SLP Toolkit Podcast, Episode 17, Transcript

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Sarah (00:36):

Konichiwa, Lisa! 

 

Lisa (00:37):

God bless you! 

 

Sarah (00:38):

We did, um, "Hola!" last time and so I thought from now on let's mix it up. We need to learn more languages. 

 

Lisa (00:46):

Do we, though? 

 

Sarah (00:47):

Yeah! We do! Only in America do [you] only learn one language. Really! I was just in, um, Japan and I met somebody who speaks five languages. So.

 

Lisa (00:57):

Okay, Bongiorno?

 

Sarah (00:58):

Embarrassing! 

 

Lisa (01:00):

Hola. 

 

Sarah (01:01):

Yeah.

 

Lisa (01:02):

Bon Jour. 

 

Sarah (01:03):

So we're going to keep each month. We'll do a new language. 

 

Lisa (01:05):

Okay. I just did three. 

 

Sarah (01:06):

And um, by the way, I never actually heard anyone say konichiwa to me when I was in Japan! I think they say something else? Like probably what good morning is in Japanese. Um, but I can't, I don't know where--

 

Sarah (01:18):

Or they were calling you American A-hole.

 

Sarah (01:19):

They could have been, but I doubt it because these happened to be the loveliest people I've ever met in my life. 

 

Lisa (01:24):

You did say that! They were very welcoming, very gracious.

 

Sarah (01:27):

So lovely. So calm. If anyone's watching the tidying up show on Netflix right now, and you probably read the book, and you see how Marie Kondo is? That is how they are. They're just calm and soft-spoken. 

 

Lisa (01:40):

I need some of that in my life. 

 

Sarah (01:44):

I do too. And I kept thinking, Oh, you guys probably think “here's the loud Americans barging in!”.

 

Lisa (01:47):

Especially the--the four of you. That must've been quite the adventure anyway. 

 

Sarah (01:49):

It was a sight! So that's my plug for Japan. If you ever have the opportunity to go, it's a must put that on your bucket list. 

 

Lisa (01:57):

Did you see the Bravo Housewives are going to Tokyo, the Atlanta Housewives? 

 

Sarah (01:59):

Yes. 

 

Lisa (02:00):

So you think you were loud? 

 

Sarah (02:04):

Yeah. Right. 

 

Lisa (02:06):

There's going to be some fighting and drama and I can not wait. 

 

Sarah (02:08):

Yes. Yes. So, okay. Anyway, happy new year! 

 

Lisa (02:12):

Happy new year!

 

Sarah (02:14):

This is our first pod cap--... What? 

 

Lisa (02:16):

Pod cap? 

 

Sarah (02:17):

Podcast episode for 2019, I can't lose 2019. 

 

Lisa (02:20):

I actually told one of our customers--I think it was around January 2nd--that it was 2020. And she had to actually go ask somebody and call somebody because I think I convinced her it was 2020? But I was just so on vacation brain that I really believed that it was 2020. And I love that she had to check, that she really had that much faith in me that we just skipped a whole year and she had to get some, like, backup instead of just being like “What is wrong with you? It’s 2019!”.

 

Sarah (02:49):

Are you like, concerned about what this year is going to bring in? You want to skip it? 

 

Lisa (02:52):

I don't know. Maybe I should be! Maybe it was like foreshadowing. 

 

Sarah (02:55):

I hope not. I have high hopes for 2019. It's always kind of hard though. I--I hate to use the word best. I just found myself recently saying, this is my best life. I love--I'm having a big birthday coming up soon and I'm loving this age. I think I'm living my best life. And everybody's like, “so then this is it If it's your best life, then what do you have to look forward to?” and I was like, “Oh, you're right”. Okay. 

 

Lisa (03:14):

Best for now!

 

Sarah (03:15):

I'm--it's my better life. I'm just going to go with the better. Um, and so I thought 2018 was the best year, but I don't want that to be the best year. So that was a better year. And 

 

Lisa (03:25):

I kind of like all of my lives though!

 

Sarah (03:27):

I know!

 

Lisa (03:28):

All have been good and they kind of shape you where you're going in the future. 

 

Sarah (03:30):

I’ve had some tough ones, though! 

 

Lisa (03:32):

Even tough ones though--when you look back, it's like, I would not be who I am now, if I hadn't have gone through some of those tough times…

 

Sarah (03:39):

No regrets.

 

Lisa (03:40):

No ragerts. 

