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Welcome to the age of agility.
This is a show where we talked to
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people who are facing unique challenges with
an agility mindset. Will learn from industry
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leaders, business and I professionals,
and even check in on our colleagues from
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time to time. Stay tuned as
we explore the age of agility. Hi
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Everybody, and welcome back to the
age of agility podcast. My name is
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Shannon Curran, I am still your
host and we're really excited to be here
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for another episode. So we are
joined today with Mike Pas Quality, who
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is the director of program quality improvement. Once to make sure I got that
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right, especially because he's the Quality
Improvement Guy at the Center for community alternatives,
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CCA, based out of New York. Mike, Thanks so much for
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joining us today. Thanks for having
me, channon. It's great to be
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here. Awesome. So can you
tell our group, our audience, a
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little bit about who you are and
what you do? Sure, I'm based
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in Syracuse, New York. Our
Agency is Center for community alternatives. As
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you said, we are statewide agency
with offices in Syracuse, Rochester and New
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York City, and the focus of
our agency is to work with people who
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are involved in the criminal justice system, in the juvenile justice system, to
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assist them in reintegrating back into back
into the community and providing alternatives to to
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incarceration and alternatives to being involved in
those systems. We also do some advocacy
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on the statewide level to have some
impact on on the systems that that impact
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those that we serve. I'm the
Director of program quality improvement at this time,
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as you said, and it's my
job to do a number of things,
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including deploying an agency wide database that
we've been building in quick base across
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the agency so we can compile agency
metrics on a high level. So that's
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what I spend my my waking hours, or most of my waking hours,
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working on with with many members of
CCA as well as my my small but
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erstwhile team. I've been with CCA
for seventeen, seventeen years. Can you
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tell us a little bit more about
your journey with CCA? So how you
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started with the organization? I don't
know how much time we have, but
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I know you had a quite the
ten year there, so would love to
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hear a little bit about your role
there and how it's evolved over the years.
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Sure, I've been working in human
services in in Syracuse since I graduated
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from Le Moyne College, which is
a small Jesuit school here in in in
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ninety. So I've been it's been
over thirty years of being involved in in
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in the Hue and the nonprofit human
services community and I got to know CCA
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back in the early two thousand late
s when we're working on some collaborative employment
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projects and in doing some of the
some of the activism that I've been involved
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in over the years, which is
a whole other podcast I won't even get
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into, and then eventually was able
to be to join their team back in
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two thousand and four after having known, you know, our founder and Executive
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Director, Dr Marsh to Weissman,
our deputy director at the time, Chris
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Christina Bate, work with them for
a while and they said we'll want to
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join the CECA team. And then
I was able to join the CECA team
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and help develop our reinnegration services unit, which is focused on helping individuals find
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and keep employment, folks who have
a criminal history or coming out of prison.
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So I did that for a number
of years. I've been fortunate to
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pass that on to to somebody else
who's doing a fantastic job with that and
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I've been able to take on the
the the program quality improvement stuff in the
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in the last year and a half. Actually sort of officially started right before
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the pandemic, so that was interesting
timing. One of the things that I
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did when I was in reintegration services
as we got to know quick baits starting
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about ten years ago and used it
for a huge federal employment grant that I
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would have jumped out of window if
I didn't have not literally a very low,
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low window ruin. Would have been
impossible to run that grant without,
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you know, a data system like
quickday. So so that was a real
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lifesaver and folks within the agency kept
saying to me, Oh well, can
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we use that, can we use
that? And we would work with them
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to at least one other department to
develop, develop quick BASS APP at quick
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based APPS for them, and eventually
that led me to move out of reintegration
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services and into into program quality improvement, and so here we are today,
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all took with seventeen years well,
but it's really interesting. I know the
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first time we talked it feels like
you are like the perfect definition of this
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thing that we call a business.
Technologist or a citizen automator, a citizen
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developer, and it feels a little
bit like you're like an activist turn technologists
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or technologist turn activists, which is
really cool. And would love to hear
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a little bit about as you transitioned
into this program quality role, especially are
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with this difficult timing around covid like, how did you transition something a program
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so love to hear about some of
the data that you were tracking. How
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did that change as you all were
kind of coming into the the time that
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you've experienced over the last few years? Well, about a week or week
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and a half before the world shutdown
and, more importantly, before we went
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we went remote to this was in
a march of two thousand and twenty,
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we had done a demonstration. Our
database administrator and quick base builder, Jennifer
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Schaeffer, and and I had done
a demonstration to our senior leadership team of
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of the APP that we were developing. It was actually a little bit more
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than a proof of concept. It
was like here's what we're here's we're here's
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what we're going to do, here's
what we're about to get ready. Some
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forms together, some intake questions together
and and map out the work closed and
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how they would how they would start
to use it. So we were just
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ready to get that going. Then
we closed down as like Oh okay,
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so we had to pivot and what
we ended up doing is since then,
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since the new APP that we had
created wasn't quite ready and the way programs
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were being delivered was changing on a
die, you know, a human services
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it's hard to do human services without
humans and being being together. So we
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had to figure out how to do
that same thing remotely, especially when we
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have clientele that maybe doesn't have the
kind of either computer skills or access to
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technology that that we might have.
