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COSIDA CONFERENCE CALL

April 26, 2018

CLARK TEUSCHER: Hello, and welcome to the eighth installment of the 2017-2018 CoSIDA Continuing Education Series sponsored by Capital One.

My name is Clark Teuscher. I am the sports information director at North Central College and the chair of the CoSIDA Continuing Education Committee.

I'll be moderating today's webinar as we discuss the importance of maintaining a diverse network as we work to create a more diverse and inclusive environment in intercollegiate athletics.

Presenting on today's webinar are Olivia Coiro, assistant director of athletics communications at Syracuse University; Rob Knox, associate director of athletics media relations at Towson University; and Danny Kambel, sports information director at Pacific University.

Before we get started, we're happy to be joined by CoSIDA's diversity and inclusion committee chair and the coordinator of today's webinar, Jessica Poole, of Vanderbilt University, for a few opening remarks.

Jess.

JESSICA POOLE: Hi, everyone. I'd like to say thanks to our panelists for agreeing to talk to us about mentoring, helping to shape a diverse workforce. I know you are in for a treat, so enjoy.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much, Jess.

Our first presenter today will be Olivia Coiro, who is the chair of the CoSIDA young professionals committee. She's here to talk about how important it is for young professionals to seek out mentors of a diverse nature.

Liv.

OLIVIA COIRO: Hello, everyone. Today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about being a young professional in the industry and how important it is to have a mentor, not just one mentor but a few mentors, and kind of how to go about finding one or seeking one out.

So the first thing I really want to talk about is how a mentor doesn't have to be someone you work with every day. It can be someone who works at a school in your conference, who works at a school that you've never even interacted with.

For me personally, when I started in the industry, I didn't really have a mentor who worked in college athletics communication at all. So about three, maybe four years ago now at convention, I sought out my first mentor, who is Ira Thor. He's turned out to be a great friend of mine, more than a mentor. And honestly we established our relationship because I had a mutual friend introduce us when we were at convention. I said, can you please introduce me to him. He's super involved in our industry. He's worked at one school since he started his career pretty much, and he's been really successful.

I said, Can you introduce us? My friend was like, Of course, yeah, I'll do that. Introduced me to Ira. We met. We talked very briefly one night at one of the social events at convention when we were in Orlando. I followed up a few weeks later, few days later, with an email just saying how it was nice to meet him. I think I sent him a card because I like to send cards a lot. We talked a lot.

Over time we started to talk more and more. As I made moves in my career, he had things come up, I know when I was still scoring softball games, he was my go-to when I had a scoring decision that I didn't understand. He really became obviously more than just a mentor to me but a friend.

That was all because it was something that I initiated. I don't know if our paths would have ever crossed outside of meeting at convention because at the time I was working in a Division II school, he was in a Division III school. I was in Florida, he was in New Jersey. You don't know when your paths will cross, but I saw all that he was involved in. I said, wow, I think that's someone that would be a good mentor for me. Our personalities happened to click, too. So it was really successful.

Backing up on that. My second point is don't be afraid to reach out to someone. I know a lot of my generation is texting and emailing, it's not face-to-face interaction. Don't be afraid to pick up the phone and call someone. I've gotten a lot better at doing that over the years. It's not something that's really natural to a lot of people because it's not really how things are for my generation and younger people in this field. But just pick up the phone, give someone a call. Don't be afraid. The worst they can do is say, Hey, I don't really have time to talk to you today. There might be worse, but hopefully it's not that worse. You just reach out to them, pick up the phone, say, Hey, you know, I saw did this, I have a question about this. It can be really beneficial.

Mentors should not really just be used for networking opportunities, although they are a great resource in your networking. Mentorship should be used for helping you grow as a professional. So you want to create a lasting relationship with someone who is a mentor, but that relationship can evolve over time, too. One day they might not be, you know, the right fit for you any more, but they helped you at a point in your career where you needed them to.

