Workforce Partnership Revamps Statewide Communication Strategies

Oregon Workforce Partnership and Northwest Oregon Works joined Engage by Cell to share insights on utilizing text messaging and web apps to revamp communications. Find the transcript and time stamps below.

[00:00:00] Max Schelkopf: We will start discussing the workforce partnership revamping statewide communication strategies. And I am joined by some fantastic people out of Oregon. And I will introduce myself. My name is Max Shelkoff. I am a senior mobile solutions consultant with Engage by Cell in Georgia. If you'd like to introduce yourself first.

[00:02:28] Georgia Conrad: Hi, Georgia Conrad with the Oregon Workforce Partnership. I'm the Executive Director of the Association of Oregon's Nine Workforce Boards. 

[00:02:37] Max Schelkopf: Fantastic. Katrina, go ahead. 

[00:02:38] Katrina Sturgeon: Yeah, Katrina Sturgeon with Northwest Oregon Works. And I oversee the Workforce Benefits Navigator Grant. 

[00:02:46] Max Schelkopf: Awesome. And we have a quick little poll, I believe, that is going to launch, maybe.

[00:02:52] Max Schelkopf: Maybe that's on the next slide. That's okay, though. Oh, there it is. It jumped up. In, in this poll, if you want to tell us what kind of organization you are with, the participants, so we can have an idea. of what everybody is doing and what everybody hopes to learn, which is always helpful. And let's see, and panelists, unfortunately, we don't get to participate.

[00:03:14] Max Schelkopf: So that's okay though. We'll give that a quick another little minute there and we'll go ahead and dive in. Yes. Thank you, Anna. And I am joined behind the scenes, Anna from Engage by Cell. She is running the slide. So if you hear me talking to Anna, she is not a ghost. She is here.

[00:03:41] Max Schelkopf: Right. Anna. Perfect. Thank you. Let's see. A lot of people out of Workforce Boards, as to be expected, and a lot of out of other. Love it. All right. Fantastic. So, I will start by telling a little bit about Engage by Cell. We have been in business, I believe it's actually 18 years now. And those are some examples of some of our customers and clients who've been with us for quite a while.

[00:04:11] Max Schelkopf: In the workforce development kind of realm and world We specialize in all things to do with mobile device based engagement such as text messaging mobile web apps GPS mapping all that exciting Mobile tech and we specifically have been working in Workforce development for, I believe, a full decade now.

[00:04:31] Max Schelkopf: So we're very familiar with kind of the ins and outs of all things to do with workforce development engagement in that area, and we are a cloud based, SAS based provider of tech. And I will go and let Georgia or Katrina talk a little bit about the Oregon Workforce Partnership. 

[00:04:51] Georgia Conrad: Sure, the Oregon Workforce Partnership, like I said, is the association of Oregon's nine workforce boards, so each of the board's directors, the executive directors, sit on my board and help inform my work on how I can be responsive to their needs through tools, through tools.

[00:05:09] Georgia Conrad: Collaborative projects or grants advocacy work. We have some lobbyists we work with to help put bills in the legislature that are in response to many of our statewide projects. 

[00:05:23] Max Schelkopf: Fantastic. Anything to add to that, Katrina? Did Georgia kill it? 

[00:05:27] Katrina Sturgeon: I think she killed it. I didn't talk more about my grant or if that's another.

[00:05:32] Max Schelkopf: It's all right. We'll keep going. Thank you though. All right. So what are we going to talk about today? Georgia, you and I have been doing business together and working on some projects for maybe four or five, six months now, I think it is. So this is going to be a little bit of a different webinar approach than what we've kind of done in the past.

[00:05:52] Max Schelkopf: And we thought it would be valuable to kind of. Bring someone to the table who is kind of new to the platforms and had some goals and what kind of the implementation and what kind of the start out of the process looks like versus bringing in some of our other clients who are already kind of in it and things like that.

[00:06:09] Max Schelkopf: So it should be an interesting perspective to hear, you know, your kind of goal and what triggered the interest Engaged by Cell and so on and so forth, but. If you want to talk about the goal real quick and then I'll talk about the solutions. I know the slide says obviously equipping the, the benefits navigators with some tools and then we'll kind of dive on in.

[00:06:33] Max Schelkopf: But if you know, you want to touch on the goal real quick, go ahead. 

