A great way to engage in your vertical is to coin new terms. True thought leaders are authentic in the way they write about their industries. So nothing over the top or too pushy. It helps when the term comes about organically.

We were struggling in our outreach to folks who work at colleges or universities primarily aimed at teaching adult, continuing ed, or online students. The term ‘non-traditional student’ has been used multiple times to define their student audience. But as one expert and former colleague in the industry, Carol Aslanian, points out, this group now represents the majority of students seeking higher education degrees or certificates. So how can we continue calling the more popular way ‘non-traditional’?

Thus, at a symposium in Denver, Colorado that was widely attended by college administrators in the area, we named the keynote session: The New Traditionals and How to Engage Them via the Web. By the end of the event, many folks in the audience were already using the term ‘New Traditionals’ to describe successes and challenges in their everyday roles managing programs aimed at these types of students.

Here is a link to a recent article discussing the New Traditionals, written by Triangle Below Canal’s Ingrid Ramos Nakamura.

Attracting The ‘New’-Traditional Student