So don't just say, Oh, yeah, I connected with that person, they're my mentor, and we talk once every few months. Really establish a relationship with them and get to know each other. It will help you in the long run.

I know for me, one thing that I've really become passionate about is mentoring younger people who are just starting to get into this industry. So for me I take the experiences I have had with mentors in different areas and use that towards that.

So one thing I tell people that I talk to that are younger, this one girl in particular who is going to be a GA in a couple of weeks, she's going to start her grad assistantship, I tell her all the time, You can always text me. If I don't answer you right away, I will when I have a chance. Doesn't matter if it's work related, personal related, you're free to move to a new city, I'm here for you. That's what I want our relationship to be. It's not just a network. There's more to it than that.

I think you should have mentors in all aspects of your life and your career. For me, I have a mentor that is in athletic communications. I also have someone that I look to that isn't an SID any more that is still a mentor to me. That's a person that I want to go into a role like that one day. I have a mentor for my personal life. I have a mentor for my family. Surrounding yourself by people who you can learn from and the people you want to model your life and your career after.

I'm going to tell you a quick story about mentorship and how I think it really does come full circle. Two years ago I joined the CoSIDA mentorship program, which I believe it's about to be our fourth year of having it. And Bill Dyer at Virginia Tech was my mentor. We met at convention. Actually I think we had water together because neither of us were drinking coffee. We have sat and we talked. He told me about Sue Edson at Syracuse, he said she would be a great person to interview for my blog, which I had just really started at the time with Katie Hewitt at Michigan. I said okay. I reached out to Sue and I talked with her. Didn't really keep in touch with her too much, but always kind of saw what was going on at Syracuse just because that was back home in New York where I'm from.

So two and a half years later, Syracuse opens up a job, and lo and behold the hiring manager is Sue Edson. It kind of came back full circle that I had that conversation with Sue and interviewed her for my blog, two years later I'm working for her at Syracuse and she's my supervisor. That's all because my mentor through our CoSIDA program, he didn't directly put me in touch with her but he encouraged me to reach out to her. If I wasn't involved in the CoSIDA program with the mentorship program, and I didn't meet Bill, he didn't tell me about Sue, I don't know if I would be at Syracuse today because I may not have had that connection to her already when I applied for the job. So just you never really know where it can take you or if it will circle back.

Definitely stay in touch. I think that the CoSIDA mentorship program, I know it's changing a little bit more this year. I'm a mentor and a mentee in it. This year my mentor works at conference office, which I've never worked at. So he brings a whole different perspective to me when I have a questions. I bring a whole different perspective to him.

My mentee, who is no longer in the business, so I'm a failed mentor, it's fine, he and I used to bounce a lot of ideas about career progression because he's a little bit older than me, but we've had similar moves and stuff. So I established a really good relationship as both a mentor and a mentee in the program this year and I'm really looking forward to where it's going to go in the future.

I kind of touched upon all my points already, so I'm going to hand it off. If anyone has any questions, let me know.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much, Liv. Before we move on, just real quickly. You talked about being a mentor and a mentee in the program. I don't imagine you're the only one in that position. In terms of learning from somebody that you're mentoring, what has been your experience with that as part of this program?

OLIVIA COIRO: So I was mentoring Lamar Carter, who most recently worked at LIU Brooklyn, before that he worked at Cal. Through my process of transitioning from a mid-major school to a Power 5 school, Lamar was super helpful to me because he had done that before when he went from Howard to Cal.

It's not really something you think of, Oh, this is my mentee, I'm only going to teach them stuff, like I'm not going to learn from them. No, I learned a lot from him. I remember I would call him and say, I'm nervous about this, it's just so much more intense here. He had experiences that were helpful to me that he shared with me.

Honestly, I think that the same goes for my mentor this year. I think that he has learned a lot from me, too. So it's kind of a two-way street. Just because you're the mentor, you're the mentee, I don't think it necessarily has to always be that way.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much.

