Episode 9
What’s Really Changing in K–12 Tech? A Deep Dive into CoSN’s 2025 Report
In this episode of All Things Marketing and Education, Elana Leoni sits down with Keith Krueger, CEO of CoSN (Consortium for School Networking), to unpack the biggest takeaways from CoSN’s 2025 State of EdTech District Leadership report.
With over three decades of experience leading conversations around technology in education, Keith offers a grounded, systems-level view of where K–12 technology leadership is headed. From the rise of AI to the persistent gaps in cybersecurity readiness, Keith shares what’s keeping CTOs up at night—and where they see real opportunity for change.
Together, Elana and Keith explore:
- Why 91% of EdTech leaders now sit at the decision-making table and what that means for vendors
- The dramatic rise of generative AI as the #1 tech priority, even as 27% of districts still lack a defined approach
- Why most districts are underestimating major cybersecurity threats, despite being the #1 target for ransomware
- How workforce shifts are changing the makeup of EdTech leadership (and how still to communicate with buyers)
- What it really looks like to be a trusted thought partner, not just a vendor on the exhibit floor
This episode offers essential context for anyone working to align technology solutions with the real-world needs of school and district leaders. Keith shares not only what the data says, but how it feels on the ground, with honest insights about policy, pressure, and the practical realities of K–12 tech leadership in 2025.
🎧 Plus: Keith shares his favorite way to reset after a long day (spoiler: it involves an e-bike and a good podcast).
Mentioned in this episode:
Level Up Your Education Brand on LinkedIn— in Less Than 5 Hours a Week
A self-paced course built for busy education leaders, marketers, and EdTech entrepreneurs who want real results for their LinkedIn Company Page, without overwhelm.
Transcript
I will give you a good intro prior to after I listen to what we talk about so we know how to intro you. So I will start with just, hey, welcome to the show. just so you
Elana Leoni (:Welcome Keith to the show. I'm so excited to have you on. Sometimes I throw out invites to people and I say, wow, you've got this great thing. Let's talk about it. And I fully expect to know sometimes because you're so busy and you've been in ed tech for so long and education, but I am just so excited to pick your brain and the audience will learn so much. So welcome to the show.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Great. Wonderful to be here and looking forward to the conversation.
Elana Leoni (:Yes, all right. So why don't you tell our audience just a little bit about Cozen organization that you're a part of, your role there, and then we're going to dive into the report as well. So maybe talk about those little things to give some context, and then we're going to dive into all things AI, cybersecurity, and all the things in your report.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, COSIN has been around a little over 30 years and I've been running it for, I'm the CEO of this national or North American nonprofit professional association. like to say we, the association was created before a career path and we generically describe our audiences as the heads of EdTech in school districts. So they have lot of different titles. We generically put them under the umbrella of
chief technology officers, but they may be called something in your specific district. And we've seen a huge evolution in that role.
Elana Leoni (:I should have known this, but are you the original CEO given you've been there for over 30 years?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:I did not found it. I just outlived all the founders, but it actually, if you're familiar with EDUCAUSE, they started, they are the higher ed CIO organization, and they started as a project, COSIN, with an NSF grant and spun it out as a separate 501C3.
Elana Leoni (:Okay. Great.
Elana Leoni (:Mm-hmm.
Elana Leoni (:Got it, got it, okay. Well, I wanna talk about this report that you've recently released. So tell me a little bit about the report, just how long it's been around. I think it's in its 12th year, that? The 2025 State of EdTech District Leadership Report. Is it the 12th year?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:It is the 12th year, so we have really interesting data about the trends that our audience, people in charge of technology and districts care about. you know, just to step on the headline, you know, 11 years ago, all of the top five priorities, not a single one are the top five priorities today. The only thing from 11 years ago that was still on the list
was cybersecurity, but it was something like priority, I don't know, 12 or 13. It wasn't that high on the list. So things with technology not surprisingly change. And things like AI, even a year or two ago might not have been popping the way that it is today.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, and I really like in your report how sometimes, you know, this is what the 2025 report shows, but you map it to last year too, which is really nice because sometimes we don't know, we don't know the changes and that helps give us insights and just knowing the changes of what's more important, what's least important comparatively year to year.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, I think that's right, especially for partners that are thinking about it, that it's a must read. It's also a must read for, for obviously the CTO audience and their bosses, superintendents. Sometimes we get that question of, what do you mean by chief technology officer? Are you talking about my technical leader or are you talking about my instructional technology? And we like to say that
If you're really powerfully going to use technology, you need to see it as a strategic asset. the biggest strategic asset are people and the people who lead it. That's not to say there aren't technical or technological challenges, but the biggest problem is us, it's people. So how are the people who are leading technology and thinking about the future of education?
