Episode 088 - Allison Boudreau - Director Education, and Community at Calix - Community and Academy

Chris Detzel: Welcome to another peers over beers i'm Chris decile and I do have a special guest allison boudreaux allison how are you.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I am doing great Chris how are you doing today.

Chris Detzel: doing well, I want you to introduce yourself a little bit better than I did, because I know what you do you know where you work all that kind of stuff is that fair.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): You got it absolutely hey everybody I am allison boudreaux I am the director of digital programs education and Community at a company called calyx and we are a leading provider for telecom companies, helping to bring broadband to rural service providers and their areas.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I have been at the company for 12 years.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And yeah it's a.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): it's wild if I think about it.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And i've been fortunate enough to have multiple careers at the same company and so.

Chris Detzel: love it.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah right now I oversee a team of 15 people we wake up every day, and we think about what questions customers have.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): about our products and solutions and how we can help answer those questions in whatever format.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): They want to learn so education and training, do you want to sit through an official course.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Do you want to join us and have a conversation on our Community, or do you want to sit down and online session and talk with other customers who are in your same boat and so it's been an awesome experience over the past three years and happy to be here to talk with you today.

Chris Detzel: yeah it's great to have you and just remember you know this is peers over beers I know you don't hear you mentioned that you'd like stout's insiders that right or.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Absolutely Bourbon every now and then.

Chris Detzel: You know i've been collecting some scotches as of late, and one of my favorites is looking over here is whistle pig 12 so and then I want to get the higher one, but you know it costs a lot more money for like the 18 or whatever, so I just kind of stick with the.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): that's a good one piggyback piggyback six years, also a great one if you don't want to go with this well.

Chris Detzel: There you go there you go um but you so you and i've known each other for a really long time and had a few conversations over the years I think it's been years.

Chris Detzel: yeah few years anyways i've always kind of kept up with some of the things that you do and i'm always intrigued and.

Chris Detzel: You like you said you own training and community and stuff like that we were talking kind of pre show and always say record these pre shows, but I don't.

Chris Detzel: Is that you know we're kind of talking about marketing, you know, being in marketing or being in customer or you know what do you think so you've been in marketing before you've been in I think you're in the customer org or.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Something like that yeah customer enablement and education.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): customer service.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah um but yeah I started out actually I ran trade shows and events for a while, then I jumped into marketing campaign management, we didn't have marketing campaign managers at the time.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): grew that role into overseeing demand generation and events and then hopped over here to the customer success or when we started that about three years ago, so.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Love love marketing and I see you know customer enablement is really able to take what I learned in marketing as far as reaching out to customers and communicating and then turning it kind of on its head over here with education and community.

Chris Detzel: of it, you know and something that i've been kind of thinking about in a big way is how do I marry the academy and Community together and obviously that's what you've done.

Chris Detzel: And and and i've even kind of reach out to you every now and then to kind of think about that or you know and ask you a question, or two and.

Chris Detzel: How do you do that, you know, in the beginning, like is it something that you have to start from the beginning, because right now I do work with our academy team or training team to kind of and they're still building right, you know it's like.

Chris Detzel: yeah they're building so much content now, but you know a lot of times me and the training team will get on the call with the customer when they first on board to talk about what Community is talking about Academy.

Chris Detzel: But you know, there are two separate things today and it's not easy to necessarily get into one or the other two different logins two different you know how do you marry that, and you know, I have some thoughts, but I want to hear what you're saying, because you've already done it.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah such a great So when I originally started in my position education did not report into my organization, we were two separate kind of practices within the org.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And as we kind of grew grew we decided that really it's all about enablement and customers had similar questions on the Community as they would ask the trainer's.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah and so, for us, when I look at you know what my whole team is trying to accomplish it's just answering those customer questions in different ways, and so.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): When you look at Community it's a short form answer a lot of times and then you think about education and it's you know, usually a little bit more rigorous sit down in a classroom or an online learning.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And you hit such a key piece of it on the head with making a seamless experience so when we think about like post sale customer engagement.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I don't want them to have to have a different login for calyx university and a different login for calyx community and then and even different login to get documentation and software, so we actually a calyx.