 

Sarah (03:42):

Um, but yeah--I have high hopes for this year. Um, that being said, let's talk--the topic today. We're really want[ing] to talk about Summit. But before we get into that, because it is a new year, let's talk about goals and resolutions. Um, I'll start. I didn't set any resolutions this year. For the, for probably the first time ever in my life. Did you? 

 

Lisa (03:58):

I don't ever set them. I don't think I've ever said anything.

 

Sarah (04:02):

I usually do. And they pick a word for the year and I do all those things.

 

Lisa (04:05):

Oh, that’s real cute.

 

Sarah (04:07):

But we are goal setters and there is a difference between a resolution and a goal. Don't you think? 

 

Lisa (04:12):

Oh, I always set goals in my life. I just don't think I need January 1st to set them.

 

Sarah (04:17):

Oh, see, I'm okay with that whole new year, new beginning kind of thing. I like a fresh, clean slate. 

 

Lisa (04:25):

And I guess maybe it's not even--I think the new year for me--I would set goals even like the beginning of a school year?

 

Sarah (04:29):

Yeah that’s kind of our new year. 

 

Lisa (04:30):

There are certain things that helped me kind of reflect. So even like for me--I set a goal when we came back from Boston where I'm like, “Whoa!”. I stepped on the scale and I was like, all right, new goal. Let's get some LB’s off. So I set goals all the time, there are things that will be a catalyst for that, but I don't know why--New Year's Eve has never like, you know--going into the new year has never been a trigger for me, for whatever reason. I don't know.

 

Sarah (04:56):

I'm a “Start Monday” person. I'm a--I'll start, you know? So I do, I like a fresh time to start something. Um, I am--because of this big birthday--on the same thing where I've got to get it in high gear. I want to go into this, this next big milestone. Um, feeling like my best self.

 

Lisa (05:14):

Well, I mean, you look great for 50 now. 

 

Sarah (05:16):

Ha ha ha, you’re so funny. I wouldn't care if I was! If I looked this good, that'd be fine, and [if] I felt this good. And that's the thing we were talking about--I have no problem with turning the big 4-0 because I feel great. I actually feel like no different than I did 10 years ago, but maybe a little wiser 

 

Lisa (05:30):

And sexier. 

 

Sarah (05:31):

Well, thank you. Maybe a little less dramatic, a little less sensitive, a little less… all those things. I just kind of feel like I know who I am. And it's so cheesy. Gross. I hate saying stuff like that. Anyway. So how about goals for Toolkit? Even this year, we should--really should have had a meeting maybe like in December or even the beginning of January where we talked about our plans? I mean, first of all, we always have the list, it’s long, but what's--what are we really hoping to accomplish this year?

 

Lisa (06:02):

I always, well, we actually did have a meeting right when you got back from Japan. And we tried to have a meeting that Monday, but everyone I think was going back to school too? And it was kind of hard. 

 

Sarah (06:14):

That was rough, trying to get back into it. Yeah. That was a struggle. Might've taken too long of a break.

 

Lisa (06:20):

Well, let's not be ridiculous! 

 

Sarah (06:24):

It was hard to get back into it. I don't actually know if I'm back in all the way yet.

 

Speaker 3 (06:28):

I met with my CF yesterday and I was asking her how it was getting back in the swing of things. And I said, it was always like that--that Monday hurts. But I used to even do this with my own kids where I try to like, um--because she was talking about all of the regrets she had, she thought she'd take some of that time to like do some lesson planning and get caught up--and I said “you know what?”--

 

Sarah (06:45):

You take the bag home thinking you're going to accomplish something over break.

 

Lisa (06:49):

Exactly. And I said, “you know, there are people that are like that and God bless them, and you know,” but I said, “I think you kind of have to be wired like that? And that happens.” But I said, “I was one of those that I think I tried those--I would take the bag home and then I quickly realized I never did it. And then I just got to the point where I was like, that's never going to happen. So I wouldn't even tell myself”.

 

Sarah (07:07):

Let’s not even pretend.

 

Lisa (07:08):

Right. And so then I even used to do that with my kids too. They'd be on breaks. And I used to try to get them to--they'd start kind of with their sleep cycle--it would be all messed up. And I’d think, “Oh man, I have to get them readjusted, so let's get them to bed earlier!” and then I got to the point with them too. I'm like, no, they're going to have one rough day. They'll hurt that first day back and then they'll go to bed early and they'll readjust. So, that's how I think it was this week. Going back for us, was--it hurt that first day. It was a little fuzzy, all the neurons, maybe weren't firing? But you quickly kind of just get back in the swing of things. And it just is what it is. I think everybody's in the same boat. 

