Connected Safety Systems

Hi, welcome everyone to another ATLIS webinar.

We're thrilled to have our partners from Ruvna here with us today to talk about how to choose the right vendor, um, and how to make your systems really work efficiently.

So, without further ado, super excited to introduce Marshall Singer and Ty Campbell.

Take it away.

Wonderful.

Well, Kelsey, thank you so much for, uh, the warm introduction.

It is always our pleasure, um, to speak to the amazing Atlas community.

Um, so today we're gonna be covering a really important topic, which is how to buy software correctly, um, which is something we all think we know how to do.

But, um, there's a lot of layers here and there's a lot of ways that I think, um, our panel today, which is myself and Ty Campbell, can really help and provide you with a framework to ensure that you're making the best choices for your community.

So, with that in mind, uh, Ty, why don't you go ahead and, uh, gi give the audience a little bit of background about, uh, your, your experience in the space.

Yeah, thanks Marshall, and good afternoon, everyone.

Uh, so my name is Ty Campbell.

I am the founder and principal of EdTech Flow, LLC, which is a education technology, uh, consulting group.

Uh, and, uh, we're primarily focused right now on, um, bear Cross Consulting and other ed tech, um, platforms.

Uh, but prior to, uh, kind of diving into this consulting gig full-time, uh, I was the technology director and director of Strategic Information and Innovation at Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland.

Uh, did that for nine years, and then, um, for, that was at Far Hills Country Day School in New Jersey for three years.

Uh, but overall I've had a career over 25 years in technology.

Marshall? Yeah, my name is Marshall Sanger.

I am the co-founder and COO of R Now.

Um, we're an emergency management and safety operations company that focuses on the independent school space.

Uh, we've been around for 10 years.

Uh, we've been up and down and left and right and done a a lot of things.

Um, but I think it's a great, uh, pleasure to speak with Ty.

And I think both of us cover the two sides of the experience.

You know, me as, as a vendor, um, and Ty as a school leader.

So I, I really think we've got both sides of the, the equation covered here.

So let's dive in, in Ty's conversations and in our experience, you know, we really identified that there are three distinct phases of vendor selection, and it's important that we understand and make the most of each one at the beginning.

Of course, there is, before going to market, there's that initial work we need to do, and I think this is the part that gets overlooked the most transparently, that this is really the part that the most, the majority of people don't spend enough time thinking about, because the majority of the work actually gets done before you even talk to a single vendor, because that's where you understand what you need and how you can make sure that whatever you're going to find has a process and is going to be able to help you.

Of course, then there is the component where we're actually meeting with vendors narrowing down our options and implementation.

But you'll notice here that, you know, more than a third of this stuff is really gonna happen before we even go to market.

So I'm gonna hand it over to Ty here to dive deeply into all of the things required there and how to make the most of that part of the process.

Thanks.

So, you know, one of the first things that I've learned in my time as a technology leader in an independent school is taking a look at, um, what we're, what your school needs, uh, before you make any major decisions, right? I think sometimes we get, uh, caught up.

It's easy to get caught up in the, the, the bells and whistles, uh, but really taking a strong hard look at what your school's needs are is really important.

Uh, and so I definitely recommend, uh, we definitely recommend looking at your needs and assessing what your school's needs are, uh, and try to do this not only looking at what, uh, one person or one particular department has identified, but really in your school leadership role, looking at, uh, the, a holistic, uh, perspective.

And just really understand, yes, this group might be asking for one specific thing, but are there other needs that we need to be considering across the school, uh, to make a proper assessment? Uh, then the next step is really taking a look at what you have.

Uh, you might have software involved in this, you might have hardware involved in this.

Uh, there are a bunch of different pieces that you need to consider.

And so you need to really take a good look internally, uh, to understand what you currently have in place.

Uh, what are pieces that you may, uh, keep? What are pieces that you may need to move away from, uh, in order to have the best solution possible by the time you're done.

Uh, another piece that you need to really think about is your evaluation team.

Uh, who are the people that are gonna be involved in this decision making process with you? Uh, you're gonna want to think, especially since we're talking about school safety.