What's on their mind and what are they concerned about?
Elana Leoni (:Yes, and you're speaking a marketer's language a little bit there too. So for all of you listening that are thinking about, gosh, we're going to get deep into ed tech and you know, in school and district technology. Yes, we will get a little deep into it, but it's really important for you to put that lens on. Why is it important? Who are the humans behind it that I'm selling to? And that's what we're going to dive into a little bit too. But I want you listeners to really look with that lens. So speaking of people,
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah.
Elana Leoni (:This report shows that 91 % of EdTech leaders are now decision makers at the district level. So with 62 % of them serving on the superintendent's cabinet. So maybe talk to me a little bit about that. Is this a sign of meaningful integration or there's still some blind spots in how districts approached technology and technology, whoa, technology leadership?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:I think there is. been an exciting evolution. That's not to say it's there in every single school district, but especially in medium and larger districts. But even now in smaller districts, they see that technology is a strategic asset. I like to say it's very comparable to what happened with finance. If you think back to 40 or 50 years ago, there were bookkeepers and accountants.
But every school district today probably has a chief financial officer because money is a strategic asset. Well, technology is equally the same. You'll still have technicians, you'll still have integration specialists. But ultimately, if you want to really use technology, use things like AI or protect yourself from loss of data or things like that, you need to at a cabinet level have someone sitting there.
thinking about these things. And it's not a vertical department, but rather you need to think horizontally. And how do we enable the enterprise of the school system? And how does it affect operations? How does it affect teaching and learning? How does it affect the way we do contracting, the way we run the bus schedules? It touches everything and everything runs on it now. The network includes security cameras. It includes doors, locks. It includes...
the student information system. When it goes down, it's really hard for the school system to run.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, and we could go on and on with all the applications of technology in K-12 education. You you were there too, or it was like, all right, maybe we have one or two things we used in technology back in the day, but it is everywhere. And you mentioned some really
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, back in the day it was in a laboratory or they reeled it in a cart. Well, that's not quite what's happening today. And even the buses to and from school have Wi-Fi on them and kids have their own devices. And so there's all kinds of opportunities and challenges.
Elana Leoni (:Yes.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, so maybe let's talk about some something that is hot on everyone's mind and technology that has a ton of opportunity, but also has some challenges. There's some fear, there's some caution, rightfully so as well. So let's talk about AI. So your report focused one of the trends was AI. And generative AI in your report became the number one tech priority. In 80 % of districts report, they have some type of generative AI initiative underway.
But it also said 27 % of districts still don't have a defined approach. Like, where do you think everyone's at? How are we kind of reactively, and maybe some of them are proactively, getting their hands on what to do with generative AI?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:And I think K12 is not intended to be a fast changing sector. It's intentionally slow moving the steamship when you want to do course corrections. But actually, we're now a little over two years into having generative AI. And actually, the system is starting to move.
And this is the last year we asked for the first time, how would you best describe your strategy on AI? honestly, about 40 % said it was undefined. That's dropped to like 27%. So a lot has been happening. There's still not quite a third of the school districts that haven't done anything yet. we know that
There's a lot of anxiety that school districts are banning AI. Actually, according to chief technology officers, that's about 1 % of school systems. There's virtually no one out there that just has an absolute ban on it. That's because it would be pretty difficult today. Most products, even the products they already have,
are increasingly going to see AI solutions. But we are seeing more of a targeted, it depends on the use case. And we also, for the first time this year, asked, what kinds of policies do you have? And there still are 40-some percent who say they don't have a policy around it, which is disturbing.
