Ep.160 Live from USC: How USC is Redefining EdTech & HigherEd with Dr. Joe Way, Director of Learning Environments, University of Southern California

Joe Toste [00:00:00]:
Hey, what's up, everybody? This is Joe Tossi from Techtables.com, and you're listening to the public sector show five tech tables. This podcast features human centric stories from public sector, CIO's, cisos, and technology leaders across federal, state, city, county, and higher education. You'll gain valuable insights into current issues and challenges faced by top leaders through interviews, speaking engagements, live podcast tour events. We offer you a behind the mic look at the opportunities top leaders are seeing today. And to make sure you never miss an episode, head over to Spotify and Apple podcasts. Hit that follow button and leave a quick rating. Just tap the number of stars that you think this show deserves.

Joe Toste [00:00:34]:
Today we have Doctor Joe way, director of learning environments at USC. Joe, welcome to the public sector show by tech tables.

Dr. Joe Way [00:00:42]:
Joe, thank you very much for having me on. It's a pleasure.

Joe Toste [00:00:45]:
And we're actually on your home turf right now.

Dr. Joe Way [00:00:48]:
We are. You got to come down and get a little tour of campus. You got to see a little bit of what we do. And then we are makeshifting a recording studio.

Joe Toste [00:00:56]:
We are makeshifting. The tour you just gave, by the way, was totally epic. So thank you. It was totally unreal. Annabelle, why don't you come say hi? Come scoot over. You don't have to talk. You can just, you know, kind of wave on camera. Yeah, we got Annabelle in the back.

Dr. Joe Way [00:01:09]:
Cameo.

Joe Toste [00:01:10]:
Cameo.

Dr. Joe Way [00:01:11]:
All right.

Joe Toste [00:01:11]:
Yeah. That was probably my favorite all time tour. I don't think I've had such a detailed experience, let alone just being able to walk for what we do. It was 90 minutes. That was incredible.

Dr. Joe Way [00:01:23]:
We did a solid. But can you tell that we're proud of what we do here? That's what was great about the tours. Like, we're doing amazing stuff with our technology and our students and our collaboration and all of that. So it's. If I don't give the full tour, then I feel like I'm cheating you.

Joe Toste [00:01:39]:
Yeah. And I'm glad we. We got the full tour and we were able to make this happen. Everything from the community, the new communications department, and then the. Just the journalism and seeing, you know, obviously all of the athletic stuff and just walking around and just the history. And I love the steering Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

Dr. Joe Way [00:02:00]:
I know. A little rivalry. You know, college is not right without a little rivalry.

Joe Toste [00:02:05]:
Yeah, I love it. I love it. And then just the amount of history that, you know, I mean, obviously you got. You went here as an undergrad, so that was a special treat. I really appreciate that.

Dr. Joe Way [00:02:13]:
Well, no, man, that was my pleasure.

Joe Toste [00:02:15]:
And so first got to give a big shout out to Melissa Rodriguez at the RTM group. That's where we connected.

Dr. Joe Way [00:02:21]:
Right?

Joe Toste [00:02:21]:
That's where we first met.

Dr. Joe Way [00:02:22]:
We first met at an RTM.

Joe Toste [00:02:24]:
Yeah, back at the higher Ed Congress. That was super fun. And but for those in the audience who don't know you and don't know you to the show, can you just give a brief background on yourself?

Dr. Joe Way [00:02:33]:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I'm going to do a background starting forward and moving backwards. How about that? So, yes, I do. I am the director of learning environments at the University of Southern California, which basically means I oversee the design, installation support teams for about 500 Av enabled spaces across our enterprise. Before that, I've actually only been in higher Ed. So I've been here for seven years. I mean, I've been in higher Ed for seven years, only here for four.

Dr. Joe Way [00:02:56]:
I was at Cal Baptist University before that for three years, then did some house of worship things at a couple of the mega churches in the area, and for three years before that. So now we're at ten years. And besides that, I'd spent 25 years in the entertainment industry here and the LA area.

