The Library
33 full conversations, plus short highlights from the archives. New episodes roughly twice a month.
Short listens · Original conversations
With Dave Look
Making time for outside interests can change how you approach your work. In this short excerpt from the first Escape Velocity episode, Dave Look and I talk about choosing where to spend our time, taking things apart to understand them, and what a jazz ensemble can teach us about sharing the lead.
With Adrienne Cooper
How do you help someone stretch without pushing them past what they can handle? In this six-and-a-half-minute excerpt, Adrienne Cooper and I talk about flow, the stages of learning, and what managers can do in the small moments of a working day to support both the person and the team.
With Carol Keese
Higher ed keeps asking how to communicate its value. Carol Keese asks whether the product, the price, and the proof need to change too. In this six-minute excerpt, we talk about trust, hidden costs, and why outcomes should shape the message.
With Dayana Kibilds
Dayana Kibilds was fluent in English and still missed a requirement when she applied to college in the U.S. In this nine-minute exchange, we talk about the assumptions buried in admissions language and who has the help to decode it.
Showing all 33 episodes, newest first
EVP, Brand & Web Strategy, Carnegie
Why do higher ed websites still look the same and wrestle with problems that were already familiar when the web was young? Volt Santos Miran joins Tracey to talk about copycat design, underfunded web teams, shared governance, and why the institution should never be the hero of the story.
VP for University Communications & CMO, University of Oregon
Higher ed websites all sound the same, look the same, and Carol Keese has a lot to say about that. As VP for University Communications and CMO at the University of Oregon, she argues that when an institution has a substance problem, more marketing isn’t the fix.
Founder, Solve Higher Ed Marketing · Author
Jaime Hunt has spent a career arguing that empathy belongs at the center of marketing strategy, not on a poster in the break room. As the founder of Solve Higher Ed Marketing and an author in the field, Jaime makes the case that understanding your audience deeply is the hardest, most rigorous work a marketer can do.
Filmmaker · Institutional Executive
When Alia Poonawala needed to fund her film, she didn’t run a bake sale. She treated it like a B2B partnership deal and raised $50K. A filmmaker with an institutional executive’s toolkit, Alia works both sides of the creative-commercial line.
VP Digital Platforms, World Wildlife Fund
Diane Querey has led digital at World Wildlife Fund through two decades of platform shifts, including the WWF Together app that won an Apple Design Award in 2013 and the Apps for Earth campaign with Apple that raised $8 million.
Founder, GLADsome Work Inc.
Adrienne Cooper’s path from TV news producer to Allstate leader to founder of her own consultancy, GLADsome Work Inc., is not a straight line. That’s exactly what makes her thinking on culture, leadership, and organizational design worth paying attention to.
VP of Strategy, Ologie · Author, Mailed It.
Dayana Kibilds has spent nearly two decades helping colleges and universities find the words to say what they actually mean. Most financial aid pages come back solid red in the Hemingway app. A wall. And then those same schools wonder why first-gen families aren’t finding them.
Co-founders, DEEO Studio
Yianni and Monica of DEEO are back for round two. Nearly three years into building their creative studio, they’ve hit a different gear. A conversation about where design, brand, and AI are all headed, and why decoration is a fundamentally human impulse we can’t afford to hand over to machines.
Senior Director of Enrollment Marketing, MICA
Tracey sits down with Sabrina Depestre to explore how creativity, leadership, and resilience actually develop in the real world, from shaping fan experiences at the Miami Heat to modernizing marketing inside higher education.
Entrepreneur, Technologist, Author
Tracey sits down with entrepreneur, technologist, and author Kris Land to explore the ideas behind his book The Infinity Within and the deeper role fear, doubt, and curiosity play in shaping human experience.
Founder, Plucky · Leadership Coach · Author
When leadership coach Jen Dary discovered she had a massive brain tumor in 2016, she was an eight-month-old baby’s mom, running her coaching business Plucky, and just trying to survive the chaos of early motherhood. What she didn’t expect was that surviving brain surgery would crack open an entirely different kind of survival guide.
