Adam and Christopher interview Drew Logsdon, an alumnus of Eta Rho Chapter at Western Kentucky University. Drew is a former General Fraternity staff member, former Director of Communications, and a past co-host of The Gavel Podcast. In this episode, Adam, Christopher, and Drew talk about the Fraternity's past year in podcasting, favorite episodes, and how The Gavel Podcast has provided the Fraternity with new ways to tell our Sigma Nu story.
The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity, Inc. and is dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to stories from our brotherhood.
To find out more from the Fraternity, you can always check out our website at www.sigmanu.org. Also consider following us on: Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter | YouTube | Flickr
Have feedback or a question about this episode? Want to submit an idea for a future topic you'd like to see covered? Contact the Gavel Podcast team at news@sigmanu.org.
Hosts for this Episode
Guests for this Episode
Episode Mentions and References
The Gavel Podcast - Ep 19 - A Year in Review with Drew Logsdon (Western Kentucky)
[Intro Music]
0:00:42.0 Adam Girtz: Hello, and welcome to the latest episode of The Gavel Podcast. I'm Adam.
0:00:45.6 Christopher Brenton: And I'm your other host, Christopher.
0:00:47.0 Adam Girtz: The Gavel Podcast is the official podcast of Sigma Nu Fraternity and is a show dedicated to keeping you updated on the operations of the Legion of Honor and connecting you to the stories from our brotherhood.
0:00:56.4 Christopher Brenton: To find out more from the Fraternity, you can always check out our website at sigmanu.org. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @SigmaNuHQ, or by searching for Sigma Nu Fraternity.
0:01:07.7 Adam Girtz: Christopher.
0:01:09.5 Christopher Brenton: Adam, how's it going?
0:01:11.1 Adam Girtz: It's wonderful, man. How are you?
0:01:12.9 Christopher Brenton: I'm doing well, doing well. Always glad to... Excited to be on this podcast recording with you.
0:01:18.9 Adam Girtz: Oh, wow. Well... Yes. Likewise. I'm, likewise, very excited to be here with you in our wonderful studio that is both of our individual offices, and/or other recording spaces that we [chuckle] love to record in. We do have a special guest with us right here off the start. Christopher, would you like to welcome him in?
0:01:43.2 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, this would be a surprise if we didn't have him in the title of the episode, but we are bringing...
0:01:46.8 Adam Girtz: True. I wouldn't say surprise guest, but a guest. [chuckle]
0:01:49.8 Christopher Brenton: We are bringing back Drew Logsdon, former Director of Communications for Sigma Nu Fraternity. He left us a year ago, but we're excited to have him back today. This episode or the theme for this episode is really just recapping the past year of the podcast, and so what better person to bring a perspective that he had from the first year of the podcast existence, Drew? Drew, welcome to the podcast.
0:02:19.2 Drew Logsdon: Thank you, thank you.
0:02:19.6 Christopher Brenton: Welcome back to the podcast.
0:02:20.1 Drew Logsdon: Glad to be back, excited to be back.
0:02:22.1 Adam Girtz: And Drew, we... So it was, actually, a year ago that you and I did a first year of the podcast recap and your first, I guess, first season, first six months. And we did a Q&A episode. I guess, in that year, since you left the show, how have things been? How have you been?
0:02:47.4 Drew Logsdon: Been good, been good. Been busy, over here working with OmegaFi, and Pennington & Company, who I left Sigma Nu staff to go work for, and it's been good, it's been busy. Less podcasting. We don't have... Not yet, we don't have OmegaFi podcast yet a caveat there. So, less podcasting. But it's been good, man. It's been solid. And you guys have been doing bang-up job, I'll say that. Listen to episodes when they come out as much as I can, and you guys have been doing really good, I like it.
0:03:17.5 Adam Girtz: Yeah, we appreciate that. Well, Drew, since this is your first time appearing on the podcast as a guest, as is tradition, we would love to hear your Sigma Nu story, if you care to share?
0:03:28.2 Drew Logsdon: I don't care to share. I'm joking, I'll share. [laughter]
0:03:31.0 Adam Girtz: Okay. Oh, okay. [laughter]
0:03:33.6 Christopher Brenton: Oh, no. The whole thing is falling apart.
0:03:35.2 Adam Girtz: And canceled, we're done.
0:03:36.1 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, no, I can share. So, let me say this, I imagine most everyone's Sigma Nu story is probably somewhat similar. It's like, "I came from a certain place, I was looking for something, and I found somebody I connected with, and so on and so forth." Mine probably won't sound... Yeah.
0:03:51.3 Adam Girtz: The heroes...
0:03:51.7 Drew Logsdon: I suppose not too unique in that regards but went to Western Kentucky University back in way back yonder. Fall 2005 was my freshman first semester. And the weekend I moved into my dorm, my parents drove me from our home in Kentucky, which was like three, four hours away. The weekend I moved in was the same weekend my parents sold their house in Kentucky and moved to Savannah, Georgia, which is like 10 hours away, just... And by the way, that was not discussed when I was looking at schools to go to, so like, "Oh yeah, we're just going to move to the coast, the beach thing." So, they moved off. And I was like, "I need to find something, something, somebody, some people, community, fellowship, what have you." And my... One of the folks in the Political Science department was a sophomore, he's a student worker. I mean, no, he's a junior student worker, Andy Vandiver, and he was a Sigma Nu, and we started talking.
0:04:49.7 Drew Logsdon: And so, I think I had gone to him for assistance with something and I needed the first week or something like that. And he had helped me out and invited me to come to the house, meet some guys, and I did. And I really vibed with half of them and didn't vibe with the other half. But I think this is common, probably for a lot of folks, but it worked out, it was great. The best decision I've ever made, loved it, dove headfirst into it, was an officer for almost every single semester I was there. And it was great, it was phenomenal, long-lasting life-long friendships and brotherhood, and it led me to work on staff, which led me to work where I'm at now. I can truly say I would not be here today was it not for Sigma Nu.
