Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: We don't have enough time today to do our jobs properly.
So the fear of it taking our jobs is like so far away. And I would rather AI take all.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Of the menial things that I do.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: Throughout the day to let me actually think and do things that are, that I enjoy more. They're at a higher level, at higher value. So it's not going to take your job. It's actually going to eliminate a lot of those, you know, tasks that you don't want to do. But then it's also going to amplify what we're able to do, right? So it's going to amplify, and it.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Could allow us to do more, faster.
[00:00:35] Speaker A: Better things are going to evolve, right? So it's not about taking jobs away.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: Welcome to the Edtech Connect podcast, your source for exploring the cutting edge world of educational technology. I'm your host, Jeff Dillon, and I'm excited to bring you insights and inspiration from the brightest minds and innovators shaping the future of education. We'll dive into conversations with leading experts, educators, and solution providers who are transforming the learning landscape. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform so.
[00:01:16] Speaker D: You don't miss an episode.
[00:01:18] Speaker C: So sit back, relax, and let's dive in.
[00:01:34] Speaker D: I'm excited to kick off another episode of the Edtech Connect podcast. Today we have artist Kaidu, who is the founder and CEO of Element 451, an edtech company renowned for its AI powered student engagement and CRM products. His expertise spans AI technology, education and design. At Element 451, Artis has been instrumental in developing advanced personalization engines, AI features, demonstrating his deep understanding of AI's practical applications. As an educator at NYU, he has shared his knowledge in user experience, design, web and mobile development, and as a thought leader in the field, he shares his insights on generative AIH chat, GPT, and AI enhanced engagement strategies at key industry events like Ama Nagap, RNL, NACAC, and I recently saw artists speak at Web in Philadelphia. So welcome, artists.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Thanks for having me, Jeff. It's good to be here.
[00:02:38] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks. So let's just start off. I'm curious, first, where did the name come from? Where did the name come from? And then what inspired you to start element 451?
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah, so element 451 is a nod at fahrenheit 451. So if you're not familiar with fahrenheit 451, it's a post apocalyptic book by Ray Bradbury that talks about this future.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Where books and firefighters burn books.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: And knowledge transfer is really interesting. So 451 means it's the degree at which paper burns. And when we named the product element 451, we had a marketing agency before element 451. That's kind of where we started to build a product called Spark 451.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: So the 451 stuck around, which was.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Really this transformational period from traditional to digital, right. As schools were going through that transformational period and technology and element being a transformational agent for that particular.
So a little bit deeper in terms.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Of the name there, but we stuck with the 451 because of that transformation point with AI.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Now it's even more, more relevant, right, as AI is transforming everything.
[00:03:49] Speaker D: Yeah, I was wondering, like, there's the HTTP error code and then there's the Ray Bradbury story. So I was wondering which way that was going to go. So, yeah, tell me more about your founder story. I love talking about to founders who are still running their companies still. And where did this inspiration come from?
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. So I was actually on the institution side. I was at NYU for a number of years. I graduated from there. I have three degrees from there. But then a lot of different stories as you start getting more and more ingrained in that institutional, operational side, I was doing a lot of the work.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: On the student experience and front end of the website.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: I was in charge of web and.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: Media services, classroom technology in the front.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: End of the door of the website. And I fell in love with the idea of making personalization on the student side. I was working with admissions quite a bit. So this idea of how can I.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: Make and remove friction from schools and.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: From students, including things like RFI forms.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: How can you make a navigation better? And so on and so forth, working.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: With admissions on that. And it was pretty bad at the time, right?
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Because they go from this beautiful website.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: To like a peoplesoft application and it's like, whoa, what happens here? So I spent a lot of time on that, and then I got the.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Opportunity to then form Spark 451.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: And now we try to do and help more institutions as part of that, right? So we try to basically bring that same mentality to help schools, both from a recruiting perspective, doing student search, doing a lot of the digital kind of.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Websites, basically a full service agency.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: And then we started building some of the products there, some of the engagement products, because myself, I have a technical background, and as a CTO of Spark 51, I started building some of these tools to essentially centralize a lot of that data fast forward. It's like, well, you can't really have a services agency and then have a product at the same time because they kind of require different things and they.
