Archive for the ‘Concepts’ Category

Have you thought about that?  I have been today.  I am putting together a 2nd round of emails because registration for our campus visit days are down.  While trying to answer the question “What can I say to make this student/family believe that they should spend the time/gas/money/energy to visit our campus?”, several questions ran through my head:

• Are students visiting less campuses than in the past?
• Are they lumping visits together into one trip to save gas?
• What happens when your planned visit days don’t line up with theirs?
• Do you have sufficient material online to show your campus to students who can’t make it?
• Will ‘09 graduates choose campuses closer to home if gas prices continue to rise?
• Do you allow flexibility for visitors to come when they please, or are they locked into a set presentation time?  What happens if they can’t get from College XYZ down the road to your 1pm presentation before it starts?  Are they going to miss out? Are YOU going to miss out?
• Are Admission Counselors making the most efficient trips on the road, or are they doing business as usual?
• Do we need to got to as many college fair and school visits as we used to?
• Can you get the student to see the visit as an investment?
• Are you doing everything you can to make them feel like it was worth the trip?
• What’s the average ROI on a visit to a high school? Is there a Long Tail?
• Do we care enough about our students who visit to give them a $10 gas card for the effort?
• Couldn’t we cut out a mailing or two to fund this goodwill gesture?
• Which would students remember more, the brochure or the gas card?
• What if the gas card was rechargeable, and we filled it with another $20 on move-in weekend after they applied/enrolled? How would that affect retention?

And those are just 15 questions that have run through my head in the last few minutes. Just thinking/typing out loud here.  I’d love to hear your thoughts, and other questions you are thinking about when it comes to gas/gas prices as they relate to the recruitment process.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about uses for Twitter in Higher Ed. I’ve said before (here):

[...] having the kids sign up for Twitter is just another barrier to communication. While I am typically an advocate for universities using services rather than reinventing the wheel, Twitter has yet to prove its stability to me.

There has also been a lot of talk about Twitter, how to use it in Higher Ed, what might be effective, what might not be, etc. I’ve sort of sat back and soaked this all in, watching developments at other universities and trying to think of how I can use Twitter to enhance a student’s experience on our site.

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Once upon a time, in an Admission office (let’s say… 1993), someone decided they wanted to change the early application deadline from December 1st to November 15th. This would allow them to have more time to read the early apps and make a better decision, and it would position them with the app deadlines of their competitors.

So Administration made a few phone calls, had the dates changed on the application and in the catalog for the next print cycle, informed a few people around campus, changed some wording in a few brochures, and all was good.

Enter the Internet.

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It’s no secret that I love Flickr. It’s a perfect blend of community and functionality in the web 2.0 world, and it’s an extremely powerful tool.

Could it also be your solution for an electronic photo database management system?

Let’s take a walk at what Flickr has to offer you, and how it can help you organize your campus photos and provide some additional value to your workflow. We’re going to get pretty in-depth here, so buckle up and refer back often.

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Posted by: Chris Potts, Senior Assistant Director of Admission 

We have a saying here at Butler University, that we frequently use, especially over in the athletic department: “The Butler Way.” Essentially it means that we as a university place a strong emphasis on doing things the right way, in everything we do. We strive to represent ourselves and the Butler and broader Indianapolis community in the best manner possible. Or, more specifically, “The Butler Way demands commitment, denies selfishness, accepts reality yet seeks improvement everyday while putting the team above self.” Consider this clever slogan a way to encourage altruistic behavior and inspire people to want and expect greatness. In a way (no pun intended) this has become our new branding catch phrase, almost by default. And it’s working.

I don’t know if anyone reading this has picked up on the story about Davidson College, a small liberal arts school located in North Carolina. Obviously if you’re living anywhere than under a rock you know that Davidson shocked the athletic world yesterday by demolishing big-ten powerhouse Wisconsin in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. And sweet it was - especially for all those Davidson fans present at the game.

So how many fans of a school located in North Carolina, with a total student population of 1,700, would make the trip to Detroit to watch this game? Well, as it turns out, LOTS.

In one of the best college athletics stories in a long time, in my opinion, Davidson College decided to let ANY of its students go the game in Detroit to support THEIR team. So what’s the big deal, you ask? Well the college paid all expenses for any student who wanted to go to the game: ticket, transportation, and lodging. Wow! (see http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3315722&sportCat=ncb&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos2) for the complete story. And I think a big part of Davidson’s success last night was because of their fan support at the game and the inspiring story that resulted: a university totally in support of their mission, their success, and their students. Sure, athletics is a terrific way to galvanize support for a school and through winning ways promote school pride. But what the Davidson College administrators did here was show the world that they CARE about their students and their school, and believe in who they are. I don’t know too many other schools who would do such a thing. Granted, they are a small school who probably has the funds to offer this - and they are not a school who you’re going to see do this well in the tournament that often - but the fact remains that they took a bold step and said to their basketball team and their university: “we care.” Consider it an extension of Butler: “The Davidson Way.”

