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Pete Mackey on Why Listening Is the Real Strategy—and Why Higher Ed Needs More Courage to Change
35 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of Escape Velocity, I’m joined by someone I’ve had the privilege of collaborating with on some of the most meaningful projects of my career—Pete Mackey.
Pete is the founder of Mackey Strategies, where he helps colleges, universities, and nonprofits find their voice, sharpen their story, and face the future with clarity and confidence. With more than 30 years of experience leading communications for institutions like Amherst College, Bucknell University, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, and Science Foundation Ireland, Pete brings a rare combination of strategic leadership, creative insight, and on-the-ground experience building teams and navigating change.
We talk about the difference between creating a message and reflecting one, and why deep listening is the most underutilized strategic tool in higher education. We explore the role of creative disruption—not as a threat, but as a necessary force for organizations that want to stay relevant without losing their core identity.
We get into the challenges facing higher ed communications teams today—from overthinking and risk aversion to leadership misalignment and message control. Pete reflects on his time as an interim communications leader for multiple institutions, what it takes to re-energize internal teams, and why none of this work sticks without trust and buy-in from the top.
We also discuss the growing pressures facing higher education in today’s political climate, the importance of sector-wide advocacy, and why moments of courage—whether on a global stage or within a single institution—can change the trajectory of an organization and the people it serves.
It’s a wide-ranging conversation with one of the sharpest thinkers I know, and I’m excited to share it with you.
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Transcript
Intro
Introducing Pete Mackey
00:00:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Welcome again, everybody to another episode of escape velocity. Uh, today I'm joined by someone who is not just a strategist, but also a author, a poet, a partner, and someone I've had the privilege of collaborating with on some of the most meaningful projects of my career, Pete Mackey. Uh, he's the founder of Mackey strategies where he helps organizations find their voice, sharpen their story and face the future with clarity and confidence.
00:00:34
Tracey Halvorsen
Just no easy task these days. um Pete's had more than 30 years leading communications for top institutions like Amherst, Bucknell, and the Jack Kent Cook Foundation, and he brings deep expertise in higher education and a unique lens as a creative as well as a strategist.
00:00:54
Tracey Halvorsen
So Pete, thanks for thanks for joining me today. um Welcome to the show.
00:01:00
Pete
Thank you, Tracy. Obviously great to be with you. You know how much I admire you. So delighted to be here.
00:01:04
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, thanks for giving me your time. um you know We have worked together for over over the course
First Collaborations and Creative Influence
00:01:11
Tracey Halvorsen
of many years. And you know i think what brought us together initially back in that for that first Bucknell project many years ago was um you were looking for a team, I think, that was not going to just deliver some you know reheated ah status quo work.
00:01:34
Tracey Halvorsen
and you felt like the institution really could use some differentiation and some positioning. And we loved that that was your challenge to us. And i think that's always been why we've come together over the years.
00:01:48
Tracey Halvorsen
um One of the things I'm curious about, you know, I don't think a lot of people know that you're also a poet and ah you're you're more, i think, more visible on the on the author side for your books.
00:02:01
Tracey Halvorsen
Um, but as a writer and as someone who, who works in a creative space with writing, how do you, yeah know, let's just jump right into it. How do you feel that your creative work informs your client work and your teamwork?
00:02:14
Pete
Yeah.
00:02:15
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:02:16
Pete
Yeah. Thank you, Tracy. So i think they all come down to the same thing. First of all, just say i have always loved working with words. i when i was ah When I was a little boy, i was the kid in our household working on some paper that I needed to turn in in seventh grade.
00:02:33
Pete
working through the night over and over, writing it by hand, loose leaf sheet after loose leaf sheet, and then typing it and having to use whiteout to fix my mistakes.
00:02:40
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank
00:02:41
Pete
And my parents would come check on me at two and three in the morning. I would be at the dining room tables to working at that, trying to get that paragraph or that paper, right? I've always loved doing that. Um, and the, the reality is the work I do, I think if it's not creative, then you're frankly not doing your job. Um,
00:02:59
Pete
I think part of the responsibility that we have to institutions that choose to work with us is to help think differently for them in service to them um and to peel back the layers of the normal rhetoric and normal expression in whatever medium that they may be using to help them stand out.