0:05:39.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. And Drew, as you're exiting staff, we talked about your transition, you were going to go and join the OmegaFi team. But those of us who are familiar with you have had the chance to see that a little bit. But there are plenty of alumni who know you and are very much fans of yours and may not know your experience at OmegaFi, if you wanted to share a little bit more about what you're doing there, I think that would be really beneficial.
0:06:07.6 Drew Logsdon: Yeah... I'm the Director of Communications for OmegaFi, so a lateral job position title move, a different industry. Love it. Get to work for the community. I'm still... OmegaFi services a lot of Sigma Nu client... In fact, OmegaFi founded by an Auburn alumnus, an Auburn student at the time, and OmegaFi's very first client was the Beta Theta chapter of Sigma Nu at Auburn University. Very first OmegaFi client. Which of course I hear all the time like, "Where are you from?" "Oh, I worked for Sigma Nu." "Do you know who our first client was?" "Absolutely, yeah, I've heard it." [chuckle]
0:06:47.3 Drew Logsdon: So, I work for communications. Really, I work for marketing, and I do that for OmegaFi and Pennington & Company. Pennington & Company and OmegaFi are both under the same parent company. They are still two distinctly different companies. They have their own employees for each side and everything like that. But I work for the higher ed division, which means I do marketing communications for both of those entities. We've been doing some great stuff, some exciting stuff. We've launched a couple of really exciting groundbreaking projects recently, and I'll wait to plug that at the end of the episode, but some really exciting things have been going on this past summer. It's been a busy summer too, because everyone's got... We're all back to in-person conventions now. And so, we've got folks who need collateral at conventions, want emails, presentations. We just had FEA not too long ago. We've got NIC, FFE meeting coming up. And so, just a lot of stuff happening. It really is all gas, no breaks, it feels like most of the time.
0:07:47.5 Adam Girtz: Well, Drew, one reason we wanted you here was to talk about some of the topics that we talked about this last year and go through some of the episodes. I know you said you've listened to a couple of them. We'd love to hear some of your thoughts and takeaways from some of the awesome guests we were able to have this last year. Let's start with season three. We had Perseverance with Bill Courtney. You conducted that interview, flying solo that first time. That was really neat, I thought, chatting with Bill was quite the experience. And then Honor with Jacob Rudolph was, I think, a really core discussion about what it means to have honor and what that can do for an organization. We were able to talk about the Educational Foundation with Todd Eliason, Men's Health with the Roberts Huffman, with Robert Huffman and Robert Huffman, and then Instafamous with Ben Kirby. So really, just a big season for us. I guess, where do you want to start? What caught you from that season?
0:09:00.7 Drew Logsdon: So, of this list you just read off, of the five episodes, I think I co-hosted Honor with you, Jacob Rudolph, which was great. Perseverance is great. I don't think I've listened all the way through for the one with Todd Eliason, or the Huffman's, or Ben Kirby's. I tend to fall in this trap where I listen to like 30 minutes of something and then something happens, my lunch break ends, or I get to my destination or something like that, I stop, and I don't... I need to be better at picking things back up. But I have met the Huffmans. I have met Todd Eliason. I've met with Ben Kirby. So I have some frame of reference there. I'll say this, I think the coolest thing about this idea of a podcast is... And by the way, I got my issue of the Delta today. I'm going to go ahead and pause there but... I got a brand spanking new copy of the print issue of the Delta. Chris looks beautiful, looks marvelous. It's awesome. It's the bee's knees. So jazzed about it.
0:10:04.7 Drew Logsdon: But the print Delta has a finite number of pages, and a finite number of words you can fit in those pages. So, you're limited in how many stories you can tell. Writing digital media, digital articles, like writing online, you have more, because you don't have pages, you can write as much as you want. But you lose something when something's not told in someone's voice. A writer is always aiming to re-tell something in a familiar voice or to retain the voice of the narrator, and sometimes you do that really well, sometimes you don't. Podcasting is great because you get that voice from that person. And so, it's hard for anybody to emulate Bill Courtney. Someone like Bill Courtney is just hard to emulate and copy. He's just that unique level of person. And so having him be able to share his story and his thoughts on the podcast, I think, is huge. I think it's absolutely huge. Overall, comprehensively, I think having a podcast to be able to tell Sigma Nu stories, about Sigma Nus or about Sigma Nu itself, is awesome, it's a great thing.
0:11:19.2 Drew Logsdon: That didn't answer your question anyway, that just killed like five minutes. But I think, big takeaway for me is, we have got some great collegiate and alumni leaders in Sigma Nu. Leaders even in whether they realize it or not. And I think Bill's great. I loved the conversation with Jacob Rudolph about honor, especially because we were talking about the context of law enforcement. And for folks who may need a reminder, Jacob Rudolph works in the Minneapolis area in law enforcement, and that being such a focal point of significant contention. I don't know how... There's probably a better word to rephrase it. I don't want to use a charged word, but we'll say contention. In recent times, recent past couple of years, honor is important. And this is, again, not trying to stray down certain paths or anything, but I thought about that recently in light of all this Uvalde Texas stuff, of law enforcement and honor, and having honor at your job and what you're committed to do.
0:12:36.1 Drew Logsdon: So, I think that's just a... That really stuck with me. Maybe a part of it is because I was on it too. But hearing Jacob share about, you're in this role where people have to invest trust in you blindly. We don't live in a world anymore where everyone knows that Andy Griffith is your sheriff and he lives down the street, and Aunt Bee makes pickles. We don't live in that world anymore. So, I don't grow up, my son doesn't grow up, my daughter doesn't grow up, knowing who the cop down the street is, but we have to implicitly give them trust and expect them to uphold that in an honorable way in the backend.
0:13:18.4 Christopher Brenton: Well an interesting development since that episode's come out is, for fans of that episode is that Jacob Rudolph is now a Division Commander for the Fraternity. So, he is...
0:13:27.7 Drew Logsdon: Great.
