Category: marketing

‘Disruptive Adaptation’

We’ve been hearing a lot about the many “disruptive” forces buffeting our world in higher education. We’ve heard about disruptive technology and how online education can radically change delivery of our coursework. Then there’s disruptive innovation, disruptive thinking — even disruptive demographics, all terms that describe the tectonic-shifting forces of change.

Now there’s a new phrase to add to your list: disruptive adaptation, which describes the way higher ed must deal with these forces.

In a recent white paper (pdf) published by The Lawlor Group, Jon McGee, the vice president for planning and public affairs at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University in
Minnesota, describes disruptive adaptation as the need for colleges and universities to sustain a sort of equilibrium in the face of disruptive forces. McGee describes five key forces of disruption — changing demographics, lingering high unemployment, stagnant family income levels, home values, and changes in family debt and savings — and suggests a new framework for moving forward during these turbulent times. His “decision cube” provides a tool for looking at disruptive adaptation and developing an approach for the future.

Jon McGee’s “decision cube,” a contextual tool for adapting to the disruptive forces buffeting higher education. (Image courtesy of The Lawlor Group, http://www.thelawlorgroup.com.)

 

If you haven’t yet done so, I suggest you read McGee’s paper, “Disruptive Adaptation: The New Market for Higher Education,” available for download from this post on The Lawlor Group’s blog.

Branding in the offline world

With all the daily, even hourly, hullabaloo we see and read about the importance of social media in branding and marketing, sometimes we forget just how important it is to maintain a strong brand identity in the offline world.

It’s a point Ed Keller and Brad Fay remind us of in a recent Wall Street Journal piece, Why Successful Branding Still Happens Offline.

The idea that “online conversations will spread to hundreds or thousands of people (and maybe more) with the click of a mouse” may be “theoretically possible,” write Keller and Fay, but it’s largely false. According to their research, “most links that are shared reach only 5-10 people.” And fewer than 1 percent of a typical brand’s Facebook fans are what we would consider actively engaged with that brand.

Today’s consumer marketplace is highly social, but not because of particular platforms or technologies. The businesses that will be the most successful in the future are the ones that embrace a model that puts people — rather than technology — at the center of products, campaigns and market strategies.

In this regard, higher education should have an advantage. We are in the business of educating people, not pushing technology.

But sometimes I wonder if we become so enamored with technology or social media in our branding that we lose sight of how we can connect with people in the offline context. Sure, social media has its place, and it is growing as a vehicle for connecting with our audiences or customers. But can it replace more traditional word of mouth marketing?