[00:06:37] Georgia Conrad: Sure. I think though, part of the, you know, the. Initiation of this project came from the funding source. So, you know, the state of Oregon came to us and said, we have set aside some money for benefits navigators. And we're not sure how we're going to divide this and OWP collectively was like, well, we'd like to be able to divide it ourselves.

[00:07:02] Georgia Conrad: And they were like, no, no, we have that all mapped out. So they gave all the boards a set amount of money to support benefits navigation. And I asked each of my board members to kick me back some funds so we could have a statewide approach to that. You know, regional autonomy is really important, but there is a statewide.

[00:07:26] Georgia Conrad: Connectivity. That's also important to make sure that common 

[00:07:30] Max Schelkopf: goals 

[00:07:31] Georgia Conrad: across the state really are met. And there's some cohesiveness between how we get there and how we 

[00:07:42] Max Schelkopf: Facilitate those goals. 

[00:07:43] Georgia Conrad: Facilitate, get past barriers, all those types of things. So, with this, it was how do we meet rural and urban needs in a cost effective way to, you know, get past the common barriers of translation and initiation into the programs, registration, those types of things.

[00:08:06] Max Schelkopf: Fantastic. All right. And I know just because working with a lot of different workforce boards and organizations across the country, everybody. kind of has a different title, somewhat of a different little role. Can you explain maybe Katrina, what the role of a benefits navigator is specifically, right?

[00:08:26] Katrina Sturgeon: Yeah. So the grant itself fund follow, is under the Future Ready Oregon grant. The objective and intention was for innovation. Really, it's a pilot program looking at opportunities to engage priority populations in the workforce system. And each of our regions and workforce boards within Oregon gets to innovate in that way.

[00:08:47] Katrina Sturgeon: we're going to adapt to that the universal or guess the statewide approach and unity is in Engage by Cell. So we all have this as part of our grants. But again, it's going to be diverse from region to region, how we do that. So the objective again is to connect with those priority populations which includes communities of color, rural frontier communities.

[00:09:08] Katrina Sturgeon: Golly. Older older populations and engaging in in the workforce system. And so this kind of platform is going to offer one stop shopping in regards to all the different resources. So the navigator is either going to be located in a work source office, or for our grant and our region, they're going to be in nonprofits and community based organizations.

[00:09:27] Katrina Sturgeon: So these folks will have access to the platform here that summarizes or gives you know click throughs to other resources. is in a one space there. So it's a great tool. It's a what's up shopping as far as that goes. And I think it's going to be really neat to see fully implemented. Did that answer your question?

[00:09:44] Max Schelkopf: That does, that does very thoroughly. I appreciate it very much. So we have this kind of common goal across, right. And Georgia is kind of put together the partnership to facilitate some of these common goals and give. Regional autonomy, like he said to folks like Katrina and their teams. And the solutions that Engaged by Cell is providing is the text messaging and mobile web app platforms, right?

[00:10:07] Max Schelkopf: So that's kind of what the ladies were touching on there. I'll go into the next slide and kind of explain what the platforms are, and then we'll have more of kind of a conversation on how they're hoping to implement it and what goals there are and things like that. So text messaging obviously isn't a new technology.

[00:10:24] Max Schelkopf: It's been around for quite a while now, but what makes Engage by Cell’s a little bit different is the ability to have mass communications, right? So a couple clicks of a button, everybody can receive the text message. For example, you know, the super common use case, something like, hey, job fair next Friday, you know, click this link to register, something along those lines.

[00:10:46] Max Schelkopf: But what we strive to do at Engage by Cell is go down a couple more layers of engagement too, not just that mass kind of blanket model, right? So within our platform, you can also have one to one conversations. So maybe a career navigator or maybe a case manager, whoever's kind of facilitating that one on one engagement can also do that through our platform as well, right?

[00:11:10] Max Schelkopf: And as Many of us know if the primary means of communicating anymore is just email and picking up the phone, trying to dial out things like that. It's getting tougher and tougher every day. Right. And I just wanted to mention that because statistically what we find is text messages and really why we use utilize texting as the main engagement tool is.

[00:11:34] Max Schelkopf: We see consistent 95 percent open read rates, right? So you're getting a much more likelihood that that individual is going to read that text And not only read it, but they're going to read it much quicker You know, if you do have really good email open rates of let's say 40 to 50 percent, something along those lines.