Chris Detzel: about that.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah oh yeah we have.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): My calyx and it's this hub, where they have one login and they can access all of the different pieces of enablement that they could possibly and so.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): it's we're actually undergoing a project now to make it even more automated and streamlined for customers that when they log in they can hit any system with single sign on.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And it looks like the same that's the other piece that we've really focused on when education came to my team, the the education platform didn't look like are updated calyx branding, and so it was how do we start to message and update that so that they understand it's the same.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah same company same experience.

Chris Detzel: Great customer experience right there.

Chris Detzel: yeah you work with marketing and all to kind of drive the look and channel and all that stuff.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Absolutely, so you know my roots in marketing but also my love of brand and brand alignment we sat down with the corporate marketing team and we said okay.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): This is what's on calyx COM, how do we pull in some of those assets, but also let them know they are in a different place right they're not on the calyx.com website, but it's something that it's.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): it's aligned to the brand so we absolutely sit down with them and we work with them, often to say okay you've updated our branding we've updated the corporate mission, how do we bring that into all the other assets across the company they're great partners for us.

Chris Detzel: yeah, you would think so we're doing or we just went through a rebranding of our website.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): logos everything and.

Chris Detzel: So I was still part of that project to where you know because we're in marketing today and.

Chris Detzel: But I have the relationship with the docs team to the, with the support team with academy and everything else, I had to bring them in and say look at the very least we don't have ssl today and where we are building enterprise search into Community docs and.

Chris Detzel: The anatomy into.

Chris Detzel: So that's step one.

Chris Detzel: Okay, so it was a lot harder to do it no longer.

Chris Detzel: thing to kind of project to think about and probably more expensive but but we're getting ready to get there, so the branding piece to go back to that is you know we brought them all, and so the docs for the most part it's not 100%.

Chris Detzel: But at least we're.

Chris Detzel: getting close to a true branding.

Chris Detzel: Experience for our customers and then you know this project with.

Chris Detzel: it's it's a company called search unify which you know I think you know you've got a few few of those enterprise searches is won't be ssl but at least will be you know our customers and users to build a search across the different platforms.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And that's the key right they have a question, they can find out where to get the answer yep how does one know how your customers reacted to your branding.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): updates that have you gotten any feedback yet.

Chris Detzel: Nothing I even brought it up on one of our webinars and.

Chris Detzel: crickets.

Chris Detzel: yeah people cared like it looks completely different like I mean it's like the Community looks the same sort of it's got the same.

Chris Detzel: Look, and feel it's just.

Chris Detzel: Different colors and fonts and logo and stuff at nothing like.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I mean i'm faced.

Chris Detzel: Now just remember, though, like our Community is very young.

Chris Detzel: So we started located up April 28 of last year.

Chris Detzel: yeah so there's not a lot of you know, old school anything you know it's all new so you know there's just like a probably like oh you just didn't we didn't affect the experience and actually I think enhance it a little bit, but it's hard to know for that.

Chris Detzel: So we were doing some of that and, and I think it's kind of cool we'll get to all that other stuff my question for you, though, is is your Community public or you or is it not public, or what.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Oh enter the eternal debate of public versus private Community so.

Chris Detzel: If it's a debate, I mean it just depends on your goals right.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah it's Melissa debate internally i'll tell you that.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): um so we we came over to a new platform about six years ago, and at that time, we wanted to increase seo for calyx in general.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Not just.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And so we made a lot of things public.

Okay.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): we're slowly taking that back and putting things back behind the.

firewall.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): and part of the opportunity during that time is how do we message customers, so that a if they're not logged in they understand there's more behind there, right now, when you kind of hit it, it looks like there's nothing going on.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And I don't know to login it's like Why would I come here so.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): For us a lot of our a lot of our stuff is behind the firewall and it's private we're trying to figure out what we want to make public.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And what helps customers learn about the Community before they're actually engaged with it to make them want to.