Rob Knox is CoSIDA's first vice president this year and will take over as the president in June. He's with us today to talk about the importance of mentorship in his career and how it's enabled him to expand his network.

Rob.

ROB KNOX: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for being on our call today. I'm excited to be here. You'll have to excuse me throughout my presentation as I look down at some notes down here on my phone, some talking points I want to get to.

But I just want to say a couple things just so I kind of congratulate again Olivia on rising star, winning the rising star award. And honestly by her presentation you see why. She's phenomenal for our profession. She's been great. Her energy is awesome. If you haven't read her blog yet, make it part of your reading. I subscribe to it. I look forward to reading everything that they have.

Yeah, mentoring and your network, I think the network piece and having a really good network is really critical because having a good network, having those relationships with the people in your network enables you to become the facilitator and help others and bring others along.

I'm in a position now where I'm working with a young lady at James Madison who is a senior who is graduating in a few weeks. The funny thing is, I met her when I went down there with my basketball team. I saw her running around, hustling, bustling, doing different things. One of the things that we had a conversation, hey, what do you want to do with your life, what's next, what is your next steps, because she was working in the JMU media relations office, but she wants to go with the marketing. I'm trying to persuade her to work in media relations. She wants to go into marketing. I'm like, Wow, I have a lot of good friends that work in marketing. Within my network, I was able to say, Hey, do you mind talking to so-and-so just kind of giving her the path. I don't know the path to being an effective and good marketer, although I have thoughts and ideas. But they are in those positions and they're in my network, those are people I lean on, talk to on a regular basis.

I think it's important you have a good relationship with the people in your network so that when you call on people in your network, say, Hey, do you mind helping somebody or talking to somebody, they're like, Oh, yeah, sure, not a problem at all.

So now through my network, I've been able to introduce the young lady at James Madison I want to say like six or seven people who she's had conversations with. They've all been positive interactions. Actually Jess has been part of that. So the point is, it's your way to pay it forward, it's basically your way to pay it forward to somebody else. That's one thing I would definitely keep in mind.

Then another thing that Olivia discussed that I want to emphasize as well is don't be afraid, if you want a mentee, don't be afraid to add value to your relationship with your mentor. It's not all just, Okay, I'm the mentee, getting everything from my mentor. No, no. It should be a give-and-take. You provide value to that person as well. You provide critical feedback, a critical eye, a different experience, to that mentor. It's definitely a two-way street, it's definitely something you should develop.

The more diversity there is, I'm not talking about diversity as far as race or gender, anything like, that when it comes to mentoring in the workplace, because we know those things are there, but I'm talking about diversity in your background, in your beliefs, in your experiences. Those things are critical, and they provide critical feedback. They provide the critical part of the workplace because your ideas are different to somebody else's. The more ideas that are exchanged, the stronger the organization becomes, in my opinion.

A couple more points here.

Again, I just talked about having the type of relationship that facilitates the exchange of knowledge and allows both parties to become more sensitive to your profession and your needs. Again, a mentor-mentee relationship, whether it's in the workplace or outside the workplace, doesn't have to be just confined to just, Okay, I'm in media relations, you just need to mentor me on media relations. I'm going to call you when I know how to deal with a difficult coaches, what's the best solution for putting a double play that an outfielder had, the ball went which way. It's not just that. It's more than just the media relations, media relations, marketing, marketing, athletic administration, athletic administration. As Olivia said, it can be anything. But all those components are critical to the workplace, to having that diverse workforce. Just because, you know, I just think the biggest thing is being able to participate in discussions and offering different perspectives.

Two last things I wanted to leave you with here before we pass the baton to the next person. I think this is something that's critical. As soon as I can find that. Sorry about that.

Here is one point. Mentoring has widespread implications beyond boosting individual careers, as we all know. Giving folks a necessary leg up, fine-tuning skills, mentoring changes the face of one-on-one organization and changes the face of the organization and the makeup of the entire profession. So I say that to say that the more diverse an organization is, the better it is for that field. So the more diverse media relations is, and again not from a race standpoint, not from a gender standpoint, although those are important as well, but the more that we have people with different backgrounds, different experiences.

