 So today we're going to be talking about migrating to a new platform and how to leverage hidden opportunities. And generally what we want to do today is talk about the opportunities that you have that when you are migrating to a new platform. I think a lot of times platform migration can feel very scary and overwhelming. And that's okay. It's okay to feel overwhelmed by platform migration because it is a big deal. But we want to make you aware of all the opportunities that moving to a new platform unlocks for for you and your team and your organization. So this isn't going to be like a strict how to guide of everything you need to do for a migration. But it's really to get you in a mindset to be aware of all the opportunities and the scope of the opportunities and the scale because you know as with everything, it's more than than just a platform at the end of the day. So a little bit about us if you're not familiar with a person CKO and our methodology. We are all about engagement architecture. It's our philosophy it's our methodology it's really underlies everything that we do and how we approach any kind of digital engagement or engagement challenges. And you see the very bottom of the graphic on the right is the thing that essentially we are talking about today platforms. But platforms are just part of your organization's engagement architecture. So when you think about a platform, you also have to think about the processes that are around that form and the people who use it and the strategies that it advances. And the experiences that the platform provides both for your internal users and external audiences. So, you know, ultimately what type of engagement is the platform. Try to try to support. And then what kind of data is going to be available through all of these new layers of your organization. So, with that lens in mind we'll be talking about the opportunities for you and your team, as you move from one platform to another. I wanted to say don't panic. Eric and I are big hitchhikers guide to the galaxy fans. So you'll see some hitchhikers guide references but this is the first thing that he and I thought of when we were talking about this webinar, you know, particularly for people who might be on a platform like lumenate that is about to go away and you might not have been planning to plan for migration. So if you want to say don't panic, everything will be okay with with these sort of lenses that we're going to talk about today, hopefully you'll feel a little bit better about where you're going. We do want to say, after don't panic, panic don't panic like sorry not sorry, just to give you a sense of, you know, the big deal that is a platform migration but also why you shouldn't be panicking. So on the panic side of the equation, just so you understand the gravity of these are things that you probably don't need to be reminded of you're probably aware of these but, you know, in the planning stages of platform migration, the things that people end up panicking about if they don't plan for our time, you're going to need more time than you think and you don't have as much time as you think. Maybe if you're, you know, if you're not aware when a platform's contract is expiring or what it takes to move from one platform to another. Definitely start there and think about how much time you have. What is that what are all the steps that goes that you go through because it can take and normally does take more time than you think. There are a lot of details to figure out. And you'll see all the different aspects of that from the rest of the talk today, because it's not just about going and finding quote the best tool out there that checks all the boxes of feature sets. There are so many really good viable options for platforms that you really need to think through all the elements of your engagement architecture. So the people that are using the tool, the other tools that you're using and how they integrate and share data, the processes that you have that are going to that are going to have to change. So there's there's a lot there that goes beyond just platform, you know platform analysis. The other big change that you're about to embark on is that you're moving from a new platform is really disruptive. You know you're going to be changing people's skill sets processes and patterns how they work. Personally, that can make people very uncomfortable sometimes angry, but you'll also find the people that are really excited to try new things. And that brings us over to the dope panic or the positive side of the equation here. Because the platforming as an opportunity to really help people in your organization by giving them tools that are going to help them be more effective at their jobs going to help your organization be more effective in its outreach. And as we'll see throughout kind of the opportunities that we're talking about opportunities to really bring people together and, you know, come to a new shared sense of purpose and vision for what you do as an organization and how you go about it. So we like to end with a don't panic because there's a lot of good that you're going to be able to do and go through as you go through the process. So one quick note before we get into those opportunities about migration scope and scale. And this is kind of a spectrum from a seamless migration to transformational. And a lot of what we're going to be talking about our opportunities that are in place, you know, whenever you talk about a new platform or a new opportunity to really kind of go big and think holistically about the people the processes the strategy. It can be very transformational and if it's going to be very transformational you want to take a certain amount of time to do it. There are other cases where you have a very niche tool that a small handful of users use very specifically for a very known, well governed task that maybe they just need to flip the switch and get a new tool operational. And depending on the platform that you're looking at that might be what you have the situation that you're in that you just want to switch from one thing to another. And, you know, that might be all the time you have or the budget or the staff, the resources you have might move you into more of a direction of, oh, this is going to be a simple kind of rip and replace. But, you know, we, we wanted to talk more about the transformational piece in particular, just so you can be aware of the, the scope and scale of what a platform change can be. Okay, so we're going to talk about the