Brandon Busteed on the Power of Experiential Learning

Work Forces

Brandon Busteed, CEO of BrandEd, joins Work Forces to discuss the power of industry immersion in education. He shares his background as an edtech entrepreneur and executive at Kaplan and Gallup, and his journey to BrandEd, a company that partners with global brands like Sotheby's and The New York Times to offer experiential education programs built and taught jointly by industry leaders and academics. The conversation also explores the importance of hands-on learning and how better align educational experiences with the world of work.

Transcript

Julian Alssid: Welcome to Work Forces. I'm Julian Alssid.

Kaitlin LeMoine: And I'm Kaitlin LeMoine, and we speak with the innovators who shape the future of work and learning.

Julian Alssid: Together, we unpack the complex elements of workforce and career preparation and offer practical solutions that can be scaled and sustained.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Work Forces is supported by Lumina Foundation. Lumina is an independent, private foundation in Indianapolis that is committed to making opportunities for learning beyond high school available to all. Let's dive in. Welcome back. We're excited to be kicking off season four of Work Forces.

Julian Alssid: As we kick off this new season, we're looking forward to diving into topics that resonate with you, our listeners, and connect with our consulting work as well.

Kaitlin LeMoine: One topic that's top of mind for us is how to most effectively prepare learners for the jobs and careers they enter upon graduation. We're seeing more of an emphasis on models that bridge education and work, from work based learning to apprenticeships and internships.

Julian Alssid: With increasing skill demand, we know that students need more experience when they graduate, whether from high school or post secondary programs. And in our work, we're involved with initiatives that are tackling this issue from different levels, from community colleges to statewide consortia.

Kaitlin LeMoine: We're looking forward to our discussion with today's guests to explore how corporations can act as a driver of high quality industry aligned education. Brandon Busteed is the CEO of BrandEd, a family owned education company that partners with global brands like Sotheby's and the New York Times to offer experiential learning courses. He's a passionate advocate for work integrated learning, and believes the future of education will seamlessly blend learning and work environments. With a background as an ed tech entrepreneur and executive at Kaplan and Gallup, Brandon brings a wealth of experience to his current role. He's a recognized thought leader in education and workforce development, having founded a successful ed tech company and authored numerous articles and publications, Brandon is also a sought after speaker and serves on the boards of several organizations dedicated to improving education and workforce outcomes. We're thrilled to have him join us today for a deep dive into the exciting intersection of learning and work. So welcome to the Work Forces podcast, Brandon.

Brandon Busteed: Yeah, thanks that to me is the most exciting intersection to be in the middle of, and I know you guys in your podcast have sat at that intersection as well, so I'm glad that we had an opportunity to meet up virtually here. Thanks for having me.

Julian Alssid: Well, yeah, it is great to have you Brandon. And yes, we often use the that analogy of the intersection and what a messy intersection it is, but for people like you who help help us all trying to make sense of this crazy intersection. So yes, welcome. Kaitlin gave a little bit of your background, but we'd love to hear in your own words -- about your background and your current role at BrandEd.

