Stories | ThoughtExchange

Reimagining Education: Giving Students a Seat at the Table

Andrew Findlay K-12, Stories

How many times have you heard a version of the expression: “we need to get more adults in the room” to find a solution to …

Diversity and Inclusion: An Initiative or a Mindset?

Dessalen Wood Stories, Corporate

Scan business articles or conference agendas, and you’ll likely see diversity and inclusion as a critical topic. You’ll hear how it’s the right thing for …

Living your culture story with Lorie Corcuera, CEO and Co-Founder of SPARK Creations

Andrew Findlay Stories

Sometimes it’s the little things in early life that go on to inform who we become as adults. When Lorie Corcuera was a young girl, …

Why employee engagement starts in Kindergarten

Colin Payne K-12, Stories

Whether you favor nature or nurture, the person you are today was inevitably shaped to some extent by the events of your childhood. And if …

Bringing people together and building community: A leader’s journey

Jayme Smithers Stories

Community. What does it mean to you? The simplest definition is a group of individuals living in the same general area. Go deeper, and community …

From Competent to Compassionate: The changing language of leadership

Andrew Findlay Corporate, Stories

Words matter. The language leaders use to frame their relationship with work, people, teams and outcomes, can make the difference between enlightened leadership, or falling …

Chimps and change: How hacking traditional power dynamics can help leaders inspire cultural transformation

Dessalen Wood Corporate, Stories

As employee expectations about leadership and work environments change, organizations need to transform their cultures to keep pace and to get ahead of disruption—because, no …

Creating authentic workplace diversity and inclusion: Te talks with Jessie Nelson of KITH+common

Colin Payne Stories, Corporate

Organizations everywhere have realized (or are quickly figuring out) that embracing diversity and inclusion is essential for their success. diversity and inclusion At the same …

CHALLENGE

Create trust and ownership in a vision for the future
Get beyond special interest groups to hear from more stakeholders

SOLUTION

Hundreds of stakeholders confidentially and independently shared and rated thoughts
Deep insights and rich data delivered through advanced data analysis

RESULTS

Discovered student experience was most important to the majority of staff
Collected data to make it easier to execute the building of new facilities
Gained confidence in leadership and community connection

CHALLENGE

Ensure all voices are heard in a conversation about facilities
Bring people with divergent views together around a shared facilities vision
Get people to pay attention and consider district information

SOLUTION

An exchange that let all community members contribute confidentially and independently

RESULTS

Heard a wide range of community voices and discovered common interests
Successfully communicated information about the district’s facilities perspective
Exposed people to new perspectives and discovered needs for a potential shared facility

CHALLENGES

Broaden community engagement in a geographically spread-out school district
Learn what was most important to the community in their schools
Discover student needs and enhance programming opportunities

SOLUTIONS

A broad-based exchange that let adult stakeholders share what’s important in their own words
A Student Voice exchange that asked students what mattered most to them in their schools

RESULTS

Aligned community priorities with government objectives and strategic planning
Developed new programming opportunities based on student needs
Increased viability of small rural schools

CHALLENGES

Engage more people on a difficult topic to learn what’s important to everyone
Make informed district boundary changes that receive community support

SOLUTIONS

Leveraged ThoughtExchange software and professional services to drive leading engagement practices and reach more people
Utilized ThoughtExchange’s rich data analysis and visualization tools to quickly pinpoint trends, themes and outliers to learn what’s important to the whole community

RESULTS

Reduced person hours and increased participation
Made a data-driven boundary decision that received community support

CHALLENGE

Help a new superintendent quickly ramp up, overcome a communications challenge and gather broad community input for a strategic plan

SOLUTIONS

Partnering with ThoughtExchange to engage the community in an online discussion that let them exchange thoughts in response to open-ended questions
Rich data combined with data visualization tools for quickly pulling specific, descriptive and actionable information

RESULT

A data-driven strategic plan that was built using the community’s own words and supported by people who were involved in the process

CHALLENGES

Engage under-35 staff to learn how to improve work experience
Increase retention and improve productivity

SOLUTIONS

An exchange that reached over 80% of the under-35 demographic
A customized analysis that presented city and team- specific data
A prioritized list of 200- plus items of importance to millennial staff

RESULTS

Feedback informed a business decision to move into a more-modern office space
Made fast progress by actioning some “simple win” items
Connected with employees on a deeper level to increase job satisfaction and retention

CHALLENGE

Create a productive and open discussion with 3,000 staff
Analyze input and use it to inform a strategic plan

SOLUTION

An Advanced Exchange that created a productive discussion with thoughtful input, while avoiding the limitations of a survey
Industry-leading data analysis that delivered actionable insights and decreased person-hours by 20x

RESULTS

4x more participation and thoughts to inform a strategic direction for education
Validation for leader’s direction and increased confidence to move forward

CHALLENGE

Engage nearly 10,000 representatives from 37 school districts in two different languages to inform a symposium and strategic vision for the future

SOLUTION

Expert guidance from ThoughtExchange on how to manage such a broad discussion and how to ask the right questions to get the best results
A series of Advanced Exchanges that let people confidentially share and rate thoughts online, whenever and wherever was convenient for them

