Mid-March. The best time on the sports calendar.

Conference tournaments are wrapping up. Selection Sunday is tomorrow. Brackets are about to consume every group chat, office Slack channel, and family dinner for the next three weeks.

I'm coming off a few days in South Florida — good conversations, good weather, team scattered all over the map doing their thing. Now I'm back in Charleston, settling into the weekend, and very much looking forward to watching it all unfold.

But before the brackets take over, something from this week's Big 12 tournament caught my attention. They debuted a full LED glass court in Kansas City — the entire floor is a screen — and the players’ reactions were fascinating. Not because they were surprising, but because they mirror something I see in wealth management every single day.

This week: what a basketball court can teach us about change management.

Here's the Rising Tide. Enjoy your weekend.

1. Playing on Glass

2. Relentless, Relevant, and Ready: Orion Ascent Recap 🎧

3. Webinar: Building Workflows That Actually Work

4. Milemarker On the Road ✈️

Playing on Glass

March Madness is almost here.

Conference tournaments are happening this week. Sunday, the bracket drops. If you’re lucky, your team stays relevant for a week. Maybe two. If you’re really blessed, three.

This is one of the best stretches in sports. It’s also one of the worst for productivity. At previous wealthtechs and RIAs, we’d do a chili cook-off. Brackets printed. Focus is on the 5-12 match-ups and less on whatever your version of TPS reports may be. 

But this week, something bigger than a bracket caught my eye.

The Big 12 tournament in Kansas City debuted a full LED glass floor. The entire court is a screen. Controlled from an iPad. Team logos morph during intros. A shattered-glass animation fires after dunks. Sponsorships rotate in real time beneath the players’ feet.

It looks like the future.

It also gave a guy a migraine.

After Kansas State’s loss to BYU on Tuesday, forward Taj Manning was blunt. He called the floor slippery. Said his teammate Khamari McGriff got a migraine from the flashing lights mid-game. Called it an eyesore. Said nobody wants to play on it.

He wasn’t alone. BYU’s AJ Dybantsa — a likely top pick in this year’s NBA draft — said he liked the concept but the glass was slick. Arizona State’s Allen Mukeba said the shoes and the surface just didn’t match. Iowa State’s Killyan Toure said the flashing colors were disturbing. Kansas coach Bill Self brought his team to KC a day early just to practice on it. His review: functional, but different.

Here’s an unexpected wrinkle: McGriff — the guy who got the migraine — said he actually thought the floor was cool. He noted he gets seasonal migraines anyway. Even the refs said the spring-action frame was easier on their knees than hardwood.

Same floor. Wildly different experiences.

So will they scrap it? I don’t think so. They totally did.

The floor was built by a German company called ASB GlassFloor. The technology has been used in Europe since 2008. The NBA All-Star Game has featured it. This was just its first sanctioned appearance in American college basketball.

Fast forward three years. Major arenas across the country will have some version of this. The economics are too obvious: dynamic sponsorships, multi-sport flexibility, broadcast-ready visuals that change on the fly. That’s not a toy. That’s a business model.

But the technology has to improve. The traction needs work. The lighting effects need to account for players sensitive to rapid visual changes. The grip coating needs another generation of refinement.

Version 1.0 always has problems. That doesn’t mean the concept is wrong.

Sound familiar?

I just got back from the Future Proof conference in Miami. And I keep hearing the same conversation: firms trying new technology — AI tools, note-taking assistants, workflow automation, new planning software — and getting mixed results. Some of it feels great. Some feels hard. Some feels like it’s giving everyone a headache.

There’s a growing awareness of what firms should be doing. But there’s a widening gap between awareness and execution. Everyone knows AI is changing how people work. Fewer people know what to do with it on a Tuesday morning.

And all along the way, there’s a gravitational pull toward the naysayers. The person who got the migraine. The advisor who tried the new CRM for a week and hated it. The ops person who says the old way was fine.

Listen to them. Respect them. Be empathetic.

But don’t let them drive.

The future isn’t binary. It’s not “this works perfectly” or “burn it down.” It’s progressive. The LED floor will get better. The AI tools will get better. The integrations will get smoother. But only if we keep playing on them.

What’s the glass floor at your firm right now? What’s the thing that’s clearly the future — but isn’t quite there yet?

Have a great weekend. Enjoy the games.

On the Pod: Relentless, Relevant, and Ready: Orion Ascent Recap

Episode 135: On this week’s episode, Kyle Van Pelt sits down with Jessica Perez, VP of Growth at Milemarker. Jessica brings a boots-on-the-ground perspective to the wealth management technology space, working directly with advisory firms to help them unlock the full potential of their data. 

Kyle and Jessica recap key lessons from the Orion Ascent conference, where the central theme was “Relentless”—a mindset focused on continuous improvement across technology, client experience, and firm operations. They discuss how advisors can avoid the overwhelm that often follows large industry events and instead identify one or two meaningful priorities to pursue. Jessica also shares her perspective on evaluating technology partners, embracing innovation like AI without chasing every trend, and focusing on the changes that truly move an advisory firm forward.

In this episode:

(00:00) - Intro

(01:28) - Orion Ascent recap

(03:15) - How advisors can apply a relentless mindset without getting distracted

(07:29) - The "AI frenzy" and improving client experience through smarter technology

(10:29) - How AI conversations are shaping advisor technology strategy

(13:24) - From tinkering to transformation

(15:02) - Evaluating whether technology vendors are true partners

(20:11) - Why data sharing and integration matter more than ever

(25:08) - Turning conference inspiration into real firm improvements

(38:43) - Jessica's Milemarker Minute

Webinar: Building Workflows That Actually Work

Workflow automation promises better processes, smoother handoffs, and more efficient teams. But in many firms, even well-designed workflows end up being ignored.

Join us in this upcoming webinar to explore why that happens—and what it actually takes to build workflows that teams will actually use.

Register here:

Milemarker on the Road
Catch my team on the road at the following events or cities:

1. Sarasota, FL — March 24

2. Tampa, FL — March 28-29

3. San Francisco, CA — April 14-15

If you would like to arrange a meeting time, please reply to this email, and we’ll schedule something on the calendar.

Jud Mackrill