Ron Waddell for State Representative

(00:01:46.450) Aaron Lyles: Right. Hey, how's it going? (00:02:32.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: What's up, bro? How you doing? (00:02:33.650) Aaron Lyles: Yeah, how are you? (00:02:34.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: All right, sir. How's your day been? (00:02:37.950) Aaron Lyles: Ah, busy man. (00:02:39.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: But they say, I (00:02:42.650) Aaron Lyles: I don't know, I don't want to. Not a busy day, I guess, maybe one day, but I'm not there yet. (00:02:48.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Where are you at in the state or the world geographically right now? (00:02:55.750) Aaron Lyles: I'm in West Hartford, Connecticut. (00:02:57.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Oh, you're not (00:02:58.850) Aaron Lyles: Far know. So that's why I was excited about this. I was in California for 15 years. I know Dirty, we worked together on a bunch of projects, and then I moved back here. I mean, I kind of lived all over the place my lifetime. But three or four years ago, it was kind of time to come back to England, be closer to family via the school, my brother's educated there, and just wanted a little bit more of a home base, you know? (00:03:26.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Very cool, man. I get it. Yeah, (00:03:28.250) Aaron Lyles: And you're what's there. (00:03:31.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Walk in the Woodstock. (00:03:32.250) Aaron Lyles: That's right. I'm (00:03:38.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: glad I know (00:03:39.050) Aaron Lyles: That we're, yeah, exactly. Well, that's fine. Okay. Excellent album. (00:03:45.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Yeah. At a medium (00:03:48.550) Aaron Lyles: Pace. Anyway, oh man. I know I'd like you. Yeah. So, so (00:03:56.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: this is (00:03:57.050) Aaron Lyles: cool. (00:03:57.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: I'm really interested. I appreciate your candor and our email back and forth and jumping on here. So, yeah, really interested to learn more about what the product software is. Some of the questions, like even in the team, I was talking there, like, yeah, but does that work on a hyperlocal level like that? Is that more for a governor level? That kind of thing? So cool transparency here. We have this conversation, we have our kitchen cabinet meeting on Sundays, coming back saying, hey, this is what is available to us. What do we think about it? So, just full transparency, it's not fully just my decision that we would include the committee as we think about it, and independent of that, though, if it doesn't align with this campaign particularly, I'm still interested in understanding how the product or service works, because I also run a nonprofit. We do other things and where this may be beneficial. So, just level setting where we are for you. (00:05:06.850) Aaron Lyles: Yeah, I appreciate it, man. And I think because we only have 30 minutes, I want to try to show you as much as I can so there's visual context to what I'm talking about. And then, you know, if that looks good, I think let's do another call because I want to dive in deep to the campaign and what you're trying to do with the campaign. I'm just super fast and I want to work with people who are doing good s*** out there because the world is burning. (00:05:31.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So (00:05:31.950) Aaron Lyles: It is, oh, that I think spending the time on this particular call to show you as much as I can is a good use of our time, but it's not because I don't want to hear your side. (00:05:42.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: just want to understand. (00:05:44.850) Aaron Lyles: Okay. Um, I'm gonna dive in and some of this is wonky and other stuff is pretty clear to understand, and I'm gonna just give it all. Um, okay, so first thing we're looking at here, and let me move you. Um, and if you see any on your phone, it might be a bit trickier. You might want to go horizontal if that's (00:06:09.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: okay. I jumped on this for ease so let me I'll fire up the laptop real quick. (00:06:29.450) Aaron Lyles: Yeah, no worries. (00:06:43.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: All right. (00:06:48.150) Aaron Lyles: While you're firing that up. So basically, you know, I've lived around data and survey work and all this stuff for a long time, and no matter what the product was and no matter what the intention of the person behind the questioning, the tools just don't really get true story sharing. The tools aren't really built to get qualitative data and then know how to analyze it. (00:07:17.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: correctly, (00:07:17.450) Aaron Lyles: Right? And that's just like, you know, probably everywhere. So that is kind of what I wanted to set out to do. (00:07:23.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: do. (00:07:23.650) Aaron Lyles: How do we get to communities that necessarily don't always have a voice that is a part of the solution? (00:07:31.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: making (00:07:31.950) Aaron Lyles: how we (00:07:33.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: take one story (00:07:35.250) Aaron Lyles: from those communities and then how do we (00:07:37.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: create? Passion. (00:07:39.850) Aaron Lyles: Out of it. So like how do I build a suite of tools that does that whole life cycle? And that's kind of what I'm about to (00:07:45.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: show you. (00:07:45.450) Aaron Lyles: So there's a lot of behavioral science that goes into this. There's a lot of technology aspects, but it's very rooted in real life experience and how we interact or not with things that come across our radar, right? So like when a survey hits and the way it got there was from ActBlue, I'm kind of like get the hell out of here. Like you know I don't need to Bernie and now I'm on a list and I don't care about your ongoing campaign. So just because you have my email doesn't mean anything, right? (00:08:14.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So (00:08:15.150) Aaron Lyles: Just because you have access to a million people doesn't mean they give a s*** about your (00:08:19.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: gonna (00:08:19.550) Aaron Lyles: say, right? (00:08:20.