Uh, you're gonna wanna think about your security team, your operation team, uh, certainly your business office, uh, and even your school, uh, division leaders or department leaders, uh, when it comes to this, just to make sure you have the right people around the table to make the best decision possible for your school.

Uh, you'll see this term that we have here, DRI, which is your directly responsible individual who may have, uh, different terminologies for that, but it's the one person who's really in charge of this evaluation and selection process.

That may be you, they may be someone else, like your security director, your safety officer, your director of operations or facilities.

But making sure everyone understands who that individual is and who's gonna be running this process is really important.

And they always say communication can make or break, uh, a project.

Uh, and so you wanna make sure it's very clear that everyone understands who's in charge, uh, and, and who's gonna be running this project from start to finish.

And then the last thing, which is really important part of this initial step of, of before going to market, you've assessed your needs, you've under, you now have also an understanding of what you have.

The next piece is to make a vendor checklist.

What are the things that you are going to be asking every vendor, um, to determine what they have in terms of your needs? And you'll be able to identify not only your needs, but what are the things that'll be nice to have, uh, and putting a checklist together, making sure your evaluation team is in full agreement with that checklist.

Uh, again, making sure you have different voices and different perspectives around that so that your checklist is thorough and accurate and ready to be reviewed by a vendor.

Yeah, and I wanna add a little bit to that, Ty, which is that I think it's also a really good place and a good way of cutting through the noise.

'cause as we go through this process, right, you'll hear a lot of different, uh, capabilities, a lot of different suggestions from vendors on what they see as important.

But one of the things that you want to do is before you talk to, um, anyone else, is take all this information, take all these steps, ties talked about, and make sure that they're all covered in that checklist.

'cause it allows you to take all the different information you might hear during the next steps of the process and compare that once, once you need what, compare that against what you need in an unbiased way.

And it's so important, and it's something frankly I don't see enough schools doing, is understanding their specific needs and having that and having a, a document that says, Hey, can you fill this out to be able to compare the different platforms against each other? It's, it's something I don't see enough.

And, uh, a lot of successful schools really do.

So when you start to think about some of this needs assessment piece, it's really taking a look again, at what you have versus what you need, right? And maybe not versus, but then moving, uh, towards what you need, right? And some of the things you want to consider are your hardware and software needs, right? Uh, you'll ideally want to have some type of SIS integration.

So you wanna be thinking about that.

Uh, you might already have some security software or hardware in place, uh, that you'll wanna see if there are possibilities for integrations there.

And so it may involve not only looking at your, uh, that possible vendors for your solution that you're identifying, but also talking to the vendors of your current solutions, uh, to see if there are things that, uh, they may have in terms of integrations you may want to consider.

Uh, and then again, we talked about putting that evaluation team in place.

Uh, this is such an important step to just make sure you're having not only people who are kind of in the know when it comes to safety and security, but also some folks who may, uh, not have a direct responsibility in this, but may have some good perspective, uh, that can help you, uh, really have a very thorough and clear look, uh, that can address multiple needs, uh, for your school, every, even the things that you and as an individual may not have considered.

Uh, and then again, just really pinning down what are the things that your school actually needs? So, as Marshall said, you're not getting caught up in the noise.

You're not getting caught up in the fancy bells and whistles, and you're really addressing the school's needs.

So when we think about your evaluation team, uh, you wanna make sure that you have the right people around the table.

When you have the right people around the table, you're often gonna come up with the best solution possible for your school.

Uh, and some key things that need to, key conversations that need to take place, uh, within your school team or within your evaluation team is one whose budget is this being coming? Is this solution gonna come from? Is it gonna come from your technology budget? Is it gonna come from a safety budget or a security budget? Is it gonna come from an operations or facilities budget? Uh, are you all in agreement, uh, as to what that, uh, what budget that should come from? Is everything in place for that budget to be set for either the current year or the next year to account for this expenditure? You wanna make sure that there's a clear, uh, understanding and agreement on that before you move, move forward with any of this.

Uh, you wanna make sure that everyone who is around that table is going to be able to contribute effectively to that conversation and to the decision around making, uh, that purchase.

So again, making sure you have the right people around the table, uh, and are everyone's needs being represented.