But actually, the largest strategies we see are updating current policies. By that, mean acceptable use policies would be about a third of the districts have updated things like that, or their academic integrity policy. When AI came into schools two years ago,
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:And really it's dominated the conversation from an instructional perspective, is that there is cheating. the Stanford University has done some interesting research, which they had data prior to CHAT GPT, so three years ago. And they asked high school students and middle school students, are you cheating? And surprise, surprise, it was very high.
70 to 80 % of students agreed they were cheating. Then they asked them when ChatGPT existed, and it was statistically, again, high, exactly the same. So looking at your policies around cheating, it may be easier or they may be better at cheating with ChatGPT or AI, but we already had a problem there.
And we probably need a policy that needs to address cheating at large, not just cheating with AI. We also saw that some school districts are updating their policies around data and things like that. Some districts are creating completely new policies for AI.
Elana Leoni (:I mean, I would imagine it's moving so fast. So even if they do have a policy in place and guidelines in place, you have to update it at least quarterly because people are using it ways we never thought imaginable. The technology is evolving at such an accelerated pace. I went to the AI show this year, as I know you did as well, and I felt optimistic by what the leaders were doing, how they were sharing and collaborating.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah.
Elana Leoni (:how they were becoming personal users of AI so they could empower usage within their staff and their teachers as well. So there was some good things happening, but they all were humbly saying, hey, we don't have it all figured out because the technology.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:I think that's right. it's not, you know, it's policies and guidance. And in fact, guidance, if you have to wait for your school board, or you're waiting for your state legislature to pass policies that are, it's going to, so guidance is often more what we want, kind of the show the guardrails of, know, or under, you know, if your teacher says you can't use
AI in this class or this assignment and you break that rule, then there's a problem. But maybe there are situations where we actually want to start with AI, where the teacher says, let's do some brainstorming, and then you pick the one that you think is best and write an essay on that. Or it's more iterative. Maybe it's you have to
disclosure of when and how you use, we know the kids are going to be living in an AI driven world. That's where they're going to work. That's where they're going to go to higher ed. So disclosure of how they're using those tools seems to me to be critical.
Elana Leoni (:100%. One of my friends, a high school educator in San Diego, she recently wrote a blog post maybe like a couple months ago and it went crazy because it talked about these critical conversations that teachers now get to have with students about AI and usage. And if she notices that it was a cut and paste with AI,
she'll talk to them and they'll have a real deep discussion on what AI's role is. And sometimes she'll even assign an assignment to reflect on it. So sometimes these are opportunities together. We don't have it all figured out, but we know what's right. We know we want you to learn and critically think where it makes the most sense. for those of you that are interested in that blog post, I'll put it in the show notes as well. But Keith, when we talk about generative AI, there's so much opportunity.
But some of the things you mentioned, there's some also real cause for concern, right? We've got data privacy, we've got cybersecurity threats. As a leader, and there's so many onslaught of AI tools being sold to districts right now, how do CTOs navigate this? How do they balance it with the appropriate amount of caution? I know that's such a hard question.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Well, think first of all, our audience is very optimistic about the opportunities, but they are realistic in the sense that there are real threats. And because these are chief technology officers, number one on their bucket is cybersecurity and the threat that the criminals, the criminal sense, you know, have powerful tools. And so we're going to have to be thoughtful about how we use those tools to do good.
But they also are concerned, you know, just the lack of training that students and teachers have, the literacy aspects, they're concerned, you know, about breaches of information. They're concerned how you protect that. does the teacher and the student understand that when you put your data into, you know, into an open platform?
It's no longer private. So if you're creating an IEP for a student, that would be a really bad thing and would break federal and federal laws if you were doing that and disclosing who the specific student is. Now you still may be able to use some generic sorts of things, but you know, we have to be, we have to really educate ourselves around where the data is going and who has access to the data.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, and there's no like silver bullet answer here because everything's evolving too. But you're at the thick of it where you get to see and network and collaborate and partner with these heads in schools and districts that are constantly juggling technology. So it's really good to hear not only what the report is saying, but like, what do you feel like and it's good for you to hear. They're mostly optimistic, but they're cautious where it makes sense where it like
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Right, right.