Brandon Busteed: Yeah. So you know, as you guys noted, I started down this education path literally right out of college as an undergrad. If you had asked me my senior year in college whether I was going to be in the education space, I would have probably told you no, really wasn't on the radar. And then, you know, I started a company. I started an education company that was focused on addressing a really important issue of college binge drinking, which at the time was, you know, at the top of the list of concerns among college leaders. And so that was, you know, kind of my first run as a founder and CEO of outside the classroom and in a very specific space, trying to address dangerous drinking and other drinking related behaviors on campus. And you know, when the organization was acquired, I had an opportunity to go help Gallup build an education and workforce development division. And that really in terms of, you know, where, where I am at. BrandEd is a bit of my origin story to why BrandEd. Because you guys may recall that during that time, Gallup issued this massive study on the outcome of college graduates. It was, you know, under the heading of the Gallup-Purdue Index, and to this day, still the largest representative study that's ever been done, looking at college graduates and their outcomes in work and in well being and other dimensions. And what was so important about that study was that work-integrated learning opportunities, if a student had one during college, doubled their odds of being successful later in life, not just from a workplace engagement perspective, but in their overall well being. And so if you think about the secret ingredients of education or the secret ingredients of college, one of the big aspects is work integrated learning. And Kaitlin, as you were doing the introduction, there's a lot of different derivatives of what we would call work integrated learning, but specifically it was things like whether a student had an internship where they were able to apply what they were learning in the classroom, that connectivity was really important, long term projects that took a semester or more to complete, again, mimicking more of a real world work environment. And so I pause on that part of my Gallup experience, because as I left and went to Kaplan and was able to work in a global role at Kaplan, specific to education, I was spending a lot of time looking at the learning and work intersection that included work that we did with Amazon and their Career Choice Program for upskilling their frontline workers, and even, you know, innovative options for high school students in enabling them to have a better understanding of jobs and careers, so that they could better understand what they should major in during college, right? So, so all that led to why BrandEd you know, I've been at BrandEd for just under a year now, and in simple terms, I looked at what they were doing and to me, and I won't take any credit for it, because I said this prior to my arrival, but there's no doubt that BrandEd is doing the world's best industry immersive education. And what do I mean by that? Right? We work with iconic brands, as you mentioned, organizations like the New York Times or Sotheby's or Manchester City, and we develop just incredibly engaging and exciting educational programs that are co taught by industry experts and educational experts that give students real, hands on experiences and applications. It gives them behind the scenes access to these organizations in the industry and access, not just to one but many experts from those industries to understand the incredible diversity of jobs that one could have in the art industry or the fashion industry or the sport business industry. And so I was excited to be part of that, and have, you know, been thrilled to be coming up on almost a year here so far.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So can you tell us a little bit about the history of BrandEd? How did it start? And, you know, kind of, what was the, what was the impetus for, for the organization?

Brandon Busteed: Yeah, I've had a few friends joke thinking that I must have started my own company because, you know, I called it BrandEd. It's just a coincidence that it happens to be, you know, very closely aligned my name, because BrandEd has been around for a good 20 plus years, Kaitlin, and it started with, interestingly enough, the acquisition of Sotheby's Institute of Art out of Sotheby's the Auction House. So Sotheby's had started Sotheby's Institute of Art, some 55 years ago as an educational institution that would train the future leaders of the art industry. And although, from the beginning, they certainly had the idea that it would help train future leaders at Sotheby's, they were very innovative in their thinking, in that they also knew it would be the kind of place that would contribute to talent and leaders in the industry writ large. And, you know, that's a consistent theme that I've seen in all of the brand partners we work with, you know, the New York Times. We run the school of New York Times that's a pre college program for high school students. But they very much see their their role as contributing to, you know, students going into the field of journalism having a better understanding of what the different roles are within that industry. And not just for the New York Times, but for the entire industry, if you will, media and journalism. Same thing can be said for the work we do with Manchester City and with Vogue and so anyway, the starting point was that acquisition, interestingly enough, of an educational institution being run inside of a company, realizing that education wasn't their wheelhouse, it wasn't their core focus, but that it had an important role in the world, and looking to an organization like BrandEd to run it in a, you know, highly professional academic way where there was a lot of alignment to educational outcomes. Similarly, the organization acquired what was then called Conde Nast College of Fashion out of Conde Nast, it was recently rebranded Vogue College of Fashion, so that's what it is now. And then we partnered with, I'd say, an organic partnership with both the New York Times and Manchester City in developing the programs there. So it's a really interesting example of a couple that were educational institutions started inside of companies that were very forward thinking and how they viewed talent development and talent development, not just for their organization, but for the industry in general, and then others who just saw the value of, you know, partnering to do this. Because I would say, if you ask me, what some of the secret sauce of our BrandEd programs is, it's a really simple example, but it's a powerful one, and it's co teaching. You know, we, we always have examples where a school invites somebody in to give a guest lecture. That's great. It's usually a one time thing. There's not a lot of prep. That person might be really great, engaging or not so much. You know, all the programs we do, they're co designed, curated, developed and taught by the industry experts and educational experts, which you would think of as teachers or faculty. I don't think that's unique to BrandEd, I think we do it in a world class way, but that's an example, I think, of where other educational organizations can make big strides in scaling this industry immersive opportunity. It's not rocket science, you know, but that co teaching is actually just a really rare example right now.

