This interview was originally recorded on March 4, 2022, as part of Leoni Consulting Group’s All Things Marketing and Education Podcast.
Access this episode's show notes, including links to the audio, a summary, and helpful resources.
Elana:
Hello, and welcome to All Things Marketing and Education. My name is Elana Leoni, and I’ve devoted my career to helping education brands build their brand awareness and engagement. Each week I sit down with educators, EdTech entrepreneurs, and experts in educational, marketing, and community building. All of them will share their successes and failures using social media, inbound marketing or content marketing, and community building. I’m excited to guide you on your journey to transform your marketing efforts into something that provides consistent value and ultimately improves the lives of your audience.
Hello everyone. I’m Elana Leoni and welcome to this week’s episode of All Things Marketing and Education. Today I am really excited to sit down with Meredith Allen. She is the Head of Customer Happiness, and boy, I think many of you know I have a teammate called Porter Palmer and she has the title Director of Joy. This is an equally awesome title, I would have to say. So she is the Head of Customer Happiness at Soundtrap. And Soundtrap, in all disclaimers, is a client of LCG's, and that’s exactly why I wanted to have her on the show. I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside Meredith for almost a year now.
When we first started working with Meredith, I was just so impressed because she had this deep education background, and in the beginning, I was telling her even right before this show, I did a little bit of sleuthing on her. A little bit of cyber stalking just to say, "Who is this Meredith lady?" I came across a podcast where Meredith was just so humble. She was so practical about just her background, but also talked a little bit about Soundtrap, but more so brought in her personal usage of Soundtrap, and brought in her daughter and how she was for the first time able to hear her voice on a recording and what that did to her.
So as soon as I heard that podcast I was like, "When I get a podcast, I want Meredith to be on it." So I’m excited this day has come. Meredith will talk a little bit more about her background, but I want to let you know that just for context, she spent nine years as a classroom teacher. And then spent two years as an instructional tech lead as well in Iowa. But what’s unique about Meredith is, it’s not unique to go into EdTech, but the position of where she’s at, I really want her to get into her journey because I think we can all learn and be inspired about her path and what she’s discovered along the way. So we’re going to talk to Meredith about her specific journey, and then we’re going to get into all things EdTech as normal. So Meredith, welcome so much to All Things Marketing and Education. I know I missed something in your bio so please tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Meredith:
Oh no, thank you for having me. This is great. I’ve migrated up north to Minnesota now from Iowa, but I did start my – well, I was born and bred in Iowa, left for college, went to the University of South Dakota, and then came back and taught there for 11 years between music teaching, some computer teaching, virtual reality there for a little while, and then I moved into an AEA position – an area education agency that served several school districts in the north central part of Iowa – and that was when I really dipped my foot heavy into the EdTech world and learned a ton that I had maybe not been so exposed to when I was a music teacher.
It was during that time that I found Soundtrap, and kind of like the rest is history. I never thought in a million years that I would say I would be working for – well, at the time, a Swedish startup. I thought I would be a classroom teacher until I was – I think I had to hit the Rule of 88 at 57 or 58, and I would be a teacher at least until that long. And then, now I reflect back on the last almost seven years now of my work with Soundtrap, and I’m still connected to the classroom. It’s a few layers away, but it’s still so much a part of my every day. So yeah, it’s been a fun journey.
Elana:
Yeah, and I can’t wait to get into it a little bit more, because I know a lot of our audience – they’re either educators that maybe have potentially dipped their toe in the water with EdTech or maybe made the transition or looking for advice around that, but then we also have a lot of EdTech folk that might be in similar roles as yourself, too. Let’s rewind before we get into the story of you and Soundtrap, of just the why. I think a lot of the times when I work with brands and when I also talk to educators, is, "Let’s all get back to the why, and what initially drew you to education?" I actually don’t think I know this about you, but what was it that you were like, "I’m going to be in the classroom and I’m going to work with children?"
Meredith:
Yeah. Well, so it all comes down to actually mentoring, and just yesterday I was working with a group that I’m part of, StartEd. It’s mentoring with groups, and they kind of asked a similar question, and I said, “You know, it’s so funny, because mentoring was the reason I am in education to begin with, and now here I am acting as a mentor to others.” I was in seventh grade. I had an opportunity to do a job shadowing, job mentorship, and I was debating between English and music. Those were my two strong places and that I had the most joy in school. My mom was a licensed teacher and I knew that education just felt like the right fit. I thought, "OK, I’m going to shadow my band director. I love band. I’m going to see it from his perspective." I showed up and he’s like, “OK. You’re going to teach this lesson.” And it was a couple of fifth-grade drummers at the time, and I was just kind of thrown in, sink or swim. He had me teach beginning percussion to these two gals. You’ve heard this many times from other teachers I’m sure but you see the light bulb pop on and then you’re like –
Elana:
That aha moment, right.
Meredith:
Yeah, the aha moment. I had the luxury of having that in seventh grade as a teacher and seeing that. So I knew, from seventh grade until I graduated high school, that was going to be my path to education. So I knew all the classes I needed to take. I had studied all the schools that I wanted to look into attending, so that’s really what hooked me into education.