opportunities that we're going to talk about opportunity knocks platform is potential again, you know, the platform at the end of the day is a tool that people in your organization use, and often a tool they use together to do good work. So we'd like to think of it as potential potential energy that you're going to be able to unlock a lot of as you go through the migration process. So today we're going to have a conversation about six hidden opportunities that you should be thinking about when you are going through any stage of the migration process. You know, especially if you are in the early stages of thinking, oh gosh, you know, maybe our programs are platform is some setting and we have a year to pick up the replacement or we've had this email system for seven years and everyone is not really happy with it, what do we do. You know, really being aware of all of these opportunities can help you get the get some good perspective. So we'll have a, this is going to be very conversational we'll talk about some ideas for each of these opportunities, we'll get some questions will kind of riff on what we've experienced and what we've seen with different organizations as they go through this process. But definitely please feel free to ask questions as we go along through them in the chat. I said I think we're we're we're an intimate group today so we should have time to really dig in if people have questions. The six that we see here are creating momentum. So you with when you when you're moving to a new platform you have an opportunity to create really good momentum in the organization to kind of move from where you are to where you're going. Particularly if it's a platform that people have felt stuck in for a while. The second opportunity is to really empower the people in your organization, bring people together, understand, you know what they want to do what they want to do better involving people and giving them this great new tool. This is also an opportunity to improve your process. That is a huge piece of the replatforming equation and something that a lot of times organizations don't plan for, which is really saying, you know, we have this tool, what are the processes that are in place around it. Oh, we don't have any processes in place, we should get some, or we should revisit these are some of these are outdated. So this is a great opportunity to get to get clear in your processes. Similarly, it's a great opportunity to refine your strategy to really get down to the nuts and bolts of why do we even have an email system. Why do we even have a CRM. We need a new one. Mostly we use it to send out emails to our newsletter. But why this so this is a great chance to sort of take another look at your strategy. This number five is a particular interest of mine. This gives you an opportunity to find your contacts, especially from migrating from an email system or email systems or CRMs or anything that has to do with the contacts that your organization engages with. You're going to have to think through a lot of the elements of those contacts as you move them between systems. And this is a really great time to get more granular with your definitions so you can get more information about your audiences and engage them more effectively. And then finally, the last and opportunity we'll talk about is really getting a sense of the scope of the change that the platform is going to provide. So, Eric and I will kind of ping pong go back and forth on on the different, the different opportunities and kind of guide the conversation so with that I will hand it over to Eric to talk about creating momentum. What do we mean by creating momentum, creating an environment in which iterative progress is kind of car right that creating those steps, creating that cadence creating that that that direction, and also a direct is a environment that supports that to right. So this is your chance really to create a shared sense of purpose. Both institutionally as an organization right and also even for your team and yourself here right. This is new change that you're active, actively creating right in your organization so building on your existing work cultures, and the way that you work. And as Adam said before changing some of the way your colleagues work to go on to the next slide Adam please. These are different factors right of good momentum and the other hidden opportunities within that. You know a lot of these can be subtle changes they don't need to be readily, obviously apparent right, but these subtle changes can have huge impacts on the way you operate. And also streamlining your workflows streamlining your, your processes, all of these help get people to be part of that part of that transition to be on board with your, with your process with your new new shift. And it's also a good time to, to acknowledge that changes hard right and that if you've gone through several of these types of changes before. If you've had to already migrate multiple times multiple CRMs in the past because something wasn't working out. Every time you do this that is time taken away from using the platform itself right you're just constantly shifting. So, if you are doing that time over time reflect acknowledge and accept right that yes you have to take a break just to focus on this because this is a lot of work. But, you know it does bring about, hopefully positive steps. So, try to point in that direction. To that point right you need to address reflect overcome those those past anxieties and be able to be willing to stretch right if you've, if you haven't had the best fit before, maybe you know try and focus to to ensure that that next fit will be better. You know, creating that environment again in which there is a cadence which there is a pace helps set expectations for the changes that will occur, right, having that pace having the iterative progress or at least the direction towards progress and regular communication and not just communication but the but the organizational tasks that you're doing to get to that place, all of these sharing it together with your colleagues help to create that that pace that will get you to that next place. And yeah, you know looking to really help your colleagues right you're trying to improve and make your maker, you know make your work stronger, more effective, less time consuming, more, and you know simpler right simpler but also complex. These automation platforms, some of these complex CRMs out there fundraising platforms unlock a lot of potential and that can get