The Good, The Bad & The Ugly of Microcredentials

Microcredentials are quickly becoming the most talked about topic in credentialing. What’s not to love? Microcredentials recognize competencies to increase the ability to display a learner’s skills. Noah Geisel walks us through what we’re getting right, the challenge of adoption, and the complicated nature of reinventing the recognition of what people know.

Transcript

Matt Sterenberg (00:01.144)

All right, and without further ado, Simone and I are here with Noah Geisel. Noah, welcome to the podcast. Tell us a little bit more about your role and what your responsibility is with microcredentialing. How did you get into this world?

Simone Ravaioli (00:10.92)

Thank you.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (00:18.098)

Wow, thank you so much, Matt Simone. It’s great to be here with you. A lot going on in that question. As the inter said, I’m micro credentials program manager at University of Colorado Boulder, as well as a co founder of the annual badge summit conference that is going to be in its ninth year here in 2024 at CU Boulder. And really my journey into this space was one like a lot of people probably have borne out of frustration that

Matt Sterenberg (00:45.096)

Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started. Okay. So, we’ll go ahead and get started.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (00:45.334)

going back a little over 10 years ago when it was unwritten rule to basically have a staff meeting in which you play the Sir Ken Robinson Ted Talk about the future of education, that you had a lot of leaders saying the important thing is creativity, empathy, critical thinking, and then going back into, at the time I was a K-12 Spanish teacher, and rating teacher.

effectiveness, rating school effectiveness on knowledge level test scores that were totally the antithesis of what they just shown us in the video. And so I really came to this space of saying, well, if we’re saying creativity matters, if we’re saying empathy, critical thinking matters, why aren’t we measuring those things? And I kind of started to have a bit of a cynical feeling that maybe it’s just because it’s hard. And so I really was on a mission journey to find and connect with people who were

you know, asking those same questions. It was really lucky to just be following people on Twitter, like Simone, you know, like Doug Belsha and Don Prezant and some of these early people who, you know, really kind of created this space of, you know, recognition storytelling through open badges and verifiable credentials that just, you know, really set me off on a journey of saying this is possible. And, you know, maybe it’s hard with the way we’ve always done things, but, you know, there’s…

really smart and talented people working on the technology and to make it totally doable on the execution end if we’re willing to adapt.

Matt Sterenberg (02:21.207)

So, you know, we have a lot of different people that are gonna be listening to this, right? Some people are gonna be individuals that live and breathe micro-credentials every day, right? They’re gonna know all the different terminology, they’re gonna know about the entire ecosystem, and other people are gonna be pretty new to micro-credentials. So…

I think it’d be helpful if we define what a microcredential is. And there’s going to be maybe multiple definitions, but what is NOAA’s definition of a microcredential?

Noah Geisel (he/him) (02:51.534)

Yeah, that’s a great question. And yeah, you could get 10 experts, 10 novices, you know, give it a day and probably land on 10 different definitions that are at least hopefully related or overlapping and Venn diagrams, I guess. But in my official capacity at University of Colorado Boulder, we do differentiate between micro credentials and

digital badges, we view micro-credentials as a programmatic term. So similar to a degree or certificate program, micro-credential is a programmatic offering. So a unit proposes micro-credential, it gets approved, learners declare for, apply to, or enroll in a micro-credential. When they successfully complete it, the artifact of recognition we use is a digital badge or a series of digital badges.

I think that for us, it really comes down to storytelling and recognition. Similar to as a diploma is to a degree, digital badges are to micro-credentials, where things get really innovative and next-gen, if you will, unless you’re listening to this in five or ten years, is that because of that digital aspect of the artifact, of that digital badge credential,

Simone Ravaioli (04:04.104)

Thanks for watching!

Noah Geisel (he/him) (04:14.378)

you know, do all this extra storytelling about it to contextualize and in my mind, kind of uptext the credential itself to say, okay, here’s what, not just the credential, but here’s a narrative of what is credentialing. And I think that really takes us to a place of, you know, these artifacts and credentials, you know, being, you know, just about people, um, to being something that actually gets used by those people.

to open doors and help them access opportunities.