[00:06:02] Speaker B: Grow differently so we decided, hey, let's.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Just spin it out.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: And that was the impetus for forming element 451.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: And this was in late 2017, early 2018. So it's been about six years now, and it's grown since there. But, I mean, the first couple of years are really brutal as a young kind of technology company in higher ed, because nobody knows about you, and then you just have to claw. And for every single kind of contract.
[00:06:34] Speaker D: And client back in, back in those years, you might shy away from mentioning AI in conversations. Right. It's a little bit foreign.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: It was predictive. Modeling was the big thing back then. Yeah. Because it was all about how can we predict what students were most likely to apply or to be admitted? But even then, like, we were doing some interesting stuff, but the operationalizing of.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: That from the school side was very, very minimal.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Right. Schools were just used those predictive models to essentially say, hey, I just want to mail out to the top 10% of the students. It was like a cost cutting, you know, rather than operationalizing it. It's like, how can I personalize things better?
[00:07:21] Speaker D: You're kind of in the business of showing the art of the possible now, which no one can keep up with.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Things have changed quite a bit.
[00:07:30] Speaker D: How has you kind of got into this a little bit? How has the product evolved? I really have watched element 451 evolve, probably even more than most other AI companies. You've been doing it longer. You're kind of not the new guy in the, in the AI space. So how has it evolved?
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah, so one of the things that we like since the beginning, the whole idea or kind of our DNA has been all about personalizing engagements and personalizing.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Communications at scale with students and personalizing that journey.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: And when you start to start thinking.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: About personalization, there's two components of it.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: There's the, well, how can I insert data and personalize things and capture more data so I know more about the consumer and the customer, but then how do I create content or personalized content automatically? So in element, we've been kind of.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Growing and trying to solve that problem ever since. That's why elements DNA is really in.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: The marketing automation and kind of that.
[00:08:28] Speaker B: Customer experience world, rather than back office.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Operations and application management. So since then, we've tried to kind of make really, really good marketing automation products, right? So we started with great landing pages.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Great communication tools, great email, sms messaging, microsites, all these things.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: And then we've kind of evolved the product since to add a lot more towards not just the enrollment side, but then go towards the current student, the full funnel experience or the full journey, rather. Right.
[00:09:05] Speaker B: So full journey because a lot of.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Schools love to have this very sophisticated marketing automation capabilities, but they want to.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Use them for current students, they want to use them for alumni. So we've kind of expanded the platform from just being that enrollment platform to.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Now being more of a student. Full student journey platform.
[00:09:26] Speaker D: Gotcha. Okay, so can you walk me through a typical user experience for a student, maybe as it is today, or how you envision it or where you're at with that?
[00:09:38] Speaker A: I think we're coming very close to fulfilling the whole vision of the product.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: The whole vision of that student journey. So somebody lands on your website and the first thing that they do is they would go directly for that. Actually, even before they land on your website, they maybe are in a social media site or they're somewhere, they get an ad, they land in your website, they start searching for something.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: And as part of that search, they.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Use bolt discovery, which is our generative AI tool. Essentially, they start asking questions about searching on something. So they come in there, they automatically get those responses, and they now instead of calling somebody, they get directed or filling in an RFI form, they get directed to an AI assistant that can.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Take them through the process of, hey, give us a little bit more information.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: And we'll guide you through the process.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Of the application or registering for an.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Event and so on and so forth.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: So we're starting the journey all the way from beginning.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: So rather than filling in forms and.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: Waiting for people to get back to.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: You, our experience has changed drastically where.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: The consumer or that student or that visitor is in charge of what they want to do.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: And you have this AI assistants helping in real time, fulfilling those tasks, and not asynchronously going back and waiting for somebody to send them a reply message to say, go to this page now and get more information, or here is.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: The link for the event, or here's.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: How you apply, or here's some of.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: The questions that you have.
