VRTAC Manager Minute Stop Chasing Perfect: How Washington DSB Is Moving Faster—and Getting Real VR Results

In the latest episode of Manager Minute, host Carol Pankow sits down with Michael Mackillop, Executive Director of the Washington State Department of Services for the Blind, to explore how one agency is rethinking how VR services are delivered—and the powerful results that follow.

From dramatically shortening the time to services to introducing milestone planning that keeps customers moving forward, Washington DSB is demonstrating what can happen when agencies streamline processes and keep the focus on people. The conversation highlights real outcomes, including customers achieving meaningful careers with wages averaging over $39 per hour, and the cultural and programmatic shifts helping individuals rediscover confidence, expand their goals, and pursue careers they once thought were out of reach.

This episode offers an honest, practical, and inspiring look at how VR leaders can rethink processes, strengthen partnerships, and build systems that help people move toward what’s possible.

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Full Transcript:

{Music}

Michael: A lot of customers. The feedback is it's great and a lot of counselors. The feedback is it's great.

Carol: It makes brilliant sense because I think people spend so much time. You're letting perfect get in the way of the good.

Michael: Learning as an adult is not easy. Learning to do new things, and the frustrations and the anger that can come from having to adapt to the environment that doesn't adapt to you. I think that now is the time, if any time is to show the power and the impact of vocational rehabilitation for the economy and for our communities.

Intro voice: Manager minute, brought to you by the Vocational Rehabilitation Technical Assistance Center. Conversations powered by VR. One manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host, Carol Pankow.

Carol: Well, welcome to the manager minute. Joining me in the studio today is Michael Mackillop, Washington Blind Executive Director. So how are things in Washington, Michael?

Michael: Things are doing good. There's a little bit of Seattle Seahawks fever.

Carol: Uh, yes, Seattle, Wahoo, Go Seahawks!

Michael: And there's probably some growing excitement for hosting matches of the World Cup. So there's that whole sports thing. And today we're back to rain, which makes us feel it's just this nice gentle drip. It's not an atmospheric river where it's monsoon rain and all the snow from the mountains. It's just a nice, gentle rain. So things are decently good here in Seattle.

Carol: Oh, good for you. Well, I have an affinity for the whole Seattle area. I have two brothers out there and lots of nieces and nephews and yeah, all the people I love to come. And I remember, gosh, Michael, I remember meeting you. I feel like it was like 13 years ago or something.

Michael: At least, yeah.

Carol: At least!

(Michael laughs)

Carol: You were friends with Jon Benson, my deputy, when I was at SSB. And so we

got hooked together. And then I remember I would always tell Jon I'd be like, Call Michael, what are they doing at Washington Blind? Because, you know, you want to see what's going on? And in fact, I remember you guys calling us because we went on an Order of Selection, which is not common for a blind agency. And I remember when Lou Olma was still there, she had called. She's like, oh, you know, asking some questions about that. So I felt like we had some shared experiences together.

Michael: Yeah. And we connected, I think, through CSAVR and NCSAB conferences and I mean plug out to them. It's just such an incredible place to really meet people from around the country and become long term supports.

Carol: Right. It takes a village to do this job. So the more people you can meet, good shout out for like connecting with other people and just trying to build those relationships, because then you have them way over a decade later, you know, going on two decades later.

Michael: And you don't have to go it alone. Right? I mean, to try to go through something like Order of selection, say, alone that...

Carol: Yeah.

Michael: But when you know, you got people or community of practices that are helping you through it. So it's  my plug to be connected to the national scene because you can't do it alone.

Carol: 100%. I'm putting an exclamation point behind that one. Well, I happen to be perusing because I had my knee replaced last month. So as I'm laying and putting my leg up and icing and all the things, I was reading lots of the social media because I kind of was behind a little bit. So I'm in LinkedIn and, you know, accepting requests and connecting with other people. And I read, you're awesome, Michaels posting on LinkedIn, and you posted something and I just went, oh my gosh, it made me then go into your website. And then I'm like, all over your website and I'm watching your YouTube videos. It was super fun. So for our listeners, what caught me was Michael was reporting on this annual report they had done, and he was talking about the North Region team supporting 51 customers to attain their career goals, three of whom were able to retain their established small businesses. And then all the cool kinds of work people were in with STEM careers and education and finance and administrative and human services. And then it really hooked me with the average wage of 39.30 per hour. And then he does this nice Congratulations out to his folks. I'm like, what is happening there? Because that's what we want in VR. You want those family sustaining wages and all the good stuff. So long story short, listeners, I had to get Michael on and go, what is the secret sauce happening in Washington? What are they doing there? Because I thought this was super cool. So, Michael, before we launch into kind of what you're doing, I just want to get a little caught up on how did you start in VR? How'd you get there and how did you come into a blindness agency.