You wanna make sure you're thinking about that, especially when it comes to safety and security.

You're certainly thinking about your employees, you're considering your students.

Uh, it may even involve parents.

Uh, and so you wanna make sure that the appropriate voices are involved.

Uh, and, and a part of those conversations, we talked earlier about making sure you have your DRI or directly responsible individual or whatever use term you might use at your school, uh, that you have somebody who's overseeing and running this project.

They may be the same person, they may be two different people.

Uh, but you wanna make sure those roles are clearly defined.

And then lastly, I wanna make sure, sorry.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead, Marshall.

No, I was just gonna say, and that's actually something, and you and I were talking about this earlier, it's a part of the process.

Some schools overlook that.

You have someone who's like, oh, we need to have a new tool.

We need to solve this problem.

But they're often different from the person who might manage it or is actually responsible at their school for owning a project like this.

And that can become really tough because, you know, a good initiative needs someone who is in charge of making sure it happens.

And this is one of those steps along with the budget, which you, I'm, I'm sure is no surprise to all of you today that, you know, there's an idea and there's like, yeah, I think we can afford that.

But the actual question of who is going to pay for that is a, for anyone, you know, everybody wants their budget to do their initiatives.

And so it's the same thing with the budget in that you need to know who runs the shop and that's gonna make this whole process smoother.

Yeah, that's absolutely right, Marshall.

And, and to piggyback on that, there are times where, because it's something that is digital, because it is something that is technology based, people often look to you as a technology leader in order to be the one responsible for it.

The one owning it budget wise, the one owning it in terms of management, that may not always be the case.

And so again, having these proper decision makers as a part of the evaluation team gives you the space to have those conversations and make those appropriate decisions.

Uh, and the last piece here is just making a vendor checklist, right? You wanna go through that checklist.

You wanna weigh all the features that are being offered versus the cost.

What are the things that your school actually needs so that you don't get lost in, in, in, uh, determining, um, the decision and what your needs are versus what are the things that are nice to have? Yeah.

And okay, step two here is going to market.

And this is the, the part where I think everybody gets really excited and it's like, Ooh, let's see what's available.

While these vendors have some great features available, definitely not talking about Rub now.

Um, and, and it's also somewhere that you wanna make sure you don't get lost in the sauce, so to speak, because the best resource here are people in your community.

And Ty, I know that's something you are a big fan of, it's go to your network first.

What are they using? And I'll let you talk to that a little bit about how how you can really leverage a, a resource like Atlas to do that.

Yeah.

So, uh, for those of you who are, you know, either new to Atlas or new to the independent school community, um, you know, they, there is the, I said listserv, which is very popular among technology leaders just to talk about, um, and, and bounce ideas off of each other.

There's also the Atlas Connect platform on the Atlas website that you can access.

If you're unfamiliar with it, go check it out today.

Uh, make sure that you can sign in and you can access it.

'cause it is, again, another great place to bounce ideas off of, to ask questions of your peers around the country and actually around the world.

Uh, I see ca uh, Kelsey has put it in the chat, so please make sure you connect with that.

But it's a great thing to do to just bounce ideas off of people.

Most likely, if you're asking a question, you, you're not the first one to ask that question.

If you're working with a vendor or you're looking at a vendor, you're probably not the first person to talk to that vendor or to, uh, explore using that vendor.

So to put out, um, those questions to the Atlas community, you'll get some great advice every single time.

Uh, and again, it gives you a bit of a heads up and, and, and a leg up in terms of your research.

Yeah, and I think it's also really critically important because now, uh, you know, almost every school these days, uh, is gonna ask for a reference client.

Like, I'm, I'm sure you're not gonna just buy something without saying, Hey, I wanna talk to someone like me, an independent school like me that uses this.

But it's so important to remember that your vendors, the, the, the, the solution fighters, they're not gonna send you someone that had hiccups.

They're not gonna send you someone that had issues with their setup.

And so ensuring that you don't get, just get fed the best case scenario, but understand the actual realities on the ground of using a platform is so, so important.

And again, just to, to reiterate, that's why something like I said, um, and the Atlas Connect network is so important to get an unvarnished look on what actually using any solution really that experience is actually like, which is, is often different and better or worse way than you might hear from the platform.