For example, for me, I worked in newspapers for five years. I worked at ESPN for two years. So my diverse background and skill set adds to our field and makes it stronger.

Lastly, if I can find it here, appreciate your patience with me here. Here we go. Again, as we talk about race and things of that nature, don't limit yourself to mentors who share your race or ethnicity. It's important to get outside the box. It's important to get with people that's different than you because, again, you grow, you learn. Even though it's important to find people, find examples of people within your community who has excelled at what you want to do, it's just as important to match your needs with the best resources available.

Lastly, by tapping people you respect for their wisdom, you ready yourself as an effective participant at any leadership team. So just remember that. So you'll also bring diversity to some of the highest decision making levels of the professional ladder, not just the lowest rung.

Again, you just keep progressing. Tap that knowledge. Surround yourself with people that think differently than you, surround yourself with people that have different backgrounds, different experiences, because again, the more you have that, the stronger you become and the more effective you become at helping bring along the next person.

That's why I'm proud of the fact that with my individual network and the relationships that I've built over years and time, and even mentors to me now that I'm emailing back and forth with some of the CoSIDA past presidents. It's not even talking about CoSIDA presidency, How was it when you were president? No, it's actually real life -- it's not real life, but I'm seeking information from them about moving up in my career, what's the next steps, how should I prepare, what are the ways to organize my rÃ©sumÃ©, things of that nature, so that I can prepare myself for the next position.

Finally, before I turn it back over to Clark, I was told to share this. In our profession it's important. I'm home today just because I decided to take a mental health day. I'm still working from home, but it's nice just to be home. I think the mental health days are also important. I know it's a little bit off task, but a good mental health day will also help shape a diverse workforce because you come back the next day bringing your best self.

Clark, back to you.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Thank you very much. Before we move forward, we have one quick question for you. Talking about diversity in all its forms, have any of the institutions that you've worked at done any kind of diversity training? Was it mandatory? Was it voluntary? Sometimes you make things mandatory, people tend to resist them. If somebody is interested in getting into that sort of programming, what is the best route you might recommend for somebody to take?

ROB KNOX: Whew, you threw a lot of questions there.

The first set of questions is, where I've worked, ESPN does a good job of diversity training, sensitivity training, just all types of training. At the collegiate level, for those of you don't know I worked at Lincoln for five years, I worked at Kutztown for two years, now I'm in my third year at Towson. Kutztown had a really good training program for diversity, being able to navigate the landscape. Again, it wasn't limited to just race and gender, which is key, because sometimes when we think of diversity, we think of, hey, add some race, add some gender, we're good. It's much deeper than that.

For our suggestions, what I would recommend is maybe just don't be afraid to go to your AD or your supervisor and say, Hey, I notice we haven't had this type of training, I think this is something that will benefit the department. And when you do that, don't just say it and then just walk away and expect them to do it, because one thing I'm learning is that, you know, it's easy for -- it's easy for us to come up with suggestions or solutions, not solutions, but easy for us to come up with suggestions, this isn't working right, this is wrong, but what are we doing about it.

So what you can do is go to them with a plan. Say, Hey, I think we should have diversity training, these are the reasons why, A, B, C and D. This is how I think we should do it, or this is a suggested way of doing it. Maybe we could get together for a day or two in August, bring in HR. You don't even have to have a good relationship. You can maybe reach out to HR, whoever your HR representative is that works -- whoever the HR liaison is with the athletic department, reach out to HR, and HR can kind of facilitate that process, too.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Great. Thank you very much.

Danny Kambel is the chair of CoSIDA's job seekers committee. He is with us today to talk about how mentorship leads to a more diverse workforce and how the job seekers committee can help.

Danny.

DANNY KAMBEL: Thank you, everybody, for giving me this opportunity to chat with you a little bit about diversity, mentorship, but also how the CoSIDA job seekers committee is actively involved with it as well.

