>> Chris Dechter: AV Superfriends on Topic is an independent production wholly owned and operated by AV Superfriends, LLC. For the highest quality recording of all of our shows, visit avsuperfriends.com dot. This is AV Superfriends on topic, a 30 minutes monthly roundtable focused on a single topic. This discussion will be opinionated to the point and saturated with our well known blend of painfully won expertise and deeply ingrained immaturity.
>> Chris Dechter: For May 2024, it's the best sounding podcast in higher ed. This is AV Super Friends on topic. It's a house of cards here, people. Give me a second. >> Marc Cholewczynski: It's fascinating, it's entertaining, if nothing else. >> Chris Dechter: Just to watch, to try to make this happen. let's see. Broadcasting live to tape. No, I take that back. Let me redo that again. We're broadcasting live. We're really live. It says live right there. I can see it. It
says live. Broadcasting live from coast to coast, easternmost to westernmost, northernmost to southernmost gate post to hitching post. I'm your local host who can boast the most milquetoast and utmost humility. I'm Chris Dechter Time for another Friday afternoon podcast adventure. And let's say hello to today's panel of AV super friends. This button. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Here you go.
>> Chris Dechter: Here we are. Look at that. We're joined by a lead impact synergist from Corvallis, Oregon, Mark Cholewczynski >> Marc Cholewczynski: It's going to be impactful. >> Chris Dechter: Well, make sure you synergize the impact. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Well, I got to align it and get it tweaked first, but yes. >> Chris Dechter: next up is an interactive infrastructure strategist. Good lord. From Greensboro, North Carolina, Larry Darling.
>> Larry Darling: Yeah. Interactive infrastructure. I'm not sure I'm down with that. >> Chris Dechter: It's buzzwords, sir. It's your job. You tell me what it is. And finally, we're joined by our chief metrics officer from Bowling Green, Kentucky, Justin Rexing. >> Justin Rexing: CMO. It sounds important. I don't know. Is it more important than a vice president? >> Marc Cholewczynski: The correct answer was quarter inch. I'm not sure where you went there, chief.
>> Chris Dechter: Met. Oh, which metric? We like millimeter here. That's what we're talking about. M. today's or today's this month's topic for May, it being April. So this is the May show. the topic is commencement, which was clearly selected by somebody who spends their time thinking only about events, and I don't care about that. So instead, we're going to talk about. >> Marc Cholewczynski: How right here, man. >> Justin Rexing: This is an event we run events for a business.
>> Chris Dechter: We're going to talk about how we want to, like, how we co commence students into the next phase of their career, or. >> Marc Cholewczynski: I was wondering how you were going to define this. >> Chris Dechter: I'm just trying to sneak in the word gradimacating as many times as I can. so the three bullet points, which is as far as we got on this three bullet points are in discussing graduating staff to the next level.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Hit the timer. Just go. Let's just get into it. >> Larry Darling: Yeah, all right, fine. >> Chris Dechter: I'll just start the timer. Let's start the timer. And I was going to give a little. Little intro there, but, instead we just get this. >> Marc Cholewczynski: We're just going to jump into it. Yeah. >> Chris Dechter: All right. There you go. 22 minutes. Figure it out. There we are. So, graduating staff,
graduating students, graduating, whatever. To the next level of their career. how do we set them up for success? How do we, grow, our students to become potentially full time workers eventually? And then, Larry, I like the way you phrased it, was how do we get people to the point where once they leave, we would hire them back? >> Marc Cholewczynski: Uh-huh. >> Chris Dechter: All this and more in the next 21 minutes.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Get ready. That's why I made you hit this, because this is clearly a riveting topic. >> Larry Darling: well, and this is primarily, it's my fault. I was the one that pushed us in this direction, so I will take 100% blame on this. >> Chris Dechter: It's not your fault. You're trying to save us from this month's topic of weirdness.