Elana:
Yeah. In the music, I’m just curious, do you sing, or do you play any instruments?
Meredith:
Well, I was a band director for nine years, so I had to learn all of the instruments. So you can hand me anything, I can play the B flat concert scale on it just because I had to do that as band director, but I was a percussionist and a piano player and a guitar player, and I sang as well. So just kind of I did all of them pretty well. Not enough to ever be a performer, and I didn’t want to be on stage as a performer unless I was with all my students on stage.
Elana:
Do you teach your children music, or are they musically inclined?
Meredith:
No. They are musically inclined. I do not teach them. That is a lesson I learned early on. I was like, "Oh, I can teach Morgan (my oldest who is now 13) piano." So we sat down on the piano, and it ended in with both of us in tears, and it was like OK, that is just a line that – so now I happily write a check to a piano instructor weekly for both of my kids to attend their piano lessons, and then they both play an instrument now. So yeah.
Elana:
That is too funny, and it’s so true. It’s like they can’t get it out of their head that you are their mom and there’s so much stuff.
Meredith:
There’s a lot of power struggles, and you know how much they can do, and so I think there is – yeah. Interesting line.
Elana:
Well, that is so awesome that you had that opportunity so young to really figure out what you wanted. You know now working in K-12 that that’s quite a rare experience and that you were from that point, this linear, "I’m going to be a teacher." That’s pretty cool. Maybe let’s go over to the world of EdTech now in Soundtrap. Why don’t you talk to me a little bit about just what you do at Soundtrap? So what does that cool title actually mean, and potentially, how did your role evolve over time, because it might sound nebulous a little bit to our audience of, how the heck did she get over there? How did she figure out what she liked to do, and that’s a hard thing to find when you’re an educator in this weird world of EdTech, right?
Meredith:
Yeah. Absolutely. I love reflecting back on this story because, again, I never thought I would be in this position now, and I think it’s a good practice to ground yourself and tie yourself back to where you started. Like I said, I taught for nine years. It was a small school in Iowa. Very rural setup. So all of my band students, at most, were 30 kids. And so I saw a little bit of the writing on the wall. I knew that school would not be in existence in its current state for long because of consolidation. I thought, "OK, what interests me?" and I knew technology was something that I was – I was kind of the go-to at the district for help with tech. Just in general. We didn’t have anybody on staff. So they knew that, "Oh, Meredith, she adopted Google Docs early on. Let’s go to her for help or whatnot."
So I started looking around and found a position that I did not think I was at all going to have a chance at getting. When I got the interview, I was like, "OK, this is a fluke. They must have misread or got the wrong resume." I really thought I had this imposter feeling about I’m not qualified. I’m a band director. Why would they want a band director in a position of instructional technology consulting at a higher level? So I went in. What I had going for me is I went in with an open mind about the possibilities. I was so new to it that I wasn’t stuck in any way, so my whole perspective was very open, and I think that’s probably what resonated the most is that I was open to innovation and – not to use a word that’s overused so much – but growth mindset. I knew that there was not a ceiling, that we could potentially do just about anything with tech. And that probably came through. Got the job, which was fantastic. I loved it.
The fall I started, I missed music significantly. I really was like, "Oh, I’m doing these Google trainings; I’m learning all about Bee-Bots and robots," and I was bringing home a different tech tool every day to get to know what was out there in the classrooms and be able to facilitate the teachers with PD on these, but there was no music. So I decided to do some research into music collaboration tools. I think I Googled those exact words just so I could maybe host a workshop for music teachers that were interested in integrating more technology. Soundtrap popped up. I clicked on their promotional video they had at the time, and it was their – you can pull it up on YouTube now, but it’s this video that shows the possibilities of collaborating online with music.
They show this world and these kids singing and playing instruments and connecting the globe with the lines. I realized: A, I didn’t know the technology existed; and B, why don’t we know about this? I need to help educate music teachers that this is a possibility. Reached out to the company at the time and was like, "I’m a poor teacher, I need free licenses to share in my makerspace that I have going on in this little, tiny town of Iowa." I can still pull up the support ticket in our internal systems, which makes me laugh so hard. So that’s how the conversation started with Soundtrap is, it was right time, right place. They were starting to ramp up their education product. They needed help advising Eduspace in the U.S. Again, it was in Sweden, so they weren’t in tune. They didn’t have the pulse on the education space so much.
So they acknowledged that I was this route of information, and I loved their product, and I wanted to evangelize it to my wider audience. So I worked for free for them for a long time because I was in love with what they offered students and teachers for creativity. Then eventually they offered me a position as kind of a paid ambassador. That was a tough decision because I had to leave the classroom then officially at this point and say, "I’m no longer – I don’t need to have a teaching degree to have this other job." I still do have my teaching degree, but I don’t need to maintain it if there’s no requirement any more. I’m leaving that part behind. It was tough in that regard, but easy because the team was so welcoming, awesome, and the tool was something that I believed in and I still believe in. I think that’s a big part of my journey, and if I was to recommend anything to anyone, it would be don’t leave the classroom for just nothing. Make sure that you’re leaving for something that you believe in, because you believe in your students and teaching education. Make sure that transfers over to whatever your next journey is. So yeah.