Elana Leoni (:cybersecurity, data, all of the things that we should keep top of mind.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:And I think, you know, I live in Washington, DC, and you probably hear every day, you know, how at the federal level, AI is certainly front and center, but it's put almost solely in a category of our competition with China. And, you know, there is an economic dimension, but we have to be thoughtful about what guardrails and protections and
that we do this, especially in education where we're talking about children in a way that's thoughtful and isn't just a race to be their fastest, but to do it in a thoughtful and well way. So I think these concerns that are raised are ones that questions we should be asking around bias, around where the data resides. All of those things are critical.
for us to do this in a thoughtful and careful way.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, really good point. And I know that we could talk about AI for the rest of this show, but I want to get into a couple of other components of the report. And for those of you listening, the report that I'm mentioning, I'll link to it in the show notes as well. So you'll have direct access to this free report. Let's get into one of the things that we were hinting at, cybersecurity and the risk associated with it. That was another trend in the report. So cybersecurity continues to be a top priority, but it
Most district leaders underestimate the risk for major threats as it relates to cybersecurity, it seems. And one of the data points was really interesting. said 20 % or 27 % consider phishing a high risk, yet Homeland Security has indicated K-12 is the number one sector for ransomware attacks. So there's like a big disconnect here. Do you want to talk a little bit about the findings around cybersecurity and just how it's positioned within K-12 right now?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, I think over the last seven years or so, cybersecurity has been the number one concern for chief technology officers. Yet they're extremely under-resourced compared, know, our data in other years last year showed that only one in three school districts had one full-time equivalent dedicated to cybersecurity.
So it's a part-time responsibility in most school districts. It's hard to recruit people. When you recruit them, they get hired away by local businesses because school districts simply don't pay what others can pay for this kind of service. So it is interesting, as you pointed out, like with ransomware,
We're the number one targeted sector for that. yet when we ask, that was, fishing scheme scams are the number one thing that our audience is paying attention to, many of the other risks are just underestimated in terms of how much they have been, and it may be the old, don't know what you don't know.
about what's really going on. And that's problematic, I think, for our whole country.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, it's, I know that later on, we're going to get into a little bit of the staffing around it. But as people are trying to create relationships that are long term, and with people with influence and purchasing around technology, know that they're moving around a lot, just because of the system, like they can't really control it. So they're moving around, and they're under resourced, they have negative time, right?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, yeah. Well, it's really hard to, there's, we do ask some questions around what kinds of things run on your network that weren't running on your network 10 years ago. And, you know, everything from heating and cooling to doors and locks to, you know, the cafeteria plan, everything, the schedule, it's quite overwhelming in the sense of
the network is really doing everything.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, I was in like, when I looked at the report, I noticed that the some of the top concerns were phishing and student data leaks, but student data leaks was a little bit lower than I anticipated. And maybe this happened before that big data leak happened when you took the survey. But you know, we've seen bigger student data leaks, and we've actually seen school districts now sue EdTech operators as a result of that. Like, there's a lot of drama going on. Do you want to talk a little bit about like,
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah. Yeah.
Elana Leoni (:the evolution of student data leaks as it relates to all of this.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, I think you're right. would guess that as we do this survey next year, we'll probably see a bump in concerns around vendor data that they have of that is the school districts. And there was also a lot of interesting data around cyber insurance and the problems there. They see that the costs of the
Elana Leoni (:Mm.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:of cyber insurance is going up. They see that the coverage is the deductibles are going up and the number of providers is going down. It's, you know, I like to say it's sort of if you're in the insurance business, do you want to be selling hurricane insurance in Florida? Probably not. And unfortunately, when you're the number one targeted sector for things like ransomware.
it's probably not the kind of business that a lot of carriers want to be in. And so the old assumption that, well, we have cyber insurance, so therefore we're covered, may not be as true as perhaps in the past. Yeah.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, the last thing that kind of blew my mind a bit when I was looking at cybersecurity of somebody who looks at when I talk to marketers or sales, we always look at where's the money, where's the resource allocation, how can they easily pay for it because then we understand who the stakeholder is and we can track, make it as easy as possible and say, okay, here's the line item of budget. But in your report, it said 61 % of districts have no dedicated cybersecurity budget. I was just like,
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Right.