>> Larry Darling: But it's something that we actually just did. Like, I hired a new student supervisor for my team, and one of the goals was before we had a very flat student progression. Like, there you were hired in as a student worker, and you stayed a student worker at that same level. And so now we have a four tier system where we are more tiers. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Four tiers. >> Larry Darling: Four tiers where we are
progressing students through. And the goal is, like, when they become the functional student lead at the end of their journey, it's a very small step to becoming a full time employee at that point. Like, the roles are very blurred. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Do you find them being actually better than, like, above quality, than, like, maybe some of the other staff? >> Larry Darling: We've just implemented that here, so we're still, like, developing that. But other places I've
been, I was at Butler for a while. As I've said over and over again with that student program, I had some of the best student workers I've ever seen, and some of those went on for internships at Prism, other places, and they could code, they could install, they could do anything. >> Chris Dechter: Did you say they had an internship at a prison? >> Larry Darling: Prism? >> Justin Rexing: Prism, prism, it's a different type of internship.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Prison av. It's a thing. I'm sure it's out there. >> Justin Rexing: So how do you evaluate these students? You just put them in a box? It's like cage match style, or is there like a process that you go through? >> Chris Dechter: Let me just say, I got one open position. I'll be back in five minutes. >> Justin Rexing: Yeah. Like throw one stick on the floor and it's like whoever's remaining gets the job. Like, how does this work for you?
>> Larry Darling: No, nothing like that. Like, we actually have, like there's trainings they have to complete, there's time that they have to be in the position, but it's not just like checking the box off for time, it's while they're in that role for this amount of time, they have to show that they are doing these things. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Okay. >> Larry Darling: and once they get that responsibility, then they get a little bit more on the next step.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: So I'm curious of the walks that we see come in from students, because I've seen with our student positions, all over the place, like some experience, no experience. What do you look for when you're bringing somebody in? Top three things that you want to see. You're going to bring a student in. We all look for that mythical student. You have experience in all these things, but we know that's not what you're
going to find. What are the things you're really looking for? >> Larry Darling: I've had success with so many different backgrounds. Like, customer, service is huge because that's where they all start. They all start answering the phone, supporting faculty, supporting students in the classrooms. And so that's the first thing. Like, if they have customer service experience, restaurants to build on, that is a great place to go. I can use that and make
that work. beyond that, the theater majors, like, if I can get a technical director, they're used to making sure the show goes on. And I've had really good experience with those students as well. And then obviously, like your electrical engineers, your computers, science, that group of students, you can really, if you can get them to engage and see AV as it, and this is a way of really building their experience, you can get some really good work out of them.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah, we see a lot of the electrical engineering students in computer and computer sciences and all that here. and I will say, I don't know if they're distinguishing between it and Av, I think it's just technology. Like, they don't really see that whole barrier, like, merger, m slash, whatever that is. and when I'm looking at students, I find ones that are just super inquisitive and want to know more about all things technology.
I wish I had more of a tiered approach, but in my part of the organization, the technical services piece, I'm just getting into this. Having more students, the classroom side, I think they have that support desk piece very, well regimented. And Lawrence has done a really good job putting that together with dawn. it does start very similar to how you had it. You're using the. The phone tree and you're doing
that, and you're doing that customer service part. But I found myself in more the engineering side now, looking to find experiences and opportunities for students on that side. And that's been fascinating for me because I've been having a lot of luck just finding students who want to just jump in and go after, like, problems and solve things. And it's been awesome, because they're showing that initiative and, like, that bias for action. Like, I kind
of. I have a little bit of a hands off approach. Like, I bring them in, find out, okay, you're interested in doing some engineering work. You have electrical background or not? Maybe you have some production experience. but I've had a core this term, this past year that have had really good background in events and have jumped into our broadcast infrastructure and have just jumped in, like, head first.
