SPEAKER_00
You're listening to the Higher Ed Marketer, the podcast for marketing professionals in higher education. Join us every week as we talk to the industry's greatest minds in student recruitment, donor relations, marketing trends, new technologies, and much more. If you're looking for conversations centered around where marketing in higher ed is going, this podcast is for you.
Let's get into the show.
SPEAKER_02
Welcome to the Higher Ed Marketer podcast. I'm Troy Singer here with Bart Kaler, and today we have a conversation with Errol Wint. He is the founder of Marabridge Consulting, but more importantly, he is someone that is on LinkedIn and other platforms sharing wonderful thoughts, engaging in conversations with higher ed marketers that you can't help from being impressed when you engage with him.
And today is no different. We are proud to bring you a episode that we touch on a number of different things, from design thinking to DEI, and to have someone like Errol to have an in-depth, authentic conversation with. We're grateful for what he shared with us.
SPEAKER_01
It's been such a great dynamic conversation. I think that's a really good word for that, but he's such a dynamic individual and has had years of experience leading admissions teams, being at big schools like IUPUI, University of Louisville, really feeling the pressure of being in that seat of driving enrollment. But he brings a whole new way of thinking about some of it, where it's a little bit fresh.
And that's why we wanted to bring it to you, because I think this really is good for all of us as marketers. It's good for all of us as enrollment leaders to just really stop and listen to some of the ideas that he has that I think could really make a big difference in your enrollment.
SPEAKER_02
I really agree. Here's our conversation with Errol Wint. Errol, let's start off our conversation with you sharing something that you've recently learned that you would consider fun and interesting for others to listen to.
SPEAKER_04
I think the thing that is most interesting to me right now is this chat GPT war that's going on between Microsoft and Google. Just last week, there was a billion dollar error. On Google's part, as they really aggressively, really rapidly were trying to go out to market with Bard is the competing version of chat GPT.
And goodness gracious, I felt really badly for the Google employee that had to stand in front of everybody as Bard gave the wrong answer. And there was a 9% dip in the stock valuation. So just this evolution of artificial intelligence, the way that it's weaving into higher education right now, this idea of non-intererative processes, it's just been really interesting and fascinating to me.
So that's my piece of information to start with.
SPEAKER_02
Thank you, Errol. And as we record this in February 2023, chat GPT and other AI competitors and suppliers, it's a big topic within the marketing community and especially within higher ed. So thank you for sharing that.
Errol, if you would, give us a brief introduction to you and the company that you founded.
SPEAKER_04
Absolutely. I am a lifelong supporter of education, especially higher education, but also K-12. It is my passion to leverage higher education to be a vessel for social, economic, as well as developmental mobility.
And so for 15 years in higher ed, I worked at the University of Michigan, the University of Louisville, IUPUI, and recently founded a company, Mara Briss Consulting Solutions LLC, off of an inspired pandemic experience, is what I'll call it, which I think we all can agree that we all had very unique experiences where it just, everything really changed. So many of the structures that we knew and the wonderful processes that my elders have created, I found an opportunity to think about things in a way that builds upon what was created before me and thinks about life and education's role in this average ageing context. So Mara Briss Consulting Solutions is here to step into the market and think about how we can create bridges, not only with colleagues across higher education and the vendor world and the faculty world, but also to build bridges within organizations in terms of leadership development, in terms of design planning, in terms of reimagining and enhancing what diversity means in this context.
So happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01
That's so great. I'm glad to have you here. It's such a joy to meet you and to be able to have this conversation.
And a lot of things, what you just said there, might be something that some folks have been like, well, tell me more about that because I'm not quite sure I understand design planning or design thinking. And I'm a designer by background. My undergrad was in graphic design and had an opportunity to get early into the web.
I think 1994, I did my first website. And so I'm an old guy when it comes to the web. But this idea of design thinking and design planning help unpack that for our listeners because I think that some of them might be designers, some of them might be creative directors who might not really have really leaned into that or even understood it.
So help us understand that.