0:13:28.9 Christopher Brenton: Just checking my notes to make sure that I got his region right. He is the Division Commander for our North Central region, which oversees Gamma Tau, Delta Eta, Epsilon Kappa, Eta Theta, and Lambda Delta.
0:13:38.2 Drew Logsdon: Perfect.
0:13:40.7 Christopher Brenton: In addition to Jacob's service to his community, he continues to elevate his service to the Fraternity as well.
0:13:46.9 Drew Logsdon: I liked also, the Foundation episode. I think folks don't... I still think folks don't really understand what the Foundation does, its importance either, and why we need Sigma Nus to give time, talent, and treasures. And I think everyone... It's easy to say, it's easy to say, "I'm going to be involved after graduation." And I think we do... I think it's important for everyone to take a little bit of grace period after a collegiate experience, right, and get yourself back in neutral, maybe. But it cost dollars and cents to keep lights on. It cost dollars and cents to send consultants on the road. And it costs dollars and cents to have award-winning educational program and none of this stuff falls off a tree. And it's only going to continue to cost dollars and cents.
0:14:47.9 Drew Logsdon: And when people ask, like, "Hey, how come Sigma Nu... " "What do we... " When I was in staff, I heard a lot like, "It'd be great if we had the old version of College of Chapters again, which was like the emerging leaders kind of version of summertime College of Chapters. It'd be great if we had that again. That's on the roadmap, that's something that is going to likely come. But that stuff cost money. And you can't do that stuff without... And so it's like, "How come we don't have that?" Well, it's expensive. It's expensive to fly a bunch of people out to Lexington, Virginia, and do all the stuff and feed them and house them, and get the volunteers and everything.
0:15:29.2 Adam Girtz: Well, it's interesting, because it's like, "How do we actually complete our mission?" It's organizing that, time, talent, and treasure, and putting that all together. Which I think is so interesting, because it is like, it comes back to the core principle of fraternity in the first place. Because any old group of friends can rent a house together and have events and build each other up, strengthen each other and be a support group for each other. But when you put an organization around that, then you're able to accomplish so much more. And obviously, we see that in our chapters that's very successful.
0:16:12.2 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
0:16:16.8 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Well, and I'm just now realizing that I said season three, this was actually season two, I was getting ahead of myself. But season two was, I think, really, I would say almost star-studded, right? I just thought there were so many interesting characters that we had, and just so many interesting stories from that season. Christopher, our episode with Ben Kirby on Instafamous, I just thought that was such a fascinating backstory and I was glad we were able to talk to him about that, about PreachersNSneakers, and just about the modern condition of going viral on the internet and what that can do for you, both positively and negatively. I just thought that was such a great conversation. If I could go back and get another hour with anybody, I think it'd probably be Ben Kirby, just to hear more about that. And I guess, I would love to even update that one at some point in here, because he's still in the middle of that whole story, right?
0:17:17.4 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, it's so... We're so fortunate to have this incredibly diverse network of brothers. And then, to have the fortune of also being connected to very interesting people, through our own staff members is a double blessing. Past staff member Ben Nye, his little brother in the Fraternity at the University of Arkansas, was Ben Kirby, and that's how we were able to get connected to Ben Kirby. [chuckle] Two Bens, have to clarify. But Ben Kirby kind of blew up... Of course, you can listen to the episode to hear more about that story. But he became incredibly viral for his Instagram account PreachersNSneakers and is now in a space where he is brought in to have conversations about him, so he's appeared on other podcasts. And I'm trying to... As I'm talking, I'm also trying to look up. He was recently in a documentary about Hillsong, the Hillsong Church experience.
0:18:29.0 Christopher Brenton: I can't remember what network the documentary was on, but he was one of the individuals that they were interviewing to talk about that church and, unfortunately, some of the controversies that were surrounding that church. But it is really interesting to be able to find someone like Ben who has an incredible story to tell, is booked and busy, he is, not only in his own life, but then also all these appearances and opportunities for him to talk about his own work and his book and other interviews he's doing, but then for him to take the time out of his day to come on to our podcast and be able to talk about his experience through the lens of the Fraternity is just a really unique opportunity. I'm so glad that we were able to do that.
0:19:15.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Well, yeah. Then that's, I think, a big takeaway from season two was being able to examine, because these are... We were able to interview guys who have been interviewed in many other places, Bill Courtney has been interviewed all over the place, right? But I think we have that unique lens being able to interview them through the lens of their fraternity experience and what that means to them. Yeah, I thought that was very neat. Any other takes, hot or lukewarm, from season two. So season three then, we had College of Chapters with Scott Smith, The Value of Fraternity with Dr. Dawn Wiese, the #SafeSpringBreak Campaign with our very own Fred Dobry, Founders Month of Service with Lambda Gamma members, Hunter Kidwell and Anthony Nissen. We had Sleep and Vitality with Dr. Allan Mishra and DignityU with Mike Dilbeck.
0:20:18.9 Adam Girtz: So, another very loaded season, a lot of really neat things. I thought it was cool to be able to examine some of the programs that the fraternity is doing, across the spectrum. DignityU being a workshop that we offer. The Sleep and Vitality being a text campaign that you participated in with Allan, and the #SafeSpringBreak Campaign, Value of Fraternity webinar, College of Chapters. Really, this is a wide spectrum of things that the fraternity is already doing. In contrast to season two, where we really were talking about more generalized topics that are, I think, more relevant, even outside of the fraternity spectrum. I think a good comparison between those two.
0:21:14.9 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, that second episode, I think, is really critical in defining the thesis for that entire season, right? So, Value of the Fraternity. We have this constant struggle of members within our organization understanding their own personal experience, their own personal value, having been a part of the fraternity. But there is this ongoing effort and need to remind our alumni to be able to talk about, not only the value that those individuals received, the opportunity to pay that value back to the organization so it can be perpetuated for generations to come, the value aspect of it. And unfortunately, this is all existing within the context of increased scrutiny for fraternity and sorority communities across the country, just higher education being a hotbed in general for controversy and discussion and discourse.
