S03E11 - Leading with Impact and Urgency | Erin Mote, InnovateEDU

In this episode of Build Momentum, Sarah and Katie are joined by Erin Mote. Erin is the co-founder and executive director of InnovateEDU, a nonprofit whose mission is to eliminate the achievement gap by accelerating innovation in Common Core-aligned next-generation learning models and tools that serve, inform, and enhance teaching and learning. She and her husband, Eric, are the co-founders of the Brooklyn Laboratory Charter School, an organization that serves over 800 students. Erin is a loving wife to Eric and a loving mother to Roo and Clare. 

Some Questions We Ask:

• What is InnovateEDU? (00:48)
• How did you start Project Unicorn? (01:59)
• Tell us more about the ideas and tools that come from the coalition. (07:46)
• How does one go about starting an alliance and a coalition? (12:26)
• What are takeaways or strategies for success we can apply to building our own audiences and growing our own impact (15:21)
• How do you balance being a CEO, a mother, and everything that comes with those roles? (20:14)
• What makes you hopeful about the future of education and transforming the lives of young people moving forward? (27:52)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

• All about InnovateEDU (00:59)
• How Project Unicorn began (02:24)
• About Pathways Alliance (08:02)
• Why trust is the main element in creating a coalition and starting an alliance (12:40)
• Strategies for success such as being authentic, having a sense of urgency, and being a good listener (15:50)
• How Erin juggled her career and her family (20:50)
•  What makes her hopeful about the future of education (28:11)

Quotes:
“Not every organization will agree on everything. But can you agree on the 80% you have in common? … If you can build a coalition on trust and finding common ground when there is that 20% disagreement, it’s still comfortable and you have a space for radical candor.”

“We don’t see vulnerability as a superpower, and we should.”

“The thing that gives me hope every single day is actually our young people. They are amazing, dynamic, caring, global citizens, and our job is to create experiences that invest them in their own learning and drive social impact and change. …That's the stuff that fills my cup and makes me feel urgency.

“Our schools are amazing. Our educators are innovators. Our young people are catalysts for change. We need to figure out a way to unlock that power, and that's what I'm committed to at InnovateEDU.”

Connect with Erin:
InnovateEDU Website
InnovateEDU Projects
Erin's LinkedIn
Erin's Twitter
Media

Stay in touch with Sarah Williamson:
Free Case Study Guide
SWPR GROUP Website
LinkedIn

Stay in touch with Chad Bolser:
LinkedIn

About "The Secret to Transformational Leadership," which Sarah co-authored with Dr. Quintin Shepherd:
Transformational Leadership Secret website
Purchase the print or ebook

Transcript

Erin Mote: 0:04

Hello and welcome to build momentum, a show where we explore thought leadership and education. I'm Sarah Williamson, the founder of SWPR Group.

Katie Lash: 0:14

And I'm Katie lash, the director of the East Central Educational Service Center.

Erin Mote: 0:17

Together we explore how to leverage key partners, your constituencies, and immediate to authentically impact your organizations and the leaders who champion them. We can't wait to get started. So let's dive into today's show. On today's episode, we're so excited to have Erin mo on the show. Erin is the executive director and co founder of innovate. Edu. Erin, I'm so honored to have you here. I'm sure Katie feels the same way. Welcome. Thanks. I'm super excited to chat with y'all.

Katie Lash: 0:48

Aaron, it's great you haven't met although I do follow you on LinkedIn, or work connections on LinkedIn now. But would you share a little bit more about innovate edu and the important work that you are doing?

