Ready Beats Finished ft. Marnie & Nick | My EdTech Life 366

Welcome Back And Six Years

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 0:11

Hello everybody and welcome to another great episode of My Ed Tech Life. Thank you so much for joining us on this wonderful day. And wherever it is that you're joining us from around the world, thank you as always for all of your support. As always, we appreciate all the likes, the shares, the follows. Thank you so much for uh, you know, just your feedback, your love. Thank you so much for engaging with our content, sharing our clips, listening to our episodes. It really means the world to us. As you know, we just turned six, also. So that is a big feat. You know, we are up 360-some plus episodes. And again, we do what we do for you so we can continue to bring you some amazing conversations. And today I'm really excited because I first talked to our guests uh, geez, last year, maybe like around October-ish or so like that. Yeah, maybe no September, yeah, October-ish. But I'm always excited to hear when previous guests come back because they have some amazing updates as to what it is that they're working on. So I'm really excited to welcome back to the show Marnie Stockman and Nick Caniglio. How are you all doing this evening? Great. Thanks so much for having us.

Nick Coniglio 1:23

Yeah, we're excited to be here.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 1:24

Excellent. Well, I'm excited that you guys are back. You know, when I got Marnie's message back maybe probably like almost a month ago or a little bit over a month ago, sharing some good news, I was like, hey, here's the link. Let's get you on the show because I definitely want to hear a little bit more about those updates. But before we get into the updates, if you don't mind, guys, because this might be the first time that our audience members may be listening to you and getting to know you and connecting with you. So if you can give us a little brief introduction and what your context is in the education space. And Marnie,

Meet Marnie And Nick

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 2:00

I'll go ahead and start off with you. All right.

Marnie Stockman 2:02

Well, I started out as a high school math teacher, uh, where, you know, I sold pre-calculus to high schoolers, so that's a tough sell. Uh, you know, uh, because I knew I wasn't really teaching them pre-calc, right? It was really about logic and problem solving and critical thinking. Uh ended up in uh and uh the administrative part of the world, uh, and then switched to an ed tech company where I landed on my first daily support call and saw one Nick Caniglio. So I'll let him take it from there.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 2:33

Yeah.

Nick Coniglio 2:35

Um, very different background uh than Marty. Uh I'd been in uh small businesses, uh startups, almost my entire career, but most of that time was spent in ed tech. Uh I worked for a company, I was one of the first couple of uh employees for a company called Performance Matters, where uh we basically offered a student assessment and analytics platform. Uh that is where we met Marnie. Uh that's where I met Marnie, long story short. Um through multiple acquisitions, we ended up going off on our own. And at the time uh we had a non-compete in the education space. So we had to do something new, completely different. And um we did that for three years, waiting for our non-compete to to expire. Um, we started sold and scaled a software company to IT business owners of all things, very different space for us. Um but we're back and we have been looking forward to to being back for a long time. So uh yeah, we've since written a couple of books and we've got some exciting initiatives that uh hopefully we'll get a chance to talk about entering back into the ed tech space.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 3:45

Yeah, absolutely, man. Talk about those darn NDA or non-compete causes, you know. Geez, I tell you. But look at you guys, uh, talk about resiliency, talk about you know, going through all of that and just kind of having to wait. And now, like you mentioned, Nick, I love that phrase you said, and now we're back, and it's exciting because I know you were here episode 336. Right now, we are episode this will probably be episode 367. So I know it seems like a lot of people, oh, that was just 30 episodes ago. Well, in the podcast world, you know, that uh it is a while before we get to those shows, you know. But I'm really excited that you guys are here. And I know that the last time that we talked about that you were on, we talked about blue, and that's uh exactly what it is that we're gonna be talking about today. You know, it was a working prototype app, but I I want the our viewers, like I said, they may have not listened to episode 336, so I want to kind of give it off to you, and Nick, we'll we'll kick it off with you.