You know, everything from, like, fiber pathways into, you know, multiplexing, figuring out Dante and building Dante networks on the flying where, like, these students are above and beyond what I've seen out of some full timers over years. And, like, so it's been awesome to see this next wave of students who are not afraid of technology at all, and they will just go full tilt all the way in. So I've been having fun with that kind of identifying where and how
to build those skills on the engineering side. And they'll jump in and do installs, too. Like, they're like, it's weird. Like, we're in a new realm of students just wanting to do all of it, which is great. >> Larry Darling: I think what you said about just letting them jump in is huge. Like, when I first realized the capability of the students I was working with and what they could accomplish was when I was using
them strictly for installs and that kind of thing. And we were ahead of schedule and they were starting to ask questions about programming. And so I said, sure. Like, let's make a game out of it. And so I taught them a little bit of Crestron, gave them the tools and said, you know, we've got a day to kill on our schedule here. Try to make this work. And then, like, let them work in groups, let them do whatever they wanted to do to solve the problem. And from then on out, like, I couldn't.
I couldn't keep them challenged enough. Like, they were constantly just running through it. >> Marc Cholewczynski: You create that culture. Right. and I think there's a lot of organizations that look at students as a risk for some reason. I see it a lot and talk to people. They're like, oh, we can't have students that that's. They're gonna be exposed to this and that they're gonna get in malicious some things. Yeah, we're. Now, there's
always this. This concept of, like, fear that, oh, they're gonna come in, they're gonna get access behind the scenes, our servers, and blah, blah, and everything's gonna go sideways. Right. And I try to take the complete opposite like I would. I. We went through interview process. We've had conversations. I want to default to trusting them. They are here to gain experience. As part of that trust is going to be a part of that experience. So I try to not have the student experience start from,
like, can't. And, no, you're not going to have access to, like, let me test my own beliefs. What am I okay giving the keys over to? Because at the end of the day, I want to give them as much real world experience as I possibly can. >> Justin Rexing: Instead of giving the keys of your
main car to these kids, just give them a rental. Right. I give them your keys, test systems over here to play with and break, and they can learn, because I've broke a lot of stuff, you know, growing up in the AV industry, and you learn from that. We all have, and that's part of it. And so as, as a manager, you should foster that. And then when they do break it, have a debriefing and let them learn from it. >> Chris Dechter: Then yell out, well, have you had them breaking?
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Like, I show hands. I mean, have. Have your students, like, honest. And I'm not talking dropping stuff, like dumping stuff off a cart, being delivered. That. That's. I do that stuff. Like, I break enough stuff that way myself. I don't. I'm not gonna qualify that. >> Chris Dechter: Have your sister never blamed anybody on. >> Marc Cholewczynski: My team so damaged a system from internal, like, programmatically or configuration wise, not really?
>> Larry Darling: Yeah. >> Justin Rexing: They don't have the keys for that. Well, in certain situations, too. So it's a balance. >> Chris Dechter: I've had students go in to try to fix an audio issue in DSP and end up causing more problems. But that's a learning opportunity. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Opportunity. >> Chris Dechter: We reloaded the previous and walked through. Why that? >> Marc Cholewczynski: You know, that's just configured,
right? And that's like, have you. Honestly, have you. Oh, my God. You got in here and broke this thing. >> Larry Darling: No, I had students at one point at, Butler, they were trying to go above and beyond, which I was thrilled with. the old xron panels had a reset button that was hidden. >> Marc Cholewczynski: You can't kill those. There's never that. >> Larry Darling: When you press it. It doesn't kill it, but it wipes the code completely. And so they called me at,
like, 05:00 on a Thursday. Like, hey, can you come back to campus? We just completely wiped this and was like, no, but I can go home and load it from there. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Then here's how you get them on. >> Justin Rexing: There's learning mistakes, which is what we're talking about. Then there's lazy mistakes. And as managers, you should be able to parse between the two. >> Chris Dechter: What's a lazy mistake?
>> Justin Rexing: Like, a lazy mistake is for. Well, one example is doing the same mistake over and over and over again because you're too lazy to listen, right? You're not lazy enough to pick up your procedures of your department. You're not lazy enough to do what everybody else is doing, so you just go off and do your own thing, not really thinking things through. Another example of laziness is, well, let's see. shortcuts, right? Like doing no keyboard shortcuts nobody's
allowed to. Like, if your students are wiring up racks, are they doing everything that they're supposed to be doing, or are they taking shortcuts? Right? And how do you. How do you make them learn from that? >> Chris Dechter: I thought you were gonna say, like, a lazy mistake today. I saw we're clearing. Clearing out a storage room. One of the ones you guys have all seen on the live Christmas episode. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Not the Dungeon episode.
