TRANSCRIPT - 147 - Optimising Real Estate to Build Community with Jeremy Pollack

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Melissa: Our workplaces are really constructed of three main pillars. We've got people, we've got place, and we've got technology. People is the people that work for us. It's all of the things that they need to be able to do their job. Place is the container that 

enables people to come together. It's our workplace.

It's all of the things that physically exist within that [00:01:00] environment. Now, people in place are really our organization's two greatest costs. But they are also our two greatest assets 

and the extent of technology that we have in our organizations is really what is then determining their optimization.

Now, as many businesses are really struggling with the question of how much space do I need and how do I get my people back to the office? Balanced out with the equation of. Looking at sharing desks and then capacity planning, what we are seeing is a real tug of war between people and place. But there is a solution that technology can provide, 

and it's one that can go far beyond the immediate problem.

Today's guest is Jeremy Polak, co founder of Calvin, a workplace operating system designed to solve people and real estate challenges in the modern workplace. Jeremy has spent 20 years in the workplace industry, consulting and designing workplace technology. Prior to founding Calvin, Jeremy also co founded Pompt, a technology services provider.

I [00:02:00] was really looking forward to recording this episode with Jeremy, and he's a final addition to this season of the podcast. His approach to managing workplace real estate is a unique perspective that actually looks beyond booking desks and meeting rooms to how we can bring together previously siloed data to build community in our workplaces.

In this episode, Jeremy and I discussed the challenges organizations are facing with getting people back to the office, property costs, and the fluctuating attendance in our workplaces, how technology can leverage data to facilitate more intentional purposeful gathering in our workplaces, both through attendance and engagement in events and activities, the hyper personalization that we are experiencing in our lives and where the opportunity is for our workplaces to follow suit.

What the future work may look like as tech continues to evolve and how this will then need to be adopted into our organizations 

plus the ROI that well executed tech solutions can have in supporting [00:03:00] organizations to optimize their real estate and enhance the engagement and performance of their people. 

If you're considering how to maximise your real estate solutions and encourage greater attendance in your workplace, this episode provides some great examples of how you can successfully build community 

in your workplace.

Jeremy: Thanks. 

Melissa: Jeremy, you've been in the industry for quite some time now across a range of disciplines, all to do with technology. One of the greatest challenges that I think I'm seeing with clients at the moment is this real struggle to understand this balance of.

Property with how much space they need, how to get people back in the office. Then if they are incorporating desk sharing, they're worried about capacity issues, but then they're also worried about not getting people back in the office because they want people to collaborate. What are you observing out there and how are you seeing that technology could be a potential solution to these problems?

Jeremy: I often talk about this being the [00:04:00] industrial revolution of our century. And it's going to take a long time to play out. And what makes it even harder is there's no one size fits all. So when I look at the clients that we deal with there Often different, uh, industries, different kind of stages of their maturity cycles, the, you know, where their business is at, uh, geographies, , there's there's so many varying factors to this that it's not like the old days where you could just take the, what someone else was doing and, and use that within your business.

So that's the really hard part. And, and we actually see that within larger businesses. Where the teams are different, the, you know, the geographies are different. So, you know, post pandemic, a lot of organizations were saying, this is our policy or this is our mandate or whatever. Often that number one, they're not nice words.

But number two, it's unrealistic that one thing will necessarily work for everybody within the organization. and I would say the more sophisticated organizations, the ones that have kind of iterated and kind of put a lot of time and effort and [00:05:00] research into, into how they work being really intentional and being able to explain what they're doing and why and And that's in both attendance when they expect and when people come into the office.

And that is then translated into how they run their real estate. It's, it's almost impossible to come up with the real estate strategy without knowing what people are doing, what we expect them to do and how we want to work.

Melissa: Yeah, I totally agree with that because sometimes you start with working with clients and they're, they go, we want to create a strategy, we need to know how much space we need, we need to know how much space we need, but it's actually understanding those patterns of behavior about attendance, why people are coming in, what they need to do when they're there, how they're coming together, all of those pieces are really critical to actually understanding what that, then that property strategy needs to look like. 

Jeremy: Yeah. And how much flexibility you need in it, which translates to, you know, how much space. And then again, there's a level of [00:06:00] sophistication here, but the models of how you operate your space that's where, you know, we're really getting into the nitty gritty now with clients going, okay, we've decided we're going to have this much space because we've come up with a strategy, but how's it actually going to operate?