What Blue Is Built To Do

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 4:43

Tell us a little bit about Blue and what the intent is behind that app.

Nick Coniglio 4:48

Yeah, well, it started with a book. Marnie and I we uh we envisioned creating this app, and I'll explain to you in a second what the app does, but really to help young adults, uh young late teenagers, um, be able to tell their own story, to stand out in this in this ever competitive world because AI, as we know, it's it's prevalent everywhere. It's commoditizing traditional skills, right? So we believe that the only way to stand out is through character skills. So we ended up writing a book called The Business of You. And the book is a fable, uh, written really for middle school, high school, college students. So it's very easy to read, but it follows this young lady named Sydney, who is doing all the right things in school, but is really having a hard time uh standing out and differentiating herself. And she happens to, in the book, run across an app called Blue that really engages with her and teaches her uh how to tell her story, how to market herself. It's called the Business of You because she steps through all the different departments of a business. HR, she understands what makes her tick, what her core values are sales, how to pitch herself, marketing, how to create brand awareness about herself, finance, how to invest her time. Uh, and she's doing all of this through an app called Blue. And really, we wrote the book as user requirements for ourselves to build the app. Um, so we're really excited. That's where Blue comes from. It is, it is really, we like to say um, you know, that high schools today really are so focused on being finished, right? When you graduate, you've checked all the boxes and you're being done. We want to disrupt this world because we think there's a difference between being finished and being ready. And we are all about helping people at scale be ready to enter the real world and be successful with whatever they decide to take on.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 6:56

I love that, Nick. Marty, before we get into that, I just wanted to just highlight what you just said there. Like the difference between being finished, I I was like, wow, that really took me back because, like you said, it oftentimes it's just all right, check mark, we're done for schools. It's always compliance. We met our goals, we've got our data, uh, you know, CCMR this, we've got our CTE, we've got this. Everything checks off, so we're done and we're good. We did what we needed to do. And I guess we got what we needed from the students as far as those grades and those ratings and so on. So we're done. But it really is, you are far from done, you know, and those, you know, aside from high school, because you got to get ready for that next step. And so one thing that I love, you know, that you were talking as far as blue is concerned is, you know, just Sydney's trajectory going through the different uh departments, you know, like we talked about in in episode 336, and just learning and making her way and preparing for that next step, which many teachers, many educators, many districts may say, Well, we've prepared them for the next step. You know, they've got their their diploma. And I I always go back and even listening to some commencements, uh, commencement speeches over the weekend. But I think the most profound thing that I heard a professor tell me, I was about to graduate a week from graduation, and the professor said, Well, guys, this is your last class, and I just want to tell you one thing. That paper that you're gonna get, all that means is that you're trainable. And I was just like, Oh my word. Like, so I did four years of all of this just to be trainable and do those, and yeah, and you know, and and it just kind of in a way it was just kind of like a wake-up call, but then it at the same time as like, okay, well, let's see what what where we're gonna go from here. So I I know I kind of went off on a tangent, but I think that that was something that was so important that you mentioned there, Nick. And coming back to Marnie, talking about blue again, something in episode 336 that you talked about, that this was something that was kind of sketched out in an airport, and now it's something that is landing in students' hands to help them. Marnie, tell me about

Student Testing Through Games

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 9:20

that. How does that feel? That something that was just kind of an idea that was sketched out is now in the hands of students.