Elana Leoni (:How do you figure out?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, it just comes out of general operations. you know, that means particularly in this environment where there are federal and state cuts that are happening, especially as the pandemic funding has been eliminated, that means that cybersecurity is going to have to be fighting for against all the other priorities. And yet, you know, this is not
something that you can, given all of the other things, it's like paying for heating or cooling. It's an essential requirement for today for all of the solutions that we have.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, it's just really an interesting exercise every time they do budgeting. They have to fight for it within the general funds, right? So depending on what else is going on.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Exactly. And the cost of cybersecurity is going up. you have to make sure that your superintendent, your chief financial officer really understands what's at risk. And I know some of the data that we've been seeing from other organizations kind of telling what's at risk.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:me find it.
Elana Leoni (:That's where I was going with it. So I'm glad, so glad you're going and when you're finding the actual data, cause in my head, was thinking, gosh, what does this affect? Because if these costs are increasing and they're essential, especially the survey has data to back up how essential they are. What, what's on the chopping block as a result?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Well, what I was going to talk about is what the impact of cyber attacks are and the data. And this comes from the federal government. They issued this last year. They said that from a learning perspective, if you have a cyber attack, it has an impact of three days to three weeks. Recovery can take two to nine months.
Elana Leoni (:I don't know.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:And financially, it costs an average of $50,000 to a million dollars. you pay either in prevention or you pay in recovery. So I think that that's one of the challenges that doesn't always come through to a superintendent or their chief financial officer thinking, well, we just don't have to pay for that. But it's significant.
Elana Leoni (:Like you pay for it in one way or the other, it sounds like, right? I mean, I don't want to laugh at that, but it is the time that we have of really just trying to figure out what makes the most sense, what is truly critical in our budgets, especially as we start seeing shrinking budgets in the next couple of academic school years.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah.
Elana Leoni (:So why don't we jump into another trend? You explored workforce shifts and diversity. And we talked a little bit about this, but I want to dive a little deeper because for those of you that are partnering, becoming thought partners, have partners, are looking to sell to schools and districts, this is critical because you got to know who you're talking to. So the ed tech field as it relates to districts, staff is evolving. And this year,
we see a majority of those district leaders coming from tech backgrounds for the first time. You want to talk a little bit about that?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, since we have 10-year data, first of all, there isn't one career path. So some people will have educational backgrounds. Some people will have more technical. And a few people will have more like a business background or things like that. But the shift that we've seen in a decade is that it
used to be that like 58 % came from education backgrounds. That has shifted to this year for the first time ever, 52 % come with a technical background. Part of that may be because issues like cybersecurity and AI have a more technical background. Now, we also see that
there's been a shift in terms of gender. Women have historically been a little over a third of the sector, which is actually fairly high compared to other technology sectors, but probably because it's in the education sector and people had backgrounds in education, those were disproportionately female. But we are now seeing that decline.
We saw a big decline this year. We're not sure if that was just a one year, you know, based on the data of who was taking the survey or not. So we're monitoring it. It's still, you know, one, two thirds male, one third female. But we also, in terms of non-white people who are in leadership roles,
That's been pretty stable for the last decade. It hasn't moved much, despite a lot of efforts to diversify the workforce. We do also see, it's interesting the people, we've seen some shift in the age range. First of all, about 70 % have eight years of experience or more. 43 % have 15 or years or more.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:but there are a lot of new people in the field. So if you're trying to work with school districts, you're gonna see a lot of people who are only there, they're new to the position or less than four years.