I'm very fortunate, there's been twice I came out of the profession, how I came back to the profession was through my mentors, having the ability to foster relationships through the college sports landscape of Division I, junior college. I'm currently at a Division III school. I have 24 sports, 600 plus student-athletes. It's jut me as the full-time person. Over the past few months I've learned how having a diverse workforce has come to be beneficial. If you followed me personally on social media, I have a personal hashtag of (indiscernible). SET stands for strategic, E engaged, and T teamwork. That applies to everything, a part of my day-to-day life, but it also applies to our topic today.

With strategic, we're setting up the framework of our mentorship. Who are we being accountable, responsible to. Obviously Rob talked about working with your campus partners. Some of my mentors include, as Olivia talked about, outside the sports industry. Prior to taking my last job, I studied human resources and learned a little bit about how to bring people onboard and how to recruit people to come onboard a team of that size. Here at Pacific I have over 40 student workers that come from all walks of life, different backgrounds. I didn't look for a particular major. I look for passion, pursuit of wanting to learn and grow, and develop as people. That leads to the next part of engagement.

Understanding in a mentorship, how valuable time is. Time is a precious commodity. How we use it best is important to our success. Obviously I'm a very extroverted person. I try to meet my coaches, my student-athletes on their turf. Going to the softball coach's office, which may be across campus, meeting the rowing coach at the boathouse, meeting them on their comfort level, engaging with them to develop them and work with them to answer the sports information needs an necessities of their office, but also taking that engagement process.

If I have an ambitious student that wants to learn, Rob talked about the young lady he met through James Madison, the marketing student. Not every student comes to me wanting to do sports information. We engage with one another to set goals for them to be successful. Maybe it's putting up the right thing on the scoreboard, how do we update something on the website, engaging them to be successful, that leads to the last part of the get set principle of teamwork. We have to think with solutions in mind. It's interesting, with one of our sports, I have a total staff of our stat crew of another sport, when we all came together for the first time if February, none of us had worked women's lacrosse before. The four of us came together and met with our coach. Went to practices together. Learned the intricacies about how to disseminate stats, how to compile stats. Through CoSIDA, other partnerships I have, I was able to reach out to other sports information directors to how to teach people the sport when I'm at the foundational knowledge level as well. It wasn't just reaching out to people on the Division III level, it's important to reach out across the college sports landscape to share that principle of teamwork.

Obviously here at Pacific, we're fortunate to have junior varsity programs, that gives us another opportunity to grow and develop people and sports information, but also day-to-day responsibilities. I try to be transparent or spread the responsibility across the board. As you do something for a fall sport like volleyball, you do the same task and responsibility for another sport like wrestling.

Coming together and working together as a team, it's a daunting task to manage 24 sports, nearly 600 athletes, but being together with the set mindset of being strategic, having short and long-term goals as an organization, working with our coaches, our athletic administrators, our partners on campus. I have learned to take over the payroll. I know how important it is for them to have that paycheck on that Friday so they can enjoy a spring break trip, a side trip to go to Portland shopping. Also how this will relate to their future endeavors. As I've grown in my career at Pacific, I'm moving into my third year, yesterday we had senior projects day. Part of that is to hear our senior students talk about a research project they've been working on, learning what they're looking to gain more knowledge from, engaging with them, seeing them present these materials was an eye opening experience.

Then teamwork, learning if they come to the sports information office, just wanting to have that job on campus. I am very transparent to our student-athletes that they know I can't do this job alone. They look forward to having the right (indiscernible) when they're in baseball, softball. We have a track meet tomorrow. We have revolutionized our video board where we have slides that will highlight their performance but something we can share on social media. It's obviously all important that set mindset, strategic, engaged and teamwork.

I think everybody prior to my coming onboard here to talk today on the panel has talked about the 360-degree relationship. It's a two-way street, either way you want to look at it. I have people that have been mentors for me for the past 20 years of my life. They've been there in the highest of highs and lowest of lows. How we have came together to be successful and have that relationship. Olivia talked about how two years ago she had that informal interview with Sue Edson for her blog. How all that came together, that 360-degree relationship.