Marnie Stockman 9:27

So just today, I actually went into a middle school and was talking with a superintendent superadvisory student board uh and showed them the app, which is always interesting. It's interesting to watch a bunch of middle schoolers connect the dots. So I was talking to them about the fact that like Google Docs didn't operate the way that they did until they realized that students were actually texting each other from within Google Docs and they collaborated in a whole different way. So I was telling them how middle school and high school students can impact the way an app works. So when they realized, like, oh, this woman is sitting in front of me who showed me the app that she and her business partner have created and it's on the screen up there, that was really interesting for them to see. Um so for us, it's always a little surreal on all right, I'm gonna show you like this thing that we built up on the screen. Uh, one of the first things students do, and we I started the conversation with tell me about yourself. And if you've ever interviewed anyone, you know that a solid 98% do this terribly and start with listing all of these facts about themselves, right? Uh and so 98% of the students did the same thing. Um, but the next thing I did was cut sort of started diving into who they were, and I said, give me a pet peeve and let's talk about what that means about you. Then I went in the app and said, Who who wants to play a game with me? And so I got plenty of volunteers and I held they and they played the game in the app, which was all about pet peeves, which of these things did you like or not like? And it was when it was finished, it popped up with a press release uh like Sydney would have in the book, and it told the students, because these things are your pet peeves, I bet you don't like this, and I bet this is important to you. And they were like, Wow, okay. So what's cool to see is that Nick and I have spent decades mentoring students, you know, early career employees, and we've wrapped all of that mentoring into an app that when the students get the results from playing a game, they're like, ooh, that feels like me. So that's pretty cool.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 11:43

I love that, you know, and and that's so important, that connection. And and yes, even us as adults going through that interview process and going through those questions. I mean, we all could use a little help, but I just love the fact that, you know, putting it in the hands of young, uh young students, you know, middle school up, but just to be able to learn and and that storytelling aspect is so important now because like Nick and you we started talking a little bit too is like the in Marnie in the beginning, talking about generative AI and now everything that is out there, how easily it could be created and produced, and you know, also that cognitive offload of, hey, here you go. I'm just gonna copy these keywords, build my resume, or build my this, or answer these questions. But you you're not really getting your whole story, you know, kind of going in deep. And I think that's something that's gonna set a lot of people apart, you know, in this world of generative AI. It's yes, you're gonna need people that know how to work with generative AI, but at the same time, you definitely need that authenticity, that genuineness, and just really that unique, um, I guess that you those unique aspects of yourself that you can bring into a job space that really kind of sets you apart from everybody else, you know, and and create that that difference. So that's something that is fantastic. And so I love that, that it is something that is very engaging. And Nick, coming back to you as well, you know, kind of continuing here, you know, in your work, you know, shipping uh products, you know, sh ideas for the last for 30 years, you know, in the IT space or in these business spaces. Tell me what the difference was, obviously, for for you or for both of you, you know, working on this application now for students, you know, as opposed to building it for adults.

Designing For Youth Engagement

Nick Coniglio 13:37

Yeah, I and I think I think there's a big difference. And and I I will say that, you know, being in my former experience in ed tech, you know, 90, I would say 85% of the work was targeted at the adults, right? The educators, the staff, the the administration. But we did we did dabble with uh we did student testing, right? Online testing and things like that. And it became quick and obvious to us back then, and it's I think even more obvious today, right? That that that young people are very creative and very selective with the experiences they that they want, and it has to be engaging, right? You know, adults are kind of used to the fact that, okay, I just I have to fill out online forms, right? I have to make selections, you know, just multiple choice or something to that effect. Uh students, young people are that's not going to fly with them, right? So I think I think one of the biggest things that that challenges in in developing a product for young people is okay, truly how do you make it engaging and not feel like work? Um and but the reality is, you know, and Marty and I talk about this all the time, you know, self-awareness is the number one predictor, it is a very top predictor of success. You know, there's studies on it. Um and self-awareness takes a lot of work, right? You have to be awkward, you have to be reflective. Um so we had to find a way to do that in a way that that coached the student, in a way that felt engaging to the students. Uh, and I would say that that has been the vast majority of our work. We are trying, actively trying to get this in the communions of students to get their feedback. Because quite honestly, you know, Marnie mentioned it with Google Docs earlier. Young people find different ways to use things that we can never imagine and dream of. Um, and they, you know, they have already provided some insights. You know, we do a lot of story collection, and you know, we missed the mark at the at the very beginning where we just you know gave them a prompt, you know, after kind of identifying some traits of the individual user through scenario-based games, which is real fun. And that was that hit the mark. But they were like, okay, tell us an example of you know when you demonstrate a resilience, right? Yeah, a 45-year-old would probably have trouble answering a question, never mind a 16-year-old or a 17-year-old, right? And they they were very clear, honest, and up front. He said, I'm not gonna answer this, I don't want to answer this, right? So we had to come up with imaginative ways, we had to break it down, we had to coach them along the way, you know, in such a way that they were like, okay, I can I can answer this in one word, I can answer this in three words, with take that one sentence and break it up into seven or eight different paths, not all at once, uh, should just to have them still do the work, but stay engaged and motivated with the process. So I think I think the question is a very simple question, it's a very long response. Um children, I mean, young people are are tough to uh design products for just because they're so creative and and quite honestly, um, you know, we wouldn't be here right now if we just said, okay, and as former founders of companies, that we just knew the answer, right? We have always been successful in meeting our our ideal candidate profile in terms of he's he uses a platform and partnering with them to develop the product. And that's the exact approach that we're taking with Bloo. Excellent.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 17:25

