Graphic Design and Medical Reporting… Odd Couple, or Just What the Doctor Ordered?

In today’s health-conscious world, where folks of all ages are struggling with obesity and diseases like heart disease and cancer are being diagnosed at an alarming rate, the general public is being encouraged to take a more active role in understanding their medical care.  It’s becoming more commonplace for a patient-doctor relationship to be more of a partnership than ever before.

Technology, particularly the internet, has allowed patients to do their own research and gather information to take to their medical provider so they can work together in managing the patient’s health.  All that knowledge and understanding comes to a grinding halt when it comes to patient lab reports, which are filled with terminology and abbreviations that have the lay person confused and usually concerned.

Enter a few designers into this medical world and voila!  Leave it to a group of marketing and advertising professionals to give a make-over to some hum-drum reports, making them understandable, informative, and even appealing to the eye.  My hope is that this catches on nation-wide so that everyone has the benefit of understanding what’s literally coursing through their veins.

Read the entire story in the Spark Report for more information.

Colt McCoy donates to Children’s Hospital at Scott & White

McCoy knows firsthand the life-saving and life-improving care children’s hospitals provide… Read More

The Power of User Generated Media aka “That Hotel had Bed Bugs!”

I recently booked a long overdue, much anticipated family vacation to the Dominican Republic.  I’m a self-described internet research geek, especially when it comes to purchasing big ticket items like cars and vacations.  I actually get excited as I log onto Google or Yahoo and start my searches.  Depending on the item I’m looking for, the search can last for days or weeks until I’m satisfied I’ve made the right purchase decision at the right price.  And that almost always involves reading consumer reviews of the product or travel destination from trusted websites.

A recent post by Cynthia Stephens, Consumer Influence: Measure for Measure, discusses this fast growing trend of consumers going to trusted media resources, also known as user-generated media (UGM).  The article is insightful and provides a look into understanding, measuring and embracing this new consumer-driven marketing trend.

Healthy Design

American Public Media’s Caitlan Carroll for Marketplace examined the efforts of one hospital in San Diego to “improve health by design”.  As the story goes, Sharp Memorial Hospital is taking a new approach to keep their patients healthy and shorten hospital stays by utilizing innovative architectural, interior and process design.  Implementing design elements one might expect in a 5-star hotel in hospital waiting rooms or practical details like laundry hampers in patient rooms improve everything from employee workflow to a patient’s state of mind.  The hospital expects real results in patient recovery time, employee morale and, yes, even their bottom line.

Read Carroll’s complete story here.

So who wouldn’t benefit from this emphasis on healthy design?  We tend to take the everyday design elements around us for granted.  But if better design works to improve our well-being and productivity, isn’t it time we all reexamine the spaces in which we live and work?

That rationale should apply to our virtual environments as well.  According to Mashable.com, the average person spends 68 hours online every month.  What if all that time was spent in frictionless virtual endeavors.  All our searching would result in meaningful findings (bing anyone?).  All our tasks would culminate in productive exchanges. We can derive a list of best design practices from the flood of analytics and metrics available.  So how is it so many websites make it difficult for internet users to purchase/participate/donate/volunteer?

By promoting good design online, we can create healthier and more productive online communities/users/consumers… and, as a result, healthier online businesses.   Here’s to a new Design Revolution!

The Birds and the Bees Can’t Always “Make it Happen”

Finally!  A healthcare advertising message that is funny!  This campaign is brilliant.  Instead of taking itself too seriously, EMD Serono, the manufacturer of fertility drug Gonal-f, has launched a viral campaign that takes a serious medical condition and takes the taboo out of it a bit.  The videos, currently only on the web, are hilarious and are relatable, even for those of us who have not experienced infertility.  What couple hasn’t given two very different versions of the same reality they’ve both shared, as these two have in the video called, “A year and a half”?

The videos sends viewers to the website www.increaseyourchances.org, where they can click through and learn more about why 1 out of 8 couples have trouble conceiving.  No sterile images of a hospital where all your fertility procedures make your baby-making dreams come true.  No images of the previously-troubled couple at last walking off into the sunset, mom-to-be gently rubbing her baby bump.

These videos are at once effective and funny.  And brilliant.  My only suggestion is to get these on TV pronto.  These are too good not to share with the masses.

Think Social Media is not righ…

Think Social Media is not right for your company? Not so at Fortune 100 Companies [STATS] http://om.ly/hLVi

Facebook Accidentally Lifts & Supports Cancer Group Memberships

I don’t know how I missed it, but I was apparently in the minority.  A few months ago someone on Facebook started a movement with one simple message, asking women to post their bra color on their status.  The request took hold and as it spread across the globe, the wording changed slightly and as it began to gain full momentum, changed enough to give false credit to several cancer groups.  See more on this in this post by Sarah Brown for examiner.com.  Or at Snopes.com.

Does social media work?  The end result of this little game for the Susan G. Komen Facebook group was an increase in followers by more than 950% in less than a week!!  Although this particular movement blossomed from what began as a simple, “let’s see if we can get people to do this,” then morphed into what some deem a scam, the outcome was a needed boost for one of the highest-profile charitable organizations in the country.

The lesson:  YES.  Social media works.  YES.  Social media can be used to benefit the healthcare industry.  And YES.  There are some beautiful bra colors out there.

Don’t Take That Tone With Me!

If the 3 rules in real estate are location, location, location then the 3 rules of marketing are audience, audience, audience. ProBlogger Kelly Diels recently posted “Do you hate your customer?” and examined what can happen when contempt replaces a deeper understanding of your audience. Kelly reminds us that no one does business with companies “that don’t even like them.” Take a look at your own blogs and marketing messages. Do they express a thinly veiled disdain for the values of your audience? If so, you may be ostracizing the very people you hope to attract.

@ Acquired. No, really. http:/…

@ Acquired. No, really. http://bit.ly/cqtBhB

Google responds to Buzz consum…

Google responds to Buzz consumer privacy concerns: http://om.ly/hlXJ