Ever find yourself searching for new enrollment management ideas and insight to help you in your job? You may be looking for thought leadership. Wikipedia defines a thought leader as a buzzword or article of jargon used to describe a futurist or person who is recognized among peers and mentors for innovative ideas and demonstrates the confidence to promote or share those ideas as actionable distilled insights. I know, a little long, but the best I could find on an early Sunday morning.
Updated June 26, 2009
As part of a study I conducted this year, I asked undergraduate enrollment managers where they go within the industry for enrollment management thought leadership. To provide context, I was looking at companies whose primary competency is undergraduate enrollment consulting and research. Thus technology providers or communication agencies were excluded from the choices.
Of the 105 institutions that responded, 48% were 4-Year Publics, 37% were 4-Year Privates, and 15% were 2-Year institutions. Fifty-six percent of the respondents were at the Dean or Vice-President level, while 35% were directors.
Here’s what I found:
At the top of list are the national heavyweights, the College Board, Noel-Levitz, and the ACT. Because of their access to testing data and primary research, these organizations frequently release their findings and insight to the industry.
In the middle tier, you may be surprised.
The top two associations, NACAC and AACRAO, are equaled by higher education blogs, a relatively new communication outlet. That’s remarkable given that NACAC was founded in 1937, and AACRAO in 1910!
Rounding out the bottom of the group is the rest of the enrollment management consulting companies. This group is made up of mostly, regionalized enrollment management advising groups.
Eduventures, a relatively new player in the enrollment management space, has strong research capabilities and is growing their consulting capacity. They have begun to release some of their insight in white papers and given the research base they are building, I expect this group to grow in importance.
The ‘other’ category was made up of an assortment of marketing publications or small research vendors.
The advantage of online is that groups or individuals can bypass the publishing process and speak directly to audiences. The challenge as a vendor is in knowing how much information to provide for ‘free’ and what to keep as intellectually property. Some of the leading vendors put their white papers on the table for download by one and all. Others keep their insight close to the vest. Finding the balance is tough.
At the end of the day, there are many answers available in print and online. The question is can you execute upon them. That’s where enrollment management service companies excel.
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