Erin Mote: 0:59

Thanks for asking, I founded InnovateEdu Now, nine years ago, and when I say that out loud, frankly, it just makes me feel old. But one of the things that I love about innovative do is we're really an organization that's deeply connected to what's happening in the field through various networks and coalition's that we run as well as programs that are actually field based at the charter school I founded in Brooklyn, New York, one of the things that we're really working on at InnovateEdu is creating uncommon alliances to drive large scale social change. And this ecosystem approach really comes from my background as an Enterprise Architect. I'm a technologist and an enterprise architect, and so I only see or thinking systems. And when I think about education, I think we have to pull many levers at the same time in order to support the field to support policy, research and practice coming together to really make the type of massive, disruptive, radical change I think we need right now in education. I love that you bring that background because it's so important and so vital to what we need in education. And you so cleverly created some organizations, including Project Unicorn, which I wanted to talk to you about today, because I know that organization was your brainchild. And it's been around for quite a few years. We you tell us about how you founded Project Unicorn, you know what led to that inception. Just a little more about it. Yeah, I'd love to say that it was just my idea. But like I just said, the things that happen at InnovateEdu often come from the field. And so we host a community of practice at InnovateEdu, our longest running community of practice, actually, the data was community, which is made up of folks who are doing data and technology work in schools and districts across the country. They're the smartest people I know, who are working in these issues. And we were having our inaugural convening in Brooklyn, New York. And one of the things we decided to do as a group was begin to try to get our arms around what tools we were all using what edtech we were all using. And I just want to put everybody in the Wayback Machine that this was about 2015. And so like not when technology was proliferating schools quite the way it has today,

Katie Lash: 3:12

that is the Wayback Machine.

Erin Mote: 3:14

It is the way back machine! That's a long time ago and in a really different environment. And so we had to tech leaders, I won't give away any more secrets than that sitting side by side. And we were working in this spreadsheet, because again, you know, what's the easiest way sometimes to collect the information and the most accessible is something we really pride ourselves on at InnovateEdu. And so you know, they're typing the same product name, and they're typing the same sort of use of the product. And one of them is a large urban school district in the middle of the country. The other is a charter network that spans multiple states on the East Coast, and they start typing the same sales rep. And then they get to sort of how they integrate their tools. And guess what, it's the exact same way, right? So they've achieved interoperability in the exact same way. And then there's a column that says, What does it cost you have one person enters zero, and the other person enters a six figure number. And so this story is sort of illustrative of something that was happening in EdTech that depending on the relationship you had with your sales rep, depending on your district size, depending on you know, what the sort of privilege that you might have coming into a sales transaction, maybe someone was trying to make the sale, maybe someone was trying to keep you as a customer, functionally, you know, someone was paying nothing for interoperability, and someone was paying six figures, which for me just equates to about, you know, at least two and a half teachers in New York City. And so, you know, this idea that data interoperability is really something that is widespread and other industries banking healthcare The way you use your bluetooth headphones with the computer that you're listening on right now, the way you use your ATM card, at any bank, these things were ubiquitous in other sectors. And in in K 12, they were either something that we were paying for schools, or they were something that just wasn't common place. And so it became really clear to me that this was a business problem, not a technology problem. And how do you solve business problems, you work at the supply side and the demand side. And so we rallied a group of initial organizations about 12, to a steering committee to really take this on digital promise, CoSN DQC, these organizations who don't often come together, but new data interoperability was such a big issue for schools, districts and states, all said, we're going to commit to radical change for K 12, in data interoperability. And what's remarkable about this coalition is not only is it still hanging together from that initial 12, but it's expanded now to 18 organizations. And we stayed together. And we're all rowing in the same direction. And we're supporting schools, districts and states. And we come together and share and coordinate how we collect data, how we provide information to the field, how we, you know, drive understanding of what's happening in the space, how we work with vendors, how we work with districts, states, and LEA's. That type of coordinated work is a movement. And so these organizations have committed to a movement invited the supply side and the demand side vendors, districts and states to the table. And I think now when I look at where interoperability is and the awareness around interoperability in our space, this movement has really catalyzed understanding knowledge. And frankly, I think lower the total cost of operating for a school district with their data. And so I'm incredibly proud of the work of project unicorn. But it really came from educators to educators who took the time to share information to zone in on their problem. And then a group of organizations who has been committed in coming together to really transform the education space. I think that's remarkable. I think that's the type of uncommon alliances we need in this space. And I'm incredibly proud to be the lead unicorn, but certainly it's a herd of unicorns. Just one, I love that. Erin, congratulations. That's so remarkable that it's still going strong. And I feel like I think you're absolutely right. We need more of this. How do we solve other problems? There's so many. We need these coalition's to come together for these solutions. So that's amazing. Great work. Thanks.