Chris Detzel: engage with the and i'm very curious to understand like why what's the logic behind or goals behind keeping it most of that stuff private.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah so a lot of our.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): A lot of our content on the Community has started to focus around release readiness.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And how can we we do releases four times a year now at calyx and so.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah a lot of our content is how do you gear up for the release, what are the features, how are using them how our other customers talking about them, and so we made the decision to make it private just for competitive.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Data sense yeah.

Chris Detzel: What are you, seeing that people are taking that content and just like using it competitors or was it just kind of there's a fear you know.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I think I think more the fear I don't think we stopped using it, but just wanting to make sure that we had a little bit more control over some of our you know newer updates and releases that we weren't necessarily putting on the corporate website.

Chris Detzel: it's it's a legit.

Chris Detzel: legit thinking, I think you know because i've even look everything today for us as public.

Chris Detzel: Okay today what we're trying to do is.

Chris Detzel: there's awareness that we're trying to.

Chris Detzel: We have an awareness problem, not necessarily just the Community, but overall and we're trying to expand our seo and all of our different areas there's.

Chris Detzel: Other things that we can do.

Chris Detzel: We believe that Community is a key factor in that so at the end of the day.

Chris Detzel: I didn't even ask I just did it, you know I mean.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I hear you sometimes it's better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

Chris Detzel: And I think yeah you know I think the big goals for us is is obviously seo and it's if somebody has a question about our product, I want to be able to answer like that, like.

Chris Detzel: they're going to go to Google, no matter what, so if they're not finding that answer to that question you're going to be frustrated at the end of the day, and if they are, and if they do find that answer.

Chris Detzel: it's just expected right like you know I i'm not excited that I found the answer it just should be there.

Chris Detzel: You know, and that that's my logic behind and kind of the preaching of why we do an open community, but you have some good points, because we are starting to.

Chris Detzel: publicize you know some of our.

Chris Detzel: releases, so we have, I think it's three a year and I like to have those public, but you know when I write content and all those kinds of things like i'll write some blog articles around the release and.

Chris Detzel: You know now get some of the poems to to present around you know, a release that's going to enhance you know our customers So those are public, but you know I don't it's a good point like.

Chris Detzel: it's probably just as fine line I mean you guys have been doing it for a long time and have really good reasons.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah for me it's once we mature our model even further, because again we've had a community for a long time, but we don't have.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I still think there's a lot of room for improvement for strategy and execution, and so, for us, I think it's bringing everything kind of behind, and then we can start to say okay what content does make sense to have it public.

Chris Detzel: So have some content.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah I don't think it's a forever we're going to make everything private.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): But there's definitely some things that lead the hard part about us is one of our philosophies on my team is no dead ends, so if you're on a kb article in the Community we're going to link you to a video to an education course to.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Some other piece of content and yeah it's um it's easy right just hey you.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Know what's next no dead ends.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Right so we're in this giant bowl of spaghetti of content on the Community are we going to take you to right what's your next step you've learned to the answer to this question.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Now, maybe you want to learn about this, and so we're constantly linking people and that's a challenge to when everything is public or private.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): If we have an article that's public.

Chris Detzel: Oh, I see.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And we link right or so we're getting there my goal, eventually, is that we do have some things that are absolutely public.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): For now we got to kind of.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Take a look behind the wall.

Someone.

Chris Detzel: sounds like you have a plan.

Chris Detzel: You know and.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Changing Chris right we're never gonna have a finite community.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): No, no.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): fun of it.

Chris Detzel: It is yeah i'm curious meant to completely get off, but.

Chris Detzel: You know, you said you have 15 people under you.

Chris Detzel: that's a lot, I mean honestly on training and Community so makes sense, but.

Chris Detzel: When you look at your Community specifically do you have one question more so, is it's quite a few questions in there, but what is how do they kind of intertwined together.

Chris Detzel: Right, they can you just.

Chris Detzel: I don't know if it's seamless or they just have their roles and you make them talk every now and then How does that work, you know.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah so um.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I hate to give analogies but i'll always give analogies so.