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So (00:08:20.450) Aaron Lyles: Attention of how we get in front of people is very, very much a part of this week. Then, when you're in front of those people, first of all, you just earned something special. Now, how you show up matters. The story you're telling is as important as the stories you need to get back, so this has to be a (00:08:39.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: reciprocal to (00:08:40.150) Aaron Lyles: me. So that's the (00:08:41.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Preface to (00:08:42.650) Aaron Lyles: These are conversational services. So what you're going to see here is super wonky and, you know, (00:08:47.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: That. (00:08:48.750) Aaron Lyles: So this is a demo serving. I'm going to show you the front-facing piece of it, but in the back end this is what this looks like. To get to this stage, I have other tools in the suite. I have a discovery tool where we're going to do our minimum workshop, either in person, over Zoom, whatever. A lot of these preliminary conversations we're having, the information from this gets fed into the discovery. (00:09:15.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: tool. (00:09:16.150) Aaron Lyles: The discovery tool comes up with an intelligent question set that we work off of to make sure that I understand your objectives, pain points, who your audience is, you know, what are the sensitivities, (00:09:26.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: sensitivities, (00:09:27.150) Aaron Lyles: all that kind of stuff. What are the cohorts, and then it comes up and that builds a brief document that I feed into my survey tool, which we're looking at now, which then builds what (00:09:37.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: you're seeing here. (00:09:38.050) Aaron Lyles: It builds this first draft of questions that are objective, that are empathetic, that are engaging. And there's a 60-page methodology doc that we've created that this uses as its basis, and it gives you this first draft question set, which ends up being really good. So then instead of how should I ask this question (00:10:00.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: in a (00:10:00.450) Aaron Lyles: way that's not leading? You're just coming in and edit, right? So this is what this looks like. I'll show you just like one note in particular. You know, nice to meet you. You're going to give me your name ahead of time so I can personalize this. Let's start simple. When you think about surveys, what's the first word that comes to mind? And these are multi options no matter how that gets answered. You're going to go down one of these pathways so it doesn't feel like we're just pushing you, and next question, it feels like you've been (00:10:27.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: heard and (00:10:28.950) Aaron Lyles: on, so that just that piece right there makes me want to go to the next one. It shows that I've been listening too. So on the user side, just inside that word, this desktop, tablet, mobile, we preview in these ways, right? This is what it looks like to the user, comes through like text. All of this is customizable. So, you know, over the next few minutes, you're going to experience exactly what your persistence would experience. You can do a video opening here. You can do, you know, do you go by (00:11:01.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Ron or Ronald Ron? (00:11:02.550) Aaron Lyles: Totally fine. Yeah, okay, I'm Ron. I'm running for the 15th district. I want to get to meet you, like, whatever that is. (00:11:08.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: is (00:11:08.750) Aaron Lyles: Right? That could be here in text or video format. Consent up top, we don't ask your PII up top. Most of these surveys, they want all your contact information because the goal is usually (00:11:21.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: build a list. You want to (00:11:23.050) Aaron Lyles: List. Yeah, I don't give a s*** about the list. We're gonna get the list because we're going to earn it. What I care about is, I really need you to dive in and engage in an authentic way. So, that's my goal, right? So, and here, my name is Aaron. And then once I give that, nice to meet you and let's start simple. When you think about service, so this is that note I showed you, so the option. (00:11:46.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So (00:11:47.050) Aaron Lyles: Each one has its own pathway. You see the little text bubbles, kind of, and I hear you. Let's see if we can change that. Then there's a gift, right? And all that's customized, too. On a scale from emoji to emoji, how would you rate your organization's current survey response rates? No. Also, speaking of bueno, bilingual, there are eight languages that we can translate. (00:12:09.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: these (00:12:10.150) Aaron Lyles: So we can serve all sorts of communities. Um, there are some stats. So here, too, is, this is, and this is obviously my demo just to show you capabilities. But if you think about it, like, this is my way of, like, kind of telling people, I put this in front of about surveys, right? (00:12:28.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So, (00:12:28.450) Aaron Lyles: This is my chance to storytell. I'm going to tell you some stats and stuff. I'm gonna talk about things that are pertinent to this. So in your head, right? Like what is (00:12:36.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: that (00:12:36.950) Aaron Lyles: For you? Like what are the issues you want to focus on? This is a multi-select here. So this is just another question type, we have dozens of questions. You put (00:12:47.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: in here. (00:12:47.850) Aaron Lyles: I hear you, Aaron. Now, let's narrow it down. So these little nudges are saying I'm listening to you. I heard what you said. I'm going to respond in a way that is still controlled. This isn't like an OpenAI thing. This is all pre-created, but it's intelligent enough based on the branching and how you answer that we can give you a generally empathetic response to what you're putting in. This is a ring choice question here. So when it comes to what matters most, you rank your top three. This is great for your line of work for really understanding. Hey, I get that you want to do this, but let's say we can't do that, what's next? Alright. So when you get this at scale, it's super helpful data to really understand prioritizing what your platform's going to look like. Um, and then I'm going to show you a couple more pieces, and then I'm going to show you what the dashboard looks like. So as we go down here, a couple more single selects. So now you've seen multi-choice, Likert scale. (00:13:49.