Monday, September 16 – Workshops
Lead & Engage: Why Use Labor Market Data Like a Pro?
Rob Sentz, Emsi
Emsi’s mission is to help create an aligned, prosperous economic ecosystem where people have the information they need to make the right choices about their education; colleges and universities are equipped to help students and employers; employers know how to find the talent they need; and regional developers are valued and effective as they draw people and businesses together.
Download Lead & Engage: How to Use Labor Market Data Like a Pro
Career Coach Training (Higher Education)
Alys Lease, Emsi
Expand your knowledge on ways to use Career Coach to engage with students and the community. You’ll learn how to:
Guide students from programs to occupations
Connect employers and students through partnered job postings
Discover how undecided students can find their career path
Download Career Coach training for higher education
Analyst Training (Community Colleges)
Brent Belschner, Emsi
Learn new ways to interact with your community using data from Analyst!
Efficiently align your programs to in-demand jobs
Connect with your local employers
Use Emsi data to streamline Perkins V reporting
Download Analyst training for community colleges
Analyst Training (Universities)
Micah Evans, Emsi
Take a deep dive into Analyst as we focus on workflows for:
Developing relevant programs
Engaging employers
Understanding your regional economy
Download Analyst training for universities
Economic Development Training
Josh Wright, Alivia Metts, and Sheridan Benard, Emsi
Learn how economic developers are using the full sweep of labor analytics to prosper their communities in this interactive training. We discussed how leading EDOs implement Emsi’s analytics and expertise to get results in three key areas: marketing their communities’ competitive advantages, targeting and supporting existing and new companies, and attracting and developing talent.
Download economic development training
Emsi Global Training
John Pernsteiner, Emsi
Explore our new global data! We reviewed our methodology and demonstrated how you can create a successful talent strategy and solve burning issues using transparent, realistic, defensible data.
Special Feature: GoRecruit
Ashley Safranski, Emsi
What are the top five companies hiring your engineering graduates? How much do your business majors earn? What do your English majors actually do? For years, Emsi clients have been asking for an easier way to share our alumni outcomes data so they can better answer questions like these in their marketing/enrollment initiatives. Now we are pleased to present GoRecruit. GoRecruit provides outcomes data in configurable infographics that you can create, download, and share in a matter of seconds. Learn why outcomes data is more relevant than ever and see how GoRecruit can help you demonstrate alumni success, engage prospective students, and drive enrollment.
Special Feature: Business Engage
Sheridan Benard, Emsi
How do workforce and economic development organizations best engage with local businesses? How do they stay alert to expanding and at-risk companies in their backyard? Over the past year, Emsi asked dozens of practitioners these very questions, and more. Now we are thrilled to announce Business Engage, an innovative tool designed to help prioritize, monitor, and support local businesses. Learn how you can use Business Engage to improve your processes, engage with a wider range of businesses, and uncover business intelligence to increase the value you bring to conversations.
Knocking Program Development Out of the Park
Toni Ford, Waubonsee Community College; Israel Dominguez, Saddleback College; Andrew Thomas, University of Denver
Toni Ford and Waubonsee Community College have built an objective, data-driven process for evaluating potential new programs. This process is helping Waubonsee save money, create relevant programs, and nix programs that wouldn’t work.
Saddleback College used Emsi data to prove a surprising truth: Saddleback’s liberal arts students were equipped with skills for a variety of careers that most people thought could only be obtained with a business or four-year degree. Saddleback is using this groundbreaking report to communicate gainful employment to current and prospective students.
University of Denver (DU) has developed new, data-driven approaches that allow DU to build only those new programs that offer the best chances of success. Simultaneously, DU has used these same tools to find opportunities to better serve both the university and its student body.
How to Turbocharge Student Engagement
Shannon Wells, Sierra College; Chris Cook, University of Idaho
With 900 visits in a single week and over 10K visits in three months, Career Coach has taken off like a rocket at Sierra College. Learn how Career Coach has become part of the campus identity and how Sierra is using Career Coach to encourage student retention, success, and outcomes.
The University of Idaho has had huge success in implementing Career Coach. Get tips from UI’s website and platform integration; educational awareness and marketing strategies; critical campus partnerships; staff structure (e.g., college-specific career advisors); and outcomes.
Using Career Coach & Developer to Align Interests With Labor Market Fit
Sarah Burns, San Diego Workforce Partnership
As an Emsi customer, you have access to tons of data that can help people make informed decisions about their career and education goals. But how do you package and present it all so that it is digestible and impactful for your clients? Learn how the San Diego Workforce Partnership uses Emsi Developer to identify priority sectors, and uses Career Coach to give students and jobseekers the knowledge they need. Specifically, discover the RIASEC framework that underpins the Career Coach assessment, and explore strategies for connecting individual strengths and interests to labor market data.