Joe Toste [00:03:14]:
I love that. And so I would, when I was researching this podcast, and there's a bunch of great material online of the work that you've done and just kind of like your own journey. But I was thinking about distinctly the three areas. And so you've kind of have what I'm calling 2019. This is kind of before the pandemic, and then you have the pandemic, and then now you've got kind of post pandemic, and in 2019. I was kind of curious about if you could just take us back and what was your perspective about the state of education from a technology point of view for remote learning at USC when you took the job in 2019?

Dr. Joe Way [00:03:53]:
Yeah, no, great question. Because, you know, I was recruited here in order to really update all of our classrooms. I'll tell you, they were, I'll put it nicely. I'll say they were horrific, worse than awful. Like, you had to try really hard to be that bad. That's the state that I was brought into. But we were going through our quote unquote, digital transformation, like a lot of schools were kind of doing at that time. And I was brought in really to think about the direction technology was moving in, bring that to the student experience and see what we could do with our classrooms.

Dr. Joe Way [00:04:26]:
And it was kind of at that time where I said, you know, well, we know that UC technologies, the zooms that those types of things being able to collaborate, the collaboration tools were really very popular at the time. We were saying things like active learning and flipped classroom and those types of buzzwords that are gone now. But those were the things we were saying. And so that's really my goal, was how could we look across an enterprise, not just one or two signature spaces, and bring that to the experience? And that's what I to the provost and said, here's what we're going to do. Here's the direction things are going. What if we could hire a faculty member, for example, out of Harvard, and they wouldn't have to move from Boston? What if we could. So they could come in and we can bring them into the classroom experience? What if we could have guest lectures, as you saw during the tour today, how many famous names are on a lot of our buildings? Right. Well, what if those people could actually do a guest lecture of some sort, not have to worry about coming into campus, right? And we could utilize that type of stuff.

Dr. Joe Way [00:05:23]:
What about instead of a faculty member having to take a sabbatical every seven years, what if they could just live in the field and then we could connect our classroom to what they're doing? And that was kind of the image and the vision that I ended up presenting and that they funded. And again, that was in 2019. That was right before the pandemic. And then the pandemic happened.

Joe Toste [00:05:47]:
Okay, so let's pause. So, USC, at this point, you've got a vision for what this campus could look like in 2019. When were you hired? Like, when was that?

Dr. Joe Way [00:05:56]:
August 2019.

Joe Toste [00:05:57]:
Okay.

Dr. Joe Way [00:05:58]:
I think today is my four year anniversary.

Joe Toste [00:06:01]:
Happy four year anniversary. Is that crazy?

Dr. Joe Way [00:06:03]:
I actually think it is like August. It's August 6 today or 7th, right? 6th August 4. Four. Okay, sorry. Two days from now.

Joe Toste [00:06:10]:
Two days from now?

Dr. Joe Way [00:06:10]:
Two days from now.

Joe Toste [00:06:12]:
So you've got six or seven months and you don't know it, but then a global pandemic is going to happen. You have that time of period. Seven months, six months. Seven months, and then you have everything getting shut down. The provost is calling you. How are we going to do our classes? How are we going to solve this now? Are you thinking this is a big time opportunity? I've been waiting for this to get massive traction.

Dr. Joe Way [00:06:38]:
You know, I hate to say that, you know, you're waiting for global pandemic, but. But I will definitely say that I felt like the luckiest and smartest person in the room at that point because we had already gone through our personal proof of concept. We designed our classrooms, which you got a chance to see today, the real interconnectivity of everything. And, you know, provost calls me, says, Joe, what are we gonna do? And I'm like, guess what? We've already done it. We've already solved the problem. I just needed to get people off campus so I can install it. It's sitting in our storage room right now. We've already got it ready to put in this summer.

Dr. Joe Way [00:07:09]:
And obviously, I did not predict a global pandemic, but here in LA, I mean, we could have had an eight point earthquake, right? And we have a lot of historic buildings that wouldn't got knocked down, right. And we would have had to utilize some types of tools. So that was exactly kind of how the conversation went. And I told him, I said everything that I pitched to you and you were a little suspect about now is exactly why we need it. And the positive thing is we already have it. We literally have it sitting in a storage room. We don't have to worry about how to do it. We just need to get the teams to get it in.