And likely that's going to be different on different days. And different teams are going to have their own requirements. Do they require assigned space? Do they need to sit together? If they're sharing, how does, how's it, how's it going to work? And even what are the teams and the makeup of the organization?

Because, you know, Lots of people work in cross functional groups. And different, you know, they work as part of projects. So there's again, there's just no one size fits all.

Melissa: Yeah, it is a really complex problem, and I think that's really interesting what you just said there about it. How do we then actually operate the space? Because, yes, you create a space and you have an intention about how it's going to function. And we can introduce, you know, workplace management software, like desk booking systems [00:07:00] and those sorts of things, but they really require a human element.

Like that requires a behavioral change for people to actually book things, utilize them. And then you're worried about, you know, peaks and troughs and capacity issues throughout the week. there's, so many moving parts. You and your co founder Dan have created a platform called Calvin. Can you tell us a little bit about how that has aimed to try and solve some of these problems for organizations?

The 

Jeremy: a bit of irony here, which is, I think it's by and large, most organizations are shifting towards sharing desks, space, et cetera. And that's just a result of kind of The economy side of things, but also just, you know, hybrid and how people are working. Irony is that as companies shift to sharing and desk booking, most employees don't actually want to book a desk and don't wake up in the morning wanting, wanting, wanting to book a desk.

It's really hard, right? Like a lot of, you hear these organizations, people are saying, I'd be really good if we could still have an assigned desk. But [00:08:00] I'm like, but if you come in. Infrequently, and you don't know who's coming in. It just doesn't it doesn't make sense. So, what we did with Calvin right at the beginning there, there were lots of ways to book desks before the pandemic.

And there's lots of software to manage space and allocate space. But it just wasn't used very well and it wasn't very engaging for people. So we looked at it really differently and we said, well, what underpins managing the real estate is attendance and when people are coming. So, the concept of your working location, when you're going to be coming into the office and how you can be transparent about that and let your teammates and your colleagues know.

So you come in and you're At the right time for the right purpose. I know when my teammates are coming in and we can and we can come in together. That's that's the start of what we're doing with Calvin. And I think you're seeing that become more prevalent in Microsoft and Google and just calendaring.

But over time, we expect to see more and more kind of transparency of [00:09:00] working locations. And more intentional togetherness companies, organizing to, you know, people to come in at the right time for the right purpose. We take that within Calvin and leverage how you allocate, manage, you know, plan your real estate.

So. You don't have to book desks in Calvin. We, if you're coming in, we know which of your teammates are coming in, which your favorite desks are. And we will allocate you that, that right space. If you don't get your favorite one day, we'll make sure you get it the next day. These are all the kind of the contextual experiences which we're trying to create.

When you think about our consumer world we, we get what we want, you know, Netflix knows what we like to watch Spotify curates our playlists . And then we come to work and our companies don't know that much about us. Uh, you know, we get invited to an event and they haven't got the food right because X many people are vegetarian or vegan, et cetera.

And. You know, all of this just gives you a sub par workplace [00:10:00] experience. uh, and leads to a lot of inefficiency around real estate. So that's what we're doing with Calvin. That's different. It's knowing who's coming in or intending to come in managing the real estate accordingly and then curating via events and other things, the right workplace experience to incentivize people to come in again, at the right time for the right purpose.

Melissa: that's addressing a couple of layers that I've got in my framework around how to build community. And one of them is really around routines and rituals. It's, like, what are we doing as an organization? And then as a team to help reinforce some of these behaviors, as you said, intentionally. So if I'm coming in. So if I'm coming in.

I know that every Monday I'm coming in for a team meeting. There's spaces that are going to be available for me. The visibility of knowing that my team's all going to be there and that then, you know, the software's supporting us to create, you know, a communal desk area for that particular team for that particular day. it's really starting to enable some of this connectivity that we need to build community within [00:11:00] our workplaces, which I think is a really big missing factor at the moment, because it's all left up to the individual. And, you know, we do work individually, but a lot of the work that we need to do when we're in the office is communal work.

It's teamwork.

Jeremy: It's, it's a really again, it's a, it's a tough one, right? Because self regulation and, and choosing what suits us is great, but if we're part of a team you know, how, how are we shifting to think about the, the team and, you know, what, what suits everybody in the, and the outcomes of the, of the organization.

So, So, you know, you know, I follow a lot of what Atlassian are doing around intentional again, and this is as part of their team anywhere program. And I'm lucky enough to be close to some of the people in that, in that program, and they have put so much. Or and time and research into working out what is right for the team and communicating the what, how and why to their people.

