As you may have heard, Apple’s new iPhone 4 went on sale last Thursday (6/24/10) all over the world. And, as usual whenever Jobs & Company introduces a new product, their manic fans went nuts. According to CNNMoney, more than 600 people lined up outside the flagship Apple store in New York City to buy what many were calling the “Jesus Phone.” It was chaos inside our Orlando, Florida malls. The story made headline news on all the major networks. Apple reported selling 1.7 million of the new phones in the first three days.

Priscilla Lee and her brother, Alex, flew all the way from Dubai to London in order to be first in line to buy this latest gadget. Priscilla told a CNN reporter they simply had to have the new phone the instant it was available. They couldn’t wait a week until it was on shelves everywhere. “I’ve got an iPhone and then my iPod Touch. And then iPod Nanno. iPod Classic … the list goes on,” she said. “Apple. What else to say?”

What else to say, indeed. Don’t you wish all your students would rave about your institution like that?

So what is it that makes companies like Apple unique? They make cool stuff. They know their niche market. And they would like you to believe that they are about more than just making money. They would like you to think that they are all about innovation.

iPods aren’t for everybody. I don’t own any Apple products except for my little iPod Shuffle. But they know their market, and its growing. It is estimated that someone buys and iPad in this country every three seconds. Three seconds!

I attended a conference for one of my clients recently at which the CEO was questioned by front-line managers about why the company didn’t lower the cost for its services. The leader, in my opinion, gave a forceful argument about why it’s important to stress value and talk about the unique differences between their services and those of their competitors when it comes to quality, expertise, and (my word) innovation.

I think that’s the right answer. There are, in my opinion, two kinds of organizations in the world: those that stress their innovation (minority) and those that talk price (majority). I shop at Sam’s Club to save money; I do not go there for the shopping experience. The same can be said for the gas I put in my car and the airplanes upon which I fly. Once you start haggling over price, there is no going back; you’re on that slippery slope forever. You can only hope to build on your lower profit margins by increasing sales volume.

Most higher education institutions, rightly so, focus on the quality of their institutions. What I find amazing is that they focus on how hard it is to get in to their hallowed halls instead of the value of their degrees once they get out. Community colleges are getting better at addressing this dilemma. And so are the for-profits. How long before the rest of higher education catches on?

How do you picture today’s college student? Straight out of high school, living in a dorm, and graduating in four years? Better think again. The traditional student today is non-traditional.

According to USA Today, nearly a third of today’s undergraduates are at least 25, nearly 70 percent of them have at least one characteristic the government considers non-traditional, such as part-time enrollment, caring for dependents, or working full-time while enrolled. And among older students, almost half take eight years or longer to graduate.

According to the National Center for Education Studies, about half of today’s students are financially independent, 49 percent are enrolled part-time, and 27 percent have dependents of their own. Twelve million of them, nearly half, attend community college rather than four-year institutions.

One of the reasons institutions are so focused on improving retention is because of the poor student success rate. Only 56 percent of students at four-year institutions complete their degree within six years, and just 20 percent of first-time students at community colleges earn a degree within three years.

Despite the attention being paid to financial aid these days, a recent study conducted by UCLA determined that today’s freshmen entering a four-year college or university are more financially advantaged than at any time in the last 35 years. They also come from families with a median income 60 percent higher than the national average.

How well do you know the students you are trying to attract? And what characteristics of your institution will most appeal to which unique student profile? Important questions to answer before implementing your marketing plan.

Although our board rooms and meeting spaces differ in size and style, I’m sure almost every one of them, including yours, contains a pachyderm lurking somewhere near the conversation. Regardless of the topic or the intent, every one in the room is careful not to draw attention to the elephant.

Why is that? Why are we all so careful to avoid the elephant in the room? In a word: fear. We are fearful of appearing foolish or contrarian. We fear being branded as not a team player or someone who rocks the boat. We fear challenging someone else’s pet project. Whatever the issue, we fear the mere mention of the topic will bring misfortune or calamity down on our heads. Or it will create extra work for us. Or, God forbid, should the group follow your advice, it could fail.

And so, we defer and procrastinate. We form focus groups to study the problem. We schedule meetings to plan for the upcoming meeting. We come up with clever ways of changing the subject. And the elephant in the room just grows bigger, hungrier, and more fearsome.

Years ago, I attended military school in Venice, Florida, which also happened at the time to be the winter home of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. I remember watching the elephants tethered to the ground with small chains they could easily have broken. I wondered how they kept those animals, which were as big and weighed as much as a truck, from wandering away. One of the handlers explained that when they are babies, the elephants are staked to the ground with heavy chains. After trying unsuccessfully to free themselves, they never again challenge that subtle pressure around their hind leg. Their fear becomes ingrained and it controls their behavior the rest of their lives.

Want to show those elephants in your meetings the door? First, acknowledge their existence. Second, put the problem into perspective (What’s the worst thing that could happen? Really?). And finally, set about building a plan to resolve the issue. And invite others in the meeting to join in coming up with the solution.

Give it a try and you may find that those mammoth fears are just peanuts.