Elana:
That’s great advice. I was actually going to pause you because you said something when you talked about your journey around: "Well, I was all of a sudden in IT but I missed music." So you’re going through a little bit of a way-finding journey to figure out what gives you the most pleasure or joy, too. I think for educators to just know that you might have steps along your journey, and you go, "Oh, I actually miss this, or how can I integrate this into my job?" And that’s perfectly normal.
So I just wanted to point that out in Meredith’s story as she went along and said, “But you know, I also miss this,” and that ultimately helped her to go to where she is now. And then from the EdTech perspective, if you’re an EdTech brand, you should be listening to educators as much as possible. And if you aren’t listening to educators, you won’t come across people like Meredith. You won’t say, "Wow, this person really loves our product and wants it so much she’s asking for a free trial. And then on top of that, she’s doing all this stuff and just doing it because she purely loves the product," but you have to listen to find Merediths out there. And then you have to be smart enough to say how can we bring them on board but don’t just bring them on board. What Meredith said is she felt welcomed, so you also have to make accommodations for educators. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that. Talk to me a little bit about the world you live in now. So you’re the head of – is it Customer Happiness? Yes. Customer Happiness. So it sounds fun, but I also know that customer success can be challenging. So Meredith, tell me a little bit what your day-to-day is like.
Meredith:
Yeah, absolutely. And I have had, if I look back, I think maybe seven different titles since I started with Soundtrap because the role has evolved. I did some customer success agent work, I did sales for a while, I did sales enablement, I did marketing for a little bit, and then just recently – and because of all of those roles, it’s because the company has grown during this time and we needed to adapt and evolve appropriately. So yes, that’s been super fun. To be able to keep that fast pace. Once I start to feel like I know my job, then I start to kind of be like, "Let’s mix this up. Let’s do something else so I can be constantly learning." So that’s been great. I think just now recently, since January, I have this new fancy fun title, but it’s essentially what I was doing before, just a couple of layers removed.
So I have two teams. One is engagement and one is customer success. The customer success is fairly new to me. That’s something I’m still kind of learning and wrapping my head around. That’s the more reactive customer experience that if somebody was to send a ticket and then we respond back, we have a lot of support articles that are online, and that’s kind of owning that area. I have a team that builds that, and I support them. That’s great and awesome, but reversely, we also need to be proactive about because – it’s great to have a fancy product, it’s awesome and amazing, but it's another thing to make sure it’s being used. And if schools are paying for this subscription, I want them to use it. I want the kids to be able to harness its capabilities.
So the engagement team, which is technically the team that I’ve been on since the beginning, are the ones – they’re teachers and trainers located all over the world that go into schools, or virtually – obviously for the last couple of years – but they work with teachers that are adopting it for their classroom. And they’re sharing and inspiring them to use it in meaningful ways that are appropriate for their particular situation. Soundtrap is a very open-ended audio creation tool. You can do anything from language lessons to podcasting to music creation to an audio field guide for science classes. So we know that that’s a big spectrum. We wouldn’t want to go in and train teachers the same way each time, because we are talking to a different set of teachers with different needs. So that engagement team is that exactly. They come in, and they listen to the teachers, and then they adapt their training and the resources to support them. So that’s kind of what I do now every day, is I support my two teams.
Elana:
Yeah. And I love that you get to work with really inspiring educators every day. Like you said, you’re layers removed now from the classroom but there’s still that connection, and I love that. That you get to work with people similar to your original background, too. Like, you’ve got Austin and Audrey and Serena, and for those of you that are recurring listeners of this show, Serena is part of the Soundtrap team and recently just launched an episode, and she talked about her passion on social-emotional learning, and we’ll put that in the show notes as well. But you get to work with all of these amazing people, and I just think that when people think about their journey into EdTech, sometimes they envision themselves working with a bunch of cooperate people in suits that are so serious and numbers oriented. There is a bit of that, obviously, because you’re a business and you do have things like KPIs (key performer indicators) and OKRs and all of those things, but it’s couched with lots of awesome educators, too.
Meredith:
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s what’s been fun about the growing team is that some of the early hires, we had to wear a lot of hats, and now we’ve been able to really hone in and honor the expertise of the particular team members. So like Taylor in Austin, he’s very much music production. That’s his jam. So now we get to encourage that more, and Audrey has that special ed and working with accessibility with our product. So yeah, it’s just been really fun to honor that person, and we see that all over the company. It’s not just on my team but it’s also like our sales team. The majority are past educators. To be honest, I would confidently say a large majority of them were in education, and they found products along the way that have made them passionate about making sure that they can get that in the hands of schools. So it does go outside our team. I think it would be sad to work for a company that didn’t hire the right people that can educate the product on how to evolve and iterate.