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Emoji, (00:13:50.450) Aaron Lyles: That's single select and it's quick, right? Like you're still engaged, you're actually reading the question and answering authentically. You've just gone through probably 30 to 40 data points already and (00:14:05.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: the matter. (00:14:06.150) Aaron Lyles: Wow. So you're talking 30 question surveys in eight minutes as opposed to no one's ever taking a 30 question survey. (00:14:15.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: know, (00:14:15.850) Aaron Lyles: right. (00:14:16.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So (00:14:17.550) Aaron Lyles: And that's the other piece where you could really get a lot of information, and I built the scalability into the platform where you can have five small surveys or one bigger survey. It doesn't matter cost-wise, right? So it's built to be able to really think about this. So this thing is talking now. You won't hear it because I'm sharing my whole window, and Google only gives you audio on a single tab, but this is me asking a question. As you would play that as a participant, I don't want to hear myself, but you're going to see the closed captions option. You go full screen with (00:14:57.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: this (00:14:57.550) Aaron Lyles: Just 24. Second question of me, asking something and as a participant, like a video, audio, or text respond back. So if I choose video (00:15:06.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: you (00:15:08.350) Aaron Lyles: You have a prompt or option here. So if you're not comfortable just winging it, you can do that or not. Then when you hit record, you go down and then however many minutes we've set this to, it'll start. So when you get the thumbs up, I have a 2 minute counter and I'm going to say, Hey Ron, I need you to come out to my community because it falls everywhere in my neighbor's house. Done, um, part of my French. So then (00:15:31.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: it's very well. (00:15:34.550) Aaron Lyles: It's, I would either say no, I'm not happy with it and I'd rerecord. I can play it back in here. I just click the S so that would go into the database as soon as I finish recording and then on we go. So the next piece, and then I'll jump out of here, is our multi consent. So in here, one more (00:15:53.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: thing about (00:15:53.950) Aaron Lyles: your (00:15:54.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: recording (00:15:54.550) Aaron Lyles: Regarding your response, I'd love to share your story. Would you be okay with us using it or not? If they say no, then it's, you know, marks as key private, private. That's what consent-first design looks like: your choice, your terms, right? And so you're thoughtful to however they're answering that question as well. So that's really what the surveys look like and why. And so, relatively novel thing in the political world, because no one is giving enough did. (00:16:22.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: get no (00:16:26.150) Aaron Lyles: All right, so now an example of what this looks like from your end as data starts flowing in is, this is the Hartford Arts Council. We did a small pilot project with that. So this went out to like 400 people, 157 people completed it. So, 34% completion rate is still above industry standard. It's not as high as I like. The bigger metric to me is a 70 percent option. So of the people who completed, 78 gave their contact information and a bunch of demo information. So they said, yes, I want to be a part of this communication, right? So on your dash you are going to see a full score of how the survey actually was created. So, is the objective aligned based on discovery, is the neutrality in the questioning, what's the flow of the conversation like? So again, for a campaign when you're probably doing multiple surveys, this is really good to know. Are we really building the right tools to put in front of people? Looking at that, you would obviously be the host. So your little section would be here. This is the executive summary of the survey. What are we doing? Your baseline stats are here and then for a team that doesn't have a lot of capital and a lot of data people, this is bill. So the context is there, right? So completion rate 34%. Okay. What the hell does that mean? (00:17:53.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: And here (00:17:54.450) Aaron Lyles: I got you, these industry benchmarks are 15-25 percent for complex surveys, despite 20 plus questions with multiple responses, so this is actually telling you it's even better. (00:18:06.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: because the better. (00:18:07.850) Aaron Lyles: Yes, exactly right, it's weighted. So we put a lot of context into the data so you understand it. Then the community polls piece, this is going to show you where your people are and then it's also going to show you who your people are. So this creates archetypes. The tool has the capability of finding those archetypes on its own and defining them. You can also predetermine and say this was a donor platform survey mostly, so we kind of had an idea that we had lapsed donors, we had new donors, we had people we don't know yet. So we had some of that. So based on how people answered, it scored and associated archetypes based on that, and then the tool actually added additional layers to say, hey, you actually have another one, you have potential ambassadors. So it created new archetypes and then it shows you where they are. Additionally, we did for this survey, we kind of also said (00:19:05.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: and all that's the story and all that was based off how they answered the questions. Those data points. Throughout the tool to say, hey, based on what you were looking for. There's a there's a new archetype that we can create that based on how they've answered. We should focus on this as well. (00:19:21.050) Aaron Lyles: Yep, yep. So the key things that it does is the discovery is critical, right? It's our best like person-to-person, like get all the meat of what we're building. That's kind of your record of truth that then goes into how we build the questions and all these tools talk to each other. So then when it comes down to, like let's design the dash as this data starts flowing in real time. The analytics tool is now saying, hey, I know what we're looking for, because Ron told me what we're trying to learn. I know how I build the question. So what I'm asking and now that the data is coming in, I know people are answering and I know what we're looking for. Oh no, I'm going to discover all these other things, right? So that's how the logic tool is actually working. It's not going out to the open world of AI and trying to, you (00:20:07.