Katie Lash: 7:46

Yes. So I'm just learning more about your work here. And so tell us a few more of the impressive ideas and tools that you've seen come of your coalition's this is super interesting, and like all folks that we've interviewed on here, I want to talk about this offline to.

Erin Mote: 8:02

Absolutely. So you know, I'll just name a couple of the other large coalition's that we've built at Innovate. Edu. One that comes to mind immediately is our pathways Alliance. It's the only coalition we co founded with another organization there, we're working with the incredible Learning Policy Institute as our co founder of that coalition, and that's really focused on creating inclusive pathways for educators into the profession. So a couple things that the pathways Alliance has already done in less than a year so impressive. They've released a national definition of a teacher residency to ensure that when a state is building policy or a school district is building a teacher residency, or an institution of higher education is thinking about a teacher residency, that they're taking the best research policy and practice we've seen in the sector, and implementing a set of principles that ensures that teacher residencies are inclusive that they support diverse candidates and that they do it in a way that's really equitable, and prioritizes, the learning experience of those candidates and frankly, in the long term we've seen when teacher candidates have a great onboarding experience a great residency experience. They stay in the profession longer, they tend to matriculate into leadership roles. And just by and large, they tend to be more diverse and reflective of the communities that they serve. Right now that alliance, as announced at the White House last year is working on writing the national guidelines for teacher apprenticeships alongside the US Department of Education and the US Department of Labor, and a coalition of organizations within pathways. Those will be coming out in spring and I'm really excited to see again, us holding up through a coalition of diverse actors, right so our friends from labor unions, our friends from institutions of higher education, our friends from the field who are actually implemented Teaching apprenticeships all coming together around the same table, talking about how to close that research policy and practice, divide, and hopefully generate something for the field that creates not just what we should be doing, but really what the desired outcome of that paradigm shift is around teacher pathways. So that we're really focusing on the types of onboarding we're doing into the profession, the types of working conditions we create for our educators, and how we're really thinking about educators as being durable careers over the long term, that's something pathways is really focused on, then I'll bring up one other that I'm so proud of that we founded during the pandemic in March 2020. Because, you know, what else are you going to do, but found an uncommon alliance of folks more than 125 organizations who have come together to really create a new coalition around students with learning differences and students with disabilities that educating all Learners Alliance, I'm so proud of the work that ELA has done throughout the pandemic, but also the work it's doing now, to really put students with disabilities at the center of the conversation. You know, at ELA, we talk about shoveling the ramp, not shoveling the stairs, so that when you design for the widest use case possible, that you can actually make education more inclusive for all students. And we just worked with the Texas Virtual Education Commission to forward some recommendations about how to make virtual education, the most inclusive practice possible for young people who have disabilities. And so the ELA work is more broad and more diverse than that. But really some huge highlights of again, this uncommon coalition of civil rights organizations, k 12, organizations, parent organizations, regional organizations, local organizations, and the big nationals coming together and say, You know what, we can work together differently, we can bring different expertise. And there's really a way to push this work forward in a transformative and impactful way. Wow. I'm speechless. Erin, you're so impressive. This is amazing. Amazing team like that is yes, I will say is that yeah, I have had an amazing team of people who are just mission oriented warriors for change, and impact is the center of their core values. And that's really what makes this work possible. Yeah. That's so important. Okay, what if someone said, Gosh, I really want to create an alliance, or I really think we need a coalition about x. Where do they start? Because that sounds very daunting. Could you just kind of break that down for us? Just very curious. Yeah. I mean, I think you have to start and end with trust. So, you know, I think the essential element in any coalition is is trust and that, InnovateEdu, we actually have a manifesto, people can go and read it on the website, the cool type of manifesto, not the bad type of manifesto. But really, it talks about how do you find the 80%? Common, so not every organization, no matter the scope is going to agree on everything. But can you agree on what's 80% common, and this is something that actually comes from technology and a discipline around enterprise architecture. So when you're an enterprise architect, you design 80% of the system. And then you allow