Even some of our staff din't necessarily have
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the access to technology that would that
would make that that doable and practicals.
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Anyway, it was. It was. It was a complete pivot, like
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everybody else in the world, and
we decided that, okay, we needed
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to do a couple of things.
One, we need to get everybody on
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quick Baith very quickly so they could
those who weren't using quick bays or didn't
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have an electronic system could at the
very least continue to do wellness checks with
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their participants. So we're staying in
contact with people and we could provide them
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with information that they needed about what
was going on in the community. So
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folks and feel alone. And then
we were still building keeping the community,
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our CCA community, informed and engaged. The wellness checks were also useful for
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letting our funders know, okay,
maybe we can't place people in jobs right
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now, but we're still saying and
staying in touch with people and finding out
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how they're doing. So we created
the system where we could, where we
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could, we could figure out where
we could keep track of all that across
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not all of the agency but most
of the agency, and we were able
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to provide feedback to staff on a
regular basis. Okay, here is the
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number of wellness checks that that that
that you've been doing, here are the
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needs that folks have been expressing and
and to track that over time. And
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that got people. I mean we
went from thirty five quick base users to
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seventy five or eighty or eighty five
overnight and we pivoted, did lots of
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train meeting and and got folks,
got folks together and we still use a
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lot of that data and it was
it was super helpful in keeping our operations
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running smoothly or relatively smoothly at the
beginning of the pandemic. Downside is,
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and it also increased adoption of quick
bays. We did it much faster than
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we ever thought we were we were
going to. Downside is we got sidetracked
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on our point project. Right,
big project became the side project. Yeah,
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exactly, see, Jilly. So
it seems like they're sort of a
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few through lines here. One around
the importance of tracking really mission critical data
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for your organization. There probably were
some processes like you're referring to that were
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in person, paper process Hees,
maybe, things that were happening over email
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or other things that no longer that
was no longer an option, right.
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So you now had to make sure
that everyone had visibility into the data that
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they needed to be able to do
their job, as their job continue to
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change every day. Is that?
Is that sort of did you feel like
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this, like this accelerated sort of
that digital transformation of your organization to Oh,
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I mean absolutely, we were pivoting
on all sorts of way. I
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mean I think literally that meeting I
was telling you about where we had right
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before that, right before the point
of that, was the first time we'd
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ever used zoom so so hard timing
was was excluded as we had just we
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had just finished a process, thanks
to a big grant that we had gotten
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from a local foundation, of revamping
a lot of our technology within the within
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the agency, and and updating it
and so forth. So that was,
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you know, that was that would
that was fortuitous as well. But yeah,
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in terms of utilization and adoption of
a certainly quick bass, but lots
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of other technology, this just this
just accelerated it. We hear a lot
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about, you know, citizen development. Sounds awesome, it sounds great,
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but like, how do you actually
get people to adopt new technology? To
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See, because even the most simple
and easy to use technologies are they do
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require change management, right. So
it seems like your role is probably a
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lot of that, right, as
you continue to improve on programs and proven
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processes operations. It's bringing people along
and really making sure that adoption happens.
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Can you talk a little bit about
like did you see any barriers there?
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What did you see work? Yeah, I mean I think I think the
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main thing that worked was prayer.
I say that tongue in cheek. Adoption
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is definitely definitely a challenge and a
challenge that that we faced. We were
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fortunate that we had a number of
folks who are already familiar with quick bass,
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but for the most of the folks
who weren't familiar, what we were
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needed to do is just just be
persistent and patient in terms of helping them
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get through the the initial growing pain
of using a new system, figuring out
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how to log in, figuring out
what this meant, what that meant,
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the difference between a pencil and and
I and all that kind of stuff.
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We use zoom to do lots of
online trainings. I would take phone calls
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and emails. Is just being available
and it's just myself and one other staff
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person at the time. So it
was just a matter of really just being
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patient and answering questions as simply as
possible, but also providing written and and
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recorded materials that that folks could utilize. I don't know that there's anything unique
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or brilliant about about any of that, but but that seemed to work for
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us. Yeah, it does seem
like there is something about bringing people along
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right like understanding meeting them where they
are. We talk before. Your industry,
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Human Services, nonprofits and Geo's are
not typically known as the most like
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technologically advanced, right, like you're
really spending a lot of time facetoface with
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people, and that's the important work, right. You're spending, you want
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to spend a majority of your effort
really good in your community. So I
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know that we talked a little bit
about this, but can you really talk
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about the impact that this technology has
on your ability to actually do that work
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better and be able to scale the
impact that you're having in your community?
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Absolutely, you know, one of
the things that we have used quick base
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for is to figure out what the
impact of our services are. Not only
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counting widgets, if you will,
but what kind of difference does it make
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in in the lives of the people
that we are serving? I think the
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wellness checks, I think we're one
were one example of that, but also
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being able to look at data on
a regular basis and see, okay,
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this is this is what's going on
in this program. This number of people
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is coming in, but we should
be having this number of people coming in.