people excited, but you need to make sure that you're taking those steps, you know, step by step, slowly, but also deliberately. So guys in regards to creating momentum. How would an organization begin the process of their migration, not just to identify the platform itself before preparing the transition and the transformation. That's a great question artists and one of the things that this. This brings to mind for me is the idea of having like a project mandate a project mission and getting buy in from the people who are going to be involved in the process and impacted by it. So that you're you kind of create a mandate. Here's what we are trying to do. Here's the process that we are going to go through. Here's the people that are going to be involved in the process and that everyone has a role to play. So you kind of treated you similarly to any, any big project that you would have in your organization, where you have a very clear specific mandate for what it means to undergo the work together. What the project means what the timelines are what the goals are. So a little bit of a project mandate and having a project champion. We'll talk about the people in the in the part of this right after this but you know, really getting people bought in and having someone who is excited about the project and who can bring that excitement out in others. And as Eric was talking about acknowledging change fatigue and anxieties and really, you know, you want to to sort of, you're going to be doing therapy, you're doing like any any degree of organizational change and involves a certain amount of therapy where you really need to understand changes and anxieties, but then you, along with that you need some sort of vision of where to go, and that you're rowing in the same direction. And I think of the I used to whitewater paddle, and when you're whitewater and paddling in a group, you know you're constantly scanning the places you want to avoid. But when you see that place, you point to where you want to go right so there's, there's a bad area over here, you want people behind you to avoid it you point to where you want to go. So it's not that people aren't aware of the challenges but they have that vision for where they want to go, because focus on the positive. And that's kind of a high level kind of idea for for where to get started. Eric if you had any other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I really agreed with your statement having that mandate, not just even, you know, has it as a deemed mandate but have your own sense of purpose for this right what do you want to achieve as a team individually through through this. You know, that I think helps unite that shared purpose, and whether that's a personal, trying to get to that next step or also right. Clearly the organizational schools here too right, how can we unlock some hidden revenue how can we better engage our supporters are constituents how do we encourage them to to to engage with our content. You know, or learn from our experts, you know, having those top level, not just top level but but critical mission goals there really helps unite around that and seeing how those plug into the platform that you're either we're using or moving forward and having that destination is is really key to to yes pointing at that continue that that pointing in the right direction. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We actually have a question from Lissa Klein. I'm happy with MailChimp for communications purposes it's our CRM that we'd like to change moving away from Salesforce and Upsana. It'll be critical for us to find a new CRM that gives us more functionality and that integrates with MailChimp migrating the data from Salesforce is what worries us. What kind of support might we need for that transition. And are there CRM platforms you know of that are easier to migrate Salesforce data to. That's a lot of good questions. I think the, we have some sections in the in the webinar I think there will be a particular interest where we talk about some of the philosophies and opportunities of looking at your contacts and the data that they have and making sure those are well modeled, as you know, for migration. So, a big part of it it comes down to the model of the different entities in your architecture so what is a contact what attributes do we have of contacts, what attributes does the email system need to know about what attributes does the CRM need to know about, and how do we leverage those attributes to do better more effective engagement. So, if we want, you know, if we want to say, we want to send, you know, an automated email series to everyone who signs up for an event about a particular topic, and we want those emails to come, you know, about that specific topic. That's all stuff that requires modeling so that you can, your email system can know, you know what emails to send and what content to pull for this, the contact that it's going to a lot of times that's stored in the CRM. The email CRM connection. You know, I, a lot of it comes down to the complexity of what you want to know about your, your audiences. And, you know, we like MailChimp as well for a lot of reasons. I think anytime you're talking with about a Salesforce move into or out of Salesforce, that's, that's definitely on the side of the, oh, there's a lot of details to figure out. I would say, you know, from a, from a, you know, what kind of support you need to move to, to a new CRM. I think it's definitely there's the strategic guidance support of, you know, really defining what we'll talk about a lot of these areas but really defining what we're trying to get at the end of the day, what we're trying to get to. You know, what does the CRM need to empower people to do. And a lot of times what we found within organizations is that there can tend to be a tension between owners of the different platforms I don't know if this is true in your organization but in many organizations, you know, communications owns email and maybe fundraising owns the CRM and they use them for slightly different purposes and they come from different budgets and have different, you know, owners. And that's all stuff that, you know, again, replatforming provides you an opportunity to really figure out. Oftentimes that's, that's one of the reasons it can be useful to have an outside party kind of come into play the neutral third party and say hey, here's a process for getting through this that you know equitably involves everyone in the organization. I've been rattling