Julian Alssid: Yeah, it's so interesting. Brandon hearing you, kind of talk about the history of the companies being so kind of at the forefront, and this notion of this immersive approach. But I also think back to the study you referenced when you were a Gallup that produced that big study. And it does seem like, and I don't know if this is chicken or an egg or whatever, but that study was big, and it, you know, it would highlight this issue about the work based learning component being so impactful, it seems that this has become way more of a storyline in workforce development than it was back then. And I'm curious from where you're sitting now, and since you did that study, like, why? What's going on? In your opinion, that's made this more front and center than ever before.

Brandon Busteed: Yeah, look, I think the biggest driver is just when, when the price tag of education goes up, and especially higher education, and when the number one reason why people value higher education is to get a good or better job there starts to become a more rigorous return on investment calculation being done by prospective students and their families as they evaluate it, right? And, you know, if you say, hey, the number one reason why I value this degree or I'm going to pursue it is to get a good or better job, and you don't feel like that's happening, or that you're being, you know, really sufficiently prepared for that next step. Well, that, I think, is one of the big, big drivers, right? Cost has been going up. Doubts about the work, readiness of graduates has been going up as well. And so you've got a perfect storm of, I don't believe we're doing a good job of this work, you know, preparation or career readiness thing, and it's getting more and more expensive. And, oh, by the way, there's a lot of other interesting alternatives, right? And so it's been the backdrop of that. But, yeah, look, I think that study made a meaningful contribution to the thinking of the higher ed community around Wow, this is a valuable component. We do it, but we don't do it at scale like that was the big finding Julian from my study. About a third of college graduates had a job or internship where they were able to apply what they were learning in the classroom. So it's not zero, but two thirds are missing the mark. And you know, there's fresh data just this year from the Business-Higher Ed Forum that kind of speaks to this. There were 8.2 million college students who wanted an internship last year. Only 3.6 million got one, and of those, only 2.5 million had what they called a quality experience in that internship, right? Because we all know there's internships that are really great and some that are total duds. Well, what I take from that data? First, I'm a huge fan of internships. There aren't many people that are a bigger fan of internships than me, but you also realize they don't scale. So there's no data to suggest that the number of internships in the United States has increased over the last 30 or 40 years. Clearly, demand for it is sky high. And so you say, Okay, if you can get an internship grade. But short of that, what are the other ways that we can bring this valuable experience to more students at greater scale, and that's obviously why, you know, I'm so excited about the work that we're doing at BrandEd. I think we're going to make a meaningful contribution to that.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So as you're talking about your learners, Brandon, who are your learners, and how do you reach them?

Brandon Busteed: We work across the board, Kaitlin with each of our brand partners. We have pre college programs for high school students, primarily 10th, 11th and 12th graders. So that's clearly a big demographic that we serve, is current high school students who are looking to augment their high school academic experience with, you know, something that is really industry immersive. And we also serve undergraduate college students with opportunities to study away or study abroad, where, instead of the traditional study abroad experience, they're doing an industry immersive program with one of our brands, and then with Vogue and Sotheby specifically, we do operate master's degree programs within both of those organizations. So at Sotheby's, you know, we're known probably most prominently for our masters in our business, you would expect an organization like Sotheby's Institute of Art to probably have a degree like that. So, you know, within those two brands, we're serving Master's Degree students, but in terms of the largest volume of students that we're serving by number, it's clearly pre college students and undergraduates who are looking to add a valuable industry immersive experience to their otherwise academic portfolio.