 

Sarah (07:43):

Yeah. 

 

Lisa (07:44):

And we're back in the thick of it again. So.

 

Sarah (07:45):

Yeah. So at that meeting we did not talk about plans for this year and focuses--really. I mean, I think, I mean we did? Oh, we have a direction, we know what we want to accomplish this year. Um, I think that really is just about continuing to spread the word about, um, you know, why we created this resource and what we think it can do for you.

 

Lisa (08:06):

I think our direction has always been making our customers happy.

 

Sarah (08:08):

A hundred percent.

 

Lisa (08:09):

Because we are out customer too?

 

Sarah (08:10):

We’re always customer-focused, right. 

 

Lisa (08:11):

So we always look at: how can we improve things? So when you were talking about--our development list? Is long. And we get a lot of feedback, which we love. Some people email it, some people DM it, some people put it on message boards. I mean, we see it everywhere in it.

 

Sarah (08:26):

SLPs are so helpful. They're just helpful. 

 

Lisa (08:27):

Yes. 

 

Sarah (08:28):

And so I--I love that they take time to shoot us a message any way they can and let us know. 

 

Lisa (08:34):

It literally is noted! So when we say like, “we're putting it on this group board for feedback”, we do! We talk about it and we have a super long list of all of the things we want. And, oftentimes, some of the things are novel, where we're like, “Oh, that's a great idea we haven't thought of!”, other times it's validation of things that we're like, “Oh yes, we already have this!”. Um, so this validates that we're on the right track with this and so, um, that's the big thing is we're always looking at that list and--I think you and I were joking earlier too, even just talking about goals in general, that I look at that list too, that, um, that's kind of how my personal goals go too, that--it's long, there are many, and it kind of shifts depending on what the priority is in the moment. And so, um--it--it--it's

 

Sarah (09:20):

I get the fun responsibility of prioritizing because I worked directly with the developer. Um, and it's a lot of stress and pressure and thought that goes into what needs to happen right now and in the order of projects. Um, and so I feel bad because I find myself telling people a lot, “It's coming! It's on the list, we're going to get to it!” And then things get shuffled. And so I have to be very cautious about giving timeframes on anything we're working on because the other thing is: it’s very surprising how long something takes. So it can be as simple as--as let's add a new button to the calculator so that you can track opportunities tracked, right? Like that--how hard is that going to be? Hard. I think it took two weeks. So it's that kind of stuff too. I have to work in bug fixes, on top of new features on top of--so anyway, just know we do hear you and we genuinely appreciate the feedback and then we will continue to improve. This will always be in development.

 

Lisa (10:14):

And software development is not inexpensive. So that's the thing too. I think we've always had to prioritize from a cost perspective too. There are lots of things that, you know, when we get wishlist--of I wish it would just do this. Well, doing just this can be quite costly in some instances, so we have to balance the cost of something with, um, overall what we--what we need to get out of it. And does it make-- who does it make sense for? One person? Many people? Um, it's a constant discussion.

 

Sarah (10:44):

It's tough, but just know the list is long, but it is good. 

 

Lisa (10:45):

And it’s exciting.

 

Sarah (10:46):

There’s fun coming up. I can tell you what's coming up. Um, those of you who are using the system know that we just redid the dashboard and added a therapy tab. So that's going to have amazing features on it. Your data is going to be showing up there, um, lesson planning is going to happen there, there's going to be an area for notes. Um, and that's just going to continue to grow and then create, um, custom CRTs and rubrics? We've been saying this for a long time. They are coming. They will happen this year, that I can tell you. Um, reports are getting make-overs, apraxia test is finally coming in. We're working on it right now, you guys, we’ll get that in. Um, again, that was a project that we thought, Oh, this will be simple. We will just throw it in a test and--but nope.

 

Lisa (11:28):

Some new goal banks, we’ll get a literacy goal bank.

 

Sarah (11:31):

We're updating our fluency goal bank based on Nina Reeves’ presentation--which is a great segue into what we really wanted to talk about, which was SLP Summit. Nina Reeves did an entire presentation on goal writing for fluency. And I was--I loved that. She talked about it because I know everyone struggles with how to write goals. Um, in her last Summit presentation, she talked about why we shouldn't be writing frequency goals. Um, you know, the kind of goal where it says something like the student will be, um, 90%--I said, frequency, I meant fluency--90% fluent in a three-minute period or whatever. However, you used to write those, but then everybody's question was, so what goals do we write? Right? And so she covered that. It was awesome. The one on selective mutism was mind blowing in so many ways. First of all, she's just a very good presenter. So easy to listen to. Wasn't she? I could listen to her all day. Um, Sucheta, how much do you love her? [Lisa agrees] She's just a brilliant boss woman. We loved her. We got to talk--the nice thing about hosting Summit. We meet them and we talk to them ahead of time. And you know, we have to do a lot of planning ahead of time. I don't know. You know, there's a lot of behind the scenes going on, where we're getting all of this stuff ready so that it hopefully looks flawless. This Summit actually was fairly flawless, right? No tech major tech issues.