0:22:18.2 Christopher Brenton: And so our alumni are asking us every single day, "How is the Fraternity providing ongoing value to our members?" And the podcast, now that it exists, is a perfect platform for us to continue to provide additional storytelling around, how is the Fraternity providing ongoing value for our current members and our alumni? And we're actually going to talk about, towards the end of the episode, a plug for a new opportunity that's about to come out for where we get to do some storytelling and get to talk about the value that our members have gotten from the Fraternity. But again, this is a really unique platform that really empowers storytelling, and almost every single one of these episodes features us telling the story of the Fraternity, getting the chance to tell the story of a value opportunity that it is providing for its members, which I really think is exciting.
0:23:12.1 Drew Logsdon: There's also an immense amount of value of talking to subject matter experts, and these are folks who frequently do not, I think, interface or... Yeah, that's a corporate synergy kind of BS term. I don't know why I just said that. You can tell I've worked for the for-profit sector now, interface. [chuckle] Folks who don't typically interact with the collegiate or alumni audience, like Scott Smith, think about all the impacts Scott Smith and his team have on the Sigma Nu experience, holistically. But very few people get a chance to meet Scott Smith, because he doesn't consult, he's not on the road. Or interact with him because when you do see him in-person, he's running around like a madman, chugging down Diet Cokes and Red Bulls, trying to run a convention, or trying to help run College of Chapters, right?
0:24:08.8 Christopher Brenton: Trying to, I would argue succeeding in that, usually. [chuckle]
0:24:09.3 Drew Logsdon: Yeah... He's running around plugging all the holes in the dam and troubleshooting things. So, you don't get a chance to interact with him too much. The opportunity to talk with him is huge. Same thing for Fred. If you've talked with Fred and you're an undergraduate, that's not a good sign. It's not a great sign of things. Maybe more so now, he does a lot more health and safety preventative stuff. But talking to these experts. And like Dawn, Dr. Wiese, is just phenomenal. And I love that one the most, that was my favorite from this season, that you guys just ran through the recaps of, because I think people do forget the value of fraternity. I think people forget the statistically significant value of fraternity. It's easy to be like, "Fraternity is important because it matter to me." That's how I view my experience. I want my son, I would love for him to join Sigma Nu, but I want my... They can do whatever they want, but I want my kids to at least explore the fraternity, sorority experience because it was so impactful to me and my wife. We both saw value in that.
0:25:23.5 Drew Logsdon: But if someone said like, "Hey, push come to shove, what data do you have?" I initially wouldn't have any, except feel-good feelings. And feel-good feelings look good on paper and advertising, but there's maybe not a ton of meat behind there. So, having Dawn talk about, "Here is some science, here are things that theoretically are irrefutable. These are numbers that are true and real, and these are outcomes that are true and real." And so next time... And I think this is actually more important, I think our alumni get it. I think our undergraduates need help in getting it better. And I think that's what that episode really helped with because when you have that, it used to be all the rage, and now it seems like it's fizzled out, but Abolish Greek Life.
0:26:19.9 Drew Logsdon: And it's like, listen, no one here wants to gild the lily, or look at the world through rose-tinted lenses, we're not naive, we can all agree that bad things happen everywhere in every organization. No organization or group of people is ever immune from bad actors. That is an inevitable outcome, that people exist in the world, they find themselves into positions, into places that they shouldn't be in. All that said, though, does being in a fraternity, is it beneficial to your mental health? Yes. Is it beneficial to your outcomes? Yes. Is it beneficial to what your future could look like after graduation? Yes. Does it improve retention and graduation? Yes. Does it help the university out because you have a higher affinity and you're more likely to invest back into that experience? Yes. Yes, yes, yes. These are the things that is why a fraternity is so important still. And sorority, for that matter. I love that episode.
0:27:24.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Yeah, it's neat. I think I was able to see that, Dr. Wiese give that presentation. I forget if that was at FMRT or somewhere else. But to be able to then hear that and share that, that experience with a wider audience, I think, is really valuable. One thing that we did this last season that, that I would love to see happen again, is recognizing our active collegiate members. Working with Lambda Gamma was really cool, and getting to hear from their perspective, I thought, was really neat as well. Christopher, what do you think about that...
0:28:08.2 Christopher Brenton: No, I completely agree.
0:28:10.6 Adam Girtz: Next season.
0:28:11.6 Christopher Brenton: Yeah, no, I completely agree. I don't know... Well, actually, no, we do. We do have an episode lined up. Which We try not to spoil ourselves for our listeners, to keep them on their toes. But we do actually have a collegiate interview lined up towards the end of this upcoming season, that I'm actually pretty excited about. It'll tie in, thematically, with the end of the year and the beginning of next year. Hint, hint about any big events that happen around that time. But yeah, absolutely. I think that, again, going back to this whole idea of talking about the value of our experience, what Drew just shared about being able to explain to our collegiate members, what this value is, even if they are in the midst of receiving that value themselves. Being able to hear the voices of the young men who are receiving the benefits, the collegiate benefits of this experience, I think, is so important for our alumni who are casual listeners or casually involved with the fraternity, to get to see the tangible impact that this experience is having.
0:29:21.8 Christopher Brenton: Unfortunately, data is important and valuable. But for some, really the experience doesn't... Or sorry, for something to become believable, they need to see it impact those who they believe are credible in their ability to validate that experience or validate that claim. And so when we bring on our collegians, they're able to talk about the impact of their community service and philanthropy opportunities, or they're able to talk about their experiences as a collegiate officer in their chapter. I think that does tremendous work in convincing our alumni... Not that they necessarily need to be convincing, but showing to our alumni that, "Hey, this experience is still providing killer value for our collegiate members, it's giving them lifelong skills they are going to be able to take with them into the workforce after they graduate, that they're providing opportunities for networking for them to create lifelong and long-lasting friendships." I 100% agree with that...