[00:11:51] Max Schelkopf: Usually people are reserving that time frame for when I have a second or at the end of the day or something like that. So not only are they more likely to read that text, but they're more likely to read it much quicker too. So I believe we have another poll here just to kind of learn about how everyone else is currently engaging with folks and see what's out there.

[00:12:12] Max Schelkopf: I'm anticipating a lot of emails in this response. I don't see too much snail mail anymore, which that's okay. But there are a lot of different methodologies and we just like to see what everybody's kind of implementing across the country. I know Georgia, Katrina, are you using any of these other methods right now as well?

[00:12:34] Max Schelkopf: No, no, not really. 

[00:12:35] Katrina Sturgeon: Probably email, just email. Yeah, to our partners, distribution lists. 

[00:12:39] Max Schelkopf: Yeah, yeah. And that's going to be typical. Yeah, 

[00:12:43] Georgia Conrad: I could get quite a few phone calls. Sometimes when we put out some marketing, then I'll get job seekers calling me directly about programs. But you know, I would put it even farther with text messaging is that not only do you get a higher open rate, you get a higher immediate response rate.

[00:13:01] Georgia Conrad: You know, people are like, Oh yeah, I'm just going to get that off my list and they do it and it's done. And for us, that's a huge win. 

[00:13:10] Max Schelkopf: And I'm a, I'm a big believer in kind of the shotgun method too. You know, I mean, if you have additional tools at your disposal, Use them all. I mean, we all know we were just talking about it in the little waiting room before we jumped on here on how We're all communicating all day long via email, text, slack, all the different Methodologies and and sometimes you have to use everything right to get everybody's attention so I think it's important to use all tools available out there All right.

[00:13:40] Max Schelkopf: Do we have some results Anna? Email, not a surprise there. A lot of people still using email is the primary means of communicating and phone calls. Of course, I am happy to see we have 50 percent using texting there. So that is exciting. I like that. And some app notifications as well. That's pretty progressive.

[00:14:02] Max Schelkopf: I like to see the tech get implemented here and then 0 percent snail mail. So that's not surprising at all. All right. So. The other tool and the other platform that Engage by Cell provides is a mobile web app, okay? And for those of you who May or may not be aware of what a mobile web app is it's important to kind of start there so we're all very familiar with native applications, which is just the kind of technical industry term for the app that you actually hard download to your device We all have 80 of them on our phone, right?

[00:14:38] Max Schelkopf: And we used to build those, And probably three, four, five years ago, we started to get a lot more feedback from our clients saying, Hey, it's getting tougher and tougher to get people to hard download things to your devices, right? And, and I do feel for that, right? I was just visiting Some friends in a larger city and I had my rental car and it was raining and I had to download two different apps to park the rental car and I was not loving that, right?

[00:15:04] Max Schelkopf: So we transitioned to this mobile web app platform that kind of breaks that hard download barrier because it is all web based. It's all URL based so that access to these apps looks like scanning a QR code and boom, up pops what looks, feels, and acts just like a native app, essentially. And it also being URL based pairs really well with the texting.

[00:15:26] Max Schelkopf: You know, you can envision pushing out a text message to a bunch of people or an individual person that you're working with and saying, Hey. You know, click this link to register or can you please upload this doc and that individual can click that link and that text message and boom, up pops that mobile web app.

[00:15:43] Max Schelkopf: But they are very interactive in the sense that you can include tons of different engagement tools in it. Images videos, polls, surveys, document upload, you know, and it enables that person to have access to all those resources at any time when they need it. Okay. So those are the two main tools we're going to be talking about.

[00:16:04] Max Schelkopf: So now I'm going to transition to the hard hitting questions here for Georgia and Katrina and really pick their brain on why they chose Engage by Cell, what was appealing to the platforms, and what hopefully Are the outcomes because again, this is an exciting kind of perspective that we don't see all the time of the beginning stages of it, right?

[00:16:27] Max Schelkopf: So Georgia, Katrina what were kind of the main challenges in the current processes of what you were doing? Maybe the engagement you were trying, I know we just touched on email and things, but what was kind of the main draw that made you want to implement Engage by Cell’s platforms? 

[00:16:46] Katrina Sturgeon: Do you have something Katrina?