Matt Sterenberg (04:47.528)

Well, that’s a great segue into the kind of initial question, which is like, why are we, why are we doing this? You know, like what is actually the benefit to learners? What’s the benefit to institutions? And I think it’s an important, because I feel like every, well, I might be a little close to this, but I feel like I hear so much about microcredentials, right? It’s such a sexy topic in higher education.

that sometimes it’s like taking a step back and going, okay, what are we really doing here? Like, how is this actually impacting and benefiting learners? And then also like, how is this helping institutions evolve to meet the needs of students and workforce and all the rest? So like, why are we actually doing this? Why are why, why is micro credentialing important? Why should people care about it? If I’m listening to this, and I’ve thought about investing at my institution.

Why should I care about it?

Noah Geisel (he/him) (05:48.254)

Yeah, I love that question because I think that too often we dive right into the what and you know, I think the why is really important because if we don’t have a compelling why, you know, buy-in is going to be really difficult. And I also think it’s highly contextualized to, you know, where you are as a stakeholder within the ecosystem because I think that, you know, each kind of constituency is going to have a different why. I think that, you know, to that latter part of the question of why you might be interested in investing time,

resources, personnel, you know, into this in, if you’re, you know, maybe in the higher education. I think the one really compelling why is, you know, if there’s a pretty good chance that this stuff is going to be ubiquitous in a not too distant future, that really your decision is, do you want to wait until, you know, it is a rushed adoption or do you want to get on board, you know, while you still have the chance to have a more deliberate intentional design process where you have the.

you know, runway to engage stakeholders and where you’re early enough to where your institution can actually be lending voice to actually shaping what this future looks like. And so, you know, I think that’s one really compelling why is, you know, right now you have the luxury of choice in a not too distant future. I think there’s a really good chance your institution doesn’t, it’s not a choice. It’s something that we’re probably all going to be doing. And so, you know, I that’s kind of more of a bully way of looking at it. And so I don’t know if I should have started there, but I think that, you know,

I, on the, you’d mentioned workforce and I do think that, you know, regardless of what your, you know, sort of ethos is around the purpose of, you know, K-12 or higher education, I do think it’s important to consider that stakeholder group of, you know, industry and hiring. And I think that, you know, big reason for that is that, you know, their interest in this is a big reason why it’s not going to go away and why it’s going to become ubiquitous. And, you know, it basically comes down to trust.

And you know that when employers are looking, you know, to fill a position, they have our resume, they have our cover letter, they have our interview. And if you look at research like Adam Grant out of Wharton School of Business, and you know, it says that we’re really bad at it. We’re not good at hiring. At best, we’re good at deciding that we’re going to like somebody in the water cooler or not, but not if it’s not if we’re making a good hiring decision. And so, you know, I think the industry is really looking at.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (08:15.018)

trusted credentials that can get granular about skills and achievements and really help you have a trusted narrative of what people know and are able to do that. It allows them before they even get to the interview stage to maybe be making better decisions that, you know, remove some of their biases and help them land at, you know, a sort of top finalist group of who they’re going to look at bringing in for interviews.

that just based off of merit, not gender, race, last name, who you know, but actually based off skills that you have that align with the skills they need, that maybe that results in an efficiency in the hiring process that helps them make better decisions because bad decisions are expensive. And it helps them also better know you and better know not just that they want you on the bus, but where your right seat is on the bus, right? Going back to Jim Collins, good to great kind of thinking around stuff.

And then, you know, if you shift over to, you know, institutions of higher ed, I think that there’s just so much opportunity for us. You know, I think that anybody looks at things like skills-based hiring and the, you know, doing a way of degree requirements and job postings. And, you know, I think that there’s a default that for the conventional wisdom to assume that that’s, you know, a bad thing for higher ed and that it’s actually signaling the death of the degree.

And I would argue that that’s actually a case of conventional wisdom not being wise. I think that sure, there’s going to be a broader applicant pool of talent because of the lack of a degree requirement. But also if we’re equipping our learners with trusted, granular level storytelling about the skills and accomplishments that they acquired within the degree, it actually is going to

privilege degree more than ever and give degree holders even more competitive advantage than they’ve ever had.

