The PR Guy: Straight to the Point

New Straight to the Point Podcast- Jennie Olson of GovDelivery

2009-06-30T14:05:00.003-05:00

Time again for another Straight to the Point podcast. This time I'm pleased to have sat down with Jennie Olson of GovDelivery. Jennie is the Director of Marketing at the company, which is the world's leading provider of government-to-citizen communications solutions. GovDelivery's Email and Digital Subscription Management solution is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that provides organizations a fully-automated, on-demand public communication system (Full disclosure- GovDelivery is a client of my employer).

What is so valuable about Jennie's experiences is that she faced the twin challenges of standing up a whole marketing operation from scratch and integrating the latest social media techniques into her overall marketing strategy targeting government buyers while accomplishing the corporate goals of driving sales and raising awareness. A tough row...have a listen and let me know what you think? Is she on the right track? What would she do different?

Nokia and Intel Team Up for New Mobile Platform

2009-06-23T16:35:00.003-05:00

I pulled up one of my favorite webpages, Techmeme, just now and found a bunch of stories about Nokia and Intel teaming up to build a new mobile platform using open source Linux operating system.

The reason, according to Brian Caulfield at Forbes, is:

Propelling this all is Apple which has rolled through the smart-phone business like a nitro-fueled tank. The company announced Monday that it has sold more than 1 million units of its latest handset, the iPhone 3G S, since it went on sale Friday in an announcement that included the first public statement from Steve Jobs since the Apple chief went on medical leave in January.

Apple's progress is more than just a direct challenge to Nokia. While Apple relies on processors built by Samsung around designs from U.K.-based ARM to power its smart phones, it has recruited a strong team of chip designers since its acquisition of PA Semi last year. That could pose a challenge to Intel's efforts to put its chips at the heart of the next generation of mobile devices.

There are other challenges the chip maker and Nokia must face in order to make their partnership a successful one. Intel, for example, has to make its processors more power efficient--so they can work well in ever-shrinking devices--and fast. If the company can't do this quickly enough, it may be a while until Nokia puts Intel's processors at the center of its handset lineup.And while Nokia has an enormous installed base, Apple, Research In Motion and Palm are all building software ecosystems around their handsets, making the handset industry look more and more like the early PC industry. The Nokia deal with Intel could give it a stronger position in that game.

Sounds like Apple is forcing people's hands, having sold over a million iPhone 3G S's over the weekend. Of course, James Kendrick, at jkOnTheRun, thinks it's all BS, as they didn't announce any products or is the agreement exclusive to anyone...

something to keep an eye on...

Some Interesting Links for Today- iPhone, Pre, Twitter...y'know, the usual suspects

2009-06-18T17:18:00.007-05:00

A quick roundup of some interesting content:

The Customer Collective- Twitter Hype Punctured By Study; - Tweet All About It

Micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it, according to research. Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found. Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network. However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days.

A great quote: “This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network,”

The Social Times- Collecta Launches True Real Time Search Engine

Real time search is becoming all the rage, displacing some of the hype around semantic search and catapulting services like Twitter, FriendFeed and now Facebook into new realms when it comes to accessing its content. Today, search veteran Jerry Campbell is helping to launch Collecta, a service he’s claiming to be a true real time search engine unlike anything the world has seen.
As one of the minds behind the patented process that powered Summize, the Twitter search engine that was acquired by the microblogging platform and is now Twitter search, Campbell has long-standing ideas on how search and discovery should operate on the web. He’s seen the evolution of data-sharing as it pertains to things like news within he financial industry and has learned from organizations’ necessity to reach that “aha” moment as quickly as possible. It’s that “aha” moment Collecta is trying to give you, for any topic, in a very short amount of time.

Instead of focusing on Twitter or FriendFeed, Collecta performs its real time search for the wider web. From Wordpress to Flickr, Collecta searches comments on blog posts, images, and more. When you perform a search, you’ll find your initial results along with a time stamp displaying the time your search was initiated. Watch the page as it adds more results, each of which can be expanded to show the details of your search query.

BTW, the author never included a link to Collecta in the article, which I find odd. Here it is- the site itself is pretty slick: http://www.collecta.com

Ten Hidden iPhone Features from Daniel Ionescu at PC World. Loved his Rhinoceros play.

iPhone Versus Windows Mobile 6.5 Video from PocketNow.com. I've been spending a lot of time and angst researching and thinking about buying a new iPhone 3G S or a Pre or getting a newer version of my current HTC Windows phone. There has been much rending of garments...anyone have a opinion on what's a better purchase?

Here is Gizmodo's review...arrrrggghhhh!!!! What to do?

