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PODCAST

The Innovation Forge Podcast

The Number 1 Adaptive Enrollment Management Podcast

Data, marketing, and strategy converge to shape the future of Higher Education through Adaptive Enrollment Management. Whether you’re an enrollment manager, an ed tech professional, or someone excited about shaping the future of higher education, this podcast is your new workshop for forward-thinking ideas. We’ll be running two main types of episodes. First, From the Foundry, where I’ll read unabridged chapters from my book, The Innovation Forge. Think of it as your personal audiobook session—no

technology

All Episodes

64:42

S02 E17 Building a Persona Insights Engine in Slate...

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/10/27

Episode 1: The Forge Table: Build Your Persona EngineWelcome to the opening chapter of The Forgeworks Grimoire, a mythic-meets-tactical training series for Slate users and enrollment strategists.In this first one-hour session, we enter The Strategy Season, that quiet moment before applications arrive and travel begins. Guided by The Mentallurgist, we learn to turn scattered information into living personas that shape every decision of the enrollment cycle.What You’ll LearnHow to define student

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29:49

The Great Enrollpression 001 - The Demographic Cliff...

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/10/20

A forge cannot burn without ore. And yet, across the country, smiths are reaching into their bins and finding less. Less material to heat, shape, and transform. The raw inputs of our craft are diminishing. The long-dreaded demographic cliff has lost its sharp drop; it now appears more as a drawn-out slope, but the erosion is real, and it is accelerating. This chapter confronts the foundational stress fracture of the modern enrollment ecosystem: a shrinking pipeline of traditional-age students,

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30:51

S02 E15 High CSS Voyager and the TIF Song Vault

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/10/13

Coffee and Coals: High CSS Voyager Reveal & The Music of The Innovation ForgeGrab your favorite coffee and settle in for a fireside chat as we peek behind the curtain of The Innovation Forge. In this episode of Coffee and Coals, I unveil the winner of the Consultant Cadre Naming Competition for the High CSS Voyager—a legendary parrot-turned-portal pioneer who braved the stormy seas of Slate CSS and Liquid syntax.But that is only part of today’s story. I also share how music became a second forge for

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61:55

S02 E14 Culture Craft with Tommy Kroll

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/10/06

🎙️ Culture Craft | Tommy KrollWhat do Star Wars relays, Bake-Off-style competitions, and Slate CRM have in common?In this episode of The Innovation Forge, we sit down with Tommy Kroll, Senior Business Systems Analyst at Columbia College Chicago, who’s spent nearly 20 years transforming data-heavy work into playful, theatrical, and wildly effective training experiences.Tommy’s approach isn’t just about having fun, it’s about designing culture on purpose. From over-the-top retreats to themed learning

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61:55

S02 E14 Culture Craft with Tommy Kroll

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/10/06

🎙️ Culture Craft | Tommy KrollWhat do Star Wars relays, Bake-Off-style competitions, and Slate CRM have in common?In this episode of The Innovation Forge, we sit down with Tommy Kroll, Senior Business Systems Analyst at Columbia College Chicago, who’s spent nearly 20 years transforming data-heavy work into playful, theatrical, and wildly effective training experiences.Tommy’s approach isn’t just about having fun, it’s about designing culture on purpose. From over-the-top retreats to themed learning

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22:23

S02 E013 The Eldralith of The Eternal Stack Pt 1 of 2...

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/09/29

🕯️ The Fieldsmith’s Register to the Eternal Stack’s Eldraliths | Audio Log Compilation 🕯️I began this as a podcast side project. A quiet segment. A service, maybe. A gentle stroll through the software platforms that shape higher education: Slate, Workday, Canvas, Element451, PowerFAIDS, Salesforce, and more.I bought a notebook. I called it The Fieldsmith’s Register of Systems.But something shifted when I started writing.Systems became patterns.Patterns became signs.And signs began to speak.What

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14:34

S02 E12 Adaptive Enrollment Management 000 - Preface...

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/09/26

🔥 The Forge Bellows: Adaptive Enrollment Management 🔥 Issue 1 is here. You don’t enter a forge by accident. It’s loud, hot, and full of intention. At first glance, it’s chaos. But stay a moment, and you’ll notice the rhythm. Every spark, every strike, every pause They all serve a purpose. That’s the mindset we need in enrollment strategy. The Forge Bellows isn’t a manual or a whitepaper. It’s a working record from inside the heat. A field journal for those guiding applicants, balancing aid,

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14:56

S02 E11 The Great Enrollpression 000 - Preface (The...

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/09/22

It begins before the hammer drops. Before the heat, before the fire roars, before iron meets anvil, there is the quiet ritual of preparation. The forge is cold, its tools in place. The bellows hang slack. Dust floats in the still air. But every blacksmith knows that this stillness is not peace. It is potential. Tension waiting to be shaped. So too with enrollment. For decades, the field of enrollment management operated under the illusion of equilibrium. The furnace seemed well-fueled. The molds,

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28:13

S02 E10 Content Hawk and the Codex

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/09/08

In this Coffee & Coals episode of #TheInnovationForgePodcast, host David Dysart pulls back the curtain on the Slate Codex and the Codex Practitioner, breaking down the #EverydayArtisans that fuels Adaptive Enrollment Management. 🎧 Plus, a challenge for you: What should we name the next Cadre member, the High CSS Voyager?Submit your ideas to theinnovationforgepodcast@gmail.com and be part of the lore. From avatars to analytics, this one’s packed with story, strategy, and a whole lot of Slate. Cold

