In this episode, host Jeff Dillon welcomes Melanie Moran, Vice President and Senior Strategist at Mackey Strategies, who spent nearly two decades at Vanderbilt University—rising to Associate Vice Chancellor for University Relations—and recently completed an 18‑month stint as interim head of athletic communications. She's seen campus and athletics communications from every angle: as a writer, a strategist, a leader, and an outsider brought in to bridge two worlds.

Melanie shares what surprised her most about athletics communications: the sheer volume, the round‑the‑clock pace, the 17 sports, the live broadcasts, and the massive, always‑on audience. She explains why operational separation makes sense—athletics needs to move fast—but why brand and strategy can never be siloed. The university's name is on the jerseys, and the best operations work hand in glove.

She also offers advice for crisis leadership. The best leaders don't panic. They create space to understand what really happened. They're willing to hear information they don't like. And they understand that trust is the currency of a crisis—the goal isn't to survive tomorrow's news cycle, it's to protect the institution's reputation for the next decade.

For anyone in communications, athletics, or institutional leadership trying to navigate an increasingly complex media landscape, this episode is essential listening.

Key Takeaways

• Relationships Must Be Built Before the Crisis Hits: You don't want to be meeting your campus communications colleagues for the first time in the middle of a reputational fire. Establish regular check‑ins, track issues together, and know in advance who handles what.

• The Crisis Playbook: What Happened, What Will We Do, What Will We Say: In that order. Don't skip ahead to messaging before you understand the facts and have decided on a course of action grounded in your values.

• The Best Leaders Don't Panic: The leader's behavior sets the tone for the entire team. Calm creates space to understand what really happened and gives staff confidence that they'll be supported.

• The Best Leaders Ask "What Do I Need to Know?" Not "How Do I Make This Go Away?" They're willing to hear tough news, even if it reveals a staff failure or a mistake that could have been avoided. You can't make good decisions without complete information.

• Trust Is the Currency of a Crisis: Getting through tomorrow's news cycle is not the goal. Protecting the institution's reputation for the next five to ten years is. Trust and values are foundational—and they can be lost in the midst of a crisis if you're not careful.

• AI Is Great for Getting Past the Blank Page—Not for Judgment: AI can synthesize information, test ideas, and handle repetitive work. But outsourcing judgment, leadership voice, or relationships to AI is risky. The question isn't "Is AI replacing communicators?" It's "How can AI free up communicators to think more strategically?"

• The Transition from Individual Contributor to Leader Requires a Mindset Shift: Being the best writer or social media person won't prepare you to lead. You need to shift from "What can I produce?" to "What is the strategy behind it?" Learn the business of the institution. Understand what the president, provost, and athletic director are trying to accomplish. Invest in relationships before you need them.

The Signal Newsletter:
https://edtechconnect.com/newsletter

...

• (00:00:00) - Intro and guest background
• (00:01:51) - A career story: chasing down a school bus
• (00:03:20) - How communications leadership evolved at Vanderbilt
• (00:04:47) - Athletics vs. university communications: scale and pace
• (00:07:16) - Where separation between athletics and university works or fails
• (00:08:43) - Crisis speed, authority, and shared language
• (00:10:32) - NIL, revenue sharing, and deeper integration needs
• (00:12:45) - Value of outside strategic counsel and interim leadership
• (00:15:10) - Common traits of leaders handling crisis well
• (00:16:30) - AI's role in communications work
• (00:18:09) - Mentoring communicators into leadership roles
• (00:20:37) - Optimism, burnout, and the future of athletics-campus branding
• (00:22:50) - Closing and sign-off

What if the reason your enrollment strategy keeps stalling has nothing to do with the plan—and everything to do with the culture?

In this episode, host Jeff Dillon sits down with Austin Blair, Dean of Admissions and Marketing for both St. Francis Medical Center College of Nursing and St. Anthony College of Nursing, part of OSF Healthcare. Austin also coaches high school football, and that experience shapes everything about how he leads. He draws a direct line between coaching a team and building an enrollment operation: both are about creating belief, creating the experience before results, and understanding that talent rarely overcomes a bad culture.

Austin shares the story of uniting two distinct nursing college cultures—one in Rockford, one in Peoria, two and a half hours apart—with different histories, different demographics, and different ways of doing things. He explains why "buy‑in" is too small of a goal and why shared ownership is the real objective. He walks through his CULTURE framework: clarify the why, understand the terrain, listen before launching, turn committees into coalitions, use data as a mirror, reinforce through relationships, and empower shared ownership.

He also makes a provocative case against buying prospect names—a strategy he abandoned not out of philosophy, but out of necessity when his marketing budget was only $40,000. What he discovered was that relevance beats volume, and relationships beat lists.

For any enrollment leader, president, or marketing team trying to move a stalled strategy forward, this episode offers a practical, football‑tested framework for putting culture first.

