again, if I'm not going to take myself too serious, I think a lot of people could actually stop taking themselves so seriously.

Joe Sallustio: You heard it from Pete. Higher-Ed. Stop taking yourself too serious.

Pete Baccile: No, no, no.

Joe Sallustio: You heard it from me, I said it. Stop taking yourself too serious. I've said it before. But this time I'm saying it with Pete. Ladies and gentlemen, here he is. He's Pete Baccile. He's VP of Partnerships at Explorance. Pete, thanks for coming on the podcast. We hope you had a good time.

Pete Baccile: All right, thank you.

Joe Sallustio: Well, you know what you've done, ladies and gentlemen? You've just ed-upped.