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What You’ll Learn
In what’s become an annual tradition, hosts Megan McKoy-Noe and Andy Johns share the mics to discuss major takeaways from last week’s Calix ConneXions conference. Ding!
Show Notes
Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.
Intro: A production of Pioneer Utility Resources. StoryConnect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers.
Andy Johns: What do two podcasters think about the Calix ConneXions Conference? That’s what we’ll be talking about on our third annual StoryConnect episode of, kind of reflecting on the week here at the Calix ConneXions Conference. My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer, and I’m joined once again, as I said, for the third annual one of these by Megan McKoy-Noe.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Hi, y’all.
Andy Johns: Thanks so much for hopping on. So, we’ve got MDUs. We’ve got VBOs. We’ve got NPS. Omg, we have a lot to talk about. Let’s get through all of the things that we were talking about here at the Calix ConneXions. As I said on most of the episodes here, we are at the epicenter of rural broadband here in the United States, for at least for this week at the Wynn here in Las Vegas. Megan, this is your third time coming here. I know that we kind of alternated some sessions on purpose so that you could go to some, and I could go to some. There are a lot of different things. “Ecosystem” was a word thrown out a lot. MDUs, with those multi-dwelling units, like apartment buildings. So much talked about. What are some of the takeaways that you heard from the last few days out here in Las Vegas?
Megan McKoy-Noe: It has been exciting, and we weren’t even on the strip.
Andy Johns: True.
Megan McKoy-Noe: So there have been a lot of really fun conversations and things that I didn’t know about, which is one of the things I like about coming and hanging out with other storytellers. You get to learn new things. I didn’t know that Calix has a community online just for sharing ideas. It’s mainly being used by folks that geek out over technology, but it is also available for marketing and communication folks. So we had some good conversations about that, which was nice. They’re going to start with Mad Marketing Mondays.
Andy Johns: I heard that. I think one of the interesting things too, is it’s been interesting over the years, and when I was trying to count it up, this is probably number 7 or 8 for me out here. And it’s been interesting to see, there was, you know, some COVID time in the middle there, so it’s been closer to a decade of coming to these. And the attitudes between folks, because there’s such a mix here. There are folks that are municipalities. There are folks that are, you know, cooperatives. There are telcos that have been doing broadband for a long time there. You know, entities in tribal areas. There are, you know, more venture capital, type folks that are here. And it’s almost a feeling I’ve noticed the last couple of years is not as much competing with each other as, hey, there’s a big task that we have to connect America. There are a lot of different solutions to do it. So let’s learn from each other here. And I think that, I feel like that came through a little more this time than maybe it has other years. I don’t know.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yeah. You know, they have different tics every year. And this year everything started out with some small roundtables, and we were just discussing things together. I was at a table talking about VBOs, which is value-based offerings.
Andy Johns: Acronym number one. We need a sound effect.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Ding.
Andy Johns: Yep.
Megan McKoy-Noe: So I had not heard that before, but it was another way to phrase something we’ve talked about before. And that was a lot of fun. Everyone was just sharing different words. And one works best. And I jotted down a few of them. “Simple and secure” was one of the areas that they give instead of talking about speed, of course. And we talk about this in our broadband marketing guide, the new one that came out earlier this year. And they said, the folks at SCTelcom said that they had to take family out of the names of their plans. They had connected family, and they got feedback that said, you know what, I might not necessarily have a family. I just want a connected home, which I thought was really interesting. So folks are sharing what they’re learning and the perceptions of these value-based offerings that they’re building and putting together. I think tech titan was another one of my favorites. And then I was talking to Ty from ECE Fiber in Minnesota. And he said, dashboard or no, what was it, tech? Oh, it was something really exciting.
Andy Johns: The minimalist?
Megan McKoy-Noe: No.
Andy Johns: Technological minimalist was the word that I heard that was one of the personas.
Megan McKoy-Noe: One of his?
Andy Johns: I had practiced that one before the podcast. Technological minimalist.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Five times fast.
Andy Johns: A lot of Scrabble points there. And, they, yeah, that was another persona that people are having. It’s gone a lot beyond what those value-based offers that, you know, kind of the low hanging fruit is gamers. And then it’s worked from home, but people are getting more and more segmented in just how they how deep they can get in when they’re talking about what they actually offer.
Megan McKoy-Noe: They are, and what I really loved is when I was interviewing Ty, and we’ll have him. He’s one of several stories that we were able to capture at Calix ConneXions this week, but when I was talking to him, we dived into how you were then tracking the metrics of each specific value-based offer,
Andy Johns: Right.