different units, different branches, different applications to customize the 20%. And so we experience this all the time in our daily life. If you look at Uber and Lyft, for example, they have the exact same payments infrastructure, the exact same Google Maps infrastructure, like 80% of their architecture is common, right? But what is different is both their what they're trying to connote in their customer experience, their brand, but also just sort of the the type or segment of the market they're going after. And so if you can build a coalition that's built on trust and finding common ground that 80% Common not agree on 100%, that's never gonna happen. Don't ever go into a coalition thinking I'm gonna have a universal agreement. That's just not what happens as humans. But can you create a space where there's trust, that when there is that 20% disagreement, it's comfortable, to disagree and to say, this is where I need to step back and say, I'm not an alignment? Or this is what would help me get to alignment? How do you create the space for radical candor? How do you create the space where you can build trust and use trust in order to you know, kind of work towards hard conversations? One of the things I think that's really impactful about innovating to you is it's not uncommon for us to have coalition partners that are shared across our different coalition's and our different projects. Why is that? It's because we've built the trust. It's because they trust innovate edu, they trust that we're going to be on Most brokers in this work, and that, you know, we're going to always say the hard thing, which is something that I think can be really challenging. But we always say the hard thing, even if we know, it's gonna get us into that 20% zone, where we have to sort of surface it, do it in a way that's safe and allow people to find a pathway forward. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. Okay, another question for you. And so, the show is all about thought leadership and education. And clearly, you've carved a path for yourself that's so impressive through the work you're doing, but also the platform that you've built for innovative you project unicorn, and your own brand. So I would love for you to share any takeaways, or strategies for success that you think our listeners could apply when they're trying to build their own audiences and grow their own impact. Yeah, I mean, I think something that I've learned and had to like, evolve in is first, I think, I've always been this way to just be really authentic. But the thing I really had to grow in is to be a vulnerable leader, to say when I need help, and to say, when I need that partnership, and to also never try to act like I have all the answers, and that my greatest strength is the fact that I can call a lot of really smart people when I have a challenge. And I think that's really important. And I think we don't see vulnerability as a superpower, and we should vulnerable leaders get more done, they're more authentic, they're able to build trust much more easily. And I don't think when you would have asked me 10 years ago, that would have been my answer about building my own brand, I thought it was confidence. And you know, always like fake it till you make it, we hear that a lot. You know, I think at some point, authenticity is your currency. And unless you're an authentic, vulnerable, trustworthy person, it's really hard to get people to trust you to get people to work hard with you. And on an issue, even when it gets tough. And I think I have been really blessed and really lucky to be able to build those relationships. I've also had really great mentors my whole life, I've had really amazing people in my life, who are willing to hold up a mirror to me, and say, You're not being your best self, or I think you could do this differently. Or this is how you navigate being a working mom, because people have gone before me, and you know, have been vulnerable had built that trust with me. And so whenever people ask me about building their brand, I want people to think about like, what is your authentic voice, and to really lean into that? Authenticity, even if that authenticity is vulnerability, even if that authenticity is personal. And I think when you do that, when you demonstrate that you can be radically candid in a situation that you can show people that, you know, you're willing to reach out and ask for help, to lean on their expertise to put a partner out front. Those are the things that I think have made the work we've done at InnovateEdu. So notable, we're also really urgent. That's the other thing I want to say people remark all the time that we get things done so fast, and we have a sense of urgency. You know, we feel that urgency every single day. I feel so urgent about what's happening in our education system right now. I feel more passion and more urgency right now than when I did you know, nine years ago, when I founded innovateEdu. I talked to superintendents, and that doubles down on my urgency. I talked to parents and that doubles down on my urgency. I had the such an awesome journey. Last week, I got to go into some San Diego schools with our educating all learners community of practice and talk to students and to teachers. As an education sector, we need to be centering the field more, we need to be more inclusive, and we need to be listening more. And when we listen. We can both respond with the urgency and sort of the appropriate thing that the field needs at that moment.