RESULTS

An understanding of interests helped guide discussions and establish direction on a province-wide and individual district level
Input to create a strategic document that was more relevant to constituents and would be well-received due to an open, fair process

CHALLENGE

Facilitate a productive community conversation on an emotionally charged topic
Find solutions and develop a plan to help the community move forward on the issue of school safety

SOLUTION

A community-wide exchange that created a safe space for people to share and prioritize each other’s thoughts to reveal common concerns
An online, interactive communication channel that included a broader, more diverse group of people

RESULTS

A community meeting that quickly moved beyond emotion to focus on solutions
An action plan that’s better informed and more broadly supported in the community

CHALLENGE

Improve the work-life balance and energize staff who felt overworked
Test the effectiveness of change initiatives on a year-over-year basis

SOLUTION

Two Advanced Exchanges that let staff confidentially share and rate their thoughts
Data analysis that revealed staff experience and recommended clear action steps

RESULTS

Happier staff who appreciate having their thoughts heard and acted upon
Enthusiastic teachers providing engaged students with rigorous content in positive classroom environments
More applications for teaching positions in the district

CHALLENGE

Find a simple, fast and non-prescriptive way to engage 20,000 students and 1,400+ employees across four campuses
Learn what was most important across the organization and use the insights to create a better strategic plan

SOLUTION

Partnering with ThoughtExchange to launch an Advanced Exchange that got 2x more engagement in ¼ the time, with 10x less staff hours
Rich data and important insights from stakeholder experience that showed key themes and recommended a clear course of action

RESULTS

A better strategic plan focused on shared priorities and the most important goals across the university
A rich database of insights from stakeholders to guide resource allocation and enable more effective decisions

CHALLENGE

Prepare a bond package that would allow the district and superintendent to pass a first-ever referendum in a state where bonds are frequently unsuccessful
Earn constituent trust and generate $120 million in funding to address important facilities needs

SOLUTION

A Weather Report exchange that let the community freely share what mattered most and revealed the need to focus on facilities
A Facilities Scenario exchange that allowed open, prioritized community feedback on two bond packages
Rich data and advanced analytics that quickly revealed the most important insights

RESULTS

A bond package built around key community priorities and backed by trust created through open, transparent communication
80% support for a first-ever referendum on a $120-million bond package

CHALLENGE

Get more busy people to engage in a community-wide discussion about LCAP priorities
Make in-person meetings with community groups more effective

SOLUTION

A broad-based exchange that asked the community open-ended questions, let them respond in their own words, and exchange thoughts with others.

RESULTS

A more responsive and granular approach to LCAP through surfacing of district-wide and site-specific priorities
Greater community involvement and ownership of district decisions

CHALLENGE

Learn what matters to parents and students before and during orientation to create a better experience that supports student retention

SOLUTION

An exchange before orientation that let leadership learn what mattered most to parents and students ahead of the event
Exchanges during orientation sessions to gather questions and ideas in real-time
Ongoing exchanges to track student experience and increase success

RESULTS

A better understanding of student and parent experience that informed more relevant content and helped create a more engaging event
A base of rich data to guide future decision making, and a way to continue being more responsive to student needs

CHALLENGE

Find a new way to communicate with constituents and increase engagement
Create an open dialogue and gather feedback to support conversations around attendance rezoning and build outs

SOLUTION

An exchange that let the community openly share thoughts and collectively prioritize what was most important
Data analysis and visualization tools for digging into data to discover trends, interests and actionable insights

RESULTS

Nearly 4x more public participation than traditional methods
Clear action items to help the district move forward and build a conversation around important topics

CHALLENGE

Collect actionable qualitative data that can be presented in a concise format
Build community trust by learning what matters

SOLUTION

An exchange that let people confidentially share and rate responses to an open-ended question
Data analysis tools that showed what was most important to everyone and where people agree or disagree

RESULTS

A set of key data points to inform a better budgeting process
Increased community trust and support resulting from a fair, transparent process

CHALLENGE

Engage busy academics across departments to discover what’s important to everyone
Collect evidence-based, actionable data to inform a business case for purchasing IT resources

SOLUTION

An exchange that engaged 7x more staff in 4x less time and included diverse perspectives
Actionable qualitative data that showed what mattered to different groups of staff

RESULTS

A successful business case that met the needs of all researchers
Staff who felt truly heard through the use of fair, transparent process

The ROI

The Hilton team also held two public meetings on the issue of armed security guards. To reduce
emotional volatility, there was no opportunity for the public to speak. Dr. Kosiorek and four
of his senior administrators did their best to answer a manually collated version of 200 submitted questions over two nights. Staff later posted all questions with answers on the district website.

“ThoughtExchange was much more beneficial,” Dr Kosiorek says. “It captures the thoughts right there, and everyone can just log in and see what’s being said. ThoughtExchange costs pennies on the dollar when you consider the cost of all the staff time involved in setting up those two forums, collating all the information and getting the answers back out through the website.”