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Escape Velocity with E&A Collaborative, Edit Barry and Allison Le
15 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Tracey sits down with Edit Barry and Allison Le, co-founders of E&A Collaborative, an award-winning women-owned brand consultancy specializing in higher education and mission-driven branding. With nearly two decades of experience, Edit and Allison share their insights on the challenges facing higher education marketing, the growing trend of “Blanding” (branding becoming homogenized and generic), and how institutions can break free from the sameness to stand out in an increasingly competitive landscape.
The conversation dives into topics like how students seek belonging rather than just prestige, the role of AI in branding, and why higher ed institutions struggle to showcase their true personality. They also unpack Harvard’s radical website redesign and discuss how other universities can be bold without needing Harvard’s reputation.
If you’re interested in brand strategy, higher ed marketing, or creative differentiation, this episode will spark new ideas on how to challenge the status quo.
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Transcript
Introduction of Guests
00:00:07
Tracey Halvorsen
Welcome to another episode of Escape Velocity, and today I'm thrilled to welcome two extraordinary women who have spent nearly two decades shaping the way educational institutions and mission-driven organizations tell their stories and connect with their audiences.
00:00:24
Tracey Halvorsen
Adeet Berry and Allison Lee are the co-founders of E&A Collaborative, an award-winning women-owned brand consultancy that has earned its reputation for delivering purpose-driven branding and transformative results. So Adeet and Allison, thank you for being here. um I'm so excited to dig in and talk about some good stuff today.
Admiration and Success Stories
00:00:48
Tracey Halvorsen
um Just been so impressed with the work that you all have done over almost two decades, and we've had the chance to work together in the past.
00:00:58
Tracey Halvorsen
So you know I have some familiarity with the two of you. I have really loved watching you start your own thing and um work on some of the campaigns that you've you've worked on, um which have just had remarkable success.
00:01:14
Tracey Halvorsen
I'm thinking um thinking in particular of Global Refuge um and Wittenberg University, which were a recent,
00:01:14
Edit Barry
Thank you, Tracy.
00:01:23
Tracey Halvorsen
projects right that had pretty amazing outcomes.
00:01:24
Allison
ye
00:01:26
Tracey Halvorsen
So maybe we can talk about those, but I'll just mention them as recent highlights.
00:01:33
Edit Barry
Yeah.
Exceeding Fundraising Targets
00:01:36
Tracey Halvorsen
um
00:01:37
Edit Barry
Well, Wittenberg was our hundred million dollar capital campaign that closed out its, but reached its target about six months early and then and then beat it by about $13 million.
00:01:49
Edit Barry
dollars Yeah.
00:01:50
Allison
Yep. In COVID, no less.
00:01:51
Tracey Halvorsen
and Amazing.
00:01:52
Allison
We were very proud of that.
00:01:55
Tracey Halvorsen
Amazing to have anything good happen along those lines during COVID. um And that was specifically for a campaign project?
00:02:03
Allison
It was.
00:02:05
Edit Barry
Yeah, that was their biggest a fundraising campaign ever.
00:02:09
Tracey Halvorsen
Wow. Well, we may um go back and dig in on that in particular as we get into our topics today that I know we wanted to focus on. um As you know you know, I just love talking about and thinking about how how we have breakthrough moments, how we push through things to get to that next level of growth or innovation or creativity.
00:02:38
Tracey Halvorsen
And where there are challenges and or opportunities along the way and a lot of times what one person sees as a problem or a challenge is indeed another person's opportunity.
The 'Blanding' Phenomenon
00:02:51
Tracey Halvorsen
And one of the things we have been talking about, and I would say we've been talking about this for a long time because it keeps cyclically repeating and that is the notion that everything starts to look the same.
00:03:03
Tracey Halvorsen
when it comes to brand and marketing, in particular, one of the notorious areas that this happens is higher ed. And everyone knows it and everyone talks about it.
00:03:11
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:03:13
Tracey Halvorsen
And yet here we are once again in 2025 with this amount of what we've all started calling Blanding,
00:03:23
Tracey Halvorsen
um which is just, it just feels so counterintuitive and and and not not right to meet the time. that we're actually in to see this kind of happening. So I'll throw that all out there and see see who wants to pick that up.
00:03:42
Allison
Well, Blanding's interesting. I mean, it's essentially thinking about trends getting just too trendy and then getting boring because you're seeing it all the time. And with higher ed, um that tends to move slower in in trend like through trends anyway. It's this notion of trying to like fit into something rather than belonging. so trying to fit into what everyone's doing versus how can I be authentic and still belong in this category?
00:04:13
Allison
That's kind of how I, I look at it. And there's so much empirical data now in web design and, um, higher ed marketing that says it should look this way.
00:04:23
Allison
It should be this way. This is how users interact.
00:04:26
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:04:27
Allison
Um, the, the, the notion of kind of going against that and trying something new feel can feel scary.
00:04:35
Tracey Halvorsen
Do you got any need to add on there?
00:04:38
Edit Barry
Well, i didn't I didn't know this term, Blanding, until you introduced it to us. um And what I thought was, you know, the examples that we saw of Blanding today are cars, like the white SUV that all looks exactly the same, no matter what brand it is, or Airbnbs that have that kind of
00:05:00
Tracey Halvorsen
huh
00:05:05
Edit Barry
you know, Munstera plant and the macrame and the same kind of beige, light pink, you
AI and Uniformity in Branding
00:05:12
Edit Barry
know, wood.
00:05:12
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, yeah, it's almost like AI is a real life mimicking AI, right?
00:05:16
Allison
Yeah.
00:05:17
Edit Barry
And it's all kind of, it's kind of everything is looking the same. And in terms of higher ed, what we've tried to get schools not to do is focus on features. We have this many programs and we won, you know,
00:05:35
Edit Barry
this This is our ranking and this many awards and things you can, you know, a parent could make a chart and lay out the differences that way. um But to focus on higher ed branding takes you to a different level of thinking about who you are, what you care about, what your values are beyond, you know, these are sort of features that we're looking at.
00:06:04
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, and the the brand of a higher ed, you know it's it's represented in so many interesting ways. It's not the logo and the tagline and the colors and the shield and the mascot and you know the president. it's It's like, no, it's it's actually reflected in like What is your first year you know student doing between noon and one during their first semester on campus? like what is that What do these little snapshots look like of people's lives as they're growing and changing and um evolving within this idea that is you know whatever name, college, or university?
Seeking Authentic Student Experiences
00:06:51
Tracey Halvorsen
It's an idea.
00:06:52
Allison
Yeah, dare dare I say vibe, the vibe of an institution, right?
00:06:53
Tracey Halvorsen
um Yeah, vibe.
00:06:57
Allison
like
00:06:58
Tracey Halvorsen
The vibe of an institution, I was just talking to um one of my nieces who's a you know rising senior and just starting to think about colleges.
00:07:08
Tracey Halvorsen
And she's like, yeah, so my friends know that I'm looking at UVA. And so they had one of their friends is there and posted a video on YouTube about like,
00:07:20
Tracey Halvorsen
how many times she stopped into the coffee shop in one day to get various you know fancy coffee drinks. That's what my niece was curious about.
00:07:29
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:07:29
Tracey Halvorsen
you know Versus she went somewhere else and went on a tour and the tour guide was like, oh yeah, I'm dragging.
00:07:30
Allison
Yeah.
00:07:35
Tracey Halvorsen
I just spent 24 hours like studying in the library. And granted, that's probably an add accurate presentation of that particular college's level of you know academic rigor and study requirements and stress.