[00:16:47] Katrina Sturgeon: Oh, I mean you were part of that initial conversation so I can build off of what you say, but I 

[00:16:51] Max Schelkopf: think you're 

[00:16:52] Katrina Sturgeon: Yeah, 

[00:16:53] Georgia Conrad: I said earlier, we're struggling with, you know, these common barriers of how do we meet people where they're at? How do we engage people that are not native English speakers?

[00:17:07] Georgia Conrad: And how do we initially engage them and get the follow up engagement? You know, often we'll get that first meeting, but then we can't Complete the process by getting their documentation or following up on job fairs. You know, they just kind of come, they, they hope for this big you know, meet and greet and get a job right away.

[00:17:29] Georgia Conrad: And the process 

[00:17:31] Max Schelkopf: is much longer than that. Yeah. 

[00:17:34] Georgia Conrad: So the navigator, the whole point of the navigators is to take them through that process to connect with them on their own terms. And so what, what are the challenges was how do we bridge all of these different needs and, and meet them where they're at?

[00:17:50] Georgia Conrad: And then. 

[00:17:53] Max Schelkopf: I think you touch on a really important thing there, though, is that follow up process, right? I can just imagine, you know, and I hear this all the time with the 60 plus workforce development boards we work with is, I can get that individual to walk into the job center and then they're gone, you know, or they came to my job fair and then they're gone.

[00:18:15] Max Schelkopf: Right. Or if Katrina and her teams are just trying to send email after email after email. And if they're a younger person, you know they're not checking that or anybody really. And if you're picking up the phone trying to call them, it's not going to work either. I mean we all vet out phone calls nowadays too, right?

[00:18:32] Max Schelkopf: I wait for it to go to voicemail. But I think it's important to Have those individual little tools those little touches like you were saying Georgia on the follow up process It's much easier and streamlined to send out a text And I think you said it maybe briefly on the slide before of you know, I can pick up my phone see hey Oh, yeah, I see that text.

[00:18:57] Max Schelkopf: I was supposed to get that piece of documentation over and it's done, right? So the follow up process Is a huge component to what we help with. Katrina, where are you going to add to that? 

[00:19:08] Katrina Sturgeon: Well, and it's, and it is. it is more accessible. So when I think about when I'm being, people are promoting products or their services to me, I genuinely respond more quickly to a text message, but I also engage in their thing more easily.

[00:19:22] Katrina Sturgeon: So if there's a QR code I can, I scan really quick and send a quick message to where there's already a conversation that opens up that way. When I'm laying in bed at midnight and remembering, Oh my gosh, I got to follow up on some things. I can still shoot that quick text and respond to that, whatever I had engaged in before.

[00:19:36] Katrina Sturgeon: So that accessibility, that content, and some of the social. associated with other ways of communicating that breaks down as well with subscribing, like me subscribing to a particular text feed. 

[00:19:48] Max Schelkopf: Go ahead, Georgia. 

[00:19:49] Georgia Conrad: It just really appealed because it was a conduit to getting people to already existing information.

[00:19:54] Georgia Conrad: So we're not duplicating information with Engage by Cell. We're getting people directly to that product or the service, you know, right away with the QR code and with that guide, the navigator. 

[00:20:07] Max Schelkopf: Yeah. And I think that I think it was you Katrina that said stigma. Right. And I. I'll age myself. I'm 31 years old, right?

[00:20:16] Max Schelkopf: And when I started my career, it was like super frowned upon to text anybody in a professional environment, right? It was like, don't do that. That's not professional. That's not the way to go about it. And now, I would even lean on them, when we're training new people at Engage by Cell or, you know, obviously all of these workforce board organizations are adopting texting.

[00:20:40] Max Schelkopf: It's encouraged, you know, it's, it's one of the main methodologies of communicating nowadays, so it's, I think it's important to recognize that that stigma is long gone as well. It's it's you know here whether we want it to be or not So let's go ahead and try and adopt it to the best of our abilities, right?

[00:21:00] Max Schelkopf: I see we got a question. Are navigators considered to be the frontline workers that are helping job seekers? 

[00:21:07] Katrina Sturgeon: Yeah, so within our grant, that's what the definition is. So they're working directly with individuals one on one and then bridging the gap between what's preventing them from engaging in work, workforce development systems.

[00:21:18] Katrina Sturgeon: So work source here in Oregon and lots of others. Yep. So they're frontline. 

