The joy and discomfort of becoming visible

After my last boring blog, I decided to revert back to my old weight loss blogging because of all the nasty emails I got. "Georgia, shut your pie hole. Leave work at work" and other various messages led me to such a decision. What was I thinking?

The topic of my discussion today is a result of much thought over some changes that have occurred in my life. When you're morbidly obese, you sort of disappear. It's an oxy moron of sorts, and one of life's cruel ironies: Despite being so large that you can't be ignored, you're not small enough for people to pay attention to you. You become very complacent in that position or you fight against it. In my case, my personality had to become bigger than I was to avoid being ignored. Of course there are some that see past all the layers of adipose tissue, but most people can't. I can't blame them; I find myself doing the same thing. A guy has to be pretty good looking for me to consider going out with him. I'm likely shutting out a lot of good guys that way.

Since losing 100+ pounds I have somehow become fairly visible again, and can feel the visibility increase with each pound I decrease. There's a lot of joy in that. I am more confident in everyday situations. I like the male attention. I'm suddenly caring about having a six-pack. But there's also much discomfort in it. When I was over 300 pounds I didn't have to worry about responding to men, or even having everyday conversations with them. They just didn't happen. But now...now I have to re-learn how to talk to men. It's all very uncomfortable. A welcome change, but one that I seemingly know nothing about.

In addition, I'm having to re-frame what I think when people stare at me. Then other day I was in a grocery store and this guy was staring. At first I thought "Keep staring at the freak, buddy," only to remember that I'm not of a size where people stare at you because of your size. Again, a welcome discomfort, but a discomfort all the same. Isn't there some sort of post-fat boot campt out there? There are so many books out there on how to lose weight, but hardly any that address changes that occur after you've lost it. If anyone has a suggestion, I'd gladly welcome it!

Tracking Enrollments from Advertising

I recently presented at the UCEA West Regional Conference in Salt Lake City on tracking advertising dollars from advertising to advising to enrollment. The basic presentation was on the illustrious goweberstate.com and how we use that particular website, along with our own custom step-by-step tracking system and custom ad-click system to see 1)Where people are coming from, 2)Once they get there, what are they clicking on, and 3)Demographic information. This is the point where most marketing departments will say "good 'nuff" and be done with their piece. But after all that work, who's to say whether this student will get follow-up advising? So from there, we combined 2 other processes: Advising and Enrollment. I set up another administration system where, once a potential student fills out the form online, a reminder email is sent to our advising staff. Advising then logs in, checks the information, calls (or emails) the student, and holds their hand through the back-to-school process. She can make notes in the system, has a triage script to help her out with the call, and can check them off as being "advised". After that, she checks them off in the system if they have enrolled. If a student is not checked off as "enrolled" in the system, we send out periodic emails with snippets of back-to-school advice and events, just to remind them. This way we know EXACTLY who has enrolled because of our advertising dollars. What are the nubmers so far? In one year 14% of our students that filled out the "quesionnaire" online actually enrolled (this counts students who filled it out two weeks ago). I suspect when we crunch the numbers again in a year from now that percentage will have doubled.

After the presentation I got two serious job offers. I was flattered, but the fact is that this idea really isn't anything novel or even difficult to do. It was just a matter of doing it. We all know that capturing clickstreams is important, but do we put that information to good use? I've learned from several conferences, and from common sense, that it's all about the experience. Take VW, for example. They don't just sell a car. They sell a car with an electric guitar that hooks up to the stereo. They sell cars (assumingly to women) in pastel colors with a holder by the wheel that contains a daisy. They sell an EXPERIENCE. The same goes with your university marketing dollars. Don't sell aspects of the university and leave it at that. Make sure their experience is a good one. Be involved in all aspects from advertising to enrollment. You will soon find what holes need to be patched and how to better reach your students.