And then once you're out there looking, and it's important to both stick to your, your, your desires in terms of this is what we need to do, but be open to understanding that that might be accomplished in a slightly different way than you might expect.

Because one of the things that we, we see high performing schools do is focus on the objective.

What is my objective here? What problem am I trying to solve? Because if you approach it from that perspective, you actually open yourself up to solutions that might be slightly different than you might be thinking, but it'll actually work a lot better.

Now, it's not actually a real Henry Ford quote, but I I love to reference the, the, the fake Henry Ford quote about how, you know, oh, if Henry Ford had listened to every, all of his, you know, clients, they would've had a better horse.

Um, and not real.

But I think it really encapsulates the fact that sometimes there is something to be learned.

And being open to discovering a solution that meets your needs in a different way might also be very useful as well.

And that's where something like that form is really beneficial because it's, can you do this thing, not, do you do it a certain way? And it's a way that you as a school can find solutions that push you forward and help you solve problems in newer ways than you might be originally thinking.

And it's super important here when you're meeting with these vendors that you have your questions prepared ahead of time.

You know, I, as as a vendor, I can tell you when I'm preparing my demos, I want to craft a narrative for the school that helps them see how our solution can help them.

And it's really important for you as the school to understand that that is what is happening.

And that's a good thing, right? A good vendor will not just drone on about how it hears how you click this to do that, they'll craft a custom experience for you.

And it's your responsibility there to make sure you know what you need from that demo.

Because a demo isn't just a place to see how it works, it's a place to understand how it could work for you.

And that's such a big differentiation that I see a lot of, uh, schools not leaning into.

It's not just how it works, but what it will do specifically for you.

So ask the questions about how well our school does this this way, you know, we don't do homeroom.

Will that still enable us to understand who's there? We have different start times for our different divisions.

How might you support that? These are really important questions that if you didn't go through the earlier parts of our framework here, you wouldn't know to ask.

And that's how you'll end up six months down the line with a product that doesn't work for you.

And as we started looking, if I can jump in real Yeah, please, Marshall, one thing that that's I think really important here, uh, and I, I forgot to mention this earlier about thinking that value about that evaluation team and about the decision makers.

Um, you also wanna make sure those groups are not too big.

Uh, 'cause the more an evaluation team is, has a lot of people on it, it can get a bit too, uh, unwieldy end.

So you wanna make sure that you have just the key people who really need to be a part of those conversations in there.

Uh, and certainly as part of these sales pitches.

'cause that's really, really helpful.

Uh, you wanna try to avoid the folks who might sidetrack the conversation or whatever, but you wanna certainly get their thoughts and their, uh, and their input, uh, as a part of that.

Yeah.

Uh, exactly.

And that's what's so important about both having that conversation, but also having a DRI, because I'm sure we all know someone at our school who asks great questions, but that's kind of their thing, is trying to find problems or needle in different things but aren't maybe necessarily amazing at pulling things forward.

And so it's important and that's the strength and the reason you have a DRI is they can leverage the strengths and the opinions of your different team members without letting things get sidetracked by the amount of cooks in the kitchen.

You know, you want your sous chefs, but you gotta make sure you have an executive chef at the pass.

Yeah.

Okay.

And as we narrow down our options here, it's important that we don't stay too wide for too long.

Um, we like to recommend a three stage approach, right? You make your initial checklist, you go to market, and then you narrow it down to two or three options.

And that's the benefit of having a checklist.

You can make a threshold ahead of time and say, if people don't do X, Y, or Z, they're not gonna be a fit for us.

And it can stop you from, if you wake those correctly, understanding these are the three things you must have and these are the nice to haves, it'll stop you from getting a ooh, that's really cool.

And pulling something forward that doesn't actually meet your core needs.

And then when you eventually make that purchase, it's really important that you don't slack just yet.

'cause that's actually, you know, once you make that purchase and some of the most important work you're doing, because one of the things that, you know, I've been doing this now for a decade, but it shocked me when I first started working in EdTech a decade ago.

The percentage of products that get bought and never used it is crazy.

And you need to make sure of this whole process is to avoid that problem.