Dr. Joe Way [00:07:45]:
Now. It ended up actually being great because also at that time, if you think back, every school was freaked out, what are we going to do? How are we going to do this? We literally just sent our line drawings out to everybody and just said, here is a roadmap. Obviously, everyone adopted in a little bit different way, but we were able to do that and lead the charge with that.

Joe Toste [00:08:08]:
Okay, so you have everything you need sitting in the closet, which is actually probably really great timing because some. One of the things when Covid in the pandemic kicked off is like, equipment, like anything to do with a camera or virtual was selling out like crazy. And so if you're, like, not in the podcast space or like, av world or anything like that, you're like, oh, I didn't really know, but it was gone. And so you've got a closet full of everything that you need. Kids are now home. They're not on campus. What was the timeframe of, like, how long did it take to get one classroom? You've got the blueprints. We were talking kind of joking, like, each one is the same package.

Joe Toste [00:08:53]:
Like, in and out.

Dr. Joe Way [00:08:54]:
Yeah.

Joe Toste [00:08:54]:
How do you get, like, what was the time frame of getting those stood up?

Dr. Joe Way [00:08:58]:
Well, this is where scope creep comes in a little bit. In theory, I would say our plan was originally, was we were just going to use one summer to do all hundreds of spaces. Right. But then, of course, as we all knew, the pandemic grew and it wasn't going to end soon, so we ended up taking the year and a half to do it. But we also improved the services. We brought in Ada, accessibles, furniture. We started changing as you got to hear a little bit of our voice control because remember, back then, someone said, I'm never, ever touching anything again. Which, of course, now we all just touch everything.

Dr. Joe Way [00:09:30]:
Yeah, but at the time, that's what we were saying. Right. So we ended up adding a few of those things. So I would say it's kind of a loaded question. Between four months and, well, a year and a half.

Joe Toste [00:09:39]:
Okay, so four months between, you know, four months, a year and a half. And when did the other universities start reaching out? So you're. You've put out the blueprints. You're starting to execute on this. When do you start getting other universities? Like, hey, what are you doing? And, you know, how can we learn more?

Dr. Joe Way [00:09:55]:
Yeah, it was almost immediately, and the only reason for that was because, you know, I had, you know, my podcast I'm doing, right? And I had the. That I was involved in, and it was, well, people were hearing me because they're freaking out, and I'm like, well, we already know what we're doing. And so all of a sudden, it's kind of, you know, and hold it. And just everyone was jumping on, like, random webinars at the time, right? There was that confusion. And when people are going, well, I don't know how I can get equipment. And, like, I keep joking now, you know, the global supply. And I go, what global supply chain? I mean, I already had everything now. Now I don't need anything.

Dr. Joe Way [00:10:28]:
And that's really when people started hitting and going, how can I solve this? And what are the things that we can get? What are the things that we need in order to be successful? And we've seen it from all different. And it was really cool. And I know I'm stopping you from answering another. Asking another question, but it was really cool to see our industry not be competitors, but be collaborators to all understand we had to get through this together. Regardless if you were an elite r1 like USC or your community college down the street, we all were facing the same problem, and we all had to get into that same ship and go through it together.

Joe Toste [00:11:04]:
Okay, so. And I think that's, in general, a really great summary about the public sector in itself, is that there's more collaboration and then people trying to compete against each other, which I really like. And one of the things you like, when I was looking back on our notes when we first talked was the state of education with technology. So you've got 2019. And when did you first start to reflect on that kind of pandemic period? You're still in it. And. But how did you know the pandemic happens? How are you thinking about the state of education with technology? A year in, 16 months in?

Dr. Joe Way [00:11:40]:
Yeah, you know, it actually kind of evolved. It evolved, but it started day one. I remember this. So tell a little bit of a story. I remember, you know, Friday, March 13, 2020, the day we kicked everybody off campus. And one of our student workers here in this office, in fact, I was in this room that we're in right now, and she was right on the other side of the window that everyone can see right behind us. And I hear her crying, and I say, you know, what's wrong? And she says, well, you know, I just lost my grandfather to Covid. And, you know, and it turns out she was raised by her grandparents, didn't have her parents.

