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The Signal
Ep. 80 - Higher Ed Is on Fire. We Need a Better Signal.
00:06:00
“The Signal” is launching with a vital mission: to cut through the overwhelming noise surrounding technology in higher education and deliver honest conversations about what truly matters. Hosted by Jeff Dillon, this show originates from a thriving community – a decade-long email listserv (now boasting nearly 70,000 members) of web directors, digital marketers, and leaders across higher ed who were grappling with responsive design, mobile technology, and the evolving needs of students. The show’s core focus is identifying what’s actually moving the needle and understanding how faculty and students are utilizing technology daily. Jeff emphasizes the critical need to avoid making policy decisions “blind,” urging listeners to engage with the conversations shaping higher education. “The Signal” is committed to uncovering those real-world insights and fostering a community where innovative ideas can thrive. The show continues every Friday with the same format and commitment to honest con...
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Hey, everybody. Today is a special short episode. I want to talk to you directly because if you've been listening to EdTech Connect, you deserve to hear this from me personally and not just notice a name change in your podcast app and wonder what happened. First, I want to take you back to where it all started, because the podcast didn't come first. In 2016, I started a simple email list. Not even a newsletter really. It was a listserv. A few dozen web directors from universities all over the country were on it. We were all trying to figure out mobile technology together. Responsive design was still a debate. Native apps versus mobile web, that was the conversation. What I didn't expect was that the list would grow and keep growing. That community is now nearly 70,000 people. It's not just web directors anymore either. It's digital marketers, CIOs, information security officers, enrollment leaders, faculty student success and enrollment teams. Really, the full spectrum of people who sit at the intersection of technology and higher ed. They're on the front lines every single day. And that newsletter has been the connective tissue for all of it. The podcast grew out of that. The newsletter showed me what people actually were asking, what was keeping them up at night, who they wanted to hear from, and the signal. This show is the audio version of that same mission. So if you're not already subscribed to the newsletter, I'm going to drop a link in the show notes. There's a decade of context in there that I think you'd find valuable, so go check it out. When I launched EdTechConnect, I had one goal. To have honest conversations with people shaping how technology gets used in higher education. And for the past several years, that's exactly what we did. We hit number four on Apple podcasts and education. We've had incredible guests, and most importantly, we've built a community of people who actually care about getting this right. But here's what I kept running into. The conversations were getting bigger than the name. We're not just talking about ed tech. We're talking about leadership, about change, about the gap between what institutions say they're doing and what's actually happening on the ground. The signal, the real signal, was getting lost in a category. And honestly, the timing of this rename couldn't be more deliberate. Right now, higher ed is navigating one of the most turbulent stretches in recent memory. Federal funding is under pressure, policy uncertainty around DEI Title 9 international students. It's real. And institutions are making high stakes decisions with incomplete information. The political environment is forcing conversations that a lot of campus leaders weren't prepared to have publicly. And at the same time, AI is moving faster than most institutions governance structures can track. And I don't mean that as a criticism, I mean it as a fact. The tools that faculty are using in their classrooms right now, the tools that enrollment teams are deploying, the decisions CIOs are making about data infrastructure, that's all happening in real time, without a playbook. That's exactly the kind of moment where you need Signal, not Noise I'll give you a quick example of what I mean. Two tools I think every higher ed leader should at least understand right now. The first is NotebookLM, Google's research and synthesis tool. It's genuinely useful for anyone trying to make sense of large documents, policy briefs, accreditation reports. You can drop in 50 pages of strategic planning documents and ask it questions. I've seen institutional research teams start using this to cut their prep time in half. The second is Perplexity AI. Think of it as a search engine that actually cites its sources for anyone doing competitive landscape research, tracking peer institution strategies, or trying to stay current on federal policy shifts without spending an hour reading Federal Register notices. It's become a daily tool for a lot of people in this network. I'm not endorsing either of these as enterprise solutions. I'm saying if you're not at least familiar with what your faculty and students are already using, you're making policy decisions block. And that's going to be a recurring theme on this show. So we're changing the name. EdTech Connect is now the Signal. Same show, same commitment, same me, but a name that actually matches what we've been doing all along. Cutting through the noise to find what's real, what matters, and what's actually moving the needle in higher education. If you're already subscribed, you don't have to do anything. You're already here. The show continues in your feed exactly as it always has. Same release schedule every Friday, same format, same guests. And I think you'll feel the difference in a good way. When the name fits the show, everything gets sharper. One thing I'd ask if you ever have gotten value from the show, whether it's one episode or one of the last 80, take 30 seconds and leave a review on Apple Podcasts under the signal. It helps new people find us, and it tells me what you actually want more of. And again, a link to the newsletters in the show Notes. Subscribe, dig into the archives and come find the community where all this started. We've got some incredible conversations coming up, the kind that make you think differently about where higher education is going, what technology actually changes, and what leadership looks like right now. In a moment when the stakes are genuinely high, the Signal has always been there. We're just turning it up. I'll see you in the next episode. Welcome to the Signal Sa.