00:07:49
Tracey Halvorsen
but i mean My niece wasn't very interested in that, nor did she find that very appealing. Because study or not, like what's yeah what's the vibe like? um What's someone like her doing with their time and how is she going to get to that information? It's not going to be on the college's website, most likely.
00:08:10
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:08:10
Allison
Yeah, the college's website, you know, the materials that come out often have the institutional voice, um which is important, right? we We, as, you know, parents and rising seniors looking at colleges, like, you you want to know the programs and the professors and how, you know, all this important stuff.
00:08:30
Allison
But yeah, we somehow getting under the layers to the vibe, like, what's your life going to be like on this campus?
00:08:30
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:08:36
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. I mean, I think you just you're not expecting that kind of content on the college website. So I think that's as long i think you know kids are going to be looking um elsewhere for that. They're not going to trust it, even if you did put it on the college, on the institutional website. They're not going to really trust it as much. But what they are going to do is get a sense of trust for the institution on that website.
00:09:00
Tracey Halvorsen
So it's like the nuanced things like, you know, how easy is it to for you to find out what the financial aid situation is or what the tuition situation really is? You know, how helpful is that website to doing some of the really scary or intimidating things that you need to do in your college search or application or visit process?
00:09:19
Tracey Halvorsen
Right? um I think that's where a lot of schools are still really, it's like you're still making it a pain in my butt to find out how to give you potentially half a million dollars. Like don't do that. Don't make that hard for me. You should not make that hard.
00:09:37
Allison
Well, and even if the...
00:09:38
Edit Barry
Well, they probably won't be giving that money online, but to figure out who I talk to and also, you know, a lot of, a lot of what needs to happen with fundraising should not be happening online. Like a $5 donation, a hundred, 500, a thousand, but a big donation should involve a face to face relationship, like an ongoing conversation. Um, so.
Importance of Events and Connections
00:10:09
Edit Barry
Maybe it's easy for the introvert to sort of lean on the on the website to do a lot of relational work. um But I guess the way we're talking about this move from like thinking about your brand book, like your identity manual as your brand, to thinking about events,
00:10:34
Edit Barry
is very much the the evolution of how students are thinking about, you know, choosing the school that, you know, where the sweatshirt is the one that I want to wear.
00:10:35
Tracey Halvorsen
mm hmm.
00:10:47
Edit Barry
Like, I want to be identified with that in my senior class picture. I want to be wearing the Yale sweatshirt or, you know, there is the RISD sweatshirt or whatever it may be.
00:10:58
Edit Barry
um And now I think with we just We just were in a session last week about youth marketing and what the next generation is looking for.
00:11:11
Edit Barry
And events is like what they're looking for. They want to actually connect with real people. um Yeah, it's not just being associated with a name or a brand, but it's like, where can I go where I feel like I belong?
00:11:18
Allison
Unity.
00:11:29
Edit Barry
And I can find people who are interested in the things that I'm interested in. Not just the concept of, yeah, they have my major and there will be other people in my major, but sort of feeling like they have an awesome Instagram in the chemistry department in such and such engineering school.
00:11:34
Tracey Halvorsen
you know
00:11:48
Edit Barry
um And I want to be part of that.
00:11:49
Tracey Halvorsen
OK,
00:11:50
Edit Barry
Like that's exciting and cool to me.
00:11:53
Allison
So that actually goes back a little bit to what I said at the beginning, which is like schools need to aim to show belonging and not trying to fit in, right?
00:11:53
Tracey Halvorsen
okay so.
00:12:02
Allison
They don't want to fit into this category. They belong to this category, this category of liberal arts education of, you know, whatever their category is. And it's similar with students, right?
00:12:13
Allison
They want to feel like they belong there. They belong with this community, with these people. They're not there to try to like fit in because they're supposed to be there because for any sort of like reputational purposes or anything.
00:12:23
Tracey Halvorsen
oh Well, to that point, right? So belonging, fitting in, whatever it is, if it's belonging now, great. How do you know if you're going to belong somewhere if it all looks the same?
00:12:38
Tracey Halvorsen
And every single bit of video footage I see on every college, I mean, we should make a compilation because it's all the same. Not to mention that well yeah everyone has their drone footage of buildings.
00:12:48
Allison
All the drones. Yeah.
00:12:52
Edit Barry
The talking heads, the drone shot.
00:12:53
Tracey Halvorsen
But then all the footage, the sports, the people wandering through the pretty buildings and sitting together. And um it's just all the same. And i even on, I don't know, like is there more interesting diversity and personality in those social media challenge as channels? And is that where it's happening?
00:13:17
Edit Barry
I think people are still trying to figure it out, and there's a lot of video that's like, I am so-and-so from this state, and I study this, and here's my day walking around, you know.
00:13:31
Edit Barry
Campus, here's this empty courtyard where we meet after school.
00:13:33
Tracey Halvorsen
I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
00:13:36
Edit Barry
It's very, very awkward and nobody's like owning the medium because it's weird. And I don't think people have a sense of who exactly I'm talking to. And if you don't know who's watching, you know, having that introduction just feels sort of like an extension of a campus tour rather than, I don't know,
00:14:03
Edit Barry
putting someone out there who students can relate to, even if it's only a few. It doesn't have to be your entire student body.
00:14:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, why do so many schools seem to suck so bad at like getting good student generated content and keeping it up? It's just like, I know it's hard, but it's it's less and less hard every year.
00:14:27
Tracey Halvorsen
As the tools get better, it get you know the the the technology is easier and more accessible.
00:14:34
Edit Barry
here
00:14:35
Tracey Halvorsen
Most people can just be live streaming like from their pockets practically. um Is it fear that like weird stuff is going to go out under the institution name and they're not going to have a chance to censor it or edit it?
00:14:43
Allison
Thank you.
00:14:48
Allison
i think they're yeah
00:14:48
Edit Barry
I don't know. Allison, maybe you have ideas about that. i I don't feel like I could speak to that. I can say, as someone who's ah worked with schools to recruit focus groups of current students on campus, that it's hard for people in the admissions office to connect with people beyond the people who give tours on campus or work in the admission office because they're just not making connections with those with those kids.
00:15:12
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:15:19
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:15:19
Edit Barry
um So that's part of it. People are working in the office. And the easiest thing is to be like, Hey, Mary, like show up at this thing.
00:15:25
Tracey Halvorsen
it
00:15:30
Edit Barry
Um, so that's part of it.
00:15:31
Allison
Yeah.
00:15:32
Edit Barry
But I also, you know, in terms of what an enrollment, enrollment VP needs to be doing, that's like very in the weeds.
00:15:45
Edit Barry
So it's a lot to, it's a lot to ask to manage it and to sort of make sure that people are saying the right thing.
00:15:45
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean I.
00:15:55
Allison
Yeah. And schools are risk adverse. Like they want to make sure that the kids that they are highlighting or representing, you know, the school properly. Right. So I, I understand the fear of, you know, doing something different, getting out there and trying, um, not to say it's not needed.
00:16:16
Allison
It is, but, um, you know, and, and schools are, uh, universities and institutions, they're, they're late adopters to. to trends and technology especially as well. So it's something that just takes time and and a lot of trust.
00:16:33
Edit Barry
Yeah, but I also think thats a if you don't have a strategy and you don't know why you're doing it, then it feels like flailing.
00:16:34
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:16:39
Allison
Yeah.
00:16:43
Allison
Yeah, I was just gonna say that too.
00:16:43
Tracey Halvorsen
you know hope Hope is not a plan. Yeah.