 

Lisa (12:47):

The only tech thing that almost got us was that Wednesday of live presentations. Zoom, which is the platform that we use to host everything, that's where you guys access your live course, and that's where our presenters come on to do their presentations--it went down. The entire site. So it didn't come up until about an hour and a half before we went live. And so that was a little panic-inducing.

 

Sarah (13:11):

A little scrambling, then Maricia is on--online trying to find other platforms. And it's the communication of how do we get it out to you, and where you should go instead, and yeah, so there's a lot of scrambling, but none of you should have noticed cause it worked, everybody got on. It was all good. 

 

Lisa (13:23):

Yes. 

 

Sarah (13:24):

Yeah. That's crazy. Uh, one little snag was--I had jury duty thrown in right in the middle of Summit week? And I actually was--I actually went through the process of jury selection and um, kind of wanted to do it. I won't lie. It was actually fascinating, but also relieved not to be selected because I would've missed Thursday for sure. And--and a couple of weeks after that, probably. So, uh, that was fun, little, weird--because when Summit happens, our life kind of stops, right? Yeah. Everything is about Summit. I will say this one was less painful because we didn't present. 

 

Lisa (13:57):

Yes. I did feel a lot less pressure at this time, thank goodness, it was more of like the fun part. I mean, it's still the organization and we're still doing, like you said, a lot of the behind the scenes stuff, but it was not added on top of that. The anxiety of presenting.

 

Sarah (14:11):

And we love to present, don't get us wrong. We love it. And hopefully we'll continue to be able to do it. Um, but this one, I think for us, it really was about 1) We did--we just wanted to enjoy Summit for Summit. And then also: it's not all about us. It's really, I mean, we want other people to have opportunities to present. Um, and you know, it's, I always am kind of amazed how many people, you know, cause now, I mean, how many presenters have we had over the course of the last two years? 

 

Lisa (14:38):

Well, we've streamlined a lot. 

 

Sarah (14:39):

And there’s still hundreds more we want to hear from.

 

Lisa (14:40):

I think, from where we started to where we are now, this was our fifth Summit, but there were times we did it Monday through Friday. There were times--there was one year, in the summer, we tried to do a Monday through Friday, three sessions a day. So that's 15 presenters. So logistically and content wise, that's a lot. So I think we've gotten to the point where we feel like, kind of the sweet spot is, um, having eight courses. Because we really do feel like people, if they do want to attend all of those courses? You can get that done. Whether it be during your lunch break or people attending live. I love always seeing in the Facebook group and, uh, on social media, whether it be Instagram or wherever--people showing how they're watching. So I saw somebody with like--they’re--they’re home on maternity leave. So they had their infant and they showed their laptop. To be able to access courses where you're like, not stressing out about how am I going to get some sort of continuing education--whether they count towards any kind of licensing or anything else--it's just killer content. It is so good that the presenters that volunteer for this. I mean, we reach out, we network with them and, but that we're able to get the kind of talent that we do for this for free? 

 

Sarah (15:53):

It blows us away. I'm always like really you'll do it, right? 

 

Lisa (15:57):

Because again, it's not just the hour that they present to you. With all of the time that goes into developing a course, preparing for the course, getting the materials together, and even what we touched upon, the anxiety of getting pumped up for this course. And, um, there's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that always goes on for anybody that you would ever see present. There's a lot of stuff that happens.

 

Sarah (16:18):

I still look at these presenters that we've had. And I think back to this conversation--Summit all started from a conversation I had with Maricia at Starbucks. Unrelated to--we didn't meet to talk about an online conference. We met for something else. We, um, worked together a lot at that time. And Marsha had mentioned something about doing an online course and wouldn't it be fun to do an online course? Well, when she said this, it just happened to be during this free week of courses I was taking for business, that was a women's conference for female entrepreneurs. It was free. These women shared amazing information over the course of this week. And I loved the platform. I loved the structure of this conference. And so I said, “Oh my gosh, I'm doing this right now”, and “Can we do something like this?” and right in that moment we knew, yeah, we can do this and it would be really, really cool. Oh, confession time! I just thought it would be like this cute thing that we do for fun, right? Let's just throw this conference out there. Like, we'll get a few people who want to show up, right? I mean, at that time, and I don't even know if anyone really knew who we were, we had just launched the app maybe that year--

 

Lisa (17:26):

The year before. 