>> Chris Dechter: Not the dungeon. Haven't been there yet. We got to work toward. We got to build up to that. You have to be experienced to get in the dungeon there. so this student had this grand idea of we were moving some old equipment racks out, and they had casters, and he's like, what if I put several of these on a big hand truck? I can move all of them at once. Well, that's just fine until you realize it won't turn that corner because these racks are almost, you
know, 8ft tall. And so it took him four times as long to load these all onto a cart, realize they're not going to fit, unload them and then single move them one by one down the hall sort of thing. It's like, yeah, well, sounds like a learning experience. Learning experience. The funny thing was to our earlier conversation about their background. This particular student is an, electrical engineering major, I believe, maybe ce, I don't know, one of the
two. and his concern on it, this large rack that is now laterally not going to make a turn on a narrow hallway. instead of the primary method of like, let's just see if it'll fit. No, it won't. He got out a m tape measure and started doing the math to see what the angle he would need and how much radius he would need to make that bend. I'm like, you freaking nerd. It's still not going to fit. But don't care how much math you're going to do, but if we just.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Move this wall, Chris, we just got to move the wall and then we're fine. >> Justin Rexing: I would have looked if I had. >> Larry Darling: A big enough lever. >> Justin Rexing: Let me know how that goes. After you're done. I'm going over back to my office. Have fun. >> Chris Dechter: So, learning also. And Mark, I think Karen is Mark or Larry. Who said it? One of the two said it wasn't
Justin, but it wasn't me. when you're hiring students, that you interview the students, which I think is a critical part that a lot of people miss, they will simply say, we need five or seven warm bodies to fill these spots and hire the first ones who come through the door who aren't actively, you know, completely falling apart or whatever. or sometimes even that.
But, I think the, the process of writing up an actual no fool in position description, a job description for these, and treat them as even, yeah, you're only going to be here 12 hours a week, but we're going to write this up and treat it as if it's a real position. We're going to interview you. Which for some of these students, honestly, is the first time they have ever had a semi professional. Let's sit down and answer questions in an interview. and this is a great
learning experience for them. And through that you determine what sort of person they are, what their background is and whatnot. And I've been asking the same ten or twelve questions for years, at multiple institutions and they're very high level, and there's a couple in there that are kind of designed to kind of trick them, but I'm really just watching their thought process, how they think, how they respond. I honestly don't care about the specifics of what they're telling me. It's more of
how do they work in this sort of environment? What sort of, you know, processes do they go through as they think about these things? Because some of the best, student workers I've had are, you know, music education majors or communication studies or something, but they have the right attitude. They've got excellent skill set, and they're. Mark, I think you said it. They're interested to learn. They want to learn. They're interested, like,
oh, let me figure out how this stuff works. I've never seen an equipment rack before, but now you've shown me how this, oh, I can start building this out. And that, to them, is fun, because otherwise they're over there working in the commissary, you know, shoveling out mashed potatoes or, you know, checking people into the computer labs or something. But, you know, this is a real world, no fooling job for them.