Chris Detzel: Like.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): When I first started.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): They said executive team came to me and said I want you to really think about your team as building the container.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And everyone else puts things inside of it, and not just everyone else on my team.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): But everyone else within the organization, so my team is focused on we're going to build out the best practice we're going to build out the how and then we are going to work with support and sales and marketing and customer success and they're going to fill up our bucket.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): So what does a good education course look like here's the container and now we're going to go work with our sales engineering team to say okay what content makes sense in this bucket to answer this question.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Having that mentality forces my team.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): To work with everyone else in the organization, we have to go work with support, we have to So yes, we do create some content, especially, specifically the education team.

Chris Detzel: We have yeah.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah practical trainers and course developers.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): But there's a Co authoring step to our content creation where it's okay we've we've answered this question we've created this course run it by the sales engineers, what do they think what's their feedback run it by customers.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): What do they think what's their feedback and it helps us to not live in our siloed bubbles, it was a change at first everybody was very much used to like i'm going to create my course and we're going to release it.

Next.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): let's let's no no ownership right we're we want to answer the best way for the customer and so that's kind of how we do it, they all have to work together, I get them on calls all the time.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Constantly collaborate, I mean calyx is a collaborative company in general.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): So it's okay we're creating something, what do you guys think our CSM or our support or customer success managers, they create tons of content for the end.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Because they're the ones, working with the customers.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah they're writing the knowledge base articles they're writing best practices they're sharing on the Community and we give them accolades and donuts.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): for helping us.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): What goes far with our team so coffee mm.

Chris Detzel: hmm I just got done drink some coffee.

Chris Detzel: And I try not to drink coffee, like all day you know morning times i'm done.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): You know it yeah I mean five o'clock you got to have that beer.

Right.

Chris Detzel: Exactly.

Chris Detzel: What is what is your Community team look like what kind of focus, how many people on your Community specific team and then what's kind of the focus areas.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): So, right now, we have Community moderator he's been with the company for about.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Six years and he came from our support organization, so he really has an understanding of how the technology works and can get in and answer those questions for our really with our base of the Community it's the technicians it's the people who want the code things.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): questions that I could never answer if I tried.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And so he's our moderator.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): never been a Community moderator before so we're figuring out what his position is he loves to help customers and that that was the hunger, that we wanted in this position, and he has knowledge.

Chris Detzel: That we have so good, we.

Chris Detzel: Might beg people to answer questions he's gonna figure it out.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): He will, and he he has the internal connections right if he can.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): answer it he'll figure out.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): My my VP of support says, I like to hunt is pond with dynamite because I have several of his team Members now on my team.

Chris Detzel: that's hilarious.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): it's wonderful it's all right they love it and it's good it's good to grow within an org.

Chris Detzel: Absolutely.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): We have another Community our customer advocacy.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yoga and so he runs the calyx champions program, which is our Alex advocacy program he also we all kind of.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): We have our swim lanes, but we also pitch in were needed, so he also moderates the Community he's in there, talking with the leaderboard he's definitely focused on.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): advocacy and then Community so that's our team as it stands today as far as Community and then we are working with a consultant right now to really help us with strategy and see how else we need to build out this team as we grow the Community.

Chris Detzel: Interesting so advocacy would like to talk a little bit about that what what is what is what's the goal there, what are you trying to accomplish from the business standpoint but also from i'm just because that's I want to do some of that too so.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah absolutely yes.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): So um.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And we're still figuring it out we've always had the leaderboard on the Community.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): right out of the box.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Right you haven't talked to people and you're like this is great, we had four levels and we started looking and saying okay.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): The advocates really help you run your Community they.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): become an extension of your team right, and so a, how do we recognize them.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): How do we encourage it and how do we get more of them involved and we didn't want to just focus on Community so our advocacy program reaches across all customer enablement programs so.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Okay, you get points if they get certified we're our academy they get points that they're active in the Community, they get points that they attend virtual engagement sessions, and all of that is filtered in through our salesforce system so it's automatic I love it.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And we're again still looking at how we can refine it but.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): The goal for us was.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Thank you.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Thank you, thank you, thank you for being a part of this and helping us.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Getting recognition right either the badges on the Community or we absolutely send swag bags and gifts.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And just really helping to build that sense of community amongst our customers.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): We work in Telecom the telecom industry is a tight knit industry, these people have known each other for years, and so us kind of being that catalyst of saying come here and and share and talk about the experiences you're seeing they love to share.