Julian Alssid: So Brandon, as you build out these immersive experiences with these global brands, what are the major successes and challenges you faced?

Brandon Busteed: Yeah, look, I mean, you know, part of it is what we've invested a lot of time and energy and years as an organization and refining the, you know, the aspects of, how do you take the best of what you can learn in a work environment with the best of what academics do in terms of curating something that you know looks like an academic, you know, syllabus or schedule that has building sequential pieces to it, reflective components. You know, think about in the workplace. You know, how little we take time to reflect or digest a project, or be like, Hey, how did that go? You know, cutting edge organizations do a good job with debriefing and certain things like that. But anyway, to your good question, a lot of it has been refining the blending of these two worlds, right? And, you know, you've, you've all heard it. You know, a lot of academics who are trained in educational pedagogy have rarely had experiences outside of academia. And you know, they went, they went to graduate school for education, you know, they have a master's degree, but you know, relatively little work experience outside of being a student and outside of working in an academic environment. And then with a lot of the subject matter experts we work with, who have real jobs and real organizations, right? They haven't been trained in educational pedagogy. They haven't thought about, well, how do I make this engaging for a high school student? And so it's really been the efforts that we've invested in training both our educational experts or faculty and our industry experts, and then getting them to work together. Because, like I said, it's not Hey, invite a guest lecture in, and they do their talk and leave like, these are things that are co designed, curated together, developed together. And so that's our biggest challenge and opportunity. We've honed in on that craft. Doing that requires real effort. You know, I can't launch a brand new program without having some pretty good lead up time in terms of the work involved in producing it, whether that's an in person or an online program. And then the other thing where, you know, we bring this to life for students, it has some natural limitation, is access to behind the scenes things right? Students who come into a Sotheby's program are visiting the Auction House. They're, you know, they're getting a behind the scenes look at the organization in ways that you know you just, you just can't replicate otherwise. So I think our our biggest opportunities, like everything else, are indeed scale, but we've developed a model that has a lot more scale than an internship model or a co op model, so, but fundamentally, there are still those limitations like I've provided.

Julian Alssid: So Kaitlin asked you, we tend to think of this as a dual customer kind of business, right? Your learners, your employers, who are the faculty?

Brandon Busteed: So it's any number of folks in various roles within both our partner organizations and folks within the broader like sport industry, for example. So you take the school, The New York Times, probably about half of the faculty in The New York Times are indeed staff members or former staff members from The New York Times. The other half are a combination of folks that have had journalism backgrounds for other organizations, right? Et cetera. So it's a mix of both staff from the organizations we partnered with, and then staff from the industry. But again, underneath that layer, Julian, it's an industry expert, and what we would think of as a teaching or educational expert. So we have general education faculty who are partnering with the subject matter experts to help create the syllabus, right? Put some structure around it. Think about not just the assignments and projects that students would do, which largely come from the industry expert input, but thinking about, okay, how do we roll this out with a student group? How do we create a rubric for giving them feedback or grading these projects, right? And so it's those two types of backgrounds working together that definitely make every one of our programs come to life. But it's, you know, it's been interesting because as I watch and sit in some of our classes, I see joy in the students that are in the classes, right? Where they're clearly getting exposed to things that they don't in school. You know, one of those common refrains I get from students is like, wow, this felt nothing like school. This is totally different, right? I mean, just it feels different to them. But I also see joy on the faces of the faculty that are teaching these programs. And again, faculty meaning, two meanings, the educational that, you know, trained experts, and then the industry experts who are spending time away from their jobs to, you know, come and provide these educational experiences for students and and for them, it's very much about getting excited about the future generation of folks who may be interested in this field, find them, embrace them, and more of a mentorship, you know, support type fashion, which is really awesome to see.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, I'm really, I'm really stuck on what you just said a moment ago. Brandon about how learners will say, This doesn't feel like school. It's curious to me, right? Like what I want? I mean, this is a general wondering, but it's almost like I wonder what that means for how we offer secondary ed, right? Or higher ed. I mean, if you're saying you're drawing from secondary learn, secondary school learners, as well as learners already enrolled in undergraduate programs, what are the implications for even how those learners go back to those environments?