Sarah Williamson: 19:18

Are you looking to build brand awareness and expand your impact as an organization? But maybe you're struggling to find the ROI with your general marketing and PR efforts? It could it be time to try something a little different. At SWPR Group we approach every organization through the lens of how we can help them add the most value to the conversations that are happening in education today for one of our clients, the Institute for Education innovation, this led to the launch of Supe's choice, an award that we co created to build incredible brand awareness and his firmly established organization as an industry leader driving impact, growth and awareness on every level. What will your success story be? Let me know when you're ready to get started. Reach out at Sarah with an H. sarah@swpr-group.com. We look forward to hearing from you

Katie Lash: 20:14

I think I'm gonna lean into this moment because it was so well timed of you talking about your leadership. But before we started recording, we were all kind of sharing the woes of motherhood. And I think again, well timed because Sarah's kids are jumping in the background of this recording. We've just brought it to the table. She's like muting herself and trying to multitask here. So I think it's valid Erin, share with us where you started to go. And then we said, freeze. Let's start recording. Tell us about once you kind of stood up for us as a female CEO, and being a mother and all that comes with

Erin Mote: 20:50

Yeah, I first I think it starts with that that. vulnerability and getting comfortable. You know, just before the pandemic, we were doing a series of panels with other women leaders in the space one at South by Southwest edu when iNACOL, where we were talking about the challenges of being a woman leader, both in terms of the professional challenges, in terms of fundraising, or sometimes types of conversations you find yourself in or the types of networks you're not a part of, to, like the challenges of, you know, having to, you know, keep your kids out a zooms or, if you have your kids in zooms, make sure that you're muted. You know, I think that there are a lot of challenges about being a working parent, I think that applies to moms and dads. But there is a special set of things that are not just driven by our sector, but frankly, are driven by society, around moms who work and I think we saw this in stark relief. During the pandemic, when you saw how many women at all levels from CEOs and VPS. to folks who are more frontline workers just left the profession just left the workforce entirely. And I'm not throwing shade at anyone who did that I embrace everybody who makes different choices, including folks who step back for lots of different reasons. But I just think that if we had an honest conversation about why that happened, what the enormous setback that is for our society, and for business and for our sector, to see so many women leave work life at the start of a global pandemic, whether that's because childcare became non existent or schooling became more difficult or work responsibility shifted around, whatever it was, and whatever it is for each individual family. As a society, we need to take a step back and say, why was that? And why are we so far behind all the progress that we had made. And you know, whether you're the Prime Minister of New Zealand, or you're the former governor of Massachusetts, my good friend, Jane swift talks about this, like, we have made progress, but we have not made enough progress in terms of how we treat women, leaders and how we treat my working moms. And you know, I see this all the time, when you know, I'm lucky enough to be in the same sector as my husband. And sometimes we have the same funders and a funder will say nothing to my husband, nothing to Eric not asked about our kids not asked about, you know, traveling, and the first question out of their mouth when they see me and whether it's out of trying to form a relationship or friendship, they asked me how my kids are, they say, Don't your kids miss you when you're on the road? And that just feels like a subtle channeling that like parenting is all my responsibility, and it's not. And so, I think we need to name those things. And so some of the things that I've started to do is at conferences upcoming at COSn, I'm gonna get together with a bunch of badass can I say about us? I'm gonna say it, leaders and tack to talk about the unique challenges of being a woman leader in tech in particular, and we need to call attention to that look at the number of women in education who are teachers, but that number does not translate to the number of women who are superintendents, what is happening there. Why is it that we think it's okay for women to be teachers and educators in our classrooms, but we're not comfortable with them being superintendents, you know, I think we have to do more and do better and that's incumbent upon people like me, who are the leader of my organization to both create that space and create those pathways. And so, I'm here for that. And I always want to To create that space, in a space of again, like no judgment, people need to have the power to make different choices. I just want women to be able to have that choice.