But then you see a lot of other organizations that just got straight to, this is what we're doing and they don't explain why they don't connect, they don't connect with their, with their people, which makes [00:12:00] it, you know, a real stretch to expect people to buy in.

Melissa: Hmm. It makes a big difference, doesn't it? So in.

terms of some of the applications and the way that, you know, technology is supporting this building of community, creating, you know, cohesiveness around when people are coming in, what are the other sort of side aspects of this that we can start to see technology starting to support us with?

Good 

Jeremy: think the coordination of coming in together you know, just the simple things about, you know, how does a team leader know everybody's preferences, uh, who's going to be on, you know, annual leave or PTO what spaces are available? How do we give the team leaders or coordinators a really easy way to, to actually schedule intentional togetherness is going to, is going to be a key piece.

I mentioned earlier contextual experience. How do we take that knowledge of our people and provide a really curated contextual experience? You know, what, uh, events or [00:13:00] activities , are our people interested in? And can we put in more of those and incentivize them to, to come in together, to meet like minded people you know, and, and feel part of.

A community you know, right now, again, most of that information is siloed. And a lot of organizations don't do a great job of leveraging it. know, a lot of companies that had workplace experience teams you know, pre pandemic and put on events and things within the office. It's really hard to justify sometimes putting those on when you don't know who's coming in and you don't know who's in who's interested in in what. And also there's an equity part to it because you want to put on these programs for people who are remote or distributed as, as well. So lots of different companies, lots of companies go about it in different ways. there's no kind of, there's no playbook just yet for it. But I think a big part is understanding your, your people.

Melissa: And what kind of data are you tapping into to get that knowledge about individuals? 

Jeremy: almost all of it within Calvin is opt in. [00:14:00] So sharing your. Preferences, you know, your dietary preferences, which obviously can only be seen by catering or administrative teams, your skills, your hobbies, your interest. This is all opt in and the organizations where we're seeing, you know, them leverage it really well is where they're actually, there's a quid pro quo by sharing that information, you are getting a value exchange and there are programs and there are things that are on to, you know, yeah.

To basically take advantage of, of you know, a number of people that have that, you know, interest or hobby. and there's quite a bit of information written up on what can the do with their vibe team they put on about 400 events a month, uh, at the moment. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a lot And it's just amazing what their vibe team do.

I think they're probably the you know, the most advanced I've seen and they've got clubs and events and activities and all these things that are on and they're targeted towards what their people are into they, you know, they, they build, they build communities they're, they're leveraging technology to schedule those to invite people to it.

So. So. By sharing [00:15:00] your interests you can get invited to these things and you can, and you can participate and meet, meet like minded people.

Melissa: Yeah. So they're using the data that people are offering And sharing to then build, you know, yoga you know, classes or dance classes, depending on the demand. And then that's why they're, they're activating their spaces to actually support this community creation. Mm

Jeremy: Yeah. And being really sophisticated about what is the best time that we'll get the most, the most people, what are the, what are the best days? Looking at it, look, you know, looking at it by team. You know, the, the, The vibe, the vibe team at Canva is amazing. The things that they do for their, for their people

Melissa: Yeah, they look pretty cool. What are you seeing some of the challenges around this being? Like, what are some of the barriers to entry or those friction points that organizations are hitting up against that is preventing them from, from sort of opting into these sorts of pieces of technology to support them?

Mm hmm. 

Jeremy: think you know, the there's a trust factor and that value exchange to people sharing their working locations. It's, it's also that kind of, there's this perception of, you know, choice and self regulation of I can, I'll, I'll come in when it, when it, when it suits me is [00:16:00] great. And you can see some organizations that That leverage up to do really well, because they explain things like intentional togetherness or, you know, events and activities that are on and why it's important to be together for those.

But I think for a lot, a lot of organizations are struggling to get people to be accurate or well intentioned with their attendance probably because, again, they, they just haven't articulated the, the what, how and why but then also that I just don't think they're, they're putting on those. those. You know, targeted events and activity in this, uh, sorry, the events, the activities, the intentional togetherness and, and I think that flows through to really inefficient real estate usage.

Melissa: Yeah. And I think, you know, many organizations are probably listening to this and going, but that sounds like so much more extra work for us. We haven't used to have to do that. You know, we provided everyone a desk and they just had to come in. Whereas now we're having to put on events to entice people back in and we're having to create these new roles for, you know, workplace experience managers to coordinate and curate all of these events.

