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!

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.

Leadership Lessons from a Shirtless Dancing Guy: What Marketers Could Learn

1. Find a way for your brand to define its category, not just compete in an existing one.
2. The first to define a category risks ridicule.  Individuals will never use a computer.  Who would put wheels on a board and try to skate on it?
3. Be visible and remarkable; nobody cares if you’re simply different.
4. Seed the market; reward your first customers disproportionately.
5. Turn customers into evangelists for your brand.
6. Authenticity trumps creativity — every time (but it helps if it’s also creative!)

War is Over

“The true nature of marketing today is not serving the customer; it is outwitting, outflanking, outfighting your competitors. In short, marketing is war where the enemy is the competition and the customer is the ground to be won.”

—Al Ries and Jack Trout, Marketing Warfare, 1986

How the times have changed.  Unfortunately, the acknowledgment of those changes still lags behind the reality.  This is nowhere more apparent than in the language many marketers continue to use.  We still launch a campaign and conduct a media blitz.  The writings of Sun Tzu, von Clauswitz and even Mao have been quoted for decades as having vital lessons for marketing.  But the continued use of this metaphor propagates a false reality: that in the 21^st century, a docile audience can be “won” by some overwhelming show of marketing “might”.

The talk about your company was never a one-way affair.  Consumers talked to their friends, family, and neighbors.  It was common wisdom that word-of-mouth was persuasive and effective in a way that traditional advertising messages were not.  And this worked both ways.  In fact, if a customer had a bad experience, they were more likely to talk about than if they had a good one, a phenomenon that gave rise to the expression, “Nothing kills a bad product faster than good advertising.”  This is still true today.  But what has changed is that the consumer’s voice is now amplified by the power of the Web.

Thanks to the Web, the consumer is now in control to an unprecedented degree.  First, it was the availability of huge amounts of information.  Then it was the ability to search and filter for specific, relevant information.  Social media has now amplified this by enabling virtual communities — tribes — of folks with common interests to communicate in real time, globally, 24/7.  These communities thrive on authenticity, value and trust.  And the recommendations, referrals, and reviews (positive and negative) carry a weight that no advertising campaign could ever match.

Marketing is no longer just about your company and the competitors.  It’s about communities.  Communities that are cynical, savvy, and empowered.  Using the language of conflict and war is a legacy practice that persists through inertia, mental laziness, and force of habit.

If war provides any lessons for today’s marketer, it may be that the new metaphor should be counter-insurgency, not conquest.  Not a win-lose mind-set, but winning hearts and minds.  And you can’t do that while shelling large populations with irrelevant ads.  Think of the waste.  Think of the collateral damage.  …OK, so maybe some war metaphors are still useful.

Healthcare Records Unite!

It’s exciting as a patient to see healthcare technology keeping up with the times. Not just from a standpoint of advanced medical procedures and the like; but also from an administrative standpoint. FastCompany released last week their Top 10 Most Innovative Companies, giving GE top honors in the Health Care category because of their Healthymagination program. According to fastcompany.com, GE is investing $6 billion over the course of the next several years in a variety of innovative health care technology. GE’s Centricity Electronic Medical Record system will allow doctors to manage a patient’s complete medical history, helping to reduce errors *.

As a patient, visiting a medical facility that uses this type of technology is a God-send. If I have a choice, I want to go with the doctor who has all my medical information in one place – it’s more convenient (I don’t have to repeat all my medical information every time I visit someone new); it’s more accurate (I don’t have to worry about one doctor having to decipher another doctor’s handwriting); and it’s more complete (I don’t have to rely on my memory to recite all the ailments I’ve had throughout my 40 years).

This technology is demonstrated beautifully in GE’s “Doctors” commercial . Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have all of your past and present medical professionals assembled in one room to give their undivided attention to you and your medical history? That is the point of EMR and it’s brilliant.

Another nugget: the digital database. FastCompany says that GE, together with Intermountain Healthcare, the Mayo Clinic, and other institutions have created the database, which connects to electronic medical records, allowing comparisons of patients’ medical histories. Imagine having at your fingertips a vast number of patients from which to compare symptoms and diagnoses.  As a patient, this type of technology not only gives me comfort, but makes me thankful to be living in the 21st century.

One must wonder, then, why more hospitals do not tout their capabilities in this area? Scott & White Healthcare, based in Temple, Texas, is an example of a medical group that is leading and innovating in this area, but is not getting the credit they deserve. An early adopter of EMR, Scott & White introduced this technology into their health system more than 10 years ago, yet there isn’t much hubbub about it. Perhaps hospitals are concerned with patients’ perception that they are jeopardizing their privacy.

According to Naveen Venkatachalam, the creator of Sushoo EMR software, however, patient records are perfectly safe. He says the security measures used are similar to what banks use for online transactions*.
Probably the reason for avoiding marketing these behind-the-scenes capabilities are because the capabilities are just that: behind the scenes. What patients really want to see is the warm-fuzzy, the “we-are-here-to-make-you-feel-better” messages. The only technology patients care about seeing is the kind that involves medical procedures and how they can be made less invasive or more effective.

But the behind-the-scenes technology is just as important.  Until marketers develop messages – like GE did – that convince patients of the benefits of EMR (versus its risks), this technology will remain in the backseat and won’t ever really get the heyday it deserves.

*Sources:
1. http://www.fastcompany.com/mic/2010/industry/most-innovative-healthcare-companies
2. http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/-electronic-medical-records-safe-says-creator-sushoo-emr-/2010/01/05/4558745.htm

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