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: know, (00:20:07.950) Aaron Lyles: very intentional on what it's learning from and then in here we asked, okay? So how do you connect with the arts, right? Are you donating? Are you attending arts? Are you a family? Who are artists like, what's your connection to understand? Your three dimensional outlook of a community. And here is, how do you want to engage? How do you want to be contacted? So, that way we can segment audience based on your SMS, people, your email, your in persons. What's your barriers to giving like, what's preventing you from showing up or giving or whatever? That's another key point rank choice. Here was, how do you want the organization to show up so that helps the organization really understand where to put their efforts and their dollars and then I know I'm flying through this and I, I can sit here, we can do a longer one. I just want to try to like throw a bunch at you right now. Um, is in the insights. You're gonna see every single question here broken down and this is mostly the quant, but then for the narrative data, yeah, 260 in total, um, they're not all showing under this view here. But what you'll see is for every question where we ask, like a narrative component, you'll see every single write-in response that people provided and this is the additional concepts of the tools learning from. It's actually doing the qualitative off of the responses here. So, video, audio and text is being analyzed. So, these are videos that came through from people, we have crosstab analysis. So if we really want to get wonky into like, what's the giving capacity by age, what's the importance of art by gender? So and this is all customizable. So whatever you want to do for the campaign, we shape the dash. So, last piece of kind of flash here is when it comes to. Okay, that's great, we got great data. But now (00:22:08.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: what? Like (00:22:09.250) Aaron Lyles: I need to be able to do something with it. That's where your reports page comes in. This is where we also customized, but we build out a case study. So this is something you can kind of share: strategic memos, strategic recommendations are kind of your short form of, here's kind of like your guide and then the full report, and this could be hundreds of pages if needed. This one's robust enough without killing yourself, but it has all the high line data. So, as you can see, with just 1507 responses, we have 3800 data points. We had 260 stories that were shared, we got five strategic imperatives, we identified six archetypes, 26 hours of listening from our community. Like, think about that at scale for (00:22:58.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: an (00:22:58.750) Aaron Lyles: an entire district. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's insane. So as you come down, I'm flying through, this is mostly just demo data, and here this is where it gets really fun. So now it's what did we learn? And all of these top five strategic imperatives are things that came out of the data that some might be evident, some might not. You know, this one: people want to co-create with the organization rather than just being asked for money all the time. So people want agency and they want to have a role with the organization. So, the tool will not only point that out, but it also gives you implementation (00:23:38.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: guidance. (00:23:38.950) Aaron Lyles: So it's telling you how to kind of shift your language from instead of 'thank you for your gift,' it's 'here's how your input shaped this decision.' That before launching new initiatives, convene potential participants to co-design. Move from 'we built this for you' to 'we built this with you.' So it gives you a really good insight into what the data is doing and where you should go with it. Now you, as the expert, you and your team, it's a take it or leave it, right? Like, I mean, what my role is, is to minimize what's on your shoulders that is more administrative. So you could just dive into the meat and get to what you really need to know, who you need to be in front of, and what, like, that's what this is designed to do. And this is the wrong choice. This is kind of what rank choice looks like as it comes in visualized, and then the narrative theme analysis, just pull quotes here, and then this is just a snapshot of next steps. But this, we have timeline tools that can literally give you a 12-month road map with here's what you need to do by this time, that time, the next time to operationalize on the state of, and then like the last piece, and I will stop sharing, is the full methodology opens up our 66-page, I think, methodology doc here. So anyone who needs a full academic look at anything, it's there. You're going to have those people. So (00:25:09.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: we (00:25:10.150) Aaron Lyles: need to (00:25:10.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: all that (00:25:11.050) Aaron Lyles: Stuff is in order. Um, and we find where my job, though, here. Oh, it's listed up here: the distribution, the sample analysis, approach question, domains, limitations, and then the logic validation is how the tool is actually conducting its analysis logic. So skeptics, which you should have in your community, are going to say, all right, how is it doing it? What's it using? We have deeper levels of this, obviously, on our end that we'll share once we are working together, but public-facing, all this information is always going to be out there—just how you've conducted these surveys. Yeah. And then all the reference work is here. (00:25:54.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: This is (00:25:54.850) Aaron Lyles: All the stuff from the so, um, threw a ton at you, and it's by design because I wanted to just make sure you saw as much as possible, but we are not NGP VAN for a reason and this is why. (00:26:10.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: No man. I get it, I get it, I appreciate it was drinking through a fire hose but I guess what I would say, with all that, one of the things I can appreciate first though, is the thoughtfulness that went behind it. It seems there was a lot of caregiving to it and how the user experience plays out right now. Natural responses engaging and really cool thing about how folks are over assessed, over surveyed. I just can't be a part of your thing anymore. I have one basic question and then like hey here's the large one. How is that sent? Email? Text? Is it already being sent based on a list that we would have compiled or how is the field that is being surveyed captured. (00:27:01.950) Aaron Lyles: Yep. Great question. This is the world that Gertie and I used to live in, mostly exactly just in world of just creating like, you know, campaigns and outreach and short form video and all (00:27:11.