If you work in higher ed advancement today, there's a very good chance you are running plays written by Ashley Budd. But while the industry happily copied her digital tactics over the last 15 years, they almost entirely missed her underlying argument.

Joe Master knew he was a writer in third grade. Mrs. Spicer made popcorn to prove it. Some 30 years later, the instinct that made a classroom lean in is the same one that makes institutions finally sound like themselves.

Tracey Halvorsen has been breaking the rules of higher ed web design for 25 years. Beautifully. Deliberately. Well. Here's what I took away from the conversation.

Michael Stoner — my former business partner, mStoner co-founder, and the person who spotted every major inflection point in higher ed marketing before the rest of us caught up — joined me and Mallory Willsea for the inaugural episode of Higher Ed Icons. What I took away from the conversation surprised me: not a prediction about what's next, but a reminder about what hasn't changed.

The people who shaped higher education marketing over the last two decades haven't been asked to tell the full story. Higher Ed Icons is a podcast built to change that — and here's why Mallory Willsea and I decided now was the time.

"We often assume the moment of conversion — the sale, the deposit, the acceptance — is a moment of pure celebration for our users. But when I mapped the emotional journey of international students at L’Université de Montréal, the data told a different story. Discover how a simple shift in visualization revealed a 'red zone' of anxiety, and why your brand might be missing the most critical friction point in your customer's journey."