Megan McKoy-Noe: And doing that by specific communities as well. And so really digging into the data. And that’s one of the other things that I don’t know if you’ve been hearing about this a lot, but hearing how folks are really taking the metrics and turning them into motivation for their crews and to better success.
Andy Johns: Which brings us to our next acronym of the podcast,
Megan McKoy-Noe: Oh, joy.
Andy Johns: NPS.
Andy & Megan: Ding!
Andy Johns: That the Net Promoter Score is one that was talked about. We talked about it, I believe, on the last episode that we did like this.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Sure.
Andy Johns: It has become something that a few years ago, very few people in this industry were talking about. Now everybody’s talking about it. They continue to make a big deal out of that at the different scores folks have, what’s driving those numbers up. And I think what was interesting, talking to a few folks is that, that is a full team sport, the NPS. That’s not anything that the marketing department can do by itself. That’s not anything that the CSRs can do by themselves.
Megan McKoy-Noe: No.
Andy Johns: That takes the entire organization that’s going to drive that Net Promoter score up. And I think that was interesting to hear from folks.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yeah. No, I love that. And for folks that have not gotten on the NPS bandwagon yet, it’s just how people feel about you,
Andy Johns: Right.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yeah.
Andy Johns: Are they likely to recommend you to other folks?
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yeah.
Andy Johns: So, or how likely they are.
Megan McKoy-Noe: How likely they are. One other phrase that just made me happy. Because, you know, there’s certain phrases I’ll hear, and you have a couple that you’re going to share later that are just, they just hit home for you. And someone was talking about using data to know when people are having a bad experience and to track, like, the size of their home, and to know if the home is being served well and letting the techs know how to make a better experience. And someone said, you need to bring down walls to improve your experience at home. And I –.
Andy Johns: Metaphorically.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Metaphorically, but also like being aware of how many walls are in a home. I mean, that’s kind of true. But I, for some reason that just hit home for me and thinking about the experience and how you can before anyone calls with trouble, how can you anticipate what the needs are? Using the data, using what you know about the home before you even get there for the install?
Andy Johns: Yeah, which is a great segue into the next piece I was going to talk about. One of the key pieces to piggyback off of that Michael shared, the CEO of Calix. He got a call from somebody that he had known for years that had just signed up and finally gotten a service from a provider that used Calix. So on screen, he showed the property and Michael had told this person that he might struggle unless he got these extra components. He might struggle to get the service all the way out in his detached garage shed area. And he said, no, it should be fine. But when he got it set up, he called Michael back and said, “You’re right. I need this other stuff. Why didn’t they help me out by telling me that?”
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yeah.
Andy Johns: And I think that really goes to what – and we talked about it on a few of these for a while – but a lot of folks are becoming more and more familiar with the idea of selling, but particularly.
Megan McKoy-Noe: It’s so hard.
Andy Johns: On the electric, you know, electric side, they haven’t had to do a lot of selling. And the same with municipals.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Well, and it’s one thing that you’re selling. I mean, it’s not complicated. Broadband is complicated.
Andy Johns: It turns out. But the idea that you’re not selling to make a buck, these folks need help. And if you are talking with them, get to know them and realize, “Oh, yeah, he does have a swimming pool out back. He does have a detached garage. He needs some service outdoors.” That outdoor service was really the big thing talked about that came out last year. I would say in terms of the physical layout of the Wi-Fi at the home, it was MDUs, which is our third acronym of the podcast.
Andy & Megan: Ding.
Andy Johns: So MDUs meaning, that multi-dwelling unit, where they are, all the apartments, condos, that kind of thing. That was the big focus is looking at how to get folks service in the backyard so that the strong Wi-Fi service can be anywhere on the property. And then also how to get the service in an apartment. The way that they talked about it today, 30% – I didn’t know this – 30% of Americans live in what’s considered an MDU.
Megan McKoy-Noe: I had no idea.
Andy Johns: So apartments, condos, duplexes, all that kind of stuff.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yeah.
Andy Johns: And more and more, though, especially in the bigger cities, typically the self-driving or not self-driving, the electric cars are going to be a lot of the time – it’ll be self driving soon.
Megan McKoy-Noe: I was going to say.
Andy Johns: Are down in the parking deck, which may be underneath the apartments, and the electric vehicle chargers may be on the very bottom floor, which means those cars need Wi-Fi all the way, 3 or 4 stories underground to be able to download the new software updates and everything. He said, if you’re thinking about an apartment complex or condo as just single family homes stacked on top of each other. You’re missing the point. So, you know, using the equipment, of course, that Calix has available; other providers do, too. But just the thought that to think of those apartments, those condos and I know a lot of our more rural listeners may not have those, but to be thinking about that as just an entirely different, you know, thing to approach, I think is interesting.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yeah. No, I love that. I think it all comes down to understanding the experience and the needs, and those needs are not static. They are constantly changing as technology is evolving, so.