Elana:
Yeah, and there’s this careful balance from the business side. If you do hire educators, which I do suggest you do, you want to bring out their natural talents. Really any type of employee, you want to do that. So you mentioned Taylor with music production, right? But you want to do it to a balance where you’re not crafting a unique position for them that doesn’t suit the business. And you’re not saying that, but for those of you in EdTech, I do see that sometimes where they hire an educator and they’re like, "They’re a great keynote speaker, and let’s just have keynote," but I ask him, "Is that what you need right now?" Maybe they actually need that person to train a bunch of ambassadors to go out to conferences and speak at lots of smaller venues in terms of sessions.
So there is always that balance. I just want to forewarn people. Porter and I a lot – you know, Porter is a colleague of mine – we always talk about the magic middle, really. So we look at what does your audience need, and this maybe might be your employees' need at this time, but also what are your business needs? Always match that with your business objectives, too. So I just wanted to bring that up, because I kind of had this little frownie face, and you just made me think about that when you said honor the person's skillset.
Meredith:
Mm-hm. Yeah. And I will say, there have been lots of times where we’ve had to wear multiple hats that aren’t maybe aren’t our major skillset, but it’s been beautiful to watch that part grow as well. So there’s a balance that you want. I would love to go back to the classroom, but I don’t think I could now because there’s a bunch of other things in my current role that give me joy as well, and I think I have so much more to learn in this space. I think career framework is a big thing that’s kind of been one of my challenges.
Challenge in a good way is that when you have a growing company, you also hire people, and they want to know what the path is through that company, because at school, it’s easy. You have – every year you say, "OK, I’m this year down, and I’m on this tier over for education, so this is how much I make every year." But more than that, you know where you’re headed, and it might not be your role doesn’t change because teaching typically – I mean, it does but you’re a science teacher, you’re going to be a science teacher the next year. But in a business, a small business, you get hired at one role. OK. So what’s my next role after that, because after a few years, you want a change. You need to mix it up. So that’s been one of my big boulders to move this last year and this year, is to build some kind of framework within my team so they know that if I hire somebody new, OK, here’s the next few steps that you could potentially go within our company. Not saying you will or you want to, but at least it’s there stated obviously. But we weren’t ready for that a few years ago. We were too small at that point.
Elana:
Yeah, that’s always tough, I think, in small companies. Something for me in particular, too, when I hire, it’s just like we want you in here because you’re passionate and you have the skillsets, and we’ll see how it goes. For the right person, there’s always opportunity. Especially in startups. Like you said, it’s not this one-percent pay raise, and it’s mapped out for the rest of your life based on the years that you put in. It’s really different in the startup environment.
I wanted to know: you’ve been through so many different roles at Soundtrap. Now you talked about your new role and kind of how part of it is overseeing customer success, which you admitted you don’t really have a ton of background in. How do you get into the mindset of like, "Alright, let’s tackle customer success. How do I get to know it?" Because there’s probably a lot of educators that might see a role and they’re like, "I just don’t know if I can do that portion of it. I’ve never done it before." Because you’ve done it in various positions of Soundtrap, how do you kind of get your mind around it and learn it without it being intimidating, you know?
Meredith:
Yeah. OK. So I’m going to go back to when I was in the classroom, because I think this was a pivotal moment for me, and I was just starting my conversation with Soundtrap. I was just starting to learn a little bit about music tech, and I wasn’t a music tech teacher. I want to say that. I was a traditional band teacher that played the music on the page. We did not have a lab. I rarely recorded them. To go back, I’d do things way differently now, but the tech was kind of removed from my band classroom.
So I left the band classroom, and it was that time I was just kind of dabbling in this music tech world. I was being encouraged by my team, rightfully so, to start presenting on what I was learning in a larger audience. So I thought, "OK, well, I submitted my name for a conference." It was all asynchronous because it was global and gosh, I can’t even remember now what the conference was, but essentially it’s all these thought leaders around the world talking about creativity, and you put your session up there, and it’s accessible for 24 hours. Anyway, first time presenting. It was accepted, but what I did was I wrote the description before I knew what I was doing.
I completely did not know what it was, but I thought if I’m going to do this – and that was key for me, because it kind of kicked me in the pants a little bit and said, "OK, you said you’re going to present on this. You have to know what you’re talking about." So I went and I researched. That practice is still in place today. Like customer success. OK. I might not know everything there is about it, but I’m going to try to scale up as much as I can so that I can support my team and advocate for what they need as they grow, and that’s exactly what I did then, and I think that the biggest mindset is that you have to challenge yourself, set a goal, and then keep yourself accountable to that, and don’t think that the default is yes and not no. I think that was one thing for me. I just assumed good intention and that it’s going to be a yes, and go from there. That seemed to work.
Elana:
Yes. You have to have this leap of faith, right? And to do that, you might have to... dig inside of you and find that confidence, and maybe go back to other times in education or other times in your career that you have to make that leap, right? I was just laughing when you said that conference thing because we’ve all done it. And we all have that voice in our head saying, "You’re not an expert. You’re an imposter. What are you doing?" But you need to do something to keep yourself accountable.
