This unique "Ask Us Anything" episode offers a blend of professional insights and personal revelations as technology leaders from independent schools answer questions about everything from AI literacy and data analysis to favorite mammals and dream barbershop quartets. Listen in for valuable advice on navigating challenges like burnout and technology integration, alongside lighthearted moments that reveal the personalities behind the podcast.

Resources

• South by Southwest EDU (SXSW EDU)
• CES - Consumer Electronics Show
• ATLIS (Association of Technology Leaders in Independent Schools)
• TLIS Certification (ATLIS)
• Educational Collaborators
• NJS - New Jersey Schools Cooperative Technology Group (assumed similar group)
• Flint AI (AI for students in a walled garden)
• Napkin.ai – Turn text into visuals
• EdWeek: Four Developmental Stages of Teaching AI
• SAMR Model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition)
• TPACK (Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge)
• OneRoster (IMS Global Standard)
• The Last of Us (HBO Series)
• Suits (TV Show)
• ER (TV Show)
• CHiPs (TV Show)
• Emergency! (TV Show)
• Magnum, P.I.
• Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
• Six the Musical
• Hamilton the Musical
• Harmony, Incorporated
• Legacy Quartet on YouTube (suggested based on mention)
• Origin of the term "computer crash" (related to early hard drive platters)
• Office Space Printer Scene (YouTube) [NSFW]
• Honey Badger Video (YouTube) [NSFW]

Phil, welcome to Talking Technology with ATLIS,

the show that plugs you into the important topics and trends for

technology leaders all through a unique Independent School lens.

We'll hear stories from technology directors and other

special guests from the Independent School community,

and provide you with focused learning and deep dive topics.

And now please welcome your host. Kristina Lewellen,

Hello everyone, and welcome back to

talking technology with Atlas. I'm Kristina Lewellen, the

President and CEO of the Association of Technology

Leaders in Independent Schools. And

I'm Bill Stites, the Director of Technology at

Montclair Kimberly Academy in Montclair, New Jersey,

and I'm Hiram Cuevas, Director of Information

Systems and Academic Technology at St Christopher school in

Richmond, Virginia.

Hey guys, how's everything today going?

Well? Yeah, that's all good. I am joining you from Austin,

Texas, where I am currently attending South by Southwest

edu. I think I've mentioned before that I try to attend at

least one educational event per year, given that I'm not an

educator, and it really helps me, I really try to focus in on

the topics that are relevant to Atlas membership, and I learn a

ton, and I meet cool people. We get great ideas for our

conference. And so I'm wandering around among a bunch of

educators, feeling a little out of my depth, if I'm honest, but

I have been really enjoying it, and I'm only on day two, so I am

hyped up and ready for this conversation today. This will

be a fun one. I'm excited. Yeah,

I wanted to go down there before I told you, right

before we got on getting down to South by Southwest, the

education track, I think, is something I've had on my bucket

list for quite a while. I

can't wait to tell you about it. I mean,

I'm taking some notes, and I'll save materials for you that I'll

share with you afterwards, because AI is just everywhere.

It permeates every track, every session. But there's also just a

lot of really cool topics that are more education specific,

that maybe don't necessarily cross over into the technology

realm. So if I had no technology affiliation, I would have a

really difficult time figuring out where to go. But because of

our connection with tech, I try to stay in that space. But

there's just so much cool stuff down here. I just I love it.

Now, either of you attended CES, that's the

Consumer Electronic Show in Vegas, which is usually in

January. No So South by Southwest is one that I've

always wanted to go to, but I did manage to go to CES a few

years ago, and it's unreal, because it's all hardware and

different products that are either on the verge of going

live to the public or their prototypes. It's just fantastic.

I can imagine you being on the show

floor with no sunlight for days. Is that kind of how that show

went?

Absolutely. It was fabulous.

It's in Vegas, so it could go in a lot of

different directions. With Hiram there, I'm sure. Yeah, we stayed

Planet Hollywood. There you go. I love it. Well,

today, guys, we have no guest. Well, I guess

we kind of have a guest because we are welcoming back to the

podcast. Our producer, Peter Frank, Hello, Peter. How are

you?

Hey everybody. I'm well, good to be here. I mean,

I'm here all the time, but you know, I'm actually talking this

time. So

once in a while, we take him off mute.

Peter, we've asked to come join us today, because we have been

promoting for a while, and ask us anything episode. And so I

guess Peter, you've been the keeper of the questions. Have we

received some good ones. Are people excited about this idea?

Absolutely, yes. We have several questions here,

from long time listeners, I assume that, yeah, some of them

are techie. Some of them are less techie, but still

interesting. They took the anything of the Ask Me Anything

concept very seriously.