Michael: Sometimes accidentally? Uh, perhaps a little bit reluctantly. I've been with this agency for 25 years, and I started as an AT specialist. I had experience in adult education in computers. And then I got a job, actually, at the lighthouse for the blind, Seattle Lighthouse for the Blind as an instructor. Where the supervisor, because I had studied American Sign Language, is a long story about why I did that and got connected in with Seattle's deaf community in the 90s and the Deaf Blind community as well. We have a very robust and vibrant deaf blind community in the Puget Sound area, and there were a number of individuals who were Deaf, Blind that were working at the Seattle Lighthouse that really needed computer skills. And so I didn't know anything about adaptive technologies, but I knew about Sign Language, I knew about computers, and I knew about adult education. And so that supervisor gave me six months. And to figure out the screen readers and screen magnifiers and braille displays and to start training. And so it was lovely to be able to, you know, directly communicate with students that, you know, hadn't touched a computer in their lives. That got me, you know, into the Blindness and Vocational Rehabilitation is a big part of, you know, people at the Lighthouse wanting to promote or work elsewhere. Uh, work out into the integrated community. And so there was experience with DSB. I was reluctant to be a state employee. I promise you that once I gave that up and got hired on a DSB, just the passion for the customer, the mission, the initiative, it kind of dispelled my notions of what a state agency is and who works at a state agency. So obviously I've loved it so much. I've been there for 25 years plus, so.

Carol: That is crazy. I had no idea. You're I think you're my first guest, that's come on. That's come from this AT background. Good for you. Very cool. I love it because it's always fun to see people's paths in. We all take a different way, but you come in, and then you stick with it because you love it. Like you just love it.

Michael: Exactly.

Carol: Well, in your December's report. Oh my gosh, what really stood out I was I love the customer voices. You know, you had somebody on there, I think. I don't know if it's Francis working into her 70s, people that were earning promotions and discovering entirely new career paths. And when you look at all those stories, I just wonder from your perspective, what does success actually mean to you as a VR director?

Michael: Yeah, I mean, I really love that the breadth and the depth of those career choices that people find through our services, their personal journey of discovery, finding the strengths that didn't know they had and that that's what excites me. And that's what I hear again and again and again. People not believing in themselves until they get some of those adaptive skills. It's so often the key to expanding their own self-assessment, their self-expectations. Losing your vision is traumatic, there's no question. And acquiring a disability as an adult. And that can really impact your belief in yourself and what you believe you can do. And for me, all those career achievements, they represent that journey of that person who I've heard the story so many times that they sat on a sofa thinking there is no future for them. There is no way to get into work. Their self-value had diminished so much because of the change in vision, and then something sparking that bravery of calling the agency. Whether they hear about the agency the first time or they've heard about it, and they get that courage up to call us, and it's a lot. I mean, to honor that connection, to say, I need to change.

I need to get off the sofa. I need to do the work to be who I want to be. It takes a lot. And so honoring that those successes that we hear about the just a ray of education or healthcare or last year we had two physicians. We had two people that were physicians. And there's no career that's not possible for that individual, whatever that individual's aptitude and abilities are. It just takes the adaptations and the adaptive technologies and those the belief in themselves to do it. It's a lot of hard work. I mean, once people make the brave call and get into the work, it's hard. And so keeping people motivated through all the challenges and learning as an adult is not easy. Learning to do new things, and the frustrations and the anger that can come from having to adapt to the environment that doesn't adapt to you and those daily frustrations. Hopefully the agency is helping that individual through and to keep and progress. So those stories all just tell me about the work that that individual has done to get where they're at and knowing what a lot of challenge and determination and grit it took to get there.

Carol: 100%! Preach Michael! That was good. That was really good. I know I always have that, I just have that place in my heart from my time at SSB, because I felt like the work we did was so profoundly, not that all the work isn't, but it was so profoundly life changing for these folks because so many of them, you know, came to us later in life. They were losing vision, either something medically was wrong, whatever was going on. But, you know, they had these careers and then they go from this place of utter devastation to absolute, like, you have completely changed someone's life. You just man, you could feel it in you like it was such an incredible deal living through that with our folks and what an impact that VR had. Otherwise they would still be sitting on that sofa, you know.