How Input-Output Modeling Can Help Your Business Recruitment Strategy
Dr. Chuck McShane, Charlotte Regional Business Alliance
Charlotte Regional Business Alliance uses Emsi’s input-output model to examine the effects of their economic recruitment activities and the industries and occupations they support through indirect and induced effects. Emsi’s data and tools also allow them to see the specific types of projects that support sustainable, middle-wage occupations. As economic development organizations get more serious about economic mobility and talent development, input-output modeling can help them align business recruitment strategies by considering not only the top-line impacts but also the quality of jobs supported by spillover effects.
Engage Those Businesses, Attract Those Employers
Jamie Loyd, Columbus Technical College; Aaron King, University of Florida
Columbus Technical College makes an effective business case for their talent pipeline by analyzing data from multiple angles and turning raw data into a compelling narrative that highlights the best their community has to offer.
The University of Florida identified regional education and training gaps among the country’s largest metro areas, then identified particular hiring agencies and firms in those targeted regions. As a result, the online master’s in Urban and Regional Planning program has begun to generate new student pipelines by cultivating relationships with employers in municipalities from Miami to Las Vegas.
Download Jamie Loyd; download the handout; read the case study
Value Added: Using Alumni Outcomes & Emsi Occupation Data to Show Institutional Value
Dr. T. Hank Robinson, University of Nebraska at Omaha
The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) uses Alumni Outcomes and Emsi occupational data to promote more accurate, productive dialogue with policy makers and employers. By adding non-graduate data to Analyst, UNO has been able to discern outcome differences between students who complete a degree and those who attempt one. Analyst and occupational data, combined with readily available census data, enables UNO to build strong support for post-secondary education while helping local employers to better assess the quality of jobs they offer. Dr. Robinson explained how UNO uses Emsi’s alumni and jobs data to provide the platform for organizing regional workforce and economic development planning.
Using Data to Inform Workforce Decisions
Todd Nielsen, Denver Economic Development & Opportunity
Over the past 12 years, Colorado has been working to standardize the Workforce Systems delivery methodology for business services. With the implementation of WIOA, a decision was made to create a state-wide data expert group to command synergies of the top workforce and educational researchers in state. This workshop will discuss how to use Emsi, combined with other sources, to make impactful reports highlighting everything from detailed workforce profiles to the economic impact of workforce centers. In addition, the presentation will cover the work that brought varied perspectives to the table to ensure that Colorado continues to push the needle in data reporting.
Identifying MVP Jobs & Attracting Talent to Grow Your Region
Harrison Crabtree, Greater New Orleans
In this two-part workshop, Harrison Crabtree demonstrated how his cutting-edge research is putting Greater New Orleans on the map as a model for how economic development organizations can strategically develop their regions through data. Learn how Harrison is using 1) the occupation table within Emsi Developer to create a methodology for identify 50+ jobs that will help propel Greater New Orleans over the next decade; 2) Profile Analytics to identify emerging occupations (such as video game development); and 3) profile data to successfully attract talent to the region.
Higher Ed Team Challenge 1
Scenario: A tech company wants to talk to you about their needs for data science & analytics techs. Plus, the governor wants to know how colleges are going to address this tech shortage.
Challenge: How can you use data to prepare for this conversation? How can you assess the demand and decipher what they are actually looking for? What process do you currently use, and how can data improve that process?
Download higher ed team challenge 1
Higher Ed Team Challenge 2
Scenario: People in your community are questioning the value and relevance of your institution. This doubt has a host of ramifications on everything: policy issues, employer relations, conversations with parents and students, enrollment, etc.
Challenge: How are you currently trying to solve this problem? How can data help you better answer questions related to the value and relevance of your institution? More specifically, how can data help you engage with employers, speak to parents and students, and deal with concerns from the state legislature and policy makers who have concerns about your institution?
Download higher ed team challenge 2
Higher Ed Team Challenge 3
Scenario: You have a longstanding relationship with a well-established industry partner (like a manufacturing firm), but it’s getting a little stale. Some people at the company now believe your programs are out of date and/or your curriculum just isn’t keeping up with the changing economy. The company needs to upskill their employees and they need to know you can be more cutting edge. You are confident that your programs are relevant and can keep up with demand, and that your institution can supply the necessary training for upskilling workers—you just need the chance to prove it.