 

Sarah (17:27):

Right. So I guess we had a year. So we had a little bit of a social media following at that time, but we had also--what saved us and probably made that first Summit as successful as it was--is we had already started to develop relationships with people. And so I still kind of laugh that I was like, nervy enough to reach out. So that was kind of--so we decided we're going to do this. And then it's like, okay, who's going to present, you know, we need to get people that are recognizable that people want to hear from, right? So who's it going to be? Could we start coming up with some names? And so I reached out to Jenna with Speech Room News and Jen with Crazy Speech World and all of these lovely women who have great followings, people love to hear from them. Um, I reach out to them and just throw it out there, right? Hey, we want to do this free conference. Here's what we think it's going to look like, do you guys want to do this? Would you do it? Yep. Every single one of them we asked: yep. I think one person didn't say yes, but it wasn't because she didn't believe in it--it was--

 

Lisa (18:20): 

Timing.

 

Sarah (18:20): 

No, she's--she doesn't like to present. She gets really, really anxious. 

 

Lisa (18:22): 

Oh, I do remember that! I do remember that.

 

Sarah (18:23): 

So it was like a really great excuse and, and forgiven, you know? And so anyway, and so that was that first Summit. And I think because, um, we had selected the people that we selected and because social media is such a beautiful way to share about things. That first Summit didn't--

 

Lisa (18:42):

It blew up.

 

Sarah (18:43):

We had like 10,000 people sign up?

 

Lisa (18:44):

Close to, I think it was like eight, nine--

 

Sarah (18:46):

Now, I don't know If all of that group that signs up actually attends. I will say we do know attendance numbers and they're still very, very high. But for that, I remember the day before we launched that first presentation, watching people come in and the list, and just sitting there--I think I was actually at this is like zoo lights or some weird thing. And I'm looking on my phone and I see the number of people who have signed up and I was like, holy shit.

 

Lisa (19:13):

And it kept going up. Uh, we would log in almost like, is it still going up? Look, it's still going up.

 

Sarah (19:18):

And then the pressure kicks in, like--and we presented. Um, and so that was like our big kind of presentation that we were doing to a large audience.

 

Lisa (19:26):

Well, and still getting the systems down with anything. You know, now we're on our fifth Summit. So we've gotten, that's why it streamlined as far as, you know, emails and who's doing what and what kind of text is going where, so we're recycling a lot of our content as far as things like that. So it is more of a system now in a process versus those first--

 

Sarah (19:47):

Oh, it was a free for all, we didn't know what we were doing. Again, I had a really great example of what an awesome online conference could look like. And so we really--Summit was built based on that conference I attended. The structure of it, these one hour presentations two a day. Um, and, and so anyway, it was amazing. And then we get to the next Summit and we start talking about presenters. Was it the next one where I said, “Hey, wouldn't it be--?”. No, it might've been the, yeah, I think it was that summer one. I go, wouldn't it be funny if we got Social Thinking, you know, do you remember that conversation? I was like, that would be so fun if--do you think Michelle Garcia-Winter would present? You know, and here we're asking these people to do this for free. And let me just tell you they don't present for free. Well, they might, I shouldn't say that, but I'm saying these are people that--you pay them. People typically pay them a lot of money. And so I'm like, what do I have to lose? And here's a message for everybody: just ask, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? They're going to say no, right? It's not like I'm going to be humiliated. It's not like anything painful is going to happen. They're just going to say no. So I sent that email and we don't hear back. We don't hear back. We don't hear back. And I feel it may be a couple of weeks. I probably felt like a couple weeks, it was probably three or four days. Um, and then we get the response that says, you know, Michelle is busy--I think it might've said it, maybe didn't even say that--but we do have lots of presenters and one of them will be happy to do it, here's her name, and if you want to reach out to her and set it up. And that's the moment I died a little bit inside. That was awesome. Anyway. And it's just continued. I still have that fear and doubt of asking these, some of these people, Sue Chato was one. I don't have a his--I didn't have a history with, at that time, I just kind of stopped her from afar. Um, and, she said, yes. 

 

Lisa (21:20):

And there were others that were volun-told like Maria Dixon, this time.We told her she was doing it.