I mean, I can expect nothing less of the

Atlas community, our folks, if we say anything, they're like

anything. All right, well, I'll turn it over to you. Then. Now

you're in charge. All right. Let's start

with something related to work and technology

and why we're here. Dan McGee, who is Tila certified, by the

way, Dan asks, What advice might you have for mid career

technology leaders who still feel challenged in their career,

but maybe looking for new challenges or ways to not become

stagnant? That's one for anybody. I think what

I have found is getting involved both, I'll say,

inside, but also outside of your school, I think really helps,

because speaking as someone who's got a very long tenure at

a school, you get in certain routines. There's certain things

that are consistent from year to year. There's certain things

that change, but you've got almost blinders on as you're

going through things, and it's it's only when I think you get

out. Whether it's attending other conferences. I started

going to NJ meetings, which is a New Jersey based educational

cooperative thing here, and it was public schools and

independent schools and the like, and starting there and

attending those meetings and coming back with information,

because again, you only see what you see when you're at your

school. And that opened up the door to volunteering to helping

to put together the conference again at the state level, then

doing more with NJS, and then doing more with other people

that you meet at these pieces, and then going from there.

Because if you're not getting out of the building, you are

going to become stagnant, because you don't know what else

is out there and is possible. Hiram and I have gotten out

there through educational collaborators and done some

consulting work, if you can get in with that. That's some of the

best PD, that I've done is the consulting work that I've done,

but it also lets you hear from other people and experience

different things that you don't get when you're just stuck in

your your space.

One, I agree completely with everything Bill

said, but this is a position where you have the opportunity

to regularly reinvent yourself, because so much of what we do

changes on a regular basis. I mean, five years ago, who was

even engaging in conversations about AI who is actually

engaging in serious conversations about data,

information and institutional research. Now we're having some

really thoughtful conversations, and it's the kind of challenge

that you have to take on personally to grow. And

hopefully, if you have that growth mindset, it's very

natural. Otherwise, you do run the risk of becoming stagnant in

your environment, because it is pretty routine. And every year

the academic calendar is start of school, Christmas break, re

enrollment season, etc, and it kind of rinse and repeat. And so

I would say, make sure you get out like Bill mentioned, but

reinvent yourself with a new skill set, and that T list is

definitely a way to go.

I'll just add that it's hard sometimes

when you're at that midpoint in your career to see where to go

next. Either you have too many options or you feel fairly

limited by your options, but the trajectory is sometimes messy,

like it doesn't always go in a straight line from A to B, and I

think that most folks look back on their careers and say, Well,

it all kind of made sense how I got here, but it sure didn't

feel like that in the moment. So wherever you are in the moment,

just know that this growth mindset definitely will take you

to that next place, and there are different ways to get there.

Just because Bill got there, or I got there or Hiram got there

in a certain way doesn't mean that that's what's going to work

for the person coming up behind us. So I think that there's a

lot of ways and a lot of paths to walk to get to where you want

to

be. Indeed, that's great advice. We got serious

real fast. That's good, because some of these questions are

nonsense, but that's okay. That's gonna be fun. Speaking of

silly, Hiram, we've got a question here for you, the

person asking wish to remain anonymous, okay, oh, that's not

good, but I'll tell you, when we get together in Atlanta at the

conference, you can pull me aside. We'll have a beverage,

and I'll tell you, okay, so Hiram, you are running a 5k

which three people would you like to run the 5k with dead or

alive, real or fictional? This

actually a pretty easy question. One would be

Louis Zamperini from the movie unforgiven. He was an Olympic

medalist in the 5k Billy Mills running brave, because when I

used to wear a flat top in college, a lot of people thought

I looked like Billy Mills. So that'd be pretty cool to run,

run with him, and then Sebastian co would be my third. Sebastian

CO was the British 1500 meter Olympic champion at 815 100

meters.

So you're stacking your team like you got

competitive. You didn't pick like people that you love. You

didn't pick me. And Bill, no,

I'm not gonna win. Trust me, I'm not gonna win this

one.

This is Who would I want to run a 5k with, and

this is going to be a very pedestrian jog,

or Yog, all right,

all right, here's the problem. I'm

also 60 pounds heavier than I used to be in

college, so I was a buck 25 back in the day. All

those people are too. You'd be fine. All right,

let's talk about burnout. This is a question from shonder

shondur Simon, how do you deal with burnout? How do you avoid

it, recognize it, recover from it. All aspects

we talk a lot about burnout and mental

health, more than we ever have, and I think that there's some

benefit in that, because at least we're talking about it and

being vulnerable about it, and bringing our full picture to

whether it's the workplace or our volunteer roles, but it's.

Are because things have gotten more layered and complicated.