SPEAKER_04
Well, let's go with the Webster's definition of it. And then I want to give Bart, you and your community a ton of crudos and credit because I'm an enrollment management guy. And it was really the marketing, the Markon community that brought this to my attention and I not just gravitated towards it.
It was I was such a fan. But it's a nonlinear iterative process that teams used to understand users, challenge it, challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create innovative solutions to prototype and to test. The keyword in there that really stood out to me was nonlinear and iterative.
And when my marketing and communications team brought this to my attention during the pandemic, it didn't register with the way that I had been trained in higher education. But I just once I started, you know, researching it, I went back to school during the pandemic and completed six graduate credit hours of studies in IUPUI's design, thinking the program. It was clear that the ability to think about problems in a pandemic context required a new way of thinking, moving us from predicting what students would like towards designing what will solve their current and future problems.
And that's the crux of this design planning framework that was developed and prototyped over the last couple of years. And that serves as the foundation of the Marbury's Consulting Solutions LLC.
SPEAKER_01
That's cool. And I love the idea that you talked about nonlinear and kind of iterative. That's part of the design process.
It's kind of like we're going to try this, we're going to play this. You know, it's the sketches that designers will do on the back of a napkin, you know, the classic cliche. But I really like the fact that, I mean, you've kind of leaned into this and certainly the Marcom team, everybody honestly had to pivot, you know, March, April of 2020, because all of a sudden it's like, we're doing what? We're shutting down the institution.
We're sending everyone home. What does that mean? How is that going to work? And, you know, we've talked to Ethan Braden in our inaugural episode about, you know, Purdue and how they really leaned into that and did some things differently. You know, President Mitch Daniels, who just recently retired from Purdue, he really did things differently.
But I think that would be a good example of really a pivot, nonlinear, iterative way of dealing with things. And tell me a little bit about this inspiration with the book that you've referenced. I think it was Tim Brown's Change by Design.
Tell me a little bit about what that did when you read that book.
SPEAKER_04
Firstly, Bart, love the two you referenced, Mitch Daniels and Purdue. They were right down the street. And I remember watching them be the first university during the pandemic that said, we're bringing students back.
And everybody was like, what? What are you thinking? And I just, and I shook my head and I just, this is just me personally, Bart. I was like, you know that? I see what you're doing, sir. And I have a lot of respect for it.
Another president I'll say very quickly that I've been keeping my eye on is Dr. Michael Crow from Arizona State, who leans really heavily into this design planning concept, has some great literature on his website. And he talks a lot about it.
But back to Tim Brown, Change by Design. A couple of things that really stands out in terms of what Tim Brown brings to the table in his book. So number one, that constraints can best be visualized in terms of really three overlapping criteria when you're trying to design whatever your product is.
And let's be clear what we're talking about designing, okay? In terms of the two areas. Number one is this transformational college experience, right? Like, what is it that a student and a parent need to know today to invest in higher education to get what it is that we are promising out? And again, I'm a middle level manager, so I spent my time as a director of admissions selling the promise of this experience. And so he talks about constraints being best visualized in terms of really three overlapping criteria, okay, for successful ideas.
Number one is feasibility, all right? The second piece, which is feasibility is what is functionally possible within the foreseeable future, okay? Right. The second is viability. So what is likely to become part of a sustainable business model? I'll come back to that, you know, in terms of this environment.
And then three is desirability, what makes sense to people and for the people, okay? And so traditionally, when you take the Dahn-Hosler framework of enrollment management, okay? Enrollment management is exactly that, managing enrollment, okay? You've got a high number of students that are coming in and we're trying to make sure we figure out where we place them, but the 2009 recession happens, people stop having babies, we know that there's a great enrollment cliff that's happening. And now we have to complement the historical trend data that's still very, very important looking at big data with something that will allow us to get that desirability, to achieve that viability, to achieve that feasibility. So design planning, what I extracted from this book, it brings that iterative nonlinear process and it says, okay, we're going to acculturate your teams to think about things in prototype sense.
We're going to continue to introduce interventions, you know, streamline resources, ensure that there's differentiation, and make sure that the product is relevant and it's actually speaking to the needs of the market and the reality of the capacity of your university, of your high school, of your elementary school, whatever education institution that it is. So I'll stop there in terms of some of my thoughts.