on for a few minutes Eric I don't know if you have no that's that's fantastic. Yeah, I would also say you know look at what if you are you know look at your scope right and we're kind of getting ahead to but but look at how much and you want to complete replacement in terms of getting all of that data over there or also is are you looking at your data a little more strategically, are you willing to unload some empty weight right if you're having to deal with a system that has database limit sizes and you need to, you know, your budget can only accommodate a certain amount. How do you decide right what you're going to take over. If you have a field limit, and then also yeah the technical integration as well right how well does that platform play with the Mailchimp. All of these are critical to the requirements for when you're migrating. And yeah, I mean you might need it takes a lot of research, it takes a lot of experience, you may need an expert to help get to there. You know it's it's certainly a field that we are excited about to having you know done a number of these and finding the opportunity, the opportunities within to help unlock potential. And we'll be providing Calendly links as well so that we can set up some time if you want to talk through with Adam and Eric in more detail. For sure. So we'll definitely be able to follow up with you if you have more specific questions. Absolutely we could definitely go on about that just that question for the rest of the time. But hopefully the other sections we'll talk about we'll speak to elements of that process as well. I'm going to talk a little bit more about empowering people, because again this is a huge part of, you know, having a successful and meaningful migration, which is really involving the right people. So there are a couple key things to consider here and one of these goes hand in hand with what we were just talking about we have like a project mandate is identifying your team, your team for this, you know, significant through. Obviously you want a project owner who was going to be a project owner slash champion, who's going to be the person that is steering the ship to select the right platform. You need to identify both a product owner and a business owner. Sometimes those are the same person sometimes those are different. So the product owner is the person who manages the product who manages the platform who says, you know I know where the documentation is. Here's how it's supposed to be used if you have questions about changing it come to me. The business owner is the person who funds the platform, whose budget it comes from. Especially if you're doing something that crosses multiple organ organizational lines, this is really important to identify early on and have the right people in place and the right buy in. And oftentimes maybe that doesn't really exist, you know, a lot of times with with email or CRM, the ownership can be kind of hazy, can be a little bit murky. And particularly if you want to really take these opportunities to say okay we're going to get a new CRM we're going to get this integrated data that's going to power these automations. A lot of questions will come up about like oh does this live in fundraising doesn't live in comms doesn't live in development. You know, that that that can be a tricky, tricky thing to undergo, but it's important. And then expert users and non expert users, really thinking through who in your organization uses the current tool as an expert like they really know how to use it and maybe they can do some custom configuration of it. Or at the very least they're they're very familiar with it. Non expert users would be people who can do some tasks with it but need a lot of guidance. One thing that I don't have on the slide but thinking about that is internal and external resources, right. Alyssa mentioned, you know, moving from Salesforce, and Salesforce in particular is a platform in an ecosystem that you almost have to really invest in outside support to manage or change. You want to build up a very specific functional skill set with Salesforce. So you want to think about, you know, the people within and outside of the organization that that are going to manage the manage the manage the tool. And then you want to involve these people. You know, in different stages, different areas of replatforming that, you know, you should really be thinking about how to involve your team. And this sort of, you know, runs roughly in the timeline of reforming but I'm starting with strategy envisioning, you know, how should the platform advance, you know, your organization's, you know, capabilities, right, you're trying to, you're not sending emails because emails are fun to send. You're sending emails to, you know, influence policy or to get people to donate or get people to come to events and like an advance along the engagement path with you. So the people that are using the platform get them involved in and understanding and clarifying and advancing that strategy. And visioning is a little bit more lofty but thinking about, you know, what do they want to accomplish with the platform. You have some people that will say, oh, I just want to keep sending emails, but then, you know, find the people in your organization that are like, I really wish an email platform could do this and then get excited about potential. You know, involve them in discovery. And this is really critical. What's working and what's not working about the current platform. We always like to do both right. What do you like about the process and the platform we have in place, you know, what would you be really sad if, you know, if this went away. What do you want to improve involving them in that research, what options are out there, right. So a lot of times, you know, when you're going through replatforming you might have a senior stakeholder that says we're moving to Marketo. And everyone sort of has to get in line. But, you know, involve people in the research process, you know, people, especially people who are actively using the tool day in and day out, right, they should have a very large say in the replatforming process. Requirements. Again, what does the platform need to do and provide a beat and to do to be usable to the people who use it and maintain it. I think we're moving more and more away from an older model of platforming where it would kind of, you know, traditionally the technology side of the house would say well it needs this requirements it needs this budget and it has this many