Things are moving faster than they ever have. The best piece

of advice I got not too long ago from my executive coach is to

vacation in the small moments, meaning I can't always turn

everything off and go on a two week vacation. Last year, I

famously tried to go up to my parents lake house, and it was

failcation 2024 that lasted for about three days, and then I was

working. And I don't take pride in that, by the way, I say it

out loud, because it's kind of embarrassing that I couldn't

even manage to stay unplugged for a couple of weeks. So

instead, this year, I'm giving myself some grace, and part of

how I'm mitigating burnout is to find vacation in small moments.

I will just say, without getting too overly sentimental, that

works for me, because mentally, I believe a marriage is built in

the small moments, not in the grand gestures. My husband and I

tend to like overlook things like our anniversary or

birthdays. We don't do big showy things, but we really try to

work on our relationship and our connection in these very, very

small moments that we have amidst a really busy life. So to

me, the idea of vacationing in small moments. So I also think

fighting the burnout in small moments might be the way we all

have to do it. Like, who has time to, like, stop in the

middle of a busy day and do some of these techniques, meditate or

go to a yoga class every five minutes, like, whatever those

traditional measures are, get a massage or go on vacation. I

mean, even getting ready for vacation can be really

stressful. Coming back from vacation can be really

stressful. So I think just finding smaller definitions of

peace or comfort or things that refill your cup, I

mean, I think to that end when you can find the

time to truly unplug. Because I think that's the hardest thing

being in this type of position in a school to do, because the

only time where I know that I get that time, and Hiram

mentioned it earlier, is during our winter breaks, because

that's the only time where the school is actually shut down.

When you have those opportunities to truly unplug

because no one's working, that's really important to prioritize

those so that's something I always do on an annual basis,

because it allows me to really not open the laptop, not open

email, because I know there's no one else that's really sending

me anything during those times. But Kristina, to your point

about finding those smaller moments, or those individual

times where you can step away, and if you can do that, I'm

literally just getting back from a long weekend up in Vermont,

getting out and getting that time, and I think that's one of

the things, because of my schedule here, I can actually

afford to do that. But the one biggest thing, I would say with

avoiding burnout is recognizing that it's something that we can

now talk about a little bit more openly than we might have

before, and then reaching out and asking for help, whether

that's amongst the people at your school, or whether it's out

to the community as a whole. I think where when I found myself

in that burnout position is where I was frustrated with

something I didn't have answers for. And I think once you've

expanded out your circle, you can mitigate that burnout a lot

easier, because you can share about that and get answers, and

maybe not get answers, but just that, this is a problem that

we're all dealing with, and we're still dealing with it. And

if I'm feeling particularly weighed down by it, maybe I

shouldn't, because it's something that everyone is

trying to figure out as well, and it's not just me.

I've had to retrain myself, because I think

there are times where you feel in our roles, you just got to

keep pushing. There's always something to do. Your

notifications are going off, and you're seeing the detriment that

it's done to our youth, but it's been doing it to our generation

for quite some time now. Even pre smartphone, it's really easy

to get caught up on that treadmill and not have an escape

route. So it has to be very intentional to retrain yourself

to say, You know what? We're going to turn this off. We're

not going to worry about it. I'm going to spend some quality time

with family, friends, the outdoors, whatever it is that's

cathartic to you, such that you can come back to the workforce

rejuvenated. Because if you come back and you're exhausted,

nobody's really winning, and all you're doing is jumping one step

up and then falling back too, because your overall wellness is

in the hopper. I've had to be really cognizant of it, and it

reminded me, back when I was competing, we would do a lot of

visualization prior to races, and it's actually a. Very good

technique to use to kind of anticipate what you're going to

go through during a particular event, and you can easily

connect that to the workplace. So by the same token, it's all

right now I've got to visualize what it's like to relax and

Bill. I don't know if Brooke does this to you, but when I

have nothing to do. My wife looks at me. She goes, You don't

know how to relax anymore. And I'm like, I'm trying. I'm trying

really, really hard, especially the first few days of a

vacation. You're kind of like, I just don't know what to do. And

this happened in Arizona. We were sitting out by the pool.

She's like, it's okay to relax. It's okay to relax. I was like,

All right, I got this. It's all good.

I don't

have that problem. Surprise, surprise. Now it's

like, there are times where, you know, it's just like, on the

weekends in particular, Brooke will be grading papers. She'll

be doing different things. I will have gone to the gym, run a

couple hands, and then I'm taking a nap. Both my parents

were teachers. My father would come home at the end of the day,

almost every day, and go upstairs and take a nap at the

end of the day. And I would always look at them. I'm like,

What are you doing? Like, I mean, seriously, like, how tough

can it be? Like, what are you doing? And I remember teaching

the first year or two I had my teaching job, I would come home

and I would pass out. I would take that nap. I remember

talking to my father, and I'm like, I get it. So it's

definitely one of those things, where, as Christina said, You

got to find the time in the moments. Yeah,

I'm with you there, Bill, I think, like Christina

said, it's so personal. It is something that you need to

figure out for yourself, but it helps to talk to others and hear

how they do it. And maybe you find an idea that works for you,

but it is such a personal thing put on with Bill, if I need a

nap, I can take a nap. I app. We thank you Chandra for that

question. That's a good question. We got heavy there.