Dr. Joe Way [00:12:20]:
And I was like, wow, that's. I don't know. What do you say? Right? What do you say? And. And I was like, but she's like, it's even worse than that. I'm like, how's it worse than that? She says, well, I rely on so much from here. We don't have wi fi at our house. I don't even own a laptop. I have a job here in it.

Dr. Joe Way [00:12:35]:
Because you have computers here. So I can stay after hours and utilize our computers to do my schoolwork. I have four roommates, and I don't know how we're going to have money to, you know, to keep things going. I don't have food. She's like, half the time we leave cookies and stuff here, and that might be my dinner at night. And it was that moment I went, whoa, this is more than just an IT department. This is more than a college. We provide things and change lives in a way.

Dr. Joe Way [00:12:59]:
And that did it. And as we then now, to answer your now for a very long answer to a short question, is that then, as we started developing our classrooms, we had to keep that in mind. We have to go, okay, who is it that's not getting served that we need to think about? And things that we noticed were, for example, pre pandemic. We never did transcription in our classrooms. So one of the features we brought in was recognizing that one third of our faculty, or non native english speakers, one third of our students are non native english speakers, could, when we went online, people got transcription, they got to record their classes, they got to watch them back. We never did any of those things before the pandemic. So let's make sure that even as we come back onto campus, we don't lose that. That even someone sitting in a class has that opportunity to go back, watch the transcription in their native language.

Dr. Joe Way [00:13:55]:
Right. That's the accessibility. Those types of things are what we started recognizing, going, that's what can't leave. That's what has to go into education. Not just is there a, you know, a microphone in there so everyone can hear?

Joe Toste [00:14:09]:
Yeah, no, that's really good. I'm. I mean, I remember sitting in college and when, I know I'm not as old as you, but I was.

Dr. Joe Way [00:14:15]:
What do you mean by that? Wow. I just turned 50 this week. Turned less. Yeah.

Joe Toste [00:14:20]:
You know, that's where I saw that. Hey, happy birthday.

Dr. Joe Way [00:14:22]:
Thank you.

Joe Toste [00:14:23]:
That's a big one.

Dr. Joe Way [00:14:24]:
Yeah, trust me, I know. All downhill from here.

Joe Toste [00:14:27]:
That's a big one. I remember sitting in the classroom and it was like computers weren't allowed. You're not recording anything. And it's great to see how much just the times have changed. And what you said about accessibility, I really, I was thinking, we've got some friends. And then I've also read this kind of in the papers with folks who have dyslexia. And if you're a student and you have dyslexia, how could you? You know, the classes, this is called 60 minutes. And if you're struggling to take the notes down, you could either a have to hire a note taker.

Joe Toste [00:15:02]:
But I was kind of, with my wife, brainstorming, you know, kind of different ideas. And now on this point, when we're having the conversation, we're talking about Chai GPT, and this has come on the scene, and I was saying, well, if they could record the class, I mean, she could get, you know, she can get a great summary, she could get insights, she can get details, and not have to worry that she's, like, missing anything or he's missing something. And so it is amazing to see what technology is doing right now, which leads me to a pretty interesting question on your perspective on campus. Where does kind of USC fall, how you think about it?

Dr. Joe Way [00:15:38]:
Yeah. Well, I will say I'm a huge proponent of it, and I'm a huge proponent of AI in general. Our official stance here at USC is it is allowed, you can use it, you just have to cite it, and you're responsible for the fact it gave you the correct answer. But I think just going to AI, for example, let's take your lesson recording. If you are someone who, if you have dyslexia, you have adhd, you have other learning challenges, why can't you, the software, summarize that entire lecture and give you one paragraph? This is what was talked about. So then when you do go review and you get ready to write your paper or take your exam, you just read that and you go, oh, okay, it's here. And then you can ask it, hey, by the way, over these 13 weeks, when did we learn about blah, blah, blah, blah? You type it in and it says, oh, in this lecture at minute number six, and on this lecture at minute number 42. And now you have that and you have, and then you get either a transcription or rewatch it, right? Why not? The technology is there and if we already now have spent all this money to record capture high quality stuff, why not take that next step?