SPEAKER_01
That's really exciting because I think that it's, like you said, we don't have to be in a pandemic to do design planning, to do this type of approach. And I love the fact that your business is really focused on that and can really help these institutions do that. Maybe just give me like one case, you know, use case right now where it's like, you know what, if you're struggling, let's say that I'm in a school, we're struggling with, you know, we're struggling between accept to deposit, you know, how can we kind of look at this design planning and kind of apply that to that part of the funnel where, you know, I've got, I've got a ton of people that have been accepted, but the percentage you're actually converting to deposit is not as high.
That yield is not as much as what I want. What would be an example of something we could use design planning in that?
SPEAKER_04
Pre-pandemic, right? What we would do is we would look at big data almost exclusively. We still need to look at big data. Quantitative, quantitative data is key, okay? But I spent the most of the pandemic in rooms where we would look at big data and we would say, well, we're down 4%, you know, with this demographic or we're up.
And then we would look at each other and say, well, what were we doing last year? And we'd say, well, we were doing something completely different. And that was the scenario for every institution, every school, right? And so how do you take the big data and compliment something, right, to allow you to shape your product in that way that meets those three points that Tim Brown talks about? So number one, I became a really big fan of looking at the data from organizations like Niche and EAB, you know, of Ruffalo-Noel Levitts, these organizations that were interviewing and polling students and we're getting real time insights in terms of what they're saying and what they're thinking, right? And then also building into the culture in a dualistic conversation between you and your students. Where are you at right now? How are you thinking? How are you being able to take that reality and translate it into the quantitative insights that you have? And then, you know, last but not least, taking the qualitative data from your social media behavior.
So if you've got a Facebook group or if you're working with an organization like Ximi who has a great space for your admitted students to build community, how are you taking what they're saying, right? And translating it in a way that speaks to the best part. I'll wrap up by saying this part. I was just recently reading an article about this evolution of social media where, you know, Gary V was talking about Facebook and was talking about Instagram and how those platforms thrived based off of, you know, the number of friends that you had.
Sure. And then there's something like TikTok that's talking about the specific content, right? Yeah. Right? It's how do you capture what people are thinking and feeling in real time.
And as we look at present in the head with this, all of the reported mental health challenges that are being faced, you're talking about a volatility that we've never seen in our country. So if we're only going to look at, you know, at students in binary code, okay, ones and zeros, right? Yep. So if we're only going to get so far, but if we can look at students in comp and compliment to that quantitative data and bring everybody and streamline everybody, streamline the decision making in a more collaborative way, I think that there's, there's some real powerful things that can come out of that level of work together.
SPEAKER_01
I really appreciate that answer. And I want to just remind our listeners a couple of things that Errol talked about. We've talked on a previous episodes.
I think about your reference there to Gary V. Rob Clark is somebody who does a lot of social media. He's been on the episodes twice.
Go back and look his conversations up. We did a really close conversation recently where we talked about that very thing about used to be all about, you know, the, the, the, you know, the friends and now it's all about the content. So that would be a good one to reference in that.
And then the other one is make sure you listen to Tim Fuller from Fuller Higher Ed. He's, he talks a lot about the witchy data, which is the enrollment cliff data that we talk about. So listen more to that.
Talk to learn more about this enrollment cliff that's coming up. And I think that will give you the chance to really kind of go deeper into what Errol's talking about here. Thanks.
SPEAKER_02
Errol, I think you have demonstrated short in short order that you are a thinker and I would encourage everyone that doesn't follow you to follow you on LinkedIn would like for you to tell us your opinion or kind of guide us of what we should be doing to contribute solutions to the great resignation attribution and solutions that can be applied around that would love to hear some of your thoughts and how you guide your clients as you go forward.
SPEAKER_04
Sure. So one of the, the really the core aspects of the Mara Bridge consulting solutions, leaders, holistic leadership development framework, leans into the Gallup global strengths model. And so I am a certified strengths coach and I leverage this simply because of what I have seen as a middle level manager that led through the pandemic.