Healthcare Social Media

2009-06-16T12:17:00.004-05:00

In a world where Facebook is bigger than Myspace and, together, they have 400 million global users, it's obvious that the healthcare industry is acknowledging it has to adopt these new communications channels... and is starting to do so. 60% of doctors say they want or use social networking sites...

While consumers were quick to embrace social media, doctors were initially skeptical about its value. Now, prodded by the need to be smarter and more competitive in the complex world of modern medicine, doctors are becoming converts. The two largest doctor-only social networks, Sermo and Medscape Physician Connect, have more than 100,000 members each nationwide...
The enthusiasm spans generations. The average Sermo user is in his or her late 40s or early 50s. Many are solo practitioners in rural areas with little time or opportunity to hang around the hospital cafeteria for impromptu consults with other physicians.
Richard Schoor, for example, is a solo practitioner in Smithtown, L.I. The 41-year-old urologist frequents Sermo, blogs as the Independent Urologist and runs his own online forum, the Physicians Entrepreneur Group, which has about 60 members who exchange advice on running a medical practice. Dr. Schoor says he's gotten valuable information from the online forums, including advice on equipment that has prevented costly mistakes.

Combined with the well known use of social networking sites by patients, along with the push for electronic health records, it's becoming obvious that companies that sell goods and services to the healthcare industry are going to have to integrate social media into their marketing strategy and communications tactics.

Here are some social media business applications that healthcare and biotechnology companies need to start looking at now...

Lead generation
Enterprise sales support
Competitive intelligence gathering
Deal capture
Distribution partner identification and cultivation
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Executive visibility and thought leadership
Customer Service
Reputation management
Employee recruitment
Team, culture and morale building

On the association side, it's critical that member-based and issue associations leverage all the communications options at their disposal. From member retention to public policy, social media should be a central part of any healthcare associations marketing strategy. Indeed, here in DC, all sides in the fight over healthcare reform are using social networks and tools to spread their messages, keep coalitions together, and achieve their goals. From Senator Grassley calling out President Obama on Twitter to healthcare LinkedIn groups with thousands of members, it's clear that social media is being used by the biggest players in the most important situations...

why aren't you?

Facebook and.....Bing!

2009-06-12T09:39:00.007-05:00

Tonight is not going to be normal Friday night. No, instead of heading downtown with the beautiful people and getting my "crunk on", I'll be home at my computer, along with millions of other nerds, waiting to jump on Facebook at exactly midnight to grab my custom Facebook URL. You haven't heard of this? Well, here is the link to the story on the WSJ blog and a link the Facebook blog. There aren't too many Jeff Majkas in the world but I'll be damned if I don't get facebook.com/jeff.majka nailed down...

I'll also be there to grab a URL for my agency's fanpage on Facebook...check it out if you haven't visited lately-- we just uploaded some pictures from Susan G. Komen Walk last weekend!

Hey, what do you know, there is a new search engine in town! Bing! And the initial reviews are in- generally positive- Bing! I checked it out and my initial review is - Bing!- I like it! Here is a link to Bing! and a story about the new search service.

AdAge Likes PR Now

2009-05-21T15:30:00.003-05:00

Sometimes being late to the party has its advantages. A grand entrance, perhaps. But arriving just as the party is wrapping up is bad timing. Traditional PR is dying alongside traditional media. A new form of earned media is being born right now- do these guys get it?

Last week, Jonah Bloom wrote an interesting article for AdAge about the new-found acceptance of PR. Apparently, there was a lot of positive comments about PR from Unilever CMO Simon Clift and Union Square Ventures honcho Fred Wilson at the recent Ad Age Digital Conference. The idea here is that social media is raising the importance of PR within the marketing mix

Fred says:

"There are still a lot of marketers out there buying their media when they could earn it, and earn it a lot less expensively," he said today at Ad Age's Digital Conference in New York.
While overall spending on marketing may go up, traditional-media outlays are declining, and spending is growing on the creative and technology necessary to implement social campaigns on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Agencies have to find a way to continue to make money in this environment.

"The total amount of money flowing out of marketers' pockets to agencies won't decline and will likely go up, but the mix is headed for important changes," Mr. Wilson said.

He goes on to point out that:

The challenge for marketers and agencies, then, is to engage with social media in an authentic way, and know they are going to be punished by its denizens for any perceived spam.

Which, I think, is missing the point. The problem is earned media in the past was that were was no solid ROI for any dollar spent on PR. Yes, everyone knew that an article in a trade mag or coverage on CNBC would yield awareness and credibility, but no one on earth could track just how that turned into sales and profits.

Simon Clift is the top marketer at one of the largest (if not the) consumer products companies in the world. One of his main points is that (emphasis added by me)

"brands are now becoming conversation factors where academics, celebrities, experts and key opinion formers discuss functional, emotional and, more interestingly, social concerns," and "of course, the conversation is no longer one way or 30 seconds. ... You may want to talk about sport and just doing it, and the consumer raises the uncomfortable question of sweatshops."