00:03:17
Pete
Part, we all know, part of the message is the medium. So you have to have a creative integration of the way you say it. we use to express it. And I think that's kind of what is always fascinating me, both about the work I do and then the side creative projects I undertake.
00:03:35
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, I think that's an it's in it's a timely it's timely conversation as we see what's sort of being targeted when it comes to the the creative fields.
Balancing Legacy and Innovation
00:03:46
Tracey Halvorsen
you know i think there's I think people, whether it's subconsciously or or consciously, they understand that creatives will bring some level of disruption um because they are going to tell the truth.
00:03:59
Pete
Right.
00:04:01
Tracey Halvorsen
They are going to show you or convey to you what they see without a lot of layers of BS. um
00:04:11
Pete
Right. Yeah.
00:04:12
Tracey Halvorsen
And that can be that can be impactful, um and which scares a lot of people if it's not aligned.
00:04:15
Pete
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:20
Pete
yeah
00:04:20
Tracey Halvorsen
So when you're working in particular with, with institutions that have, you know legacy and they've got audiences and boards and trustees and all of that, how do you navigate that sort of natural fear around
00:04:30
Pete
yeah
00:04:34
Pete
Yeah.
00:04:39
Tracey Halvorsen
forward momentum, change, innovation, truth-telling?
00:04:42
Pete
ah Yeah. and Well, in one way, my my team and I work with some of the most well established sort legacy, if you'll pardon the term, institutions and American higher ed Amherst College, Williams College, Trinity College, Trinity University.
00:04:59
Pete
These are extraordinary institutions with deep histories of achievement and leadership. And you might think that the natural inclination of such places is to just do what they've been doing. And yet, if you, I would just say, if you look at the way they teach and involve their pedagogy, the way their faculty produced groundbreaking scholarship and research, the truth is their intellectual life is quite daring.
00:05:23
Pete
And and so part of our job when we work with these these schools is frankly to ah probe their willingness to take creative risks. My experience has been by and large institutions of higher education, whether they're nonprofit foundations, colleges, universities, they are willing to take risks if they feel it's worth it.
00:05:45
Pete
um And part of our job is to show them that this creative expression of who they are can break through in a way maybe that they haven't before while carrying that that deep history and legacy that deserves extraordinary respect, but expressing it in, let's just say, 21st century way that sets itself apart and brings it renewed attention.
00:06:07
Tracey Halvorsen
in the In the world that we live in today with there not just being a primary means of communication. I mean, 30 years ago, it was it was there was a view book and some pieces of mail and maybe a visit.
00:06:18
Pete
Right. Right.
00:06:21
Pete
Right.
00:06:21
Tracey Halvorsen
um Or there was ah you know an annual report um and board meeting things like that. Today, when you have so many different places where people are engaging with not just the words, but the feelings and the sentiment and all of that, and where there is so much of a shift towards what we call user-generated content, right?
00:06:44
Tracey Halvorsen
Sort of straight from the horse's mouth.
00:06:44
Pete
right
00:06:45
Tracey Halvorsen
um
00:06:45
Pete
right
00:06:47
Tracey Halvorsen
How do you balance that with... what can be maybe defined as like an institutional need or, or desire to hold onto the messaging and control the messaging.
00:07:00
Pete
Well, I'm going to sort of share two operating philosophies I have. One is that, and the way I look at the work people like we do is not that we are trying to create a message, for example, and whatever expression that may in visual, print, language, whatever, it's not to create a story of this institution, it is to reflect one.
00:07:23
Pete
To me, there is a foundational difference. And where do you reflect one? By listening. um The way I look at it is, if you were to think about all the great colleges and universities in America and look at each of them from, call it 10,000, 20,000 feet up, in many ways, they look the same.
00:07:39
Pete
They educate highly motivated students. They try to provide all the educational and support service they can for each student's success. They have high high quality facilities to do so, great faculty to do so and so on. And in that way, they're all the same.