Challenge: How can you use data to rebuild trust and rejuvenate your relationship with this company? What elements are critical to address? What’s your current method for program evaluation, and how can data improve this method?
Download higher ed team challenge 3
Tuesday, September 17 – Keynote & breakout sessions
What Emsi Is Doing to Help You Lead & Engage
Andrew Crapuchettes, Emsi
Emsi CEO Andrew Crapuchettes introduced our groundbreaking product updates of 2019. Keying off the theme of “Lead and Engage,” he demonstrated how these new and improved services (including the hot-off-the-press Emsi Skills) will help you establish yourself as a leader, solve critical problems, and influence and inspire your peers, organization, and entire community.
KEYNOTE: Economic Mobility: Data-Driven Responses in a Disruptive Time
Stephen Goldsmith, Harvard University Kennedy School
We’re all here at Emsi2019 because we believe in the power of data to make better decisions and create economic prosperity. The challenge now lies in application, buy-in, and sustainability. We’re still fighting the old ways of making decisions based on assumption, bias, or bureaucratic inertia. In this keynote, Stephen Goldsmith (former mayor of Indianapolis and deputy mayor of NYC) spoke on his experience of teaching mayors and senior local leaders about how to structure governance that uses data and how to create a culture that supports the use of data and innovation.
Getting Innovative With Skills-Mapping and Microcredentials
Kacey Thorne, Western Governors University; Brian Fleming, Southern New Hampshire University
One of the biggest challenges we face in the United States today is ensuring our workforce is adequately skilled to support economic development and the workforce of the future. Skills have become the currency of the labor market, which means jobseekers, employers, and learners need better, faster, more efficient ways to develop skills. During this session, Western Governors University discussed their approach to solving this problem through skills mapping and pilot projects using Emsi’s skills insights, and Southern New Hampshire University shared how they used Emsi to develop a strategy to offer microcredentials.
Download Kacey Thorne; read the case study
Closing the Skills Gap & Creating Business Solutions
April Potter, Opportunity Stanislaus; Jann Miles, Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County
Stanislaus County faced a critical problem: over 50% of their industrial maintenance mechanics could retire in the next 10 years, and the county didn’t have the workforce ready to continue this extremely important job. So Opportunity Stanislaus and several partners created the VOLT Institute: the Central Valley’s new industrial maintenance mechanics training center that is already changing lives and business. April Potter demonstrated how Opportunity Stanislaus used Emsi Developer and Business Engage to ensure the future of this vital occupation.
Jann Miles, planning director for Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County in the DFW metropolitan area, discussed why the board has chosen to provide all the center’s business solutions representatives with Emsi data. Three of the center’s business solutions reps were in the audience to describe the difference Emsi has made in their work as they use data to build relationships and solve problems for local businesses.
Embracing Clusters to Build a Collaborative Understanding of a Regional Economy
Amanda Repella, Larimer County Economic & Workforce Development
A group of economic developers representing 35 communities in Northern Colorado have banded together to collaboratively discover potential areas of regional alignment and future cooperation. One secret to getting everyone in the room? Help them discover new insights from data. We are using Emsi data to characterize our local and regional economy using a cluster-based lens that can also better inform efforts in business retention and expansion or workforce development. Amanda Repella walked through why this project hinges on clusters, explain how we are using data as a key ingredient in keeping our existing collaboration going, and share the basic tools that can help adapt this process to other groups and places.
Recruitment, Retention, and Academic Focus: How Emsi Can Help Drive Student Engagement
Dr. Ross Gittell, CCSNH; Dr. Dean Kahler, University of Idaho
The Community College System of New Hampshire (CCSNH) has included Career Coach in its onboarding of students and in an innovative first-year course called “Ethnography of Work” (EoW) to give students the information they need to make good academic program and career decisions. So far, there is a 33% higher retention rate for students enrolled in EoW, and students are also 50% more likely to narrow their academic focus within the first year.
The University of Idaho is using Analyst, Alumni Outcomes, and Career Coach to help 1) recruit and retain students who are informed about the opportunities associated with their academic interests, and 2) produce graduates who are more attractive to employers.
Harnessing the Power of Labor Market Data: How Greater New Orleans, Inc. Is Using Workforce Data to Drive Business Development
Harrison Crabtree and Grady Fitzpatrick, Greater New Orleans, Inc.
Economic developers are tasked with telling their community’s story because they know it better than anyone. Many feel that data is essential to this storytelling, but what’s less of a given is knowing which analytics to focus on to inform planning, business recruitment, and talent attraction. Greater New Orleans shared how they’ve harnessed the power of labor market data and built sector strategies that have resulted in new and expanding businesses.