Now, Marty, you kind of playing off a little bit uh off of what Nick said, you know, as far as doing your due diligence and, you know, putting it in the hands of students and seeing how they're reacting to it and so on. What might be some of the things that surprised you the most as the students were able to or are able now to be able to, you know, enter have that interface with the app? What are some of those major things that you're like, ooh, I never thought about it that way, or you know, wow, you know, I I never thought that we might be able to, you know, do that, you know. So tell me a little bit about that, because that's always an interesting thing.

Marnie Stockman 18:01

So you've probably taken plenty of personality type assessments in your world, right? You've got some Myers Briggs or, you know, some some letters, numbers, or color that you are, right? That um so we wanted to be able to get character traits from students without 180 questions, right? Like those those things can be exhaustive, exhausting and tedious to a student. So, like Nick said, we wanted to come up with some scenarios that the students could compare. So today I watched a group of students and three adults, including the superintendent, go through portions of the app and play a game. And we worked really hard to make the games meaningful to students. And a couple of times the superintendent had to say, What did that mean? If somebody, because one of the scenarios was like, which bugs you more? If someone leaves you on red or if you somebody cuts in line. She said, What's it mean to leave you on red? And 100% of the students said, if somebody texts you and you or you text somebody and you see they've read it and they don't text you back, she's like, Okay, good to know. So what's been interesting to watch is how the students take the scenarios that they absolutely know and are really passionate about it and then can talk about why that bothered them. So what we were hoping to see was that they wouldn't just say that bugs me, but at the end, when the app says, Well, if you don't like that, that that probably means you like open communication. And they would then be able to tell the story that connected the dots. But if we had just said at the beginning, tell me a story about why you like communication, they would just think, like, that's very buzzword. What are we talking about here? But when we gave them some scenarios, they locked right in. So that has been very fun to see how they can, like Nick said, getting the story out of them is a lot easier when they've played a game to figure out to like stir up what makes them crazy, what drives them, what strengths they have, what motivators, that type of thing. Nick, you squinted like you weren't thinking I'd answer that. Did you have a different answer?

Nick Coniglio 20:17

Yeah, I I love that answer. I'll and I'll add on just one other thing that I think is a little bit surprising. Um, maybe not, maybe it shouldn't be, but you know, when when we um when we take in data, when we're interacting with the user and we kind of throw it back to them to restate who they are in different words, it's amazing to me how how young people want to hear that reinforcement and say, oh my gosh, blue gets me, right? It's they're starting to think of blue as something else, something different. And different than generative AI, right? Generative AI, your your your typical frontier model, Chat GPT or CLOT or what have you, typically goes in and creates these broad strokes and then he changes his mind and says this and it says that. We are very focused, right? And in in just using the data that the student gives us and not injecting in all the data of all the internet. So we do run local vector databases for, you know, not to get too technical, but we are we are running local uh LON for the for the user data specifically and only the user data. Um but but once we start knowing okay what their motivators are, what their demotivators are, what what um what their core values are, what some of their activities and interests are, and then we start hearing stories that start interjecting other things, we can kind of merge all that together and and it it's maybe the first time that a young person is really. Thinking about all of that comprehensively. And we're we're producing something to the forefront that they always kind of knew, but they never were able to put the words of words on.