 

Sarah (21:26):

And Paige in the beginning--our friends, we always knew, we're going to get you in here. You're going to do it anyway. I mean, they liked to present anyway. So anyway, that is how Summit was born. And I still think every time we go into one, holy crap, it--the audience has tripled at this point. I mean, and--and the feedback, I think, is so overwhelmingly positive. It's like, how can we not do it at this point? Um, because you tell us what it's doing for you and the opportunity and the learning that's occurring in this really great setting. 

 

Speaker 3 (21:59):

And then I love how we go in the chat and we see familiar names that have been there since the beginning.

 

Sarah (22:04):

Some of them come to every live, right? So that's eight, twice a year. And they're there for every single one. It's--it's insane. I don't know. I still pinch myself because I think, you know, why this, you know? Why is this so popular? And--and, you know, people seem to really enjoy it. And I think it really just comes down from--we're coming from a place of--we are in the trenches. We know what we needed. We still know what people need. And so I think that this presenter selection, um, it's personal it's to us. It's--what do we want to hear? You know? I don’t know.

 

Lisa (22:38):

And the format, I love that--the accessibility of it, because again, even coming again as a practitioner that--I love going to conferences, but I can't always afford to, or I can't take the time off. Or, you know, there are a lot of factors that go into actually attending, even if it's a, even under ideal circumstances, if it was in my city, to get away for a whole day? Maybe I can't do it. And so--

 

Speaker 2 (23:03):

And it's expensive, right? It's expensive. And people will say that to us all the time. Is this really free? Yeah, it's really free because that was the main thing is--we wanted to give back. We wanted to give something to SLPs who worked so hard and so tirelessly and you deserve it. And so, I mean, obviously we couldn't do this if we didn't have these presenters who were also willing to do this for free and again, crazy, it's crazy. The whole thing's crazy, but we love it. Um,I will say, uh, it's not all positive feedback. Um, and I will tell you, it's probably one negative to 20 positives. Maybe not even one to a hundred, right. It's such a tiny percentage, but we've talked about this before. I always get hung up on the negative ones and I mean, I'm on that. I need to let it go. Um, and so we get some feedback sometimes, and I will tell you, we listened to it and we're trying to keep improving it. This might not be the negative stuff so much, but we get a lot of people saying they want it to be ASHA approved. 

 

Lisa (24:03):

Well, there's a lot of miscommunication about what is the difference between a CMH and a CEU, right? So, um, these are offered for CMHS, which is the certificate or certification maintenance hours, right? So ASHA does not require that you take courses through an ASHA provider. And so that's for your certification maintenance hours that you have to get during that three-year window--you just have to have your certificate and proof of attendance and we provide all of those things, like the learning objectives and course summaries and speaker bios. And that's the kind of thing that, should you ever get audited, they would ask for that information. So we provide that.

 

Sarah (24:39):

And these count for that. ASHA will accept them.

 

Lisa (24:42):

And so we have a link on our FAQ's that kind of links into where you can read more about that. Where I think it gets tricky is when you go to licensure from state to state. So that's where there are some states that have actually put in statutes--so that's why it's different, because ASHA will always say they defer to states as far as, you know, licensure is not ASHA, right? Um, certificate your--your CEs, are through ASHA, but your license is through your state. And so some states have actually put in their statute that they require that the courses are provided through either something like an ASHA CE provider, meaning these are providers that have gone through an application process and are official providers through ASHA or something like California, where you have to go through an application process through that state and pay a fee to be on that provider list. So there are, you know, every state is a little bit different. And for that reason, um, because of the nature of Summit being a free, volunteer driven, um, give back to the community sort of conference, we did w at one year look into, um, providing Ashesi is with a cooperative, um, partner where they sponsored and offered the courses through their platform. And it just added a layer to the conference that we felt moving forward, really detracted from what the conference was about. And so we decided, um, as a team, SLP Summit, and, uh, excuse me, SLP Now, which is Maricia and us as SLP toolkit, that we really wanted to stick to where we started, which was just about getting the opportunity to bring these amazing presenters in front of an audience. And it's really about the learning. So we will provide information that these will definitely count towards your Asher certificate hours, um, if they count towards your state license hours, awesome. Right?

 

Sarah (26:37):

They do in Arizona--well, they did. That's another story,

 

Lisa (26:40):

Right? If they don't, you know, there are other opportunities that people can collect their hours for license.

