Driving In Traffic

“It is better to be first than it is to be better.”  Al Ries & Jack Trout

Leadership and being the first to do something is one of the best competitive advantages around.  While being wonderful at developing and utilizing new technologies to perform procedures to enhance patient care and clinical outcomes, the healthcare industry is often a day late and a dollar short when it comes to marketing and use of internet technologies.

Physicians are beginning to blog privately and use social media tools to muse about the art and practice of medicine.  However, not to many are using blogs as a tool to market their practices and/or their expertise in certain areas.  Hosptials are even more behind.

One hospital, High Point Regional, is using patient blogs to give depth to certain services they provide.  While these blogs fall a bit short of being providing an opportunity for conversation and being fully transparent (comments are conducted via e-mail), they are a good first step. 

Not to sound too critical, but… I would also like to see High Point syndicate their feed.  I realize that they are using the blog format to provide depth to the information found on their site for the people in their community who are seeking more information about their services.  However, by not syndicating, they are hiding their light under a bushel (an old Soutnern saying).  They could be truly making the case that they are leaders in the field.

Being first to jump into the fray, their conservative stance is understandable.  In fact, that is the real beauty of being a leader and a trailblazer. You put yourself in the place to make the rules and be the first in the mind of your customer. As High Point Regional has demonstrated, the time is right to develop a blogging strategy as part of your marketing endeavors.

Technorati Tags: hospital blogs, healthcare marketing, medical blogs, leadership,

Last night at the Wine Tasting for Our Pal’s Place at the Marietta Wine Market we had a great turn out. Thanks to the new friends and old who dropped by to support both the wine market and Our Pal’s Place. The Bistro Dog wines were quite tasty and very affordable. My favorite was the Shiraz. In fact we came home with a couple of bottles.

Anyway… more to the point of this post… at the tasting we were able to meet the authors of Winery Dogs of Napa Valley, Andrea and Allen. Andrea is a speech therapist by day and a very talented photographer by night. Allen works in the textile industry as a day job but he has a real talent with writing about the dogs that Andrea captures in her pictures. This book would be a wonderful gift idea for your wino friends who love dogs (so I’ll be buying a lot more come Christmas– I bet).

You can drop by their website to purchase and preview the book. It really is a must have. Their new book on Sonoma Winery Dogs will be coming out soon.

Tags: wine, Napa Valley, books, winery, dogs, dog lovers, gifts, photography, shout out

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It was a late night last night. We had our quarterly board meeting for Our Pal’s Place where I presented some of what I’ve learned from Robin Hood Marketing.

The purpose of the presentation was to educate the board about concept of focusing on getting an audience to take a specific action and putting the evangelism to the cause on the back burner. My expectation was that I would come out with a list of key audiences and actions we want them to take (I did, but that’s not the real story).

I honestly thought that the point of focusing on changing behaviors would be a slam dunk– you know the type… the ones that you get everyone nodding yes seconds after you say it. However, I was really surprised at the reaction I got when I suggested that we put the cause second. It only took a few moments after I said it for one of the board members to chime in and say: “I understand what you are saying. I know you are right, but I sure don’t like it. I really like thinking that we can change the way people think.”

Now admittedly, I have my passions and my feelings of a calling, but I am a very task and goal oriented person. Subsequently, I tend to approach things very methodically and with a business perspective. Experience has taught me to have a keen appreciation for the fact that you cannot make people think, feel, or do things that they really do not want to. This has taught me to celebrate when people actually behave in the ways that I want them to and to pay no attention to making them agree with me. However, I think that many folks out for a good cause believe that the only permanent solution to a social problem is to make someone agree with them.

The discussion that ensued focused on the role of behaviors in changing attitudes and beliefs. Since we have rescued many animals with behavior problems, we had an easy metaphor to use. From time to time we get dogs that don’t like men. Since we have no real insight into the inner feelings and thoughts of animals (after all, they can’t talk) the only real solution is to shape behaviors through appropriate rewarding for the behaviors we want. Eventually through this process we teach the animals to be more comfortable around men.

According to the basic premise of Robin Hood of focusing on behaviors first and cause second, this is really the function of good nonprofits. By shaping behaviors, we open the door to changing values, beliefs, and outlook.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you let go of the dream of drawing people to the cause. Instead I’m suggesting that you consider the role of changing behaviors in the process of changing minds. The natural conclusion for me is that if you’re really good at changing behaviors then perhaps you can begin to influence attitudes and social values. As this occurs, you will certainly draw people to the cause.

