Jeff Lail

This continues my series where I will be interviewing people that I look up to or admire in one way or another. I hope I’ll learn a little something about what makes them tick and hopefully my readers will learn a little something as well. This interview is with Cayce Stone from OrgSync.

Tell me a little bit about your career – what you do now and what your path has been to get there (as general or specific as you want)

Currently I manage a team of professionals that work to spread the word of OrgSync around the country and now the world. We have successfully brought over 100 campuses into our family, and it has been exciting to watch that happen. In my current position I am able to do everything from working with new schools as they learn about how OrgSync easy campus wide communication to explaining how technology can help them improve their campus life. I really do feel like I am helping to improve higher education across the country by increasing student engagement and involvement on campus. We both agree that involvement directly relates to graduation and retention rates and it great to be helping campuses improve that. I was talking with Sacramento State and since OrgSync came and held an onsite training on campus, they have seen a 210% in the number of students registered for organizations and 70 more organizations on campus.

I am lucky in that not only do I get to explain to prospects what OrgSync can do, but I am able to take their ideas and build them into our platform. OrgSync truly is a result of the collective efforts of 100 campuses ideas in one place, and we love doing that. Everyone from the largest universities to the smallest are able to use the same tools to manage and improve campus wide communication.

I had a variety of experiences that got me to where I am today (http://www.orgsync.com/about-orgsync/our-team/leadership). I did run organizations while in school, and that helped teach me how to manage and lead a team. That is why I love the out of classroom experience that we encourage at OrgSync, because I personally built a company and a career out of my experiences of running student orgs not what I learned on the academic side. I am not belittling academics, but want to help validate that crucial out of classroom experience for students to help them gain a competitive advantage when going onto the next stage of their life. I also spent 8 years in the army which taught me a variety of things, and most of all the difference in good and bad leadership tactics.

I feel like I should start by saying thank you for your years of service – I feel like you mentioned this off-hand to me before, but I didn’t realize the extent of what you had done with the military. By the way, “managed the intelligence and operations center” is one of the coolest sounding job responsibilities I’ve ever heard – beats anything on my resume.

How would you say your experience being “involved” in college helped with where your career has gone? How did those experiences help you figure out where you wanted your own career to go?

I do appreciate the comments, and the military definitely helped build me into what I am. While in school I didn’t know that I would do anything with the knowledge I received as a student leader, I just enjoyed doing it. After school, I did a few others things, and then while talking with Eric decided to do something to help orgs to communicate.  I don’t think that student leaders plan on using that experience to build a career and it rarely does.  I ran a ski and snowboard club in school and would never have thought I would have learned much from it.   I did enjoy the free trips to Colorado, but it was the knowledge that is gained from managing and running an organization of 250-300 people that is powerful.  I learned how to manage a team of officers and provided them oversight guidance to make sure we achieved our larger goal.  That is what I am still currently doing, minus the free Colorado trips.  I provide the vision and help a team of amazing people work to achieve that.

What is gained as a student leader is impossible to quantify, and to put into black in white terms. I know that I never learned as much about things like conflict resolution or how to motivate people in english class, but those skills are needed by every leader in the real world. That is why I think student leaders deserve a GPA boost because they are truly more well rounded and prepared for everything life is and will throw at them.

I really liked what you said about your expectations not being that it would be useful other than for your enjoyment at the time, that gets back to something I’ve talked about regularly with regard to pursuing your interests. Good things tend to come from that even if they might not be the good things you would expect.

You clearly have a passion for student leaders and leadership development. What might be some advice you would give students currently in leadership and what about those who aren’t currently “involved” or in leadership positions?

Enjoy what you do, and do it as best as you can. Life is short, and you have to take pride and pleasure in all areas of life. The best leaders are those that surround themselves with people they respect and enjoy working with, and at times are smarter than they are. It is impossible to truly be passionate at something you don’t enjoy, so find your niche and give it all that you can.  There is nothing more thrilling for a leader than to see their team succeed, so always be striving to make those that work for you as productive as they can be and always give credit to your team.  Don’t take it for yourself.

Students who aren’t involved just haven’t found the group or organization where they belong. When you join a group you need to make sure that you agree with their leadership, and that they have goals similar to your own. If that group exists on campus then join it and enjoy being active with like minded students. Even a member of an organization can be a leader if they have the correct mindset. If you don’t find an organization that shares your vision, then create it. There wasn’t a ski and snowboard club when I came to UT which is one of the largest universities in the country, so I founded it. Find other students that agree with you and start to spread the word. Soon the organization will become your pet project that you enjoy more than you ever expected. Keep sharing with others your passion and what makes your organization different and it will spread. You will quickly realize that you are the biggest asset to your organization, and others will follow the path that you as the leader established.

Being a student leader is anything but easy, but it is one of the most rewarding things you can do. When I reflect on my college life, I think more about the experiences with my organization than the classroom experiences I had. Help make your organizations that same way for other students on campus and you will come out ahead.

One last question (I think), tell me a little bit about your experience with the startup at OrgSync.  I know that many of my peers (including myself) have dreamed of the idea of jumping in on the ground floor of a company and helping it grow. What have you thought of the experience and what would you tell someone who’s considering it?

There isn’t enough space in this blog to list out all of the things I have learned in taking something from a concept into a working reality. I learned more in 6 months here than in 5 years of college, I now understand why other employers always want to hire people with experience. Starting a company is not for the thin skinned or the weak of heart. You will be told no more times than you will remember, but you will never forget a single yes. Frequently there will be obstacles put in your way, and it is how you deal or tackle those that separate the greats from the rest. Never look at something in front of you as an impassable brick wall, but as a hurdle to overcome.  Each challenge is but a learning opportunity to prepare you to better handle the next challenge that will come. I also thoroughly believe that you cannot change the past; all you can do is make the best decision right now that will affect your future.  Know what you want to achieve, and always make the choice the helps you work towards that goal.

Be prepared to work harder than you have ever done before. This is why you need to only start something you are passionate about, don’t do it for money. Money is a great motivator for a short amount of time, but true passion will help you push the company over the goal line. I don’t work 10-12 hours a day, I do something I enjoy and am passionate about. You also need to look at yourself and honestly determine what your personal weaknesses are. Once you have identified your weakness from marketing to development surround yourself with people who have that have that as their strength or skill set. The synergy that you will create is much more powerful than anything you can do on your own. You will need others help in making your dream a reality; just make sure that everyone complements each other’s weaknesses.

You can’t boil the ocean, so don’t try to do too much. You are going to have limited resources and can’t afford to spread yourself thin. Find an area where you excel that is unique, push that niche and stay with it. If you try to do 10 things well you will fail when you could be doing 1 thing flawlessly. After you have built your tree trunk you can spread and build other branches, but the truck needs to be strong enough to support them.

Enjoy what you are doing, and wake up every day with a smile on your face or else you are doing something wrong.

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You can keep up with Cayce on Twitter or on the orgsync blog.  For more information on orgsync, check out their page.