And I think technology is an enabler in that, but these are the sorts of things that we're going to need to do [00:17:00] as we progress. forward in the future of work because people are expecting so much more. 

Jeremy: [00:18:00] look, technology can't do it on its own, right? Calvin or any other platform isn't going to just solve these problems for you overnight. It's an, it's an enabler that is part of a strategy and requires change. And there's a journey, there's a journey to go on. And it, it, it is really hard work. I think that's why, you know, industrial revolutions take years and years to play out.

This, this, this won't land overnight. And I think the more you. You read mainstream media and you talk about attendance and mandates and everything else and people are on, you know, either side of the fence. The, the answer lies in the middle. You know, if you've got a five day a week mandate to come into the office, and you've explained why that's really important for the organization, Great.

If you tell people that they never need to come into the office but you're doing all of these things to build that culture and connectedness. Great. It's when you're in the middle, that's the, that, that's the challenge. you know, people in real estate are the 2 biggest, uh, cost centers for [00:19:00] most organizations.

So, you know, I think while there's, while it's going to take a lot of effort it should justify a significant or incur a significant return if we do it the right way.

Melissa: Yeah. And technology really is just that enabler, you know, your people and your place are your two big factors. The tech is kind of like the glue that brings it all together. And it's the bit that facilitates it and attempts to reduce as much of that friction as we possibly can. But it's not the entire solution.

It's just, yeah, like you said, it's this, this piece that kind of sits underneath and helps prop it all up. 

Jeremy: Yeah. Yeah. I think the the tech on the real estate side, I think tech has a lot of potential, particularly driven by AI to more effectively use space. If you, If you accept, and I think this is what we're seeing with most clients, that you're going to have a bit less space, but you're going to need to operate it a lot smarter because it's going to be really busy on certain days and quiet on, on others.

So how you operate that space on both the busy days and the quiet days becomes really important. So knowing people's plans and being able to. To [00:20:00] predict that is one thing, knowing the groups and how they're working and what they and what they need is another. And then technology can provide all of these different models about how to operate your space.

Many of our clients still require dedicated assigned workspace for a handful of people or teams. But do you need that to still be assigned on the days those people aren't coming in or can you reassign it? Most organizations are going to share neighborhoods or zones. Ironically, that's probably not the most efficient way to manage space because those zones and neighborhoods are either too big and empty or they're too small.

And they're, you know, at over capacity. So we're working with a number of organizations to use AI and more effectively stack the building. What really matters is when you're coming in that you're sitting, with the people that you need to work with and just because you're part of a 200 person marketing team, there's probably 10 people you really work with, or you could be working on a cross functional [00:21:00] project.

How do we sit together with those people? How do you make that frictionless? Frictionless from an employee experience perspective, but very efficient from the employer's perspective. You know, on the quiet days, how do you stack the building so that all those empty floors you know, don't feel like it's a, it's a Sunday and, uh, much more environmentally efficient.

That's again where the sophisticated organized, that's what sophisticated organizations are asking for.

Melissa: And is that, are you hearing a lot of that? Because this is probably, I think, something that is really challenging operational leaders mindsets around, but that's a team, that's a neighborhood, that's their floor. You know, we won't know where anyone is, all of this sort of stuff. And, you know, I know that there's solutions to a lot of this, but is this something that you're seeing a lot of people asking for, or is it just the select few, are you seeing a lot of resistance?

Jeremy: More and more when organizations are going through change and are doing new [00:22:00] projects or restacks. And there's actually an impetus for making the decision. If you have too much space and the lease cycle means that you're tied in, you know, for another five years or seven years and you don't have a way to actually reduce that cost, then it's easy to just do nothing and say, well, we've got all this space.

So it works and you can sit wherever you want. So it, it is really driven by the, the, cycle and the stage of where the, where the organization is, is that and also probably, you know, where they're at on the journey, not just their property journey, but where they're at with workplace experience and culture and connectedness as well.

And, you know, but it's, it's early. I think all of this will be mainstream. I've become mainstream over the next few years. We're going to have to be better intentions and more sophisticated. But, you know, you mentioned it earlier. This is, this is, this is hard.

Melissa: yeah, it is really hard.

and I, cause I love the idea of our buildings being so flexible that they're really being built on a daily basis based around the teams that are actually being there. Like you said, that dynamic stacking, let's fill it [00:23:00] up from the bottom. You know, if we don't need the top floor floors.