Matt Sterenberg (10:07.408)

And also like who’s saying that like the death of the of the degree is usually framed in the context of oh No, this is bad or it’s going to totally change everything that we’re doing Why is why is the death of the degree a bad thing? Right think about the way that we do it today Like you are it’s so binary right you have a degree or you do not right? Let’s say I’m

for credit short, I pretty much have all of the knowledge as the person who has a degree, but I don’t have one and doors are closed to me because I don’t have the degree. So, and I think that’s why institutions are wary. I think it’s good to be wary, like generally of things that are new and like, let’s make sure like to your point that why are we doing this? Is this the right method for credentialing people, all this other stuff? But like today we have this

huge problem where we have so many people that have some college and no degree, they have no credential, right? And so there’s nothing to show for that experience that they did put in. So they’ve got debt, no degree, and there’s no way for them to get that next educational professional opportunity. And really, when you think about the history of higher ed, like, that is a powerful thing for them to hold on to, to basically say like,

You need to be here for four years traditionally. And we have this piece of paper, you know, that’s going to be really important to you. You really need to stay. And so I understand why people are like, this is a significant change. But I think what you’re saying is it’s not either or it’s like a both and like, how do we do this in connection with each other? We’re not taking away the degree. We’re just kind of creating a pathway that is awarding alongside of it.

as we go, right? And I think that’s really the exciting promise, at least for me is I’m not getting one credential at the end of my experience here.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (12:11.506)

Yeah. I, you know, I, I would almost compare it to an analogy that just popped in my head as, you know, when, when somebody comes into your home and you’re the person who judges you by your bookshelf, right. And, you know, right now the system is akin to the bookshelf is there, you know, but, but it’s just book covers. All the page, the pages aren’t there, right? There there’s the book cover is, is acting as a proxy for the story that’s inside.

but the pages are not actually inside of the book covers on the bookshelf, right? And I think that where this kind of narrative and storytelling goes, that I keep talking about it and recognition is by saying, let’s actually put the pages in the book cover, right? That it’s not just a diploma, it’s let’s go ahead and instead of just having the diploma be a proxy for the story that’s inside, we have the ability because of the metadata to actually include that story, right? And…

You know, to be able to say, here are the skills, here are things that align with the National Association fill in the blank standards framework or competency framework that your company is on the board of and helped write, right? And here’s actually rubrics if we want to, here’s examples of what went into the earning criteria that somebody had to meet so that you go from a sort of vague right now of here’s the name of the class and the grade you got to actually.

Here’s what you need to do in order to get that grade. And so, it just allows us to supercharge the storytelling that goes along with the recognition in our credentials. And I don’t wanna limit us to four-year degrees at selective institutions, right? This is also regional four-year schools. It’s at community colleges. And to your point, Matt, about the literally tens of millions of people just in the United States who have…

some post-secondary education and no credentials, there’s just a huge opportunity that is both mission aligned probably with most institutions and also kind of revenue aligned as well to look at how this can serve tens of millions of humans to help improve their access to successful outcomes and economic mobility, while also kind of reinforcing our own institution’s sustainability.

Matt Sterenberg (16:46.988)

Yeah, yeah. So, Simone, I want you in on this because you’re the, you know, you’re living and breathing this too. So, what are you seeing or what do you want to ask? I mean, I’ll just, I want you to, I want you to grill Noah is my point.

Simone Ravaioli (17:08.397)

So I guess, Noah, are you on a quest? Are you looking for something specific? What is your holy grail? What are you after? Are you driven by something specific? Did you see the light at some point and said like, this is where I should go and find it? Is that revealed to you or you’re just following your instinct and you’re just in full like discovery mode?

Noah Geisel (he/him) (17:34.246)

That’s a great question. I, and the short answer is yeah, like the goals to change the world. And, you know, I go back to 2015, 2016, uh, my, my colleagues at rural public schools and I, where we were working on a project and that was our motto every day. How you doing? And it’s a change in the world. You know, that, that was, you know, very explicitly, we believe that, you know, there’s power here to, you know, truly change the world for, for humans. And, you know, I think that my holy grail.

is going back to that notion of stuff not just being for people by being about them, but actually being used by them. An analogy I give it is when I go and got a mortgage on my home, hundreds of pages of documents all about me, none of it really for me as a user. It’s all about me.

You know, closing shop, use it, but, but I don’t actually operationalize it. I just sign on a few pages. Right. And I think that historically a lot of our learning records are pretty similar. Yeah. That I’m, you know, authorized shipping them between different, you know, kind of folks, but I’m not actually myself a user. And I think that that’s something that is going to be changing where, you know, as we talk about learning.

unemployment records, as we talk about the comprehensive learning record, open badges, verifiable credentials, aside from just the what of all they are, right? If that, if, if people had to just do earplugs, cause that was overwhelming, totally cool. They’re just envelopes, right? They’re containers that happen to be digital and powerful. I think the why that is really compelling for me, you know, that’s my holy grail is that the front end UX imagines that the primary user of my credentials is me.

that I’m actually going in regularly and looking at my credentials. I am curating them. I am sharing them out to a scholarship committee, to an employer, to an admissions counselor, to people who essentially opportunity providers, that I am able to use my recognitions, my credentials is a way of opening up opportunities for me in meaningful ways that help them make a better decision.