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: that. (00:27:11.850) Aaron Lyles: Unless in that game now. But this is made where it's QR code access, it is web-based, so it's just a URL. So it could be hyperlinked anywhere, you got it on your site. So very easy to put it into anything you already have going. I always am happy to consult them on the outreach piece. I haven't built that into the suite yet. (00:27:35.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So (00:27:35.350) Aaron Lyles: Like that part is kind of like we're gonna either plug in the list you already have. We can help you to go get your audiences. Our role is kind of more hyper-focused on the thing that gets to the person that you get in front, right? (00:27:52.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: That makes sense. That kind of ties into the back end question I had here. The unfair one is, if we gave it to you, here's the district, and in 30 days, how would this platform help me understand the voters better, what their needs are, and then, like, the double barrel is, knowing that, how do you see it helping change or augment how we're running the campaign? (00:28:25.050) Aaron Lyles: Dude, I love your questions. I'm a closeted political junkie. I ran a company called Common All for a long time, which is a civic tech platform for young people. I actually came out of the company that I worked with to launch that. So this is my wheelhouse, man. This is designed to get you the data you need to then shape a campaign around like you already have the groundwork, right? You already know what you want. We'll go deeper on the (00:28:57.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: specifics of the story (00:28:58.250) Aaron Lyles: For sure. This is kind of to create a superpower on it, to hold you accountable and then to hold your community and trust to go out and say look, here's what you gave. (00:29:10.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Me. We're hearing from you. Yeah, (00:29:12.350) Aaron Lyles: And this is real time. So like the other thing is the turnaround is immediate, so as data comes in this tool is doing all the stuff I just showed you. The reports are usually after a certain point that we (00:29:23.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Kind of (00:29:24.150) Aaron Lyles: Dedicated, of course, closing point, but all the other stuff is real time. So at any point I can spin off something and, say, launch it. You get 1000 people to respond within the first two weeks, we could turn something on a meeting like, hey, this is what I've learned. I'm going to show up. We're gonna do a town hall. We're going to discuss this because you just told me you cared about it. And this is my platform, I care about it too. This is what I'm fighting for and then you get to dive into that data. So I have education clients and some of the stuff we do is we do these surveys with students and teachers and admin, take all that information, and then I work with a lot of, like, DEIB people too. Like, do the workshops now based on that. So it's a reflection, people see themselves in the data because now it's like, all right, I didn't waste my time filling out this thing, it's actually getting operationalized and now, okay, you've got me. (00:30:19.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: You've (00:30:20.050) Aaron Lyles: earned (00:30:20.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: my (00:30:20.650) Aaron Lyles: Trust. I'm a constituent who cares. They're way closer to getting that ballot box because you actually followed (00:30:27.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: through (00:30:27.350) Aaron Lyles: This and you took it, showed it back to him, and now you're creating a campaign around it. Like, how do you not (00:30:34.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: win, right? (00:30:35.250) Aaron Lyles: Like, this is where your money should go to. How do we amplify this? How do we just get more eyeballs on (00:30:43.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: it, (00:30:43.950) Aaron Lyles: Right? Not, don't put all your money into the thing, which is why I like, I'm happy to make the economics make (00:30:51.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Sense, just like I got. (00:30:52.750) Aaron Lyles: You, I got. (00:30:53.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: You. (00:30:53.950) Aaron Lyles: I don't think this is where the money should be poured. This is where the real intel should be coming from. (00:30:59.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: That's fire. That's fire. Yeah, I'm really fascinated with the tool because, like I said, in our district, it's the most diverse district in Wooster County, and it's evolving and it's much like our broader society as a whole, right? The way that the algorithm has leveraged social media and all those things, folks don't even talk to each other. So I'm not transparent about what is really—I'm nervous about saying what I really care about because the blowback is going. So it's like I don't know if I'm getting a surrogate of what really is. (00:31:45.950) Aaron Lyles: going on. (00:31:46.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Yeah. (00:31:46.850) Aaron Lyles: Right. (00:31:47.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Yeah, or representative rather of what they feel. This is what I think you want to hear. (00:31:53.550) Aaron Lyles: hear. (00:31:53.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Yep. And then that prevents from actually what you already know. So that's why to me the tool is impressive. My question then also is, this is pretty typical. The majority of voters are 55 and older. (00:32:12.150) Aaron Lyles: Yeah. (00:32:14.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Especially here in Worcester and I know actually we've been an academy going back. Part of why I'm running goes back to two years ago. Actually, four years ago, we did a voting academy with some of our participants because I was like, well, someone asked me, they're like, hey, you provide a service or you're building power. Like we (00:32:31.550) Aaron Lyles: don't (00:32:31.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: That's cool that you're helping these folks, but like what do you—yeah, literally, we had a cookout, number 400 people that showed up. It was amazing. He was like, that's great. So if you needed to go push an item at City Hall, how many of them would have showed up? And I was like, s***, I never thought about it like that. (00:32:49.650) Aaron Lyles: He (00:32:50.