OrgSync would like to take time to reflect and give thanks.  We are excited about the direction we are going as a company and have compiled a recent top 5 list of what we are thankful for.

1. Our Clients – We are on 70 campuses now, and have the fortune to work with great people. We look forward to continue working with our schools and to providing them excellent client services.

2. Our Team – OrgSync is full of great people and talent and that is proven to be one of our best commodities.

3. Ruby on Rails – Not to get too geeky, but RoR gives us the ability to make quick updates and constantly improve our product.

4. Caffeine – OrgSync is not a 8-5 job.  Many of us work around the clock, and we are grateful to have a little help to keep us going.

5. Friendly Flight Attendants – OrgSync has been logging a lot of miles in the air (I have gone over 8,000 in 2 weeks) so we are grateful for smiling faces and people serving caffeine.

Have a great Thanksgiving

OrgSync has logged a few thousand miles over the past couple of weeks, attending two NASPA Regional Conferences (Long Beach, CA and Hyannis, MA), ASGA (Dallas), and ILA (Los Angeles).

ILA gave us a great opportunity to interact with current clients, and have face-to-face conversations with potential partners. We spent a lot of time with Dr. Corey Seemiller, the Director of Leadership programs at the University of Arizona. UA uses OrgSync to manage student organizations, and to track progress in their co-curricular leadership programs. UA and Corey were instrumental in helping OrgSync develop our 2.0 version of the co-curricular transcript and resume builder. We had great discussions over dinner about new and future developments and Corey was able to introduce us to other leadership faculty and program coordinators at the conference.

The last night of the ILA conference was inspirational. Leadership Studies is still in the early years of research and publishing so it was a great feeling to be in the same room as the trailblazing theorists and authors during the ILA book signing. Almost every major leadership author was present and made themselves available to the next generation of leadership educators.

This was our first time to attend the ILA conference and it was an excellent experience. It is always nice to spend time in sunny California, and the ILA staff was kind, courteous, and very helpful. We look forward to further conversations with the friends we have met during our travels over the past few weeks.

OrgSync recently spent a few days in Long Beach with many higher education professionals from the western part of the country. With 466 people in attendance, it was always easy to strike up interesting conversations about how OrgSync can be used on campuses across the country. One of the best things about attending a NASPA conference is that we are surrounded by visionaries that are very skilled at seeing and bringing big picture ideas into reality. Many of the VP’s and other campus administrators who we talked with were excited about what OrgSync can do for them and their students in many areas of their campus. They understand that these communication tools can be used in every department on campus to help improve and streamline communication.

The conference itself was very well organized and put together. This was our first western regional conference, and we were treated so well by all of the conference volunteers that we look forward to attending next year’s conference. Jeff Klaus went out of his way to make us feel welcome and an integral part of the conference. The opening reception was worth the trip all by itself. It started with a tour of the Museum of Latin American Art and was followed by a moving keynote speaker addressing the importance of diversity and outreach in higher education. This was then capped off with a spectacular gourmet meal from Bon Appetite Management Company. It was a night of great conversations, company, a steel drum band, and an open bar.

Since so many schools are benefitting from the tools and services that OrgSync offers, we frequently run into our partner schools at conferences. It is always exciting to sit down with a school that we have been working with and show them new areas of OrgSync that they have yet to explore. The more we talk about new things they can do with OrgSync, the more excited they become. It is thrilling to see their faces light up with new ideas and before we know it we have spent an hour together. These relationships are really important to everyone at OrgSync and we pride ourselves on how much our schools love working with us.

This past weekend, team OrgSync participated in the Austin Race for the Cure. We all headed down to Auditorium Shores bright and early with our customized t-shirts, banner, and lots of enthusiasm. We walked in honor of Karen Andreas, the mother of one of our founders, who is a breast cancer survivor. Since Karen is a baseball fan, we called our team the Pink Sox and our theme was “Save Second Base.” (Check out the pictures to see our awesome shirts, created by our own Jeff Jurica and Nicole Andreas!)

It was a great feeling for all of us to come together to give back to the Austin community and to such a great cause. As a sister of Zeta Tau Alpha International Fraternity, I have long been a supporter of the Susan G. Komen For the Cure Breast Cancer Foundation, as it is our national philanthropy. I was so happy to see our team out there sporting the Pink Sox t-shirts and donating our time for the cause. We were surrounded by over 21,000 fellow supporters and breast cancer survivors, making it such a positive and inspirational atmosphere. The Race for the Cure is a 5K walk/run (we opted to walk this year), so we also got a little workout while supporting the cause! We were all very grateful for the cheerleaders and supporters along the sidelines cheering us on and keeping us going. We are so excited to make this an annual event and who knows, maybe we’ll even run next year!

OrgSync recently started working with the Student Activities office at California State University, Bakersfield (CSUB). This is the fourth CSU campus to take advantage of OrgSync’s tools and services. San Bernardino, San Marcos, and Sacramento have also provided their student organizations access to OrgSync’s portal system. From the CSU system, 61,000 students and over 530 student organizations are now going to improve communication for their members and administration.

“They have created an online community that is user-friendly for students, cost effective for campuses, and provides a structure by which busy Student Affairs administrators can leverage their time…”

Mark Hartley

Director, Student Leadership & Development

California State University, San Bernardino

The California State System has made a commitment to helping the environment by reducing paper usage on its campuses. OrgSync will support sustainability efforts by providing online promotion of student organization and club activities.  OrgSync will also replace paper forms with an online forms module.

Bakersfield has started implementation and training, taking advantage of OrgSync’s unlimited training by conducting separate training sessions for student officers and university administrators. They are holding multiple training opportunities for all of their student organization leaders. It is with great excitement that we welcome Bakersfield into the OrgSync family as we look forward to building a strong lasting relationship with them and all of our clients.

You can read the CSU Bakersfield press release here

Recently our own Leanna Laskey was a guest blogger for the Peak Performance Playbook, a blog about the upcomming AFA conference December 3-7 in Denver, CO.  OrgSync is excited to be a part of this year’s conference and we hope to see you there!