Michael: Yeah. And then the work that they did, they were they're changing their lives and they're taking that direction and they're keeping up with it. We're supporting that...

Carol: Yeah.

Michael: But they're moving forward.

Carol: It's on them.

Michael: Yeah.

Carol:  But we give them that glimmer like we're able to help point them in the right way. Like, here's some stuff and we can help you do the thing. Well, I know these outcomes your folks are having didn't happen by accident. And of course, people had come from different backgrounds and different careers. Or maybe they were in a business and didn't think they were going to get to keep it, but I feel like there's something going on in your agency as well. Knowing you guys and knowing you at the helm, what do you think are some things maybe you are doing differently, whether it's culturally or programmatically, that are really contributing to this level of your customer success?

Michael: Yeah, there's been a lot of restructuring and change in our agency, and I would say that we are looking at that customer experience more closely and trying to really support the customer experience and not necessarily have the system support how we manage the work, but how the customer is making success. There's been a lot of discussion in the national VR community around time to services and the timelines that the federal regulations allow. When you look at that, when you look, when you think about it in your own life, would I be willing to wait 60 days before I know if I'm eligible, would I be willing to wait 90 days after that to start services? I mean, those timelines don't meet our modern needs, and maybe in the past it made sense to go slow. It doesn't. These days, people are brave enough to make that call after three years on the sofa. We need to get them into services so they start believing in themselves and are working. Excited about that path and just don't get frustrated by the process. So really our first thing is time to services. We created internal systems where we've got intake specialists, centralized intake specialists that are really shrinking the time to determine eligibility and to gather the information to convey to our counselors, our local counselors. So there's preparation there. And that's really shrunk the time. I think it was like 28 days on average and now it's 14 days. We'd like it to be a little bit shorter. Uh, even still, we know that observation for 85% of our counselor observation, we can determine that there's a disabling condition and then through that counseling conversation, can understand what those functional limitations are and what services might be useful in determining that eligibility. So our timeline lag used to be waiting for eye reports from eye doctors who it was never a priority when we knew that there was a visual disability.

Carol: You can see they clearly don't have eye sockets or something is like clearly, clearly gone, we don't need an eye doctor report to tell you that.

Michael: But letting counselors know and the intake specialists know that observation is valued, take it, justify it, document it, but let's move people through. Let's not keep people waiting for no reason. We've also restructured the way that we do our planning and the assessments towards the planning. We created something called Milestone Planning and that is really shrinking down the goals we're working on towards that long term goal of career path that we've got and we keep that in our heads. But what are the things that the customer is able to commit to doing now in the next three months, four months, up to six months? Let's focus on those. Let's shrink that down and let's have our assessment focus on, you know, be included folded into that and our services folded into that. It used to be our old system was we would do all these complete comprehensive assessments, and it would take months to get people in the eight specialists, and they'd write six page reports of all the things that would be useful. And the O&M specialists and rehab specialists would, you know, do the home assessments. And that's months of assessment. And people are like, what am I doing? This doesn't make sense. They're not getting the services. We're creating this five year plan with very detailed services for the entire time of the plan. And then the customer gets one service, they learn to do something and their whole universe expands suddenly. I thought it could only be a customer service, but oh my gosh, I can do this. Let's rethink it. We were doing a lot of work upfront for something that changes almost, almost instantly once we get people services. Well, let's get people services now. Let's have them experience, you know, learning how to use a computer, learning that they can manage their home or learning that focus small.

And then the conversations about that long term goal can change. And when we created that really formal long term plan and did all the work, our customers were nervous about saying that they wanted to change. And so they either got stuck and continued that or they just disappeared. The other piece that customers have told us is they didn't know where they were going. They didn't have clarity on what they were doing, what, you know, it's just too vague, that five year plan. So getting more frequent and meaningful engagement between the counselor and the customer has been a goal of ours, and that has required us to shift some of the work and shift some of the administrative work. We took a lot of that upfront work and provided that to the intake specialists. So there's more time for the counselor. And then also talking about how we shrink what we've known as counseling and guidance, where we don't have to schedule an hour, hour and a half for these long term counseling and guidance sessions. But let's understand what our goal is, what we're trying to achieve, and check in at least once a month is our goal now. And to do counseling and guidance. And it may be a ten minute conversation about, you know, what are the obstacles, what's challenging you? What are your frustrations? What supports can we get? How's it going? That's all counseling and guidance that keeps people moving forward. And people often fell out because they didn't know to ask for support. Counselor contact once every 90 days. I mean, there's no relationship built there.