Founders, Second Harvest
What happens when the map of your life dissolves beneath your feet? From personal loss to career upheaval to the quiet ache of disconnection so many feel today, the trio travels through the terrain that leads people to seek change, and why traditional self-help rarely offers real transformation.
VP Communications & Marketing, Skidmore College
How do you make creativity a strategic tool, not a luxury, when resources are limited and expectations are high? Elizabeth Stauderman joins to unpack how she brought Skidmore’s motto, Creative Thought Matters, to life through a full web and brand transformation.
Fractional CFO · Founder, EssJay
Sarah Patterson, who practically invented the Fractional CFO role, has a way of making numbers feel human. We talk about what happens when you stop treating your financials like a necessary evil and start using them as a creative tool.
Media Builder · AI Strategist · Host, Higher Ed Pulse
Higher ed marketing is full of old playbooks, slow adoption, and fear of risk. Mallory Willsea has made a career out of pushing against that gravity.
Creative Director, Fifteen4
What does it really mean to lead creative work in a world being reshaped by AI, complexity, and constant change? An honest, funny, and deeply insightful conversation about what creative leadership actually requires today.
Founding Member, HGTV · Author · Executive Coach
Traci Schubert Barrett, founding member of HGTV and best-selling author of What If There’s More?, explores the messy, beautiful truth behind leadership, burnout, and redefining success.
Enrollment Strategist · Higher Education Consultant
Enrollment strategist Brigid Lawler joins to ask a heretical question: why the traditional admissions funnel might need to be flipped entirely.
Student · Gen Z Perspective
Tracey’s 17-year-old niece Romy, in the middle of her own college search, brings a Gen Z reality check to everything higher ed marketers think they know.
Strategist · Poet · Founder, Mackey Strategies
Strategist, poet, and Mackey Strategies founder Pete Mackey on why reflecting a brand, not inventing one, is the real work.
Artist · Author · Former Agency CEO
Artist, author, and former agency CEO Richard Banfield on creativity, identity, grief, and personal reinvention.
Brand Strategist · Founder, Sagesse
Brand strategist and Sagesse founder Tracy Gosson on how surviving stage 4 ovarian cancer redefined everything, from the clients she takes to the life she builds around the work.
Community Builder · Founder, Bureau of Digital
Bureau of Digital founder Carl Smith on the evolution of agency life, the promise and peril of AI, and why trust and human connection still run the industry.
Senior Marketing Director, Cornell · Co-author, Mailed It!
Higher ed marketing expert Ashley Budd, co-author of Mailed It! and Senior Marketing Director at Cornell, on email that people actually open.
Creative Director, Wide Eye
Elizabeth Bawol returns to talk about the work since round one: Harris campaign branding, the Democratic National Convention, and Planned Parenthood.
CEO & Co-founder, Clockwork · Author
Clockwork CEO Nancy Lyons, known for bold leadership and a no-BS approach, on transforming workplace culture from the inside.
CEO, Variate
From an architecture background to leading digital transformation for brands like Marriott, Carnival, and Macy’s: Miles Kemp on designing at enterprise scale.
Senior Creative Developer
Senior creative developer Chris Gilbert, with over a decade in the craft, on the evolution of AI in software development and the future of web design.
Founder & Lead Strategist, Backroom
Backroom founder Kara Redman on personal branding and why showing up authentically matters more than polishing a persona.
Co-founders, E&A Collaborative
Edit Barry and Allison Le co-founded E&A Collaborative, a women-owned brand consultancy for higher ed and mission-driven organizations.
Creative Director, Wide Eye Creative
Wide Eye creative director Elizabeth Bawol on brand work for Planned Parenthood, AmeriCorps, and the Democratic National Convention.
Co-founders, DEEO
The DEEO co-founders on digital design, strategy, and innovation, plus the discipline of rejecting bad-fit clients.
CEO, Chromatic
Where it all started: Chromatic CEO Dave Look on Drupal development and why developing diverse skills, from Krav Maga to lockpicking, makes better leaders.