00:07:55
Pete
The closer you move to the people on the campus from 5,000 feet to 1,000 feet to face to face, the more the ways they are different come out. So we take a lot of time early in our relationships to listen.
00:08:05
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:08:10
Pete
It is a really, we're really driven by listening. We want to hear what the students, the faculty, the staff, the alumni, the parents, the trustees, the donors, all those members of the community who know it so well, say about it.
00:08:22
Pete
Why does it matter to them? What separates itself for them about this institution in their hearts and minds? And ultimately what we're trying to do is reflect that back to them so that the people who know it best can say, yes, that's that's my school, that's my home, that's my alma mater.
Transition to Consultancy
00:08:39
Pete
um And that that takes a lot of just paying attention very closely in these conversations. And that that's really the the basis under which we we build all the work we do.
00:08:50
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, you've worked internal and now external.
00:08:53
Pete
Yeah.
00:08:55
Pete
Yeah.
00:08:56
Tracey Halvorsen
And, you know, I've always been external facing, but but having gone through my own, you know, company's brand and and marketing work, um I just know how the, I always say the closer you get to the mirror of where you are who you are what you represent, the harder it is to see it, the
00:09:01
Pete
Yeah.
00:09:11
Pete
Yeah.
00:09:16
Pete
Totally.
00:09:17
Tracey Halvorsen
dynamically. um
00:09:18
Pete
Totally.
00:09:19
Tracey Halvorsen
You get kind of skewed in your in your thinking or you hold on to stories that are no longer true and you kind of have this legacy of experience that builds up and and the outside experience or or vision um that is built on that listening seems like just a critical thing for
00:09:26
Pete
Yeah.
00:09:32
Pete
Yeah.
00:09:39
Tracey Halvorsen
I mean, anybody to be to be looking to, um I think, in our personal lives.
00:09:41
Pete
yeah Right,
00:09:44
Tracey Halvorsen
You know, we've got our therapists and our best friends and all of that. But how do you how do you feel um about the work as you've shifted from many years internal to external?
00:09:47
Pete
right, yeah.
00:09:57
Pete
yeah
00:09:57
Tracey Halvorsen
I mean, over the past, it's been eight, nine years now.
00:10:00
Pete
Yeah, honestly, so I was inside, right? I was head of communications at the University of South Carolina for basically the entire 90s. Then I became the head of communications for a new foundation in Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland.
00:10:11
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank you.
00:10:13
Pete
And then I became the head of communications for a new scholarship foundation, foundation namely the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, just as it was really getting its legs. And then I was the first head of communications at Buccaneu University that they had had.
00:10:29
Pete
served there eight years and then I was the first chief communications officer overseeing the entire communications the marketing portfolio for Amherst College. i bring up that background because it's the way my career evolved. I just happened to be the first one at these places. It's just the the industry was evolving. The role of this vice president or CCO was really coming ah broadly across the spectrum of higher institutions.
00:10:52
Pete
um And I love the building process. I loved kind of thinking through these foundational questions, you know, for the Jack Kent Cook Foundation and Science Foundation, I don't They really had no brand. They had no communications and marketing in a comprehensive way.
00:11:06
Pete
So I had to think through a whole bunch of origin questions. um And then obviously Bucknell had an extraordinary reputation. They had five different teams working on communications and marketing, but they're all reporting to different offices.
00:11:18
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:11:18
Pete
So it was it was ah very interesting challenge to try to bring these. It was 40 people, including 20 in the print and mail shop. And then the other 20 or so were in the creative portfolios.
00:11:30
Pete
to bring that whole team together was a really interesting question, and they're incredibly talented. So I've always enjoyed like the challenge of answering who are we and how do I motivate these really dedicated, talented staff around me to make the mess best of their passions and talents.
00:11:48
Pete
I'll just add, since becoming a consultant, through no intentionality, I've been an interim head of communications at six other institutions across the line, years or so.
00:12:00
Pete
And frankly, when I started this firm, I didn't have the plan to do that. um Turns out i have a lot of experience that that I help hope has been useful to those places. But honestly, one of the most fulfilling parts of those jobs, I would say it's two things. One is most of all, bringing the team together and hopefully re-energizing their talents and redirecting them in ways that they feel they're able to contribute most effectively as incredibly creative, dedicated staff members to that institution.