That's the whole point! Ongoing one-to-one conversations isn't marketing, it is relationship selling. Selling that has to be credibly earned. That isn't a intrusion. That can be tracked over time. That you can assign a ROI to. The transformation of the PR profession from pitching media to sitting at the intersection of sales, marketing and customer service.

I just don't think either of these three fellows quite gets where we are headed.

The World's Greatest Links...Right After My Brush With A Crazed Swine Flu

2009-04-28T11:06:00.007-05:00

I'm just back from a week's vacation in Mexico with my lovely girlfriend and I haven't dropped dead of swine flu yet. Sadly, I'm spending this renewed gift of life weeding through emails in my Outlook inbox, fighting trojans on my home desktop, catching up on the news and trying to re-engage with the world.

BTW, if you get some time to spend in sunny Cabo San Lucas, I highly recommend it. Here is a picture of Medano Beach, the main swimming beach in Cabo. Very nice. Notice the lack of swine flu...

One of the things I really don't like about vacations is coming back and having to go through hundreds of emails. Long ago, I had set up a number of rules on Outlook to manage the flow of emails and route them into various folders, but I ran out of space for new rules which resulted in my main inbox being overrun with spam, newsletters, etc. It took a lot of time to sort through them each day.

Today, on a whim, I created a new rule for the massive amount of emails I get from Twitter now. It worked! Has anyone noticed this? Is this some new upgrade from Microsoft? If so, I'm really happy. I'm going to be creating lots and lots of new rules from now on.

On a sadder note, I returned home to discover than my virus, trojan and spyware protected home computer had become infected with Virtumonde. I, being an experienced, spyware removal expert, spent many hours yesterday scanning, quarantining, deleting and repeating. No luck. Now, my computer has been taken over by the trojan and...get this...locked me out of my own computer. Looks like I'm going to have to do a repair installation of XP. Good times. I liked it better on the beach!

Here are some links I've come across yesterday and today that I've found interesting...

Om Malik shares some interesting stats of the usage of applications across PC, Mac and Internet platforms.

Microsoft has released the private beta of a slick looking emergency social networking thingy called Vine. Brier Dudley calls it Twitter plus Facebook on steroids.

I've read last year than super-hyped Dubai was going to be able to withstand a commercial and residential housing correction, now according to a story in the WSJ, not so much.

Those of us who own and love our PocketPC's tend to get snippy when people talk about how groundbreaking the iPhone is. Yes, the GUI is pretty slick but I've had a 3G touch screen smart phone for years and years now. It's not new. So, while I'm encouraged than Microsoft and Verizon are working together to continue to improve the experience, headlines like these, "Microsoft, Verizon in Talks to Launch iPhone Rival", drive me mad. Talk about burying the lede (emphasis added):

Verizon has performed well despite not having the iPhone. On Monday, the company reported solid first-quarter results in its wireless business, edging out AT&T in net customer additions.

Jeez.

Interview with George Spohn at Satellite 2009

2009-04-16T13:41:00.006-05:00

One of the more interesting industries I work with is the satellite industry. Characterized by extremely large upfront capital expenditures, this adjunct to the overall telecommunications field had some hard times caused by overcapacity issues in the early part of the century. Since the onset of the war in Afghanistan, and the military's embrace of the use of civilian bandwidth to support the warfighter, along with the sudden growth in popularity in both satellite radio (XM/Sirius) and satellite TV (DirecTV- note, I am a subscriber to this fine service), the industry has been growing at a healthy solid rate.

Each year, one of the main industry get-togethers is the Satellite show held here in Washington DC. This year, I took a video camera down to the show and interviewed some of the movers and shakers in the industry. One of those leaders was George Spohn, Vice President, North American Sales & Marketing at Thrane & Thrane. Thrane & Thrane is the world´s leading manufacturer of equipment and systems for global mobile communication based on sophisticated satellite and radio technology. I've know George for years. He is one of the smartest people in the satellite industry, and I'm glad I got the chance to pick his brain about the trends he is seeing.

Go to YouTube if you can't view it here.

Were you at the show? What do you think the greatest opportunity is for the satellite industry now? It's greatest challenge?

Social media and government 2.0

2009-04-13T12:30:00.003-05:00

There has been a lot of interesting discussions and events recently about the intersection of government, social media and web 2.0. Broadly described as government 2.0 or gov 2.0, there was even a way-cool barcamp like event, Gov2.0 camp last week. Even a traditional government IT event like FOSE was a-buzz with chatter about terms like twitter, conversation, brightkite, etc.

At FOSE, I had the privilege of interviewing two leaders in the field of marketing IT services and products to government customers both directly and through channel partners. I think you'll find their insight invaluable.