00:16:46
Edit Barry
Yeah.
Adapting to Financial and Technological Pressures
00:16:47
Allison
Yeah.
00:16:47
Tracey Halvorsen
um it just it just seems like I mean, I understand historically higher ed has been very slow to move.
00:16:48
Edit Barry
so
00:16:53
Tracey Halvorsen
They tend to have smaller budgets. there There is some level of bureaucracy, not like a government organization, but a decent amount. People are territorial. um Change adoption happens at a slower rate. You've just got people that get tenure or they get in their jobs, they don't leave. However, I would say at a certain point, there's going to be enough external pressures saying you need to figure something out or you're not going to survive that they're going to the fear will have to
00:17:28
Tracey Halvorsen
You know, bypass all of those more traditional reserved tendencies because they won't be able to afford to wait and I think that right now there's a lot of pausing because there is so much change in technology right now with artificial intelligence.
00:17:50
Tracey Halvorsen
There's also so much pressure on these schools and their budgets. They don't know what they're going to have to cut, if they're going to have to cut, where they're going to have to cut to stay viable.
00:17:56
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:18:00
Tracey Halvorsen
And there's just so much scrutiny on them. And even people questioning the validity of this investment and the payoff, um that it's just like, i I don't know where, you know, at what point do the the tensions become so great that you start to see people doing really interesting things.
00:18:23
Tracey Halvorsen
And I think that, While I don't think this is because of financial pressures, I do think it's worth mentioning what Harvard's doing.
Harvard's Innovative Approach
00:18:32
Tracey Halvorsen
I mean, we looked at Harvard's site recently, and um it was ah it was our clients over at Skidmore that brought this to our attention.
00:18:41
Tracey Halvorsen
Holy crap. right like Harvard was just like, no, this isn't where we're talking to prospective students.
00:18:44
Allison
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
00:18:50
Tracey Halvorsen
We don't need to have visit a plot. We're night we're not asking you to give money here. We are showing you like really our great thinking.
00:18:59
Allison
yeah
00:18:59
Edit Barry
Yeah, they're opening up a different kind of conversation. So if you think of this is what's bland about higher ed websites.
00:19:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Mm-hmm.
00:19:09
Edit Barry
It's like the big image, whether it's moving, whether it's static with some kind of either tagline or just like exploded logo over it.
00:19:20
Edit Barry
And then very standard sort of navigation, very expected, you know, from one site to the next, pretty much where all these elements are going to be.
00:19:31
Edit Barry
um So then you have, you know, maybe you have news and events somewhere on there. um But you know exactly what you're what you're going to find when you open the site.
00:19:43
Edit Barry
And there might be some gimmick, you know, that sort of draws you in, or maybe not.
00:19:47
Tracey Halvorsen
Always.
00:19:51
Edit Barry
um And sometimes you can tell that the site hasn't been updated in 10 years. And sometimes You can tell that they have engaged a really great graphic designer and the design just really stands out. um Like for Wellesley, we looked at we looked at Wellesley in this kind of beautiful bold type and amazing color palette, but just sort of pops. I think what Harvard's done is completely rethink
00:20:23
Edit Barry
what happens on the landing page. And it's way more, and I mean, not more, it is editorial. Like, it's editorial.
00:20:31
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:20:33
Edit Barry
It's like magazine content.
00:20:34
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:20:35
Edit Barry
It's for people who read, but it's not dry.
00:20:38
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:20:39
Edit Barry
It's not from a Harvard voice. um It's very friendly, open. It's like all the things that you think Harvard isn't. It feels on the level.
00:20:49
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:20:51
Edit Barry
um It's not talking down. It's sort of giving advice and it's very warm and inviting and and totally friendly and ungated.
00:21:03
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:21:03
Edit Barry
so
00:21:03
Tracey Halvorsen
mean And it's it's like they're going through um episode or not additions, right? Because the first time we pulled up Harvard, it was a feature that was all about HIV research.
00:21:10
Allison
Yeah.
00:21:15
Tracey Halvorsen
The second one, we you and when we pulled it up, it was a feature on aging.
00:21:20
Edit Barry
Resolutions.
00:21:21
Tracey Halvorsen
um
00:21:22
Edit Barry
Resolutions. I think they probably had updated it like right at the new year.
00:21:23
Tracey Halvorsen
Resolution. Right. yeah Right. And now it's cancer. cancer research um and all about their you know view of the disease and prevention, diagnosis, treatment, support.
00:21:37
Allison
Yeah. I mean, it's worth saying, and I'll say what everyone's probably thinking is that Harvard has given the gift of its reputation to do something defiant, right? To try something bold and different.
00:21:52
Allison
um that a lot of other schools would be too nervous to potentially do, not to say that they shouldn't necessarily, but that they are like, well, we're not that, we can't we can't do that, right? So I guess the question is, how do we empower other schools to be as bold as Harvard is with their new landing page, with their new homepage?
00:22:16
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, I don't know that every school should be as bold as Harvard. um but But I do think that if you talk to any of these schools, if they're a client or you're just talking to them, they you dig a little bit, you'll find out that they're doing some really interesting research somewhere.
00:22:31
Allison
Yeah.
00:22:31
Tracey Halvorsen
Or there's some really cool stuff that's happening. Or this you know this this amazing entrepreneurial success story happened. They bury it.
00:22:39
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:22:39
Allison
They do.
00:22:39
Tracey Halvorsen
They bury it in their news.
00:22:39
Allison
yeah
00:22:41
Tracey Halvorsen
They bury it in their campus stories. They bury it under so much boring that nobody is ever going to read it or care about it except maybe the parents of the kid that it's about.
00:22:48
Allison
Yeah.
00:22:51
Tracey Halvorsen
But they bury it all. And I don't know if any higher eds, oh my gosh, they're just they're so, they have such a hard time at sort of being like, this is great and we're gonna treat it like it's great.
00:23:03
Tracey Halvorsen
um But I think there is there is great stories and content They just need to turn themselves inside out. Maybe not like Harvard's doing it, but they need to turn themselves inside out and get past all of these layers of categorization and brand and voice and target audience.
00:23:22
Allison
Or how it should be, how it should be organized, the boxes that have been set.
00:23:24
Tracey Halvorsen
Right, right.
00:23:27
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, blow it up.
00:23:30
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:23:30
Tracey Halvorsen
So boring. And honestly, they've They're going to have to blow it up at some point because these websites have just gotten so big and so cumbersome, and they're going to they're going to change now faster and faster and faster because they're going to have to be.
00:23:44
Tracey Halvorsen
So it's now is a good time to blow it up, I think.
00:23:47
Edit Barry
okay I was thinking the way that um people used to design websites there was a lot of thought to the information architecture and how you moved from the front from the front like inside and it's almost like thinking about an LP like listening to the whole thing from the beginning to the end and how artists would structure the album to have a certain flow and now we're not in like vinyls anymore it's like people are just
00:23:59
Tracey Halvorsen
following
00:24:10
Allison
to
00:24:15
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:24:16
Allison
Yeah.
00:24:18
Allison
No more flows. Yeah.
00:24:23
Edit Barry
popping in this whatever page they're looking for is popping up for them. um They might even be searching for something totally different and then your search engine AI is pulling some example into a conversation about something that has nothing to do with your institution.
00:24:44
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, it's like everything everything is getting pulled out and sampled and remixed and and combined.
00:24:44
Edit Barry
um there's
00:24:49
Edit Barry
who
00:24:49
Allison
Mm hmm.