Then they're empty for the day and we can shut all the services down. It makes so much sense from a facility's perspective, operationally, you know, environmentally, and then you're keeping that buzz and that activity where the people are. But where I'm seeing that be a real mind stretch for some of these organizations, because They're usually coming from a place where they've, you know, they're still at one to one desking.

You know, we're already going through a leap to get to a shared desking and then we want to take them to this thing where we actually don't even know which floor we're going to be on whenever we come in on a different day. Like it's a huge leap, particularly for a lot of organisations that have probably been doing this for 10, 20 years. 

Jeremy: Yep. And I, and I think it's harder again, because the, the answer is probably a mix of all of these different models. You know, there's a percentage of, you know, have the workforce that just don't care just when they're when they come in, they just want to sit down anywhere and we need, we need, we need to respect that.

But then we need to respect there are teams that have to be together. You know, for various [00:24:00] various purposes and individuals have, you know, their specific needs as well. I think it's also important to recognize that, you know, when we, when we come up with these strategies and we, we design these, these projects it shouldn't be a set and forget you know, I, I think this is, this is organic and what we're trying to do with Calvin is give, you know, companies, the levers to pull and ways to change how they engage with their people, how they operate their real estate over time in response to the business evolving as well.

You know, all too often projects, because there's a capex element to it and a timeframe, you know, we tend to, we tend to do research and then be forced to make a decision and do great change management projects. A week later, anyone who joins the organization just has to fit in. And I don't, I don't know why you know, and then, uh, uh, 6 months later or a year later, we're not, we're not, going back and looking what works and what doesn't work and which bases are really popular and we should have more of and which don't get used and we should reconfigure.

I think there's a lot of missed opportunities there as well in the, in the [00:25:00] traditional project and construction cycles.

Melissa: Yeah, no, I agree. And it's really challenging to get clients to consider that This is an iterative process in some ways, because like you said, it's the capital expenditure. We only get this bucket of money once and we're going to spend all of it and it kind of, it just has to work. So there's a really high expectation put on these spaces performing and performing them for the cycle of the lease without.

Revisited or relooked at, and Revisited or relooked at, and we go back and we do a 12 month post occupancy survey with our clients just to see how the people are actually, you know, working in that space. But even depending on the results of that, there isn't really any opportunity to do any of that reconfiguration work. Cause most clients just don't have the funds to be able to do that.

So I think. being conscious of that and thinking about, well, should we be putting aside a bucket of money? Should we be proportioning off some of this funding now, hiving it away for that revisiting? I think it's a [00:26:00] really important thing to start thinking about.

Jeremy: don't don't spend it all on the, on the property and the, and the, technology and the, and the, and the, journey, like, save some of it to be able to reconfigure and optimize it. You know, after 12 months after, after, after 24 months.

Melissa: Yeah. One last question I've got for you, and it's probably like preemptive, but a lot of organizations probably don't have any of this data to inform Where they're going, what are you observing in that space there? Because a lot of this tech is new, so they haven't got any of this data to kind of inform what those next steps need to be. 

And 

Jeremy: have the data. They just don't know how to access it, or they don't know how to correlate it. So, you know, despite some, you know, reservations around, you know, people being monitored, most organizations do know from, you know, the network and it systems, you know, how often people are coming in and which, you know, in which teams and business units people are people are part of.

Security badge data is notoriously unreliable for most [00:27:00] organizations. When you kind of hear that 30 percent average attendance based on card swipes, you kind of like, take it with a grain of salt because it's, it's, it's pretty, it's pretty unreliable. The, I think the best. Mix is to know your teams and your group structures.

That's the, that's the, that's the starting point to actually like, dig down a couple of layers and understand how teams and then subgroups actually, you know, actually operating both in terms of attendance in terms of how they use, space, whether it's. Shared unbookable space, bookable meeting rooms, desks, et cetera.

So even if you have to manually aggregate some of this data, at least at the beginning of your project or journey, I think you, you've got to just, just work out how to, how to, how to dig it up and, and reference it. And then again, the more sophisticated ones over time some of the clients we're working with and are using Calvin, we obviously have people's preferences about when they, you know, when they intend to, to come into the office we'll tie into things like the HR system for [00:28:00] annual leave and, and PTO.

