Topic guide · 17 conversations
Say the specific true thing.
Conversations about positioning, voice, audience insight, creative differentiation, and what happens when consensus replaces conviction.
A brand is the specific true thing only you can say. A logo can help people recognize you. It cannot give an organization the courage to be clear.
These conversations are about positioning, voice, creative differentiation, audience insight, and the slow drift toward sameness that happens when consensus replaces conviction.
If the copy could belong to a competitor, the strategy is unfinished. If the work looks polished but nobody can tell what you believe, the strategy is unfinished too.
The conversations
Ranked by relevance
Volt Santos Miran: Why Higher Ed Websites Still Look the Same
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.
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Carol Keese: A CMO Says Marketing Isn’t the Fix
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.
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Elizabeth Stauderman: Creative Thought in Action
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.
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Dayana Kibilds: The Language Problem Killing Higher Ed Access
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.
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Pete Mackey: Listening Is Where Strategy Starts
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.
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Edit Barry & Allison Le: E&A Collaborative
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.
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Elizabeth Bawol: Senior Brand + Creative Director
Creative Director, Wide Eye Creative
Wide Eye creative director Elizabeth Bawol on brand work for Planned Parenthood, AmeriCorps, and the Democratic National Convention.
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Elizabeth Bawol Round 2: Creative Director at Wide Eye
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.
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DEEO Returns: Art, AI, and Why Humans Decorate
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.
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Kara Redman: Showing Up Authentically
Founder & Lead Strategist, Backroom
Backroom founder Kara Redman on personal branding and why showing up authentically matters more than polishing a persona.
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Ashley Budd: Mailed It!
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.
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Jaime Hunt: Empathy Is Not a Soft Skill
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.
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Mallory Willsea: Build the Stage
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.
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Designing Resilience with Sabrina Depestre
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.
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What Today’s Students Actually Want from Colleges
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.
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Brigid Lawler: Rethinking Enrollment in an Age of Disruption
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.
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Christina Melito: Designing for Tension
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.
Episode detailsFrom Tracey
Related writing
The morning I woke up viral
In 2014 I published something about my city, shared it twice, and went to bed. What I learned has almost nothing to do with what I wrote.
From the archive · 9 min readYour content is slowly killing your readers
The 2014 essay that rewrote a NASA headline, and got me invited to Goddard to make the case in person. Republished, because none of it has aged.
Show note · 6 min readThe Hemingway test, and the word that means nothing
Two exercises from episode 27 with Dayana Kibilds: one that shows you how hard your pages are to read, and one that shows you how little they say.
Essay · 5 min readWhy decoration is the last thing we should hand to machines
From the DEEO conversation: art, AI, and the impulse to make a thing more beautiful than it needs to be.
Essay · 5 min readThe portfolio career, defended
Sabrina Depestre made a point on episode 25 that deserves its own piece. Side projects are not a distraction. They are the engine.
Direct answers
A few useful definitions
What makes a brand distinctive?
A distinctive brand makes a specific promise that is true, relevant to the audience, and supported by evidence. It gives people language and experiences they cannot easily swap onto a competitor.
How does AI affect brand voice?
AI can make average language faster. Without a clear point of view and strong source material, it also makes different organizations sound increasingly alike. The useful role for AI is supporting the workflow while people remain responsible for judgment and voice.