00:24:50
Tracey Halvorsen
And I think about, ah again, my niece, they have a program at their school, some some software application. And that's where she looks at information about colleges. She's not going to their websites.
00:25:02
Tracey Halvorsen
She's not reviewing, like, US News and World Report. She's going into Squire or Score or something.
00:25:06
Edit Barry
Right.
00:25:09
Edit Barry
Sion scores.
00:25:10
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, I don't know.
00:25:11
Edit Barry
S-E-I-O-R-O-R.
00:25:12
Tracey Halvorsen
um Yeah, something that like the guidance counselors have them all using and it matches her up to stuff and she can see, you know, what which which she's like, which schools do I have the best chance of getting into?
00:25:25
Allison
Mm hmm.
00:25:25
Tracey Halvorsen
because she doesn't, you know, no nobody wants to waste all that time and money and then end up not getting in anywhere. Um, but it was through that program that she was saying she was looking at information and how much more, you know, in a year or two, are we just going to be asking our voice assistants on our phones like, Hey, tell me what schools are within, you know, 50, 50 miles of here that that you know I could probably get into with this GPA that have good sports or you know kind of a rural feel, they're just we're just going to be asking.
00:25:55
Edit Barry
Yeah.
00:25:57
Tracey Halvorsen
And so your content all has to be ready to to to kind of embrace that too.
00:25:58
Edit Barry
Right.
00:25:59
Allison
Okay.
00:26:02
Edit Barry
And I think there's a lot of room there for marketers and, you know, admission marketing people to work on identifying who that student is for the student. Like, this is who we're looking for.
00:26:17
Edit Barry
in a vibey way. Not, you have this GPA and this many extracurriculars, but like, these are the, these are like, yeah.
00:26:19
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:26:23
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, like you like this many you like to have this many cappuccinos every day. And this is your favorite.
00:26:29
Edit Barry
These are the characteristics of someone who thrives here. And we did this for Wittenberg. We did a poster that's like, we are, you are this and sort of finding the connection because that's what kids want. Connection, like,
00:26:45
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:26:46
Edit Barry
Do I vibe with this place? is like do Do I fit here? do i Will I belong here?
00:26:50
Allison
yeah
00:26:51
Edit Barry
do i Do I feel like this is my people? These are my people.
00:26:56
Tracey Halvorsen
Right and it and it's like don't tell me your core values in response to that as a way that you are answering that question But do show me like the cool stickers that they create every year for like the talent show Or do tell me the funny story about how everyone loves chicken finger friday you know like Tell me those things because that starts to give me a sense of the vibe um
00:26:57
Edit Barry
This is my place.
00:27:16
Allison
Yeah.
00:27:21
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:27:21
Allison
Yeah, and that's important for the students. I mean, that's less important, we could argue, for the parents or the people that would be paying for the students' education, right?
00:27:32
Allison
like they So there's a way, but the the website, the vibe, all this stuff has to appeal to multiple audiences.
00:27:36
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:27:44
Allison
in that way, um which I think is where a lot of institutions kind of get um kind of fumble over their feet, right?
00:27:54
Tracey Halvorsen
Do you think that's why the blending happens? Let's go back to blending. There's so much good stuff that they could be doing.
00:28:04
Allison
Yeah.
00:28:05
Tracey Halvorsen
between the content that's getting buried, the the good you know insights and stories that matter that are just getting buried under all of this same generic sounding stuff and same generic looking imagery.
00:28:23
Tracey Halvorsen
Why is it only Harvard doing anything interesting right now?
00:28:27
Allison
Yeah. You know, kind of similar, it's like,
00:28:28
Tracey Halvorsen
you know
00:28:29
Edit Barry
Well, part of it does cost a lot of money to redo a website, Tracy.
00:28:32
Allison
and it That too, but also when you're when you're in it, when you're in the institution and you're like day in and day out, it's really hard to step outside of it and look in and say, this is what I see or this is what is missing or, you know.
00:28:35
Tracey Halvorsen
That's a problem too.
00:28:50
Tracey Halvorsen
Very true.
00:28:50
Allison
So, I mean, in in that way, um oh that's why we have jobs.
00:28:53
Tracey Halvorsen
That's why we have jobs.
00:28:54
Edit Barry
That's how we're consultants.
00:28:55
Allison
Outside consultants that can offer that perspective are so important.
00:28:56
Edit Barry
Yeah.
00:28:59
Allison
um
00:28:59
Tracey Halvorsen
Agree.
00:29:01
Allison
Because yeah, when you're in it, you're just like, you can't see it.
00:29:04
Tracey Halvorsen
OK, then why are then and the consultants aren't doing a good enough job, which should should be even better for us to write.
00:29:12
Allison
Or schools just don't have the time or resources to even and engage consultants, um you know, budgets have been slashed or something.
00:29:18
Tracey Halvorsen
Here's.
00:29:18
Edit Barry
i think lyn
00:29:20
Tracey Halvorsen
But you know, they spend time, they spend money on consultants for so much bullshit.
00:29:25
Edit Barry
see Yes.
00:29:26
Tracey Halvorsen
They don't do it document it for this.
00:29:26
Edit Barry
And I want, that's a very good point. Right.
00:29:29
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:29:30
Allison
Yeah.
00:29:30
Edit Barry
And they don't, they're, we're very anti the consultant who does a big report and the report ends up spending, you know, costing a ton of money and just collecting dust.
00:29:44
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:29:44
Allison
Yeah, that they can't implement.
00:29:45
Edit Barry
If you don't, if you don't have a vision for where you want to be, then doing a whole pile of research for its own sake is not going to get you anywhere.
00:29:47
Allison
They don't.
00:29:59
Allison
Great.
00:29:59
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:30:00
Edit Barry
You need to know, you know, we want to go from point A to like point Z in five years.
00:30:07
Tracey Halvorsen
And yeah, and right.
00:30:08
Edit Barry
And it's not just a strategic plan. It's like a ah different vision from a strategic plan.
00:30:14
Allison
Yeah, the information is nothing if it can't be implemented, right?
00:30:18
Edit Barry
Yeah.
00:30:18
Tracey Halvorsen
mr Here's the thing too. So every, every higher ed out there now has been through a couple of, I'm sure, very painful, very expensive redesigns.
00:30:30
Tracey Halvorsen
I'm sure they're getting more expensive, not cheaper. I'm sure they're taking longer, not less time.
00:30:35
Allison
Right.
00:30:35
Tracey Halvorsen
That can't keep going that way.
Challenges in Website Redesign
00:30:38
Tracey Halvorsen
I mean, we've got to be at the end of the road for these massive 18 month long taking
00:30:41
Edit Barry
what
00:30:42
Allison
Yeah.
00:30:45
Allison
Yeah, I mean, for as fast as tech is changing and trends are changing. um Yeah, projects need some of that speed.
00:30:48
Tracey Halvorsen
It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.
00:30:50
Edit Barry
we How do you say president you know university president so and so? We know you're in a bind. You've raised a lot of money, but it's never enough. You're closing departments because you just can't support them. You feel like the walls are closing in. um Do your website.
00:31:16
Tracey Halvorsen
I know.
00:31:17
Allison
Yeah.
00:31:17
Edit Barry
ah Spend $250,000, $5,000, $1 million dollars on your website.
00:31:18
Tracey Halvorsen
What do you need?
00:31:23
Edit Barry
It's very hard to convince someone that that's worthwhile.
00:31:25
Allison
my
00:31:28
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, look, I think that's true. um And I don't know that that that particular like way of looking at it, it would be worthwhile.
00:31:36
Edit Barry
Mm-hmm.