Marnie Stockman 22:11

We hear them say confidence a lot, like they're feeling more confident about how to tell their story.

Nick Coniglio 22:17

Which is super cool. I mean, I mean if we're if we don't act like we're pumped up, then we're remissing the mark. Because this really gets us going. And it's it's something, quite honestly, that I struggle with when I was younger. And I've watched my son struggle with it, right? How do I how do I communicate who I am? And we're kind of we're kind of giving them the opportunity to explore that and helping them develop their voice.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 22:41

Excellent. I love that. And and you know, I think that's something that is so important, you know, and like you said, Nick, you see it with your son, you know, as you uh, you know, you are interacting with students too, you're seeing it, you know, that challenge of really being able to tell your story, your brand, you know, who are you? What do you stand for? What do you hope to do? And and I think oftentimes too, that's something that, you know, within the classrooms have become, I think, very more teacher-centered and not so much, you know, student-centered. And and what I mean by that is there isn't enough discourse, enough discussion, enough, you know, where students are practicing that communication, collaboration, and really learning, you know, from one another and and kind of starting sh kind of seeing how they're shaping out and and seeing other, you know, other colleagues or classmates, you know, and seeing the way that they see things and learning from one another. But I love the fact that what you said is that, you know, using blue in in such a way to be able to draw from them what is already there.

Authenticity In The AI Era

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 23:43

I think that's something that's very important. And kind of like the the way that you were talking about it, um, Nick, I know in the first conversation we talked about, you know, how Sydney, uh, you know, in the business of you, um, Sydney was learning to ask better questions instead of chasing answers. And right now, it just seems that many students, and and I'll even go as far as even in my doctoral program, and maybe maybe even, you know, as adults too, in the workplace, where we're just trying to get the answer instead of learning how to ask the really great questions. And so that be that becomes an abstract, you know, skill. So I want to ask you, you know, how how do you engage the students with that with blue? I know you've given me several examples, but you know, how do you make it in the how do you do it in a way where it just doesn't feel like, oh, I'm just answering another survey, you know, and things of that sort.

Nick Coniglio 24:41

Yeah.

Marnie Stockman 24:44

Oh, well, I was gonna say personalizing it is helpful. Um and there's one cool piece of it that is reflection questions where they get to choose which ones. So there are cards where they get to like which of these do you want to answer? And I think when they have some ownership and agency in what they get to select is the first step of really getting them to want to be able to do this. And then Nick mentioned one of the other pieces. There's very much a uh a Marnie slash Nick sitting on their shoulder mentor bot in there that is saying, like, what about this? What about this? And and it never generates a story for them, it generates a new question to nudge them. Uh, I'm uh every teacher knows this, every mentor knows this. What do you spend most of your time doing if you're one-on-one tutoring a student? It is just asking the next incremental question or three questions in a row that nudge them to then do the thinking for themselves. And so that's what I think is helpful. Nick, Nick has shown me like he getting into his brain on how he built that out is pretty fantastic. So I wanted to give props to him. So, Nick, now you can talk about whatever you wanted, but it is very cool what he has gotten the app to do. Uh, so I wanted to give him that shout out.