[00:11:23] Speaker A: It's more real time and responsive based on the student's journey.
[00:11:27] Speaker D: Yeah, high rad seems to be pretty uniquely suited for that. With so much content, so much complexity, how do you get the student what they need when they need it? Like, personalization has been a struggle for so long in higher ed with huge infrastructure commitments you would have to make to do something that just wasn't quite sustainable. So I'm excited that AI can be kind of applied to this and that you're doing that.
What are the biggest challenges you've faced so far?
[00:12:03] Speaker A: Well, I mean, we try to be a little bit ahead of the curve from the product development perspective. And the biggest challenge is how do we educate the market and how do we educate folks to essentially say, hey.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: There is a better way of doing.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: This and keeping the consumer, keeping that student at the center of it, keeping that in mind as you change internally and you kind of go through this, change management internally because not everybody, even though they think the technology is cool and it would be beneficial, it still.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Takes six months, a year to even bring in the technology internally or go.
[00:12:42] Speaker A: Through an acquisition, a requisition process.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Or even, even bring it into, to a committee. So, so that's been the hardest part.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Is like, how do we educate the.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Market that the student is ultimately, you're going to benefit by improving and removing.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Friction from the student's journey and the student experience.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: If you do that, then you're going.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: To see better results. Right. Try to be student centric rather than.
[00:13:11] Speaker A: Process centric or institution centric.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: So that's been the hardest part is to change those minds and to bring.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Them along and to tell them that AI is a transformational tool that can help alleviate some of the pain points that have had in the past, like that, removing that experience or even staff productivity, like short, you know, being short on staff. And so you can't meet those expectations of the student if you don't have enough staff and if you have shortages or knowledge gaps. So AI can actually bring that together.
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Or can bring that closer together and.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Can eliminate some of that divide. And that's been really, like, where I've spent a lot of my time over the past couple of years on education.
[00:13:55] Speaker D: What I've seen, and I think we saw some of it at the conference we were both at, is there's always the fear, right? We're fear of the unknown. We're fear of it taking our jobs.
What do you say to the, I mean, not just higher ed, but the people that say, like, this is going to take our jobs.
What's our answer?
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. Look, we don't have enough time today to do our jobs properly.
So the fear of it taking our jobs is like, so far away. And I would rather AI take all.
[00:14:28] Speaker B: Of the menial things that I do.
[00:14:29] Speaker A: Throughout the day to let me actually think and do things that are, that I enjoy more. They're at a higher level, at higher value. So it's not going to take your job. It's actually going to eliminate a lot of those tasks that you don't want to do. But then it's also going to amplify what we're able to do. Right. So it's going to amplify and going.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: To allow us to do more, faster.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: Better, and things are going to evolve. Right. So it's not about taking jobs away.
[00:14:57] Speaker D: What I've heard in applies in some cases is AI is not going to take your job, but people who use AI well might be taking your jobs.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: We just don't have enough of those people. So I don't think how would you.
[00:15:09] Speaker D: And I think you talked a little bit about this in some conversations I've had in the past with you. Campuses want to embrace it, but they're afraid. How would you recommend campuses prepare, build their AI ready campus? What are some tips you could give them?
[00:15:24] Speaker A: Yeah. So you supposed, I mean, you start thinking about where you focus first and it's all about the use cases on how you start thinking about incorporating AI in your operations today. And if your goal is to make the biggest impact, think about removing friction.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: From the student journey and the student.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: And making the student experience better. So anytime where that AI can help in that area, that's an area where.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: You should pay attention first.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: So if you're having an issue, for example, with on your websites and you have a huge catalog and you're having a lot of issues with students needing or spending a week or two weeks or getting advising, for example, on classes and you don't have enough advice and.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: You'Re overbooked, start thinking about investing in AI solutions there where a student can.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Talk to an AI assistant and start thinking through, okay, this is the courses that I want to take.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: This is kind of the outcomes that.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: I want to have. Can you advise me on that? It's really, really good at that stuff. So start thinking, where are you having.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Deficiencies and friction in student experience today?