Carol: No. They forget who you are. Like they, you know, they totally forget. Like, who are you again? And what are you with? Oh, yeah. That.

Michael: And then the, the check in is how are things going? And the person says good, I guess. And the counselor writes, oh everything's great, but is it, right? So getting that more frequent and meaningful connection and conversation, knowing what the next steps are, keeping those goals small so we achieve them within three months from there and we build another goal from there has really been successful for I mean, it's new, mind you, it's new. A lot of customers. The feedback is it's great and a lot of counselors. The feedback is it's great, but it's really hard to change that mindset of the old way of doing everything all at once.

Carol: I loved, I was so intrigued because when I, you know, of course, I went down the rabbit hole of your website. So I come in through the link you had on LinkedIn. I'm looking at the report and then I see, oh, what are these Milestone Plans, you know, and then I'm like, what is this? And then I watched the YouTube video and then I'm like, oh, well, this is going really well. It makes brilliant sense because I think people spend so much time, you're letting perfect get in the way of the good, because you're gonna have this beautiful plan and we're going to have it for five years and all these things. And then, quite frankly, I think you get probably a little annoyed because customers go along the way and then they're like, well, I don't really want to do that anymore. I want to pivot. I need to do this because as they're getting their skills of blindness, the world opens up and often they're like, yeah, I don't want to be the customer service person. I want to move now. Well, now you're annoyed. Oh, we're gonna amend the plan, you know, so when you make that kind of the process, things irritating to you that you're going to have to amend and do the things it'll make you crabby instead of just baking this in that we're not going to get so hung up. And we are creating the plan. We've got a goal, but we know these goals change and we're going to do an amendment and the persons involved and they're super engaged. Like it just seems so much more interactive. I'm like, Holy cow, that was you know, how many years has this taken for somebody to think of this, Michael?

Michael: Goal and change is slow. But with this change, we are not leaving this. We're not just saying this is the change and then we're on to the next one.

Carol: Yeah.

Michael:  We are really sitting with this and you said bake it in. That is our mantra for this year is we're baking it in. We've made these changes last year. Now we've got to be sure that we're actually doing them. In the essence, it's not in name only. You know your Milestone Plan, you've got five years worth of services. Let's look at that and let's make sure that it's working. I had a really good conversation with a counselor yesterday who is super excited. And certainly what's helpful is, is getting some examples of how to shrink this down, how to shrink the thinking and how to shrink the, you know, down to something that's manageable and doable for that customer. So they know where they're going, they know what they're doing, and they know what the next step is after that. So yeah.

Carol: It kind of leads me to my next thinking, because, you know, again, going back to your report and reading it, and I was so intrigued by people that also came in with kind of one goal. But as they get, you know, you get your skills of blindness, your world opens up and they left with something so much bigger. A big promotion, a new career or something that they had been dreaming about actually happened. How do you guys go about, because I know you're talking about, like, active engagement. You're doing this regularly, you're keeping in touch, but how do you really also create that space for them? So it isn't oh, we did our plan and here's your goal. And we're sticking to that like so that they can pursue the path that's right for them. Even though you might have set out on one way rather than that whole predefined outcome, that it's okay to pivot you're okay.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, that is the key that people try things out and then it can change. And that's a value. It's not a negative that when someone tried this and then it they're like oh that's not for me. Well that's exactly what we want. We want that exploration. We want it in short bursts, so we're not investing in something and you realize five years later, oh, it's not for me. We want to know now. Let's figure that out now and let's find out if that's not it. What are some other things? We've had a lot of turnover. I think VR agencies have had a lot of turnover. And you know, since the pandemic, a lot of retirements, huge wave of retirements. And so the past year we've been stable in terms of not adding a whole lot of new people. And our focus is really building those skills and building that awareness and building those high expectations of our customers and not letting our own biases kind of drive where we want to guide the customer, but to be open to that customer and help instill the belief that self-belief for the customer and believe for the customer, because sometimes they come in and they do not believe in themselves. We've got to hold that, right?

Carol: Right.

Michael: We've got to hold that and then bring that customer up to it. And that's been a lot of our discussion and training for new staff. We also have real strong connections with our consumer organizations that help with that as well, and bring that connection to the blindness community. Even if our, you know, staff are not from that community, to make sure that we're understanding the community and expectations and what's happening. Being connected to the community we serve is critical. And through that, even if people have come from the general agency or come from outside blindness, really building that belief that Blind people can do whatever they're capable of. Right. Whatever that person can do, they can do it.