Key Takeaways

• Culture Before Strategy: Strategy tells people what you're going to do. Culture determines whether they'll actually get there. Enrollment problems rarely stem from enrollment challenges—they're usually cultural, communication, or trust issues.
• Buy In Is Too Small a Goal—Build Shared Ownership: Buy in means the decision has already been made and you're trying to get people to agree. Shared ownership means shaping the decision together. People support what they build.
• Talent Rarely Overcomes a Bad Culture: Austin has seen great enrollment plans fail because the culture wasn't ready to support them. He's seen talented teams underperform because they weren't aligned. Culture is the foundation.
• Don't Skip the Listening Phase: The listening phase often gets compressed when leaders are under pressure to move fast. That's where you find who your arrogant leaders are—they think they've already solved it.
• Good Ideas Don't Spread Just Because They're Good: They spread because people trust who's behind them, understand the idea, and see themselves in it. A good idea without adoption is just a recommendation.
• Small Colleges Win by Being Human: Don't imitate scale—maximize intimacy. Own your traditions, own your identity, and don't try to be something you're not. The world will try to hate on you if you're inauthentic.
• The First Question to Ask When Enrollment Stalls: What's your culture? Who's your biggest leader? Are you embracing who you are? Culture determines whether you'll actually get where you're trying to go.

The Signal Newsletter:
https://edtechconnect.com/newsletter

Find Austin Blair:

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-w-b-63a306a6/

OSF HealthCare

http://osfhealthcare.org/

And find EdTech Connect here:

• (00:00:00) - Introduction and Guest Background
• (00:02:03) - Coaching Football vs. Enrollment Leadership
• (00:04:27) - Culture Before Strategy: Merging Two Colleges
• (00:08:17) - Buy-In vs. Shared Ownership
• (00:11:39) - The CULTURE Framework Explained
• (00:16:47) - Moving Away from Buying Prospect Names
• (00:19:59) - Nursing Enrollment Challenges and Workforce Development
• (00:23:07) - From Counselor to Director: Getting Ideas Adopted
• (00:25:36) - Small Colleges vs. Large Universities
• (00:28:48) - Final Advice and Wrap-Up

What if the biggest problem in higher ed marketing isn't technology, budget, or even strategy—but the fact that we assume students make rational decisions when they're actually driven by emotion, bias, and the simple need to feel like they belong?

In this episode, host Jeff Dillon welcomes Si Elliott, founder of Fabrics, a customer experience consultancy that applies behavioral science to how organizations design experiences and relationships. Si also runs Diversity, a creative agency in Nottingham, England, and guest lectures at three universities—including the Communication University of China. He brings a rare outside perspective to higher ed, challenging institutions to stop designing around the needs of the organization and start designing around the experience of the person.

He explains why the technology amplifies whatever process is already there—good or bad—and why "marketing is better with psychology." He also breaks down three behavioral biases that could change how enrollment teams communicate: the curse of knowledge, social proof, and peak-end rule. And he offers a simple but powerful challenge to any president or CIO: put on a pair of trainers and a hoodie, walk around campus anonymously, and just observe. Change your shoes.

Key Takeaways

• Psychology Is Better Marketing: Marketing isn't just persuasion—it's understanding people so you can serve them better. The goal isn't to trick people into converting; it's to make it easier for them to make the best decision for themselves.

• Assume Emotional Decisions, Not Rational Ones: A 17-year-old choosing a university isn't just weighing league tables and employment outcomes. They're asking: "Can I see myself fitting in here? Does this feel like a place for me?" That's hard to track in a CRM, but it's the real question.

• Three Biases That Matter Most: The curse of knowledge (you know your institution too well to explain it clearly to others), social proof (students need evidence they'll belong), and peak-end rule (people judge an experience by its emotional peak and its final moment). Use these to redesign open days, communications, and touchpoints.

• Technology Amplifies What's Already There: If the underlying process is broken, technology will make it broken faster. Before buying a new platform, ask: are we fixing a process problem, an ownership problem, or a human understanding problem?

• Don't Confuse Efficiency with Experience: AI and automation can streamline operations, but they can also strip the warmth out of a relationship. If an airline's automated messages leave a stranded passenger with no human contact for 72 hours, the technology is working against the brand.

• The Value of Toil: Learning happens when you work through a problem yourself. AI shortcuts can rob students of the struggle that leads to true understanding. The future of education isn't competing with AI on processing—it's competing on context, nuance, creativity, and the human touch.

• Map the Journey, Find the Friction: A customer experience audit starts with mapping the full journey—exploration, open days, offers, registration, student life—and identifying moments of high emotion or high friction. That's where you focus your attention.

• Change Your Shoes: If you're a president, CIO, or marketing leader, put on a pair of trainers, jeans, and a hoodie. Walk around campus anonymously. Attend an open day. Buy a student a coffee and just listen. Observe body...

• (00:00:00) - Introduction to Cy Elliott
• (00:01:57) - A frustrating airline experience
• (00:04:47) - Why psychology, not just marketing
• (00:07:39) - Comparing higher ed and corporate customer experience
• (00:10:50) - How students actually make decisions
• (00:13:40) - Key behavioral biases for enrollment teams
• (00:16:06) - Technology as amplifier, not solution
• (00:19:39) - Auditing the student experience for friction
• (00:22:00) - Rethinking the application process
• (00:23:15) - AI's impact on what students expect from lecturers
• (00:25:39) - Comparing UK and Chinese student experiences
• (00:27:47) - Practical steps for resource-limited teams
• (00:28:42) - Final advice: walk in the student's shoes
• (00:30:24) - Closing and sign-off