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We've gotten, and I know this
is part of the widget counting,
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but these number of jobs are we
these number of people have gotten jobs and
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they're making x. Why can't we
get them? Why are they making X
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as opposed to why it should they
be making fifteen dollars an hour instead of
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seven hundred and twenty five, or
or or whatever? And we can make
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data different, data driven decisions with
that data. I mean we're constantly looking
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at this, the data that we
have, and and saying, okay,
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what does this tell us about our
programs and how can we how can we
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make make a make the program better? What are the gaps and how can
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we make the program better? I
think one example of that is we have
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a we have a shelter. We
call it stuffing, called Freedom Commons Academy.
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It's it's essentially an emergency shelter where
folks can come in after after period
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of incarceration and have a place to
stay. Especially after you've been in prison
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for five, ten, fifteen years, you might need a place where you
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can go for a little while and
and sort of reacclimate back into the back
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into the community. In addition to
sort of the system that the that the
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county requires, that that that we
utilize, we've been using quick bas to
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sort of track what's been going on
with our participants who are who are in
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Freedom Commons Academy, how much,
how long are they staying when they come
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out, when they leave the academy, are they are they housed? Is
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has their income increased? And it's
been really useful. And where are that?
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Where are the where are the referrals
coming from, and are the folks
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from this referral source more successful than
the folks from that referral source? And
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it's been really useful to get into
that, get into the granularity of that,
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of that data and and make some
decisions or base our advocacy on what
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was really happening on the ground in
the academy. And that's another program that
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we literally started about two months before
the pandemic. So the first year of
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this program was was pandemic. So
that's a real example of how I think
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this, the way we've been using
the data has been, has been super
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useful to our programs on the ground. It's a great example. I think
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it's it's something that prop that most
people probably don't think about when they think
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about the impacts that organizations are having
on communities, that there is just so
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much data to track, whether that's
for funders or if it's just to be
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able to continuously improve your programs,
that you need to track to be able
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to make those data driven decisions and
I think that that's a great example.
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One of the things that is unique
about human services nonprofits is that, you
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know, you're absolutely right, we
have to collect all kinds of data.
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In some respects, if we were
a business, of paid business, well
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maybe maybe the main bottom line is
is the bottom line is that is how
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much money you're making. In in
our case there are, there are multiple
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bottom lines and they're very disparate and
different funders and different governmental entities or different
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foundations ask you for different types of
data or want similar types of data organized
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in different ways. So, you
know, it's talked about agility. All
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nonprofits have to have to figure out
ways of of doing that and it's and
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it's really hard, and I think
that's unique to nonprofits that maybe a for
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profit doesn't necessarily have to have to
deal with, because our our workflows are
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crazy and and the way we need
to organize data is it is sometimes crazy
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and we spend a lot of time
figuring out how to do that to get
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us the kind of metrics we need
for our funders and and that sort of
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thing, which is some of it
is very convoluted definitely, and I think,
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as we were talking about earlier,
organizations that probably need to track the
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most data are the ones that had
maybe didn't have the best technology in place
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to be able to do that right. So as you start up new programs,
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as you create new initiatives, as
you have new funders, as your
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grants change, feels imperative that your
systems are flexible and adaptable to what you
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need to change. Absolutely, and
we're constantly making constantly making changes. I
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mean just this week I've been dealing
with a we got a new grant.
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So how do we adapt quick face
to to for that new ground? I
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think I've gotten, certainly this week
I've gotten at least two of those that
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we've had to deal with, and
in the past few months we've been dealing
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with that, you know, four
times. So this little APP that we
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created to get us through the pandemic
for wellness checks has now ballooned to I've
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now named it the interim map.
It's balloon to do all these sort of
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things that we're needing to we're deeting
to do on the on the fly,
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and it's been really great. I'm
looking forward to being less on the fly,
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but you know, life goes on. It's life, right, so
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nice segue that. This is the
question that we ask every one of our
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guests. So, Mike, how
would you define agility? You know,
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I think agility is is, is
what we've been what we've been talking about,
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solve problems and make decisions quickly and
creatively and effectively. The best example
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I can think of is a star
Trek example, which is my big thing.
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I Love Star Trek, and the
captain calls down to the engineering and
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says, Scotty, we're all dead
and fifteen minutes so you got to change
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the laws of physics, and Scotty
says, I kind of change the laws
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of physics. Got To have thirteen
minutes and then goes ahead and does it
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anyway. You know, and another
example is that is Apollo Thirteen, the
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movie. You failures not an option
and when push comes to shove, agility
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is doing, doing the stuff that
has to has to be done, even
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when you can't think, when even
when you think it can't. Yeah,
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I love that and I think you
know. We talked to folks from all
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different industries, all different sort of
size organizations. What if we've done,
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I always say this onst podcast.
I've done dozens of these interviews and I
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think sometimes the agility is to grow
and continue to take on new opportunities.
