UCEA 2009 Management and Marketing Seminars

I just returned from the UCEA Management and Marketing Seminars. Below are some of my presentations. Enjoy. My takeaways:

• For those who went to the management seminar on enrollment management ... kudos to you, as you care about probably one of the top three issues or opportunities for continuing education marketing or revenues. In this economy, we're not going to spend more money on marketing. We are going to get smarter about how we do things. We are going to become more efficient. What better way than putting the science back into marketing. Creativity and design will only get you so far ... you'll still wander around not knowing whether it worked or not unless you actually quantitatively and consistently measure.
• Thank you Tim Copeland of SunGard Higher Education for some outstanding sessions and from Stephanie Platteter of the University of Minnesota and Nora Lewis of the University of Pennsylvania for putting theory and strategy of enrollment management to work. Also, thank you to the University Continuing Education Association and Kay Kohl for putting this back on the radar screen.
• On the marketing side, I presented a new whitepaper on the what continuing education deans and directors think of their marketing function. I thought it was challenging as did others. The solution is a two-way street. Deans need to better understand marketing, but marketers need to help them get there. Marketers do need to get better at reporting ROI, develop strategic marketing skills and stay up on e-marketing tools if they aren't already doing so. Deans will be faced with immense pressure, so if you are a marketer planning to do the same ole' same ole', you're going to have some challenges in front of you.

Overall, it was a good conference. Good takeaways from some of the keynotes and concurrent sessions, but a lot of good discussion with other vendors, especially my friends at Destiny Solutions, Intelliworks and SunGard. While I came from academia and Penn State, I can't say how valuable external parties can be. Not that I am biased, but there's a lot of great value from vendors that truly care and desire partnerships (as opposed to the ones who just take your money and run). Having worked at Penn State and as a consultant to other colleges and universities, there's a lot of value from some outsourcing relationships ... although the shoe has to fit.