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: was like, that's what are you providing certain power. So my mind shifted, we ran this voting academy about getting more of our participants who were formerly incarcerated from impoverished areas, marginalized part of the community who aren't showing up to understand this thing, right? Yeah. And in doing that research, the Worcester Regional Research Bureau put out their report and that's what we found: 17,000 people showed up to that municipal election. 11,700 plus were 55 years old, predominantly Caucasian. (00:33:20.050) Aaron Lyles: right? (00:33:20.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: And so, one is like in the district, getting a response from the people but then only the voters, like, it's the voters too, which to me creates—I'm curious how you would think through this and maybe have another call around it. The majority of folks vote, right? Elections are a numbers game. How many people are showing up to vote and then who are those people showing up to vote? The district is so diverse but the folks who drive the district are only these people. (00:33:54.850) Aaron Lyles: Yeah. (00:33:55.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So how do you use the parse out in a way that, hey, are we just pandering to the same constituents? (00:34:08.650) Aaron Lyles: Are if you keep doing the same s***, right? (00:34:11.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Like, (00:34:11.850) Aaron Lyles: You're the tool, so follow. So what you're doing is you're going out to grab the people who have been forgotten, who have been deliberately overlooked, who have been left out, who have been pandered to so long that they tapped out. That's your real job, right? Like, and I'm overstepping. (00:34:31.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: here. But oh, no, (00:34:32.650) Aaron Lyles: no, (00:34:33.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: just (00:34:33.350) Aaron Lyles: Your job is to get out there and say, I got you because they didn't, right? And we're going to do things differently. I'm going to show you that every single thing I do, by starting, I'm going to knock on your door. I'm going to invite you into the conversation, right? There's real work to be done. (00:34:49.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: there. (00:34:49.350) Aaron Lyles: No question, that's trust building. (00:34:51.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Now (00:34:51.750) Aaron Lyles: The technical aspect of what I do is to support those efforts, right? So you're out there building the ground game. Trust this tool is following through on it, so every time they engage with, like, all right, that sounds like Ron, like this is doing what Ron just said he's gonna do, and you're gonna get their buy-in and you're gonna change the makeup of who hits the voter rolls. (00:35:13.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: rolls (00:35:14.350) Aaron Lyles: By being out there, right? And like, it's harder to do it at scale if you're just doing one of those two, (00:35:21.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: so (00:35:22.250) Aaron Lyles: It's a tan, right? Like the tools, not a magic pill, like you got to do the work and (00:35:27.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: The tools gonna help, still knocking doors, (00:35:28.750) Aaron Lyles: Right? Yes, indoors. Absolutely, vacation. Right? (00:35:32.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: You (00:35:32.350) Aaron Lyles: Knock 100 doors and you can convert those 100 into, you know, not to a Democrat or whatever, but you can convert them into people who actually feel heard. That's a huge step, who then have dinner with a family, man, and a friend, and that amplifies, right? And now they get the tool in front of them, they get the link, they get the ad, they get the mailer, they get whatever it is. That all very, you know, genuinely created and visually stunning, right? (00:36:02.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: That (00:36:02.450) Aaron Lyles: has this thing to go do. It's a simple call to action. Come have a conversation with me. That's it. That's the call to action. And then once they do that digitally, after I already have that touch point with you and spreading that word. Now, every person you talk to is really three people, and now we can get those masses in, we could change that makeup of the 11,000 white people and change it to look more like the community and to me like that's the work everybody running who still has a soul should be doing. (00:36:31.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: That's why, well, I love that because, right, the dominant narrative as I'm stepping into the political, you gotta run. I know it's your foot but you're not going to convert the likelihood of taking someone who has never voted, registered, and getting the turnout election day around like what you're used to. This kind of seems like the dominant narrative around. I keep hearing this, right? (00:36:55.650) Aaron Lyles: So (00:36:56.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: you're only going to go to the Super Bowl, like you only go there. And once you're in, then cool. So to me this, oh, I really am. This adds, use your word, amplification, but also value to look. We're going to the neighborhoods that have not been, or newer voters that have not been engaged. We're still going to the super voters, but here we're looking to intentionally begin to convert them with a better ROI than traditionally what you guys have done because we have back-end survey data that has built relationship through the tool. That is, for lack of a better term, condensed, is a digital representative, representative of who Ron is, so the question they've been engaging in digital way with who you are already. And so there's more touch points, right? More touch points, the more you can develop relationship is what I'm tracking, and so (00:37:56.650) Aaron Lyles: it's (00:37:56.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: able to engage some of those who may not have been as engaged in a way that allows a better conversion. (00:38:04.650) Aaron Lyles: It's ever evolving, right? So you, you're right, there's a digital version of you and once you get those high opt-in rates of people saying, oh, here's my contact information, it's no longer that ActBlue model that we talked about. It's an invitation that they accepted, that they are willing participants in moving forward. So, a month later, when you go back and say, hey man, I really loved our conversation last month. Building on that conversation, here's what I'm doing next week, you should show up. Think of the value, right? Like your list now has steroid injections as opposed to everyone else who's just scraping and buying lists and having no connection, and then their excited team is the one running the surveys while the candidate's out there kissing babies, right? Like they don't talk, so it doesn't feel—there's no real connection. So what are you buying? What are you earning? Nothing, right? So like this is a way to—it's almost like keeping you accountable. Yeah. Like you can't really escape. So like it's gonna kind of also sort out bullshit candidates, right? Like, (00:39:08.