Andy Johns: And that’s really one of the themes of the whole conference, is that change.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Well, yeah, I was going to say I had the privilege. I love doing this every year, going to their Women in Telecom lunch. And you could come too. It’s not just the girls.
Andy Johns: That’s good to know.
Megan McKoy-Noe: But, yeah. But we had Polly LaBarre speak this year, and she’s one of the founders of Fast Company magazine. Amazing, amazing woman. But everything that she talked about was the power to change your mindset. So it wasn’t just, you know, how you can change yourself, but how you can change the way that you are thinking so that you can learn how to, or so you can adapt to change because things are changing so fast. A lot of the conference has been about AI, you know, artificial intelligence.
Andy Johns: Does that count as acronym number?
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yes, let’s go ahead.
Andy & Megan: Ding!
Megan McKoy-Noe: So artificial intelligence AI, it’s a whole different way of thinking about workflows thinking and approaching business. And so Polly LaBarre was talking about what you need to do to be able to think differently and have a more elastic mind and approach to things. And there were several things that just really stuck out for me with her. One of them that I figured you would love was to seek out the subversives. She advises, and everyone’s like, wait, what?
Andy Johns: Subversives? Okay.
Megan McKoy-Noe: But she said, you need to stay connected to the edge. You need to invite challenge. And sometimes that’s hard for us. We get comfortable. We know what we know. And we want folks to say, “Yeah, you’re good, you’re good.” But if you want to be able to adapt to this constantly shifting world that we’re in, and you want to be able to think that way, to have that elastic mindset, you have to seek out the subversives. You’ve got to hang out, hang out with people that are not like you, which is hard sometimes, but very important. And she was talking about having a growth loop, which I thought was fun. Try things, fail. Learn from what happens, you know, refine your approach, and then try again. And she said, you need an accountability buddy. Andy, will you be my accountability buddy?
Andy Johns: Absolutely. I kind of thought maybe I already was. I don’t know.
Megan McKoy-Noe: (laughs) But it was a really fun process. And she shared several examples of businesses that are and business leaders that are just not settling for the way things are now, but letting folks challenge you and through that, trusting yourself, trusting your team, and being able to adapt to change as it comes at us.
Andy Johns: I have certainly tried this week to keep an elastic mind. At this point, this many days in, it’s like the elastic in that ten year old pair of sweatpants in the drawer. It is pretty, pretty stretched out at this point. But I think as you’re talking through those things, I’m thinking about the the talk that Gina Shuler from Home Telecom did, she was on an episode of StoryConnect Podcast a couple years ago. She was talking about some of the ways that they’re thinking about not just search marketing, but now they’re looking at people are googling, who is the best provider in my area for broadband? And it’s that AI response. They’re doing things like working because they’re looking at where does Google pull that information in those AI summaries? Where do they pull that from? How can they improve it? So they are showing up on there. And that’s not the kind of thing that marketing folks thought we were having to do 2 or 3 years ago. That is a very new thing that folks are having to look at.
Megan McKoy-Noe: And folks, you know, we’ve talked about this a bit in our broadband marketing guide. But, you know, we are all familiar with SEO, search engine –.
Andy Johns: Is that five?
Megan McKoy-Noe: I don’t know.
Andy Johns: That’s kind of an old one, but we’ll do it.
Megan McKoy-Noe: We can give it a ding.
Andy & Megan: Ding!
Megan McKoy-Noe: Search engine optimization, and that is shifting now to GEO, generative engine optimization.
Andy & Megan: Ding!
Andy Johns: Six? Is that six? I’m trying to keep up with it. I think that’s six.
Megan McKoy-Noe: I hope y’all are having as much fun as we’re having right now.
Andy Johns: But one of the things that was, and we can kind of close with this, Charlene Lee, who was an author that spoke here at the Calix ConneXions conference. She was talking about change, and that’s a lot of what her work is around is adapting to change, leadership change, filtering that throughout an organization. And she said, you can only change at the speed of trust.
Megan McKoy-Noe: That’s deep.
Andy Johns: And I liked it. And I thought it resonates really well with our folks, our members at Pioneer, the folks that we work with, because that trust that you’ve built up over years and decades through that, you know, that communication through your magazine or your other channels that reputation that you have as being, you know, the go-to folks in an area for technology or for electric service, whatever it is that you’re offering to folks. That trust is so important. And I think that’s really important to keep in mind as we’re looking at all the change coming in. You’ve got to make sure that that there’s that trust with it all the way.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Yeah, you can’t jump forward on the technology train and leave your community behind.