[00:16:39] Speaker A: And invest in that.
[00:16:41] Speaker D: I like that.
How would you ensure the privacy and security of student data if you have access to that? How do you handle that?
[00:16:51] Speaker A: A lot of people think about AI right now and they think Chad GPT.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: Right, so I'm going to send my.
[00:16:56] Speaker A: Data to Chad GPT and Chad GPT is just another system. And the free version of it, by the way, doesn't have any of the security constraints. It's like think about you using Facebook.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Or you using Instagram or X or whatever.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: You don't pay for it. So the way you pay for it.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Is with your data and your attention.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: And your interactions, and they use your.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Data for marketing and all these different things.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: So that's a different economy there. That's happening. Right.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Well, think about chat GPT, the free version. Yeah, they're going to use your data.
[00:17:28] Speaker A: To train and to do whatever, but if you pay for it, you have.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: The option to turn that off.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: So they're not going to use your data. But the best thing is don't think.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: About it as chat GPT.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: Think about the AI capabilities that are.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Being embedded in the current tools that.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: You'Re using that already have the data.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Security layer as part of it and the data governance layer.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: So if you think about a CRM or if you think about a student engagement platform, we already have that.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: You already have all that stuff in place. So all you're doing is you're adding.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: A layer on top of it.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: That is the interaction layer and the AI layer.
[00:18:05] Speaker A: But it's not that data still has.
[00:18:06] Speaker B: The same governance, still has the same.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: Security constraints, and that's an area where we've spent a lot of time on to make sure that we're keeping that kind of the security compliance around anonymization and all of the pieces that are very important to our clients around privacy and security.
[00:18:26] Speaker D: Yeah, it makes sense.
Well, is there any last words you'd like to leave our audience with before we close it out?
[00:18:35] Speaker B: One of the big things that I'm.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: A true believer in is true personalization.
As a marketer, as a technologist, and somebody who's in this every single day.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: I believe that AI is going to.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Be very transformational to all of our jobs and everything that we do. And as somebody who's building products, I'm seeing it every single day where true.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Personalization around marketing and engagement and customer.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: Success is only going to be possible by incorporating AI as part of that experience. When you think about the student experience, it's only going to be possible if we're adopting some of these tools going forward. So that's my last words there for that.
[00:19:19] Speaker D: That's a good one to end on. And then the final one I like to ask a lot of my founders, at least, is who has been maybe your biggest inspiration in your, in your founders journey.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: There's, there's a lot of founders out there that, you know, you look up to from, you know, some of the, some folks that, that everybody can look up to. But, but for every single founder that you luck you look up to, there is like hundreds of them that have failed or that you're learning that you've learned lessons from. So looking up to, like successful founders is kind of a little bit of a cop out, right? Because a lot of a million things have to go right for the founder to actually succeed. So there's a lot of founders that I kind of look up to. Obviously, Mike Zuckerberg has been a really, really good founder to look up to because he's essentially has built an amazing company where it's been with a company since the beginning. Right. And then Jensen Wang from Nvidia is another one that I look up to. He's been amazing. When you think about AI and what he's doing for that world, he's been knocked out quite a few times. Right?
[00:20:39] Speaker B: And now he's having the last laugh, so to speak.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: So lots of them. But those are the two that I.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: The latest one.
[00:20:45] Speaker D: Yeah, I like that.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:47] Speaker D: Well, thank you, artists. I wanted to really thank you for your time, and we will see where element 451 goes. And nice work.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff.
[00:21:08] Speaker C: As we wrap up this episode, remember, edtech Connect is your trusted companion on your journey to enhance Eddie education through technology. Whether you're looking to spark student engagement, refine edtech implementation strategies, or stay ahead of the curve in the emerging technologies, Edtech Connect brings you the insights you need. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an.
[00:21:31] Speaker D: Inspiring and informative episode.
[00:21:33] Speaker C: And while you're there, please leave us a review. Your feedback fuels us to keep bringing you valuable content. For even more resources and connections, head over to edtechconnect.com, your hub for edtech reviews trends and solutions. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.