First, I sat down with Brian Grainger of SpectraLogic's federal group. Go to YouTube to view the video, if you can't see it here:

Second, I spent some time talking with Ed Bursk. Ed is a long time marketing leader behind the marketing campaigns at KORE Telematics, Nortel Networks, Alcatel/Lucent and other technology companies. Go to YouTube to view the interview, if you can't see it here:

What do you think about Ed and Brian's views of government spending priorities? Will the stimulus money actually hit the streets this year in an impactful way?

What I Learned at Satellite 2009

2009-03-26T18:10:00.003-05:00

I've spent the past two days at the Satellite 2009 trade show. Given the overwhelming negative news these days, I'm thankful to spend some time with individuals and companies that are doing well, making money and excited about the future. The industry seems to be in a much better place than 2001 and seems poised to motor through 2009.

Here are the main takeaways:

1. Satellite operators and services companies have multi-year contracts that buffer them from somewhat from quarter to quarter fluctuations in the economy.

2. By and large, most satellite companies have remained immune to the leverage mania of the past decade and are in reasonably good financial shape.

3. The government continues to buy a huge amount of commercial satellite capacity.

4. Satellite capacity is at 90% utilized and there isn't a big number of new satellites going up in the next few years so pricing power and margins will remain good. There is no glut, like in 2001.

5. With utilization so high, current issues are interference mitigation and squeezing every last drop of data through the pipe.

6. Communications on the move (COTM) is again a hot application for both the military and commercial customers. I particularly liked the AT&T CruiseCast in-car satellite TV.

As with the FOSE show, I interviewed a number of people about their take on the show, hot trends, etc. We'll be polishing those up over the next few days and releasing them out into the wild...

Brand New Straight to the Point Podcast with Ed Bursk

2009-03-24T14:00:00.001-05:00

I've been interviewing marketing executives as part of the "Straight to the Point" series for almost two years. One guy I've been working hard to schedule is Ed Bursk. Ed is a marketing consultant who has worked with numerous technology, networking, telecom and government IT companies in his career and has a wealth of knowledge and best practices. His experience includes Nortel Networks, Alcatel/Lucent, KORE Telematics and others. Take a listen to the interview and let me know what you think?

Social Media Is Sales

2009-03-23T12:26:00.003-05:00

Social media is direct sales, sales support, customer service, advertising, public relations, and marketing. All in one. This fact is being increasingly proven in real world environments, especially sales and customer service. Here is the story from InternetNews:

Enterprises may be late adopters of social media, but a new effort by Salesforce aims to make it easier for companies to tap into the trend for customer service.
The company today announced a Twitter extension to its Service Cloud, the company's customer service solution.
The news marks the Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) CRM giant's most recent foray into social media. Last year, the company began showing off Force.com for Facebook, an application that lets enterprises build applications in Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) that take advantage of Facebook's social features and massive audience.
But there's demand in particular for customer service solutions because there's pain in the call center, said Alexandre Dayon, senior vice president of the customer service and support division at Salesforce.
Customers no longer go to companies to solve problems because the existing tools prevent it: Automated phone help is often seen as confusing, while Web knowledge bases are filled with irrelevant information and e-mail takes too long.
Instead, customers frequently abandon the telephone and the corporate support infrastructure and go to Google, Facebook, Twitter and to community message boards to get their answers. In response, companies are aiming to follow them to the Web, and some already have.

Forrester analyst, Jeremiah Oywang says in his blog, Web Strategy, referring to Twitter that-

Although they have not directly said it, I think Twitter can go further than this, they could be their own CRM system, by perhaps offering their own analytics system to brands, that will help them to track and manage the conversations within the 140 sphere. This has tremendous opportunities for Twitter should they create their own brand management system that they can resell to the world’s companies to monitor, alert, track, prioritize, triage, assign, followup, and report on the interactions with brands. The myriad of authority based tools will need to be incorporated, as some users have a larger network and are therefore more influential than others. On the other hand, they just might leave the firehose open for the incumbent CRM companies to take advantage of –and miss this opportunity, hell, Scoble is already expecting brands to contact him when he has a major life event. Either way, with a recent funding amount of $35mm, they’ve enough run rate to first manage growth, then prepare for monetization.
There are a few layers when it comes to how Social CRM can evolve, I’ll save that for a future post. On a related note, this is one of the key findings from our many interviews for the upcoming report: The Future of the Social Web.

Customer service integrating social media feeds is a good thing. However, I thing the real value of social media comes when you tie it directly into the sales cycle. When the sales cycle is nothing more than a natural extension of the real, open individual interaction between a prospect and a company, then we'll have realized the ROI of social media.