seats so it's good. I'm going to go through who's going to be using it and what their experience is going to be like, because platforms only as useful as the people who are using it. And if they hate using it, then it's not going to be as useful. Get them involved in demos. Again, you know, really getting hands on with a tool, you know, really pressing the vendors to give you meaningful demos that are tailored to your particular organizations use cases and get a sense of how it feels. So really involving people in that process. Also thinking about who's impacted beyond the immediate team so you know knowing again that you know platforms relate to your processes and your people and your strategy. So who's going to be affected outside your organization. So if you're moving to a new email platform. How can that be seamless how are we going to make sure that we're not, you know, getting unsubscribed that people aren't getting lost in the shuffle. How's your audience going to be impacted. If you're going to a new, a new CMS for your website. What's the impact on the user experience going to be. And what needs to be communicated. You know this is something we always like to get ahead of if there's going to be any sort of platform change you need to think about who's going to be impacted and what they need to know so they're not just a surprise. That is sprung upon them. Alright so I will just move into opportunity three. People and processes go hand in hand, particularly around your platforms so opportunity three is improving your processes around the platforms and oftentimes this is a great chance for some house cleaning and kind of an assessment of where you are, you know kind of looking behind behind the cupboards and doing some dusting. So what we find is there's a platform, but there's no real clear organizational process that says here's what the platform is here's what does here's how it works. So this is a, an opportunity to take us, you know, get an assessment of the state of your processes. So what we find you know how are they learned and replicated and what sustains them. You know a lot of times particularly in smaller, you know, teams or departments, it might be that you have one one staffer that really knows how to use a particular tool and they really pass down the information to people or you know send the help tools that they've, you know, developed over the years, but it's not documented anywhere. So if you lose that staffer, oh my gosh, you know, you're, you're, you're starting at zero. So this is a chance to say, you know, do we have processes, are they, do we even have them are they outdated or they ad hoc. Who owns the process and the documentation, and this goes back to the idea of identifying a product owner for your platform. So this is a great place to say, if you're starting to move from one CRM to another CRM, who owns the CRM, you know, what are the processes, and are those documented, you know, especially if you've done a lot of customization of your CRM. So here is that customization documented, because it can be, it's much easier to figure out how to move from one platform to another if you're able to say, Hey, we've defined these 20 fields that we care about, and we've implemented them thusly, then trying to figure that out just by looking through the system. So, you know, this is a great place to think about process and documentation and the, the better shape you can get that in before you, before you migrate the clear your requirements will be, you'll have a better sense of what, what you need to do. So, that's kind of the big picture of the thoughts on on on process I don't know Eric if you have anything to add to that or if anyone has any questions. Yeah, and I can probably take us into the next one while we do that documentation right is really key or having a resource in which your tasks and your workflows and staff, and how they do the work is, is put is organized right put together this informs your, you know, way of how you work, how you do things. So having a place for that, having that standardized having that prepared and stored for for the future is really key in informing where you're going to go. This takes us to our, our next opportunity, refining or strategies, which is the, the piece of, of, you know, really what is, you know, what are you trying to accomplish here right, what, what does this platform actually do for you. So, is this very complex tool that is used for a very specific purpose. Sometimes, maybe not even what you expect, if you have a CRM setup and your development team is just using that CRM to send personal emails through it right because that's part of their workflow and it's easier to send personal emails through that system. If that's their like key reason for using that you may need to assess okay what is the purpose of this platform that when how we put it in place, what is there some better solution here that is could be a layer on top. How is it even effective right does it solve the business needs that you're seeing that you that you have right. And again, is it doing this successfully. Is it easy to use if it's easy to use because someone is so skilled at the platform. But then if someone new comes in and, and it takes some time to ramp up okay but it takes time but but it may not be the still the best solution for you right it's just because you're having the process and workflow so making sure using those to get to your strategic goals are really key. Yeah, Eric I'll just piggyback on that for a second because the, when we talk about the purpose of the platform this is another place where you really want to think about shared purpose. You know common purpose of the platform, particularly when you're looking at CRMs, because you know Eric mentioned the use case of the CRM is something that development uses and they use it primarily just to find people and call them and keep track of their history. That's, that's really important to know, but particularly when you're looking at CRM you want to look at it from the standpoint of, you know, in an organization, we have contacts, and the contacts can be contacted by multiple people for multiple reasons to advance different parts of our organizational strategy. So, you know when you're looking at particularly with CRMs or anything that involves contact, your contact ecosystem, I like to call it. I want to involve people and get a sense of what they're doing within the platform, and more importantly what they're doing outside of the platform. You know what