Matt Sterenberg (19:52.238)

I’m going to go ahead and start the presentation. I’m going to start with the presentation of the first item, which is the question of the

Noah Geisel (he/him) (19:58.946)

but also empowered enable me. And I really do think that’s, you know, we’re gonna start to see that because going back to that industry side, it’s an efficiency for them, right? And, you know, I don’t wanna make it sound like these publicly traded companies, you know, that can, you know, whose stocks go up when they do layoffs are necessarily, you know, doing this because of what’s best for, you know, the cogs and the wheel. I just think that there’s this sort of magical nexus

the cogs who are humans, it’s actually also good for us.

Matt Sterenberg (20:33.952)

Isn’t that a real challenge though, like thinking about the workforce side of it? Like we have.

We have workforce saying, we need better representations of skills. We need to find out better ways to hire. Right. Then we also have workforce saying like, these don’t mean a lot to me. Right. And there’s not this necessarily critical mass of microcredentials or badges at this point where they even know what they’re seeing, like, when do we reach that point when it becomes.

I know to ask for this or when it gets sent to me, I know what it is. Cause I think that’s always the challenge of like the handshake between higher ed and workforce, which is, Hey, we built this thing. And then like, I just, it’s such a tall task. Cause when we say workforce, it’s like hundreds of thousands of companies, you know, that have all these various needs. How do we know that they actually want this and that they know what to do with it?

Right. Let’s say I get a micro credential from a program. Like, do I just send it to like IBM? Like when I apply for a job, like, are they going to ask me for it? Like, I don’t know how we even begin to measure that type of thing.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (21:53.738)

Yeah, and I think that’s a really important question. And people have been asking that, I think I heard that question for the first time in 2016. And so it’s been around, and also when you think about it, things don’t necessarily move at this light speed, right? And so 2016 to 2024 is only eight years. I think that it took close to 40 years or 50 years for seat belts to be standard.

Simone Ravaioli (22:16.126)

and we’ll be back in a second. Thank you. Thank you

Noah Geisel (he/him) (22:23.358)

on automobiles, right? As clear as it was that this is probably a good thing, it was actually something that they didn’t start with and it was something you had to pay extra for decades. Right? And so, we think that in less than a decade, we’ve gone from almost nobody knowing about this to hundreds of institutions issuing these, having dedicated staff, creating these, managing these. And I think we’ve moved.

you know, quite a lot in a really short amount of time. And so I like the lack of patience makes sense to me. The sense of urgency is essential, you know, that makes sense to me. And, you know, I guess I’m not necessarily in the camp that is looking around going, how are we not there yet? Why are things so slow? I think that, you know, some of it has to do with also, you know, plumbing, technological plumbing that people like Simone understand.

Simone Ravaioli (22:58.556)

So, I’m going to go ahead and start the presentation. presentation of the

Noah Geisel (he/him) (23:21.858)

But there’s probably under 100 people on earth who do. And so there’s certain plumbing that still needs to come along for things to be fully manifested. But I think that part of it is that it’s both the chicken and the egg need to advance, right? We need lots of employers asking for these, even though most employers are saying, we’re not going to start asking for these until we see a bunch of opportunity seekers.

Matt Sterenberg (23:40.517)

And I think that’s a great way to start.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (23:51.498)

you know, displaying these, right? And lots of opportunity seekers are not gonna think I need to be earning these and displaying these in less opportunity providers, like admissions, like employers are asking for these. And so I think it’s sort of just a full core press of moving all the chickens and all the eggs at the same time. But I do think it’s gonna happen. And I think that part of it is gonna be, you know, as certain…

Simone Ravaioli (24:05.906)

I’m going to take a few minutes to get this done. So I’m going to go ahead and get this done.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (24:19.086)

folks in certain pockets recognize really high quality credentials, right? That they start to notice, okay, somebody, we just hired somebody who had this batch and that was a really good hiring decision. They’re going to all of a sudden start proactively realizing, well, this is a really efficient way where we could just pay LinkedIn, you know, a penny of an email to your private message, anybody who has this credential inviting them to apply. And so I think it’ll be little things like that move the needle. And I actually just recently heard an example.