Brandon Busteed: You know, here's the good news. There's awesome examples out there, right? They haven't been brought to scale. So you think about the high schools that have invested heavily in project based learning, that's a big component what we're doing, right? I mean, their students are engaged in real projects. They're given feedback on those projects. They have to then go back to the drawing board and iterate a bit, right? So that iterative feedback process in the midst of a real project or deliverable is a big part of what we do in our BrandEd programs, but you can do that with just a little bit of imagination in any academic program out there. I've seen it done in intro to Spanish to philosophy, right, where project based learning and iterative feedback and small group work is part of it. Those things mimic much more of what a real world work environment is like, so short of having a job where you do that, or short of having an internship where you do that, I think we can do these kinds of things at greater scale. We've seen schools do this at greater scale. So it gives me a lot of hope that with a little bit of familiarity, a little bit of support, a little bit of teacher encouragement, we can indeed get to a place where a lot more of this happens, where the students do say, like, oh my gosh, I got to do something real. I met a real life so and so, you know, person in job that you, you know, invent, envision you might want to be in someday. And then, you know, like, the other refrain we get a lot from students is they're like, I had no idea that there were so many different kinds of jobs in this industry, right? So you think fashion, you're like, oh, fashion design, right? Well, but the reality is, there are, you know, hundreds of different kinds of jobs that exist in the fashion industry, including you could be an accountant working for a fashion organization. So that might not mean that you are the fashion design guru, but you are in the fashion industry, in a job, like an accounting role, and so I think that's the other thing, is we're opening, we're hoping to open the aperture of thinking to the art of possible, not just, oh, the fashion industry, but all the different components of it. Think about a hospital, right? There's everything from, you know, the nurse to the doctor, those are the classic roles everybody thinks of very simplistically, right? Then you think about the lab techs and the radiology texts. And, I mean, you know, all of a sudden you can take a single hospital and realize there are dozens of different jobs beyond doctor and nurse, right? And so that's a lot of what we need to help younger people do. And I would argue, maybe even older people figure out if there's a lot of college graduates leaving, you know, their undergrad program or their master's program, still not really fully understanding the breadth of jobs that exist in the world.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yeah, 100% I mean, I think we, and Julian, I've been talking a lot about that point recently, just around the transparency of roles and feel like, you know, it's not, we're not. We're no longer in the days of like, you know, doctor, lawyer, teacher, right? Like, there are so many jobs and so many jobs that cross sectors and what those you know, there's some common skills that you draw upon throughout those different jobs, but there's some distinct knowledge and skill sets you need as well. And just being transparent about that, I feel like, is such a critical piece of this puzzle. And I, you know, I think what you mentioned about the project based learning piece, right? I mean, like that is something that is certainly transferable. And, you know, spent years designing those, those types of programs and curriculum myself and there, there certainly is that transferability, but it does require different type of intentionality and just a slight shift in thinking that, you know, it's exciting to think about, you know, more and more as we think future state. How can, as you're saying, How can we integrate work based learning more kind of across education? There are, I think, because I'm really excited to do that.

Brandon Busteed: We lose track of this. Like I use the words fun and exciting and engaging when I think about or describe BrandEd programs. So it's not just that. It's industry immersive, and it has this very purposeful connection to work readiness and career readiness. It's that, like, you're in these programs, and you're you're having fun, you're excited and like, I just feel like we have lost sight of the fun and excitement and engaging factor of school and education. Like, if we can't figure out how to get back to that where students are like, that was awesome, wWe've got another thing coming, right?