Carol: I love it, I love it. Well, it kind of leads to my whole thoughts about you with collaboration because your report also highlighted, you guys talked about your partnerships, whether it's with employers or the tribal VR WorkSource and others. How do those relationships that you all have been cultivating translate into real opportunities for your customers? And how are you sustaining that, like really nurturing those relationships?

Michael: You bet. It takes work and past history. I've been 25 years with a blind agency. We used to keep our heads low, keep under the radar, do everything in isolation. We had this weird notion that we could do it all. We're the only ones who know about blindness and rehab, and we'll do it all, whatever. And that's not true, because reality is. Blindness intersects all communities, and we need to find the ways to support people in where they're at, in their cultural expectations. And individualized services also means that any industry is a goal, is a potential career goal, and we need to keep ourselves on the cutting edge and understanding how to support people in any type of industry, understanding what opportunities exist so we can't do it all by ourselves. And there's the other notion that budgets are really tight. And even though other outside resources are shrinking, we need to do more to get our customers into those generalized programs that are out there for everyone and benefit everyone, and to have other parts of the workforce system be footing the bill, basically, so we can keep our dollars for the things that are unique to us, right? And tribal partners. You know, we've got an amazing relationship in Washington state region. We have ten tribal VR, AIvRS, American Indian Vocational Rehabilitation agencies here and then 29 recognized federal tribes. And we do have government to government relations and train our staff who interact with the tribal VR about government to government expectations and cultural expectations, but also understanding and helping our staff understand the value and the services that tribal VR can provide our customers with tribal affiliation that we're not able to.

Those cultural healing practices are so critical for individuals. Tribal affiliations may also be pathways to careers that are on tribal lands or tribal businesses that we would not have access to if we didn't actively partner with our tribal VR partners. There's also, tribal VR does not get a whole lot of money. And so understanding too, that we're here to support tribal VR in all those visual disability sorts of things. We've got the expertise we can partner and provide those needs. So it's maximizing each of our budgets for that customer to have the maximum success. I think as well, the WorkSource, the American Job Center, the WIOA partners, I mean, all that as a blindness agency. We were left out of that for so long. And 2016, where we're part of that through the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act. I for three, four years and still even today, I'm like, I'm from GSB, a title four WIOA partner with rehabilitation. Every time I introduce myself, I had to do that because they're like, who are you? What do you do? Why are you. Why are you.

Carol: Why are you here? Yeah.

Michael: So we have, particularly through our business relations team, and we just expanded that in the past two years, really have created some strong connections with our Workforce partners and with the American Job Centers and those opportunities that exist we don't have to pay for, there's a six week job readiness workshop that is put on. And the challenge has always been for our customers going to the WorkSource centers and the American Job Centers, we call them WorkSource here in Washington state. And just having no access, having no accommodations that people are clueless about, people with visual disabilities and how to make that accessible. So we've done a lot of work. Our business relations staff did a lot of work with this particular workshop and made it fully accessible, totally integrated. It's not just blind, only, it's all individuals that are eligible for those services. Our customers have been so thrilled with that experience, and even to the point where in front of the consumer organization conventions, they're taking the mic and just crowing about the experience in these job readiness workshops to the Workforce. So we're expanding that. But there are also other opportunities. There are pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship opportunities, work experience, work based experience opportunities through the American Job Centers that we just never had access to, that we're starting to have access to. And it's getting our customers closer to their career goal through the partnership.

Carol: I love it because you're really living into WIOA. You know, it's taken a long time across the country. It gets passed in 2014, but you're like, okay, what does that mean? And how is this really going to work and how are we really going to partner together? It's taken a long time for everybody across the country, but you start to see these pearls that are coming out of it, like you're talking about with the WorkSource and that training class, and now it's fully integrated like that is amazing because we still have places where it isn't happening. You know, people will tell you if a person who's blind or visually impaired shows up for a class, they're like, no, you got to go to Blind services. They do stuff over there. They can't come here. But the whole intent of Congress was to leverage all the partners together, because we each have our buckets of money, but we're better together if we can leverage those funds.

Michael: Agreed.

Carol:  100%. And you are living right into all of that. You need to do a presentation, my friend, at CSAVR or NCSAB, with all the cool stuff you guys are doing, I just think it's really awesome.

Michael: It's taken a long time and it's been a lot of work. It's been a lot of effort, but I'm feeling like we're making progress now.