Elana Leoni (:And that might be, like you said, because the technology is evolving so fast, right? And that might also be because of the shift of the AI. you said, well, people from technology backgrounds, and they might not have all the experience that typically. So it's interesting to see how they interplay, right?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Exactly.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Exactly, and people who have matured in the field over the last 20 or 30 years might be saying, well, it's time to move on because I don't understand all these new challenges.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, and for those of you listening, I want you to kind of do a mental checklist of everything Keith said and we'll give you the report as well. But can you...
look at who your ideal customer persona is, and then what are these new insights? How would you tweak it a little bit? You're like, gosh, you know, he's right. They're a little bit less experienced. Some of them do come from non-traditional education backgrounds. There's no one career path. They're moving around a little bit. The women percentage is shrinking a little bit. The diversity is staying the same. So I want you to think about it as you start relating to who you're talking to.
and where they come from and who they are in their background really underscores the need for decisions of like, all right, if I come from a technical background, I'm gonna be asking lots of technical questions. You're gonna have to give me lots of technical information. If I come from a business background, I actually wanna hear about ROI, which typically in education, they say that buyers don't care about ROI. So know who you're selling to. And these are really good.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:And you started by talking about the trend of having so many more people at the cabinet level. We're also seeing improvement in terms of salaries for the chief technology officer. Over the last few years, it's moving up every category. Now, some of that's inflation, but it isn't all. There's been significant growth. And as school districts, I think, realize they can't
this sort of senior executive in technology without paying them.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, that's a good point. So we dove into three main areas and trends. I know in the report, how many trends are there? At least seven? There are a lot. So for those of you that want to know about funding and sustainability, equity and access, there's so many other trends. We will reference the report in our show notes as well. And before I let you kind of talk about COSIN a little bit and where they can find it on your website, Keith, why don't we wrap up and just
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:There are a lot.
Elana Leoni (:Think about like if you are in the shoes of people that are trying to partner and sell to schools and districts as it relates to technology, what is that mindset or shift you need or what are the, what's the main takeaway from some of this data that you're like, this is fundamentally important that they understand this.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah. Well, I think that fundamentally, you know, school leaders in charge of technology are looking for a partner. And the more you understand what their problems are and what they're trying to solve, the better you're going to do. And I think as opposed to leading with I have a solution, it's a way to start the conversation is to say, you know, this is what
COSIN has identified as a national trend, and here's how we're trying to address it. It's flipping the conversation so that your professional association has said, this is things you might be seeing. Is this happening in your school district? And here's the national data, and here's how we're responding to it. That's how we've successfully seen companies.
We work with, gosh, almost 150 solution providers. And we really fundamentally believe in technology. You can't have that strategic conversation if you just have the company sitting out in the exhibit floor. You have to be part of the conversation and be a thought partner with them. Take off your sales hat for a moment and try to really understand what their problem is.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, well said. mean, we say this more and more, but now I can't think of a more fundamentally critical time to do so, especially in technology. Things are moving so quick and we know sales cycles are longer.
So how do we keep it in long-term, build long-term relationships with just like, hey, saw on your school board, they're talking about this. Saw that you got a grant for this, but I know it's hard to use those funds. Or hey, notice the district next to you is having cybersecurity problems. Like get ahead of it, be proactive, be a thought partner. I love it. All right, so.
Before we wrap up, we love asking one final question. But before we do, you mentioned that you partner with a lot of EdTech organizations and education brands. Can you talk a little bit about, if somebody is representing an education brand or an EdTech brand that's listening on the call, how would they kind of get in touch with your organization and potentially partner with your organization?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah, well, we up on our website. Well, first of all, we have a partnerships lead, Carla Wade. So she is always available to have a conversation with you. We have a lot of opportunities. We have a lot of what I would call thought leadership efforts. So whether it is on AI or cybersecurity or privacy of data or sustainability, though, know, depending on what you're you're interested in.
