An Bui, Spelled An With 1 N

Last weekend, my younger brother graduated from Carleton College, with a B.A. in economics. Since I missed his high school graduation, I really wanted to see him graduate from college and hang out in a community I haven’t spent much time in at all, even though half of my family has lived there at some point.

What’s this community? Northfield, MN, population 17,000. Seriously. To put it in perspective… that’s just north of the number of faculty (2,500) and staff (14,000)  for the University of Texas, Austin.

Northfield’s got a few cool things going on for it:

1. Colleges: Home to St. Olaf and Carleton Colleges, Northfield seems to have a pretty good relationship with the colleges, academics, and parents that come visit. The picture above was taken from Division Street, the main street in town. Both colleges have programs that help students get active in the local community. One of my brothers worked on a project coordinating joint St. Olaf & Carleton volunteer/outreach efforts. Both schools are small liberal arts colleges and very well regarded - St. Olaf is a USNWR Top 50 National Liberal Arts College & Carleton is a Top 10.

Carleton even has an arboretum!

2. Cereal: Have you ever heard of Malt-O-Meal? Malt-O-Meal is a major employer/driver of the Northfield economy and they sell cereal in plastic bags for less money on a by-weight comparison to Post, General Mills, and others. I drove by the factory on the way to St. Olaf, and it smelled delicious. It reminded me of being a little girl and triggered a milk craving.

3. Contentment: People in Northfield are apparently happy. I don’t blame them. I’d be pretty happy too, if nice grandmotherly-types gave me flowers for driving by. Oh wait! They did!

Seriously. I was running errands, and these nice ladies gave me some potted peonies that now sit on my mom’s balcony. I gave them a hug when they wouldn’t take money.

Other random awesomeness from my trip:

To address my sociological tendencies, I also drove by Northfield’s public housing facilities. Interesting to note, they differed from other public housing facilities I’ve seen (Chester, PA & Columbia Heights, Washington, DC) in that these public housing facilities had yards with green grass instead of concrete.

Coffeeshops took cash or check. Even out of state checks. Also, wifi bandwidth was widely available and a large cup of coffee could be had for less than $2.00, including tax.

I had a great time - check out Northfield if you’re doing college visits throughout the midwest, like your coffee with plenty of bandwidth, and find yourself wondering what cereal smells like.

Or just check it out because you can or you want to.

Recently, Oxygen aired back-to-back episodes of America’s Next Top Model, Cycle 11. From 14 contestants, one would become America’s Next Top Model.

Great background noise to do chores to, I thought. Turns out, ANTM provides lessons applicable in wider contexts, beyond fashion.

Three Lessons on Being Fierce

1. Own Your Awkwardness

The ability to own one of her personal characteristics helped Marjorie go fairly far into the competition. By taking charge of her physical awkwardness, Marjorie turned it into something beautiful.

Understanding and working with your weaknesses can help  you get closer to your goals.

2. Go with the Flow

Episode after episode, the judges gave Elina feedback about having too much control. They wanted to see her let go a bit more. She was eventually eliminated because of her control issues - her photos, while beautiful, didn’t really improve, in part because she didn’t listen to feedback.

Going with the flow requires you to be open to experiences as they present themselves. These experiences lead to growth if you’re willing to learn, evolve, and change. If you’re controlling every experience, your opportunities to learn are limited, since you’re setting reasonable expectations around outcomes.

3. Complacency can mean the End of the Road

Clarke went from having the top photo one week to being eliminated the next. How did this happen? She said she only needed one good photo - she went through most of her shots and at the end, her best photo just wasn’t good enough.

Falling into the complacent mindset caps one’s growth and can lead to being left back on JV when the rest of the team makes Varsity.

The NYT’s “The Choice” blog recently posted some advice entitled: “Free Fashion Advice for College Inverviews, From a $15,000 Consultant” and my first thought? Seriously?!? You’ve got to be KIDDING me. A “free” fashion show modeling looks from Greenwich’s Rugby by Ralph Lauren store?

I have nothing against college admissions consulting and nothing against college admissions consulting at that price point.  I do, however, balk at advice given by admissions consultants that add very little value to parents and kids already worried about the college admissions process. With my experience helping kids get into college from my years with The Princeton Review and as a Swarthmore College Alumni Interviewer, I present to you…

“Free Admissions Interview Advice From an $100/hour Consultant”

1. Play up your assets. This does not mean cleavage, legs, or broad shoulders. This means highlight parts of who you are that you think are important. This can be lessons you’ve learned from leadership roles, participation in groups or communities, or classes you found interesting and why. Regarding dress, wear what you’re comfortable in and something that communicates how seriously you’re taking the interview. If that’s a suit, that’s a suit. If it’s a cute, knee length skirt with a modest top, then skirt and top it is.