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But in your case agility feels like
it's a requirement to be able to serve
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your community, that these folks need
your help, and so you can't let
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process or like up your rocricy really
get in the way of you being able
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to do that work right, like
the operations cannot get in the way of
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you being able to serve that community
well. And that's why I think a
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department like mine, program called improvement, is so important because it takes it.
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It takes in my view, and
I say this as a former,
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you know, program director, it
takes a burden, I would like to
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think, a burden off of the
programs. Let somebody else figure out the
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details so the program can do the
work it needs to do with with the
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participants and and in the community,
because I think a program director shouldn't have
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to figure out, like I did
when we have that big federal grant,
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what's the data system we're going to
use to collect this? Let's have it
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ready to the program can use it
and focus on program delivery, not not
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date. I mean they're never going
to get away from data. There the
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front there the front lines, but
the more we can we can minimize it.
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Let them, let the programs focus
on their expertise, which is which
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is helping youth or helping people who
are on hows or people coming out of
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prison. They can do that and
be that expert and will worry about how
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to help them through the through the
data. One one other example I should
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I should bring up because I for
I forgot to earlier, which I think
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is also an example of of agility. Is One of the things we used
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quick base for, and we couldn't
have done this any other way, is
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when we started to reopen our offices
in July of two thousand and twenty and
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needed to do health screenings and log
who was in and out of the office
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in case we ever needed to do
contact tracing, we set up an APP
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in quick base to use that,
which, unfortunately, we're still using,
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but it's it's working super well and
really has saved US helped increase the safety
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of our of our offices. Unfortunately, we've had a few instances where we've
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had to use it for contact tracing
and the health we were able to give
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health department data that they just didn't
expect. This was super helpful to them.
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Our Executive Director, David Condliff,
sings its praises very often and says,
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you know, I would be on
executive director calls with other agencies and
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they say, how big is your
ID Department? How did you pull that
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off? Because some of these other
agencies are still doing this. That stuff
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on on paper. So that made
a that made a real difference, the
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difference for us. So maybe that's
another example of Mr Scott type a child
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love the rename everything. So all
right, my our final question, and
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it feels like it. I always
think it's going to snop be loaded,
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but the world is just really testing
us these days. So how are you?
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How have we been and sort of
what's your likes, anything you're reading
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and watching lately, just anything that
you think our audience would like to know
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about you? Well, I'll tell
you. I'll tell you three things.
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First of all, I'm feeling great. I weight loss surgery back in December,
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eight months ago, and I'm down
eighty some odd pounds and just feeling
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really good. So anybody out there's
ever considering weight loss surgery, this is
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not advice. This is the my
experience is that it work great for me
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and so I'm feeling better than than
I ever have. The second thing in
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terms of a book, look at
the title of it. It's taking charge
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of change by Paul Shoemaker. I've
been reading that book and singing its praises
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and I absolutely love it. It
speaks a lot to what leadership is going
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to be like in the twenty and
the s and focuses a lot on something
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they author calls data conviction and the
importance of leaders, current leaders being being
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really focused on data, among other
things. It's one of five traits he
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focuses on and and lastly, going
back to my love for Star Trek,
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I've been listening to some star Trek
podcasts and there's there's a few of them
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out there. My favorite is something
called the inglorious trexperts, which is absolutely
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wonderful. So if you find if
folks want to listen to that and they're
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star trek fans, they should.
And I don't get paid for any of
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that that I do not know the
guys who do that. I just I
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just love this. There we add. So that's how I am. I'm
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doing great I would love to know
what our overlap with the Star Trek fandom
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is. So this is where we're
going to find out, like how many
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people listen to the age of agility
as well as listen to star trek related
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podcast that's I would love to get. That data be a love to hear
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it. I I would love that
and I think that should be a track
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at the next in power. I
love it. Well, Mike, Thank
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you so much. This has been
such a pleasure for folks out there.
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Just this is a reminder how much
I love my job that I get to
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talk to people like Mike and we
get to really learn more about the power
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of really having effective operational data to
be able to run your business, as
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as sometimes dry as that can dound, you really get to see people like
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Mike and his organization really using that
to make a huge impact and I know
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that that's the stuff that really gets
me out of bed in the morning.
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So I really appreciate your time,
Mike. It's been awesome to get to
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talk to you. Thanks. I've
really enjoyed it as well, so thanks
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for having awesome well to everything out
there. Like and subscribe. Make sure
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00:26:00.269 --> 00:26:03.299
you you can rate us as well, but you can find us everywhere you
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00:26:03.460 --> 00:26:07.740
listen to your favorite podcast. You
can also watch us on our youtube channel
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00:26:07.779 --> 00:26:12.059
and as well on our website at
Quick Bascom podcasts, and we look forward
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00:26:12.059 --> 00:26:15.460
to seeing you on our next episode. Thanks.
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00:00:00.520 --> 00:00:04.400
Welcome to the age of agility.
