Blogs About: Best Practices

What Makes a Good Hospital Web Site?

When asking hospitals what makes a good Web site, we often hear terms like “interactive capabilities,” “easy to use” and “has lots of content, especially educational content.” While these aren’t necessarily wrong, it’s what’s not on this list that’s disappointing.

Imagine asking Michael Dell about what it is that makes Dell.com “good.” Or Jeff Bezos about what makes Amazon.com a “good” Web site. Of course it has to be easy to use. But strategically, the thing that makes dell.com or amazon.com ... Read More >>

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Could Healthcare Assemble a Twelpforce?

Customer service in healthcare is challenging.  The difficulty comes from hospitals in general being a complex system.  There are a lot of disconnected entities that need to work together in order to get something accomplished.  But when there are problems, it’s often tough to determine where the actual issue is hiding, let alone find someone who can sort it out and make it right.

Look at a typical surgery, for example.  In addition to the surgeons, who are likely not employed ... Read More >>

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Give Your Web Site a Social Life!

It is no secret that Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter are changing the way we communicate online. Rather than relying on email, we now spend time finding friends on Facebook and typing message we can squeeze into 140 characters on Twitter. Communications are changing, which opens up a new set of avenues for you to reach your visitors.

Integrating social media into your Web site’s design is an integral part of making the delicate dance of site visitor relations work. If you want ... Read More >>

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Much Ado About Twitter (And Why I’m Un-following Hundreds of my Tweeps)

By now, you’ve likely heard of Twitter.  Although most online-connected people have heard of it, I find the majority don’t really know what Twitter is or frankly don’t understand the attraction.

This doesn’t surprise me.  I was one of them.

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Effective Change Management – Are You Listening?

So many statistics – this IABC speaker says:

80 percent of change initiatives fail 90 percent of employees know when a project is not on track to meet its objectives 19 percent believe they are empowered to alert management to the problem

Does your organization have multiple feedback mechanisms in place for employees? Do employees trust that their opinion counts and that management will listen? In an economy where many organizations are implementing huge change initiatives, doesn’t it make sense to try to improve ... Read More >>

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Are Your Employees Delivering on Your Brand Promise?

This fascinating IABC session talked about industries where employees ARE an organization’s brand promise and the importance of aligning your internal and external brands. Consider two examples:

A major McCorporation creates a jingle, “We love to make you smile,” and rolls it out through a multi-million dollar advertising campaign. The problem:  minimum wage employees in a job they don’t like don’t typically smile at customers … and really don’t care if customers smile or not. The irony was overwhelming, blogged about ... Read More >>
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Learning from Best Buy

This week, I’m attending the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) World Conference. Yesterday I listened to the President and COO of Best Buy talk about internal communications. His passion for and belief in the power of communications and the importance of transparency was especially inspirational, as those are common goals at Geonetric.  Two comments that intrigued me:

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Opening the Door to Transparency

This month we’re celebrating Geonetric’s 10th anniversary! It’s a big milestone in our company’s history, and I’m proud to be a part of making that happen. Still, I like to look forward to what’s coming next, and one of the important things we want to do over our next 10 years is change the way companies like Geonetric do business.

We advise clients to use transparency (e.g. patient satisfaction or quality measures) as a communication strategy. Now it’s time for Geonetric ... Read More >>

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Iowa’s Recent Code Camp

I was fortunate enough recently to attend the Iowa code camp, sponsored in part by Geonetric.  A code camp is a great idea where developers are encouraged to follow a few guidelines, including things like “always free” and “by and for the developer community.” Iowa’s code camp followed these guidelines and in my opinion, was a success.

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10 Rules for Health Engagement

I’m a few days past the PRSA Health Academy, but there is one final session that I couldn’t leave without writing about. The session was conducted by Susan Isenberg of Edelman and Emily Downward of Edelman Digital.

Edelman has a new research product called the health engagement barometer which looks at “Health Info-entials” – health consumers that are informed, engaged and involved. Health Info-entials make up approximately 22% of the population in the U.S.

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