Carol: That is so good to hear. So if you could offer a lesson, maybe a lesson you learned or something to other VR agencies, especially people that may be feeling overwhelmed or stuck. And I'll tell you, you have a lot of colleagues out there right now. Stuff's been tough. Based on the experiences you have, what would you want them to take away or what's something you'd just like to share?

Michael: The easy one, a lot of things are coming to mind, but an easy one is to be brave. Examine. Really step back. Examine what is and isn't working. Don't. Don't hold on to how we've always been done it. And don't accept that or really shift your mindset to identify what you're really saying internally, as we've always done it that way it doesn't have to be. And so really understand what are your processes are working really well and let's find ways to expand those. But let's also look at the customer experience. And let's be honest about where our processes don't meet that customer need and meeting them where they're at. That's one of our values empathy, meeting people where they're at. Are we doing that? And let's be honest and let's be brave and make the changes. Sometimes you have to fight them. I mean, the whole counselor observation, RSA had some initial concerns, even though it's written into the law, had some initial concerns about what that means for determining eligibility, but it's written into the law, and counselors document that observation. And but sometimes you have to fight a little bit, push back a little bit where it makes sense. Change also is not easy. I mean, there's just been so much change externally, internally, and it's exhausting. But you also need to determine where you want to go and take the time to really mature that and facilitate that change. And we're talking about baking it in. Don't just be kind of shoop shoop, shoop shoop. Figure out what is the big change, what is the change you want to make.

And it's going to involve lots of little changes. And people are going to feel like it's still this massive, you know, change after change after change as you tweak things. But let's really focus on that, get it through and then see it through. Do a pilot, get data, get input, analyze it, revise it, implement it more broadly, get data, analyze it, revise it, tweak it, get input from customers, get input from, you know, people. And then as a director, you've got to champion the change and you've got to talk about it. And Carol, I don't know about you or I hate repeating myself. It is a personal thing. I hate repeating myself. But that is the job, right? That is the job to say things and say them again and say them again and find different ways to say them. I mean, you caught some of my videos and that was my goal last year, was my emails that are very detailed and very interesting to me, are not super interesting for all my staff, but they really connect to video sometimes, or they connect to, you know, audios, or they connect to the in person fireside chats where they can come with any question. And we, you know, the executive leadership will discuss what's on their minds. There are different forms and formats for getting our story out and communicating, and we need to really do all those. And it doesn't have to be, I mean, you saw some of my videos in the newsletters and the reports. They're pretty amateur right there.

Carol: It was all good. I liked it, though. I liked it because it was authentic.

Michael: Yeah. You know, it's taking that TikTok mentality where it doesn't have to be, it's here and it's gone. But it gets the message out and it's supporting the change that you want to make. And it's not me as director talking it, but it's finding other people that are experiencing it and their experience and people connect in different ways. So that whole communication part of telling the story, I'm no social influencer. You found my story on social media, and I know it's important, and I'm doing the work now because it is critically important. we're also, those reports, those monthly reports, were highlighting different programs, and we're sending them out to stakeholders. We're sending out to the congressional representation representatives and their staffers, and we're getting notes back saying thank you for that. And I'm like, it felt very amateur, but I'm glad you appreciated the story and information.

Carol: Well, I learned in communications class long ago, seven times seven ways, like for communications, because people all learn differently. Like you said, audio, video, you know, doing more like almost like the TikTok reel. We've got to get way better, snappier, shorter. I mean, we can thank Jeff Bezos for that with Amazon. Like people don't want to read a long thing. They want it quick. We want to get stuff. Now give me the little snapshot about this thing. And really our social media leads to all of that. Because look at you drew me in. I've known you, but you drew me in with your little short clip on LinkedIn. You had the really catchy part. I'm like reading that and I see $39.30 an hour people are making on average. I'm like, I gotta go see what's going on in this report. And I click your link and next thing you know, I'm in your website, I'm looking at your stuff, I'm in your videos and doing all the things. That's how people like think, now they got to get drawn in. What's your quick soundbite, your little piece that gets you hooked in. And we all have to get way better at explaining what is happening in the VR program because we just, I don't think have been very good about telling our message and our story.

Michael: Agreed. And I think that now is the time, if any time is to show the power and the impact of Vocational rehabilitation for the economy and for our communities. So, yeah.

Carol: Oh thank you, fine, sir. Well, I love talking with you today. I wish you every success in your agency, and I look forward to hearing more fun things and reading more things on LinkedIn. So thanks for joining me.

Michael: I enjoyed it. Thanks so much, Carol. Take care.

 

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