2. Highlight FIT, not HAIR. Ok, highlights in your hair can be super cute as well as make you look polished and professional, which is always appreciated. More important that great hair is highlighting how you fit in with the college culture. Prospective students can divine a bit of college culture from admissions brochures, online resources like the Princeton Review, and connections w/ current students via Facebook.

As an interviewer, I’m asking myself “Is this student one I see at Swarthmore, and one I see being successful at Swarthmore?” I find that students answer that question in the natural course of the conversation.

3. Make it easy for admissions officers to want you for the class. Think about how you’ve been contributing to your school, community, and other organizations. Think in terms of measurable impacts you’ve made. Be REALLY clear about what you’re looking to get out of a college experience, even if it’s “I’m looking to learn about what I want to learn about.” Connect the experiences you’ve had with how you see yourself contributing to the college community.

If you’re looking to have a fairly active social (read: partying, drinking, etc.) life, think about what you’re willing to do when you’re not partying, drinking, etc. You might want to consider taking a gap year if you consider college a four year party. At $200k/BA at a private school, that’s a pretty pricey cover charge.

Last words of advice:

Remember, college admissions committees are putting together a well-rounded class, not necessarily a class of well-rounded individuals. They want a group who can bring out the best in each other and contribute to the academic, athletic, artistic, etc community and culture of the college. If you’re an all-around rock star in all of the above, continue to be so. If you’re all-around mediocre in all of the above, you might want to think about spending your time going deep and being amazing at the one you’re most passionate about, be it school, a volunteer program, a sport, or an activity.

Yes, college admissions is getting more competitive each year. However, if you focus on the fundamentals: doing well in classes and standardized tests, contributing in class and the community, and genuinely being interested in finding a great fit for college, then you’ll be fine in the process.

One of my favorite professors once said:

Focus on the process. You can control the process. The minute you start thinking about the outcome, you’re screwed.

Apparently I need to clear my cache, because when I went back to Mack Collier’s blog, I didn’t get redirected to his new site.

Instead, I saw this title: “The idea that ‘content is king’ in blogging is total bullshit”

According to Mack, “Being Social is [king in blogging]”

The idea that good or even great content is not enough. Besides, “Good” or “Great” content isn’t even actionable - it’s too abstract. So let’s get concrete.

What makes good content?

1. Applies to your target audience

2. Findable or discoverable by your target audience

3. Helps or is otherwise useful to your target audience

For example, if you were trying to launch a new boutique geared towards teens/early 20’s demographic, you’d want to offer clothes they’d want to wear. You’d make your retail location accessible to them and you’d make it easy for them walk in by literally leaving your doors open.

One company that did this well? Abercrombie & Fitch, which changed its business from offering outdoors gear to offering clothing for the Tweens/Young Adult demographic. They even got a mention in LFO’s summer hit (’99), “Summer Girls”

Same deal with online marketing.

1. Provide germane (relevant) content - answer questions your audience may have or give them information they want to know.

2. Findability/searchability means that search engines can crawl AND index your content. If your content can’t be found, your audience can’t find you.

3. Helps or is otherwise useful - the call to action is so valuable for this reason. If you let people know what to do next and they want what you’re offering, you’ve lowered the barrier for purchase, adoption, etc.

So why does being social matter?

1. You get invaluable feedback loops from others - your content can improve based on customer/user feedback. You learn what resonates with people and what they think is worth repeating. Given the speed of publishing social media, you can iterate more quickly - concept to publishing no longer takes weeks or months.

2. You enable people to find out about you sooner, rather than later. Trust takes time. If you’re hanging out by yourself online generating amazing content, search is basically the only channel by which others can discover you. By leaving your blog, going to others’ and leaving insightful (not spammy!) comments, you’re creating other channels for people to discover you.

3. By adding or providing value (ie - being useful) you start building trust. Intention matters. Be open and honest about who you are, what interests you, and what you find interesting.

Good content is the minimum barrier to entry and great social content helps you learn, grow and refine your thinking.

Thanks to Deb Robison for the conversation that spawned this blog post and Mack Collier for his thoughts.