[00:21:23] Max Schelkopf: Perfect. Awesome. And if you want to go to the next slide, pretty please, Anna. And I know this is something we've already talked about a little bit, but I want to get more specific rather than broad. And again, I know this is very new to the OWP and everybody there, but.

[00:21:39] Max Schelkopf: I know we kind of gave an example of a blanket marketing that everybody can probably grasp, but is it kind of your intention to give it on the individual level to to the career navigators to have those one on one conversations? How do you envision maybe getting creative with the texting? Is it going to be?

[00:21:59] Max Schelkopf: you know, give me some ideas here, hopefully specifically of what you're kind of planning to do with the texting. 

[00:22:05] Katrina Sturgeon: Absolutely. So again, a reminder is the Workforce Benefit Navigator Grant is about innovation and pilot. So it's a three year grant and we have the chance to try lots of different ways. We're going to do a pilot just within Clatsop County and see what that looks like partnering with our WorkSource office.

[00:22:20] Katrina Sturgeon: And then I have a community based organization that's operating in Benton and Lincoln Counties. And I'm thinking about a pilot specific there, and the target population is going to be our Latinx community. And then the Guatemalan community too. So there's some ways that we can innovate the communication and then updates a big thing and a big request have been updates about appointments or upcoming things that specifically that people need to remember.

[00:22:42] Katrina Sturgeon: So there's a couple of different subgroups to go in and I'm excited to try those out. 

[00:22:46] Georgia Conrad: Yeah, I think it's important to, you know, go back to that regional autonomy. Every region has the option to using it and what meets their needs best and most effectively. And one of the key pieces we did in the building of this text messaging piece to the app is we divided every, we have 10 phone numbers and we divided that up across the state so that every region has separate regions.

[00:23:10] Georgia Conrad: Data system or a database that can track their own text messaging interaction, and we have all those lists associated with each region. So there's not any crossover. We don't have any HIPAA, no data privacy issues. And that was really key in the planning. 

[00:23:28] Max Schelkopf: Perfect. I love that. Yeah. And it's. It is important to be aware that, you know, data is the driving force to funding typically, right?

[00:23:37] Max Schelkopf: We have to, we have to show the results to continue to operate on many times. And I wanted to, that's an important thing to touch on Georgia is that everybody, you know, the texting is also unique in the sense that it can be as. Micro or macro as you want it to be, right? So if you wanted and just kind of depending on maybe even each region's need, right?

[00:24:00] Max Schelkopf: Maybe it's just the blanketing component Maybe it's the inbound capabilities of putting call to actions out into the community of hey text jobs to XYZ and getting those people enrolled to stay informed about career opportunities or education training, whatever it might be and also Katrina, it sounds like you have some exciting kind of unique demographics you're looking to hopefully engage with and, and I always bring up my grandma.

[00:24:27] Max Schelkopf: I love my grandma very much and I still talk to her every day. And the main way that we communicate is through text message, right? So I think it's important to know and touch on that the even older demographics anymore. That's their primary means of communicating a lot nowadays too. So exciting stuff. I I'm excited to see what the results are as you're leading and ramping up into launching the texting, but what else do we have next slide?

[00:24:52] Max Schelkopf: Pretty please, Anna. All right. So the mobile web app for. The Oregon Workforce Partnership. If everybody wants to scan that QR code, you can actually check out their mobile web app and it is a beautiful one. Did a fantastic job of making it very highly functional and aesthetically pleasing. Very Oregon vibed.

[00:25:12] Max Schelkopf: I like it. And everybody, please keep in mind that it is still under construction, right? So it is having some more content added to it, and they are new to the game in the mobile web app. So, as you kind of browse through it, if there's anything on there that seems incomplete, it's probably because we're still working on it.

[00:25:31] Max Schelkopf: So that's okay. And one question I did have for you, Georgia, With the mobile web app and how you plan on using it and you kind of touched on it a little bit earlier of, you know, you're not reinventing the wheel here. You're not building everything twice, right? So it is important to know that you can link out existing resources within the mobile web app, right?

[00:25:56] Max Schelkopf: And I know one of the kind of questions you got asked when you were approaching Engage by Cell and throwing it out there as a potential resource. Right. Is why wouldn't you just include this on the website, right? Can you kind of answer what the advantage I suppose of having this instead of just continuing to throw more stuff on a website is?

