Knowable Information
I have two master’s degree and a background in broadcast news – I am definitely of the sort who believes that if you pull a thread long enough you can get to an answer. So it was natural that large and small scale research projects became a part of my portfolio.
Audience Surveys
The first research project I took on was an audience survey for our events. I wanted to know what content in our presentations was most compelling —there were hypotheses floating around that we talked too much about this, or not enough about that. So I thought…we can measure this. I developed surveys focused on the content and goals of each part of each presentation, gauged where the impact was, and retooled the presentations for maximum impact.
Next up, was our Applicant Survey and our Survey of Admitted Students. We needed to know why students apply. Do difficult-to-measure print materials have an impact? Why do they choose us or our competitors after admission? We’ve run the Admitted Student with a national partner at certain times, and in-house other times. To be honest, the results we get when we run it in-house are more actionable.
I kept hearing the refrain “students don’t read e-mail,” so I needed to find out exactly what was going on in inboxes. It seemed easy enough. Drop my own e-mail address into a few email services around campus and see what happens. Except we’re wildly decentralized, and I didn’t even know exactly who was sending out mass-email to know where to drop my email address. What resulted was a set of 12 dummy student accounts, 7,777 emails to read and analyze, two conference presentations and a journal article.
Ask me about the e-mail audit, but make sure you have some time. I love this project.
Email Audit
Emirati Audience Research
Our brand is centered around being a University without walls, a place for the intrepid and the adventurous. And this was presenting a problem when we wanted our audience in the UAE to understand why they might enroll at NYU Abu Dhabi. Why explore the world from your own backyard when NYU offers a whole network of global opportunities? We also sensed there were some cultural nuances that we were missing. So we designed a research project. In partnership with a local firm, we conducted nation-wide research: focus groups, surveys, share-of-voice studies, and zeroed in on where and how to have the most impact.
Chinese Market Study
This felt a bit like a rinse-and-repeat of the Emirati study, except that the Chinese market and the landscape we compete in is so different. A different tool, a different scale, a different set of factors needed to be explored. The breakthrough moment for me on this one was when our research partners were telling me (again) that e-mail isn’t impactful in this market and I just wasn’t getting it. And then someone said “well, there’s no spam filtering on Chinese email clients, so…”. It was a minor point, but one that I had missed for years. It wasn’t the only insight, of course, but a question I never knew to ask.
We have about half a million active leads in our database at any given time. But knowing, or even guessing who among them would apply – or more importantly go on to be a successful applicant – was murky for a long time. So we partnered with a firm to explore every element of our prospect pool. Who do we need to invest a little more in to tip the scales? Who is a sure thing? How do we find more high-quality leads without impacting our budget?