Live product · School counselors
CounselorDesk
A workspace for student context, financial aid decisions, scholarship planning, award reviews, and letters. Counselors stay in control.
The 825
Helping people who help others.
Practical software, field guides, and open resources for people doing the work. Understand the context, see new possibilities, and act on what you learn, whether you build something new or keep a system working behind the scenes.
Who this is for
For practitioners who see what needs to change.
Counselors, educators, advisors, program leaders, builders, and maintainers bring the context. The people they serve are why the systems matter. These tools and guides help turn that knowledge into useful action while keeping human judgment and relationships central.
Free and open · People using AI tools
Breadcrumbs
Public research and reusable resources for agent memory, clear handoffs, and evidence-aware work.
Available book · Office and program staff
From Archivist to Architect
A field guide to modernizing the data infrastructure of helper-staffed offices, with free companion resources.
Pilot · Teams using AI agents
The 825 Trust Plane
A pilot control layer for teams using multiple AI agents. It governs handoffs, approvals, and recovery across agents and people.
Services
Practical support for the work behind the mission.
The 825 also helps with the systems around the work. Services include website development and ongoing support, workflow improvement, and custom portals and dashboards that bring tasks, reporting, resources, and follow-through into one place.
Start with the problem, the people doing the work, and the tools already in place. Then scope a useful step a team can maintain.
How the work gets made
Start with the burden. Build for the people carrying it.
Innovation here means finding a better way through a real constraint. Creativity and resourcefulness matter most when the result is useful in daily work.
- Understand before building. Learn who does the work, what they already know, and where the burden sits.
- Make it simple and repeatable. Remove unnecessary steps and write down a process someone else can follow.
- Automate suitable parts. Once the process is reliable, automate selected repeated steps and check the results.
- Keep people in charge. Tools organize and check; people decide and own the relationship.
- Turn what works into a system. Make a useful fix into a routine or template someone else can run, maintain, and adapt.
- Show what is real. Say what is live, what is a pilot, and what is still internal.
Try one small workflow
Turn meeting notes into next actions.
Start with notes you are allowed to use. Let AI suggest who will do what, then check each item against the meeting, put confirmed tasks on the list, and make time to follow through. The human check is what turns a draft into a commitment.
About
Jovan Smith and The 825
I spent nearly a decade in student-facing work across admissions, financial aid, K-12 outreach, and diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. I hold degrees in Public Administration and Organizational Leadership. That practitioner experience shapes the tools, research, and guides I build today.
The 825 is said "eight to five," a nod to everyone doing the work, whether it happens during business hours, in between them, or after they end.
Make the most of your eight to five, whatever those hours look like.
Keep in touch
Follow the work, or bring a problem.
Find build notes, public research, and working examples, or get in touch about a problem worth exploring.