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: you know he came back. Are you really about that? Because (00:39:13.450) Aaron Lyles: that's what's here, you're gonna have receipts, you know, (00:39:15.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: that's fine. (00:39:16.750) Aaron Lyles: Yeah. (00:39:19.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: I get it. I see it. oh, I see it. So (00:39:25.150) Aaron Lyles: they (00:39:25.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: So then, how does that work for you? Aaron, what's the next conversation? The all-important question. Even from an economic standpoint, how do you package it? How do you think about doing it? And I'm grateful that you're willing to have this conversation again, transparently about, hey, don't spend all your money here, but it still seems to me like something worth continuing to investigate and invest in. And so, coming back to be able to maybe even have data from other things you did, right? That are like, hey, this is folks, I have folks on things all are going to talk about ROI. So we put this much in, what did it get us, right? And so thinking about those folks, what is the price and then is there—I'm sure you do literature, products, whatever things they've done that say, hey, this is for my folks that need tangible value. Mike, how do we communicate ROI? Not me, but that's my job. (00:40:26.150) Aaron Lyles: How (00:40:26.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: have you done that? (00:40:30.050) Aaron Lyles: With (00:40:30.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: your tool. (00:40:30.750) Aaron Lyles: the tool. So I just put in the chat, like the estimate tool, that's on the website. (00:40:35.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Okay. And (00:40:37.350) Aaron Lyles: Okay. Go ahead and, like, so it's pretty true to, like, I customize every single quote and scope. So take it with a grain of salt, but it's pretty close. As far as, like, you could put in here number of questions, number of participants, how many surveys, how deep do you want the analysis to go, and you can kind of toggle those, and you can go back and change it, whatever, and just play with it and see what makes (00:41:01.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: sense. (00:41:01.650) Aaron Lyles: Okay. Not a number, that's like that that's nowhere near where we can do call me right? Like again I don't care. Like the economics will happen. I have other clients of offset. This one like I want to do good work. I want the impact. What If you run a campaign like a real genuine campaign, that moves the needle, the changes the dynamic, that who shows up that wins an election, that gets real information that you can change policy on. I'm here for that long term role, (00:41:31.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: right? (00:41:31.950) Aaron Lyles: Like flow, if you're doing your job and I'm doing mine. I gotta feed my family too. (00:41:37.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Like I (00:41:37.450) Aaron Lyles: Can't work but I am fine to figure out those economics. So don't let it scare you either, and also maybe some of it's cash, maybe some of it we figure out something. I don't care. (00:41:48.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: I will figure that (00:41:49.450) Aaron Lyles: Out. What is, and I can, you know, some of the stuff is NBA. So I'll show you what I can. There's also a research link on the site. You can see some of, like, how these things are conducted and all that kind of stuff. But I'll show whatever I can to convince people. But what I told you is what, (00:42:09.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Let's figure out, make (00:42:11.350) Aaron Lyles: it work. (00:42:11.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Yeah, we're coming up on time, but my question to you is: from your research, is there a sweet spot for number of questions? Like, hey, you want to do no less than this, or if you do this many, or is it? (00:42:28.950) Aaron Lyles: No it (00:42:29.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: really (00:42:29.650) Aaron Lyles: Depends on that. I think, like, you know, and let's say money is not an issue, we do whatever we want, right? My green scenario would be you and I sit down and jam for an hour or so, right, on another call. We really, like, I want to get into your campaign and what you want to do and all that kind of stuff. That is like, all right, I got an idea. Here's what we'll do. Let's do this survey as, like, ten questions, and ten meaning probably five real core questions with branched qualitative questions around them and some ranked choice. Maybe one video, like something that's really rich but small. (00:43:05.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: enough (00:43:05.750) Aaron Lyles: That sets the tone, and then let's have four follow-up surveys with different stakeholders in different parts of the district that are achieving very specific goals for the campaign, like an umbrella approach, that then tells us what the rest of that roadmap (00:43:22.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: looks (00:43:22.650) Aaron Lyles: like, (00:43:22.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: that's (00:43:23.150) Aaron Lyles: Would make sense, right? So to me, that's probably where you'd want to go as opposed to. Like, I just, I don't think we live in a world where one survey is going to do it for you. I don't think it's like horse race polls matter. I don't think the traditional sense of polling, it's just the methodology doesn't make sense. You can't talk to 400 people and know how an entire district feels, it doesn't work. You got to talk to an entire district. This tool can do it, the scalability doesn't really change the price. So if you have 2000 people or you have 10, the price is the same, right? (00:43:56.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Like in, (00:43:56.850) Aaron Lyles: That's another thing, unless there's video or audio that have different processing fees. It doesn't really matter to the tool or to what we do as far as analyzing. So if you get 15,000 people you want to survey, you can and it's not going to drive you out of the water, right? So that's why I say, like, talk to me about prices for the tool. Would you put 50,000? It will go up, but there are things on my end that I could actually make that economical. So I just think that we build a very custom campaign that has five-question surveys, tens when we really need to, a 20-question, which is what you saw in that demo. It's, yeah, it's (00:44:36.