So I joke with my team. I’m like, "You gotta fake it 'til you make it." I know it’s not that, but it’s something like you say, kick you in your pants a little bit. Keep you accountable and you learn. We talk a lot about accessibility at LCG as it relates to social media and content marketing and all these things, but Porter and I constantly talk to each other saying we’re not experts in accessibility, but I say, "You know what we are? We’re great at curating information, and we’re curious learners, and there’s not a lot of people talking about that so let’s bring it to life." And that may be what I need to tell myself. It’s like I’m not an expert, I’m a learner.
Meredith:
Absolutely. And it was driving me nuts. It was the Global Education Conference, and the session, get this, The Universal Language of Music, Composing, Sharing, and Celebrating Between Music Classrooms. I had no idea how that was done before that, and I had two months to prepare. Just dive in. Just do it. I don’t like those clichés, but it’s true. You just have to kind of lean in.
Elana:
Yeah. Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen?
Meredith:
Right.
Elana:
I know these are all clichés that we’re talking about here, but I think sometimes it’s nice to listen to other people that have done it and know that we all had those voices in our head, and we still do. It’s not like we have this linear path where we’re just following this yellow brick road to our career. I wish it were that easy sometimes. But we have had a couple of challenging years, and I want to dig into what your experience has been like on the EdTech side, but also you’re able to see the educator perspective nationally and somewhat internationally as well. What has it been like in your position at Soundtrap? I know this is a really big, broad question, but what’s been your experience in the pandemic/we’re going into an endemic now. It’s turned the world of EdTech upside down. I’ve been alongside of you all in social media, so I can see how its affected your users a little bit, but I’d love to hear from you of any stories or things you can bring up as it relates to your team of educators and how they’ve struggled throughout it. Take it wherever you want. I know it’s a big question.
Meredith:
Yeah, no, that’s great. I love it. Wow, what a couple of years, and I think a couple of years in, with a growing company, which has been interesting. So two of my teammates, Jess and Josten, joined weeks before we locked down. I had the luxury of meeting them once, and then I haven’t. And I’ve also onboarded several people during the pandemic, new employees and teammates. So it’s been very interesting to build relationships, and actually really great. If I would’ve had to guess, it wouldn’t have gone this well, but asynchronous and online relationship building does happen. It's not a requirement that you have to be in person. I think there is definitely a level that you miss, but the teams that we’ve built at Soundtrap over the last two years are tight, they’re close. We’ve gotten a lot done.
I think when the pandemic hit, Soundtrap gave away their product for free for, like, five or six months to just let teachers have something while they were scrambling to figure out what to do, and that’s when my education specialist or the education specialist on the team rose to the occasion and they were – I think we added it up, I don’t know the exact numbers, but they did countless trainings and countless email campaigns and countless resource creations during the first three months of that. They just worked so hard, but they were really happy at the same time because they were able to be a little bit of a beacon for those teachers. They were going to trainings and these teachers were just like, "I don’t know what to do." Like in this case, I was a music teacher. "I’m a Meredith. I didn’t use tech in my classroom, what do I do?" They had this tool, and they could share with them, and they saw the light bulb. "Oh my God, I didn’t know this existed, and now I can use this with my students that are located all over the city that I can’t see face-to-face." So early on, and then that kind of transitioned into the fall when schools were adopting it longer term. I think because it was such a positive thing, that kind of kept my team going. I think over time, just like everybody else, it got old just not seeing people and being stuck at home and just watching the world and all of the things that were happening at the time – way done.
I think we saw that with teachers over the last two years. I’ve actually never wanted to teach as bad as I want to right now. I’m aching to get in the classroom, because I want to be one of the – I want to encourage teachers to stay in it as long as they can, obviously without going down a negative, bad path, mental health-wise. But the teachers that give it their all are the ones that are burning out, I think. I want to relieve them somehow. I’ll even bus drive at this point. I’m hurting for them, and I’m hoping that that relief is coming. I see glimmers of it. I really do. I think we’re seeing slowly the endemic happening. I think systematically things need to change for teachers to make sure they’re feeling supported and valued in their work, but yeah, I guess that’s just – I’m sad when I see all the early retirements. I know that’s happening, but as a mother of students, I want that teacher still in the classroom because they’re so good at what they do, but I get it. I get it at the same time.
Elana:
It’s so hard. So we’re part of – another client of ours, we’re working to build up a community of educators, and it’s all about just getting them to prioritize their own well-being, but it’s just really hard for educators. A lot of empathetic or giving, selfless people, it’s very hard. It becomes the habit to say, "OK, if I just keep going, if I keep giving it my all, my all, my all," they start eventually burning out, and that’s not in it for the long run. That’s more in it for the couple of years and then they’re like, "I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what my name is. I don’t know who I am any more." You mentioned burnout from the educator perspective, and I don’t know if you have any words. You talked a little bit to the educators. But for those educators that are listening now, do you any words of wisdom, advice? Maybe some things that kept you going while you were in the profession? I know, for me, my heart goes out – I’ve thought about being a bus driver, too. I’m like, "These schools need help."