Matt Sterenberg (24:44.218)

Thank you.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (24:48.854)

with an employer who was hiring a contract role and they actually listed the Adobe Creative Educator badge as one of the look-fors in the job posting. And they said that as a result, they actually did get people who’d earned the Adobe Creative Educator badge who applied. And the person they hired was somebody who had the Adobe Creative Educator badge. And so that to me is like, yeah.

Matt Sterenberg (25:14.75)

Yeah, perfect. Everything works. Yeah.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (25:18.026)

Now that was also a manual, you know, DLA. So we still need things like, you know, admissions software. We need things like, you know, HR information systems, you know, workday type systems to be consuming these and not just saying, if you have digital credentials, like an open badge, give us a link here, but actually consuming them in a machine readable way, because that’s the only way this scales. And, you know, we’re not there yet, but going back to the chicken in the egg, you know, until these…

HR software vendors have clients saying, you need to do this for us in 18 months and we’re gonna put out an RFP for a new software. Yeah, they don’t have urgency themselves.

Matt Sterenberg (26:00.137)

Simone, okay, so how much of this is displaying and recognizing things that are already happening? And how much of this is actually changing the way that we deliver and teach? You know what I mean? Like how much of this is just, hey, you know, students have been, you know,

just getting the degree for so long, right? And now we’re gonna credential them a long way. And how much of this is really just kind of, I don’t mean disruptive in a bad sense, but like now that we have this mechanism, we believe in this mechanism, it’s gonna change the way that we deliver education.

Simone Ravaioli (26:48.081)

I think the big lift and the real disruptive thing is on the recognition side. But that is really just a signal of what is really changing. And I think this has to do with all learning counts. So if we frame this journey in a lifelong learning sense, then micro credentials to me…

came to lower some of the barriers that we built around academia and just recognize that, again, any learning experience, long or short, is worth recognition. And then if you stack it around, it may provide a finer-grained picture of yourself, and it tells a better story. Also, academia is recognizing the change of learners.

the face of learners is changing. And so they want to have a more adequate offering so that they’re more inclusive. So it’s not only inclusive in the recognition sense, which is casting a much wider net where you could prove that you have learned something, but also in the way this is bringing more people back into universities in a sense. So I do think there is a little bit of, I’d like to think if I were to pinpoint that to a…

moment in time, in history, this could be a renaissance of learning.

Matt Sterenberg (28:20.716)

I think it is a democratization a little bit, right? You think about like, I need to have certain time in a seat to get this very valuable currency of a credential. And now it’s opening it up so that you can get credentialed a lot quicker. It’s a better recognition of what I know. And it ultimately is putting the learner at the…

at the center, right? And I think that’s kind of where this is all leading is the learner having a little bit more autonomy and we could get into, which we won’t today, like a whole podcast on self-sovereign identity or wallets or whatever else, which I don’t think we even have time for. But I think it is the democratization of, and you know, you’ve heard the term unbundling a lot. Like I think that’s the fear for a lot of people is that it’s totally unbundled. But I think there is an element where that is.

so critical just given the problem we said earlier, which is so many people just don’t have time to go to college or the finances to go to college for four years and just call today, right? There needs to be a different model for many learners.

Simone Ravaioli (29:29.787)

So, thank you.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (29:33.738)

Yeah, I want to just hop on that and say that, again, I think that even when you think around unbundling, I think it goes back to who the stakeholder is. And I really want to key on what Simode talked about, about the lift being on the recognition side. I don’t necessarily think that this movement necessitates any disruption in teaching and learning and perhaps learning design.

If your learning design is not explicitly, you’re already identifying what’s happening inside of this learning opportunity, then maybe there’s some disruption there is, is that, you know, if right now it’s just a black box other than course titles, then yeah, that this is probably going to be a little bit disruptive, but if there’s quality learning design already happening, I think that this really just, you know, takes the awesomeness that you’re already doing and amplifies.

you know, the awesomeness by doing more transparent storytelling about it. And I think that, you know, going back to, you know, your point about, you know, learners and meeting them where they are, you know, you think about, you know, as somebody who starts a community college learning opportunity and life happens and they don’t finish and they’re leaving with, you know, they didn’t get the credits for the class. They’re not getting their associate’s degree.