we talk to so many organizations that they have a CRM and development uses it, but then every department has their own, you know, some department has a spreadsheet and another has another spreadsheet and other department uses their email as, as their CRM. So really thinking through, you know, what is the purpose of the CRM, what is the purpose of tracking contacts, but we want to know about them. I'll ramble on more about that later but just wanted to reiterate that idea of shared purpose there. Yeah, it's a great flag Adam. Right, so making sure that you, you know, you've assessed your vision, right, has your organization reviewed or created a new strategy. You have those tools in service of that strategy. If you have an ever redundant use case like Adam mentioned we have multiple tools in place, all storing separate data, you have a redundancy right you have a duplicative efforts and that if you can find ways to to unify those as part of your greater strategic goals that will be in service to to your to the good to your organization. Where are those overlaps right. Those not only find alignment just from shared purpose, but also for shared shared work and making sure that you're going through and then doing it together so that way your work is interoperable is is is shared and really just able to be comprehended by by different departments, and it also helps just in your own integration right with in your platform ecosystem, looking at how you can get that data to talk and flow right through different platforms and ensuring that it is possible to do that without too much, you know, some effort it was required of course but without reinventing your ecosystem. I'll reiterate that that second bullet about the strategy review cycle. You know which is we've done over over the years I've had many, many occasions we start a project, you get a little ways into it and then some of those oh no we developed a strategy for that or you know some other team is developing a strategy that's coming out in the next month. Those are things you should definitely be aware of within within the organization so if you're in communications maybe there's a new communication strategy that you know you've just developed six months ago. And yes you want to be aware that you should also be aware of you know are there other strategies that are currently being defined or evolved your other research projects that inform strategy. You know, even if, which is not to say you should pause and wait for these other projects to happen. But if you know hey development is actually developing a new communicate a new fundraising strategy. You know for this quarter, you can go and just have an interview with someone that's involved in that strategy and say hey, we're looking at moving to a new email system. You know, these are the things that we think we really need to make sure the email system does these are the things we think would probably help as you move into a new fundraising strategy. Tell me, tell me where you are with fundraising strategy get a little bit of insight into the other strategies that are being developed. And again, you know, you know, make friends when friends influence people all that good stuff. You know what's going on in the organization so that your tool can effectively sort of address those needs. Absolutely. I want to move ahead there. I'm not going to go through all of these directly because there's there's quite a bit of here to unpack right but this is part of the framework of how we look at, you know how do you assess your organizational needs. You know these are different tasks that need to be accomplished these impact people. We've got touched upon all these different factors already right but but you know really what do you want people to accomplish what do you want to accomplish, and how can you support your organization and getting there. These are all of the different concepts and and and ways to frame what your needs might be organizationally and as a team and and strategically. In regards to refining strategy. Let's say that the platform that you're replacing isn't tied to any direct strategic outcomes, but the users of the platform do kind of what's always been done. How do you explore and emphasize strategic importance of the platform and that shift to everybody. I think that even creating this, this, as we, you know, new momentum new shifts new direction helps provide that space for that kind of communication to happen, right, to start under discovering how things are done, what could be better right not using the framing of, oh that doesn't work right. And also provide you know data to back it up. And, and you're doing it together. I think that that essence of solidarity in the goal right is really key to, to making sure that that your, you know, journey is, is, is part of your united progress, and not just a corrective measure. Absolutely. And just to piggyback on that the going beyond the idea of a corrective measure, right of like, oh we just need, we need something better. Right, because a lot of times people's direct people's direct experience with the tool is is often what is most at the top of mind, right, because it's most in front of them. What you want to use this opportunity to do is say, Okay, yeah, we're going to get a platform that works well that you're not like ripping your hair out because it doesn't refresh fast enough or because it's convoluted right, you want to kind of get people out of the space of like the, the use of the tool to what the tool helps them accomplish. And that's where you really want to start with that that strategy and sense of purpose and discovery where you're saying, What, what does our email platform do, what do we want it to help us do. You know, if we have a CRM, what kind of contacts do we want to be able to find what do we want to be able to do once we know that information. So I think, you know, the more that you can, you know, as you're involving people who are going to use the tool, you know, get a sense of like their frustrations with the tool and what also was working well, but then really focus on the outcomes of using the tool. So one of the one of the workshops that we run is a use case reporting workshop. When we're talking about any kind of data integrations is say, you know, forgetting how you find the data, what kind of data do you want to find and what do you want to do with that data. And then you can gather those from different people in the organization say, Oh, that means if we want, you know, if