Nick Coniglio 26:08

He's kind as always, and probably uh uh embellishes things a little bit. But um I I will say just randomly asking questions, we we have we have introduced something in the platform that is chat with you, chat with your blue profile. So we once we start to uncover all of this information about the user, and again, you go to blue app.ai, we take trust and security like that is the number one priority from our perspective, right? So we have our website talks about this, you know, extensively. Yeah. And we've actually um uh got certified across, I think, 17 states already from our security um uh standpoint. But um we have this notion of add, you know, chat with your blue profile, which is actually you, right? And we give them some cedar questions, you know, right? Tell me, you know, what types of patterns I might demonstrate, or or something to this effect, right? We we have a whole bunch, tell me that I'm a profile on my various strengths with my various weaknesses. So those are cedar questions, and what we find is when people start to use that, right, then they're like, oh my gosh, you know, given what you know about me, right, tell me what types of careers might be best for me. Are there any particular scholarships that might align best with the skills that I bring to keep to the table? You know, and if we haven't collected any information, then we're gonna come back and say, hey, you really need to start filling out your personal operating system, you really need to start filling out the self-reflection. But what I've seen at least is when people start seeing some questions that they can start to ask of themselves in a very protective environment, it's just them and them, right? It's just them, right? They start to get more and more curious and they start to say, okay, how far could I push these boundaries? And you know, we don't have this yet, but it's on our roadmap, right? We want to start, you know, pushing them, right? One of our chapters in the business of you is product management, where we say, okay, it's not about building products, it's about asking the right questions to get to the answer, right? That was our pitch on product management. Well, you're a product as an individual, right? We're talking about the business of you, right? You need to start asking more and more questions about yourself, what your weaknesses are, what your areas for opportunity are. You know, how do I leverage my strengths in this scenario? Um, and we feel like do we have everything built out yet? No, but that was such that's subtitle of our book, right? So that is something that we will lean very heavily into. We've started it with the chat with yourself um feature function, gotten great feedback. And I think what we see is people start getting more and more confident doing the self-discovery on their own, and that's kind of a little bit intoxicating, right? Once you start to feel it, it it just keeps taking a life of its own, and people start asking and asking and asking. And to us, you know, we come from the Ted Lassel world, be curious, not credentialed, asking questions is very important to us.

Readiness Framework And Equity Gap

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 29:11

I think that's something that is fantastic, you know. I know in our previous conversation we had talked about, you know, the the counselor to student ratio. We talked about, you know, advisory periods, letters of recommendation, all of that, you know, college and career readiness. And I think that this is something that is great, that is complementary to what teachers or counselors may be already be doing, but now the students have that individualized, you know, pathway and approach to really building their story, you know, and again, talking about branding too as well, you know, living and building your brand, building your story as you continue to go through um, you know, uh high school, middle school, and so on. So that way when you get into that next step is just a continuation. And I think that's something that's fantastic because there are times where, you know, at in schools, due to those ratios, I mean, sometimes, you know, you not all students are seen. Maybe not all students may get that support, and some students may just feel left out or they don't even know where to start. But just having a wonderful, you know, app that can really get to know you based on the information that you give it and just help you build that confidence and just kind of lead you along the way. And like you mentioned, seeing what scholarships or what things might fall in line based on what uh the feedback that they yeah, who they are and what they're giving. I think that's something that is fantastic and so entirely useful. Uh, and I think that's something that's uh for me, I would definitely put that in any district. If I was a superintendent, I'd be like, I definitely need this for my students because this is where I see it. You know, but I see things in a very different way, and this would be something that would definitely hit the mark of the things that we are missing uh in some of the uh the districts that we meet that we may see, you know. So I think that's great.