Katie Lash: 26:54

I love this. This has been Sarah and I have been having this conversation a lot lately in so many different ways. I'll share with you this just cute anecdotes. My girls have started a podcast. And what's really cute is one of their episodes. They did Ruth Bader Ginsburg, it's really about books they've read, like, that's really what started out. Like, I love it. Yeah. So we were explaining, you know, in her story that like when she had a young child while she's going through law school, or whatever, and discussing that must have been challenging. And one of my daughters, it was just so profound. So I had to share this. One of my daughters was like, why wouldn't they just take turns? why would her husband stay home like dad does? And I was just like, You go girl, like that was like she genuinely that was her first reaction, it would took me a moment of pause to be like, I don't know that I would have said the same. I would have had it ingrained to me that I wasn't allowed to say that we're not allowed, but like, it would have made such sense that Ruth Bader Ginsburg would have stayed home with her kid, why did it and it didn't make sense to my daughter. And I was so proud of her that it didn't make sense. But just thought it was beautiful.

Erin Mote: 27:53

I mean, I love Nancy Pelosi and this anecdote, she tells about getting into politics. And someone said, you know, when I saw the Pelosi kids, and the fact that they were all holding their own laundry, I knew that Nancy could lead anything, right. And so, but it's so true. And so like, when you think about all of the things that you have to do to multitask as a parent, and again, like I want to be inclusive of our, maybe some of our grandparents who are out there who are parenting right now, or dads who are parenting right now, there is a special set of things that we need to do so that every young person, whether they're I don't do seven, Katie, your kids are seven, so whether they're seven, or they're 17, still sees that as a possibility that I want a 17 year old girl to say that too. I want a 27 year old, young professional to be able to say that I want a 37 year old executive to be able to say that, and so how do we show that path in a way that, you know, makes it possible. And I also have some great girlfriends, you know, I created a happy hour, large education conferences called Lady boss hour. And it's ladies only, and we just, you know, have a cup of cocktails and decompress and create that space. And so, men have been doing this for a really long time, time for us to create that space for women to and to support each other. That's another thing. I've had really great female mentors and male mentors, but my female mentors have always said, under what conditions is this possible? Never know. I love that.

Sarah Williamson: 29:36

Yeah. I love it, too. That's amazing. So great. Okay, Erin, what are you hopeful about? With the future of education, you're making so much positive change? And there's so many things still left that we need to fix. But where are you still hopeful about where we can transform the lives of young people moving forward?

Erin Mote: 29:55

I mean, my greatest faults is that I'm always an optimist. I can tell. I think that that optimism is what feeds that urgency that I talked about earlier. You know, I'll tell you the things I'm really excited about. I'm really excited about the shift that I am seeing in parents as partners, and so many of our schools I love the work that national parents union is doing learning Heroes is doing to really shift the conversation from parents as being in an adversarial relationship with an education system to a partnership relationship and that education system. And I think if the pandemic wasn't a wake up call to schools and educators across this country, how vital it is that our parents are engaged in young people's education that I don't know what better wake up call we could have gotten. I love the progress we're seeing on accessibility inclusivity and interoperability. I was thrilled when Secretary Cardona declared that those were the three aspects of digital learning environments that we should all be promoting. I've just watched cast in partnership with educating all learners released the first universal design for learning certification for vendors to create those clear market signals for organizations around you know what tools are designed for all learners. And I think that's something we need to do more of in our space is create clear market signals and decision frameworks for folks who are making decisions about choosing pedagogy curriculum, you know, practice materials, anything like that. Let's make it much easier. And then I guess the last thing I'm really excited about, I have so many but you know, I'm gonna use a story from last week when I was in San Diego at an amazing Middle School Calavera Middle School in San Diego. Go. And I was there with a group of districts from across the country from, you know, Vermont, to Encinitas to Missouri to Idaho. So a real cross section of districts. And they were, they're all focused on how to create more inclusive learning environments. And I walked into a classroom of middle schoolers who are all working on a design and engineering project, and each of these middle schoolers, and I can send you guys a video if you want to see this, because it's pretty awesome. We're each working on an innovation that they had designed. And then 3d printed in order to create a more inclusive, sort of practical situation or life experience for someone who is differently abled. And so one team printed adaptive toothpaste caps to be able to unscrew a toothpaste cap, so that if you were mobility impaired, you could get the toothpaste cap off, or another group 3d printed a bag handle. So folks who maybe had a prosthetic limb or who didn't have mobility, and both arms could carry more bags with a bag handle that would disperse the weight, or another team that was printing a piece of plastic that flips over a key to make the key fob wider so that you can turn it if you have different mobility. And so the thing that gives me hope every single day is actually our young people. They are amazing, dynamic, caring, global citizens. And our job is to create the learning experiences that invest them in their own learning that drive the type of social impact and change that I saw in this middle school classroom, we need to be thinking about creating those learning environments, creating those learning experiences, creating those working conditions for educators so that they can help create those creating this conditions for communication with our parents. That's the stuff that fills my cup. That's the stuff that makes me feel that urgency because it's happening, not just in a school in San Diego, it's happening all over our country. Our schools are amazing. Our educators are innovators, our young people are catalysts for change. We need to figure out a way to unlock that power. And so that's what I'm committed to at InnovateEdu That's what you're gonna see us focused on and that's why we build these uncommon alliances for change.