That's really good. Lot of substance. We'll ruin that for a

second here, and we'll go off to another one of the sillier

questions here in our Ask Me Anything episode. So this is for

Bill, but others could chime in if you were living in the world

of The Last of Us television adaptation for how many episodes

would you actually survive? Well,

I'm only going to be worth my medal if I say I

think I can make it to the end. I think I could get to the fort

at the end. I've got to believe that the research that I've done

up into this point has led me to that. However, I think it's

eight episodes. There's one in the sixth where I think I might

not make it, which is where zombies are literally coming up

from the underground and going out. And it's a total free for

all. So if I was going to bite it in any one place, it would be

there, probably due to somebody else causing my untimely demise.

And I'd probably blame Hiram running past me, because he'd be

running faster, and he would just simply push me into the

pile and keep running straight ahead. I'd never do that. I'm

slow man. You'd be pushing me out of my way, you old man, and

you'd re push me, and I'd be in the pile, then I'd be gone.

You'd be cursing hiram's name. I would be

goodness. So the last of us, just to help our listeners out,

that's a TV show based on a video game, right? Yep, and

it's funny, because just to prove how committed we

are in the state's household, my young son Craig, has a tattoo of

part of The Last of Us on his shoulder. It's his only tattoo.

It is his favorite show, and he's got a firefly tattooed on

his shoulder because he was so enamored with all that.

Well done, Craig, I haven't seen that yet. Yeah, it

was hard to say no, because Dad's got two. Sean has

one, and now Craig has one. So yeah. So Brooke is the clean

canvas she is. She talks about it, but just can't bring herself

to do it. She hates needles.

A TV show you would like to live in, Hiram and

Christina. Is there a TV show that you I would love to live in

that show? Whether you survive or not, well you probably will.

Suits Excellent.

That was another path in my life. So I

feel like I love suits, I love the puzzle, and I feel like the

outfits and the heels are fabulous, and I feel like I

could be a pretty killer lawyer.

There you go. Hiram. Er, wow. Er, why? Er, I always

wanted

to be a doctor.

You're both wrong. It's Lifestyles of the Rich and

fast.

Wow, because that's going to

put me at a certain level. Now, you got to be at a

certain level to be on that show, and that just puts you at

that level.

All right, let me take the clock back a little

bit. Chips. Ooh, wow. Chips, yep. All right,

the younger audience is not gonna know any

of these things. No,

there's so many links going in the show notes at

this point.

Do you think that young girls listen to this?

I'm pretty sure everyone who listens knows what chips is.

Guys. Sorry, you think?

Yes, I don't know. How about Louis too low? You think

Louis too low knows what chips is. I bet

he does. Chips

from the late 70s, early 80s. Chips, yes. Why would

they know what this is?

Because they were raised by a bunch of dudes.

Louis too low, please drop a comment. I'm betting money right

now. Do not let me down, sir, we're reaching out. We'll find

out. Somebody text him right now.

Louis probably knows.

I'll be Eric Estrada and Bill could be Larry

Wilcox.

I'm gonna get AI on that right now, generating that

video. Or Bill and

I could be the firefighters in emergency.

Wow. Kristina could be Dixie. Oh,

my god, stop next question, please. Next question.

I'll be Magnum PI great. There you go. Back to

technology. This is talking technology with

Atlas, not today. It's not Oh, my Lord.

We're gonna

bring it back for our listeners that are about to

get off the treadmill or whatever they're doing. I'll ask

this specific question. Then I'll introduce some of these

other notes that our listener, Lizzie has provided for us. So

the question is about supporting developmentally appropriate AI

literacy skills for those student groups who are too young

to actually use the AI. So for example, Lizzie is mentioning,

it seems like there's a void of conversation around the K

through eight setting, where, obviously these students may be

too young for most user agreements to use the technology

at all. But shouldn't we still be developing AI literacy in

these age groups, even if they can't use it yet. So thoughts

about that this, ask me anything episode might turn into a ideas

for future episodes, because that might be something we could

talk about for an entire hour

there. Well, there are plenty of applications in

which it's that walled garden for the younger groups. So there

is availability. And one that comes to mind is Flint AI. You

can actually create these safe havens, essentially for your

students, and the output can be based on grade level as well. So

you actually are catering the prompt to what you want your

outcome to be for a specific group of students, which also

then lends itself to differentiation as well. You can

actually see what kind of work your students are doing in terms

of developing their own tutorials. There are some tools

out there that enable you the capacity to use them in a safe

way and appropriate way. I

would go to first wanting to define what we're

talking about when we're talking about AI usage, because it's

been around in various forms for quite a while. Are we talking

about it in the 2024, 2025, school year iteration of the

conversations around AI? Are we talking about it in the AI

pieces that are built into some of the tools that we're using?