Also branching out. Obviously on a smaller campus like we have at Pacific, I'm involved with different staff committees. I'm a part of our campus staff development committee or our communications committee. Learning how other people on our campus do things.

Then the last thing I was going to talk to you guys about is how as our job seekers committee is a part of this process as well. We take a very active approach in wanting to help people land that position if it's an internship, graduate assistantship, assistant director, director level. How can we help you as an individual. And that isn't just looking at application materials. If it's how do you do an interview, how do you do an information interview, how do you address your qualifications best, not only on your rÃ©sumÃ© but how do you adjust with it or online portfolio. One of my interests is how do you do that an social media. How are you as a brand going to distinguish yourself or separate yourself to the potential employer.

We as a jobholder know through our experiences that they are multiple people, hundreds and hundreds of people, Beau will tell you from the CoSIDA staff, the most popular page on the CoSIDA website is the job board. How you connect to that job is very important.

Then obviously like I talked about at the opening, is there's been twice that I've been out of the profession. There's people that are just sitting in their living room right now wanting to be in your chair in sports information. That's where our committee comes onboard. We have people on our committee that are directors, we have people that are assistant or associate athletic directors, we have assistant directors, different people that have gone from director back to an assistant director, how they made that transition. It's a very diverse committee made up of many different individuals across the college sports landscape.

Obviously the last part I was going to share is just the involvement we do a lot of this also at the upcoming CoSIDA convention. It's something that people think when you come to convention, part of that development is in the sessions, but there's also at our CoSIDA job seekers committee is involved with wanting to help people know what opportunities are out there, but we also have that role of wanting to help people develop and refine those skill sets to make that advancement opportunity available to you.

So I'll step aside here and answer a few questions.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Certainly, Danny.

First off, you mentioned you've been out of the profession a couple of times and come back in. Any advice for people in that position who maybe have been out of the organization or seeking to get in, mentorship from perhaps younger professionals, what kind of skills are they having to learn to get hired these days? What advice do you have for somebody who maybe is a little older trying to get back into the business?

DANNY KAMBEL: With us all working in higher education, one of the things I've done is I've kept that relationship with people in higher education. One of the things I've learned to reach out to acquire new skill sets or refine skill sets, taking a webinar, an online course, a course like Photo Shop. One of the things I've done is I've taken a lot of coursework in human resources, job building. Okay, learning what the corporate world perceives as important on a rÃ©sumÃ© may be different than an athletic director, but there is that same picture that we're both looking at at hiring individuals.

But I think what I've learned the most is not to give up. It is a process. It's not going to be something like, Okay, there's an opening today, they're not going to make the decision tomorrow. It's a process. Having that 360-degree relationship, working with your mentors to say, Okay, here is the job opportunity. Identifying what you have to present to that job is something that would help someone that's been out of the profession going become into the profession.

Our professions are constantly evolving. There's things I'm still learning today, but I also engage my students to learn some of that skill set at well. If it's the online programs or one of the things I've done is I engaged with the local junior college. Reduced price education, was able to take courses in learning web development. Prior to my last job I took social media design, learned how Facebook became as large as it did. Now I know how to utilize that social media tool to articulate for my institution and my brand.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Outstanding. This next question, we'll start with Danny, but Rob, Liv, if you have anything to add, feel free to jump on.

At the institutions you've worked at, has there been supervisors, people at the director level, have they made sure to personally invest time in mentoring and meeting routinely with direct reports? If not, how do you bring that topic up?

ROB KNOX: I guess I'll start. For me I would say yes. Again, my supervisor, we talked all the time. When it came time for me to transition from Kutztown to ESPN, he was 100% in my corner. My supervisor, we always had life talks, professional talks, all types of talks. When I came time to transition to Towson, she was all for it, gave me tips and suggestions on what I needed to do, how I needed to prepare.