This is a show where we talked to
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00:00:04.440 --> 00:00:08.990
people who are facing unique challenges with
an agility mindset. Will learn from industry
3
00:00:08.990 --> 00:00:12.910
leaders, business and I professionals,
and even check in on our colleagues from
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00:00:12.949 --> 00:00:25.379
time to time. Stay tuned as
we explore the age of agility. Hi
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00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:30.539
Everybody, and welcome back to the
age of agility podcast. My name is
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00:00:30.620 --> 00:00:35.140
Shannon Curran, I am still your
host and we're really excited to be here
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00:00:35.380 --> 00:00:40.689
for another episode. So we are
joined today with Mike Pas Quality, who
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00:00:40.929 --> 00:00:45.450
is the director of program quality improvement. Once to make sure I got that
9
00:00:45.450 --> 00:00:50.320
right, especially because he's the Quality
Improvement Guy at the Center for community alternatives,
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00:00:50.759 --> 00:00:53.880
CCA, based out of New York. Mike, Thanks so much for
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00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:57.640
joining us today. Thanks for having
me, channon. It's great to be
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00:00:57.719 --> 00:01:00.799
here. Awesome. So can you
tell our group, our audience, a
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little bit about who you are and
what you do? Sure, I'm based
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in Syracuse, New York. Our
Agency is Center for community alternatives. As
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you said, we are statewide agency
with offices in Syracuse, Rochester and New
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York City, and the focus of
our agency is to work with people who
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are involved in the criminal justice system, in the juvenile justice system, to
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assist them in reintegrating back into back
into the community and providing alternatives to to
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incarceration and alternatives to being involved in
those systems. We also do some advocacy
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on the statewide level to have some
impact on on the systems that that impact
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those that we serve. I'm the
Director of program quality improvement at this time,
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as you said, and it's my
job to do a number of things,
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including deploying an agency wide database that
we've been building in quick base across
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the agency so we can compile agency
metrics on a high level. So that's
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what I spend my my waking hours, or most of my waking hours,
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working on with with many members of
CCA as well as my my small but
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erstwhile team. I've been with CCA
for seventeen, seventeen years. Can you
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tell us a little bit more about
your journey with CCA? So how you
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started with the organization? I don't
know how much time we have, but
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I know you had a quite the
ten year there, so would love to
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hear a little bit about your role
there and how it's evolved over the years.
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Sure, I've been working in human
services in in Syracuse since I graduated
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from Le Moyne College, which is
a small Jesuit school here in in in
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ninety. So I've been it's been
over thirty years of being involved in in
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in the Hue and the nonprofit human
services community and I got to know CCA
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back in the early two thousand late
s when we're working on some collaborative employment
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projects and in doing some of the
some of the activism that I've been involved
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in over the years, which is
a whole other podcast I won't even get
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into, and then eventually was able
to be to join their team back in
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two thousand and four after having known, you know, our founder and Executive
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Director, Dr Marsh to Weissman,
our deputy director at the time, Chris
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Christina Bate, work with them for
a while and they said we'll want to
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join the CECA team. And then
I was able to join the CECA team
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and help develop our reinnegration services unit, which is focused on helping individuals find
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and keep employment, folks who have
a criminal history or coming out of prison.
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So I did that for a number
of years. I've been fortunate to
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pass that on to to somebody else
who's doing a fantastic job with that and
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I've been able to take on the
the the program quality improvement stuff in the
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in the last year and a half. Actually sort of officially started right before
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the pandemic, so that was interesting
timing. One of the things that I
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did when I was in reintegration services
as we got to know quick baits starting
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about ten years ago and used it
for a huge federal employment grant that I
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would have jumped out of window if
I didn't have not literally a very low,
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low window ruin. Would have been
impossible to run that grant without,
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you know, a data system like
quickday. So so that was a real
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lifesaver and folks within the agency kept
saying to me, Oh well, can
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we use that, can we use
that? And we would work with them
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to at least one other department to
develop, develop quick BASS APP at quick
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based APPS for them, and eventually
that led me to move out of reintegration
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services and into into program quality improvement, and so here we are today,
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all took with seventeen years well,
but it's really interesting. I know the
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first time we talked it feels like
you are like the perfect definition of this
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thing that we call a business.
Technologist or a citizen automator, a citizen
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developer, and it feels a little
bit like you're like an activist turn technologists
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or technologist turn activists, which is
really cool. And would love to hear
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a little bit about as you transitioned
into this program quality role, especially are
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with this difficult timing around covid like, how did you transition something a program
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so love to hear about some of
the data that you were tracking. How
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did that change as you all were
kind of coming into the the time that
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you've experienced over the last few years? Well, about a week or week
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and a half before the world shutdown
and, more importantly, before we went
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we went remote to this was in
a march of two thousand and twenty,
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we had done a demonstration. Our
database administrator and quick base builder, Jennifer
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Schaeffer, and and I had done
a demonstration to our senior leadership team of
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of the APP that we were developing. It was actually a little bit more
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than a proof of concept. It
was like here's what we're here's we're here's
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what we're going to do, here's
what we're about to get ready. Some
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forms together, some intake questions together
and and map out the work closed and
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how they would how they would start
to use it. So we were just
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ready to get that going. Then
we closed down as like Oh okay,
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so we had to pivot and what
we ended up doing is since then,
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since the new APP that we had
created wasn't quite ready and the way programs
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were being delivered was changing on a
die, you know, a human services
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it's hard to do human services without
humans and being being together. So we
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had to figure out how to do
that same thing remotely, especially when we
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have clientele that maybe doesn't have the
kind of either computer skills or access to
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technology that that we might have.