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: so quick. (00:44:36.950) Aaron Lyles: There's a lot of questions in there. Um, so very long-winded way of saying there's no sweet spot. It's all very specific to what you're trying to achieve, who you're in front of, and then the propensity of engagement. Like, that's really where you start to figure out those levels. (00:44:55.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Before I round with us tonight, this is my homework. Um, fascinating thing about the city of Worcester and this district specifically, it was heavy Italian immigrants that dominated the district for decades, almost a century. As of late, that has shifted and lines were redrawn, and we've had obviously a lot more younger folks. There has been a lot of development housing that's going up. Younger folks are moving in, a lot of IT folks. But then, Worcester itself is the immigrant capital of New England. More immigrants end up in the city of Worcester than any other city in New England, even more than (00:45:44.650) Aaron Lyles: Boston's wild. (00:45:45.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Really, new immigrants are coming in. And so, like, even as I'm walking the traditional Italian neighborhood, right, then you've got Middle Easterners, you've got African immigrants from various African countries that are now in the neighborhood. And so traditionally it was like, hey, if your last name is Critelli or Mercurio, (00:46:09.050) Aaron Lyles: You win, right? (00:46:10.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Don't care what your policy is. (00:46:13.550) Aaron Lyles: Is, (00:46:13.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Um, that's John's boy and that's good. Good Catholic kid, and so that's very New England, (00:46:23.050) Aaron Lyles: Right? (00:46:23.250) Ronald Waddell Jr.: But it is shifting so much, and as I've even been going to some of the neighborhood meetings, it's so wild. So in the district I was at one part that's kind of, you know, it's more diverse than the east side. And their issues are like, well, look, the funding that comes into the district, all the folks on the east side, which is traditionally, they're the ones who get all the funding. And so our parks over here are suffering because they've been getting all the funding. And so like in the district itself, it's like f them. (00:46:56.250) Aaron Lyles: but (00:46:56.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: It's like damn it. Y'all, it's not F them because we're all in the damn (00:47:00.650) Aaron Lyles: district. (00:47:00.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: And so like what (00:47:02.850) Aaron Lyles: you know? (00:47:03.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Yeah. (00:47:03.850) Aaron Lyles: And that's, see, this is what I love too about, like the conversational tool, is that story. Like the other part of your job is storytelling. It's not just getting the intel. People need to hear these things. People need to understand, like we have busy lives. Most people don't understand the political landscape, otherwise we wouldn't be in the housekeeping we are. So part of that role is to tell those things in a way that is easy to understand. Then you can ask a question about it as well. So it's informing, listening, informing, listening to start changing minds. You're not really changing them, you're just enlightening them on things that are there that they may not realize. (00:47:41.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: right? (00:47:41.750) Aaron Lyles: So because that's really interesting and that could actually change outcomes if people understood that (00:47:46.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: stuff and yeah. And (00:47:49.050) Aaron Lyles: to the point of the fundraising stuff too, I think that metric is so dated where it's like, you know, this campaign raised a billion dollars, that's awesome. But I just feel like (00:48:00.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: you could be (00:48:01.650) Aaron Lyles: such a deeper... Yeah. It's like, you need it because you're doing inefficient things. (00:48:06.350) Ronald Waddell Jr.: things. Oh, that's (00:48:08.950) Aaron Lyles: Fascinating. Yes, buying really expensive advice that nobody gives a s*** about. You're spending on these consultants, up the wazoo for a poll that doesn't matter. Yeah, you need money to waste, but you don't need a lot of money if you're just being smart here, an actual person serving. So let's get away from 'I need millions of dollars' and let's figure out how to work smart with the budget we have and let's go win elections. (00:48:35.450) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Come on, I love this shit. (00:48:36.650) Aaron Lyles: Bro, you know. Let's do this. Um, I don't get to my nephew's birthday. (00:48:45.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Oh, that's way more important. (00:48:47.850) Aaron Lyles: But, what were you gonna say? (00:48:49.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: I was like, I'm gonna play around with this tool and then, you know, by the end of the week, I can get back. We'll figure it out. (00:48:56.950) Aaron Lyles: Yeah, and you have my Calendly, so just think through it, play the tool, and then just put something on the board, man. Let's spend a little bit more time so we can dive in and kind of learn more from each other. And if you want to bring someone else in from your (00:49:12.150) Ronald Waddell Jr.: team (00:49:12.650) Aaron Lyles: to keep more seat things, just let me know. Let's (00:49:16.650) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Let's (00:49:16.850) Aaron Lyles: do (00:49:17.050) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Yeah, that next goal is definitely to bring on someone. Having someone along for the ability to convince is always helpful. (00:49:24.250) Aaron Lyles: So, (00:49:24.850) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Yeah, let me play around with this, man. We'll look at it. We'll book something on the calendar. I'm running around like a madman, but you go and reconnect. This was a great conversation. (00:49:33.050) Aaron Lyles: My friend. Yeah, dude, really nice to meet you, (00:49:35.750) Ronald Waddell Jr.: and I appreciate it, (00:49:37.950) Aaron Lyles: Man. All right, let's talk soon. (00:49:39.550) Ronald Waddell Jr.: All right. Be well, (00:49:40.950) Aaron Lyles: Brother. All right, take (00:49:41.950) Ronald Waddell Jr.: Care. Peace.