00:12:29
Pete
And the second is trying to find that clarity of helping them tell that story in a way that is different and honest to the institution in a way that cuts through at maybe it hadn't before.
00:12:39
Pete
So I love being consultant. This fall, I think we will be starting year nine. and love doing it. I love working with different institutions and and facing those kinds of challenges.
00:12:52
Tracey Halvorsen
all right. I've got some, some rapid fire questions for you. If you're, if you're up for that.
00:12:59
Pete
Okay. It's like. water Wow.
00:13:01
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Um, what do you think is the one thing, if there can be one thing that the internal teams overthink?
00:13:14
Pete
um I would I'm not sure I have the right answer to that. Here's what I would say what I've encountered most when I've assumed the responsibility of being interim and those roles have been six months, they've been a year and a half, they've been a year, in one case over two years.
00:13:31
Pete
So interim has different meanings depending on the institution's needs.
00:13:34
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:13:34
Pete
I would say um it's it's it's not it's less overthinking than having become um restrained or reluctant to advance their ideas because of some rough experiences and offering creative ideas previously. And you know you get smacked down a few times in trying to take risks and trying to be creative.
00:13:57
Pete
It's very natural to say, I'll play it safer next time. And I've kind of felt part of my job in those roles is to get to know those staff. And usually I discover that. And in most cases, that's been the the realization.
00:14:10
Pete
So how do i clear the clear the way for them to return to that creative space?
00:14:15
Tracey Halvorsen
How important is it that this um work is is shepherded and supported from the top?
Building Trust in Communications
00:14:24
Pete
It's critical. I've always believed that in in so many words, you you cannot succeed as a head of communications, whether you're a CCO or VP, whatever the title might be, as the top person that you know answers to the president for that portfolio, your your odds of succeeding, let's put this way, are exceedingly low if you don't have a deep trusting relationship with the president.
00:14:47
Pete
The president has to trust you and you have to trust the president um because in the role of serving institutional communications and marketing,
00:14:53
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank
00:14:56
Pete
you're right, you're you're in and in many ways, you're prioritizing the whole identity of this institution so you and the president had better have a deep understanding of one another and and ah an ability to work out those hard questions about identity, language, message, right? Especially in it today the exceedingly fast way that the modern media forced communications on at institutional levels to move.
00:15:22
Pete
you You have to have that foundation so you you can move quickly when you need to. um And so that partnership, knowing the president trusts you and vice versa, is seminal to doing the job.
00:15:34
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, I think that's um that's ah such an important thing to get some sense of, I think, when whenever I'm engaging with a new client um is, you know, how far up the ladder does does this go and do you have the full support of leadership to to do what needs to be done?
00:15:52
Pete
Totally. Totally. All
00:15:54
Tracey Halvorsen
And let's face it, today... ah Things are moving fast. um There's not a lot of tolerance for um long, drawn out, expensive work, but there's also a lot at stake.
00:16:00
Pete
right.
00:16:06
Pete
Right? no
00:16:10
Pete
That's right. That's right. the yeah The stakes are huge. And ah being a college or university president is an exceedingly difficult job these days. They have a million things coming at them.
00:16:22
Pete
Everybody in the communities of every kind, second guessing decision making. um And so you've got to help that president succeed. And the truth is, it's it at least as important to believe in the president. like You pour so much of yourself into the work, you better believe in them as a leader.
00:16:39
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. what is um What's one of the most courageous things you've seen ah leadership team do or move forward with?
00:16:52
Pete
Yeah, there's there's a number of them. um i'll I'll try and maybe tell three very quick stories, and I'll go from oldest to newest. Back in the 90s, I know this is a long time ago, i was working for an extraordinary president, John Palms, whom I am still close with and still admire.
00:17:12
Pete
um He was president for about 12 years, and I was his head of communications the entire time. um And hell I'll put it this way. He had to confront some apparent racism in one of the campus communities that had resulted in a local commission rejecting his choice of chancellor for that campus.
00:17:31
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank you.