The Old World is Gone...The New One is Here

2009-03-18T16:22:00.006-05:00

It's an exciting day in the business world as Congress pummels the CEO of AIG, a company they own, the Federal Reserve announces that it will engage the supercharger on the nation's printing press adding $1.5 trillion (!) to the financial system and news leaked that IBM is thinking about buying Sun Microsystems, reversing a nearly 20 year trend focusing on software and services.

The understanding of the world we developed over the last 10 years of what was possible, of what was expected behavior has been radically transformed. Newspapers are going bankrupt, trade magazines are no longer credible and social networks have passed email in popularity. This disruption is affecting nearly every aspect of our personal and professional lives.

So.....imagine my surprise when last night I attended a seminar on state of the art government marketing practices...and no one talked about social media...as if everything was exactly the same as it was in 2004. Hard to believe really, given that buzzwords like Gov 2.0 have been on everyone's lips as of late. It's clear that there needs to be yet more education on the measurable (read: $$) ROI of social media and how to integrate it into an overall marketing campaign.

Have you come across people that seem to be completely disconnected from the transformation that's occurred in PR and marketing in the past few years? I'd love to hear your war stories...

FOSE- Part Deux

2009-03-11T16:16:00.004-05:00

Another busy day at the FOSE trade show at the Washington Convention Center. I interviewed several business executives who focus on the government IT market for my Straight to the Point podcast series. I won't spill the beans now as we'll be releasing the video early next week, but here are some key takeaways:

all three executives are adding headcount and resources to their federal, state and local government sales and marketing teams
all three agree that the stimulus package will be flowing real dollars into state and local government coffers
beyond stimulus, all agree that the Obama administration's new priorities will shift new and real resources into cybersecurity, electronic health records, the smart gird and green technology more generally
two execs believe that there will be a pronounced relative shift in funding dollars away from the DOD/Intel world into the federal civilian agencies

Tomorrow is the final day of the show. I'll be working the show floor to meet as many companies as possible as well as heading over to the adjacent GOVSEC show.

Were you at the show? What did you think about it? Did you have any insightful conversations?

FOSE- Day One

2009-03-10T16:30:00.004-05:00

Well, FOSE got off to a bang with a keynote speech by Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired. Chris is famous for the idea of the Long Tail, and has a written a book on the same topic. No surprise, but he was strongly in favor of government embracing social media, cloud computing and all the rest of the shiny new tools of the new paradigm. It was a full crowd and I saw many, many people typing away on their laptops. Given the number of #FOSE hashtags on Twitter today, there is plenty of interest from techie types in the idea that the government may be the last paying customer on earth.

I strongly recommend attending the keynotes of any conference but FOSE has a strong lineup this year. Tomorrow morning there will be a speech by Ann Livermore of the Technology Solutions Group at HP and Thursday morning there is Louis Freeh, the Former Director of the FBI.

Moving to my favorite place on earth, the trade show floor, I reveled in the pure capitalist splendor of several hundred technology companies, professional services outfits and systems integrators proudly displaying their latest shiny booths, giving their pitches and handing out schwag to the milling hordes of government workers. The common knock on FOSE is that there aren't that many actual, y'know, decision makers there, and that it's main value is awareness and networking. This is especially true for companies that offer services at a pricepoint that require the buy-in of a CIO, agency head, or (god forbid) Congress.

Still, given the overall economy, I felt better seeing all those hard working people greeting, talking, networking, twittering, selling, buying, researching, listening, talking, laughing, shaking hands and hopefully closing some business...better than cowering under the desk waiting for the world to end!

Sneak preview of Day Two tomorrow- I do video interviews with execs from Lenovo, Kodak, KORE Telematics and Spectra Logic for the Straight to the Point interview series.

The Week Ahead...FOSE/GOVSEC

2009-03-09T14:49:00.005-05:00

Well, I've done it...I changed the layout of my blog for the first time in two years. Exciting, huh? I'm now using the TicTac Blue template that Google has so generously provided me for free. For those who haven't been paying attention, I previously used the Minima template, also from Google- although I had customized it to have three columns, something that took me a week, if I remember correctly. Zzzzzzzz.

LOL, setting aside the first paragraph, this is going to be an exciting week! I'm going to be spending a great deal of time at the FOSE/GOVSEC show down at the Washington Convention Center. I'll be meeting with prospects, new and old, catching up with contacts I haven't spoken with in months and conducting some video interviews of senior level marketers who's expertise is how to sell technology and services to the federal, state and local government.

The impact of the new Obama administration is becoming clearer as the months go by.

An increased emphasis on openness, transparency and communication with citizens is having mixed results.
The cloud computing trend seems to be on everyone's lips as a solution to the ever present problem of silo smashing and data interoperability, but then the cybersecurity czar, Rod Beckstrom, resigns after a month on the job, because the NSA won't let him manage their data.
Massive amounts of money are going to be spent on healthcare reform, healthcare IT, green technology and broadband access
Massive amounts of money are going to be spent on just about everything except the Iraq war and insurance companies.