in marketing to K-12, consider becoming one of our partners on that. And that means you sit alongside of CTOs who are interested in that and you co-create resources. So if you go to our website, cosin.org, you'll see all kinds of toolkits, checklists, case studies, highlighting kind of, and this is an opportunity for you to nominate
know, school districts that you think are doing a good job. honestly, the companies we work with love it. They said that this is one of the highest value ways that they connect with customers to really show that they're not just trying to sell you something, they're trying to co-create kind of solutions.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, and that is literally you sitting at the table and being that thought partner and listening and being associated with an organization like yours for 30 plus years that have helped lead the field in terms of thought leadership. like that's a shift, right? So it's an intentional shift to be able to understand how close can I get to the trends and the people as well to not even position yourself as a thought leader. I hate that word, you know it, but it's like we are here to help. We're here to help. We know the trends.
we're close to the data. And that's really.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Well, in these leadership initiatives, like, you know, our cybersecurity advisory group will look at the data and then say, well, you know, these are the problems. could we create that would be, you know, to help the community? that being at the table, really, you understand a lot more what exactly the community is facing.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, that's great. All right, so our final wrap up question. I mean, maybe before tell people how they can get in touch with you, Keith.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Sure. Obviously, everything's on our website, cosin.org. But if you want to reach me, keith at cosin.org, because I've been doing this so long, it's really simple, keith, K-E-I-T-H at cosin.org. Being the first employee, you get an easy email.
Elana Leoni (:Yep, and you're already also on LinkedIn as well and I follow you there. All right, I used to listen to a ton of leadership podcasts and I still do, but the ones that stuck with me had a fun wrap up question where I got to understand.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:I am.
Elana Leoni (:all of us as humans, because we're dealing with so much and you particular you're a leader in a field that's rapidly evolving with so much promise and we get excited. But then there's some challenges, some real challenges you're dealing with daily. So what do you do to keep your energy to replenish when you've had those days that you're like, I can't do this anymore. What's the thing that keeps you inspired and replenishes your energy could be a hobby could be some things you're reading podcasts, but what's your go to?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:I think, you know, at this time of year, it's biking. Being able to get out on my electric bike and just kind of let your mind clear that in the winter, my answer might be downhill skiing. But that's not to say that I don't, you know, watch streaming or I'm reading lots of books, but the most clear...
Elana Leoni (:you
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:mind clearing thing for me right now is biking.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, and it's probably because you don't think about anything else, right? It just gets you in that moment. And when you ring out in nature, gosh, you know, your eyes refocus, everything kind of comes to life a little bit more, right?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Right.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:I do have a tendency to listen to podcasts while I'm on the bike. So that could bring me, bring me a horrifyingly back into the reality of our political world.
Elana Leoni (:you
Elana Leoni (:Really quickly, what's your favorite podcast that you're kind of your top?
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:I listen to the NPR, the daily, because I live in Washington, I'm a policy geek, I listen to that and keeps me up to date on them. But I also like Simon Sinek has some great, it's a great one that I like. And there's some tech ones too that I listen to.
Elana Leoni (:Mm-hmm.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, I think what I love about having everybody on the show is that coming from an education background, we're all lifelong learners. We're all constantly trying to learn. And if we're not learning, especially with evolving technology like AI, we're being left behind quickly. And I've been inspired by school leaders that typically don't move as fast, all of a sudden embracing this new technology, being curious. And they have to do that to demonstrate it to their staff too.
So there's some really cool things at play. And I think that our strength in our sector is we don't typically move as fast, but we do have that asset of being just really curious, lifelong learners.
Keith Krueger, CEO CoSN (:Yeah. And I think the mindset, especially in an AI-driven world, that it's not there to replace us, but rather to help us do our jobs better, I hope, and help us learn better.
Elana Leoni (:Yes, yes on that note, Keith, I wanna thank you so much for your time. I will put all of the resources in our show notes folks at all things marketing and education on leoneconsultinggroup.com. And for those of you who listening that you did like this show, please feel free to give us a rating, give us five stars. And if you really, really love us, put a little bit of a review that helps us reach more people. So thank you all. And again, I always challenge you at the end.
What are one or two things that you can take away that will fundamentally shift your perspective on how you approach things, what you do, what are some insights that you wanna share within your organization? So thank you all for joining. We will see you next time on all things marketing and education. Take care, everyone.