00:17:35
Pete
He had to go to that campus, speak to what the commission had done to a full auditorium of people who were shocked that a black leader, the president had chosen to be chancellor.
00:17:47
Pete
had subsequently been voted down by the local commission, even though the local commission had no authority to do so, so damaged that connection that that individual understandably chose then to reject a position had accept he had accepted. And Dr. Palms,
00:18:07
Pete
waded into that head on in public and it say why and basically said why that was wrong. and He would not permit it again. um And I remember standing backstage with him before he worked walked out into that auditorium. And I remember seeing how calm he was.
00:18:22
Pete
And I basically said i was a young man and I i was probably 27, something like that. And I said to him, basically, there's a full auditorium. Every news outlet in the state is covering this matter. How are you so calm?
00:18:35
Pete
And he said, because I'm doing the right thing. He was by challenging that commission's decision by saying henceforth they would have no role in this process and and and other reasons that he was explaining his like his predicament and his um dismay about what they had done.
00:18:53
Pete
He was doing the right thing. um The second one, I would basically say Bill Harris's leadership of Science Foundation Ireland. I was the head of communications when Bill started SFI. at their government's request. The Irish government put a billion euro into this enterprise, staggering some of money for a tiny country who had never made anything like that kind of investment before.
00:19:17
Pete
And Bill was tasked with building out this whole enterprise from scratch. That takes courage, that takes leadership, that takes vision, that takes listening, that takes understanding the culture. And I was very proud to to be supporting Bill in doing so, because I believed in the work that the foundation was trying to do.
00:19:33
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank you.
00:19:35
Pete
um And then the third one, I guess I would say um it's going to be it's going to be in a smaller scale, Tracy, but you'll know it though. So those are kind of very big global matters I'm talking about with so many ethical dimensions. Then the one i'm about to say is far more specific.
00:19:51
Pete
But you and I know we work together at Bucknell And i I basically said something ridiculous to the community and to the faculty. And I was really just trying to chart a path of daring.
00:20:03
Pete
i said, we're going to build the most innovative website in American higher education, which on its face is an absurd thing, of course. But I was just trying to push boundaries because I knew this culture prized innovation. it prized entrepreneurial attitude. And I felt this medium needed to reflect their identity.
00:20:22
Pete
It's one of the reasons I brought you in because you competed for that job. You wowed us that you were embracing innovation, entrepreneurship. And where I want to go is that president.
00:20:35
Pete
John Bravman, who is still there and I still consider a close friend. um but supported us.
00:20:42
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:20:43
Pete
in a radical rethinking of how a college or university website should be constructed. As you know, we reverse engineered the whole process from the RFP process to the concluding result.
00:20:55
Pete
And lo and behold, it gets named most innovative website in higher education, which I didn't even know what that was like. There was such a thing. i think it was a Webby Award, right, that it gave that.
00:21:05
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:21:05
Pete
But that wasn't the important thing.
00:21:06
Tracey Halvorsen
m
00:21:07
Pete
The important thing was the medium needed to reflect the identity of the institution and the president. I had the the confidence and courage say, go ahead, you guys, give it a shot.
00:21:17
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Yeah. Um, that was a, that was a fun one.
00:21:21
Pete
or Yeah.
00:21:22
Tracey Halvorsen
Uh, you know, everyone talks about how higher eds, um, they continue to all look the same, all sound the same. ah you know, I'm amazed at the amount of, you know, drone campus photography and the taglines that,
00:21:39
Pete
Yeah.
00:21:42
Pete
yeah
00:21:42
Tracey Halvorsen
and it And it makes me think, you know, is there ah is there a need to fit in? I mean, are are you you wouldn't think that you'd need people to understand. Well, we need them to understand we're we're a liberal arts college.
00:21:54
Tracey Halvorsen
um But they seem to be kind of needing to fit into this
Challenges of Differentiation and Audience Engagement
00:21:59
Pete
Yeah. Yeah.
00:21:59
Tracey Halvorsen
place that doesn't seem like
00:22:03
Tracey Halvorsen
you know the The risks of not being understood for what you are ah don't seem that high.