00:31:37
Tracey Halvorsen
um I think that the paradigm, left for lack of a less overused word needs to change with with just the whole way that the process is thought about.
00:31:47
Edit Barry
Yeah.
00:31:48
Tracey Halvorsen
um you know when we started when when When we started talking to Skidmore, they didn't have 18 months. They didn't have a full website budget to work with. They had a specific challenge and they wanted to know.
00:32:00
Tracey Halvorsen
And so tell they told us what what they had that that they were working with and said, can we work with you on this? Can you bring can you help us solve or at least move the needle in positive ways?
00:32:14
Tracey Halvorsen
with what we've got, what with what we're looking at. And yes, we absolutely can. I mean, a lot of it is just like this, I'm not gonna show you my cards or I'm gonna wait until year seven rolls around and I get freed up for my website redesign giant budget that's gonna cause half my staff to quit and leave because it's just gonna be so miserable.
00:32:31
Edit Barry
Mmhmm.
00:32:33
Tracey Halvorsen
And I gotta go through the ah RFP process and deal with you know potentially a bunch of douchebag agency people that are gonna be stuck with them for 18 months. So sorry, not everyone's douchebag at an agency.
00:32:43
Tracey Halvorsen
But um but I mean, i've lived i've I've watched it all happen. And so I understand that it's not something that anyone wants to do, can afford to do, can afford to wait to do.
00:32:55
Allison
Yeah.
00:32:56
Tracey Halvorsen
So I think it needs to change. And I think that you know forming partnerships with outside groups to both inspire and inform and collaborate with your internal teams
00:32:57
Edit Barry
yeah
00:33:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Instead of hiring an agency to do a project, I think is one great way to start thinking about things differently. And I think that as agencies are breaking up and more and more people are becoming consultants or small shops or freelancers, there is a chance to sort of remake up what you think of as your team, right?
00:33:15
Edit Barry
hey
00:33:28
Allison
Yeah, totally.
00:33:29
Edit Barry
Definitely. i I mean, yes, I think that's the way higher ed should be moving when it thinks about working with outside consultants.
00:33:40
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:33:41
Edit Barry
I think that we're small. You know, there are two of us, ENA Collaborative. We bring in people when we can't do everything.
00:33:51
Edit Barry
So we'll build a team around what the project is and what it needs.
00:33:55
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:33:57
Edit Barry
um But we don't have to staff, you know, we're not paying a staff all year long.
00:34:04
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:34:04
Edit Barry
So we bring people in as needed. It makes the costs more sustainable. um, and appealing actually.
00:34:13
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:34:14
Edit Barry
Um, and we, because we're small can work with a center, an Institute, a school within a major university and have relationships with people who are not necessarily in central comms, but who need comm support that central comms can't provide.
00:34:35
Edit Barry
Um, and we can do that. Like, yes.
00:34:38
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, you can augment, right? You can augment and meanwhile you're forming a relationship with that team and with that institution and that becomes more valuable longer term.
00:34:49
Tracey Halvorsen
So it's like I do think that the relationships offer so much value that once you invest in like why work on just one project with a team if they're going to get to know you and you're going to get to collaborate to the degree that you should be.
00:35:06
Tracey Halvorsen
Spread that around. you know see if get them get Get the admissions team involved. Make sure that the advancement team is involved. like Don't just so keep siloing things as much as, again, higher ed.
00:35:16
Tracey Halvorsen
We know they love their silos, too.
00:35:17
Edit Barry
whom
00:35:18
Tracey Halvorsen
um But I just think, again, the more that that can be flattened and that collaboration can be brought in, the And the more that instead of saying like, well, we've got to do it this way, because that's how we used we've always done it.
00:35:31
Tracey Halvorsen
So we'll wait until we can do it exactly that way again. What if the just the question is, here's what we've got to work with. What's the most impactful thing we can do right now?
00:35:42
Edit Barry
Mm-hmm.
00:35:45
Tracey Halvorsen
And yeah.
00:35:45
Edit Barry
That's the best question.
00:35:47
Allison
That is.
00:35:48
Edit Barry
What I love is that, and that I spoke about this with Pete Mackey. When a client comes to us and they have, there's no budget attached to what they want.
00:36:03
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:36:03
Edit Barry
We're just spinning our wheels, like figuring out
00:36:07
Tracey Halvorsen
I know.
00:36:08
Edit Barry
how to build something that we think you'll want to pay for. If you come to us and say, we have X dollars, we can do amazing things with your X dollars.
00:36:22
Edit Barry
And we don't have to waste our time fumbling around. Well, what would they be able to afford to pay? And what do you think the competition is going to, you know, give me the dollars and then ask people what they would creatively do with your money.
00:36:30
Tracey Halvorsen
I know, such a waste of time.
00:36:36
Tracey Halvorsen
Here's what I also, I'm kind of amazed that this model doesn't doesn't exist more frequently, maybe it maybe it will um one day, but you know I get as invested in the success of these projects as the clients are.
00:36:50
Tracey Halvorsen
It doesn't do me any good to do the work if it doesn't move the needle for the client, and so you know or I can't use it as a portfolio piece, or I can't go back and that too.
00:36:50
Allison
Yeah.
00:36:54
Allison
Yeah.
00:36:57
Allison
Well, and just by nature that you care about what you do. I mean, we're the same way, right? we
00:37:02
Tracey Halvorsen
That too, yeah. No, I mean, it helps that I that i care. um However, because I care, It's like I love the notion of the value-based pricing, right?
00:37:16
Tracey Halvorsen
So this isn't about how many hours Tracy's gonna have to sit thinking and pecking away at her computer and having Zooms with you and flying out to meet with you and corralling the team and having them brainstorm.
00:37:28
Tracey Halvorsen
It's more about like, if we do a great job at whatever it is we're gonna do, what's what's the likely outcome?
00:37:34
Allison
Mm hmm.
00:37:35
Tracey Halvorsen
What's the value of that? you know If we're going to do an amazing fundraising site for you and make your campaign just the most exciting thing anybody's ever heard of, and even your high donor high value donors that do need to get taken out to lunches and dinners before they're going to give their millions of dollars, they still want to go feel good about it when they pull up the website and show all their friends, oh, this look, here's a mention of me and my $100 million gift.
00:37:58
Edit Barry
Mm-hmm.
00:38:00
Tracey Halvorsen
But if we do a good job there, that's got tremendous value.
00:38:04
Allison
yeah.
00:38:05
Tracey Halvorsen
And I don't know why there isn't some sort of investment pricing structure, just the way startups are always like, well, we'll give you a well you know it will give you some shares once we go public.
00:38:15
Tracey Halvorsen
I mean, it's a much better deal to work like that with a higher ed.
00:38:16
Allison
yeah.
00:38:16
Edit Barry
you
00:38:19
Allison
And to piggyback off that, what you just said, it relates from like the schools funneling down to the families that are looking to pay for yet therere their child's education, right?
00:38:31
Allison
Like what is the value?
00:38:31
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:38:33
Allison
What are the outcomes? Like why is this important? Like how do we, you know, so it's all the same questions, right? Just like continuing down to the end purchaser, right?
00:38:44
Tracey Halvorsen
Right, it's all showing that it's a good investment.
00:38:47
Allison
Totally.
00:38:48
Tracey Halvorsen
It's a good investment. There's value being created here. So we just need to keep showing it and keep talking about it and keep delivering on it. But yeah, it's the same premise for sure.
00:39:01
Edit Barry
Yeah, it's tricky, ah you know, coming at it from, like you said, people put a price on their time. We don't necessarily tell you this is the number of hours and this is our hourly rate.