0:30:34.3 Drew Logsdon: Well, you want to get the testimony from the horse's mouth, right, the source of truth... It's one thing to see it on a pamphlet or brochure, it's written somewhere else, but to hear it directly from the person impacted by it makes the world of difference.
0:30:51.8 Adam Girtz: So I thought it'd be interesting... The platform that we use to publish our podcast...
0:31:00.3 Drew Logsdon: This is new!
0:31:00.9 Adam Girtz: Gives us... Oh. So, we're actually recording, and maybe this is a little bit of a meta-insight stuff, but we're recording through a site that allows us to video-share. So, we're talking on a video call right now, and we're actually, we're each recording locally to our machines through this site.
0:31:18.9 Drew Logsdon: Get out!
0:31:20.1 Adam Girtz: So that's why we're using this as opposed... Yeah, it's really cool. As opposed to... I think, actually, Drew, you, and I started with Microsoft Teams... Kind of Microsoft's, Zoom competitor. And basically, we would just record it and then just use that flat recording. And what would happen then is if somebody was... You had lag or internet issues or anything like that, that would come through. And so, actually, those first few episodes, I'm sure if we went back and looked, there's probably a couple of examples of when that would happen. But since we switched to this other platform, which, Christopher, I don't know if we want to plug...
0:31:57.8 Drew Logsdon: No, no, they... Well, they give you free swag. You don't get to plug them.
0:32:02.1 Adam Girtz: That's what I'm saying. Well, I'll be reaching out to you, unnamed platform, and asking for a sponsorship. Anyway. No, so since we switched to this, the recording goes local to everybody's machine and then re-uploads after. So we get a perfect recording from everybody synced up, which is really cool. But yeah, what I was talking about is what we used to publish which is Simplecast, and that's a pretty common one for people because it'll put it out to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, everywhere else. But it does give us our top episodes and how many downloads each one gets. So I think, looking at the all-time top downloads, I'm going to exclude then episode one, two, and three because those are our top three and people start from the beginning...
0:32:50.6 Drew Logsdon: The original trilogy.
0:32:51.4 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Oh, absolutely.
0:32:52.3 Drew Logsdon: That was the original Lucas vision trilogy episodes, "Untainted" by JJ Abrams.
0:32:57.5 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:32:58.7 Drew Logsdon: Or George Lucas 2.0. [chuckle]
0:33:00.7 Christopher Brenton: Just pure, purity of those episodes.
0:33:04.1 Adam Girtz: "Untainted" by Christopher Brenton, is that what you're trying to say... [laughter]
0:33:05.6 Christopher Brenton: I'm scared of being Rian Johnson in this scenario.
0:33:08.5 Drew Logsdon: That's the canon episodes, everything has a built around those three episodes.
0:33:12.1 Adam Girtz: Absolutely. Well, leaving those three episodes out, our next highest ones then, in terms of downloads are, our number four is episode nine, Honor with Jacob Rudolph. And then our number five is actually episode 13, College of Chapters with Scott Smith. And then our number six is our Bonus Episode with Curt Menefee. I just thought that was interesting that, after you get rid of the top three that are probably people just starting from the beginning and listening from there, and are also our older episodes are going to have the most downloads. That Honor episode, which I would say is probably one of my favorite interviews that we've done. And then College of Chapters with Scott Smith. I thought that was interesting that that's in there, because that is more of a, maybe even collegiate-focused. I thought there would be a smaller response to that...
0:34:10.6 Drew Logsdon: I get that. I would think that too initially, but College of Chapters, to think, is older than what we all think... This current version of it is not super old, but the term "College of Chapters", this idea of an intentional thing is older than we probably think. It dates back to what, the '70s or something? I'm asking subject matter experts and getting blank stares.
0:34:33.9 Adam Girtz: Yes.
0:34:34.5 Drew Logsdon: So... That could be... Yeah. "Sure, sure, Drew." [laughter]
0:34:38.1 Drew Logsdon: '70s... Sure...
0:34:38.1 Christopher Brenton: Well... Well, Drew, Scott's not on this episode...
[overlapping conversation]
0:34:41.9 Drew Logsdon: I think we need our subject matter Scott. I'm really embarrassed. I just said that was my favorite episode. I would be really embarrassed if Scott mentioned the time in that episode, and I just didn't pick it up... I'm not... Yeah. I'm not hugely...
0:34:56.5 Christopher Brenton: Oh, it's definitely in there. [chuckle]
0:35:00.4 Drew Logsdon: I guess I am. I'm 50-50 surprised-unsurprised. I'm not sure what that equates out to. I think College of Chapters if my memory serves me correctly, it is older. Not what it is today, but the terminology, the idea behind it is older than what we may think. And so I think a lot of folks...
[overlapping conversation]
0:35:18.6 Christopher Brenton: 1950s.
0:35:19.6 Drew Logsdon: So a lot of alumni probably come into it like, "I remember this, I remember hearing about this and knowing this existed." What do they do now? And I think a lot of people have experienced something like that.
0:35:32.8 Christopher Brenton: And to your point... Yeah. Well, and to your point too, the benefit of this podcast is getting to talk about it and contextualizing exactly what we're saying. The College of Chapters beginning in 1950 looked one way, and it has evolved and now looks completely different. And so, I don't imagine that we are making substantial changes for the 2023 College of Chapters. But even still, an alumnus who has been out of his collegiate chapter for 20 years, 20-plus years, is not necessarily going to be able to recognize the College of Chapters as it is today. Primarily because College of Chapters back then used to look a lot more like what, an Emerging Leaders Academy or something like that might look like, especially when it was taking place during the summer months. Now that it has evolved into more of a focus on our chapter commanders, completely different.
0:36:31.3 Drew Logsdon: Yeah. That's interesting. The Honor one, I love that one. It is interesting. That's number four. But I think that... That tracks, right, honor is our...You ask people, we're the honor-based fraternity. Honor is the critical piece of our DNA as a fraternity, as our membership, and so... It's, again, not surprising because I've heard the content for all of them. Surprising in the sense of, I'm not sure if that's how I would order it. If you asked me cold, "Hey, would you order these by what you thought was the most popular?" Which is good.