So, you know, Even our people coming in well, you know, you can't expect them to come in when they're on annual leave. So don't don't gloss. Don't gloss over that. When you're looking at your attendance data but, you know, groups change, people move between groups, people join, leave the organization. So I think you really want to look at this on an ongoing basis and then operate your space accordingly.

So it's, it's a journey once you've. connected the data sources, though, it's it's pretty easy to to look across this at a, you know, and correlated at a pretty sophisticated level.

Melissa: what kind of return on investment have your clients seen as a result of sort of going down this sort of path? 

Jeremy: a really good question. Like, we have had to get a lot better at quantifying that return on investment. So, without naming names, we've got a client who still allocates a fixed desk if you want to have one and you come in more than a certain number of days. And then we, and then we're helping them with, you know, by group or business unit anonymized.

How is that actually performing? and then we're helping them with, by group or business unit anonymized.

How is that actually performing? Are people coming [00:29:00] in to justify that workstation. What we then did is we looked at freeing it up when they're not coming in. And we actually cleared up enough days over the 1st quarter of this calendar year for a client to And then had those desks be rebooked by other people who needed a desk.

And the, the return on that was more from an efficiency perspective was higher than the cost of Calvin for the whole year, just by that 1 by that 1 feature for another client, we went and helped them clear out the. bottom quarter of bookings that were made by people who were consistently, consistently not coming in because that that, you know, that's a really inefficient use of space that saving alone was over a 1, 000, 000 for one client by just taking out the ghost bookings effectively and then prompting people to be more More accurate or more considerate of their, of their plans.

And this is the really hard thing when you're making these real estate decisions based on generic attendance data. You don't actually have a way to incentivize or, you know, [00:30:00] nudge people to. To be more accurate and be more efficient and you end up making, you know, poor decisions, which have a significant opportunity cost.

Melissa: Hmm. So there's a lot of other sort of peripheral things that we can do with the data to try and dig into it. And have you seen any correlation between team cohesion and sort of culture in particular teams and attendance? Like it, does it get into that sort of granularity? 

Jeremy: Yeah. So we, we've done some individual work with clients and I one of the CEOs we've, we've dealt with said it best, which is I'm not interested in general attendance data and 30 percent on these days of the week. They were looking at it at a business unit level and tying it to performance and tying it to tenure and employee turnover.

And actually looking at going right the business units that are performing really well and people and people are sticking around. And there's a high level of satisfaction. They're not too concerned with attendance and engagement with events and culture and experience for those business units.

[00:31:00] But they were looking into the teams that weren't performing and how they could leverage, you know, attendance, or even do we come in on the same dates or are we engaged with company wide town halls and culture and events and taking that information and helping the team leaders where they were experiencing, you know, higher levels of turnover and dissatisfaction and, you know, in feedback surveys and, and looking at the correlation to attendance together and, and, and, and engagement with culture and events.

Melissa: Yeah. And I, you know, just anecdotally you'd expect that the more that people are coming in on the same days as their colleagues, you know, participating in company wide events, that they would be more engaged. And therefore there would be better communication. There'd be, you know, better understanding of each other.

And those social networks and contracts would be a lot solid. it makes sense that that kind of loose connection, I suppose, would actually have some sort of feedback to the business. Yeah. Yeah. 

Jeremy: in the, you know, in, in the private work we've done with clients, there is definitely a [00:32:00] correlation with aligned attendance, which could be, you know, it could be intentional togetherness once a quarter, you know, twice, twice, twice a year but engagement with events, company wide activities and, and, and, and, and performance and satisfaction.

Melissa: Yeah, But it's purposeful. And I think that's the thing is we're not asking everybody to come in, but when we are expecting people to come in, it's for a reason and people know what that reason is and how it's contributing to them and their professional development and the development of the company.

And like you said earlier, it's just comes down to communication, making sure that everyone really understands the why. Yeah.

Jeremy: I mean, you can say come in because it gets us X or Y, but if you then don't put the work into, you know, putting on the, you know, putting on those engaging and, you know, community building events and activities. It doesn't work. People, people aren't going to, aren't going to come in for no reason and just all of a sudden feel connected and engaged.

Melissa: Yeah, there needs to be a, like you said, that quid pro quo needs to be a to and from. Look, Jeremy, this has been a great [00:33:00] chat. Thank you so much for joining me and for giving some insight into how some of this technology is evolving and the way that it's enabling organizations to really build that much deeper connection in their communities.

Appreciate everything you've shared with us today. 

Jeremy: Thanks for having me.

Melissa: Awesome. There we go.