Nick Coniglio 31:09

Can I just add just two quick yeah, two quick things on that? Number one, so all those things, so we also have addressed the tactical things. So we have letters of recommendation, we have job trackers, college trackers, uh maybe um another scholarship tracker, scholarship trackers. Yeah, um, but we do also do provide a council review, right? So we do package that up for schools where they don't see any of the sensitive information, but they see the high-level information. Okay. Have they have they uh identified their college SA theme yet? Have they gotten their letters of recommendations? Yeah, and maybe the most interesting thing is we have developed a framework, what we call a readiness framework, right? Where districts can plug in their portrait of a graduate, their their human elements of portrait of a graduate, whether it's civic responsibility or resilience or ownership, you know, every district has a little different, you know, message, but that has never ever been able to be quantitative quantitative in the past, right? It never could be measured, right? So one of our goals as a the superintendents that we talk to are big fans of this, right? Is we can give you a snapshot view of has the student provided evidence of the different non-core subject elements of your portrait of a graduate, which every district has. Um and we're like, you know, the one thing that has always frustrated you is frustrating my wife as a parent, right? She's like, oh, my son's school has this poster that's a portrait of a graduate that says they're gonna leave with these, with you know, ownership, civic responsibility, resilience. How do you measure that? Well, we don't. And why do you put it on your wall, right? So we're we're we're very committed to working with schools to give them a way to measure um, you know, how aligned the students actually are to the portrait of a graduate.

Marnie Stockman 33:01

And I have to butt in with one more thing, because you mentioned the school to the student counselor to student ratio. Um, it's like 372 to one is the is the number and uh yeah, the average. And and what doesn't sit well is you're right, the one-on-one conversation doesn't scale, and families that can afford it are paying, we kid you not, ten thousand dollars for college coaching. And so there's a huge equity gap that is being just widened by the fact that so many students can't afford that. And we really wanted to address that when Nick talks about the app working at scale, when all students can have a little mentor in their pocket, that is way more equitable.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 33:49

I love that. And that's kind of a nice segue into what I was thinking too, as Nick was was mentioning this, and then you just really emphasize that point. You know, I was talking about the counselors and mentioning, you know, not having a mentor. I mean, imagine, you know, for for my student, when I was in the classroom with my students, I I mean, they all come from diverse backgrounds. And so I would also know that many students may have working, they had working parents, or maybe they had one stay-at-home parent. Some both parents were working. So when they get home, there was nobody there. And so for a student like myself, growing up, my parents were working. So I was a latchkey kid. I would just be there like by myself, and I just get like, you know, true story, I would just get the little hot dog weenies and I put them over the gas stove and heat them up. And that was my after school snack, you know, while I'm watching, you know, cartoons and things of that sort. So I really didn't have anybody to talk to, like at least until five o'clock when my parents got out and things of that sort. And but, you know, I think that's something that is important because, you know, for a lot of students, how do they get to know what their values are if they don't have that one-on-one or they may not have a mentor at home, somebody that they can network with, or somebody that they can have a conversation on their kitchen table with. And I think that's something that is so cool that Blue can help do as it is something that is integrated within the s within the the district, you know, where students have access to that. And I think that's something that is fantastic, that can definitely help students grow, tell their story, be able to also like uh my next question was actually about branding, because I think that's something that is very important. That, you know, coming back to you, Marnie, uh, you know, you mentioned in the last episode that if you're not telling your story, somebody else is gonna tell it for you. So can we just uh maybe expand on a little bit about that and and also tying in how blue can help the students really expand on their story?