00:39:15
Edit Barry
unless we're working on like something quite small. Um, but to think about it in terms of value, I feel like this is a whole other conversation about like the value of marketing and how marketers, how consultants price what they do.
00:39:31
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, it is.
00:39:40
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, yes, I mean, i I love reading anything that um Blair ends or David, you're right about this.
00:39:41
Allison
Yeah.
00:39:45
Edit Barry
Yeah.
00:39:46
Tracey Halvorsen
And you know, value based pricing is a great, great read. And I love the way that he frames it up, which is just, um you know, if you're trying to get a sense for a price one day, it's or you know, a budget, um it's it's really, it's not about the budget, it's about the value. What's the value that you're trying to to generate from this effort? And then once you establish what that is, okay, well, wouldn't 10% of that be worth spending if you were guaranteed it was you were going to get it?
00:40:19
Edit Barry
Mmhmm.
00:40:20
Tracey Halvorsen
And that's the other thing too is no no consultant consultants and agencies should get better at guaranteeing, you know, like get some skin in the game, have some, have some.
00:40:30
Edit Barry
I don't know. i think I think on a website you can measure KPIs, clicks, time on site and and all of that.
00:40:38
Tracey Halvorsen
ah i mean Sure. Sure.
00:40:39
Edit Barry
When we do a logo for a campaign, we can't say because we made you this gorgeous logo and we came up with this totally meaningful campaign name that equals, you know,
00:40:56
Allison
That's why you got all the donors you got, yeah.
00:40:57
Edit Barry
and you're fun but We can't do that. like we can't We can't put a dollar amount on it.
00:41:04
Tracey Halvorsen
But you can say, you know, again, here's the thing.
00:41:05
Allison
Yeah.
00:41:10
Tracey Halvorsen
You can walk through the mental exercise of of saying like, okay, client, we're going to do a logo for you, um, for your campaign. Let's imagine it's three years from now. We just ran into each other at the park. We're going to sit down and have a little chitchat on the bench here.
00:41:23
Tracey Halvorsen
You are really happy about everything that has happened since we started working together. Why are you really happy? What has happened? And you let them describe it. Oh, everyone loved the logo.
00:41:34
Tracey Halvorsen
And we got people who we'd been trying to get in touch with forever who were willing to engage. And we raised more money than we've than we've raised before.
00:41:40
Edit Barry
me
00:41:43
Tracey Halvorsen
And everybody was excited. And only a few people made a stink about it because there's always people who make stink about it. um you know Now, granted, you can't tie that back to an analytics platform.
00:41:56
Tracey Halvorsen
but when you when you Just talk about what you want to have happen. It's not about KPIs.
00:42:02
Allison
Yeah, it's I was just, yeah.
00:42:02
Edit Barry
Right, there's qualitative um benefits to all of it.
00:42:04
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that sometimes we forget to just talk about that.
00:42:12
Allison
Yeah, the qualitative outcomes are just as important. But the quantitative is where it's like, oh, look at the the numbers and the change. um And I think that's sometimes why it's hard to convince these institutions to take on these projects, right?
00:42:20
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:42:27
Allison
Because there's not quantitative data to back up the invest the investment. as much as there would be potential qualitative data.
00:42:38
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, everyone's running around. They've been waiting for qualitative data to save the day um over quantitative or quantitative. Well, whatever.
00:42:46
Allison
yeah
00:42:46
Tracey Halvorsen
They want their data. They don't want their they don't want their analogies. They don't want the the harder things, you know, but everything's not so black and white.
00:42:54
Allison
Yeah, it's not.
00:42:55
Tracey Halvorsen
So I think that you need both um and you should be paying attention to both. but You know, look at AI, it's very good. It's very good, but everyone right now is pretty much of the same mindset that like,
00:43:10
Tracey Halvorsen
If you want AI to come up with the ideas or create the quality or be the creative or the strategist or the idea thing, it's all flowers,
AI's Role and Limitations
00:43:19
Tracey Halvorsen
no heart. There is no human in there.
00:43:21
Tracey Halvorsen
It is going to pull from all the other blandness and all the other crap that's on the internet, which isn't so great for, from a lot of our perspectives.
00:43:24
Allison
Yep. Yep.
00:43:32
Tracey Halvorsen
Um, and it's just going to spit out a new variation of that.
00:43:32
Edit Barry
Hmm.
00:43:36
Tracey Halvorsen
So is it incredibly fast? Is it great with data? Yes. um That doesn't necessarily mean we're getting better.
00:43:46
Allison
Yeah, agreed.
00:43:49
Tracey Halvorsen
don
00:43:50
Allison
yeah
00:43:52
Tracey Halvorsen
um Oh, wait. Hold on. out Let me use my dramatic piano sound effect here. oh All right.
00:44:02
Edit Barry
That just sounds so operatic.
00:44:04
Allison
That sounds wistful.
00:44:06
Edit Barry
um
00:44:06
Tracey Halvorsen
As we, I was just ranting though about not too much coffee did today.
00:44:12
Edit Barry
I think AI, ultimately, the more efficiency people can get out of it, the more they will embrace it. like it makes It makes certain things take much less time.
00:44:26
Allison
Sure, but AI cannot do these projects that we're talking about, right?
00:44:27
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:44:32
Allison
AI cannot do these human-centric, strategy-driven, creative projects that will like hone in on connection and community and thoughtfulness. AI can't robots can't do that. People have to do that.
00:44:52
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, so how do people do that?
00:44:55
Allison
They hire us.
00:44:56
Edit Barry
Well, what i think I think that I was just looking at some tool today that I was imagining i was imagining doing a ton of qualitative research, focus groups, individual interviews.
00:44:57
Tracey Halvorsen
but
00:45:13
Edit Barry
You collect all this information, you have transcripts, Imagine putting them into the AI and then having it pull themes.
00:45:24
Edit Barry
And I can, I can run all those groups and listen, but I'm not going to hear everything.
00:45:30
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:45:31
Edit Barry
And it just seems like it can go through all that much faster than I can read it and like underline and highlight things and then like put them in categories.
00:45:40
Tracey Halvorsen
Totally.
00:45:44
Edit Barry
And that's exciting to me. Like that would save a ton of time.
00:45:48
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, I mean, I wish every admissions person out there, A, you know, received consent to record their conversations, but then just was recording all the conversations they're having with the prospective students and their parents, because that's where you're finding out what are the questions, what are the concerns, ah you know,
00:46:08
Tracey Halvorsen
there's so much information being exchanged in these conversations. And, you know, I think eventually it'll just all get, um, deciphered through AI much like it is already on, you know, AI is already like summarizing my text messages and my emails and things like that.
00:46:24
Edit Barry
Yeah.
00:46:26
Tracey Halvorsen
So we can we can ask the questions and dig in on ways that are going to be totally unique to our lived experience and our
00:46:26
Edit Barry
But we can also do things that I can't, which is have the conversation in the first place. Yeah.
00:46:37
Edit Barry
And we can gather to the data, we can ask the right questions, we can um create original insights.
00:46:48
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, and maybe not not have as much of our own bias in there too, right? Like I know that I will listen for things that reinforce whatever perspective I have or way that I want to go in my thinking.
00:47:01
Tracey Halvorsen
So there's I'm always biased in what I'm hearing.
00:47:01
Edit Barry
Right.
00:47:04
Edit Barry
But we're also not scientists.