00:22:07
Pete
yeah
00:22:08
Tracey Halvorsen
So I'm just wondering what you think is driving that um and how you think at least you're seeing some of your clients work against that.
00:22:19
Tracey Halvorsen
Because I mean i don't think there's anything good in any of that.
00:22:22
Pete
Well, I would, i I'm honestly, I'm pretty sympathetic about the predicament that campuses or staffs in this space face, right? The shortest distance between two points is a straight line.
00:22:35
Pete
And when you have a million things coming at you, it is very natural, very understandable to manage these extraordinary expectations to just do what you're familiar with, put it that way, number one.
00:22:48
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:22:49
Pete
Number two, it is hard ah to take risks. and And it goes both ways. When you're an exceedingly strong institution, which frankly, most of the ones we work with are in that space, why change?
00:23:01
Pete
Why dare anything? youre You've succeeded doing what you're doing.
00:23:03
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:23:05
Pete
So there's a argument to to let the inertia play and and and roll it out.
00:23:06
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:23:11
Pete
On the flip side, if you're an institution in in a serious predicament and we've supported institutions like that, it's terrifying to try something daring in how you are connecting with your communities.
00:23:20
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank you.
00:23:22
Pete
And so it's it's very natural. And I would, you know you know, I wrote a book about James Joyce's Ulysses in Chaos Physics, right?
00:23:30
Tracey Halvorsen
and yeah
00:23:31
Pete
So kind of physics is sort of a side fascination of mine, purely as the most lay person of lay persons. um I will just say it this way. I believe in agitation. I believe in the small perturbation. And that's why I think part of our approach is very much asking provocative questions to see if there's some agitation or perturbation we can introduce into the thinking that is both within that but institution and its culture's comfort zone, but to the furthest edges of its comfort zone.
00:24:00
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. I mean, I, I think, um, you know, again, i have a lot of empathy for, um places that are facing challenges as well as the ones that are like, we're good. Um, let's not rock the boat because it's, it is, there is a lot of fear, um for some of these institutions right now, just around survival.
00:24:22
Pete
Yeah.
00:24:22
Pete
yeah
00:24:22
Tracey Halvorsen
Um,
00:24:23
Tracey Halvorsen
It can be very hard to to say, we're scared, let's now make scary decisions.
00:24:29
Pete
Right.
00:24:29
Tracey Halvorsen
So to stack fear um is is not, it goes against, i think, human instinct.
00:24:30
Pete
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:36
Pete
yeah
00:24:36
Tracey Halvorsen
um And I also can't imagine, i mean, the the amount of audiences that these communications teams need to be talking to in the the amount of places they need to be trying to talk to them and reach them
00:24:52
Pete
Right? Right?
00:24:52
Pete
Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:52
Tracey Halvorsen
the level of authenticity or polish or brand that's expected at every different touch point is different for all these audiences.
00:24:57
Pete
right
00:25:01
Pete
yeah
00:25:03
Tracey Halvorsen
um Do you think that there is a case to be made that you've got, you've got to start, you've got to start thinking about the the way we approach the work differently um because it has become so flat and so wide and
00:25:16
Pete
yeah
00:25:20
Pete
Yeah, um I'm going to give you two quick answers. Yes. And I think the temptation is to start by thinking out here where the friction points are at the boundary between the institution and its audiences.
00:25:35
Pete
And that will result in a lot of caution. And it because, you know you talked about the many constituencies, teams and communications and marketing. have to serve in service to their institution, all those constituencies now have numerous ways of expressing their dissatisfactions, right? this This line of work was completely revolutionized by the advent of the iPhone and the smartphone and all the subsequent social media that it spawned.
00:26:08
Pete
And so they don't exist anymore. They exist at a very permeable but permeable barrier. It goes both ways in an ebb and flow. And if that's your focus, you will naturally move with extreme caution.
00:26:21
Pete
So part of the challenge of the work is to actually pull it closer to the heart of who this institution is, what it's trying to accomplish, how it can express that, and work outward.
00:26:34
Pete
And i think I think that's one of the the ways, at least, we try to think about the problems we're asked to help institutions solve.