Chris Detzel: that's awesome.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah so our goals and then really it is that extension of our team and the excitement and groundswell for Alex.

Chris Detzel: I like that is that, as soon as the Community more of a sounds like it's pretty it's a support community, but you might have other communities that were kind of this general type community that people connect on or at least have conversations.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): We definitely started as like more of the you know old Internet chat board that you're thinking about right, where it was like I have this issue is anybody else seeing this.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Or how do I, you know put a daisy chain together and people answer that was the basis of our Community.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And now we're expanding it to bring in other roles.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): So how are marketers coming to learn about marketing campaigns for their customers, or how they're using our mobile APP and our software right they come into the Community and they share the campaign's they're doing just awesome right.

there.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): We talk about how to run good email campaigns or good social media campaign so it becomes more of instead of that i'm having an issue with X yeah.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): That our support consult it's how do I do my job better, how do we do.

Chris Detzel: That that's what I want to get it.

Chris Detzel: yeah it's.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): awesome it's seeing people grow from like baby marketers.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): To now VP marketers right who are running giant marketing organizations, because they got help in our.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Community and with our customer success team yeah like changing lives and I hate to sound like so you know sunshine and rainbows but man it's a it's why I do what I do is because I want to help customers grow, not only with calyx but also in their professional careers.

Chris Detzel: How do you make that shift from because something else i'm trying to do.

Chris Detzel: some kind of this.

Chris Detzel: Support thing because you know, I think, to me, support is a big big opportunity and companies like mine and.

Chris Detzel: that's why I built it and.

Chris Detzel: But how do I kind of start thinking about you know.

Chris Detzel: Instead of going from this support focus, which will continue on, but how do we also think about.

Chris Detzel: Getting these people that are down here in the weeds all the time and it might be other audiences I don't know but is to think about.

Chris Detzel: You use our product what are some of the business outcomes that you're getting as you use this product, what are some things that you're trying to accomplish or that you have accomplished or how can we help you accomplish these outcomes to the business, so it makes sense.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): It does and it's.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): You know, we love to think of Community as the Center of people's day.

Chris Detzel: yeah.

And it's Probably not.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And so we you know I mean it's it for for support absolutely if they have a question they know they can get their question answered for us it's taken time it's.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): It has not happened overnight and it's building a habit.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): of why they want to come and so, for us, one of the key drivers for our outside of support personas we host champions events once a quarter sorry.

Virtual.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Virtual so right now we're running a hoops hysteria that lines up with a march event that is trademarked and we can't rename it that same thing.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): But it is a bracket and so um so we're running that kind of event for our customers.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Marketing people love to participate in that, and so we use that as a pivotal event to say okay.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): This is awareness of the Community, we love that you're here participating in this really fun event it doesn't really have anything to do with work it's easy it's fun.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And now, oh hey, by the way, did you know that we also have content for you in the Community, you can meet other people, you can talk about these things, so we do that different types of events we've done cookbooks submit your recipes we've done spotify playlists.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): we've done things leading up to our user group about meeting people, and so we use that as like an awareness campaign.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): All the Community, and then we just try to get them.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): it's a groundswell it's definitely it's not like they're all going to be in there all the time, but we're definitely seeing those numbers increase quarter recorder of like.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): they're finding the value and the value is different for them and that's I think what you are trying to say right it's they're not coming there to put in a support case or to answer why.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Something isn't.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): The way it should be.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): they're coming there to learn and building that takes time communities are not built in a day.

Chris Detzel: I know.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): As you know.