You add a lot of disempowered people at all levels of the institution. And this is across the nation. I spent, I went to seven conferences last year and spoke with colleagues across higher education from a variety of domains.
And people are tired. They're tapped out. They're solution doubt.
And the ability to make decisions and to solve the problems of today and think about the problems of tomorrow, it's a real challenge. And I say that with full humility and respect and deference. And I also raise my hand Troy and say that I don't have the solutions, right?
SPEAKER_03
I'm in that group. Right? Like, I felt that energy.
SPEAKER_04
Which is why I decided to, you know, that in order to change, you know, the way we, you know, our thoughts, our feelings and our behavior, you had to revisit the framework of how we are approaching the work and the Gallup Strengths Finder. It really allows and emphasizes the focus away from your weaknesses, away from what's not working, away from all the problems into your strengths. Right? And if we can allow people to think about their strengths, especially when you think about schools and universities and entities that have had a lot of transition and people have had their jobs repurposed and, you know, you're trying to think about where do you place them so people feel empowered, then we can get people, you know, really engaged and energized to be doing good work.
We can get them to think about, you know, what we as an institution do, you know, from a strength standpoint. And then we can also get them thinking about what the customers, what makes the customers feel strong and contribute, you know. And when I say customers, I'm speaking specifically about our students and our parents.
I know we don't use that term in higher education, but...
SPEAKER_03
You know, thank you, Bart. I thought, there are certain things that are, you know, taboo and not to say, but, you know,
SPEAKER_04
it's important for me to say that a higher education is a business. And I come from the business end of it. And, you know, during the pandemic, never in my entire career did I understand that higher ed was more of a business than working in enrollment management during the pandemic.
SPEAKER_01
All right. I think you're so right on that. And I think one of the things too, just kind of play off on this strength finders.
And if you haven't taken the strength finder, you know, listeners, be sure to do that. You can grab the book. Get it on Amazon.
Get the code. Take your test. It's a brilliant way of thinking about things.
But I think one of the things that's unique about higher ed, and we talked a little bit about joking around about it being a business, it is a business. But I think one of the things unique about higher ed, and especially in enrollment management, is how many other businesses do you know where really some of the key players span so many generations? I mean, you think about we've got... We've got boomers. Boomers are at the administration level.
We've got exers and millennials at leadership, either VP's or directors. And then we've got Generation Z that are running point on those relationships, on those front line types of things. And so leaning into something like a strength finders to kind of move away from all of the okay boomer, okay millennial, all the memes that we see about that generational stuff.
I think the context and the framework of the strength finders could be really a great way to go. Help unpack that. And what do you think of that idea?
SPEAKER_04
Bart, you created a bridge into the third point we were going to be talking about, that intercultural relation, right? Like, generations are part of those cultural identity groups. We may not think of ourselves as members of a particular generation, but there are absolutely differences in terms of approach to the workforce related to the generation that we come from. And being able to connect the dots between what makes you feel strong, taking the themes and translating them into your team context, into your organizational context, making a commitment to build a strength-based culture, and connecting that to the variety of identity groups that make up just you as an individual, okay? So you have your identity groups, you understand that each of your identities carry privilege, each of them carry oppression.
And how do we take that understanding and allow the identities that carry privilege within us to be something that empowers us and without feeling bad or worrisome, and the things that carry oppression to be something that creates a level of understanding. I can look at myself and I can say, okay, there's a certain level of unearned privilege that I have in terms of being a male within this unique context of America, right? Or growing up in a middle-class environment. But then I look at my blackness and I just saw last week the unfortunate events in Memphis, and I feel that energy, right? How do I take not just within the top of that conversation where we in this country so much stop at race and gender, and maybe look at things like, did you come from a rural background? What does that mean? Did you come from a military household? Did you come from a single parent household? All of these collectively make up who we are in totality, taking strengths, taking these cultural identity groups, and bringing it together to create an empowered workforce culture.
SPEAKER_02
Thank you, Errol, and I think you've described that wonderfully. I would like for you to unpack it a little bit more and something I think that you have in the past, or I've heard you refer to as the diversity imperative. Can you please expand upon that for our listeners?