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56:46

S02 E09 Technical Innovation - Jon Thornton

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/09/01

What does it take to turn a complex, overloaded CRM system into a clean, sustainable, and scalable operation? In this episode, Jon Thornton, CRM Manager at Oregon State University, shares his journey from overengineered solutions to streamlined systems that empower users, and why he ultimately returned to higher ed after a foray into the private sector.💡 Whether you're working in Slate, Salesforce, or any enterprise system, this conversation is packed with actionable insights on documentation,

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28:17

S02 E08 Fieldsmith's Register - Finish Line Fog pt 2

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/08/25

Ever wonder why projects stall just steps from the finish line? Or how a nearly-perfect campaign can vanish into the abyss of edits, approvals, and polite delays?In this inaugural entry from The Fieldsmith’s Register, the enigmatic Threadweaver guides us through the emotional terrain of almost-done work, where momentum fizzles, ownership blurs, and the final push quietly disappears. From The Candle’s Edge to The Cold Handle, and on through The Gilded Loop and The Waning Forge, this episode

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18:13

S02 E07 Forge Bellows 002 - Enrollment Factors

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/08/18

Tools down, minds up. The Forge Bellows is shaping Enrollment Factors.In the Innovation Forge, we don’t guess. We listen for the ping, test the grain, and strike with purpose. And if Batch One was about the rise of predictive analytics, Batch Two is about raw material: the student voice.This month, we’re tempering our assumptions with hard-earned insights from more than 35,000 students across five standout surveys. From the blowback against burdensome processes to the quiet power of sunshine, swag,

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28:24

S02 E06 Report Ghostwriter And The Forgesmith Trials

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/08/11

In this Coffee & Coals episode of #TheInnovationForgePodcast, host David Dysart pulls back the curtain on a quirky new episode type that will debut on the podcast: The Forgesmith's Trials.This new episode chronicles the live polls happening on LinkedIn right now (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daviddysart/), pitting the 10 Enrollment Aces against each other in a March Madness-style bracket. The first round matchups:1 Slate Captain10 The Coach2 Slate Wizard9 The Tech Whiz3 The Architect8 Trend Tracker4

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27:34

S02 E05 From Spark to System Quick Strike Interviews

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/08/04

Visiting Artisan | Quick Strike Interviews from Slate Summit 2025 – Episode 1 🎙️ Presented by The Innovation ForgeWhat happens when enrollment artisans from across the country gather in the heat of Slate Summit? You get insights that are fast, sharp, and forged from real practice.In this first batch of Quick Strike Interviews, seven enrollment professionals reflect on the tools, habits, and mindsets they’ve developed to thrive in CRM work, team leadership, and student success. These are short

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26:56

S02 E04 Fieldsmith's Register - Finish Line Fog pt 1

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/07/28

Ever wonder why projects stall just steps from the finish line? Or how a nearly-perfect campaign can vanish into the abyss of edits, approvals, and polite delays?In this inaugural entry from The Fieldsmith’s Register, the enigmatic Threadweaver guides us through the emotional terrain of almost-done work, where momentum fizzles, ownership blurs, and the final push quietly disappears. From The Candle’s Edge to The Cold Handle, and on through The Gilded Loop and The Waning Forge, this episode

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14:16

S02 E03 Forge Bellows 001 - Adaptive Enrollment...

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/07/21

🔥 Welcome to forge, where admissions strategy meets the anvil. In this fiery debut of The Forge Bellows, we dive straight into the crucible of Adaptive Enrollment Management with four hand-forged insights that turn raw data into relational strategy.🔨 This isn’t a recap, it’s a reckoning. We break down how CRMs aren’t just digital filing cabinets but co-craftsmen in the recruitment forge. We explore predictive analytics that flag a student’s disengagement before they ghost you and how to wield that

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29:58

S02 E02 Field of Stats Mouse and TIF Vocabulary

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/07/14

In this episode of Coffee & Coals, we take a stroll through The Innovation Forge’s vocabulary workshop and meet a tiny but mighty figure: the Field of Stats Mouse. From whispered variables to thunderous queries, every part of The Forge has a lexicon, and this mouse knows the hidden meanings behind the terms we toss around.We talk about how language shapes the way we understand our work and how naming something well can change how it’s used. Whether you’re a Slatewright, a Metricurgist, or just

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58:09

S02 E01 Transformation - Kristina Kelpe

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/07/07

In this in-depth conversation, Kristina Kelpe (founder of Legato Strategic Consulting) shares her personal journey from higher ed administration into consulting, where she now helps institutions successfully implement complex systems like Workday Student and Slate CRM.Kristina opens up about:* The simple grad school lesson that shaped her entire career* How she overcame imposter syndrome and pivoted into higher ed tech* Why Workday Student and Slate CRM work best together, not in competition* The

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6:55

S01 E15 The Innovation Forge Codex (Foundry Footage)

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/06/30

The Innovation Forge Codex: A Mysterious Discovery at Slate Summit 🔮⚙️While attending Slate Summit, I stumbled into something...unexpected. A wrong turn led me not just past the ballroom, but into an entirely different kind of encounter, a forgotten document tucked beneath dusty swag bags and old lanyards: The Innovation Forge CodexInside were six disciplines, each more fascinating than the last:🛠 Slatewright: The weaver of digital workflows.🧠 Mentallurgy: The alchemist of strategy and

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26:03

S01 E14 Chap 3 - Leveraging Excel for Scoring and...

The Innovation Forge Podcast ·

2025/06/23

From the Foundry: Chapter 3 - Leveraging Excel for Scoring and Validation, read by the Author David DysartGet your copy of The Innovation Forge on Amazon now: https://tinyurl.com/TheInnovationForgepaperbackIn this chapter, we explore how Excel becomes an indispensable tool for building, testing, and refining student engagement scores outside of Slate CRM. While Slate does a fantastic job of collecting data, sometimes the flexibility of Excel makes it much easier to explore, validate, and fine-tune

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