everyone wants to know this about this audience in order to do x, then we need a tool that will have these features. So you're really focusing on, you know, the, the, the outcomes, you know, what, what is the tool meant to do. I think I think we'll move us on to the defined audiences section. So that we still have plenty of time for questions as we go along. So define your audience again this is an opportunity particularly, particularly if email CRMs are involved. You know, you're the information about your audience is your organization's most most valuable asset. I mean money is great and all, but like knowing your audiences is, is, is gold. And you know what, what we mean by this is, is really getting granular with how you define who your contacts are. You know, who's going to be captured in the system. Are they well modeled by well model means we, we know the things we want to know about them. And we have a plan for getting that information, and we have a purpose for that information. You know, the great thing about, you know, email systems as it makes it easy to get someone's email address, and more and more, it's getting a little easier to to get like their name and maybe what field they're working or their organization right those are just the things that are fairly straightforward. The more you know about your audiences, the more you can start to make sure that that information is in your systems. So if you haven't created a contact model, moving to a new CRM to a new email platform is a great way to do that. And then, you know, making sure that you have the tracking and analytics necessary to capture what you know about them. So actually did a webinar recently on on contact modeling and will will provide some links to those resources as well. But it's something that I care very passionately about so I'll talk very high level about it for a second. A good contact model really helps you articulate for a particular contact, who they are what they care about and what they've done. And these will be somewhat different from organization to organization. But if you can say, you know, who contact is what they care about and what they've done, then you start to get a really, really rich picture of them, and can do much more targeted meaningful communications and ideally automated communications. Right so if you know someone's someone's role, you might be able to give them an automated email series that is more tailored with content towards a particular role. If you're an organization that covers lots of different topics, maybe maybe someone sent it for your email for a particular topic doesn't care about 80% of your of your content. You might care about 10%. If you know what they care about, then you can give them the content that matters to them. If you know if you know that's what if this person has signed a petition or attended an event. You know how you know that they are more engaged than someone who was just visited the site or sign up for email. Starting with contact modeling again is really, it's really valuable because these are all things that can be stored in different ways in different systems, some of which can and should be connected across those systems so particularly if you know we have a, we have a client that uses MailChimp and Asana as their Monday.com as their CRM, and they're looking at ways to either integrate MailChimp and Monday.com or perhaps replace some elements of that and a lot of it comes down to what are these fields, you know what do we want to do with the services and how do we make sure that the right platforms know that information. Again, starting with this is a good, good place to involve multiple people in the organization right there shouldn't be a separate contact model for development as for communications. Right, you should know one person is one person, they have lots of different attributes, they have lots of different needs, different people in the organization might want to be contacting them for different things but they're the same person. So many organizations that we work with like have spread you here, spread you here, CRM here, email system here, they all have different slices of the same person. But that really hinders the ability of the organization to communicate with those people at scale. I'll get up in my soapbox about that. Yeah, I think maybe we'll move to the scope section. Yeah, definitely. You know, we'll try to keep this this within scope as well right. Part of this is understanding how, how why do you want this to go right and we're going to focus on primarily two lenses of scope here platform and process, but all of these do touch the broader scale of scope of what this transformation means right. Re-platforming is more than just, you know, it's more than just changing your tool around. It's, you know, defining what it's used for as we talked about. And at what, you know, where does this touch where does this impact what teams are affected by this. It's very important to that day to day. And again, like having them being part of that process as part of a as a subject matter expert, right, knowing exactly how things are used so that way when you do transition to something new. They are prepared are also part of that part of that conversation. What was customized immediately right upon launch, what can be moved over right what is out of what is part of the solution that you provided if you know you need a whizzy wig tool drag and drop editor built into your email platform, and your team doesn't know how to code emails by by hand, you're certainly going to need another drag and drop editor and that new email platform. You can always necessarily just plug one in sometimes you can but can your platform support that. Knowing how all these different parts fit together is critical to the success of how big your, how big this is this is going to be right how much this will change what will have to be retrained, what will have to be re, you know, re taught. Right, and to that skip that data side as well like what can be migrated over. What needs to be manipulated is is are the fields going to match, are you ensuring that you are matching those line by line, or again what can be, what can be dropped what can be left as as cleaning house right. All of these need to be defined in order to to rain in where exactly your, your direction will be the next version or next vision of scoping like to look at is right as process. More people driven side of it, or people driven processes right. How many people use this is this a