00:47:07
Tracey Halvorsen
And we're not scientists. um But I think that does impact how well we listen. and how and how we digest information, even even if it's a you know a big report and document from a consultancy you know that they that they paid a bunch of money for. yeah I'm still going to have selectivity in what I pay attention to.
00:47:28
Tracey Halvorsen
um based on my own biases. So I do think that AI's ability to decipher and run through a lot of transcripts and and recordings is is really great.
00:47:40
Tracey Halvorsen
One of the best ways to use it is is to transcribe or to let it summarize transcriptions.
00:47:45
Edit Barry
Yep. Yeah. And even, you know, you, I would never just the same way I had a 10 year old car. It didn't have those blinkers in the, in the, uh, mirrors on the sides that warn you when there's a car.
00:48:01
Tracey Halvorsen
A blind spot warning.
00:48:02
Edit Barry
Yeah. Blind spot warning or whatever.
00:48:03
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:48:06
Edit Barry
I, and then I got a new car and it had this blind spot warning. And of course when it's beeping, I'm like, what is that? I'm not used to it, but I don't trust it.
00:48:13
Tracey Halvorsen
You're going to crash because you're distracted by your blind spot.
00:48:18
Edit Barry
I would never fully trust AI. Like I would always rely on myself to verify that it's pulling the right thing. And they talk about hallucination free AI, like, and I never,
00:48:34
Edit Barry
It's such a bizarre idea that AI would like see something that wasn't actually there.
00:48:40
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, it's interesting, right? We think about AI's hallucinations, where it just makes things up. It's trying to just give us an answer it thinks we'll want. I mean, it's really just trying to guess the next best letter or word um at its core right now.
00:48:56
Tracey Halvorsen
But so we're like, oh, we'll double check it. But we have our own biases and blind spots too.
00:49:02
Edit Barry
Yeah, definitely.
00:49:03
Tracey Halvorsen
you know So yeah,
00:49:03
Allison
Yeah.
00:49:05
Edit Barry
Goes both ways.
00:49:07
Tracey Halvorsen
interesting times.
00:49:11
Allison
Very.
00:49:12
Tracey Halvorsen
I mean, it was getting a little boring, so um okay with um okay I'm getting stirred up.
00:49:18
Edit Barry
Well, even on the business end of what's happening with AI, it's like it's pretty ah it's still the Wild West.
00:49:18
Tracey Halvorsen
a
00:49:26
Tracey Halvorsen
It is, but so you know bringing us back to our our thing we started out talking about, which was this blending. I mean, you think AI is going to help or hurt on that front?
00:49:38
Allison
That's a good question.
00:49:39
Edit Barry
Hahaha.
00:49:40
Allison
I don't think that AI is built to be innovative. right AI is built to like take what it knows and to give you a version of that.
00:49:51
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:49:52
Allison
um So I don't i don't think, you know in terms of creative, like a visual ah visual output of some sort, I don't think AI could move the needle in any meaningful way. Humans have to do that.
00:50:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, and yet it's like infinitely capable of combining and mixing and churning out like any flavor, color, texture.
00:50:13
Allison
Mm hmm.
00:50:15
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:50:18
Tracey Halvorsen
I picture like all of the internet, everything was put into this giant sausage-making machine, and then there's the grinder. And like depending on your prompt, you know you get like a different string of something coming out.
00:50:33
Tracey Halvorsen
It's just very strange. And it's at such volume that um even if everything starts to look different because everyone has the capacity to generate imagery and content to such a degree that they never could before.
00:50:50
Tracey Halvorsen
I wonder if that will just create so much noise that it won't even matter.
00:50:54
Allison
Yeah, I think it would. I mean, back to that sense of like vibe and feeling like you belong to a place and community. I mean, God forbid that these institutions start saying, let's like, we don't need to hire photographers. Let's just AI some images for our for our materials. I mean,
00:51:16
Allison
it's ah It's the same sort of like moral moral question of, can can we just use a stock photo of kids reading in a library?
00:51:24
Tracey Halvorsen
Right. Right.
00:51:26
Allison
The answer there is no, is that institutions don't do that.
00:51:26
Edit Barry
But I think youre it creates it creates an opening for weirdness, for like doing something really unexpected, um like the anti-blanding
00:51:30
Allison
um And similarly, yeah, they shouldn't rely on AI for their graders.
00:51:34
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:51:50
Edit Barry
version of the SUV is the awful, hideous, heinous, expensive Cybertruck that we all despise, I think.
00:51:57
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Yeah.
00:52:02
Edit Barry
But if you have this sort of assembly line-ish version of things coming out of different car brands, and then someone is like, let's blow this up.
00:52:18
Edit Barry
There's a moment there.
00:52:19
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:52:20
Edit Barry
That's like an event.
00:52:20
Allison
Yeah.
00:52:21
Edit Barry
That's a thing.
00:52:22
Tracey Halvorsen
right And here's the thing, I notice every time I see a Cybertruck, my 10-year-old stepson thinks they're gorgeous and loves to fight me about it because he knows that i'm that I find them to be visually offensive.
00:52:22
Allison
Yeah.
00:52:37
Edit Barry
Well, maybe he's an early adopter.
00:52:39
Allison
Yeah.
00:52:39
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, you know, but he's the target customer.
00:52:40
Allison
Yeah.
00:52:42
Edit Barry
And the avant-garde, the avant-garde always becomes like the standard.
00:52:42
Allison
you know
00:52:47
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, brutalism, you know, all these movements that were so, um ah so offensive to the senses, you know, you get that can be an early signal too.
00:52:48
Allison
yeah
00:52:55
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
00:52:56
Allison
Yeah.
00:52:59
Allison
Yeah. I mean, I think we could urge our clients to be disruptive and you know think outside of the box and try something new similar to what Harvard did.
00:53:09
Tracey Halvorsen
Mm hmm.
00:53:11
Allison
um Maybe not going like full Cybertruck. I don't know. but
00:53:17
Edit Barry
Well, I guess I would always want to go back to if it's not appropriate for you,
Encouragement of Authenticity
00:53:23
Edit Barry
then you shouldn't be doing it.
00:53:23
Allison
rain Right. Right.
00:53:25
Edit Barry
Like if you are not innovative, avant-garde, cutting edge, don't make a cutting edge website.
00:53:31
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:53:32
Allison
Great.
00:53:33
Edit Barry
like You need to do enough enough work.
00:53:34
Allison
Authentic. Be authentic. Everyone craves authenticity.
00:53:37
Tracey Halvorsen
and yeah
00:53:39
Edit Barry
You need that outside eye. You need outside input.
00:53:42
Tracey Halvorsen
Well, you're getting you're getting to a good point, right, which is be authentic.
00:53:42
Edit Barry
Do the individual interviews. Do the focus groups. like
00:53:49
Tracey Halvorsen
But it's really hard to know what that means. I mean, even your most traditional conservative institutions, they're unique.
00:53:52
Allison
Yeah.
00:53:59
Tracey Halvorsen
They are unique. They are different than even the other conservative traditional institutions, but it is really hard to put your finger on that when you are on the inside for sure.
00:54:11
Allison
Yeah, yeah.
00:54:12
Tracey Halvorsen
And and to not try to get bogged down in thinking that the only time you get to talk about that is if you're redoing you know your brand.
00:54:12
Edit Barry
Yes.
00:54:22
Tracey Halvorsen
it's like decoupling all of this restrictive thinking and realizing, no, we can talk about storytelling and authenticity and connecting with audiences and how we are are doing that in the going forward in the future.
00:54:38
Tracey Halvorsen
um in much more nimble and and engaging and fast ways if we just like decouple from that rigid project-based thinking that I think has gotten really stale.