Meredith:
I know. I told my mom. She’s like, “Meredith, stop." I’m like, "OK, OK, I know, but that’s what I want." Yeah. Again, clichés but it’s true. You gotta put the mask on yourself before you save somebody else. You need to – and I’m preaching this to myself daily. It’s really hard – I think, yeah. So for me, I gave music – I’m not a musician. I’m not great, like I said, I can do everything OK. I put that aside for several years. My guitar was sitting in the corner and it was collecting dust. I recently picked it up and started playing again. Just like in the middle of the afternoon when I have 15 minutes free, because I typically like to do it when I’m alone, and it just gives me joy there.
Another thing that I stopped, and I can’t believe that I did, was reading for pleasure. I was reading a lot of stuff for work, and I would just be exhausted at the end of the day and put the TV on, and then that was my entertainment. But I love reading. Realistic fiction. That’s my thing. I soak up those books, and I stopped. So over Christmas break, I started back up, and I’ve read like eight novels since Christmas break. I do love doing it. I find myself being able to escape in a different way when I need to escape, and I think that’s – just acknowledging that’s what I need, that that feeds me and is probably what’s kind of saving me right now. Particularly in cold, dark winters for some. I think just this last winter, it’s kind of hit me pretty hard, and I’ve had to really stop and say, "OK, what can I let go of and what brings me joy," and just make sure I make time for myself. Easier said than done.
Elana:
Yeah, that’s great advice, and I knew we were talking about educators in the classroom, but I’m curious from your perspective of now being a manager and managing educators, and you probably manage non-educators too, correct?
Meredith:
Yeah.
Elana:
How is that as a manager in the EdTech field? Burnout is huge, and when you talked about them leaning in and wanting to do more and more, I saw that on my team, and because their excuse always was, "Well, there’s nothing else going on, too, and people are hurting." So how have you been able to help support them, and what are the challenges that you’ve encountered, too? Because we all have, but in EdTech, it just felt like all of our hearts were pouring out and the teachers needed so much help.
Meredith:
Yeah. My two general rules – this goes all the time with managing or leading a team – are I try to remove barriers for their work, and I try to support them. That’s as simple as it is from a manger/leader position, and I think even if I’m not able to remove the barriers, I’m trying and they’re seeing that, and I think that helps. They know somebody else is working to advocate for their work; if there’s something that’s just not working, they know it’s not just for not – it’s like, OK, there is a parallel line happening here, and we’re trying to get through it. And then supporting, I’m listening. I have one-on-ones with my employees every week, and sometimes we spend the entire time talking about just general "us" stuff. Not work-related. And that’s for me to get a pulse on how they’re feeling, and then we can talk through things that are maybe larger than what’s driving right at this second, which is family and mental health and personal issues and things. I just try to give them – they don’t need permission. Spotify is great about being very autonomous with our work, and we drive our own work, but giving them the permission they feel they need to take time off for themselves or do what they need to, let go of this project and only focus on this project if you need to. I’m like a repetitive record in that regard, so they know that this is a safe space, that they can push the pause button. They don’t always do it, but I try to encourage it as much as possible, and Spotify is great. They have lots of programs in place as well.
Elana:
Yeah, I’m nodding my head because it really rings true with me as well, and I think for clarification for our audience, you said Spotify, and I don’t think we ever mentioned that Spotify acquired Soundtrap in, what, 2017?
Meredith:
Yeah.
Elana:
2017. So you’re officially now a big part of the umbrella of Spotify companies, which is exciting, because it has lots more opportunity and structure for you all, too. Just super interesting what you said around the pause button, because as a manager, you can only do so much. You can say, "Hey, I’m going to listen to you, here’s what I’m going to encourage you to do," but people all approach those things in due time. I have employees that I say, "Please take a vacation, please take a vacation, take some time off," and it takes them a while to realize that they really need it. Maybe it’s a sales pitch where you need to tell them sometimes things over and over again before they can go, "Oh yeah, she actually really does mean it." Does your approach change – so as a past educator, you’re managing some past educators, but you’re also managing people who have never really been in that space, hands-on wise – does your approach change, or are they just humans, and all humans deserve what you’re talking about?
Meredith:
Yeah, no, I have no different approach, and it’s been fun to also manage people from different companies who have a different way of working, and also we have to work different because our hours are different. So where I can support face-to-face with the U.S. team, I might not as much with the Swedish or whatnot. I think the approach is the same, and I would add in, too, transparency over communication opportunities.
So one example is bringing in people that might not have experience in the classroom. Let’s say customer success-wise. They’ve worked on tickets in our system, but they’ve never actually talked face-to-face with an educator. So I’m trying to provide opportunities that they can listen in and shadow and come to a conference and watch and be part of that, so they have some kind of level of context to make the connections. I think we all work in our own little teams, but there’s so much cross-collaboration that happens, and I think perspectives are very different. If we can at least give them experiences of the core product and its application, which is in classrooms with teachers, that seems to work well.