00:26:41
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. um I've always said, yeah it used to be that um when websites became a thing, right, they were such a, they were they were a place where the brand and the messaging could get the most amplification.
00:26:56
Pete
Right. Right. Yeah.
00:26:57
Tracey Halvorsen
Right. And then it began, then social media became ah real. And, you know, i was just reading some research that Gen Z's, uh, they trust YouTube content more than, than anything on Google or an institutional website. They trust what they see and hear on Google, on YouTube.
00:27:17
Tracey Halvorsen
And so the entire sort of landscape of where impact is made or where relationships are created has changed so radically.
00:27:26
Pete
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
00:27:27
Tracey Halvorsen
um,
00:27:27
Pete
Right.
00:27:29
Tracey Halvorsen
And I agree with you. You've got to, you know, I love when when we were working together and you were talking about sort of the essence of of how Mackey Strategies works. It's to getting getting to the core with that listening and those questions.
00:27:39
Pete
yeah yeah
00:27:42
Pete
yeah
00:27:43
Tracey Halvorsen
And I agree with you. yeah it That is where it has to start so that it will have some foundation as it gets amplified in all of these different places. Otherwise, it's just tactics that you're kind of pecking at um that don't have a lot of um substance to keep them going, frankly.
00:27:54
Pete
right
00:27:58
Pete
Yeah. Yeah. And the more honest, authentic, effective, and at the same time creative it is, the more likely you are to stick with it when times get rough and times will get rough.
00:28:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:28:11
Pete
There will be people who, um, think you're an idiot, people who think you have no idea what you're doing and they're not going to be shy about telling you and and maybe you are. Honestly, you really have to ask yourself when that happens, like, what did I miss?
00:28:24
Pete
Maybe they're right. And what can I learn from that? If you reflect on that and you still think, no, i we we're doing this for very particular reasons. then so then you you stick with it, but you're much more likely to reach the second conclusion if you've done the homework to find to really find something that you want to express that is really right for that school and really true to that school and its culture.
00:28:48
Tracey Halvorsen
When you are going through the, you know, the sort of the, the listening question asking process with clients, let's, let's, let's specifically talk about higher eds.
00:28:56
Pete
Yeah.
00:29:00
Pete
Yeah.
00:29:02
Tracey Halvorsen
um You know, oftentimes students, you know, students have this attitude of, you know, Hey, I'm paying a lot of money here. You know, the school should be working for me. I got this gripe. I got that, that gripe, you know, they're, they, they have a ah unique perspective of it, but I think they also should be saying things that, that really are at the heart of what that, you know, that's why I think talking to students is so important on these campuses um because they should be living the experience that the the brand is promising, right.
00:29:27
Pete
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:36
Pete
Yeah.
00:29:36
Tracey Halvorsen
And the communications are promising.
00:29:39
Tracey Halvorsen
What other audiences do you think hold keys to that? And maybe it's all of them, but, and, and, you know in terms of
00:29:46
Pete
hotck key so
00:29:48
Tracey Halvorsen
In terms of priority of these audiences, who who do you think do you think some of the most interesting insights come from?
00:29:51
Pete
oh
00:29:55
Pete
ands ah To me, it's it obviously changes based on institutions, so I'll generalize. It is oftentimes our conversations with students are most illuminating.
00:30:07
Pete
Maybe that seems obvious because they're the young people that we are all dedicated to educating. Maybe that seems obvious, but they're also young people, right? And so you might also, if you're not familiar enough with this work, might think, you know, what do they have to say about expressing this institution's identity to every constituency it it it works with in the world.
00:30:31
Pete
ah so So when we do our discovery process, we have really intensive conversations with people and they always include students, they always include faculty, and then you you know you can name all the other constituencies, obviously.
00:30:44
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. yeah
00:30:45
Pete
The other one, honestly, I actually had the experience that there there I would say there's a lot of skepticism that actually faculty can help us in this work. I've never found that to be true.
00:30:52
Tracey Halvorsen
and
00:30:54
Pete
I've actually i have very much learned from faculty almost every engagement we've had when we're trying to figure out that brand identity, what the faculty think of this place, what they think separates it from others.