It certainly will be interesting to see how all this gets paid for: higher taxes (slower growth) or a debased currency (high inflation). Perhaps both. Not to worry- those are problems for another day, right?

I'm looking forward to speaking with the professionals at FOSE who interact with their government customers everyday. Their insight will be enlightening. This is what I want to know:

1. How is this year going to be different than previous years given the effect of economy and the new priorities of new administration?

2. What are government customers telling them about where procurement dollars are flowing? More, less? DOD/intel versus civilian?

3. What are they doing different this year in terms of sales and marketing strategy or tactics? More trade shows? Less? More sales staff? Less? More Lead generation? social media?

Is there anything else you'd like me to ask? Drop me a comment and I'll get the answers you're looking for...

Prognosis Negative on Social Media Adoption in Healthcare

2009-03-03T13:22:00.004-05:00

We all can be susceptible to hype, so it's a good thing to try and gather empirical evidence from time to time to challenge one's notions. Even if you think you are in great shape and have the body of a 20 year old Olympic athlete, it's probably a good idea to step on a scale once in a while and confirm that this is actually true. -ahem-

Everyone is talking about the impact that social media is having on the healthcare industry. But is it really? There are plenty of patient and doctor social networks and lots of hospital twitter accounts. But is any of this obvious activity actually engaging these disparate audiences? Are we all confusing motion with progress?

Well, my colleagues and I got to talking about the need for an informal survey to determine what impact all this social media adoption is having. Are people satisfied with the healthcare industry's embrace of social media? are they getting the information they are looking for? What sort of info are they, in fact, searching for? So we set up a quick survey on SurveyMonkey.com and distributed it through Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and other social media sites.

Here are a couple of nuggets to digest:

96 percent of respondents said the industry is not using social media enough to communicate, share information and engage with patients.
Ninety-nine percent of the respondents frequently used social media, including blogs, social networks and online communities, to discuss and research a wide variety of healthcare topics.

96% for a small survey is still pretty much everyone. I think we can conclude that the healthcare industry is nowhere near effectively engaging with it's stakeholders. Lots of work still needs to be done.

Take a look at the survey results. Let me know what you think- leave a comment...

1. How often do you review blogs, social networks, online communities and discussion forms for healthcare related information?

Never- 1%
Only once- 0%
Occasionally- 17%
Once a day- 16%
All the time- 66%

2. What kinds of information do you look for in social media and online communities?

Personal health information- 51%
Public policy information- 65%
Scientific research and developments- 68%
Market trends- 82%
Employment information- 21%

3. Do you think the health care industry, as a whole, is using social media well enough to communicate, share information and engage with consumers?

Yes- 4%
No- 96%

(BTW, any comments about statistics, sample size or standard deviations will be summarily mocked. :))

I Want My Health Care Easy

2009-02-26T17:42:00.003-05:00

Imagine a time when you can log onto Facebook, click on your Doctor's profile, schedule a appointment for the next few days, fill out a quick form with a list of what's ailing you, happy in the knowledge that your medical information will be electronically transferred to his medical and office software for quick diagnosis and easy billing.

Facebook's easy to use, consumer friendly medical insurance app would monitor the Doctor's invoice, the insurance company's payments for any errors, while anonymous data about your condition, diagnosis and treatment would be sent to the CDC so it could monitor for pandemic flu and other diseases.

All of this would happen with a few clicks of the mouse.

Science fiction right?

Electronic health records (EHR) have been talked about forever and a day it seems. I remember sitting through a compelling presentation at the AeA four years ago about EHR. Microsoft and Google have SaaS offerings already up. Everyone agrees that EHR will be consumer friendly, increase reporting, preserve privacy, save Doctors money- so why doesn't happen?

Probably because the whole healthcare industry is so fractured, non-functional and distorted by haphazard government regulation that something this, well simple, has to wait until everything else wrong with healthcare gets fixed first.

How messed up is it? Here are five healthcare experts talking on a NYTimes blog with five different takes on healthcare reform. They each have an axe to grind but none of them seems to have a holistic solution.

What do you think? Even given that the President is setting aside $600B for health care reform, will it work? Can it work?

Health Care Social Media Tools

2009-02-19T18:55:00.004-05:00

There has been a lot of discussion recently on the impact of social media on the healthcare industry. I've written about the topic here on this blog. Many people are in agreement that the healthcare industry will be transformed both by any upcoming regulatory reform and by the impact of social media. My guess is that social media will begin to have its effect before government driven reform gets started. But this is just a lot of big picture thinking...what is possible now? Who is twittering? what are the social networks?