0:37:17.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah.
0:37:17.0 Adam Girtz: Yeah. And as we get more and more downloads, I think it's cool to watch some of that. The other thing that I love looking at, and this is just a fun one is, the all-time top downloads by country, location of the download. United States, 96% of our downloads. But we have...
0:37:35.1 Drew Logsdon: So where is the other 4%?
0:37:38.9 Adam Girtz: That's what I'm saying. [laughter] We have a 0.8% or less in the following countries: Ecuador, South Africa, Mexico, Germany, Jamaica, India, Russia, the UK, and the Netherlands. Which... Yeah, actually a good chunk of that is 14 downloads out of the Republic of Ecuador.
0:38:03.6 Drew Logsdon: That's got to be like a CIA black site, just downloading content off the internet.
[laughter]
0:38:09.0 Drew Logsdon: You got to imagine, that's just got to be some server room that's just downloading every podcast in the world onto some black ops kind of thing going on.
0:38:21.2 Christopher Brenton: We've been pretty aggressive with the hashtag, or tagging, internally within the publishing platform. It's probably just someone who is searching randomly for a specific key term as well, and just like, "What is this?"
0:38:34.8 Drew Logsdon: Do you know what's funny? This is... To go back in time a little bit, the idea of The Gavel Podcast, like, oh, it's named after the newsletter and that makes sense to us. I think in registering it, we had done some research, like, "Does this exist... " You can't say it's the name of... Someone else's name. Before the first episode, you just search The Gavel, you would almost think, "Oh, this is a law podcast, this is about the judicial system and judges and everything like that." No, it is not, it is not, my friend. Interesting. Interesting.
0:39:10.6 Adam Girtz: No, it is not. Yeah. I just wonder, yeah, if it's somebody who, yeah, is just searching for, just a word or...
0:39:19.5 Christopher Brenton: So what was it? It was Ecuador, South Africa...
0:39:22.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Ecuador, South Africa, Mexico, Germany, Jamaica, India, Russia, UK, and the Netherlands.
0:39:29.8 Drew Logsdon: There you go.
0:39:30.7 Adam Girtz: because I bet you, some of those have to be...
0:39:31.7 Drew Logsdon: E&R department. There you go. That's where... You want a target market, that's where people are looking for honor. There you go.
0:39:39.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah. We're establishing a chapter in...
0:39:44.4 Drew Logsdon: In Germany. Das Sigma Nu.
0:39:45.6 Adam Girtz: Yeah. In Jamaica.
0:39:47.2 Drew Logsdon: Das Nu.
0:39:48.0 Adam Girtz: Yes. [laughter]
0:39:50.8 Adam Girtz: I love it. I do wonder with that, though, if some of that is it just random, or I'm sure some of them are. But I wonder if some of that isn't an alumnus who was on vacation or lives now in...
0:40:05.7 Drew Logsdon: Or it could be. Yeah.
0:40:06.5 Adam Girtz: One of these places. That would be really cool. So, if you're that, you are that listener and...
[overlapping conversation]
0:40:11.0 Drew Logsdon: I'm imagining if I was on a week-long vacation, and it was in Ecuador, it'd be like, "I need to listen to something on the flight back home," or something like... Yeah. Just download. Download them all, download them all.
0:40:25.4 Adam Girtz: Yep. Yeah. Well, if you are that listener, if you're listening in somewhere other than the 96% of our downloads in the United States, reach out news@sigmanu.org...
0:40:37.0 Drew Logsdon: If you downloaded your episode outside the continent of United States, you need to let these guys know. So, get to the bottom of this.
0:40:44.5 Adam Girtz: Please, tell us. We will read your email on the... Not your address, but the email that you sent us. I'd love to hear your story. Anyway, I just thought that was fun. Yeah. And let's see. There's statistics... I don't know if we want to share the all-time downloads. I don't know if that's telling ourselves too much, but I'm proud of it, I think it's really cool. We're just, almost hitting... We just hit 1600.
0:41:14.7 Drew Logsdon: There you go.
0:41:18.4 Adam Girtz: And moving into 1700, right? 1697. Which, I think, Drew, when we'd started, you and I, I remember our conversation with you about the downloads and everything, and comparing ourselves against the other...
0:41:30.9 Drew Logsdon: Which you can't.
0:41:31.0 Adam Girtz: Podcasts that are out there, because you can't, right, yeah. because we're unique in so many ways. Yeah.
[overlapping conversation]
0:41:37.3 Drew Logsdon: It's like, you've got 100 feet of coastal beach land and that shelf water, where it's like, it's pretty deep, it's like 50 feet deep, and then it goes from 50 feet deep to a gajillion feet deep, that's what it's like. You've got Rogan, you get all the popular people at the very top. And then it goes from like, this is like a billion downloads, and then it goes to like sub 10,000, right? It's just a huge cataclysmic drop.
0:42:08.4 Adam Girtz: Which is every other podcast. Yeah, 99% of them. because, we were just talking about it, and it's like... It's something crazy, a majority of podcasts only ever have one listen and some of them don't even have one.
0:42:22.0 Drew Logsdon: You got to get them. Yeah.
0:42:23.5 Adam Girtz: And it's just one episode that somebody put up as just a, "Yeah, it's out there." But that categorizes as a separate show. I don't know. I've always been really excited about the downloads and listeners that we do have, and it's been really cool getting emails every once in a while from somebody who listens, that enjoys it. That really makes my day when we see those.
0:42:46.4 Drew Logsdon: You guys should take calls, next season. Start taking live calls.
0:42:52.4 Adam Girtz: I know. We've thought about it. I think it'd be cool to do like a listener stories, or a like, "Write in, give us your Sigma Nu story" type of thing.