So wanting to understand where that is. But to Hiram, was point

about finding those walled gardens, finding those areas

that I think are safe for use at those younger years. The other

thing that you mentioned Hiram, that I would want to build on is

you talked about what the prompt is, and a lot of the ways in

which I talk about how you want to think about technology

integration, for me, centers around the research cycle,

because that can go across multiple areas, English, foreign

language. It can go anywhere, you know, when you're talking

about research, and when it comes to research, the prompt or

the question, what is it that I'm asking? I think if you can

think about developing those skills, I think that is part of

what can lead into the later uses of AI. I forget who said

it. It may have been on the podcast we were talking about

it, or something I had heard elsewhere in this age, where you

can get your answers out of AI, it's about how meaningful Your

questions are, that you can pose that in a lot of ways

demonstrate your understanding and your knowledge of a

particular area, if you could Ask that deeper level of

question. And I think if we can work with our youngest students,

and our students of all ages but our youngest students, to

develop that mindset, that research mindset, in that area,

where and when appropriate, I think that's where I would

focus. Because again, put my third grade school teacher at on

we would be working in the analog before we move to the

digital that, I think is the same corollary I'd make between,

you know, jumping into a full AI based prompt engineering type

thing. You need to know how to ask a good question first. And

let's start there.

What's interesting there is our librarians

typically do a fantastic job peer here. Um. Helping students

develop those questions, because we're not asking our kids to go

to Google to do searches when it comes to research, we're asking

to use vetted tools, vetted database systems that are

present within our libraries. And they have been doing this

for years, and it's built a wonderful foundation, and it's

actually a natural extension to using AI in the classroom. It's

something that I have held our librarians in high esteem for

the work that they have been doing over the years, because

our kids talk about the validity of the information that they're

getting, the veracity of the information that they're

acquiring online, and that's because of the work that all of

our librarians have been doing over the years to improve their

research skills. So I think 100% you're nailing it right on the

head with timing, with your research cycles. Yeah, Bill,

I'm pretty sure that was Richard gullata

That was pointing out on the podcast the importance of asking

questions. So I think that's where that came from. And I'll

just say that what I've been seeing Lizzie as I've been

traveling around, is that the scaffolding we're talking about

is important that where we can't necessarily hook a third grader

up with Chat GPT, that's not appropriate, but what we can

hook a third grader up with is understanding how to be a

discerning consumer of the information that they get from

these various sources. You have to be a questioner, and you have

to make sure that you know how these platforms are working. And

so there is an opportunity for us down the path of digital

citizenship that we can maybe ramp that up a little bit to

prepare kids, once they are eligible, to use more public

facing AI bots and things like that, generative AI.

I'll also

mention, Lizzie included a link to an article

that she liked from Ed week.org about four developmental stages

for teaching AI, age appropriate use of AI. So we will include

that in the show notes. All right, we have a question that

is both relevant and fun, and it's for Christina. There's been

plenty for the guys. We'll give Christina a question here. So as

someone who joined an organization full of tech folks

and educators who like their acronyms and jargon, it says

like but it's love, isn't it? They love their acronyms and

jargon. Of all these acronyms and jargon, Kristina, which do

you find the most nonsensical or notable, or which acronyms and

jargon to really stand out to you? Gosh, that's

a really good question. I can't even name

them, but I think it's educator stuff that still baffles me,

like the framework, like T pack. Yes, T pack, that's

fun. It's fun to say T pack.

There's certain like pedagogical

approaches to how to deliver something that still baffles me,

because I definitely have not done a deep dive in that space,

but for the most part, the tech stuff I kind of can keep up

with. I thought I was going to be lost in the API conversation

or the one roster conversation, but I can generally find a way

to connect that to, like, normal, you know, I love a good

metaphor. I love a good analogy. So generally speaking, I can

keep up, but I think that the teaching stuff still kind of

baffles me a little bit. Samer, yeah. Samer, I mean, what is

SAMR like now that I've said that word out loud, I'm sure

that my phone is going to deliver me some Sam or

materials, but, like, I still don't even know what that

is, a good RACI chart. You know Christine is

like, I'm just shaking my head. I have no idea what these people

are talking about.

What are acronyms that we've lost over the years?

Like, are there acronyms that, man, no one. We don't use that

anymore because the technology's gotten none

that I can use on the podcast I know right,

probably something to do with like wires

or switches or servers on prem type stuff. There's got to be

something in there that we don't use quite as often, maybe, well,

they're terms that we don't use very often, like

floppy floppy disk.