I welcome your thoughts, insights and examples.

Tags: nonprofit, nonprofits, Robin Hood Marketing, Katya Andresen, nonprofit marketing

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Not every person has Warren Buffett’s 37 Billion Dollars to donate to a good cause that warms the heart. However most of us have a buck to donate (which is considerably less than that fancy coffee you get every morning) to make a difference. Experience has taught me that big things are possible by joining together and organizing small individual efforts. I wholeheartedly believe that a bunch of little things can come together to make a huge difference.

Thus…..I am happy to announce that I have started a new blog called Dollar Philanthropy. It is an effort to harness the power of the blogosphere to create a network individuals who will donate a single dollar each week to a reputable nonprofit organization. Combined, each of our individual dollars can make a huge difference to a local nonprofit that is seeking to serve a need and improve the community around them.

I am challenging “Dollar Philanthropy” readers to commit to giving $52 a year ($1 per week) for this project. If you want to give more that $1, please feel free. With this in mind, please set us up on your favorite RSS aggregator so you don’t miss a post.

My plan is to research and highlight one nonprofit per week. I will give you all the contact information, important links and information about what they do. Admittedly, here at the beginning a number of the nonprofits will be based in Georgia (where I live) because I already know about them. I promise to expand to other states as I begin to get a feel for what this entails.

While I know it will be slow starting out, I hope that by January 2007, Dollar Philanthropy will be generating $1500 to $2000 for each nonprofit highlighted.
As Toby Bloomberg has often told me and written:

Bloggers are the Nicest People

With that in mind, I would hope that the folks that have me on their feeds or who are just dropping by would take a moment and spread the word. Oh…. yea…. send your buck too.

Disclosure: Dollar Philanthropy is a personal endeavor to draw attention to good causes and nonprofits that are making a difference. I do not receive any money for this. I reserve the right to publish content ads on the site to help offset the costs associated with this blog. After the costs have been covered, any excess from the ad revenue will be donated to the nonprofit of my choice.

In an effort to keep Dollar Philanthropy as a credible and reliable resource for finding a worthy nonprofit to which to donate, I will not allow organizations to pay or otherwise compensate me for being highlighted on this blog.

Technorati tags: philanthropy, new blogs, fundraising, Nonprofits, nonprofit

Dr. Melissa Clouthier has an interesting post on blogger personality types.  I think she has definitely picked up on some truisms about bloggers.

However, I have to respectfully disagree about bloggers having weird social skills.  The asynchronous communication tends to stilt interpersonal interaction. It is simply not the same as face-to-face meetings.  In true face to face meetings with bloggers, I’ve found them to be socially adept and pleasant people. However, I do think that it is important for bloggers to understand that this is indeed an obstacle to engagement of customers.

Just for fun….  I’d think we’d all rate a little different if we were to take these tests:

• Draw a Pig Personality Test
• Superhero Personality Quiz

Tags: blogs, bloggers, personality tests, personality, social skills

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A little over a month ago Dmitriy Kruglyak over at The Medical Blog Network called to invite me to help him by moderating a session at the first ever Healthcare Blogging conference in December. Now Dmitriy has posted all the particulars so I feel confident that I can share it with you.

I was excited to be invited to participate. Not to sound like a total geek, but I got even more excited when I saw the “glitterati” that Dmitriy had assembled (agenda and speakers are publicly posted here). I’m a fan of many of these bloggers and I look forward to us all coming together to discuss how to better use blogs to enhance the delivery of healthcare.

The Consumer Health World conference will be held December 11-13 in Washington DC. I’ll keep you posted as more details begin to emerge.

Tags: Dmitriy Kruglyak, Consumer Health World, medical blogging, blogging conference, healthcare marketing

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In keeping with the theme around here of “Driving in Traffic” to people, places, and issues I care about, I wanted to announce an event that will benefit Our Pal’s Place, the animal rescue group I work with. The wonderful folks over at Marietta Wine Market are having a wine tasting with a doggie theme on Wednesday,July 19th from 5-7pm. So to all my friends, enemies, and local readers, grab your boss or a cube mate, scoot out of work a little early and please drop by leave a small donation and belly up to the wine bar! It is for a great cause! Click here for a map to the Marietta Wine Market. Tags: Our Pal’s Place, Marietta Wine Market, Fundraising, Atlanta Events, Nonprofit

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