It’s lighter this morning, even though the sun hasn’t fully cleared. A kind of diffuse glow without definition. I find myself trying to read the sky the way I read early admissions data. I’m squinting for edges that haven’t formed yet. Clarity doesn’t always arrive with precision; sometimes it arrives with pattern.
You’re joining me on The Ember Walk, where curiosity meets motion. I’m David Dysart. Together we’ll take a few minutes to step through one idea that shapes the craft of enrollment.
We’re trained to interpret what’s present. But advanced craft begins when you learn to read what isn’t. A student population that suddenly stops asking questions. A region that underperforms not because of quality but because messaging shows up slightly off their emotional timing. A process that collapses right before launch not because of complexity, but because no one felt safe enough to voice uncertainty earlier.
Absence is information if you learn to recognize its shape.
I once analyzed a communication sequence that underperformed, and everything in the data looked normal. But I noticed that students revisited one email more than any other. Even with fewer clicks. That pause told me more than the interaction. The content was reflective, more human. So people felt it even if they didn’t act on it. The absence of urgency created a presence in the emails that encouraged a relationship between them and us.
Today, review one area not for what it shows, but for what it omits. The missing variable, the hesitation, the delayed action. Let your spark speak, and let us know in the comments or DM me. What was that one thing? And what did it tell you?
Sometimes the most powerful truths exist in what people almost say.
And that’s The Ember Walk. The forge is yours now. Go make something worth the heat.