00:54:44
Allison
mm hmm yeah.
00:54:51
Edit Barry
Mm-hmm. No, I think that's actually an excellent point and it's just making me think there's room in higher ed to bring branding people in even if the goal is not to redo your logo.
00:55:06
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:55:08
Edit Barry
If you just want to figure out like what are we about?
00:55:08
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:55:12
Edit Barry
Because we're just saying we have this many faculty and this many majors and you know, What are we about? Because it can't be that.
00:55:23
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. And the times are changing faster and faster. So what you were about two years ago is not what you're about today. And it's not what you're going to be about or you what you think you're going to be about six months down the road.
00:55:37
Edit Barry
And if it's values that are consistent, how are they expressing themselves in all the new things that you're doing?
00:55:41
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:55:44
Allison
Yeah.
00:55:44
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:55:45
Edit Barry
Because you're doing new things.
00:55:47
Tracey Halvorsen
That's the thing with these like values and taglines, you know, show me why.
00:55:51
Allison
Yeah, it's one thing to say these are our values. It's another to like, live them and show them.
00:55:58
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah. Yeah. And ah again, it's it's this idea of turning all of this inside out.
00:56:06
Edit Barry
Mm-hmm.
00:56:06
Tracey Halvorsen
don't Don't keep layering everything with these these categories and these buckets and these processes.
00:56:08
Edit Barry
Right. and And the...
00:56:15
Edit Barry
And show, don't tell is always like the phrase, you know, the ninth grade English teacher phrase, but it always comes back.
00:56:17
Tracey Halvorsen
Always good.
00:56:18
Allison
yeah
00:56:20
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:56:22
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:56:22
Allison
yeah
00:56:23
Edit Barry
Like, don't just show us.
00:56:27
Tracey Halvorsen
And just think about you know what's the last what's what's the last thing that you remember seeing online?
00:56:27
Edit Barry
Tell me something.
00:56:34
Tracey Halvorsen
what's the right What's the last interesting thing that you remember reading about or hearing about related to an institution? Just pause for a minute and think about your own experiences and like what's resonated with you.
00:56:47
Tracey Halvorsen
Has it been the bland? you know Was it on the website?
00:56:51
Edit Barry
Yesterday, Hopkins magazine sent out an old piece. They put out a newsletter and it was like an old article about how every snowflake is different.
00:57:04
Tracey Halvorsen
Oh yeah, I think I saw that because a friend and I were talking about snowflakes and are they indeed?
00:57:09
Edit Barry
Every single snowflake is different. That's so insane. Like, think about how much snow there is on the ground. The fact that there are people with all the other you know, political craziness going on, are studying the world in a way that makes you still go like, wow, like, this is a wonderful world.
Higher Education's True Purpose
00:57:32
Edit Barry
That to me is what higher ed is really supposed to be. It's not about indoctrination. If higher ed was so good at that, we wouldn't be where we are right now, right?
00:57:44
Tracey Halvorsen
Right.
00:57:45
Edit Barry
We would be in a very different place.
00:57:50
Tracey Halvorsen
Indeed.
00:57:50
Edit Barry
But higher ed, you know it tells us it gives us tools to monitor public health events, and it gives us insights into just wonderful things that make you feel like, wow, about the world.
00:58:05
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, it teaches us to be curious because the reality is we don't know everything.
00:58:06
Edit Barry
um
00:58:10
Edit Barry
who
00:58:11
Tracey Halvorsen
And I don't want to live in a world where we know everything.
00:58:11
Allison
Yeah.
00:58:13
Tracey Halvorsen
And I don't want to live in a world where we think that the AI knows everything.
00:58:17
Edit Barry
And the I mean, bad example I love because it's like, you know what? All of these students who are coming to your school are also very different from each other.
00:58:29
Tracey Halvorsen
yeah
00:58:30
Edit Barry
And it's so easy to get into, you know, the demographics. What states are they coming from? How can we appeal to more people from the Northeast?
00:58:40
Edit Barry
Like that kind of thing.
00:58:41
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:58:42
Edit Barry
There's got to be a point in admission where The individuality means something.
00:58:50
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, and the fact that maybe you're it's about that you're creating a space where all those differences can come together and become more because of that.
00:59:01
Tracey Halvorsen
You know, the people I got to meet that were so different from me and the way I grew up when I went to college, that was one of the main things I wanted and I knew I needed to get in my life, get out of my little bubble.
00:59:11
Allison
yeah
00:59:13
Tracey Halvorsen
And if I'd just gone to another school that was just like my high school, or if I'd stayed right at home, or if I didn't have the opportunities I did, um I wouldn't have gotten that. But um you know I didn't, I was not eager to sit around and find more people just like me.
00:59:23
Edit Barry
Yeah.
00:59:28
Allison
Yeah.
00:59:29
Edit Barry
For the school, we've been talking for a long time about in higher ed about the demographic cliff and there's going to be a point where there's not enough high school kids to fill the classes and there's going to be schools that just fall away.
00:59:41
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah.
00:59:44
Edit Barry
um And how do you get a school from the, that edge of like hanging on and about to fall off to like safely in a landing zone.
00:59:58
Edit Barry
Um, I think is going to come down to all of these, you know, using all of these tools to connect with students in a real way. So, you know, you've got to do, you've got to do more than say, we have these majors in this.
01:00:11
Tracey Halvorsen
Yeah, all the ways.
01:00:16
Allison
Yeah.
01:00:16
Edit Barry
We won this many Fulbright awards.
01:00:19
Tracey Halvorsen
No, and you've got to be engaging with your prospects, your current students, your alumni, your community, they all matter.
01:00:24
Edit Barry
Mm hmm.
01:00:27
Tracey Halvorsen
um And they're all going to different places.
01:00:28
Edit Barry
And the yeah.
01:00:30
Tracey Halvorsen
And they're all becoming different variations of that over their lifespan. So it's a really, it's a fun and complicated space that I think is super ripe for doing some exciting things.
01:00:41
Tracey Halvorsen
I hope Harvard is just the beginning for more people taking some chances and not falling into all of this blending that we see.
01:00:41
Edit Barry
Yeah.
01:00:50
Tracey Halvorsen
um But on that note, we are at an hour. And I just want to thank you guys for a great conversation that flew by. um
01:01:00
Allison
Yeah, this was fun.
01:01:01
Edit Barry
We covered a lot.
01:01:01
Allison
Thank you.
01:01:02
Edit Barry
We covered a lot. I think there's also some openings for a new pod or another ah episode.
01:01:07
Tracey Halvorsen
Oh, we can do part two, part three, part four.
01:01:08
Edit Barry
yeah
01:01:11
Tracey Halvorsen
We'll do the marathon one where we all have lots more coffee and just keep going.
01:01:15
Allison
and
01:01:16
Tracey Halvorsen
um No, thank you guys so much. Always, always love talking to you. And again, just congratulations on the success that you've had. I hope personally that we get a chance to work together on some projects soon.
01:01:28
Edit Barry
Definitely.
01:01:29
Tracey Halvorsen
And we will um in the meantime, just kind of keep beating the drum here and hope the right people hear us and get in touch.
01:01:35
Edit Barry
Mm-hmm.
01:01:36
Tracey Halvorsen
to do some fun stuff.
01:01:36
Allison
Thank you.
01:01:38
Tracey Halvorsen
All right.
01:01:38
Allison
We appreciate it.
01:01:39
Tracey Halvorsen
Thank you.
01:01:41
Edit Barry
Thanks, Tracy.