[00:26:17] Georgia Conrad: Yeah you know, there's a couple advantages. First, And foremost is the text messaging integration into the mobile app. If you don't, you know, to have the integration on your own website is possible. But a lot harder to self manage. So using a third party provider like Engage by Cell is cost effective and they have the support to assist with the.

[00:26:45] Georgia Conrad: Connectivity that is so tedious with like any sort of phone number texting integration and and then just that highway in between bridging that gap between, you know, in my case, nine, at least nine different websites are regions and. The Oregon Employment Department and the WorkSource Oregon Center in addition to all of the providers that we use for specialized trainings like metrics learning or, you know, our core partners.

[00:27:20] Georgia Conrad: So it's just navigating this massive network of resources in a very functional, usable way. And then, you know, most people aren't. Going to be directed straight to this homepage. I mean, the homepage is beautiful. We're going to be sending people with the QR code directly to translate services or directly to the metrics learning page where they can get their trainings or, you know, there's events, there's an events function on there.

[00:27:50] Max Schelkopf: You can 

[00:27:51] Georgia Conrad: also use the engage by Excel to upload documentation to help You know, facilitate their faster registration. So it's just that, like I said, it's that highway in between all of the resources all at once. 

[00:28:03] Max Schelkopf: I like the highway analogy. I always lead on, you know, information accessibility is probably the largest challenge in workforce development that I come across that is not unique to any different workforce development board or organization across the country.

[00:28:22] Max Schelkopf: Right. It's all of it is. You know, we have hundreds of different resources available to the public, and unfortunately, the public doesn't know. You know, so it's always, how do we get that information accessibility up to the highest degree possible? And I think the highway analogy, you know, streamlines that process.

[00:28:46] Max Schelkopf: Is it becomes kind of an intranet if you will of all of the you know Nine different websites or nine or more different websites that you're kind of tasked with combining into one Accessibility point that again pairs with that texting so well and thank you for bringing it up with the mobile web app You know you have the advantage of If I jump on a website and maybe it's the homepage, whatever it might be, where do I even go to navigate to what I need to do?

[00:29:14] Max Schelkopf: But the mobile web app has the advantage of each page of content within that mobile web app has its own unique URL, its own unique QR code. So you can provide that direct access to that. So it's, it's much less navigating required. It's much more streamlined. You're opening that highway up to the people.

[00:29:33] Max Schelkopf: Katrina, did you have any? Insightful ideas on how you plan on using the mobile web app. 

[00:29:39] Katrina Sturgeon: Well well, Max has graciously given me his time on Monday. So we're going to 

[00:29:43] Max Schelkopf: have 

[00:29:46] Katrina Sturgeon: a career corner set up where we'll have a desktop available for people to kind of navigate and look at, you know, updating their resume and those services, but engage myself is going to be a tool that I get to those QR codes weave into a whole side of an exhibit hall in regards to engaging folks in surveys specific text groups.

[00:30:05] Katrina Sturgeon: So I'm looking forward to some time with Max. To brainstorm more about that and then pilot that as well at the county fair, connecting with our rural community. 

[00:30:13] Max Schelkopf: Fantastic. Thank you, Katrina. All right. Next slide. Pretty please, Anna. All right. So I know one of the main challenges that everybody faces is accessibility and that means different things for a lot of different places, right?

[00:30:28] Max Schelkopf: What are some of I know you kind of touched on the translating and things like that. I know one of the unique challenges that. The OWP and most of Oregon probably face well on kind of a more grander scale as rural members of the communities too, right? So how do these solutions align with, you know, bridging some of those accessibility gaps and keeping up with your accessibility standards at the OWP?

[00:30:56] Max Schelkopf: Touch on that real quick. Talk about the rural community and how it's going to help them. That's probably a good place to start. 

[00:31:03] Georgia Conrad: Yeah, this definitely is an asset to the rural community to be able to connect with them without making a two hour drive for them or for the staff. And. You know, and then, like I said, you know, they have the ability to upload their documents.

[00:31:19] Georgia Conrad: There's a note in the chat about security protocols, and I know Max can talk in more detail about this, but all the security protocols with this web app are, you know, up to HIPAA standards and soft to compliance. So there's no real worry about a data breach or, you know, Okay. Their information isn't getting sent in an unsecure way, and then it would be up to the navigator to take that information and supply it to the database system through the W.