Here is a short list of the social media sites I've come across. If you know of any others, just leave the link in the comments...

First of all, Ed Bennett, a web manager at a hospital has compiled a list of 172 hospitals with links to all the social networks they participate in. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter...they are all here. Check out the list here.

Twitters that I follow:
(This is a good slideshow on the basics of Twitter from a healthcare point of view.)
@Health_IT
@mdtrussell
@mdbraber
@act4healthcare
@UH_Sci_Flack
@mencarna
@TrishaTorrey
@jerseygrl
@AdamGross
@naimul
@planetrussell
@healthTF
@OHSUNews
@ShermanHealth
@rilescat
@LungAssociation
@joemd
@healthmashr
@FamilyDoctorMag

This is a comprehensive list of people in the healthcare industry on Twitter: http://twittgroups.com/group/healthcare

Social Networks
Patientslikeme.com
Dailystrength.org
hospitalimpact.ning.com/
themedica.com/
enurgi.com/
qnahealth.com

LinkedIn Groups
Health 2.0
Health Informatics Technology (HIT)
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society
Healthcare Technology Alliance
Healthcare-IT/ EHR/ HIS
Professionals in Pharmaceutical Industry and Biotech Industry

Blogs/Posts/etc.- Background Social Media and Healthcare
Twitter in Healthcare
Twitter a Healthcare Marketing Tool? Maybe
140 Health Care Uses for Twitter
Newsweek's take on Health 2.0

And oh, by the way, if you'd like to fill out a survey I've been running on the use of social media in the healthcare industry, please click here.

Social Media and Government Marketing Best Practices from Steve Lunceford

2009-02-17T11:11:00.008-05:00

One of the best parts of my job is that I get to talk every single day with talented marketers. Talking shop with these experts is a joy and I could do it all day long. Over the past few years, marketing and PR have undergone the most significant transformation since the mass adoption of the Internet, and possibly since the invention of advertising funded mass media in the 19th century.

Most amazing to me is that the whole industry has seemingly embraced change in the space of two to three years. Given the poor reputation of PR flacks and marketing people, you'd think that we'd be stuck in our ways with our heads in the sand. But no, nothing but continual innovation. Look at the auto industry for an example of folks that just can't quite admit the world has changed- something they've known for decades.

One of the most innovative marketers out there is Steve Lunceford, the Director of Global Communications for BearingPoint. Steve's main responsibility is to support BearingPoint's engagements with government agencies. "Business to Government" marketing has always been one of the areas of marketing most resistant to innovation. But even here, under the leadership of people like Steve, social media is being used to generate real, measurable results.

I sat down Steve to learn first hand how he is integrating social media into his successful government marketing program.

Please listen to the podcast interview we recorded last week.

Related links:
http://GovTwit.com – BearingPoint’s government Twitter directory
http://BearingPoint.com/GovTube - New Thinking In Government video series
http://Twitter.com/dslunceford - Follow Steve on Twitter
http://ProReporterTips.com – Steve’s personal blog

What do you think of Steve's strategy and tactics? Would you do the same thing or do you have a different approach to government marketing? I'd love to hear what you have to say! Please leave a comment...

(...and full disclosure, BearingPoint is a client of my employer, Strategic Communications Group)

Health Care and Social Media

2009-01-30T15:53:00.004-05:00

One of the most interesting areas where social media will make an impact is in the health care industry. Most people would readily admit the last two groups to adopt any technology are lawyers and doctors. Of the two, I think that the doctors, and the larger healthcare industry, will be much more rapid adopters of social media. Here is why:

- Government regulation: healthcare reform, medical process management, electronic health records are all trends that, for better or worse, are pushing technology and healthcare workers together. It's easier to adopt social media when you are already using a mobile device, PC or laptop to view professional development videos, process medicare forms, view/send patient records and run your hospital/HMO/personal office.

- Generational shift: as the Baby Boomers move into retirement, they will create openings in senior management for people who are comfortable using technology to communicate transparently with peers, co-workers, vendors and customers.

- Customer demand: patients have adopted social media with amazing rapidity. They are now used to communicating with their service providers in a community type environment where the corporation's voice is merely one among many. Smart companies have mastered this new viral, less controlled communications environment. Less nimble companies have fumbled this opportunity to recreate relationships on a stronger basis, and have suffered sales and market share effects. Organizations as diverse as insurance companies to hospitals to medical device companies to professional associations will have to master social media in order to communicate effectively with their stakeholders.

What do you think? Am I off base? I'd like to get your feedback. Leave a comment below or feel free to fill out a quick three question survey I running on the use of social media and the healthcare industry http://tinyurl.com/6fscao

CQ is Up for Sale

2009-01-28T15:40:00.003-05:00

In another small but real way, the continuing meltdown in publishing world spreads through DC. I just read an announcement that CQ is being put for sale by its owner, Times Publishing, based out of Florida. From today's Washington Business Journal:

In a statement, Chairman Paul Tash said Times Publishing would explore the sale of the 63-year-old publishing company, based in the District, to steer investment capital toward the company’s other publishing ventures in Florida, including its flagship newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times.