Download Harrison Crabtree and Grady Fitzpatrick
Building Data Champions: Combining Internal & External Data to Find Jobs & Fill Them – Philip O’Donnell
Large staffing companies generate a lot of data and are constantly looking for new ways to find great jobs to place candidates in. But the industry is so fragmented and localized that even the largest firms turn to external data sources to supplement their operational data. We’ll look at some of the most common use cases from the staffing industry and explore how the combination of external and internal data opens the doors for new insights, including examples of how to get them in front of decision-makers and customers.
Using Data for Workforce & Economic Development
Jeff Lynn, Alabama Community College System
Economic development starts with workforce development, and workforce development starts with the right programs. Learn how Emsi data has helped the Alabama Community College System at every state of economic development: creating relevant programs, providing world-class career pathways that support local industries, gaining approval for a new $21M advanced manufacturing training center, winning Alabama’s bid for Mazda-Toyota’s new automobile manufacturing plant, and encouraging other local workforce board members to likewise use data to prosper their communities.
Labor Force Availability: Making the Case in Your Region
Patrick Holwell, Arapahoe/Douglas Works!
Whether you’re working with a site selector or helping a business client who is relocating or expanding within your region, labor force availability is a central issue. Are there enough key people available now? Are there similar companies/industries concentrated in the area? Is the training pipeline sufficient to mid- and long-term plans for growth, or does the region count on in-migration of skilled workers? If we have to recruit out-of-state for key positions, where can we get the best return on our outreach dollars? In this presentation, learn how to answer these questions for your business customers and more.
The Creative Economy Defined: How the Seattle Office of Economic Development Quantifies the City’s Prominent Creative Sector
John Crawford-Gallagher, Seattle Office of Economic Development
With Seattle a powerhouse for innovation and creativity, the Seattle Office of Economic Development earlier this year defined and quantified the city’s creative economy. John Crawford-Gallagher will discuss how he and his colleagues defined creative industries and occupations, the key results of the research, and the next steps Seattle is taking to influence policymakers, creative advocacy organizations, creative workers, employers, and consumers of creative work.
Download John Crawford-Gallagher
Wednesday, September 18 – Keynote, breakout sessions, Emsi Innovation
KEYNOTE: The New Geography of Skills
Dr. Michelle Weise, Janet Salm, and Andrew Hanson, Strada Institute for the Future of Work; Dr. Yustina Saleh, Emsi
Every region has its own unique skill shape, driven by the regional labor market dynamics, especially the unique mix of employers and dominant industries. Emsi has developed a novel, skills-based approach to understanding regional workforce DNA to help cities, states, and regions realign how they might prepare their residents for 21st century jobs, further develop a competitive niche, and deliver the right skills at the right time for employers. In this keynote, Strada Institute for the Future of Work highlighted major findings from their upcoming report with Emsi, The New Geography of Skills, and the implications for employers, state and regional leaders, educators, and working adults.
The Future of Skills Is Now: How Colleges & Universities Can Use Emsi Skills to Build Better Programs & Help Adult Learners
Kelly Bailey and Lendl Meyer, Emsi
When it comes to skills, we’re all speaking different languages. Educators struggle to know which skills to include in their programs and what programs to offer. Students don’t know how to describe their skills and competencies to employers. Employers feel that schools don’t understand their needs. Emsi has decided to tackle this problem head-on by skillifying education. Learn how Emsi is relating educational offerings to skills, and get a sneak peek at two new prototypes: Skillabi (helping you build curriculum aligned to the job market) and Skills Match (helping adult learners create personalized learning pathways).
Download Kelly Bailey and Lendl Meyer
Serving Jobseekers and Youth With Career Coach
David Gutierrez, Workforce Solutions
Hear how Workforce Solutions is educating jobseekers on in-demand career opportunities through datasheets, industry booklets, and Career Coach.
How to Use Emsi to Build Successful Sector Strategies
Heather Henry, Workforce Development Board Solano County; Milena Kornyl, Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation
The Workforce Development Board (WDB) of Solano County leverages Emsi data to support labor market data analysis for systems conversations, program design, and business education. The WDB has integrated data-driven analysis into its work with each of its cities and community collaboratives with the goal of offering relevant workforce systems and programs. The WDB also uses Emsi to support business engagement through business consultations and Small Business Development Center (SBDC) advising.
Milena Kornyl demonstrated how Anne Arundel Workforce Development Corporation (AAWDC) utilizes Emsi data to identify, set up, and guide industry sector work and business collaboratives. AAWDC uses insight gleaned from labor market data and analysis as the foundation and guide for business collaborative discussions and plans.
