Jess Purcell, Design Technology Manager, Shepley Bulfinch

Talk Description
At Shepley Bulfinch, videos surprised everyone by being one of the firm’s most powerful knowledge management tools once AI Search came into the picture. From town halls and training clips to design discussions and their Birdfeeder learning and development series, video plays a central role in how the firm shares knowledge, preserves expertise, and supports learning across the practice. But it didn’t totally happen by accident.

In this session, Jess Purcell will share how Shepley turned video into a KM superpower—starting with the foundational work of centralizing archives, cleaning up transcripts, adding chapters, and making hundreds of videos searchable via AI. More importantly, she’ll show how that foundation unlocked a new mindset. Armed with the knowledge that video can drive real value, Shepley is exploring new ways to capture critical conversations, formalize content around knowledge transfer, and even create new training materials with video at the core.

Jess will also share how AI search isn’t just helping people find the right video—it’s now being used to summarize and distill video content into new pages, insights, and documentation, making video a vital part of their content creation pipeline. If you’re looking to get more value from the videos you already have, or are curious about how AI can amplify your future recordings, this session will offer practical ideas and fresh inspiration.

Speaker Bio
As the Design Technology Manager at Shepley Bulfinch, Jess leads the strategic integration of cutting-edge technologies and workflows. Her primary focus lies in enhancing design, delivery, and collaboration processes. Jess oversees a select team of Design Technology Specialists, leveraging her expertise in VR, data analytics, process automation, and knowledge management. She holds a Masters of Architecture from Arizona State University.

Christopher Parsons of Knowledge Architecture interviews Jess Purcell of Shepley Bulfinch at KA Connect 2025.

Q+A Timeline

00:00 Is video more of a liability than written content?
01:21 Who are the editors at Shepley?
02:16 How do you train the editors?
03:59 Do any videos go up without editing?
04:57 Thoughts on the video creator experience?
06:39 Preparing for recorded expert debates.
08:18 Is the debate the final knowledge asset?
09:24 Do you pull screenshots from videos for content?
10:19 Do conflicting points of view confuse the AI?
12:12 Have you used video for external marketing?
14:55 Why make video instead of using vendor content?
16:34 How do you condense a 3 hour interview?
17:47 Do you coach SMEs to record in a structured way?
20:12 How do you reduce anxiety for editors and SMEs?
21:38 How do you prep for the prep session?
22:21 How did you learn instructional design skills?
23:15 How do you incentivize experts to contribute?
25:06 What's your pipeline for editors?
26:47 Did categorizing videos guide future content?
28:11 What is the learning and development team?