Sarah Williamson: 34:11

Mic dropped so great,

Erin Mote: 34:16

thanks.

Sarah Williamson: 34:16

Yeah,

Erin Mote: 34:17

I really feel it. That's the thing like

Sarah Williamson: 34:19

No, I can tell ya, it's like fireworks. It's coming off you

Erin Mote: 34:23

Good. I hope not only in my closet with the firework. Okay, where can people find out about you? Oh, it's sorry. That's your question. Katie. You go.

Katie Lash: 34:33

No, I just wanted to say it's so great to meet you. I'm now I'm looking so forward to following your work. And that's a perfect segue to where do we follow you? How do we learn more about you?

Erin Mote: 34:44

Yeah, well, I would love for you to learn more about InnovateEdu and our work at our website, www dot InnovateEdunyc.org. You can always follow me on Twitter, I'm still there @ErinMote pretty easy. I post a lot on LinkedIn. Katie knows this everything from grant opportunities to the work we're doing at InnovateEdu. I tend not to post you know, the funny things I post on Twitter about my kids, you know, running into a glass door and having a goose egg if you want that tune in to Twitter. But LinkedIn is a little bit more. And then you know, if you're interested in any of the areas that we're working in, whether it's Project Unicorn and our work on data interoperability, the pathways Alliance and the work we're doing on educator preparation, I would urge you to follow those specific brands and handles, you can link to all that work from our main website at InnovateEdu.org amazing. Thanks, Erin. And we'll be sure to include the video you talked about in the show notes. Yeah, I'll send it to you. It's just a mobile video and I took it so you can't see the kid's face because I perfect so I could share it on social media. Brilliant. not your first rodeo. Not my first rodeo they're pretty awesome. I mean, it was like Soul filling to watch. Amazing, these young people there. I just think young people are capable far more than we give them credit for. And if we center them in our work, it can give you that that fire that passion, that urgency.

Sarah Williamson: 36:16

Yes, I totally agree. Completely agree how amazing All right. Well, Erin, so great to have you and can't wait to keep following you and watching you do amazing things. Thanks so much for joining.

Erin Mote: 36:27

Great. Well you just send me an email and I'll send you that video.

Sarah Williamson: 36:30

Absolutely. No problem.

Erin Mote: 36:32

Great.

Sarah Williamson: 36:32

Okay,

Erin Mote: 36:33

Awesome.

Sarah Williamson: 36:34

Thank you.

Erin Mote: 36:34

Thanks Y'all.

Sarah Williamson: 36:36

If you're looking for more of this thought leadership goodness for your organization, you're in the right place, visit us at swpr-group.com To learn more about how we work with education organizations and their leaders, superintendents and influencers to increase your impact. Again, that's swpr-group.com. Thanks for tuning in today and we will see you next time on Build Momentum.