Month: July 2013

Another highlight of my Boston trip was attending a Red Sox game at Fenway.  While I consider myself a St. Louis Cardinals fan, I can say with certainty that Busch Stadium is severely lacking the charm and character of Fenway.  

The park in Boston is 101 years old, but has done an excellent job of preserving the look and feel of the original while at the same time modernizing the accommodations.  The scoreboard in particular is designed to look like an old-time board where numbers were manually placed instead of digitized.  One notable difference in the board is what is measured.  

I suspect that when the Fenway marquee was first put in place, it listed the lineup and possibly the bating averages of the starters.  Today, the scoreboard is a veritable statistics encyclopedia.  

For each batter, the bating average, on base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) are listed.  Stats vary with each inning and are shown in a multitude of ways: percentage tonight, vs. left handed pitchers, this month, with RISP (runners in scoring position), etc.  

For each hitter, we learned the speed of each pitch, a pitch-by-pitch recalculation of the earned run average, strike percentage vs. each batter, strikeout average per nine innings, and a host of other measurements.  You can definitely tell that management subscribes to the principles described in Michael Lewis’ Moneyball!

In the world of admissions, I feel a kindred spirit to the data hounds in Boston.  We tend to analyze data every which way and study detailed segments.  We have taken some of the original principles of our profession and added a modern twist to track behavior of various populations at numerous stages of the process.  I think our work has made us smarter and more able to target limited resources.

Where can you take your measurements to a new level of detail?  What can be broken down further to yield you actionable data to alter your processes or products?  Can you introduce an element of the time it takes you to do something, or analyze the behavior of a sub-set that is more targeted than what you look at now?

Think about your organization’s scoreboard and what you would put on it.  If it’s just runs per inning, you are behind in the count.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

I just got home from a few days in Boston.  The highlight of my trip (besides, of course, seeing my sister) was attending a Tim McGraw concert.  I was as giddy as a teenager.  There is nothing like a live arts performance, and this one certainly did not disappoint.

I used to attend many concerts in my student activities days, and I couldn’t help but be struck with how the concert experience has changed:
> Fans wanting an encore now wave cell phones in the air instead of lighters.
> There is a full array of merchandise, but hardly any of the CDs that used to be the concert staple
> The on-stage video production is as elaborate as the musical experience
> Instead of calling an usher, if someone was “interfering with your concert experience”, you could just text your location to a number (and presumably it would be taken care of)

But the change that was most noticeable was how much photography has been embraced instead of banned.  “Back in the day”, there were vigilant efforts to police any camera or recording device that was within 100 yards of the venue. Purses and pockets were searched and the contraband had to remain at the gate. Ushers would roam the aisle and confiscate any camera that they saw.  

Now there is an acknowledgement that almost everyone there carries a personal cell phone (aka camera and video recorder).  So instead of fighting it, they now provide addresses where you can upload pictures and video during the concert and “share your experiences with Tim”, as if he watches them on the big screen in his tour bus.  Before the concert, the concert sponsor (another new development) handed out magnets with the web address for concert photos.  The on-site videographer showed crowd shots on stage during the production.  Overall, there was likely more photos from this one event than in a whole tour previously.

Think about your organization.  Is there something that you have been fighting or insistent on banning that just isn’t worth the effort?  What would happen if you reversed the trend and embraced the phenomenon instead?  Can the energy you put into enforcement be re-directed toward capitalizing on the client’s desire to be engaged?  

I am sure the music industry did not make the decision easily to allow their copyrighted material to be so freely distributed.  But I think they are better off because of it.  Maybe there’s something out there that you can let go of too.

— beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com
@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com