0:43:01.3 Drew Logsdon: I'll call in. You give me the number, I'll call.
0:43:03.3 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. We'll do that.
0:43:06.7 Drew Logsdon: Paul I'll tell you what, that team ain't going to do it this year. Yeah, I'll call in.
[laughter]
0:43:13.9 Adam Girtz: Yeah, I'm thinking more like Art Bell, Coast to Coast. [laughter]
0:43:19.7 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, yeah.
0:43:23.4 Adam Girtz: Drew, you saw Bigfoot? Tell us about it.
0:43:24.5 Drew Logsdon: Yeah. Oh, man. Oh. [chuckle]
0:43:26.7 Drew Logsdon: I got a story... No, yeah. Taking callers would be a cool idea. I will say this. I don't have any skin in the game anymore, aside of the legacy that I helped found. But that's good. I think comparing... So, this all started, this whole idea of a podcast was just cooked up. Yeah.
0:43:52.1 Adam Girtz: I was going to ask you that. Where did we start...
0:43:55.6 Drew Logsdon: It was started with a conversation that, actually... This is a classic case of two trains going down parallel tracks, and then we collided. I had thought about this as Director of Communications. I'll give a shout-out to Alex Baker and the folks at TKE. They started a podcast, and for a period of time, this was years ago, podcasts were becoming big fraternities, sororities, and they still are. There's really good ones. And TKE had done one and did it really well, and that always interested me. And so, Director of Communications, like, "Maybe we should do this, this could be something good and of value." But I don't know if we can do this sustainably, we have a lot going on as well. And then in the power ranking of things you got to work on in priorities. The newsletter made more sense first, like The Gavel, something monthly segmented that made more sense. So, we did that first. And it always kicked in my head, but never stuck around too long. And that part of that, it's like, "I don't know, man, I've never done radio, I've never done a podcast, I don't know the equipment you need, the editing you need, stuff like that." It was just an idea.
0:45:08.8 Drew Logsdon: And then I think you and Justin Wenger on the staff team, Adam, you and him were having similar conversations about alumni engagement, like "How can we engage alumni?" And I think you guys actually scheduled a meeting with me, like, "Hey, we have this idea, what do you think?" And I was like, "Well, that's a really cool idea. I've also had that same idea. But if we've got three people willing to devote some energy to it, or two people, that's certainly better than one person, so let's look into it." And we did, and I think we were smart from the start of saying like, "We're not going to do this until we can guarantee we can do it really well. We're not going to do it with one butt cheek in the chair, we're not going to try to skimp on this. If we're going to do this, we're going to need to order equipment for it, we're going to need to price out the platform. How do we do this? How do we do editing? How do we be sustainable?" If you tell people they're going to get the paper everyday, you have to deliver that newspaper everyday. because if you don't, people lose faith and trust in it. And so...
0:46:09.4 Adam Girtz: You have to be ready to start delivering...
0:46:10.7 Drew Logsdon: Exactly.
0:46:12.1 Adam Girtz: Immediate.
0:46:12.6 Drew Logsdon: And so we actually recorded a couple episodes early on, we had a batch built up, I think. We had recorded a couple before we aired the launch ones. And it just started from that. And Chris hit the nail in the head, it was like, "What's another way we can talk to constituents?" We're in your inbox, we're in your mailbox, let's get in your ear box. And I think also the idea was, everyone... Podcasts are just really good ways to engage with an audience because almost everyone's going to listen to it at some point. You'll always find yourself in the car looking for something to listen to on Spotify, or you're on the treadmill, you're going out for a run, you're trying to find something to listen to, people will want that stuff. So, that's how it started it. It went really well, through all my tenure. I loved it. I still love it. I'm so glad you guys invited me back on. It prevented me for having to send the email begging to invite me back on.
0:47:14.9 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. [laughter] Yeah, it's been really cool to have you here. Hopefully, listeners enjoyed hearing the sound of your voice again. That's a neat thing to be able to bring you back and it's cool to be able to talk about some of the history...
0:47:31.4 Drew Logsdon: It was nice... Yeah. It's great. I think what you guys are doing is great. Like carrying the baton and making it better, like everything's going to get better. I don't come on here and like, "Oh, back in my day, we did it like this." So, it's getting... It's always going to be improving. I'm so excited for what's in store for what you guys have done thus far. I think this is a great format. It's a great medium to connect with folks. Yeah. It's awesome, man. Everything's awesome. It's like the Lego song.
0:48:05.6 Adam Girtz: Cool. Everything is awesome. I'm going to splice that in for the...
0:48:11.1 Drew Logsdon: You should.
0:48:11.6 Adam Girtz: Outro music. No, I don't know if I can do...
0:48:12.6 Christopher Brenton: You can only use like 10 seconds, probably have to pay a royalty.
0:48:17.1 Adam Girtz: Yeah, I know. I'm going to get the FCC just shut me down.
0:48:17.1 Drew Logsdon: Just get everything. Just everything, and then stop and then...[laughter]
0:48:21.5 Christopher Brenton: Yeah.
0:48:21.7 Adam Girtz: That's it. Creative license.
0:48:24.6 Drew Logsdon: Yeah.
0:48:25.1 Adam Girtz: I know, I have my rights. Christopher, anything for us to plug before I invite Drew to plug anything that he'd like to?
0:48:34.9 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Well, first of all, Drew, thank you so much for joining us, really exciting opportunity to be able to bring you back to reflect on this past year. We're excited for you to get to listen to what Adam and I have been cooking up for for season four.
0:48:47.9 Drew Logsdon: I am. You have me super intrigued...
0:48:50.3 Christopher Brenton: We won't spoil it...
0:48:51.8 Drew Logsdon: By the teaser, you gave earlier. I'm very intrigued by that.
0:48:58.4 Christopher Brenton: We won't spoil it on air. Perhaps, we might...
0:49:00.8 Drew Logsdon: Oh, really?