Elana:
Yeah. All right. One of my last questions is, it just made me start thinking about the space of EdTech, and since you’ve had your feet in it for a while and you’ve had that experience of being on the ground in a leadership position in EdTech in a pandemic, EdTech roles – so we had a teacher come on in one of our podcasts – Tracy – and she talked about how in the beginning, EdTechs, they offered a lot of their product for free right when the pandemic started, and now that we’re in this weird grey area of an endemic, a lot of that is being taken away. I understand why, and we know from the EdTech space why, but there’s a lack of support, and I’m just wondering if you had a magic wand and thought about the role of EdTech and how it supported educators, and especially in this endemic, weird way that I feel like educators are being asked to go back to normal, but it’s not quite normal, how would you like EdTech to help support? Or maybe it’s just a list of, "Hey, whatever you do, just don’t do this." I know this a hard question, but I’ve been thinking about the role of EdTech.
Meredith:
Yeah. Oh, that is interesting, and that is kind of a tough one. I think equality comes to mind. Why should one school on this side of the tracks not have the same access as this other school on the other side of the tracks? That’s a big problem we have in our world, and it’s a big conversation, but if our education system, EdTech included, can help support creating equal equality across all the schools and all the students so that one kid doesn’t have a different set of tools than the other, or – Yeah, that’d be awesome. And I want that for the whole world, like, peace on earth, goodwill to man, like, I want that to be there to be there all the time, but let’s start with maybe EdTech.
Elana:
Yeah. That’s kind of where I was thinking, too, and I know there’s not one specific answer, but it’s just about equity and access, and sometimes I just ask EdTech founders and CEOs and executives that they have this amazing product but you have to make money. Sometimes when you have to make money, it increases the divide. Right?
Meredith:
Yeah. I think some of that comes back to educational reform on a state or a federal level, and that’s a big rock to move. Yeah. We have some instances where it’s awesome because there’s been a big organization that’s backed it and said, "OK, we believe that all the students in this organization need to have access to Soundtrap, so we are putting our stake in the ground here and saying, 'We will give access to all of these students.'" In that case, that’s awesome, but it’s few and far between. And yeah, like you said, it does come back to money and funding, and that’s a big question for our world.
Elana:
Yeah. I think so one of the things that we’re kind of rounding about and circling to is just being more aware of how your product effects and maybe even might contribute to inequity issues is one thing, but you and I have both said this, it’s just listening. Listening to educators. We hear you. We see you. We want to support you and be as helpful as possible, and that sometimes may not be with the product itself. So I do social media and community building for a living, and sometimes we talk about things that have nothing to do with the product, and they’re just valuable for your audience. You are creating value. You’re building trust because you care. So that’s also what you can do. So there’s lots of different things that I think EdTech can evolve to, to really just be as supportive as possible to a stakeholder that just doesn’t get support generally. Right?
Meredith:
Yeah, absolutely.
Elana:
Anyways, I know we can talk about this forever. I am just pinching myself that you took the time to talk to me about all of this, and just what we were saying before that we very rarely get the opportunity to dive deep into what our journey has been, what’s life like, where are things to come, so I just appreciate hearing your story in depth because I’ve heard bits and pieces, and putting it all together, I really hope the audience, whether you’re an educator or an EdTech professional, that they really find value in this.
Meredith:
Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me. It’s been great. It’s always good to kind of push the pause and reflect, and you’ve offered that space, so thank you so much.
Elana:
Yeah. Well, you’re not getting away with this too quickly. I think we always ask our guests at the end one question, and you kind of already answered it, but I think you can add some specifics. We always ask, especially now where we’re constantly trying to grab more energy, more inspiration and with the pandemic and the endemic, it’s just how can we continue to keep our eye on the "why"? That’s so important in EdTech in particular, but what re-energizes you, what keeps you inspired? You talked about your love for realistic fiction. Maybe you can list a couple of novels, or maybe there’s just a couple of habits you integrate into your day that our audience might find valuable?
Meredith:
Yeah. Those things are great, but I’m actually going to go back to education for a second, because I think that’s where I, work-wise, I fill my bucket. So we have user stories. All EdTechs have user stories, but I feel very passionate about how awesome ours are, because we talk to teachers using Soundtrap in the classroom, and most of them are all honoring student voice and giving them a chance to speak or share their story during a time when they might not feel like they can, or they’re muted, or they’re absent from the classroom in some way. Because we have this cool creative tool that allows for that, our user stories almost always have student examples tied to them, and you hear the students’ voices.
So when I’m feeling down or I need a bump up, I either go to our shareable work doc or I go to our blog that has our user stories, and I listen or I read up on one, the most recent one. When I hear students’ voices – because I’m, again, removed from the classroom. That was my elixir of youth, was having that student energy. I listen and I think, "OK, this is our next generation, and they’re amazing, and they’re going to do right by us. They’re going to be amazing." Then I’m happy again. My bucket's filled.
Elana:
That’s awesome. I’ve seen personally your product transition consumers into students, and there’s always this disconnect where we think that the youth have all these amazing creator skills, and they're digital natives and all these things, but they actually need a lot of guidance. Once you set them in a direction, they can go off and empower themselves to do more than you ever thought, in tech or no tech. But I see your product, and I love that we’re uplifting student voices, like you said, but also educator voices, and what they’re doing and how they’re rethinking teaching in ways that make it accessible and exciting. Creating a podcast based on a fictional character in your favorite novel, or all of the things that we’ve seen, I’m like, "That’s so creative. I wish I had that as a child in school."