I used to work at CQ and it is a phenomenal organization that develops amazing stories each and every day that are absolute must have for any DC insider.

Founded in 1945 by St. Petersburg Times owner Nelson Poynter, CQ grew over the decades into a leading publisher of news and information about legislation, the federal government and politics. Its clientele is largely made up of professionals seeking to influence Congress, including lobbying firms, law firms and government agencies.

In the late 1990s, CQ moved aggressively into the online world, turning CQ.com into a powerful tool for tracking legislation moving through Congress. CQ also publishes Governing magazine, which covers state governments.

Times Publishing said it has retained New York-based investment banking firm the Jordan, Edmiston Group Inc. to handle the transaction. JEGI performed the same role last year in the sale of CQ’s books division, CQ Press, to Sage Publications of Thousand Oaks, Calif.

“The Times Publishing Co. has been a wonderful steward of this business. But to maintain CQ’s double-digit growth, we appreciate that it’s time to bring our enterprise under the banner of an owner with national or international reach,” said CQ President Robert W. Merry.

My only worry is that, in the hands of a private equity group, the pressure to drive growth will dilute the world class product CQ has produced over the years, and ultimately kill the golden goose.

The Most Important Thing in a Recession- Sales

2009-01-21T13:07:00.006-05:00

On the very day Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th President, the stock market tanked by 3-5% depending on what index you prefer. Our economy is in tatters, confidence is shot, businesses are failing. It's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But fear not. Your sales pipeline is probably half as robust as it was last year, but by getting back to basics while integrating your efforts with the latest marketing and social media best practices, you can survive 2009 and get yourself positioned for strong growth in 2010.

What are the sales basics? It's easy to forget, but here are three, compiled by a great resource I read regularly, justsales.com.

1. Establish a relentless focus on talking with prospects and customers at every moment of each sales day. Sales requires contact. Make contact your first priority.

2. Be prepared with one to three absolutely solid statements that communicate the reasons someone should buy from you now – buy from you... now. These should be powerful statements that create a sense of urgency and make it clear why you and your offering are the solution to their situation at this very moment – scripted and rehearsed to a point where you can deliver these benefits with appropriate voice intonation, literally, in your sleep. (please remember: being the biggest, oldest, or "premier" provider is rarely a reason someone should buy from you... in fact, sometimes it could be the reason not to)

3. Be ready with an approachable, non-defensive method of responding to the top three objections you and your team hear each sales day. Again, these should be scripted and rehearsed to be delivered without hesitation.

CQ Alumni Are Awesome

2008-12-12T17:10:00.003-05:00

Always a good day when you hear about a CQ alumnus doing well. Today's news is that David Rapp is starting at 1105 Government Media as the Editor-in-Chief.

Read the story at The Dorobeck Insider: "FCW Gets a New Editor: David Rapp...and the new marketing person is official"

Friday Random Linkage

2008-11-21T13:50:00.005-05:00

Bill Bishop has been writing a great series of posts at Slate.com, analyzing the polling and results of the election. He theory has been that there is a "big sort" going on as people move to areas populated with people of similar beliefs. Liberals to the coasts, conservatives moving south, etc. His last post reviews the election results: No, We Didn’t: America Hasn't Changed as Much as Tuesday’s Results Would Indicate. Here is a quote:

Political campaigns these days aren't designed to change minds. Candidates target voters who are already likely to support them-and then the campaigns feed these voters more of what they want to hear. That's a strategy that is all about polarization, and it works.

Switching gears, Axl Rose released the latest Guns-n-Roses album this week. I was going into my senior year in high school when Appetite for Destruction came out- it's literally the theme music for the year I lived in London. Every time I hear those riffs, I feel like kicking something just go the sheer aggressive fun of kicking something. I haven't bought the new album yet, but the reviews have been rather slashing (lol). Here is a quote from SPIN:

Guns N' Roses, 'Chinese Democracy'

An outrageously overblown pop-metal extravaganza, Chinese Democracy feels like a perfect epitaph for all the absurdity and nonsense of the George W. Bush era -- one final blowout before Principal Obama takes our idiocy away.
The music toggles between two primary modes: grinding industrial rock and keys-and-strings balladry. (Imagine Rammstein covering Wings, basically.)

And in the, closing the barn door after the horse has run away, GM is getting rid of its jets, after getting skewered in the press. Truly, the management of the car companies must be some of the stupidest people on earth.

Lastly, mint.edu has a great post, A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis. Lol.