[00:31:48] Georgia Conrad: So so, you know, these solutions are, you know, accessing people that wouldn't necessarily be accessible and You know, through the, the translate live integration that we put in through the web app, which is a third party integration, we're able to text or chat with people in their own language in live.

[00:32:11] Georgia Conrad: So I could be chatting with Katrina. In Spanish, and she would be able to read it in English and she can write in English and it will come back. And that is a really cool tool as well because they have over 2, 000 different language and dialects. So they're really honing in on meeting people with their own native dialect, not just language, to communicate effectively and get what they need out of the programs and understand where they're coming from.

[00:32:40] Georgia Conrad: So that means a lot of things around the state. 

[00:32:44] Max Schelkopf: It means a lot. And I think it's important to, you know, give as much access to those people that may not have access to that desktop computer to, you know, a lot of our resources are more streamlined for a desktop model than it is necessarily mobile device, right?

[00:33:03] Max Schelkopf: And, and. The mobile web app really enables those people who are just operating off their cell phones, right? They might not have a laptop or even a bigger tablet or something along those lines. And the mobile web app enables it to be a much more user friendly experience for those people as well. Yeah, the 

[00:33:20] Georgia Conrad: smartphone is now just always there.

[00:33:24] Georgia Conrad: Everyone has 

[00:33:24] Max Schelkopf: it. Yeah. And it's not going anywhere. No. And I, I wanted to touch on to the, as far as accessibility and, and translate live is a phenomenal. conversational tool and the mobile web app is also in in OWP on their app actually uses as well where we are integrated with google translate.

[00:33:46] Max Schelkopf: So any Dialect essentially can be selected on the mobile web app as well So the home screen is translated to any language that needs to be instantaneously so Breaking those kind of language barriers as well Trina, anything to add for that? 

[00:34:03] Katrina Sturgeon: No, you did great. Nice work, guys. All right. 

[00:34:05] Max Schelkopf: Perfect. I love it.

[00:34:08] Max Schelkopf: All right. And the last little piece here I know you touched on Translate Live and it looks like there is a question potentially about it. How does Translator work if a text is sent? So that Translate Live isn't necessarily operating through the SMS platform itself. But. I'm sure if you look up translate live, you'll get the gist of it pretty quick.

[00:34:30] Max Schelkopf: It is a pretty amazing platform. And we always want to touch on the fact that, you know, we can integrate with the translate lives or any web based platform. Really. I know you briefly mentioned metrics learning as well. So it's important to acknowledge and realize that, yeah, you know, you have all of these different resources.

[00:34:53] Max Schelkopf: Available to the people and you can easily incorporate them or integrate them with the mobile web app are we missing any other ones outside of translate live or metrics learning? I know there'll probably be more to come in the future Anything you wanted to specifically bring up, but we've covered those two pretty well 

[00:35:12] Georgia Conrad: I think those are the actual Integrations we the other things that we've done.

[00:35:18] Georgia Conrad: We have the document uploader. We can directly connect with a navigator and we have this AI mentor 

[00:35:25] Max Schelkopf: That’s a good one to bring up. Yeah, so, we are integrated with chat GPT, which obviously is probably the leading AI tool just due to accessibility for everybody, right? But it definitely has its pros and it has some weaknesses, but it is a fantastic tool for for example if you go into the mobile web app, you'll see the little AI mentor there maybe the situation is I haven't written a resume in 20 years and I'm jumping back into the workforce, right?

[00:35:54] Max Schelkopf: And I just need that little push because oftentimes the struggle is I don't even know where to start, right? So you can have all these different little AI questionnaires, little prompts, essentially where you can build it to help kind of initiate that first push off the cliff where things start flowing afterwards, right?

[00:36:14] Max Schelkopf: So maybe it's a keyword of I'll use the resume of what job are you applying for? And you can enter, I'm looking to be a medical assistant. It can spit out the 20 keywords you should probably include on your resume and things like that. But it's important to realize that all of these little interesting pieces of technology can work cohesively together within the mobile web app.

[00:36:36] Max Schelkopf: So next slide, pretty please, Anna. All right, this is the exciting slide, and this is year two's game plan here that you're going to share with everybody. But what are the long term plans for the texting and the mobile web app? What do you see, you know, when we have this follow up call in a year, what do you hope is what we're talking about in 12 months?