Marnie Stockman 35:56

So it's interesting because I spend a lot of time on social media in the parent groups of current high schoolers, and so many times the parents come in with high school junior 1550 SATs, uh 4.6 weighted GPA, you know, take into these classes. And I think, okay, I just watched seven parents give those stats about their kids. So in fact, high performing student is not help does not help them stand out in any way. And that is not their identity, right? So I will often ask them, yeah, but but who is your kid? And when I asked the students that today I asked all these students that I met with on the advisory boards, what would someone else say about you? What would a friend say about you? What would a parent say about you? And then they realized, oh yeah, none of my friends say, meet Nick. He's a 44.9 GPA, right? Like that's not how you're gonna introduce a friend. And then they start realizing, oh, I'm more than those skills and the the clubs that I'm in. I'm actually kind. I stay home after school and help raise my younger siblings because both of my parents are working, right? I am I am a helper, I'm a problem solver, I like to fix things. When they start realizing that there's more to them than just the facts on their transcript, then they can tell their story that is meaningful and shows what they care about, which is the brand that they really want to project. I literally the personal statement on the college essay or on the common app wants to just know the real version of who you are. So they don't need some big glorious moment or some traumatic moment that has changed who you are. What they want to know is literally what is important to you and how does that play out in a day-to-day basis. And I was talking to one student today who very clearly said, what is important to me is communicating. And he was able to talk about an example from second grade, from sixth grade, and from ninth grade about where communication shows up as a strength in his life. And I'm confident he will be confident in telling his story and get in to do something meaningful in that work because he already knew that. Now others looked at him like, how the devil did he figure that out? They're excited, like, all right, I'm gonna have to figure out how to get this story about myself. But when students can talk about what their strengths are in a way that is personal to them, imagine how much more powerful that sounds in a job interview or a college essay. When you really know who you are, why that's critically important to you, and how that's gonna play out in everything that you do.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 38:47

Yeah, and I I think that's very important also with what Blue is doing, because from what from everything that you said, just to kind of recap, you know, everything is based on the student input. The the way that you made Blue is to draw all of that information out from the student and but really getting their authentic story that you said, building that up. And I think that I really love that because as you know now with generative AI, you know, with Blue, it's actually building your story, but with generative AI nowadays, it could just manufacture making it up their story. Exactly. He can manufacture you into like anything and sound like you know the the world's greatest student in the world, but that's not really you. And we're talking about how important, you know, authenticity, that genuineness, that story that's gonna help you stand out. Yes, you're that 550 kid, yes, you're that that that's gotten, you know, perfect scores, 4.9 GPA. I don't even know how they get to that now. Before when I graduated, when I graduated it, the highest you could go is 4.0. Now it's like 4.5 for the world six. Yeah, exactly. But again, and like you mentioned, and something very important, it that does not define who they are. And and that's the same thing that I would tell my students, you know, working uh in a school district where, you know, you had low socioeconomic and they would feel bad that, oh my gosh, I didn't get the scores that I needed. I said, the score does not define who you are, because they would base their identity on what I got on my state exam, on what I got at the end of the year, what place I was when I graduated in my class. But it's so important that they look beyond that too, and something like blue can help draw out who they really are, because you mentioned it's so important now in those personal statements to not sound like all the other thousand Chat GPT, you know, Claude created statements that are out there and just to really stand out from the rest. So, man, I really love this. I love the work that both of you are doing. So, Nick, coming back to you, right now are we're still talking that blue is in beta, correct?

Beta Cohorts And Student Scholarship

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 41:05

Or is it already getting ready to get out of beta?

Nick Coniglio 41:08

It's it's probably nearing the well, no, we're probably about a month or two away from it it being kind of the pay-for version. So, yeah, we've we've had it go through uh we're in second early adopter cohort at this point right now. Um, we are looking for another cohort to start uh within the next couple of weeks. Um so for the next month or two, we'll have another cohort because again, we believe that students should, young people should shape this product, and we've gotten great feedback to this point. So much so that um Murray, you want to talk about the scholarship?

Marnie Stockman 41:44

Sure. So we are offering every eight weeks a $500 scholarship for a student that provides meaningful feedback that'll impact Blue. So anybody could ask us to participate in the beta, and then if they provide us feedback, we are like every every eight weeks we're given a scholarship away. Um, so that they really feel like, you know, that there is something they're not just gonna get a better product because of the work, but they could also earn some money from that as well. So um it's interesting, especially the students that think the whole notion of building a uh software is cool. They're like, oh, you know, I I could help design how this game is played. That's kind of fun.

Dr. Alfonso Mendoza 42:25