Joe Toste [00:16:48]:
Yeah, running the podcast, it's, and we use it all the time, whether that's, you know, for show notes or even prep work. If there's a bunch of different articles I'm looking at, I mean, even when I was doing this for me and you, I'm thinking, okay, there's maybe twelve pieces of content that are out there, whether that's a podcast or whether that's, you know, a yahoo. Finance article or something like that. And I can take that content and say, well, you know what, I had this recording, this ten minute conversation with Doctor Joe way he cared about these five things. Here's what's in these articles. Just strip out the images and ask what type of questions do you think Joe would like? And give me ten of these. And I'm like, no, great question, great question. No.

Joe Toste [00:17:37]:
And that I think helps to speed up the editing process a lot. And then of course, just if you're in college and anything, just citing that, it's not original content. And so, but the cool part is when I record original content, when we do show notes, summaries, all that kind of stuff, it's taking the original content. And then what used to take, I mean, this used to take hours for us to do because you would have to have someone listen back and do all this. And now it's that. It is incredible at the rate and the use cases. So it's a fun time. It's a fun time to be alive.

Joe Toste [00:18:10]:
And we're going to jump to some of the stuff that we saw that you were touring us around, which is so fun. I mean, I was so happy to see it. And what I'm talking about is USC's digital creative lab, the esports arena, video production, media suites, ar, VR. I mean, there is such a robust setup here at USC, and I think it's still, I would say, I don't know if infancy is the right word, but it's coming along pretty quickly.

Dr. Joe Way [00:18:34]:
Yeah. Isn't that space cool?

Joe Toste [00:18:35]:
It's so cool.

Dr. Joe Way [00:18:36]:
Yeah. And I would say it is in its infancy. Yeah. It was interesting because I think it actually pulls our conversation kind of full circle, too, is, you know, this started as creating an esports room. That was the scope. But then we quickly recognized how many different disciplines it hit, how many different students we could serve, and we thought, okay, well, let's move more into the business of esports, not just the game players, which they're great things to play on, but also the game developers, those who are doing the shout casting and the broadcast part, the content creation for the lower thirds, the full streaming capabilities. And then could we also take those computers and just completely deck them out so that you could use them for 3d modeling? What if an architecture class could go in there? A film class could walk in and render a movie in less than ten minutes, which you couldn't do on a normal computer because it would take half the class just to open the file. So now we could have people collaborate in real time on high quality stuff, and then it moves into, okay, well, what are we going to do it in the Met? We got to do the metaverse.

Dr. Joe Way [00:19:38]:
Remember that buzzword we were just using not too long ago? So what we going to do there? Well, AR and VR, could we now create those types of interactive things? And so then we ended up with a hologram studio because why not? Why not have a hologram studio? And then let's throw it on the blockchain and have NFT creation. And then can you take those models and print them out? 3d printing. Right. So it just, every time we did something, we said, well, there's one step further, and there's one step further. And now let's throw in a bunch of collaboration tables and let's create an event space out of it so everybody can come together, really collaborate, work together, and utilize the space in that way. And I love it. That's where there's huge opportunities and huge opportunities for education moving forward.

Joe Toste [00:20:19]:
Yeah, the education piece. And I loved how you were just talking about on the tour about especially the, I think it was the paramount on how it's basically a replica studio of the other one that they have and so that you can plug the kids the students from here on campus directly into getting a job. And I think there's a lot of very practical applications with all of the media type of production and digital, and it was really fun to see. I know it doesn't do justice as we're kind of talking about it. And you've been on campus, you're like, well, it can't be that cool. I'm like, it's pretty cool. It's pretty sweet. So I don't know if you're a listener, you may want to just email me or DM Doctor Joe way and see I'm in the area, can I get a tour? And if he'll give it to you.