Andy Johns: And that goes back to the AI training that you’ve been doing for forever. By forever, I mean two and a half years, which is forever in the AI, in the world we’re in right now. But you know that you can’t forfeit that trust by trying to move too fast.
Megan McKoy-Noe: No, no, you’ve got to. It’s all a balancing act, Andy.
Andy Johns: Yep. Well, are there any other takeaways you had before we wrap up here at the conference?
Megan McKoy-Noe: I think the only other thing I would say, and it’s one of the biggest messages that’s been blasted all over the place, are these little creatures that are cuddly and look almost like minions, but not the trademarked version of minions. The Agentic AI approach that Calix has that they’re going to be rolling out in 2026, and I’m excited to see what that is going to look like. We had the very first general session was focused on how they’re going to be integrating artificial intelligence agents into workflows to help bring the data that we have. They called it a “data lake,” which I love finding, finding a way to get all the data aligned. It’s something that my husband does and his job to make sure all the data can talk to each other and make sense together. So they’re pouring all this data from different sources into a data lake, and then allowing the agents to pull specific knowledge from that to help educate your team so that they can anticipate needs, they can anticipate trouble before it hits and help you improve the experience for your community.
Andy Johns: And to do that, are they using like more traditional, you know, data banks kind of where they’ve got those terms? Or are they using the new?
Megan McKoy-Noe: The banks of the lake?
Andy Johns: LLMs? I mean, are they, I mean, LLM? I was really just trying hard to work in LLM, which would be acronym number seven. Ding!
Megan McKoy-Noe: Ding! Sorry. Learning language models, what they are doing, and this is kind of fun. It might be geeking out a little to, I don’t know, way too deeply into the data lake with you all, but here we go.
Andy Johns: Dive in.
Megan McKoy-Noe: So what they explained yesterday is that they have, they are pulling a version of let’s say ChatGPT. They’re working with Google. So it might be a version of Gemini or something. But they’re pulling a learning language model off of the internet, so it’s not connected to anything. It’s all about security for your data. Right. And then they’re having it run on Calix platform. So it is not connected to anything else. It is only pulling data from their data lake.
Andy Johns: And that’s part of that trust.
Megan McKoy-Noe: And it is part of the trust. And it’s one of the biggest concerns that folks have about AI. You know, we’re building agents in the classes that we’re running right now in AI to show folks how you can scrape publicly available information. But for Calix, the data they’re working with is very highly confidential, secure data. So that’s why they were explaining to everybody. And they made these characters. They’re very colorful. They’re blue, yellow, orange, purple. They’re making them look approachable and personable because they don’t want people to be scared by this, but they want them to understand that these are tools to help change the way we’re thinking about what we do, leveraging the data that we have and doing it securely. So they are pulling the learning language model that has been created, pulling it down, and then running it just on the Calix platform. It’s not connected anywhere else. So we are looking forward to speaking more to Calix as they roll this out. And with several other of our partners. I know NISC is working on some of this as well, working on finding ways to take this exciting thing that is AI and make it something that makes your life easier, helps you anticipate and elevate the experiences of your community. And I will say, for anyone that is wondering about how all this works, we are going to be having another workshop in April right after StoryConnect. It is an add on. We’re going to be in Tacoma, Washington, and you can have four hours to go over different definitions of AI with us. To dive in, head first into Agentic AI what it means, and maybe build an agent yourself. So it’ll be fun.
Andy Johns: I think it’s very smart from a marketing standpoint. The AI that looks more like the the guys here, the kind of big hero six version.
Andy Johns: Oh, that’s a good.
Andy Johns: Not the terminator version, but the the squishy, friendly kind of fun AI. The only other thing I would get into, I’m actually going to wait because we do have a whole, one of the other sessions was on, employee incentives, but we recorded 2 or 3 episodes about that. You had one with with Bill from Beacon Broadband. I had one as well with Shelley from SCTelecom. So you’ll have to wait for those. How’s that for a professional podcast tease right there?
Megan McKoy-Noe: Look at that. We’re all about teasers here. It’s fun.
Andy Johns: I only wish there was an acronym for teasers so we could work that in again, but, make sure to tune in because those episodes will be coming out in the feed and on YouTube here shortly. So, Megan, thanks so much for joining me on this episode and for being here at Calix ConneXions.
Megan McKoy-Noe: Andy, thank you so much for having me. It’s been a treat.
Andy & Megan: And until we talk again, keep telling your story.
Outro: StoryConnect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a communications cooperative that is built to share your story.