 

Sarah (26:47):

Yeah. I mean, let's be real. We didn't do Summit so that it was a one-stop shop for all of your continuing education needs, that's not the intent. This was just a way for us to share practical, relevant information really conveniently. Because that was--I think this all was born from a place of, I love ASHA and I love all these other continuing education courses I get to be a part of, but a lot of times I felt like I was walking away with a lot of theory, a lot of research, a little bit of application. And, um, it just--I wanted something where like, literally tomorrow I can apply what I just learned. And so that's what the basis was, was to give you really great strategies right now. The fact that you can get the continuing maintenance hours or whatever they're called, uh, is sort of whatever. Um, that's awesome. That's awesome. That's a bonus, but, you know, and I will say, you know, looking forward, we do take again that, that feedback, you know, I feel bad if your state won't accept them and we'll continue to look into things about that too, but--

 

Lisa (27:50):

Well, I think what happens, what ends up happening then too, that I think some of the feedback people say, well, we would pay a fee. We understand it's volunteer driven, and we would pay a fee. The thing is though, is that again, as this being at--at this point, it being a volunteer platform from SLP Now and SLP Toolkit, we are not professional development companies. Um, we are hosting this conference and even the time that we put into it is a lot of time and energy and effort, and we love it. That's why we do it. We wouldn’t continue to do it [if we didn’t]. But if we venture into offering professional development on that kind of level, it adds a different level of work to it where it's not just the fees that are incurred as a--as a--a--from just offering, you know, what it costs to offer them as ASHA CEs. It then kind of morphs it into a PD company. And that's not what SLP Toolkit or SLP Now is.

 

Sarah (28:51):

But now that you said that--let's--shall we spill the beans? 

 

Lisa (28:53):

Sure. 

 

Sarah (28:54):

Okay. I think we we've known about this for a while. We haven't said anything. I will tell you, SLP Summit made us realize one thing. We love professional development, right? Like I think we really realized--I think we do have a good eye for this, that we do understand you, you know, what we see and we hear you, like, we know what you want. And so we, um, may have gone through the approval process and done the application with ASHA as a separate company. 

 

Lisa (29:23):

Right! 

 

Sarah (29:24):

So we started another company! What!? I don't know how that's going to happen. No--it's already happening. It's in the works. We've already got the platform going. We've got a couple of courses on there already, and we're looking, we're still kind of working out the structure and what we want from this. Right. And so, um, our new company is called Bright Media and the platform is actually BeTheBrightest.com and that is where we are going to start hosting courses and so more to come on it, but it is very exciting because we will be able to start offering, um, ASHA CEs.

 

Lisa (29:57):

Right. And so I think--and that's where our perspective on that was, is that it can't be something that SLP Toolkit does because SLP Toolkit is its own entity, right? To offer professional development, that is its own--so even within bright media, there's a professional development team. And that team is under the umbrella called Bright Ideas. And so that's--it--it needs its own kind of department. And so that's all of that kind of stuff where I think until you start to organize stuff like this, I never would have thought of this as a participant because you're just like, “well, this is awesome and I'll pay money and, and please, can we get it for this?” and that would make sense to me, but then when you start to kind of organize it and see how everything's laid out and--and what is really involved in offering that.

 

Sarah (30:43):

And it's the size of Summit, the size of Summit kind of changes the game a little bit. So what we will say is, um, is it never going to happen where we offer CEs for Summit? No, I can't say that. And we may be able to figure something out, um, in the future and still keep the principles of how Summit was created and--and kind of the--the mission of Summit. Um, and so we'll look into it, we'll see what happens. Um, you know, I don't know. There's a lot involved in that decision, but, um, just know that--that we want to continue to be able to provide really great information. And if offering CEs is going to be more of an incentive to people, um, then we're going to figure out how to make that work for everybody. So we are really excited about this new project.

 

Lisa (31:29):

I think that's part of tying back into what you said in the beginning for 2019, our goals are beyond just SLP Toolkit now. Yeah.

 

Sarah (31:37):

Yeah. Now SLP Toolkit friends, don't worry. You are still just as critically important. And we still put all of our energy and--and have, you know, a team of people that are going to continue to help support us in that endeavor also. 

 

Lisa (31:50):

Yes, we almost look at it as the total package. We love what we've been able to--how we've been able to support people with the software that we offer through SLP Toolkit. But we think that offering this professional development piece too--because even when I go back and, and think about some of the courses that were offered. Particularly you look at Nina's course and that whole idea of: why is it so hard to write goals for fluency? It's because I don't really understand, even though I should, you know, and I think you and I have had these conversations outside of the podcast where we've kind of laughed about like, I hate when people ask me about fluency, people that are not SLPs, right? Because I'm like, they think we should know because we should know. And then I'm like, will I don't really know…

 

Sarah (32:30):

I know enough to be dangerous!