Dr. Joe Way [00:21:08]:
It'S pretty and I'll give anyone a tour. I love the tours. I mean, you're special, but I still, you know, I've done it a few times and I've got it down and, you know, it's fun stuff to see. But again, like you said, we're proud of it. We're proud of how it can be interdisciplinary with our students and we can, you know, as we mentioned, is how all the buildings kind of connect in some way, right? They flow. And that's really what makes this special. And we've been able to take our classroom technology and the pedagogy. We even talked about adapting our faculty to it, right? It's one thing to throw the tools in now you have to work with your faculty and adapt them into the new ways of doing things.

Dr. Joe Way [00:21:43]:
And we've had great champions with it. We've had great success in our faculty saying, hey, I want to come in and use that. Even taking the digital creative lab, you know, like I said there and go our new demographic, right? Like short form, right? That's the popular thing. Sitting for an hour, that's kind of dead, right? You need collaboration, you need connection, you need communication. So why not come into our production studio and create your, your classroom content? I mean, sorry for faculty who listen to this, let's be honest, out of your 1 hour of lecture, there's probably only 20 minutes of. It's actually important, you know, so why don't you create a video on that, a high quality video. Post that online now. Use your class time to collaborate with one another, show how that applies to their lives and their future careers.

Dr. Joe Way [00:22:32]:
That's the way we can start to utilize these special spaces and our technology and the uniqueness of our buildings for that purpose.

Joe Toste [00:22:40]:
I love that the creating some high quality content and then having. And we saw some of the spaces too. Where they were very flexible module, you could write anything on a wall. But just having that ability to apply what you heard in the lecture to actually, hey, this is what it's going to look like in whatever discipline that you're trying to approach, I think is very smart and a high use and high roi just on time in general.

Dr. Joe Way [00:23:10]:
Yeah, well, and you think about, this is the thing with higher education. We're going through this, I want to say an identity crisis in higher education because, you know, you're seeing the gig economy. You're seeing people say, well, I don't need to take out, why would I want to take out a quarter million dollars in loans when I could go to a trade school and be making more money in the first ten years? Right. That's the reality of the world, especially, I mean, not even to get political or anything, but student loan cancellation, these things are impacting vertical. So the more we can say, here's why you're going to come. And let's be honest, USC is not cheap, so why would you come here and pay that? Because we can actually prepare you for the workforce that you don't have to worry about ten years from now. Because in 40 years from now, you are going to be the expert in your entire field you will be setting so that you'll be setting the trends, not following them. And we can give that direct adaptation from classroom to workforce force.

Joe Toste [00:24:09]:
Yeah, no, that's a great, that is a great fan. That is a fantastic point. I was kind of thinking about this. So what advice would you give to others, specifically in the AV industry? You got deep background, lots of different perspectives. You've worked with a lot of different types of people who are considering that. Jump to higher ed.

Dr. Joe Way [00:24:30]:
Get out quick. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do it. No, just kidding. I actually absolutely love higher ed. And I'll say, you know, and I'll say higher Ed and even just house of worship that I'd worked in. One of the things that's very unique, you know, because I spent most of my career in the av industry, in the entertainment industry, and while I loved it and it was great and obviously, you know, did some great things there. There's a purpose behind higher education, the public sector.

Dr. Joe Way [00:24:56]:
There's something about you're serving others in what you're doing and you can't beat that. There's. When there's something more than your paycheck and knowing that you're actually impacting lives. Going all the way back to the story I was telling you. About with the student that we heard about day one. Right. And you see the students lives changed because of the services we provide. That means a lot.

Dr. Joe Way [00:25:20]:
That's why you come into higher education, or you come into any type of service, type of vertical and utilize those same skills.

Joe Toste [00:25:27]:
Yeah, I like that a lot. I don't have the higher education piece, but coaching high school basketball is kind of the great p. You know, I kind of laugh. Oh, do you make any money off that? And you're like, no, it's either free or you get a stipend that's less than $1,000.

Dr. Joe Way [00:25:44]:
And it's a couple of in and out stops.

Joe Toste [00:25:46]:
Well, for the kids. Yeah. Because on the van rides, you're going back and they're like, coach, we're so hungry. We're starving, and I got no money. Right. So you just buy my. You just buy food for the kid the whole time. So we covered 2019.