0:49:01.1 Christopher Brenton: Share some stuff behind the scenes. But we want to, again, keep the allure going for our listeners. But one thing that I did want to plug, the fortune of recording these in advance is that this will hit right after we have probably made this announcement publicly. But the fraternity is getting ready to launch a really exciting opportunity here in the next couple of weeks. So, if you maybe are familiar with a project that maybe your alma mater has done, I know I'm familiar with one that was done for my wife's alma mater at Furman University, but there's a company called PCI who they do these oral history projects, and Sigma Nu has partnered with PCI to launch our own oral history project. And so next week you should... Actually, at the end of this week... Let me actually place this in time.
0:50:00.1 Christopher Brenton: So, today is July 20th when we are recording this episode. Tomorrow, July 21st, we expect an email to go out to your inboxes that'll talk about the oral history project. And then next week, which is likely the week when this episode is going be released, we are going to expect that PCI will have shipped postcards to all of our alumni with active and current mailing addresses to talk a little bit more about the oral history project. But essentially what it is, is an opportunity for us to collect stories from our alumni about their Sigma Nu experience. We would love for every alumnus who has the ability to participate, to participate. What they're going to do is they're going to take a record of your story, and then all of the contributing stories will be bound in a hard copy book that'll be available to purchase.
0:50:53.8 Christopher Brenton: There's no expectation or obligation to purchase a copy. This is of no cost to the Fraternity. Essentially, the entire project is funded by our alumni who are interested in purchasing a copy of these books. So it's really a project that is going to be made by our alumni, funded by our alumni, and then we get this really cool keepsake at the end of the experience, and where we get to listen to and read the stories that our alumni have shared of their Sigma Nu experience. Once again, the title of the project is going to be "Our Story: The Oral History Project of Sigma Nu Fraternity". You'll start receiving information about that in your inboxes and mailboxes soon, as well over social media. The project is going to run between now through January 23rd. So we really want you to participate as soon as you have the chance, as soon as you receive more information about it.
0:51:44.6 Drew Logsdon: That's awesome. Yeah.
0:51:47.8 Christopher Brenton: Yeah. Really excited about it.
0:51:51.2 Adam Girtz: Drew, anything to plug as we're...
0:51:53.8 Drew Logsdon: Yes. I'll plug OmegaFi, and Pennington & Company. Pennington & Company, and OmegaFi, a year of working with the folks on those two teams has made me appreciate and have renewed faith in the for-profit sector. I always think there's always an edge or angle or something like that, but I have never worked with people who care so much about the folks they're serving. It's not, "Hey, we're serving X amount of customers at OmegaFi or Pennington." It's, "We're serving these specific named people, these specific chapters at these specific campuses of these specific fraternities and sororities, that's who we care about, we're committed to." Great stuff. And if you're looking for billing solutions, recruitment solutions, chapter communication, organization, capital campaigns, fundraising, even alumni engagement, which I think a lot of chapters could do a lot better job of regular alumni newsletters, alumni engagement pieces, websites, stuff like that.
0:53:04.3 Drew Logsdon: Pennington and OmegaFi have got all that in spades, and we just launched a new feature called LegFi Treasury, which is a really awesome feature, it allows chapters in your LegFi account to have treasury accounts, FDIC insured accounts. This eliminates cash handling, Venmo. You could have a house corporation account. You could have a meal plan account. You could have recruitment account, and you could divide funds between these accounts. You can issue treasury cards. With those accounts, manage them virtually, this is easy access to your money and when you need it, frictionless finance, this is the future. It is backed by an incredibly powerful banking partner. And so, super excited for what this can do for folks. And if you're interested on it, and if you're listening to this now, now is the time to get it started and get it going. I sound a little salesman pitchy here, and I'm not trying to do that too much, but you... [chuckle]
0:54:00.6 Adam Girtz: No. We invited you to plug and you are plugging better than anyone's ever plugged.
0:54:01.4 Drew Logsdon: Right. Well, you want to get the tool before the fall semester starts. You don't want to be halfway through fall and everything's gone to hell in a handbasket. And that's when you ask for, "Hey, my house is on fire. Does anyone have a fire hose or a fire extinguisher?" You need to get that stuff before your house catches on fire. So, I'll plug that. And other than that, nothing else, that's about it, as far as my plugs go. Thank you guys for having me on here. Super excited about that PCI thing as well too.
0:54:30.9 Adam Girtz: Yeah. It'd be cool.
0:54:32.0 Christopher Brenton: Can't wait to collect your story for the official book.
0:54:34.5 Drew Logsdon: Yeah, I'm interested...
0:54:35.5 Adam Girtz: Yeah, there we go.
0:54:36.9 Drew Logsdon: Let me ask this. Can I still get a book? Has that door closed?
0:54:46.1 Christopher Brenton: No, no, no, no, no. So the book will be bound at the conclusion of this process. Between now and January 2023, we're collecting the stories. Those are going to be sent to the Fraternity. We'll have the opportunity to...
0:55:04.1 Drew Logsdon: Vet... Vet them...
0:55:04.9 Christopher Brenton: Edit, probably small... Not vet, but small edits for spelling those types of things, just to make sure that before they go into the bound copy that they're ready for print. And then they will be bound into a hard copy that you can purchase. I'm sure, along the way, as people are participating, they'll be able to purchase them and then put into the queues to receive your copy. And then of course, as we get closer to the end of the experience, by making them available for purchase as well.
0:55:34.8 Drew Logsdon: I dig it. I dig it. Dig it big time.
0:55:36.1 Adam Girtz: Yeah. Awesome. Well, Drew, I've been looking forward for the last hour to ask you to do this. Will you please dismiss us with a big ole Hi Rickety...
0:55:49.9 Drew Logsdon: I will. My daughter's sleeping the next room, so I can't be too loud.
[overlapping conversation]
0:55:54.4 Adam Girtz: So maybe a medium Hi Rickety. [chuckle]
0:55:58.8 Drew Logsdon: Absolutely. Brothers, Legion of Honor, Hi Rickety.
[Outro Music]