Even some of our staff din't necessarily have
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the access to technology that would that
would make that that doable and practicals.
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Anyway, it was. It was. It was a complete pivot, like
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everybody else in the world, and
we decided that, okay, we needed
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to do a couple of things.
One, we need to get everybody on
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quick Baith very quickly so they could
those who weren't using quick bays or didn't
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have an electronic system could at the
very least continue to do wellness checks with
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their participants. So we're staying in
contact with people and we could provide them
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with information that they needed about what
was going on in the community. So
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folks and feel alone. And then
we were still building keeping the community,
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our CCA community, informed and engaged. The wellness checks were also useful for
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letting our funders know, okay,
maybe we can't place people in jobs right
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now, but we're still saying and
staying in touch with people and finding out
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how they're doing. So we created
the system where we could, where we
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could, we could figure out where
we could keep track of all that across
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not all of the agency but most
of the agency, and we were able
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to provide feedback to staff on a
regular basis. Okay, here is the
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number of wellness checks that that that
that you've been doing, here are the
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needs that folks have been expressing and
and to track that over time. And
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that got people. I mean we
went from thirty five quick base users to
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seventy five or eighty or eighty five
overnight and we pivoted, did lots of
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train meeting and and got folks,
got folks together and we still use a
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lot of that data and it was
it was super helpful in keeping our operations
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running smoothly or relatively smoothly at the
beginning of the pandemic. Downside is,
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and it also increased adoption of quick
bays. We did it much faster than
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we ever thought we were we were
going to. Downside is we got sidetracked
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on our point project. Right,
big project became the side project. Yeah,
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exactly, see, Jilly. So
it seems like they're sort of a
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few through lines here. One around
the importance of tracking really mission critical data
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for your organization. There probably were
some processes like you're referring to that were
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in person, paper process Hees,
maybe, things that were happening over email
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or other things that no longer that
was no longer an option, right.
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So you now had to make sure
that everyone had visibility into the data that
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they needed to be able to do
their job, as their job continue to
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change every day. Is that?
Is that sort of did you feel like
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this, like this accelerated sort of
that digital transformation of your organization to Oh,
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I mean absolutely, we were pivoting
on all sorts of way. I
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mean I think literally that meeting I
was telling you about where we had right
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before that, right before the point
of that, was the first time we'd
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ever used zoom so so hard timing
was was excluded as we had just we
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had just finished a process, thanks
to a big grant that we had gotten
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from a local foundation, of revamping
a lot of our technology within the within
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the agency, and and updating it
and so forth. So that was,
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you know, that was that would
that was fortuitous as well. But yeah,
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in terms of utilization and adoption of
a certainly quick bass, but lots
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of other technology, this just this
just accelerated it. We hear a lot
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about, you know, citizen development. Sounds awesome, it sounds great,
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but like, how do you actually
get people to adopt new technology? To
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See, because even the most simple
and easy to use technologies are they do
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require change management, right. So
it seems like your role is probably a
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lot of that, right, as
you continue to improve on programs and proven
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processes operations. It's bringing people along
and really making sure that adoption happens.
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Can you talk a little bit about
like did you see any barriers there?
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What did you see work? Yeah, I mean I think I think the
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main thing that worked was prayer.
I say that tongue in cheek. Adoption
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is definitely definitely a challenge and a
challenge that that we faced. We were
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fortunate that we had a number of
folks who are already familiar with quick bass,
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but for the most of the folks
who weren't familiar, what we were
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needed to do is just just be
persistent and patient in terms of helping them
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get through the the initial growing pain
of using a new system, figuring out
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how to log in, figuring out
what this meant, what that meant,
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the difference between a pencil and and
I and all that kind of stuff.
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We use zoom to do lots of
online trainings. I would take phone calls
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and emails. Is just being available
and it's just myself and one other staff
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person at the time. So it
was just a matter of really just being
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patient and answering questions as simply as
possible, but also providing written and and
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recorded materials that that folks could utilize. I don't know that there's anything unique
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or brilliant about about any of that, but but that seemed to work for
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us. Yeah, it does seem
like there is something about bringing people along
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right like understanding meeting them where they
are. We talk before. Your industry,
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Human Services, nonprofits and Geo's are
not typically known as the most like
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technologically advanced, right, like you're
really spending a lot of time facetoface with
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people, and that's the important work, right. You're spending, you want
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to spend a majority of your effort
really good in your community. So I
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know that we talked a little bit
about this, but can you really talk
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about the impact that this technology has
on your ability to actually do that work
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better and be able to scale the
impact that you're having in your community?
