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Streams & Loops
Creative Houston Sparks
Health Guide USA Tips & Trusted Links
Instead of reacting to customer behavior, we can use publicly announced trends as a leverage point. LinkedIn has found that unemployment and improving options for online education are converging to drive a new wave of students. The managers of graduate and continuing education programs have the opportunity to reactivate the people who previously inquired.
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions Blog: A New Wave of Students is Looking to Higher Education Now, 2020-Aug-27 by Michael Levine
After the Great Recession of 2008, the number of students enrolled in Higher Education increased by 16 percent.... between 2007 and 2010... Many older adults enrolled in two-year programs.
To help Higher Education marketers develop a better understanding of this new group of students, we partnered with Ipsos to survey a diverse group of more than 1,000 adults in the United States....
Some of the findings — a preference for online learning options, for example - reveal the acceleration of trends that were present before the pandemic changed the landscape of Higher Education. Still, other findings show a new sense of urgency among prospective students. Nearly 30 percent of respondents are exploring continued education because they are newly unemployed or worried about future unemployment....
Important things to note about this research:
I just realized that I've been making the dumb mistake of looking at someone's image when they're talking on Zoom. I should be looking at the camera often.
Fast Company: How to do a better job of listening when you’re remote, 20-Aug-12 by Judith Humphrey
Listen with Your Body
Use your physical presence to listen. This goes far beyond using your ears to absorb what people are saying. Our entire body needs to convey attentiveness.
For starters, turn to the person who’s talking on the screen and physically align yourself with them while they’re speaking. This makes a huge difference. I recently attended a Zoom meeting and the host was talking to a small group, and one person was turned away at a 45-degree angle. She probably didn’t realize that the message she was sending was, “I’m not interested in what you’re saying.”
Use your eyes, too, to show that you’re listening. Don’t stare, but keep your eyes centered on the person who’s speaking by looking into the camera. Maintain an open and interested expression in your eyes. Avoid the temptation to look down at your phone, or around the virtual room. Focus your eyes on the chat line from time to time, but don’t let it distract you from the audience you’re addressing.
Use gestures, too, to show you are listening: nod when you agree with the speaker; move your body forward to listen to something you find particularly interesting, and gesture with open arms to acknowledge agreement.
When you’re speaking, bring physical energy to your delivery. The individuals you’re talking to are probably suffering from Zoom fatigue, and they need your energy to stay engaged and alert.
Lately, my social interactions have been restricted to immediate family and a few people who are nearly strangers, such as the people who hand me my take-out food. I really miss my friends, and I'm starting to realize I need to cultivate more interaction with the few people I do see. This article explains how interactions that fall short of 'making new friends' are still valuable.
BBC Worklife: Why your ‘weak-tie’ friendships may mean more than you think, 2020-Jul-2 by Ian Leslie
Gillian Sandstrom, now a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Essex, [decided] to investigate the extent to which people derive happiness from weak-tie relationships. She asked a group of respondents to keep a record of all their social interactions over the course of several different days. She found that participants with larger networks of weak ties tended to be happier overall, and that on days when a participant had a greater number of casual interactions with weak ties – a local barista, a neighbor, a member of yoga class – they experienced more happiness and a greater sense of belonging....
“Sometimes it’s harder to talk to people we know well because those conversations come with an emotional burden,” says Sandstrom. “Weak-tie conversations are lighter and less demanding.”...
A 2016 study, for which psychologists recruited respondents from Italy and Scotland, showed that regardless of nationality or age, people who were members of groups such as sports teams or church communities enjoyed an increased sense of meaning and security. And the more groups of which they were members, the better.
I debated whether to leave the word "inclusive" dangling in the headline of this post. Inclusive of what? Everybody that's different, although really that's an impractical approach. We're all different but some of us have suffered more discrimination.
I remember in business school being told that people with red hair are "not a protected minority." A past history of discriminatory abuse has identified people to whom we owe reparations. However, a legal approach of tit-for-tat doesn't change people's behavior.
Valecia "Dr. V" Dunbar has some interesting suggestions on how to reset the corporate acceptance of diversity.
Inc.: Defund Corporate Diversity Departments, 2020-July-13 by Valecia Dunbar
Here are five ways diversity leaders can start the shift:
- Drop the Word Minority from Your Vocabulary. Diversity departments can no longer afford to dump every non-white employee into one big bucket called "minority." Different demographics require different programming, which leads to the next step, segmenting.
- Segment Diverse Programming. For example, race and gender inequities are completely different and should be acknowledged as such when creating programming.
- Conduct Personality Assessments. Each employee should know the challenges and bias behind their individual personality and behavioral preferences, as well as how this affects their ability to effectively interact with others.
- Execute an Anonymous Audit. Obtaining unfiltered feedback from employees is the only true way to gain a look into the company's culture.
- Identify the Champions. Identify your "true" diversity champions and empower them to suggest meaningful changes towards creating an environment that appreciates diversity.
According to Adam Ferrier, founder of Thinkerbell, our communications strategies should not be driven by the customers' wants and needs. They just want to be left alone until a need crops up in a specific category. Then they want efficient communication: Where? How little can I pay?
To establish a brand image in people's minds, we have to assert the brand value before potential customers are ready to purchase. The needs and perspectives of the brand have to be front and center. As brands, what do we have to contribute? How can we best connect with people we can help?