I mean, I've been lucky. I had that at Lincoln, as well. I've been lucky at most places I've been. I've been able to have those discussions, have somebody invest in me not just personally but professionally.

DANNY KAMBEL: Kind of piggybacking on what Rob just talked about. It was important for me early in my career to develop that kind of accountability relationship to my bosses, letting them know what my goals and aspirations were so they could hold me accountable to that. That's how I've been able to grow as a professional here at Pacific is my athletic director is very understanding and understands there's a desire for me to grow as a person as well as a professional.

OLIVIA COIRO: I just want to add something on that.

For me, I've always kept in touch with past bosses, too. It doesn't just have to be your current boss is someone you talk to about your career and your moves. I know for me when I was going through the process here at Syracuse, trying to figure out if this could be a good move for me, I talked a lot with my boss at UNCG who hadn't been my boss for a year. I was so supportive of me when I was leaving that I knew he would be a good person to go back to and talk to about that situation. Obviously my boss at UNCG was good, too. It was good to have that feedback from two people I worked under who really knew me pretty well.

CLARK TEUSCHER: This next question we'll invite comments from everybody. I'm going to start with Liv, since you mentioned the importance of being able to meet face-to-face at convention. For a young professional going to convention for the first time, is it important to have a strategy? What's the way that you found to really kind of get the best out of that opportunity?

OLIVIA COIRO: I don't really know. For me, it isn't matter if it's after an 8 a.m. session or if it's at night on the way to a social. If I see someone that I want to introduce myself to, I just walk myself up to them and introduce myself.

I think that a good strategy to have is to prepare yourself to be in those situations and don't be afraid. I know for me when I was younger, first started a couple years ago, I was really, like, afraid to just walk up to someone. I can't say that I would have just walked up to Judy Wilson when she was the president of CoSIDA and say, Hi, blah, blah, blah, I'm Olivia, I work here. Now it's like, That's Judy, no big deal. I think you have to get more comfortable with it.

To anyone who is watching this right now, will watch the replay or transcript or whatever, just do it, just walk up to someone, introduce yourself to them. We all wear name tags with where we work, what our names are. When you're walking up to someone, if you don't know who they are, read their name tag and introduce yourself like, Hi, I'm Olivia, it's nice to meet you, Rob. It says so much about you if you can put that connection together or if you see someone earlier in the day, earlier at convention, you say, that's so-and-so, I'd really like to meet them, hop on your phone and look them up on their athletics website, get to know a fact or two about them so when you do initiate a conversation with them, you're not just going in there blind.

CLARK TEUSCHER: Danny, from a job seekers standpoint, who may be at convention, we always have the job board up with all of the different oppositions that people are looking to fill. What is the most appropriate way, if you see one that is opportune for you, about reaching out at the convention, seeing if you can meet with those people face-to-face?

DANNY KAMBEL: I think the key thing when you see a jobholder at the convention is how to -- like you talked about, is that approach is not the stalking approach, it is finding that common ground, finding that common level. Maybe there's that degree of separation that can initiate that conversation and you never know where that conversation -- there's always usually a Starbucks line that you can always initiate, take that conversation over to.

Putting yourself in that position, you know, as you -- but let that person detract from their convention experience as well. Utilizing other people in your network at the convention, utilizing that approach to it rather than, I see them walking into the job -- saw them walking out of the job seeker session, now they're going to aspiring athletic directors, I'm going to keep following that person, they're going to social. Let that person enjoy their convention experience, but also take advantage of the resources of like Olivia talked about, meeting over water with somebody. I rode up and down and elevator with somebody at my very first convention. Obviously that allowed us to have a conversation. It opened a door for me to have a job opportunity conversation later on in my life.

CLARK TEUSCHER: All right. I think that is all the questions we have to address today. I want to thank each one of our presenters for giving so generously of their time today. We continue to appreciate Capital One's ongoing sponsorship of the continuing education series.

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