Trust Changers
Training and engagement to foster high-trust online environments.
The Trust Changers Podcast is Coming Soon!
The Internet is full of challenges, but it’s also a dream come true for access and opportunity. In the Trust Changers podcast, host Shaley DeGiorgio talks with individuals and experts about how the Internet is shaping our lives and what we can do to build confidence online. Trust Changers critical thinking, communicating, and collaborating tips are shared in every episode.
Topics include anything that might be funny, inspiring, teach a lesson, make a point, provide a warning, or make life easier, etc.—as long as it happened online. This is a family show, so we’ll keep it PG. Otherwise, it’s an opportunity to learn from each other and maybe add a couple of Trust Changers to our toolbox!
Do you have stories about an online experience that changed your life? For better or worse, we want to hear the struggles and the joys. To volunteer as a Trust Changers podcast guest, please reach out to Shaley DeGiorgio, via LinkedIn.
Build Confidence Online with Trust Changers
Services
Fostering online culture and community are key to Trust Changers’ success. All training takes place via videoconferencing, with intimate groups of 12 people, to simultaneously help attendees practice video skills while building a network of Trust Changers certified colleagues.
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PODCAST AND VIDEOS
FREE | Open to the public
In the Trust Changers podcast, founder and CEO, Shaley DeGiorgio talks with experts and individuals about how the Internet is shaping our lives and what we can do to build confidence online. Trust Changers critical thinking, communicating, and collaborating tips are shared in every episode.
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Join the Fall 2019 Pilot!
TRUST CHANGERS ONLINE SKILLS CERTIFICATION
$495 | Open to the public
Online Skills Academy course content is designed to be fun, relatable, and actionable. It empowers attendees with online skills for critical thinking, communicating, and collaborating. 16 hours of training and 2–4 hours of optional accountability-partner work spread over 8 weeks allows for real-world application of skills and group discussion (about successes, challenges, etc.) to reinforce learning. Topics covered include online etiquette, information legitimacy, privacy, and security, personal branding, creating visual aids, organizing information, productivity practices, virtual teamwork, and best practices for web tools.
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COMMUNITY MANAGER CERTIFICATION – Available Spring 2020
Individual Course Fee – Request Information | For graduates of Online Skills Academy who want to teach Trust Changers in their organization
Community Manager Academy course content is designed to help customize the Online Academy curriculum to fit an organization’s needs. Attendees learn how to teach the curriculum, position themselves as influencers, build online engagement, foster trust, and align organization-wide technology-use expectations. Community-manager preparation includes 12 hours of training spread over 3 days, with 8–12 hours of independent work.
Certified Community Managers are key organizational partners. Whenever possible, they should teach Online Academy skills within sponsor organizations. By design, this (1) quickly spreads the full skillset across as many people as possible and (2) nurtures a culture of trust between community managers and all levels of the organization. Multiple community managers can exist within an organization—in fact, it’s encouraged!
AS A BONUS, community managers are invited to share stories on the Trust Changers podcast, thereby bringing attention to an organization’s dedication to a high-trust environment.
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CERTIFIED ORGANIZATION SUBSCRIPTION – Available Spring 2020
Annual Subscription Fee – Request Information | For Organizations with certified Community Managers
The Certified Organization subscription provides grassroots engagement activities to inspire viral adoption of Trust Changers skills and continue to grow collaborative-technology value over time. Community Manager (CM) resources in the subscription include:
- Exclusive CM access to supplemental online-community training and engagement materials
- Quarterly inter-organization CM Q&A sessions with a Trust Changers coach
- Access to a private inter-organization CM Facebook group
- First access for new CM online-skill courses: Becoming a Brand Ambassador, Advising & Engaging Leadership, Supporting Disaster Recovery, and more
- 20% discount on all CM courses
Trust Changers’ Story
Humanity is at a crossroads. We can let technology get the better of us, or we can take control of our destiny by transforming how we relate to each other and work together online.
Hi, I’m Shaley.
Trust Changers is a training and engagement system to help individuals develop online skills that build trust, improve online communications and collaborations, speed up work, and reduce operational/technology costs.
It was inspired in 2010, when after 5 years of exemplary service at Cornell University, in Ithaca New York, I negotiated a contract to work from home—in Honolulu, Hawaii—where I grew up. In order to feel confident working 100% online, I made it my mission to develop processes, skills, and behaviors that ensured my colleagues always would trust I could communicate and collaborate with them, regardless of whether I was in the same office or on a tiny island—6,000 miles away.
Despite everyone’s doubts that my long-distance venture would last 6 months (the original agreed-upon timeframe), I continued to thrive until choosing to move on, a full 6 years later. People who worked with me attributed my success to personal talent and dedication, but I always knew it was something more. The critical thinking, communicating, and collaborating skills I refined during this time can be taught. My success was not coincidental. I just needed some time to cultivate the Trust Changers system.
About the Brand
Technology should make life better—that’s my motto. Communications and collaborations—those are my passions. My entire career has been focused on helping people use and improve applications and websites. And in my experience, whenever collaborative tools are underutilized by an organization or individual, low trust is a primary issue.
- People don’t trust their own ability or knowledge about how to use technology.
- Team members don’t trust each other to not change, lose, criticize, or expose work developed in collaborative tools.
- Employees don’t trust company culture or leadership to not be hypercritical of work and conversations that occur in open forums and intranets.
- And plenty of folks don’t trust technology to not make work harder.
In fact, a 2018 Pew Research survey of 10,618 U.S. adults showed that Americans are worried about the declining level of trust citizens have in each other.
- 79% believe Americans have “far too little” or “too little” confidence in each other
- 70% believe Americans have “far too little” or “too little” confidence in each other
- 64% believe Americans’ level of trust in each other has been shrinking
- 58% believe it is “very important” the level of confidence Americans have in each other be improved
- 25% believe Americans’ level of confidence in each other is a very big problem
Low trust is a 21st-century epidemic exacerbated by continually throwing new technologies at old problems without intentional effort to ensure people know how to think critically, communicate, and collaborate online.
With this in mind, my goal is always to help people increase trust in themselves, in each other, in culture, and in technology. The service got its name because organizations cannot overcome deeply entrenched challenges, reduce friction, and increase efficiency and productivity without significant Trust Changers.
Trust Changers
In the logo, shown above, a hand-written font with wide kerning (space between the letters) signifies a focus on purposeful intentionality when building employee skills. The flame serves as a reminder that, like fire, technology has the power to change humanity. We can let it get the better of us, or we can take control of our destiny by transforming how we relate to each other and work together online.
Get Trust Changers Updates
ONLINE TRAINING AND PODCAST • HOW-TO VIDEOS • RECOMMENDATIONS
Fall 2019 pilot information coming soon!