Meredith:
I know. I know. I think Audrey, one of my teammates, said it early on in our Soundtrap career, and I love how she said it, is that Soundtrap offered this low floor, so kids could just ease into the tech, and then virtually no ceiling. To me, that was like, "Oh!" And I’ve now seen this sandbox that they can play in, and Soundtrap will make such powerful, creative things that honestly, I’m astounded. I forget. You’re born with the brain that you have; it’s just how it’s formed. You’re not any smarter than when you were a baby. It’s being able to unlock what’s there, and when you get a tool to be creative, you are able to unlock so much and... anyway.
Elana:
Yeah, no, I think what you said, I think I want to just repeat because when I am an advisor for EdTech companies, I look at the – I don’t know how impactful their product will be, and the way you said it – Audrey said it – is does it provide a low barrier to get in, like a low floor so that you can have those little micro wins from the kid, and they have those mini eyes light up. "Oh!" But then they’re like, "Wow, I can build on it," and then the sky’s the limit. So student engagement at the core, but scaffolding it so it’s easy enough and accessible enough that all learners can get started, and that is something that I think EdTechs might want to just pause and say, "Does my product actually do that? Or how can I tweak it to do so?"
Meredith:
Yeah. There’s a whole accessibility thing and equality, because every learner is different, and you’ve got to hit them at every place differently. You shouldn’t expect all of them to be able to do the one worksheet that you pass out to the whole class. Sorry, no worksheets!
Elana:
No worksheets here, either. Well, thank you so much, Meredith, for joining us. If Meredith talked about any resources, know that we will scour this conversation and we’ll find that video, that old video about Soundtrap. We’ll put it in the Show Notes. Any resources she thinks that might be helpful, we’ll put it up in our Show Notes, and we’ll also provide a nice synopsis, too, in case you want to look at some transcripts, if you’re a different type of learners, you like to read versus audio, we’ll have it all. You can go to Leoniconsultingggroup.com – so that’s Leoniconsultingggroup.com/15, so 15 – for all of what Meredith spoke about. And I just thank you all for taking the time to learn about this wonderful world of EdTech that we have devoted our lives to improving, and you can see that there so many people like Meredith that are in it, and they’re in it for the long term, and I thank you, Meredith, for everything you do in education.
Meredith:
Thank you.
Elana:
Bye, everyone. See you next time. Thanks so much for listening to this week’s episode. If you liked what you heard and you want to dive deeper, you can visit Leoniconstulingggroup.com/podcasts for all Show Notes, links, and freebies mentioned in each episode. And we always love friends, so please connect with us on Twitter @Leonigroup. If you enjoyed today’s show, go ahead and click the subscribe button to be the first one notified when our next episode is released. We’ll see you next week on All Things Marketing and Education.
[End of recorded material 00:55:10]
Elana Leoni, Host
Elana Leoni has dedicated the majority of her career to improving K-12 education. Prior to founding LCG, she spent eight years leading the marketing and community strategy for the George Lucas Educational Foundation, where she grew Edutopia’s social media presence exponentially to reach over 20 million education change-makers every month.
Meredith Allen, Guest
Prior to joining Spotify and the inception of Soundtrap for Education team, Meredith served as an Instructional Technology Consultant at Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency in Iowa. Preceding her consulting, Meredith taught instrumental music, K-7 technology and facilitated the district’s Virtual Reality Education Pathfinders program. She also served on the District Leadership Team, served as the district’s Technology Integrationist, and assisted with implementation of the district’s 1:1 computing initiative. Meredith has strong interests in elementary coding and was a CS Fundamentals Facilitator for Code.org. She is also certified in the Instructional Practices Inventory and is a Seesaw Ambassador, reflecting her strong desire for classrooms that foster deeper student engagement. Meredith has a Master’s of Science in Technology for Education and Training and participated in the 2016 Iowa cohort of the national Teacher Leadership Initiative, a joint endeavor of the National Education Association, the Center for Teaching Quality, and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. In addition to music, Meredith is passionate about creating deeper learning through student-centered, problem-based learning experiences that result in student agency and authentic work. She has held several roles within Soundtrap over the years and is currently posted as Head of Customer Happiness, managing both the Education Specialists and Marketing Team.
About All Things Marketing and Education
What if marketing was judged solely by the level of value it brings to its audience? Welcome to All Things Marketing and Education, a podcast that lives at the intersection of marketing and you guessed it, education. Each week, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, highlights innovative social media marketing, community-building, and content marketing strategies that can significantly increase brand awareness, engagement, and revenue.
Rate, Like, and Subscribe
Let us know what you thought about this episode by rating and reviewing our podcast. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then be sure to let us know what you loved most about the episode! Also, if you haven’t done so already, subscribe to the podcast to be notified when we have more content to share with you.