and they’re leaving with no recognition of what they did accomplish before they were done, which creates a more difficult and uphill on-ramp for them to get back into the program when things settle down, they’re more able to. And likewise, I think there’s other programs where mission is being accomplished before the completion of the degree. And so I met somebody who was…

Matt Sterenberg (31:20.758)

I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to the audience. So, I’m going to turn it over to the audience.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (31:25.334)

got really into river, river surfing is that what it’s called where people, they, they are engineering basically awake inside of a river where people jump in with a surfboard and they’re surfing in a river. And he just got really into it, found a company that does this. Cause the guys were there surfing with him. He’s like, how do I work for you? He starts out interning for them. They told him what classes he needed to take at the committee college to learn some CAD and you know, he said.

Matt Sterenberg (31:46.582)

I’m going to stop the recording.

Simone Ravaioli (31:48.489)

I’m going to go ahead and start the presentation. So I’m going to start with the presentation.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (31:52.042)

At a certain point, they said, listen, you now know enough. Like you can, if you want to finish and get your associates cool, but we’re now good to give you, you know, really good paying job. And he said, and I wasn’t the only one. He said, you know, after week, whatever week, four of semester two of this class. Recruiters from all these government, you know, uh, contractors were showing up in the hallway outside of class and hiring people, cause they knew that once you got this far in the program, you knew enough for them to put you in a seat that they could build clients for. And so for those people, if they’re looking at.

going from wherever they were to making $65,000, maybe they don’t think they need to finish the degree. And hopefully most of them do, but a lot of them don’t. And again, to your point, they’re now leaving without a credential. And we have the ability through this unbundling to say, okay, here’s the competencies you did acquire, we’re gonna credential those. And you can come back and bring those and they’ll still be valued to finish your associate’s degree.

But in the meantime, you have the ability to have an official trusted record from us of the competencies that you affirmatively do have because the transcript at this point, since you, it’s just gonna show you as an unsuccessful non-completer.

Matt Sterenberg (33:08.908)

Yeah. And I think that’s a great, uh, great way to end too, because like the transcript, Hey, this is parchment. We love transcripts here, but like it’s such an inside baseball document, right? How do we break this down, make it more usable, at least be able to recognize what people know. And I think you and Simone really highlighted it well for me. Cause you know, like the, the freak out moment is like, is this disrupting education, the total unbundling, it totally different. You’re like, no, this, I mean that

That is one conversation to have, but it’s really recognition. I think if we focus on that, I think people are on board with that idea. We are wrapping up here, Noah, but I want you to plug your Bad Summit. So tell people where they can find you, why they should attend the Bad Summit.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (33:59.03)

Um, yeah, thank you so much for that opportunity. Uh, just www. It is a conference that I like to think of it as being a little bit different than a lot of gatherings in that it was born out of community. You know, back in the day, go about 10 years, Simone and other kind of old school people I mentioned, you know, we were hopping on Twitter every Monday and doing hashtag badge chat for an hour and just, you know, geeking out, asking each other these questions and

Simone Ravaioli (34:19.805)

Thank you.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (34:25.734)

That online community is something that very directly led to having an annual in-person gathering and we’re now in year nine and hopefully preserving that feel of, yes, it’s a conference and it’s a conference that has a feel of a community of practitioners on a whole spectrum of brand new to this space to experts who help build this space, getting together, learning, sharing, networking.

It’s a conference where you’re going to meet somebody who becomes a friend and a collaborator. And we try and keep it super affordable. We’re expanding it to almost a full day Monday, full day Tuesday, and a half day Wednesday with free pre and post conference workshops Monday morning and Wednesday morning or Wednesday afternoon. Food, all included, so it’s very affordable.

Simone Ravaioli (35:02.135)

So, I’m going to go ahead and start the presentation. So, I’m going to start with the presentation.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (35:21.058)

We’d love to see it in person in Boulder, Colorado, which is pretty awesome, August 5th through 7th, 2024, as well as an online only Bad Summit August 20th, that’ll have recordings from the in-person gathering, as well as dedicated content just to that day for folks who aren’t able to make it in person.

Matt Sterenberg (35:41.08)

Noah, I think everyone should attend the Badge Summit and you’re going to be smarter by the end of it. It’s going to be an awesome time. Noah, thank you so much for joining us. Really, really appreciate it.

Noah Geisel (he/him) (35:52.29)

Thank you, Matt Simone. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you and thanks to Parchment for creating this space and this platform.

There’s always more to learn.