Joe Toste [00:25:59]:
We talked about the pandemic piece. We're now, I mean, it's August 4. You're coming up on four years. It's been a great run that you've had. And now I'm kind of curious. Higher education, you know, your perspective. You had the 2019, you went through the pandemic. What's the next three to five years look like?

Dr. Joe Way [00:26:20]:
Well, since I did predict this one right, I got that. I am going to be Nostradamus. No, I definitely think that the, we're going to see them hyper personalization is what we're going to see because I think AI does hyper personalization and allows that. I think looking at our production studios, the way we can change our teaching and learning, the way we no longer the days of a talking head are gone. We have to interact with our students. Our students are becoming brands themselves. I think if we can't or don't actually focus on the individual, we used to talk about classes, the freshman class, the sophomore class. Now we have to talk about the individual.

Dr. Joe Way [00:27:02]:
And so I think that's what we're going to start to see. And we're going to see a move to that. What it exactly looks like, I don't know, but I think seamless experience from the dining hall to the classroom, to your residence hall, to your after hours sports, I think you're going to see that seamless, that kind of frictionless sense together. You're going to see everything work for you. A lot of online and cloud will be next. Not just the physical equipment, it's already here, but I think further adaptation into it will go there. Because that's just how we're seeing society change. The, the pandemic moved us and changed people and I think that's the reality now higher ed has to take going forward.

Joe Toste [00:27:41]:
I was thinking about this so I know USC is leading as we've had a great conversation. What are some other, and they don't have to be in the United States, but where are some other universities that are giving you some inspiration?

Dr. Joe Way [00:27:52]:
No, I don't like anybody. No, just kidding. You know what, there are a lot of great schools out there that are doing great things. If I think of UNLV is doing amazing stuff there. UCF, I'm not allowed to say the word Notre Dame, but let's say I'm allowed to. You know, and I think a lot of schools that, that focused on digital transformation and brought their classroom technology teams with them and didn't just do it from an IT perspective or do it from like a, I'm sending out an our managed services type of thing are really the ones who are setting the trends for the future.

Joe Toste [00:28:27]:
That's great. Who are, as we wrap up, who are the, maybe the next two to three folks in higher ed that you would like to see on the podcast.

Dr. Joe Way [00:28:34]:
Oh, have you had Simeone yet? We've talked.

Joe Toste [00:28:37]:
He was on vacation and then he got back and I threw a live event but he's, yeah.

Dr. Joe Way [00:28:41]:
I gotta thank you Cinder recently or have her coming? Let me think. I'd love her. Lucy Evitisian at UCLA who's now the I am a lot. I think I'm a lot.

Joe Toste [00:28:51]:
You like to say that.

Dr. Joe Way [00:28:52]:
I'm allowed to say that. A CIO there, she's doing fantastic stuff with their, reimagining their classroom stuff too.

Joe Toste [00:28:57]:
That's great.

Joe Toste [00:28:58]:
Well, yeah, we got a lot of.

Joe Toste [00:28:59]:
Great people coming on. Doctor Joe way, thank you for coming on the podcast and we'll have to have you come back on collaborating with some folks next time. But love to really appreciate the, the extensive tour. My daughter Annabelle, come say hi again one last time as we wrap up. She's, she was stoked on it and yeah, I love the spending the time today.

Dr. Joe Way [00:29:17]:
All right. Thank you so much for having me on. Such a pleasure.

Joe Toste [00:29:19]:
Hey, what's up everybody? This is Joe Tossin from techtables.com and you're listening to the public sector show buy tech tables. This podcast features human centric stories from public sector, CIO's, cisos and technology leaders across federal, state, city, county and higher education. You'll gain valuable insights into current issues and challenges faced by top leaders. Through interviews, speaking engagements, live podcast tour events, we offer you a behind the mic look at the opportunities top leaders are seeing today. And to make sure you never miss an episode, head over to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and hit that follow button and leave a quick rating. Just tap the number of stars that you think this show deserves.