>> Larry Darling: And part of that interview process, too, is you want to find out what they're interested in, because once I know that, oh, they're passionate in running audio at their church or whatever, I can start tailoring some of the job around their strengths. And that way, you know, it's mutually beneficial at that point. >> Marc Cholewczynski: one of the pieces I do for all of our students, during some point during their first year,
I'll ask him, just point blank. One of your goals over the next couple months is I want you to come up with one topic or thing that you want to know more about. I don't. It does not need to be av related, isn't immediate, whatever it is, one topic or
thing. And then I use it as an exercise so that they learn how connected our it department is to every other department on this campus, somebody, and we will find out who on campus, you can sit down and have a conversation to learn more about whatever that one thing is. We will find you that person,
and we will set it up, and it becomes a, follow up. When they make it a point to reach out to learn how to communicate, they learn the importance our organization is with all them, and then they actually follow up, and then they go meet with that individual and have a conversation. It can be whatever it needs to be about, but it also just gets them out of the comfort zone and then to go outside the organization and actually, to follow up on other interests
and things like that. It can be related to school. It can be totally whatever it is, but it shows, how far reaching our it department goes. And, the ability, if they want to seek and find out an answer, be inquisitive and go find the answer. >> Chris Dechter: Do you help them make those connections as far as finding the right resource? What. What are some of the, like, are there any, like, real out there ones. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Or, people that just want to know more
about, like, oceanic things? You know, you're. Yes. No, like, we have shrimp research. >> Chris Dechter: Shrimp. >> Marc Cholewczynski: So we've had people reach out to, you know, I'll find the director or whoever it is over there in the IT department, say, why don't you go talk to, you know, Chris
and go talk to. He'll talk about the oceanic research and just go have a conversation, or if it's somebody over and like, oh, I'm really into music, or whatever it is, we'll have a conversation with the college of liberal Arts and go talk to Pete over there. >> Chris Dechter: Ocean music. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah, whatever, maybe. but I purposely try to get them to not come up with an AV or media related conversation. I really
kind of nudge them to think outside the box. if it's something that's even in their major or adjacent to their major, to think about that and really push the bounds. And then also I will kind of give them the directory and say, hey, who do we think we want to talk to in here? And I will coordinate that conversation as need be. >> Chris Dechter: You ever lead them to the wrong person and just see what happens? >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah, all the time. They came back.
>> Chris Dechter: Who's that dude about music? >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah, but it's just to keep him kind of going and just to understand the reach that we have. I think it's just important to create as much opportunity as you possibly can for them. >> Chris Dechter: Well, and that sort of thing definitely does build skills and sets them up for future success. And, it's an opportunity to get them ready for a, ah, professional
environment or responses aren't going to come through. Text message. Well, I guess it's all through teams these days. Anyway, I take that back. It's all fricking texting. >> Justin Rexing: And if you run an AV department on your campus and you have a hard time finding people to work for you, it's ironic that you have a whole workforce right in front of you that you could train up, and this is the long play of fulfilling your staff, but
train those students up. And if you treat them well enough and you pay them well enough, they might just work for you later on in life. >> Marc Cholewczynski: So let's talk about that. So in this final chunk of this. >> Justin Rexing: Or, Mark, let's go ahead and also talk about real quick. >> Marc Cholewczynski: No. >> Justin Rexing: What if you wanted to hire an existing student full time? >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah.
>> Justin Rexing: You've actually talked about that. You had that idea. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Yeah. We have students that are above and beyond, to be honest, that have surpassed and are working well outside the student credentials. They have come in here and shocked us all. and we are working with our leadership to create more development, opportunities. They're not full time. They're actually part time positions, but they're no longer student employees.
it allows them to take on a little bit more responsibility. It's developmental in a role that we say here, these are the things you're doing, and you've proven that you can do this, but gives us the ability to build on that and give them more responsibility. It's more hours they can work. It's m increased pay over the student ah, allotted pay. but it allows them and validates for them
the work that they're doing. It shows from a leadership perspective that we want to develop these students, because you're right, we need to nurture them, and if they are the person we want them to be for our organization, give them the opportunity to grow into that. but I want to talk about what are those skillsets? What are the things, short of saying they can do everything under the sun, because