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Absolutely, you know, one of
the things that we have used quick base
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for is to figure out what the
impact of our services are. Not only
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counting widgets, if you will,
but what kind of difference does it make
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in in the lives of the people
that we are serving? I think the
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wellness checks, I think we're one
were one example of that, but also
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being able to look at data on
a regular basis and see, okay,
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this is this is what's going on
in this program. This number of people
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is coming in, but we should
be having this number of people coming in.
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We've gotten, and I know this
is part of the widget counting,
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but these number of jobs are we
these number of people have gotten jobs and
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they're making x. Why can't we
get them? Why are they making X
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as opposed to why it should they
be making fifteen dollars an hour instead of
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seven hundred and twenty five, or
or or whatever? And we can make
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data different, data driven decisions with
that data. I mean we're constantly looking
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at this, the data that we
have, and and saying, okay,
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what does this tell us about our
programs and how can we how can we
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make make a make the program better? What are the gaps and how can
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we make the program better? I
think one example of that is we have
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a we have a shelter. We
call it stuffing, called Freedom Commons Academy.
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It's it's essentially an emergency shelter where
folks can come in after after period
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of incarceration and have a place to
stay. Especially after you've been in prison
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for five, ten, fifteen years, you might need a place where you
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can go for a little while and
and sort of reacclimate back into the back
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into the community. In addition to
sort of the system that the that the
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county requires, that that that we
utilize, we've been using quick bas to
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sort of track what's been going on
with our participants who are who are in
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Freedom Commons Academy, how much,
how long are they staying when they come
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out, when they leave the academy, are they are they housed? Is
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has their income increased? And it's
been really useful. And where are that?
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Where are the where are the referrals
coming from, and are the folks
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from this referral source more successful than
the folks from that referral source? And
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it's been really useful to get into
that, get into the granularity of that,
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of that data and and make some
decisions or base our advocacy on what
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was really happening on the ground in
the academy. And that's another program that
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we literally started about two months before
the pandemic. So the first year of
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this program was was pandemic. So
that's a real example of how I think
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this, the way we've been using
the data has been, has been super
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useful to our programs on the ground. It's a great example. I think
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it's it's something that prop that most
people probably don't think about when they think
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about the impacts that organizations are having
on communities, that there is just so
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much data to track, whether that's
for funders or if it's just to be
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able to continuously improve your programs,
that you need to track to be able
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to make those data driven decisions and
I think that that's a great example.
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One of the things that is unique
about human services nonprofits is that, you
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know, you're absolutely right, we
have to collect all kinds of data.
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In some respects, if we were
a business, of paid business, well
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maybe maybe the main bottom line is
is the bottom line is that is how
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much money you're making. In in
our case there are, there are multiple
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bottom lines and they're very disparate and
different funders and different governmental entities or different
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foundations ask you for different types of
data or want similar types of data organized
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in different ways. So, you
know, it's talked about agility. All
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nonprofits have to have to figure out
ways of of doing that and it's and
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it's really hard, and I think
that's unique to nonprofits that maybe a for
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profit doesn't necessarily have to have to
deal with, because our our workflows are
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crazy and and the way we need
to organize data is it is sometimes crazy
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and we spend a lot of time
figuring out how to do that to get
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us the kind of metrics we need
for our funders and and that sort of
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thing, which is some of it
is very convoluted definitely, and I think,
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as we were talking about earlier,
organizations that probably need to track the
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most data are the ones that had
maybe didn't have the best technology in place
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to be able to do that right. So as you start up new programs,
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as you create new initiatives, as
you have new funders, as your
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grants change, feels imperative that your
systems are flexible and adaptable to what you
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need to change. Absolutely, and
we're constantly making constantly making changes. I
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mean just this week I've been dealing
with a we got a new grant.
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So how do we adapt quick face
to to for that new ground? I
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think I've gotten, certainly this week
I've gotten at least two of those that
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we've had to deal with, and
in the past few months we've been dealing
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with that, you know, four
times. So this little APP that we
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created to get us through the pandemic
for wellness checks has now ballooned to I've
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now named it the interim map.
It's balloon to do all these sort of
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things that we're needing to we're deeting
to do on the on the fly,
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and it's been really great. I'm
looking forward to being less on the fly,
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but you know, life goes on. It's life, right, so
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nice segue that. This is the
question that we ask every one of our
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guests. So, Mike, how
would you define agility? You know,
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I think agility is is, is
what we've been what we've been talking about,
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solve problems and make decisions quickly and
creatively and effectively. The best example
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I can think of is a star
Trek example, which is my big thing.
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I Love Star Trek, and the
captain calls down to the engineering and
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says, Scotty, we're all dead
and fifteen minutes so you got to change
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the laws of physics, and Scotty
says, I kind of change the laws
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of physics. Got To have thirteen
minutes and then goes ahead and does it
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anyway. You know, and another
example is that is Apollo Thirteen, the
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movie. You failures not an option
and when push comes to shove, agility
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is doing, doing the stuff that
has to has to be done, even
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when you can't think, when even
when you think it can't. Yeah,
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I love that and I think you
know. We talked to folks from all
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different industries, all different sort of
size organizations. What if we've done,
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I always say this onst podcast.