00:31:08
Pete
And, you know, and I do like to be honest with the faculty when the when the situation, you know, calls for certain types of work to to just explain to faculty, you are a scholar and a teacher in this particular discipline that you have mastered.
00:31:23
Pete
Very few people that we're going to be communicating with on behalf of you and this college or university are. So we have to use a different vocabulary. Right. And so i learned long ago that language is the currency of faculty. And there's a whole story I could tell about that I'll leave out. But suffice it to say,
00:31:43
Pete
It's understandable that faculty are highly concerned about the language you are using to describe the brand, the message, the lead identity of this place to which they typically dedicate the better part or all of their careers.
00:31:58
Pete
They care profoundly. This is their home, their place of work. They know these places intimately. And so we've also learned a great deal from those conversations. And we honestly, we try to open Like when we have these conversations, we ask very open-ended questions.
00:31:58
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:32:12
Pete
We want to open doors to hearing them. We don't want to go with any any pre-prescribed notions. That's why I say we're not trying to create a message. We're trying to reflect one.
00:32:20
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:32:20
Pete
ah Yeah.
00:32:23
Tracey Halvorsen
What do you see as the biggest challenge of the next
Political Pressures in Higher Education
00:32:28
Pete
Hmm. Hmm.
00:32:29
Tracey Halvorsen
two years facing higher eds.
00:32:33
Pete
Well, I think like anyone who cares about teaching, scholarship, research, academic freedom, freedom of speech, the power and value that higher education institutions have to strengthen America, educate as young people contribute in so many ways to the wellbeing of our society.
00:32:54
Pete
I am deeply, deeply concerned about what is happening with the current ah White House administration. um
00:33:00
Tracey Halvorsen
Mm-hmm.
00:33:01
Pete
and the discussions underway in Congress, the actions that have been taken, I think, to harm almost everything I named. um I think we we we have first of all, I think higher ed has to do a much better job of telling its story in ways that are understandable and accessible.
00:33:18
Pete
Secondly, I think we have to stand together shoulder to shoulder as institutions um to resist these many actions that are being taken that I think are really deleterious to our American culture, our American economy, our American opportunities.
00:33:35
Pete
And I think we're gonna it's it's not gonna work if we all, as an it as in each individual institution, ah resist it that way. We have to work together, we have to help each other, we have to help make the case, and we have to work in the halls of ah Congress to to um advocate both against some decisions that have yet to be made and to fight the ones that we can in the courts and elsewhere that we we know are not good for America.
00:34:02
Tracey Halvorsen
i I agree with you 100% that point. um I do want to wrap up because I know you've got some some big calls coming up. I guess the last thing um I would like to to ask is what you think about what um how Harvard has stood up or at least um presented a different kind of, you know, and I know there's financial implications that are different for all of these institutions.
00:34:20
Pete
um
00:34:24
Pete
yep
00:34:26
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:34:27
Pete
Well, I think what the response you saw to Harvard, what the the the rallying around its decision to oppose the current administration's decisions was people across our society saying enough is enough and that we need someone to step into the vanguard and say that.
00:34:48
Pete
um And i so i I am hopeful that that reaction is a signal of a more unified front of advocacy, both in the positive way on behalf of why higher education um and the work it does in service to our our world and our nation um will be more effective and clearer and stronger.
00:35:11
Pete
I also think i agree and think I agree with those who say that by stepping into the vanguard, um Harvard, with all the financial might it possesses, um provides a very potent um forced to rally behind.
00:35:28
Pete
So both awakening something positive to to fight for the case that higher ed has to make, which is powerful about how we strengthen our country, as well as to make the case against some of these highly, highly concerning decisions and actions.
00:35:28
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:35:43
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Well, Pete, thank you so much for coming on and talking with me today about, I know we could go on for hours, so I'll let you go.
00:35:46
Pete
yeah
00:35:49
Pete
Thank you, Tracy.
00:35:51
Tracey Halvorsen
Always a pleasure.
00:35:53
Pete
Likewise.
00:35:54
Tracey Halvorsen
All right. I'll talk to you soon. Take care. Bye-bye.