platform that the entire staff uses right is this. You're a medium sized organization right at how many, you know, give 100 200 people in this. And are they skilled, or are they beginners right or just getting their job done. So you need more training if you're moving to a more complex platform Salesforce example is is a platform that is very complex and requires usually third party skilled experts to help you get there. Maybe you want to move to one that is a little less complex so that your practitioners can get things done in a more straightforward right and unless customized way. There's no training to get there the answer probably is is going to be yes. New platforms do require that training. It is a great investment in your staff and your colleagues. And usually when you onboard some new platform there is a training portion. Or you can ask for that kind of package when you come in as maybe part of your your package. Right. Great, great add on right that you can get that empowers your staff look at what ongoing training looks like to, you know, whether you want that a continued training if you have an expert in house that might be able to facilitate that. If you want an outside expert you can facilitate that how frequently. And what does your governance look like, what does it look like right now, what resources are available to staff to to get their jobs done using one of these platforms, or what can you create. Use this as another opportunity right to create a new hub of support for your for your staff. And I'll show them how to, how to use and unlock the potential of these tools. Part of that, you know, either a static resource that they can access on your company organizational intranet. If it's training videos do you want to do in house, or just office hours right. I mean, even when we get back right into the office. You know, have a designated time for someone to drop by someone's desk for for Marketo training or, or for Salesforce prep. And that provide those opportunities so that way there is continued structure for people to go when they know when they're looking for and need help. Those are such such great points Eric and I think particularly that the last couple points you made about the sort of the ongoing training and support, you know, particularly if the tools used by a lot of people, and it's a complex, and it hasn't necessarily been clearly or well documented. You know in the past, you know Eric is involved with the project with another one of our clients who have moved from one big behemoth email system to another, and a huge part of it was, how are we going to get people trained and bought in and regularly learning to own the platform and use it effectively. And because you're getting a new platform is not like getting a new car, where you just, oh, I know how to drive a car wheels, the wheels wheel steering wheel, you know, gases gas break this break. You know, you think a bit more as you're getting a tank, right you need, you know, someone to show you how to operate all the things. And you probably want that person around to show you, you know, oh yeah reminder don't push that button, or you know reminder to do this type of maintenance. And understanding the organizational needs the staff capacity and capabilities and really making a plan for, you know, what are the mechanisms that we're going to have in place to make sure adoption is is followed because that's again that's key. People aren't using the tool if they don't understand it. It's not going to be effective. Thank you Adam that's a great point you know your platform here too and we're kind of going back to the previous scope right, but, but is it a a truck right doesn't have 27 years to get through to just to just to send an email, or is it just simple and doesn't have a send button, a lot of these don't have send buttons and that is kind of scary for people and they need the training to get there to learn how to use these and prevent those oops moments that that happen. They do happen we all make mistakes here and there, especially in these very complex systems, but knowing how to use them and not repeating those mistakes over and over again is really key to the success of this. Alright, so we're we're have just a few minutes left all kind of just highlight again the hidden opportunities that you have. You know as you plan every platforming, you have opportunity create great momentum in your organization, really start moving your organization forward, empowering and involving the people in your organization who are ultimately going to be what makes the tool successful or it's a great time to improve your processes and make those clear and sustainable. Great time to refine your strategy so that people aren't just oh we're using a new tool but hey we're doing things more effectively, we're making a bigger impact, and because we have a clear strategy. It's a great opportunity to define your contacts better, particularly if you're using anything that collects data and uses that data about about who you're engaging with. And it's a great opportunity to really understand the scope of the platform and the scope of support that changing a platform is going to need. We'll send the stick around afterwards and I think we have a few minutes for questions, but we did want to say so long and thanks for all the fish. Another hitchhiker's guide reference, we won't really go into but we'll we have a few minutes to answer questions here. But you can also reach out in lots of different ways to continue a conversation with us directly. See if there are any new questions or. Guys, we didn't get any additional questions in the chat, but we really appreciate everybody's attendance, I would like to ask if anybody would be so kind as to answer our poll question. We'd love to learn more about your pain points in migrating to a new platform in your organization. If you are able to give us your responses before signing off we would really appreciate that. And just keep in mind that we do these once a month. Next month we will be discussing a new program that we're launching called our data innovation studio. We also have the team walking everybody through what that program looks like and how we're working really hard to create a collaborative data culture, and help organizations realize the power of the data that they have so keep them keep your eyes peeled for more information on that in your follow up email. Thank you so much for everybody who's participating in our poll and we'll be talking to you all soon.