Nicolet College’s story aligns with the Audience Message Alignment Tool from the Strategic Storytelling Toolkit.

Audience: Adult students

Analysis: What are the individual or group traits of your audience?
Alignment: Working adults. Complex lives. Busy schedule. Need to wrap education around life, not the life around education.

Analysis: What problems do they have or need to solve?
Alignment: Irregular schedules make traditional programs inaccessible, stifling career advancement and earning potential.

Analysis: What do they know and believe about higher education?
Alignment: Many know college is the key to a better life. Others question the value because of bad press on high student debt and poor workforce readiness. They don’t know about CBE and the differences vs tradition are difficult to explain.

Analysis: What are your assumptions about this group? How can you validate them?
Alignment: Early evidence shows that students can struggle with pacing and sustaining motivation. With active success coaching, fewer will fall behind. Systems and procedures built for F2F students can be difficult to change. Validation comes one student at a time as the story illustrates.