I’m surprised this story hasn’t gotten more attention, but hopefully other colleges and universities will read about this, and let it truly soak in. What an awesome way to give attention your school but ultimately, to show an act of goodwill and appreciation for the hard work and dedication of several young men who play their hearts out on the hard court. It’s refreshing to know that there are still these kinds of stories out there. Let’s keep it up.

One thing that I have always been big on is ‘community‘. I love community, the feeling of being surrounded by others to share ideas with, have a good time with, and relate to. Community can build great connection with others, and it can make others proud to be a part of something. It is a big part of the vision that Matt and I have for BlogHighEd. So when an incoming link from a blog post titled “Discovering Community” linked to us, I felt a certain sense of accomplishment in that goal.

Then I got to thinking back to my early days of ‘community building’, in college as an RA, and remembered a presentation that I gave at a conference more than 3 years ago. So I dug it up last night and went through it, and found some slides that could relate to my job now. So I’m going to go through some of that, and make a few modifications as well.

The presentation is directly below, but it might make more sense if you follow along with me below it. At the end we’ll get into some direct implications for community in social media. Brace yourself, this will probably be the longest post in SquaredPeg history. What a great way to celebrate 100 posts! Stick with me, I think you will get something out of this.

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Written by: Chris Potts, Senior Assistant Director of Admission

Using technologies like blogs and wikis, YouTube and Facebook, discussion forums and online reviews, your customers are taking charge of their own experience and getting what they need – information, support, ideas, products, and bargaining power – from each other. This phenomenon — the groundswell — has created a permanent, long-listing shift in the way the world works. Most companies see it as a threat.

You can see it as an opportunity.

I recently came across this quote, while perusing some interesting information that I found from Forrester Marketing (http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell). In a nutshell, I think this sums up perfectly my point of view on this topic, and hopefully helps to put my previous post in context. Based on all the comments to that original post and Brad’s most recent post, I am now even more convinced that this entire realm of social media most definitely hits a nerve in many people. And for those who are indifferent to all of this, one has to wonder how long they can sit on the sidelines claiming that this won’t affect them personally, their profession, or their place of employment. Obviously this blog site, SquaredPeg, attempts to analyze things from an education - and in particular higher education - perspective. However there are many topics, and I think this one in particular, that many industries are having to deal with; we as a profession are not alone in trying to figure out what all of this means and if it is really a fad to eventually die out to another, newer “social experiment,” or if it is truly for real this time - worth our time and effort to integrate it into our daily work (and personal) lives. It is clear, for example, that many employers are struggling with whether to use Facebook, MySpace, and other such sites to make hiring decisions (to verify this, a recent article in the national “Marketing News” publication entitled “The New Rules of Recruitment: Marketers Engage Job Prospects Through Social Media” shines a spotlight specifically on this issue). So take comfort - our struggles are not our own.

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Written by Chris Potts, Senior Assistant Director Of Admission

By now most people know (or should know!) of the impending nationwide crisis for the higher education profession: a sharp decline in the number of students graduating from high school and attending college. Because of this it will become much more difficult for colleges to recruit students, or at least students who they are used to recruiting. New strategies must be developed, new methods put in place, and as a profession we must begin to think more like the students we want to recruit - we must enter their world on their timeline and in their preferred manner. As if it isn’t already, it will become even more of a “buyer’s market” for college bound students, who will have numerous colleges almost begging for them to attend their “prestigious” institution. Both students and parents alike will eventually catch on to this, and as a result will be able to command much greater attention and respect from colleges and universities (respect as in greater scholarship packages and newer, nicer, and bigger facilities, among other things).
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I’ve been sifting through about 4 months of Google Analytics, and I see some correlations to ‘The Long Tail’. (Note: if you haven’t read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, go buy it now.)

When I read the book over winter break, it made total sense, and the book showed great examples. Then I got back to work and I’ve been struggling with how to look at the long tail and apply it to my work. At first I felt like I was just trying to make it fit, so I continued to ignore it. But every time I look at data, it pops back up. It’s not a thought. It’s not a pretty graph. It’s not fluff. It’s real, and it’s happening.

Here’s the main thing I see:
the conversation is in the long tail.

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