[00:37:04] Katrina Sturgeon: I, I mean, Georgia can take two, but I would say what I hope you hear me say is very different things for each of my counties. I really want it to be something that we give the opportunity for innovation. So, you know, in Clatsop County we do end up connecting more, let's say with empty nesters, folks who, you know, their kids are kind of transitioning out of the household and they found this access and connection to the whole workforce system.

[00:37:26] Katrina Sturgeon: Through Engage by Cell, and we've got them continuously engaged in upskilling looking at what their next steps are after all their kids move out, maybe they're looking at a career change, so that's Clatsop County, maybe, and Benton and Lincoln County, you're going to hear more about our engagement with that Guatemalan community they're getting more access to classes quickly and knowing what's available for them.

[00:37:42] Katrina Sturgeon: To expand their language and, and being able to engage in services. So I, I just, what I'm hoping is a year from now, you hear a lot of those kinds of conversations with that statewide use of engage by cell, but really recognizing that each of these regions and even counties are going to have different needs and uses.

[00:38:00] Georgia Conrad: I agree. I'm excited to see what each region comes up with that works for them and their solutions. And I really want to see, you know, how quickly we, you know, move through our text messaging and have to re up because that is the real, you know, issue is like when do we need to refund this and how, what is the demand?

[00:38:20] Georgia Conrad: Now that people have have adopted it. What does this adoption rate look like? And and the future of workforce in Oregon, the future of communicating workforce in Oregon. How do we you know, make this sustainable? 

[00:38:36] Max Schelkopf: Yeah, and I think the most important thing I always lean on is the data, right? So all these things that we're going through and initiating and and implementing across Oregon and then regionally within Oregon, and then.

[00:38:51] Max Schelkopf: In 12 months, we get to sit down and look at all the data, too, because that's always the proof is in the pudding, and I'm looking forward to that as well. And the next slide, final slide here we always just like to include, because it is a very frequently asked question on how do we get it in people's hands, right?

[00:39:07] Max Schelkopf: That's always the first initiation, so there's There's some sample signage on what kind of the call to action can look like and these QR codes can Again provide you direct access straight to the mobile web app or whatever page of content But it also can give direct access to a text message as well So if you scan one of those subscribe now QR codes, it'll populate your phone number Or, excuse me, populate a text message straight into your texting app.

[00:39:33] Max Schelkopf: So all the end user has to do is hit send, and they are enrolled to receive some communication points there. But, in concluding here, If anybody has any questions, feel free to put them into the chat window. I know a lot of us have been gauging in there as we went along, but if anybody has any questions for myself, or for Georgia, or Katrina, and what they're doing out in Oregon, please feel free to put them in the chat window now.

[00:40:03] Max Schelkopf: Or my direct contact information is listed on that slide as well. And please feel free to reach out to me at any time. Georgia, Katrina, do you have any questions for me while we're waiting? Anything like that? I, I, I know Katrina's itching to meet with me Monday and really asked me all the hard hitters, but 

[00:40:21] Katrina Sturgeon: all of them would be related to the catfishing that you talked about before this.

[00:40:24] Max Schelkopf: All right. Perfect. Yes. Going catfishing. Go ahead. Anybody? Here we go. We got a thank you. Thank you for attending Jerry. I appreciate it very much. And I hope everyone found this very valuable, insightful here in kind of what the initial plans for launching Engage by Cell with the OWP across Oregon is going to look like.

[00:40:49] Max Schelkopf: And we're looking forward to seeing what the results are. And I, I fully intend that in 12 months, we're going to have another webinar where we talk about the results of what happened. So and if there are, let me buzz through there real quick on the chat, make sure I didn't miss any. Here we go. I'm interested in follow up on using this as the digital navigator.

[00:41:07] Max Schelkopf: Absolutely, Hugh. More than happy to do that. All right. Registered. All right. I think we're good to go. Thank you again for everyone's attention for the last 40 minutes and have a phenomenal Friday. Thank you to my guest speakers, Georgia, Katrina, you were wonderful, very insightful, and I'm looking forward to working with you as we continue down this implementation.

[00:41:34] Max Schelkopf: And if anybody has any questions, please feel free to reach out. 

[00:41:37] Georgia Conrad: Thanks, Max. I really appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. 

[00:41:40] Max Schelkopf: Have a great day, everyone.

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