Chris Detzel: know so so interesting because what i'm trying to do, and what i've been thinking about is kind of.

Chris Detzel: From a Community standpoint is alright, so I have a space for these technical audiences that are trying to solve these problems.

Chris Detzel: But you know and that took a lot of time and effort you know I had to build lots of content, I had to get people on board to come into the Community and ask those questions and then find you know experts within rel to or.

Chris Detzel: You know, even within the customer base to answer questions or partner base to help answer questions.

Chris Detzel: So that's continuous thing and then, I have a webinar program that goes generally deep into the product that.

Chris Detzel: I start building content around that webinar program so have some blogs i'll capture Q amp a push that out, you know and so it's been focused in specifically mostly not always but on the product piece, so what i'm thinking about is.

Chris Detzel: hoping to get an extra headcount.

Chris Detzel: content that focus right.

Chris Detzel: But then kind of expanding that to kind of this.

Chris Detzel: i'm not sure of the role, yet, because you know generally it's like a our stuff is data, so a lot of it people, but we know that marketers, we know that.

Chris Detzel: sells leaders and folks like that have data problems we just don't know that it's master data management really they don't know the tool is going to be master data management helpful.

Chris Detzel: that's why I get there, it people to help them so it's kind of that intertwine of technical and business audiences, you know how, how can I, create a space.

Chris Detzel: And you're going to start slowly, you know and and maybe it's one rule at a time, maybe it's role, maybe it's industry, maybe it's I haven't figured that out yet, but yeah creating a space that talks about.

Chris Detzel: Business value of master data management or the business value of it we don't call it mdm because you go you go to marketer and say I know this master data management system there's gonna be like what the hell, are you talking about like you know I don't know what that is.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): There was another thing on my tech stack get out of here, what do you do yeah.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I don't have time.

Chris Detzel: Talking about the business problem so having a Community of.

Chris Detzel: Data professionals that better talking about business kind of problems that they've solved with data or you know, whatever you know I.

Chris Detzel: haven't figured it out, but I think that that's where I want to go is more of us will have this space for audience because they need it, they need help.

Chris Detzel: and will continue to push content push you know for great experience and all that stuff so enterprise search, you know, but I want to, I want to reach out to the broader Community i'm thinking about like this.

Chris Detzel: This awareness, so these people that already know about our product great or know about the space of master data management great.

Chris Detzel: One is, what do you do next after you built the mdm piece or two is what are you know, like to get to the unaware folks.

Chris Detzel: How you start building those business kind of.

Chris Detzel: Cases outcomes content I don't know what it is yet, but I have some ideas on that kind of stuff that's what i'm thinking about you know.

Chris Detzel: This broader area bringing in influencers bringing in it doesn't have to be our customers necessarily just the the community of data focus people.

Chris Detzel: You know right, I can help solve problems.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And such a good.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I might have you think about inverting like instead of being in the Community first you run the grape programs of webinars.

yeah.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): He really started circles of success sessions which our customers tell us are the best sessions, and these are small group conversations.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Yes, we don't do the talking we moderate the session on a on a topic So how are you using data for business.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And we'll ask the attendees questions.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): We use those sessions as kind of a building this community and then now we're pulling them into the online community.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Because let's get those relationships built.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Yes, right.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And, and you could do that so easily through your webinar sessions, if you if you change kind of the webinar format, a little bit to be more of an open discussion.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And then.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): I think you know people think about Community and online community as one place.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): But if you start to think about how they're building relationships outside and then.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): bring them together.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): that's that becomes really powerful because you can you and I can build connection over zoom or in a conference very quickly.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Building it on the Community sometimes takes a little bit longer so if you can harvest outside and pull them in but kind of already have that natural relationship and when they see their friends there, then they want to come back.

Chris Detzel: yeah I was that that's so good and it's along the lines of my thinking, because I was talking to this guy that.

Chris Detzel: we've got this potential project and we're going to work on together, talking about doing exactly what I was talking about, but it's a bigger kind of.