I've done dozens of these interviews and I
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think sometimes the agility is to grow
and continue to take on new opportunities.
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But in your case agility feels like
it's a requirement to be able to serve
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your community, that these folks need
your help, and so you can't let
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process or like up your rocricy really
get in the way of you being able
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to do that work right, like
the operations cannot get in the way of
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you being able to serve that community
well. And that's why I think a
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department like mine, program called improvement, is so important because it takes it.
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It takes in my view, and
I say this as a former,
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you know, program director, it
takes a burden, I would like to
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think, a burden off of the
programs. Let somebody else figure out the
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details so the program can do the
work it needs to do with with the
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participants and and in the community,
because I think a program director shouldn't have
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to figure out, like I did
when we have that big federal grant,
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what's the data system we're going to
use to collect this? Let's have it
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ready to the program can use it
and focus on program delivery, not not
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date. I mean they're never going
to get away from data. There the
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front there the front lines, but
the more we can we can minimize it.
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Let them, let the programs focus
on their expertise, which is which
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is helping youth or helping people who
are on hows or people coming out of
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prison. They can do that and
be that expert and will worry about how
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to help them through the through the
data. One one other example I should
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I should bring up because I for
I forgot to earlier, which I think
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is also an example of of agility. Is One of the things we used
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quick base for, and we couldn't
have done this any other way, is
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when we started to reopen our offices
in July of two thousand and twenty and
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needed to do health screenings and log
who was in and out of the office
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in case we ever needed to do
contact tracing, we set up an APP
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in quick base to use that,
which, unfortunately, we're still using,
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but it's it's working super well and
really has saved US helped increase the safety
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of our of our offices. Unfortunately, we've had a few instances where we've
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had to use it for contact tracing
and the health we were able to give
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health department data that they just didn't
expect. This was super helpful to them.
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Our Executive Director, David Condliff,
sings its praises very often and says,
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you know, I would be on
executive director calls with other agencies and
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they say, how big is your
ID Department? How did you pull that
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off? Because some of these other
agencies are still doing this. That stuff
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on on paper. So that made
a that made a real difference, the
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difference for us. So maybe that's
another example of Mr Scott type a child
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love the rename everything. So all
right, my our final question, and
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it feels like it. I always
think it's going to snop be loaded,
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but the world is just really testing
us these days. So how are you?
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How have we been and sort of
what's your likes, anything you're reading
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and watching lately, just anything that
you think our audience would like to know
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about you? Well, I'll tell
you. I'll tell you three things.
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First of all, I'm feeling great. I weight loss surgery back in December,
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eight months ago, and I'm down
eighty some odd pounds and just feeling
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really good. So anybody out there's
ever considering weight loss surgery, this is
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not advice. This is the my
experience is that it work great for me
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and so I'm feeling better than than
I ever have. The second thing in
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terms of a book, look at
the title of it. It's taking charge
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of change by Paul Shoemaker. I've
been reading that book and singing its praises
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and I absolutely love it. It
speaks a lot to what leadership is going
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to be like in the twenty and
the s and focuses a lot on something
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they author calls data conviction and the
importance of leaders, current leaders being being
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really focused on data, among other
things. It's one of five traits he
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focuses on and and lastly, going
back to my love for Star Trek,
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I've been listening to some star Trek
podcasts and there's there's a few of them
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out there. My favorite is something
called the inglorious trexperts, which is absolutely
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wonderful. So if you find if
folks want to listen to that and they're
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star trek fans, they should.
And I don't get paid for any of
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that that I do not know the
guys who do that. I just I
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just love this. There we add. So that's how I am. I'm
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doing great I would love to know
what our overlap with the Star Trek fandom
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is. So this is where we're
going to find out, like how many
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people listen to the age of agility
as well as listen to star trek related
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podcast that's I would love to get. That data be a love to hear
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it. I I would love that
and I think that should be a track
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at the next in power. I
love it. Well, Mike, Thank
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you so much. This has been
such a pleasure for folks out there.
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Just this is a reminder how much
I love my job that I get to
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talk to people like Mike and we
get to really learn more about the power
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of really having effective operational data to
be able to run your business, as
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as sometimes dry as that can dound, you really get to see people like
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Mike and his organization really using that
to make a huge impact and I know
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that that's the stuff that really gets
me out of bed in the morning.
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So I really appreciate your time,
Mike. It's been awesome to get to
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talk to you. Thanks. I've
really enjoyed it as well, so thanks
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for having awesome well to everything out
there. Like and subscribe. Make sure
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you you can rate us as well, but you can find us everywhere you
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listen to your favorite podcast. You
can also watch us on our youtube channel
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and as well on our website at
Quick Bascom podcasts, and we look forward
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to seeing you on our next episode. Thanks.