So when you're avoiding that problem, it's inor of course, important.

You keep that in mind during the actual implementation process.

So let's talk about how you can make sure that your product will actually get implemented.

The most important thing you can do is before you even buy, get a proposed implementation plan.

Understand the exact ways this is going to work, because you'll learn very quickly about how much thought this vendor puts into your implementation and actually taking you from when you're signing that contract to three months later using the product based on what they show you, if they're clear, if they're specific, if they talk about how they're going to get your data, the typical ways they use that data, and being able to understand the various key threshold points in your process, that's a vendor that will be successful.

I use Ruben as an example here in that the first thing we will do is confirm everything presents you with a plan based on all the information in the sales process, but also during that initial onboarding call to make sure nothing was missed.

And then help you understand at each step of the process, this is when you'll get first access, this is when you'll be able to start playing around and understanding what's required on both sides to make that happen and how that can affect timelines, delivery, et cetera.

And I think that's something that, um, a lot of folks miss is asking for that detailed implementation plan and a detailed walkthrough of what that implementation will look like.

Because as a project manager, as a school leader, as a DRI, how can you captain the ship if you don't know what the sea you're going to be sailing into look like? And okay, you've got your implementation plan, you've purchased the software, amazing.

Well, let's actually start going live here.

And this is why Ty and I harped so much on a DRI and a product manager and how they are often, but not always the same.

Here's a good example of that.

Let's say, uh, you're a larger independent school with a relatively robust security department.

You know, you're gonna own this.

You know, you're more than likely got multiple people underneath you.

You have a decent technology budget within that security department, but you can't implement this.

If you use Blackboard or Velcros, you're certainly not in charge of data authorization, probably shouldn't be.

So that's a good thing.

So you're going to need your director of tech, your CIO to be involved in this, but at the end of the day, that person needs to drive the ship.

So for you as a technology leader, understanding that you're a part of the process, but maybe not driving it, is so important.

And understanding that maybe as a technology leader in this specific example, your role is to facilitate the onboarding and then hand it back.

So understanding and defining the roles here is so important because as we like to say at now, you're not buying software, you're buying your community's peace of mind and the knowledge that when you need something, it will be there in the moments that matter most.

So again, understanding that responsibility in terms of what department is directly responsible for ensuring this implementation goes smoothly.

Who needs to be involved? How might they, uh, and if something goes wrong, what happens there? Anything to add, Ty? Yeah, the one thing I would probably add to this also is communication, right? Mm-hmm.

How are you communicating to your com to your community in the lead up to this, in the process of going through this? And then towards the end, uh, when you're looking at implementation, actually doing this, right, especially when it in gonna involve, involve things like training.

That's not only going to require communication of, of when that's happening, but also, uh, just making sure you're coordinating with your, your, your folks on your faculty side and folks on your staff side to make sure there's time built in for these training sessions to happen, right? Uh, and so it, you really kind of want to think about your implementation, uh, in a backward design type way to just make sure the the dates are planned, the times are planned, what's going to be communicated when to everybody is, is all understood, uh, so that everything goes smoothly and everybody's on board with it.

Uh, it is so difficult as we all notify time and schools trainings in particular take a lot of time, and we would just want to make sure you can prep for that as much as possible and prepare for that as much as possible ahead of time.

That when those trainings do come around, they're scheduled.

Everybody knows it's coming and it's not a surprise and everyone's prepared for it.

Yeah, and it's, I think it's a, just another emphasis on why you need to have that evaluation team and the the proper cooks in the kitchen early.

Because if you have that conversation early, you're able to understand and not be like, oh, great.

Oh God, now I need to talk to someone about what the schedule looks like for this thing I'm buying.

But if you were had that entire conversation early, they know it's coming.

You already know your availability and there's no hiccup between maybe signing the contract and then trying to get all your people together to figure out how to actually implement this and when this will happen.

It, it's really a combination of knowing your availability, as ties said, building it backwards by having the right people there from the beginning.

And something, um, I also wanna call out here that I don't think we see enough of in the ed tech space is that really high touch surface.

Um, one of the things that rub now we, we are very keen on and focus on is the quarterly biannual check-ins.