Don't say that ever again on this. No. But

you know what

the funny thing is, is some people, I remember

seeing this or hitting this somewhere, is that in some of

the Microsoft products that the two of you, Kristina and Peter,

love so much, the save icon is still a disc, right? And like,

people like, what is that? Why is what is that?

They don't know what that is. Kids don't

know what that is. They

know what means save, but they don't know why.

Now, Kristina, do you know the origin of the

phrase my computer crashed? No. So the old computers had these

massive platters for hard drives, and when that armature

fell, it made this horrendous sound. Hence the crash. Oh

my gosh. If that were to happen to me while

I was working on a computer, I would probably be traumatized,

like I would be just waiting for that noise. Do you still hear it

in the back of your head? Hiram,

well, I've never had a platter that large that

even predates me my first computer. Was a Commodore 64

which had a five and a quarter inch drive.

And people are asked, What does that mean in

terms of like the Commodore, right? Well, no, the five and a

half the size of the discs, that's how you talked about

them, right?

Yeah, and it truly was floppy. It bent, right? I've

been around

those platters. My father worked at General

Electric, and he was in Computer Services, and I remember as a

kid walking through kid walking through those rooms, and I could

imagine one crashing. That's my favorite thing I've ever learned

on this podcast. I think ever that's why we say computers

crash. I had no idea, Bill, did you know that? I did not. Well

done. Hiram. Point to Hiram.

Hiram wins. He wins the show. Very well

done, sir. You won the 5k and now you've won the show. It's

all fine.

Now, Bill, have you ever notched the other side

of a floppy disk? Oh,

yeah. Oh, 100% I was gonna say that when you were

mentioning that, I can remember notching them out. Yeah?

Remember putting tape on them so you could go back over it.

I've done that too. So you went

from 360k to 720k and you're like, Oh, this is

awesome.

Oh yeah, yep. All right,

so we'll bring it back to Atlas here. This is for

all three of you. What is your favorite Atlas, annual

conference tradition, steak. We're celebrating our 10th

anniversary this year of the annual conference. What's your

favorite annual tradition that you can speak freely about on

this public listening podcast, steak with Bill.

Nice. Do you guys always go for steaks? Why

was I never invited for steaks? Who's paying for these steaks?

They are gluten free. Oh, I'm aware. I'm very aware. I get a

little sentimental about the pillar awards because I really

just think it's very special that our members are being

recognized for a lifetime of work and contributions. I love

that we're expanding that this year to include the Atlas Aspire

award so that we can recognize even more people in our space

who are doing great work. I also find it really fun to just

wander around during the receptions. I think that when I

attend other industry events, the networking receptions are

always a little meh, and people leave no I mean, at Atlas, do

you know that Kelsea last year had to put closing time on a

speaker and walk through the vendor Hall to basically say,

could you guys go get dinner somewhere? Could you all leave?

No one leaves. And that also, it's kind of silly, and it's not

really a tradition, but it really touches me that we create

the kind of community that no one is rushing out the door.

It's not like they show up and do a loop and then leave. That's

pretty satisfying. I

would agree 100% this even honestly, predates

Atlas, and I'll just say Inman, because wherever Alex Inman ends

up, you're definitely in for a good time, and probably a show.

If you've never seen in men do the worm you haven't been to a

Atlas event. But for me, one of the things that I always try to

do is find time outside of the sessions to sit down. You know,

I will be up and out late downstairs, in like the lobbies,

where you can sit down and talk to people all hours of the

evening, you know, and have those pieces. And Kristina, I

think it speaks to what you said, is that when we're

together, we're together, you don't see people going out. I

mean, people are going out, don't get me wrong, but I mean,

like going out on their own and separating from the group, if

you're going out, you're going out in a pack, if it's a small

pack, or if it's a large pack, you're always cramming people

into a car that might be too small and going out for food, or

getting together at the end of the night, or going out to one

of the vendor receptions or the Atlas reception, and really

having those times. If

I could just say one quick thing about that,

one of the things that I want to just make known, if you're

fairly new to the Atlas community or this is not your

experience, like, if you haven't really found your crowd, one of

the things that my staff will often do if you let us know why

you're there, like, Why did you come to Atlas? Why did you pay

the money and take off a school and deal with the full inbox? If

you come tell my team why you are there. We will connect you

with people who can help you, and we will introduce you to

people, especially Kelsea Watson man. She is crazy like this. If

she knows what your vibe is, she will introduce you to 10 more

people just like you. And so if you tend to be a little

introverted, or if a bigger conference like this kind of

gets a little intimidating, at least. Just come find one of my

teammates, and we'll connect you with people. So if you don't

have your get a steak crowd, we will help you find your go get a

steak crowd.

Kristina, were you present when we used to have the

different dinners, and they were like 10 different restaurants

that a bunch of us

would all go? Do, yeah, dine arounds.