Chris Detzel: Bigger thing right now and, and I said, you know you're the expert and how to build a master data management program you're the expert in these things we can go on, you know we can go out to these lunches and learn.

Chris Detzel: kind of thing and start all across you know, probably thinking too big here, but all across the US.

Chris Detzel: You know, and we could even go outside the US later, but just the specific pockets start building those relationships with these key people that are that are the experts in this area and then.

Chris Detzel: You know, from a content standpoint one you're going to be the content person at first right because you're the but we bring those people, and we start throwing our ideas out there, we bring them in to do some of these webinars or.

Chris Detzel: podcasts that we're trying to do.

Chris Detzel: We record them we start creating really good content around you know blogs and embed videos or podcasts into these blogs and and just continuous content around that kind of stuff and then.

Chris Detzel: You know, depending on kind of the role and who they are, if they're VP they're not going to be an online community but, but there will be in that community of influencers and you know these small group type things and they'll get on you know.

Chris Detzel: zoom or whatever right and the start, but I want to start building this whole community around that.

Chris Detzel: yeah and.

Chris Detzel: And yes, we'll have this online community and will continue to build spaces, but i'm thinking about bigger and broader I think i'm thinking that way you know and getting real to is kind of known as the place to you know.

Chris Detzel: place on all things all data, you know, or maybe not all data, but you know in our space, you know kind of stuff.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And I think it like you said it begins with curiosity.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah and and serving your customer right like you said you're going to bring an expert out to answer questions take those learnings and bring that back to help answer more questions.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah yeah.

Chris Detzel: that's well you get to capture that information and push that content out, you know I mean it's all awareness it's all you know seo stuff whatever but i've got to do that, you know.

Chris Detzel: I don't know it sounds fun to me and it sounds like you're doing some of that that's really cool and I love how.

Chris Detzel: You mean what you've built is pretty amazing thanks.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah it's um I haven't.

Chris Detzel: returned but.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): It is, and I, you know I look back at what we're how far we've come, even in the past three years and i'm really excited about what we have planned for this year and into next.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And I just I can't say it enough i'm surrounded by incredibly supportive people who, allow me to fail.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): make mistakes, learn from them.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): yeah and there's nothing more freeing but also terrifying of people saying go figure it out, and I know that I have support to go figure it out and make mistakes and learn.

Chris Detzel: love.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): And so i've been very, very blessed in my career here that they allow me to do those things and learn and grow and then also you know build my network out with people like you.

Chris Detzel: yeah allison this has been really great, and I think like it's so important to have that support that you that you said that you talked about I mean.

Chris Detzel: Even with me thinking about what I just told you about the kind of this bigger broader kind of place, that we can start really building a huge community of you know leaders in this space influencers in the space, you know that's coming directly from our CEO it's coming.

Chris Detzel: directly from two or three of actually his direct reports had these conversations one on one with each and every one of them capture that information and presented that actually next week to our marketing team to really yeah so i'm excited about that you know but.

Chris Detzel: that's why you know it's just relevant everything you're saying, and all these ideas and that's why I was asking some of those questions because.

Chris Detzel: You just have so much experience and I love that you know calyx and the team it's allowing you to do what you're doing it's i've been watching you from afar, for a while and just like retiring people she keeps building this Community it's pretty.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Often yeah if you were to ask me right 12 years ago if i'd be in this seat I would absolutely have.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): been like you, are lying to me, that is not true um anyhow, we are hiring head out to calm.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): down.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): calm, we have 100 positions open across the.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): Company, you have to do that plug I know thanks Chris.

Chris Detzel: No worries whatever you know you came out here to share your expertise so that's the least I can do.

Chris Detzel: Well, listen, this has been really good I really appreciate the expertise and I will absolutely get you back on i'll probably get on your calendar, right after this talk so.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): That it.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): would love to be back thanks for this Chris This is great.

Chris Detzel: Well, everyone thanks for another peers over beers i'm Chris Daniel and.

Allison Boudreau (she/her): allison boudreaux.

Chris Detzel: Thanks allison.

Thanks.