 

Lisa (32:32):

Right, exactly. And so I always feel like I should be the expert in it, even if I'm not. And so that's where I think we get up when we're goal writing too, is: we don't really understand enough about it to then be able to write goals. And so I felt like that, even in terms of, uh, social goals as well--I really shied away from writing social goals because I couldn't make it concrete enough in my head to then break it down to write goals. And so that's why I loved Nina's piece too, is that she gave me that ability to make it more concrete, to then write goals, same thing with Jolene's presentation on selected magnetism. So that's where I look at the professional development piece. It's giving you that sort of underlying foundation to then be able to use tools such as SLP toolkit and the assessments and the data piece to be able to, you know, just make it the synergistic, bad-ass SLP.

 

Sarah (33:21):

Yeah! It's kind of always been our goal--we want SLPs to feel confident! And we talked about this a lot: we are a Jack of all trades and we have to know something about everything. We do not get that luxury of specializing. Um, it's--some of us do, some of us can--can have that opportunity, but for the most part of us, we're working with everybody and we have to know something about everybody. And so if we can help fill those gaps for everyone and support you with the assessment piece and the data piece, like we feel like, you know, mission accomplished. We hope that's the goal. So there we go. Now we just, we just went full circle back to goals. So that's kind of the goal and it was why we did it. Yeah. Yeah. We have no script right now. So it's always kind of amazing when things actually tie in together.

 

Lisa (34:06):

When things actually work out it's pretty awesome. 

 

Sarah (34:07):

Yeah. So that's the big plan and we're super excited about it. So we'll keep you posted there on the happenings and, and when you're going to catch it, we also have plans this year to go on a little tour.

 

Lisa (34:21):

We do? Like singing?

 

Sarah (34:23):

No, no, I wish. I wish. 

 

Lisa (34:25):

Dancing?

 

Sarah (34:26):

No, no, no. We're going to go produce them full day workshops. Out and about. And so we already kind of have the locations thought out. Um, if you guys want to email us though and say, hey, come here. We'd love to know if you actually want us to show up in your city. Um, so let us know. And, uh, and we will be able to offer CEs because Bright Media is gonna sponsor it. 

 

Lisa (34:45):

Tool and Kit Take America! 

 

Sarah (34:46):

Yeah, that's right. 

 

Lisa (34:48):

I cannot wait.

 

Sarah (34:49):

Can we get an RV? 

 

Lisa (34:50):

I want an Airstream. 

 

Sarah (34:51):

Yeah, that’d be so sweet, but you gotta get somebody to drive that for you. Like on a truck.

 

Lisa (34:55):

Can he be, like, attractive and single? 

 

Sarah (34:58):

Yeah. Anything could happen.

 

Lisa (34:59):

Can--

 

Sarah (34:59):

I’m all about making dreams come true.

 

Lisa (35:01):

All right. I like it. 

 

Sarah (35:02):

Yep. So that's it. You guys, we've got some amazing episodes coming up. Do we tell them now? I always feel like, do we tease things out? I mean, we might as well.

 

Lisa (35:12):

Our next one, let's just tease the next one out.

 

Sarah (35:15):

Okay, do you remember talking about how, um--we're [unintelligible] we're so ballsy that we ask people who are like way bigger deals then like, you know, anyone we know.

 

Lisa (35:26):

I emailed my best friend, MGW, and she shot me down.

 

[Overlapping laughter and chatter]

 

Sarah (35:33):

The fact that you you got a response! I was like “Oh my God, Michelle's emailing you!”.

 

Lisa (35:35):

Because we’re best friends, in my head! And--but she was generous enough to offer somebody from her cohort of speakers. So we're getting somebody from Social Thinking in the confessional next week. 

 

Sarah (35:49):

So you guys are--you want to check that one out. We are going to talk all about social language in the school setting. Um, and there's nobody better to do that with us. So that would be the next one. And so check it out guys.

 

Lisa (36:00):

And guys, if you have a minute, we would love if you could rate and review our podcast, that's how people find us. 

 

Sarah (36:04):

Only if something nice to say.

 

Lisa (36:05):

Yes. If you have bad things to say, go to another podcast.

 

Sarah (36:10):

Or just keep it to yourself. 

 

Lisa (36:11):

Or email Sarah.

 

Sarah (36:15):

All right. We love you guys. Talk to you soon. 

 

Lisa (36:17):

Bye!