That was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed that back

when we were doing that, met some really neat people that are

doing that. Hey,

maybe we'll have to think about bringing

back the diner rounds. That's a little easier to do in some of

the smaller, walkable cities, and we have quite a few of those

on tap. So if you guys want dine arounds back, we can definitely

look into that. We can do that again.

Nice. All kinds of stuff happened on this podcast

episode here. This is great. We're getting stuff done. All

right.

You can't say that without laughing. You cannot say

that without laughing.

Fine. We're getting something done.

The zombie VR was great last year. Oh,

my god, is that going to become a tradition,

though?

Well, there better be one in Atlanta. That's all I

know. I don't know there's

live band karaoke in Atlanta. I can tell you that

I've done that. That could be a fun tradition for everybody.

I'm not surprised that you know that

Peter Frank is a karaoke guy.

There's no way I'm singing. All right, we'll see.

So this question comes from Tracey, as we are currently in a

time where learning power, bi or Tableau is essential. Do you

believe uploading data files into AI can produce accurate

analytical results in moments for schools to make data driven

decisions, compared to hours of building dashboards

to Slippery slope. Yes,

I'll say this quick in situations where

my data is anonymized, I have tried to use generative AI to

give me some analysis, and it's hit or miss. Honestly, I feel

like it just depends on what you're doing, and I think it's

better with words, with open ended qualitative stuff, but

that's just me. I know it can do this stuff, and I've had some

success, but sometimes when you put in hard quantitative data,

it doesn't always necessarily jump you to the right

conclusion. Sometimes it sort of hops around a little bit in a

very annoying, AI kind of way. So maybe I'm wrong, but I'll

just say that we're still in the adolescent phase of the power of

these tools. I bet they'll get better, but I think that it's

hit or miss. What do you guys think?

I definitely think the anonymized piece of dumping

data in is really important, or you need to know what the

privacy standards are around the tool that you're using. Now I

will say that Hudson Harper, when I was working on The CIRIS

Guide with him, when we got together on that a couple years

ago, I saw him doing some really interesting stuff, with prompts,

with data, connecting on the back side of these things and

developing out a lot of different measures, a lot of

different tools for analyzing and visualizing the data, which

I thought was interesting. Again, like with anything, you

continually have to iterate on what you're asking it to get the

most out of it. And I think when you talk about how you're using

AI with students, one of those areas is using it as a thought

partner or something to help you develop ideas around trends that

you might have missed. That's where I might use it. I might

still want to get in and really look at the data, the way in

which I know the data, and do those final pieces with that but

from that thought partnership role, I think it could be a

helpful piece in the early stages of that work,

I would say we

have yet To see some mainstream AI tools that

are doing dashboarding in the sense that I think we would like

to see dashboarding. I think they're probably coming, or they

may be developed already at the corporate level, and are being

used internal, because they have that walled garden. We do need

to be cognizant of that, being able to anonymize the

information that's in there. I'd love to pose this question to

Vinnie Rodney, because they've got their AI tool built for

Kincaid and to see if they're actually trying to develop that.

But I think if we're looking at a large language model, it's not

really designed for visualization, but it could

develop the code, perhaps for like a tableau, or for Looker

Studio. You can create the coding in there as well. My son

just sent me a couple days ago, and I'd be curious what you all

think the next few days. Napkin.ai, and essentially, it

takes your text and it converts it into all these types of

graphics that are visualizations.

I use it all the time. I love it. You do use

it,

okay? It's fabulous. I was stunned by what

it could do.

The graphics are somewhat limited right now,

like the output, it has a vibe almost like, you know, when

you're using, like PowerPoint or something, and you insert, you

know, there's only so many of them, and you know, they came

from PowerPoint, like they all kind of look alike. So.

Napkin.ai. Is similar right now. It only has a dozen or so

graphic kind of approaches, but yeah, you highlight your text

and you say, insert a graphic, and it creates a graphic based

on what that text is. It is cool. It's one of my favorite

tools to play with right now.

To get back to Tracey's question, does she

think we need to spend more time learning Tableau, and I do think

learning Tableau, or Looker studio, it's important to have

that foundation in order for you to develop a prompt that's

appropriate for the AI, to generate the type of dashboard

that you're looking for. It's what we were talking about

earlier in terms of prompt engineering and developing the

right questions. If you don't know the right questions, or if

you don't have a foundation in some of the statistics, I think

it's going to be really difficult to develop some of the

dashboarding that starts to get more complex with multiple

tables and multiple data sets. All

right? We got to start bringing this home. We got

a lot of questions here. We got to start going rapid fire here,

a little bit, because there's some really good questions that

we want to get to, and I know that all of our listeners are

dying to know the answers to some of these questions. So

first of all, Kristina, we'll let you pick between two.