Um, I, I think in EdTech sometimes we can get so lost, um, in just making sure getting a new update out or getting through this week, or all the events we have going on campus that we don't do the maintenance and the check-in.

Because at the end of the day, right, if, if you make a good purchase decision, you're gonna be a partner with that company for five, 10 years.

Like, good software should grow with your school.

And if you're not working with them and the company, the vendor is not proactively work working with you and pushing you to find time with them, that's a red flag.

So it's not only something you should be asking about, you know, how do you work with us to make sure any of our needs get met? How receptive are you to changes or suggestions, but also ensuring that they are proactively keeping you involved and ensuring that if you have any issues, it's not hard to get someone and that you have a scheduled time to say, Hey, this is working.

Well, this isn't the example being for Rena, you know, during our implementation, we like to do a first drill check-in.

So after that first drill, we'll talk with you, see how anything went, see if there's any changes that needs to be made, and then three months later be like, okay, you've done a few drills.

Are we seeing more progress? How is this working? So it's a really important part of the, the pie here that I think, uh, is sometimes, um, not given as much focus as it should be, but is, is critical to making sure that the success builds.

Because if the implementation goes well, you wanna make sure six months later you're continuing that success.

And this is something that is really becoming a core part, uh, of your community.

And so I guess now the question for us, you know, turning a little bit forward is, you know, as, as leaders, you know, is what you're buying right, for your school and, and, and hopefully that if you're able to use this framework here, and of course don't, uh, I, I hope, you know, some folks are, are finding this useful.

We're gonna share, uh, you know, the templates and all this information, uh, down the line.

So really the goal of our framework here is to help you answer the question correctly when you're meeting with a vendor.

Is this right for your school? And hopefully the answer is yes using this, this framework, this three step framework, uh, that, that Ty and I have shared today.

A little bit of background for those who don't know about us here at Rubner, um, we're a unified safety operations management platform that does four critically important pieces of, of your daily school management.

We do emergency operations, we help you figure out who's safe, who's missing, and who needs help during an emergency.

We help you understand who's on campus, whether that's faculty, staff, administration, students, or visitors from the beginning of the day to the last bell.

We help do that communication throughout that day.

And we ensure people, those visitors that are coming to your campus are safe, are, you know, are not on any lists and are folks that you want in your community.

And for us, you know, the process that we've, Ty and I have talked about today is built off really our learnings and our desires for each and every one of the clients we work with, every school we work with to see the success that they deserve.

Over to you, Ty.

Yeah, and I'll talk, you know, briefly about, um, EdTech flow.

Again, we are, uh, education, technology, uh, consulting firm.

Uh, and we currently do a lot of work, uh, with rare cross implementations.

Uh, we also do, uh, work with other implementation as well.

So for example, if you were a school, uh, that were looking to implement a tool, like a security platform, uh, we'd be more than happy to help work with you, uh, on that.

Having implemented multiple tools over my, uh, years including, uh, at my school, uh, you know, I've been through this process before and so if it's something you're ever interested in, uh, please feel free to reach out.

Well, thank you so much for that, Ty and I I can't speak enough about, you know, the expertise Ty brings to this space.

Uh, this is, it's always wonderful, at least on our end to sit down with, with a leader in this space, uh, to be able to really put something together like this framework that I think is really valuable, uh, for everyone here today.

So before we go, uh, we're here to help.

Any questions.

Uh, uh, we, if we've got answers, we'll share 'em.

Uh, we'd love to open the floor up now to anything we can do here, uh, to help you.

What do you know? Are you having any trouble with any implementations you're doing right now? Anything that's, you know, how's all that going? How can we help? We're here.

Well, I know it's a quiet crowd, so I can wrap this up and wrap up the recording and then we can hang around, um, if people wanted to, to wait until the recording's over.

But Marshall, ty, thank you so much.

That three step framework was awesome.

We really appreciate you putting that together.

Uh, we appreciate you sharing it with our community.

I'm sure many people will find that helpful.

Um, thanks for your supportive atlas and being part of the Atlas community.

Um, we're looking forward to opening registration for the 2026 conference, um, and seeing all of you there.

Um, and thanks again for your time and for putting this together..