Julian Alssid: Well, it's funny too, like we're doing work now around manufacturing and advanced manufacturing, and a big project in Massachusetts, for example, some work in Life Sciences. There's some really cool jobs out there that people know nothing about, right? Which is just amazing. So you know, of course, yes, I would like to work for Man City, but that's a different conversation. So bringing us back to to your namesake BrandEd, how will BrandEd continue to grow?

Brandon Busteed: The programs we have with current partners? There's, in my mind, plenty of growth ahead, just in building, you know, those programs as they exist. We're also launching, you know, new versions what we're doing, right? So last several years, we've done exclusively in person summer pre college programs for high school students. Just this week, we're going to be launching the first online pre college offering. So for students that can't take, you know, a two week block in the summer. Can't afford an in person, you know, intensive summer program. You know, we will have fully online offerings available that also won't require students necessarily to have to do it just in the summer. So, you know, expanding by modality and some of the differences in options. But certainly, you know, we're going to keep our eyes open to, what are other iconic brands in? I would argue, iconic industries that we know students are interested in, that we know would really excite and engage them in ways that you know, that you wouldn't otherwise. Why you say, like, what's the essence of a globally recognized brand? It's that you know, it's like students hear Sotheby's, or they hear New York Times, or Vogue, like, if you're interested in fashion, Vogue is the name, right? And you know, so if I could attend or be part of a Vogue program, you know, you're excited from the very beginning, and then on the end of it, you also have something very exciting to add to your resume that stands out uniquely and differently than other experiences. Right? When you can put a globally recognized brand as part of your experience and your resume, that's a big deal. So, you know, we've talked about the experience being a really engaging one, but it's the you know, the excitement based on the brand that you know, certainly attracts a lot of students to it, and then on the, you know, once they've left the program, it's something that stands as a really unique attribute on their resume. So we will be thinking about, you know, potentially other brands and industries, but it's going to be, you know, I think, a very careful decision making process, because when and if we do it, we do it at such a high quality and with demanding standards and expectations from our partners that, like, you can't just go run and do 60 of these things, and, you know, I mean, we've done four over 20 years, so you got to do it right is, is one of the pieces. So certainly, there may be a day where, you know, there's another brand or industry that's part of what we do. But certainly right now we've we've got a lot of growth ahead in working with the the four partners that we work with today.

Kaitlin LeMoine: So I think you just started to go in the direction of my next question. But in saying, you know, you need to kind of be really intentional and start with the programs you have and really build them out effectively. But as we consider practical steps our listeners can take to become forces in developing models to prepare learners for the future of work. What are some of your transferable learnings from these programs at this point, whether it's common program elements, I know you mentioned co teaching is one, but other program elements that are transferable, or other ideas that you're considering as you go forward?