Someone here believes you sing in quartets or something. I

don't know anything about that, but someone asks a liar. You can

answer this question or both, but the first question is, who

makes up your dream quartet? If you were to sing in a quartet

with anybody who would fill out that quartet, and or if you were

stranded on a desert island with one character from a musical,

who would it be? Man,

those are both really good. I do sing in a

barber shop quartet with my 19 year old daughter i They are my

dream quartet. I'm having so much fun with them. We sing with

another mother daughter duo. We are called Legacy quartet, and

we have some YouTube videos starting to leak out there, and

we have a really great time. So I think that in a lot of ways,

singing with my kid is really kind of a dream come true. She's

a third generation barber shopper, because my dad did this

too. As far as being stuck on a musical Island, I sort of feel

like maybe one of the queens from six kind of thing. That's a

great musical. And those women are they rock and roll. So I

feel like that could be cool. I also think that it would be neat

to be on an island with Lafayette from Hamilton, because

that's a cool character. Too.

Nice. All

right, rapid fire. If you could office space, any

piece of technology. So if you don't know the movie, office

space, there is a very notable scene in the film where everyone

is so upset with their copier that they take it out back and

in slow motion, just beat it until it's unusable with a

baseball bat. So if you could office space any piece of

technology, what would it be? Bill

switch? No one knows what it is, but it was the

bane of my existence. For years. There was a saying out there,

you can't go wrong if you buy you can go wrong if you buy it.

It was horrible

bill. We're gonna get sued.

Wow, we'll bleep it out.

No, horrible, I don't care come after me because

they couldn't make it work.

So they agree, yes,

we're gonna have to bleep that out, man.

Unbelievable, unbelievable. Didn't even have

to think twice about that.

Hire him anything. I've been pretty satisfied with

most of my equipment.

Then you're not a real tech hot stop. You're fine

turn in your tech card because you've lost. I'm

pretty pleased. I know how to make things work. Oh,

stop,

stop, stop. I

was gonna say, right, but you've never been

challenged by a piece of equipment. Hiram is what you're

saying. I see okay, that's

really funny. Oh, my God. Seriously. I mean,

you know who can't handle the blue screen of death.

Come on.

I think that mine might be a PC, computer,

Mac all the way baby like the minute I got rid of all that

virus nonsense, I was so happy.

Hiram drives around in a truck that has no heat. So

it's not that he has no problems with it. He just refuses to fix

the problems when he has them. So please don't everyone think

that Hiram is like, you know, at this different level of like,

tech stardom. No, no, no. He just ignores the problem. He

bundles up, he wears, like, three pairs of wool socks when

he gets in this truck. I drove in the truck once I came out

chattering Bill,

who fixed your Honda stop? I

All right, we'll bring down the last question

here for everybody. We'll give you a moment to think, but then

you gotta rattle it off, excluding humans and your pets,

what is your favorite mammal and why dolphin? But why do. They

are extremely intelligent, and when we swam

with the dolphins in Florida, it's just the most surreal

experience one can have with an organism that large in a body of

water. I'm

not just saying that. To say it, I would agree

with Hiram and mine was not from swimming with them. There was

one time down the Jersey Shore, mid September weekend, beautiful

weekend, I was surfing. I got up on a wave, and I looked in the

wave as I was riding the wave, and there was a dolphin in the

wave going with me as I was surfing the wave. So it wasn't

like I just saw them out, kind of going around. This dolphin

was in the wave with me as I was surfing, and I was screaming my

head off because it was the coolest thing I think I'd ever

experienced on a surfboard. It was fabulous. Top 10 memory.

That's excellent. I love that. I

feel like after that very sweet and

sentimental answer from the gents, I'm gonna just have to

buck this trend and go with the honey badger. And if you're not

familiar with the honey badger, go look up the YouTube video,

because most days, especially when I'm recording this podcast,

I feel like the honey badger, or at least the person who narrates

the honey badger video, I sometimes feel should be like a

narrator of my life. So whoever does that, if you're looking for

side gigs, I need you to come narrate my life. For me, I'm

going Honey Badger all the way

nice. That's really good. No one asked me when this

asked me anything, but I'll offer a sloth, because when a

sloth wants to take a nap. It just takes a nap, and that's

what I'm like too. So with or with you, Peter. So with that,

Kristina, I think we've exhausted our questions here.

Thank you, Peter for being the host today.

I really appreciate it. Now you, I think, understand if you need

a nap right now, my friend, it's how I feel most days when we are

trying to wrangle these cats, but as always, gentlemen, I

laughed hard. I had a great time, and this was a lot of fun,

so we'll have to do it again sometime soon.

Yeah, absolutely. See you in Atlanta. Take it easy,

Bill.

Just don't get upset about

okay, I'll calm down now. My blood pressure has

dropped.

Okay. Thank God see you soon.

See ya and hears my voice. This has been talking

technology with Atlas, produced by the Association of Technology

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