SPEAKER_04
One of the reasons I decided to lean full force into building my own company and creating a space to bring this aspect of diversity into the business needs of education is my own identity. I come from a multi-ethnic background. My mother is in Afro-Latina from Venezuela.
My father is from a Jamaican immigrant. I embraced African American culture growing up, being born and raised in America. I grew up in a Mexican neighborhood and went to a predominantly white high school and college.
And just got a chance to really engage a lot of cultures, step into the space, and immerse myself, step outside, and look. And as I look at where we're moving as a country in the political context that we're in, right? You've got critical race theory, which is on the docket right now, and what's happening with DeSantis in Florida. The Supreme Court is looking at affirmative action.
I was fortunate to have been a student at the University of Michigan when the affirmative action cases were going on in the mid-2010s. And so this is something of particular interest to me. And then you have the changing demographics.
The demographic shift is showing increases of students of color across the board. And time just looked ahead in 2050 and said that the majority population is going to be individuals of color in the United States. I can continue to go on, but the point is, if we're looking at the top of the pecking order, and you have a need to understand how to cater and speak to your consumer base, which are going to be students and parents, and not only recruit them, but also retain them.
So as Jeff Selingo from the Washington Post, so apropos, reference the number, the millions of students that are out there that have some college, but no degree, right? No school wants to be in the position to where they're attracting those students to their institution. Let's start from a business standpoint. Attracting those students to their institution in large numbers and not persisting them or graduating them.
They're going to look the exact same as the for-profit predatory institutions looked in the 2010s, 2000s, when the government had to come in and regulate those institutions for their ways. So how might we think about, from a business standpoint, but also from a public good, finding the balance between the two of bringing everybody along and saying, diversity is not, diversity, equity, and inclusion is evolving. Belonging looks different.
So how do we take the work of Dr. Terrell Strayhorn and see who else is out there and build on belonging? Identity development is key. Dr. Kristen Wren from Michigan State University that focuses on mixed-race identity development was a big one that I focused on. Dr. Baxter Magolda from Miami of Ohio and self-authorship is another one. How do you bring these new perspectives and find the scholars? Because in higher education, we have so much talent, brilliance, creativity with our faculty that in order for us to develop a new approach to diversity and equity and inclusion that is going to meet the ever-changing context and ensure that these institutions are not, are serving these populations in the best way possible.
Serving those who are not identified within these populations, it's going to only make the product of higher education that much stronger.
SPEAKER_01
I think that's great. I love that. And one thing I want to just kind of tease, I heard this the other day and I took pause to it because it makes sense if we start looking at the Wichita data, if we start looking at everything that you just talked about, the different elements that are going on.
According to Pew Research, over half of Generation Z belongs to a minority group. So if you think about it from that standpoint, and I mean, that's huge. And I think that as higher ed leaders and marketers, we've got to start recognizing that that is the reality of Generation Z.
It's going to be the reality of Generation Alpha. You can kind of unpack that however you want. You can talk about patterns.
You can talk about relationships, the ways different. The idea in the 60s when who's coming to dinner was a big deal because what does this mean that a white woman is going to date a black man? We're well beyond that. That's part of who our culture is and what we're doing.
And because of that, we have a lot more families, a lot more individuals that are not definable. And so over half of Generation Z being a part of a minority group, even in my own family, two of my children are adopted from Ethiopia. And so I've talked about this before on the podcast.
I've talked about it in our blog. I have a perspective, not the same as the two of you gentlemen, but I have a little bit, just a taste of what some of that is. And that, like you said earlier, that builds understanding.
It builds empathy. And it quite honestly can make us all better marketers. It makes us better humans.
If we can accept that and lean into that.
SPEAKER_04
Well said, Bart. Well said.
SPEAKER_01
Yes. Sorry to preach. Get a little bit passionate about that.
SPEAKER_04
That's what we call allyhood, Bart. So tons of respect for you speaking up and saying that because that's what it's about. Like it's about us coming together across our differences, our similarities, and saying, how do we design this future world that is taken into consideration this data that you just shared and the things that we know are coming forward.
So thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_02
Not because I want to, but because our time is coming up and I need to bring us to a close. And I will ask this of you, Errol, based on something that you're passionate about or based on your expertise, if there is a piece of advice that you give or can give, that could have immediate impact for a listener within our higher ed marketing world, what would that be?
SPEAKER_04
I'm going to kind of take a, make a stretch with this. Please. I'm a sports guy.
Okay. And I hope I don't lose any listeners with what I'm about to say, but I am a LeBron James fan, unapologetically. Me too.
Okay. And LeBron James just broke the impossible record of the captain, Kareem Avil-Jabbar, and becoming the highest, the number one highest scorer in NBA history. And whenever I think about the Jordan and the LeBron James debate, one thing that, that, that strikes me about LeBron is, you know, he doesn't do any one thing great like Jordan, right? He does a lot of things, you know, elite.
And he's also a facilitator in terms of being able to make sure that people around him shine, making sure that people get the right shots and, you know, that, and ensuring that people can, can, can enhance their game. And, and, and Jordan just was amazing. He's, he's, you know, that's why they call him the goat for the reason, you know, and, right.
And I, and I use this analogy to say, find, find yourself somebody that is willing to humble themselves and create bridges and inroads so that you can shine. That can think about things from a high level, you know, that can, you know, position you for success so that you can take your area of expertise and become the greatest self that you can be. Because it's, this is not, this is not something that any one person is meant to emerge as, as the one, I think, I think there can be two goats, you know, that co-exist.
And everybody that has made it through this pandemic is a goat in their own right. My hope with my company and Mara Bridge Consulting Solutions is to be that LeBron type that's facilitating and getting at it, everybody the opportunity to be connected, to use their talents in the best way possible through strengths, through design, through intercultural relations. So happy to be here.
Thank you all for having me.
SPEAKER_02
Thank you. How, what's the best way to reach you or to find out information about your firm?
SPEAKER_04
Absolutely. So you can find, you can visit my website at marabridge.com, M-A-R-A, and then bridge, B-R-I-D-G dot com, or you can email me at arrow, spell E-R-R-O-L at wintenterprise.
com. I'm also linked in, very active on LinkedIn. You know, you can, you can connect with me and follow me and follow the content that I post on my wall and any of the videos that I drop in terms of sharing ideas such as this.
SPEAKER_02
Thank you, Arroll. It's been a pleasure to have this in-depth conversation in front of an audience. I've had the pleasure of talking to you personally, but I think the community is best served when thinkers like you are out there and we are aware of them.
Bart, if you would, do you have any final thoughts that you would like to share before we close the show?
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I really appreciate you being on the show, Arroll. It's been a great conversation and just wonderful. And I just think about some of the things that we talked about, you know, the idea of design planning.
While we were here on the show, I jumped on Amazon and looked at the Change by Design book. Hey, it was on sale today, so I went ahead and downloaded it for my candle. It'll be on my reading list and I would encourage you all to do that, especially from from a marketing standpoint, you know, being able to take the marketing principles that maybe all of us as creatives might already naturally do, but then be able to present it that that we can really help, you know, those admissions teams and the enrollment teams that we're serving.
I still maintain that a book like Change by Design or, you know, we had Ann Handley on the podcast a couple of weeks ago with her book, Everybody Writes, create a book club internally with your marketing team and your admissions team. Get everybody talking. Get them working together.
And that way you all are going to be better together. And so I would really encourage you to do something like that. And I really love the idea.
Maybe take the strength finder with you as well. And, you know, grab grab Arroll to come in and talk to you guys about some things. Sharpen each other.
And and I think that would just be a really good next steps on all of this. So such a great conversation. Appreciate it.
The just the honesty and the authentic conversation. And you're welcome back anytime. So thanks so much, Arroll.
SPEAKER_02
Thanks for having me. I'm so grateful for the both of you. I'm also grateful for our continued sponsors, Kailer Solutions, a Barts company, a education and branding agency.
Also, I'm grateful for Ring Digital. Providing precise advertising that will follow your value list within your enrollment funnel. On behalf of Arroll, Bart and myself, thank you for listening today.
SPEAKER_00
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