Brandon Busteed: I think I've largely mentioned it, but it's probably helpful to summarize, right, certainly, co teaching, right? And that's different and distinct from, oh, we're just going to have an invited lecturer come in, right? Like, think of how many invited lectures we have come in from industry where there's no preparation, there's no context given to that lecture about what's being taught in the class, how they might sync up with it. There's usually no opportunity for students to interact with that person beyond the 30 or 40 minutes that they were in the class, right? So, I mean, this is truly co teaching. Have an industry expert and a teacher working together on developing a program, a syllabus, the idea for the projects, the rubric, right? I fundamentally believe any school can do that if they invest intentionally in that type of effort. The other one is making sure that there's some form of hands on work and projects that students are engaged in where they're given feedback and opportunity to make modifications and changes to their work. Right? That happens frequently in work situations, not just like there's a pop quiz and that's a one time event, like we have, we have relatively little of that in the workplace. It's usually, I'm working on something. I've gathered some new data. It changes my thesis. I got some feedback from my manager before we present it to the, you know, the C suite, whatever it might be, right? So it's that hands on experience, where there's some feedback and ability to iterate. And so I think that's it. And then to take time to pause on saying, you know, I know we're talking about the art industry today, but think of the diversity of jobs in the art industry, from museum curation for a non profit museum to working at a, you know, a corporate auction house. I mean, it's and everything in between is opening that aperture right to pause and say, Hey, I know this is a course on medicine. Let's talk about some of the different roles in a hospital that you know, make our medical world work, right? And you see the stuff up front of the house, you see very little of all the other components that make it work, including the business people who you know, the CFOs, the accountants behind the scenes, right? I mean, there's all that. So I'd say those are elements that are transferable to pretty much any educational entity. It's just a matter of whether they're going to be intentional in doing that, in their design and in their programmatic follow through. And then, of course, the other thing it forces Kaitlin is a little bit of a difference in how we grade or assess this work, right? If it's project based, there's a there's a different rubric. It's not as simple as, you know, multiple choice assessments. It's not, you know. So so that, I think becomes the next challenge is that, you know, if you really want accountability built around it, you've got to think about different ways to assess the quality of the work that students are doing.

Julian Alssid: Well, it sounds like as you're speaking Brendan, correct me, if you see it differently, that you know, while you're working with these iconic, you know, global superstar organizations, that many of the very elements in your approach could become part of regional, sectoral or statewide or or global, iconic, but working in regions around the country.

Brandon Busteed: Absolutely. I mean, look and you know, we, we're all suffering from this issue of, how do we do a better job working across sectors, right across the larger employment world? Because it's not just for profits and companies, right? It's large nonprofits. It's state and federal government entities, right, employers writ large, and educational institutions. And the reality is that, like, one of the reasons why BrandEd exists is because schools aren't very good at doing work-integrated learning, and employers aren't very good at doing learning-integrated work. And so voila, an organization like branded, you know, can have an important place in the world. But to your points, you know, both of you, I think a lot of the elements of what really make these programs come to life for students can be done in many different ways, and I would be thrilled to see that happen. I mean, I know what we're doing is special and unique. We're going to stay, you know, within that type of framework, but the examples from some of the core of what we're doing certainly applicable to others. It's certainly scalable. And I think, you know Kaitlin, you use, use the word intentionality, like that really is the story. If you're intentional, you'll figure out a way to make this happen. I say to every college leader I talk to where there is a will, there is a way. That's our issue is we've had little will on this relative to anything else.

Julian Alssid: It's really wonderful learning about the model and your approach to this work. And you know, you continue to be quite a force and and so how can our listeners continue to follow you learn more? Because we certainly intend to.

Brandon Busteed: Well, the you know, the work we're doing through brand Ed is at our website. It's branded-edu.com, and then the only place that I really invest time and energy, really two sources. I write regularly at Forbes, as a contributor for forbes.com Easy to find me there, and then on LinkedIn. I think I'm the only Brandon Busteed on LinkedIn, at least that was the case as of my recent check, so I'm not hard to find on LinkedIn. Please connect with me there, follow me there, and then, obviously my Forbes authors page will will give you any updates on on articles that I publish.

Julian Alssid: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today, Brandon, and good luck with this important work. Yeah. Well, thank thank thank you guys for continuing to highlight all the important work that's taking place in the space, and that was a pleasure to be on the podcast with you today. Thanks, and look forward to staying in touch for sure.

Kaitlin LeMoine: Yes, same here. Thanks so much. That's all we have for you today. Thank you for listening to workforces. We hope that you take away nuggets that you can use in your own work. Thank you to our sponsor, Lumina Foundation. We are also grateful to our wonderful producer, Dustin Ramsdell. You can listen to future episodes at workforces, dot info or on Apple, Amazon and Spotify. Please subscribe, like and share the podcast with your colleagues and friends.