honestly, I believe they can. What are the types of things that, when your students have kind of gone through your development, Larry, like, what types of skills do you think they're coming away with? Because I can say ours are like level two, level three, Dante certified. They're patching cables, building cables, all that stuff. That's the easy stuff. Right. I can have them kind of manage their own small teams and resources and kind of go out and do those things. I can almost have them do
anything that I could ask of an FTE. in some ways, it's unique. So I just kind of. Do you have examples of things that you think when your students leave your organization are solid skill sets they'll take on to their professional careers? >> Larry Darling: It's really dependent on each student. Like I mentioned, the separate tiers of
students that they progress through. Once they get to the third, which is a student analyst position, at that point, they, are allowed to go find any procedure that we do or any focus that we do and just get certifications in it and start taking more of a hands on. I've had students who program. I've had students who've kind of managed the student queue, so whenever cases come in,
they are kind of the watchdog for that. I've had students who, he was a recording arts major, and he set up all my dsps and just got to the point that after a room was done, I would send him in, he would ring it out, and, you know, my basic classroom sounded better than m many of the ones I've seen installers kick out. I've had a student who was a business major. He managed m. Our wireless display. at the time, we were using Mersif,
so the whole dashboard. He kept everything up to date, kept everything configured correctly. Just ran a dashboard for that. >> Justin Rexing: That's a lot of work in itself. >> Larry Darling: Yes. Like, whatever they're. Whatever would be beneficial to them in the future. I'll find an opportunity for them to develop those skills, and a lot of. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Times, it's helping them understand how to make sure they're using that if and when they want to choose
to. Maybe they're going to stay in this field or vertical or whatever it may be, to give them self credit for that knowledge. Right. And helping them with that, too, as they build out their resumes and things like that, because oftentimes, they won't give themselves credit from the job. Like, they're like, oh, I just did that. That was what I did. And it was like, well, no, you need to make sure you put that on your resume, because it was this skillset and management skillset and
time management and coordination. Like, make sure you're not selling yourself short, because m you were doing that work. >> Larry Darling: Yeah. And the resume, I know you've just kind of mentioned it briefly, but that's a big part of it. Like, I have looked over so many resumes since I've started this role of students, because oftentimes, the only job they've applied to is mine, and they really need help, like, defining the skills that they have in such a way that they are marketable.
>> Justin Rexing: M. I see something blinking. >> Chris Dechter: Yeah, it says, shut up. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Shut up, Justin. It's done. >> Justin Rexing: I wasn't talking. >> Marc Cholewczynski: I was shut up too loud. >> Justin Rexing: I thought I was too soft. >> Chris Dechter: All right, well, yeah, we do need to wrap here. We're trying to keep these short and tight for everybody in and out.
any last thoughts on, commencement, the topic of the month that we're not talking about? >> Marc Cholewczynski: Challenge yourself to trust your students to do more because they can. >> Justin Rexing: Yeah. >> Chris Dechter: And they will. The first job I had working at university 20 some years ago was a sysadmin for a, faculty development office. And our director said, take advantage of students. And then he thought about that and went, not that way.
>> Marc Cholewczynski: Seems like that's not the right wording. >> Chris Dechter: What he meant was, take advantage that there are these resources there called students. And every one of you at every school, you have 2330 30, 5100 thousand of them. Go find the right ones. Give them the opportunity, let them grow. >> Marc Cholewczynski: You said it, create opportunities. Because that's what they are. Anything that you, anything is an opportunity
for a student out there. And I'll be hundred percent honest. Our university loves. Our university loves to actually employ students. That's the one part, like when I need or want to bring on students. I've never been told, no, you can't hire students. They're always like, how many you want?
Go ahead, bring. It is an opportunity. Absolutely, do it. So I think, in the world where we're having a hard time finding competent, employees full time for whatever their budget constraints are, I've seen a lot of universities willingly always bring in student, so, create a better workforce by bringing those students in and giving them opportunities. >> Chris Dechter: All right, well said. I'm going to roll out unless someone wants to see something
else. Anything? Nope. >> Marc Cholewczynski: Else? >> Chris Dechter: Nope. No else. Done. >> Larry Darling: All right, done. >> Chris Dechter: That's it. So. Trying to keep it under, under 30 for that commute. Commute. Listening. Thanks, everybody. >> Chris Dechter: Thanks for putting up with yet another episode of, AV super friends on topic. You can contact us with questions, topic ideas, or general complaints at av superfriends.com.
>> Chris Dechter: Nice work, everyone. Sharp broadcast. Really good. Everyone on the floor is what? Well, really a lot of hustle. I liked it. >> Chris Dechter: The opinions expressed by the AV super friends are solely those of the individuals and do not represent their respective institutions, organizations, companies, or clients. AV Superfriends on topic is an independent production wholly owned and operated by AV Superfriends LLC.
For the highest quality recording of all of our shows, visit avsuperfriends.com dot.