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Jun 15 2010

The Price of Reputation

June 15, 2010 – 12:08 am

 

 by Mike Mulvihill

How much is your company’s reputation worth?  In the case of BP, apparently the U.S. government’s estimate is $20 billion. That’s how much the government has told BP it must set aside in an escrow account to restore public trust in BP, and, oh by the way, to expedite payments to help clean up and provide relief to Gulf Coast claimants.

However, I suspect that like me, the U.S. believes even a behemoth like BP may crumble under the financial weight of the massive clean-up effort the spill requires. So President Obama is making sure money is set aside now before BP ends up bankrupting its U.S. operation to cap financial obligations much like Johns Manville did in the face of asbestos-related mesothelioma claims and pharmaceutical firm A.H Robins as a result of the Dalkon Shield.

 The Associated Press reported on June 14 that BP’s costs for responding to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico have risen to $1.6 billion. A mere pittance compared to what it will take to clean marshes and entire eco systems, but much more than $750 million cap under current U.S. law.

 BP’s stock, which has fallen by 50 percent since the spill began, is considered an income stock (i.e., invest for the quarterly dividends more so than the share price appreciation). Rumors are BP will delay its normal stock dividend payout or two in response to the Gulf oil spill.

Meanwhile, BP has found more ways to foster distrust than a pathological liar at a revival meeting.  The latest is hidden among the goods news that BP’s will ramp up current oil collection efforts made possible by its Top Hat maneuver to capture more of the oil spewing from the deep sea rift.  They say the collections will increase from 15,000 barrels a day to 40,000.  Only problem is that the 40,000 barrels is more than BP has stated the well was gushing mere weeks ago.

And, The Wall Street Journal has spotted the rats fleeing the sinking ship. The Journal reported today that Chevron and other oil and gas companies are distancing themselves from BP.  In the article, Chevron CEO John Watson wouldn’t directly criticize BP, but he said that even before the current disaster, Chevron had in place policies and procedures that might have avoided the oil-well blowout that caused the spill. “This incident was preventable,” Watson said.

All I know is if this was Bedford Falls, I’d likely be among the throng lined up at the good old savings and loan to get my last dollar out before the thing failed.  Sorry, George Bailey.

Photo courtesy of mueredecine

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Jun 14 2010

Amazon Watch out for Facebook E-Commerce: Are You Ready to Go Shopping on Facebook?

June 14, 2010 – 12:25 pm

By Priya Ramesh

If you haven’t already, I urge you to please, please read the TIME magazine’s recent review of Facebook becoming the social DNA for over half a billion users worldwide. The article talks more about the privacy challenges BUT pay attention to the growing force that this social network has become. Facebook’s 0ver 500 million users make it the third largest country in terms of online population, bigger than the U.S. of A! Okay it doesn’t just stop there look at these mind blowing stats from Digital Buzz.

  • 50% of active users log onto Facebook in any given day.
  • More than 35 million update their status each day.
  • More than 60 million status updates posted each day.
  • More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month.
  • More than 5 billion pieces of content shared each week (web links, photos, blogs, notes etc.)

Google used to be where people searched for information. Amazon and eBay used to be where people looked for things to buy and yes I am saying “used to be” because Facebook is changing that behavior. Two-thirds (67%) of consumers who follow brands on Twitter are more likely to buy those brands after becoming a follower, and 51% of Facebook fans are more likely to buy after becoming a fan, according to a study from Chadwick Martin Bailey. Envision a scenario may be six months from now, you log into Facebook, you search for a cocktail dress from Anne Taylor Loft, you “Like” it now you BUY it and then GIFT it to your friend on her birthday and all this without leaving Facebook! Yeah that’s what I mean by Facebook E-commerce, the game changer in online shopping. Here’s a whitepaper from First Data, well known name in
E-commerce that explains how eGifting works on Facebook https://www.firstdata.com/downloads/marketing-merchant/egift_ss.pdf.

How Facebook E-Commerce will Re-define Online Shopping?

1. Facebook will become the search, decision and buying engine: It makes perfect sense for Facebook to introduce e-commerce to its half a billion influencers who share their likes and dislikes for products and services. The process of you and me updating our status with why we prefer Coca Cola over Pepsi or Mac over PC is now influencing our network of friends and their buying decision. The next natural progression is to not just ‘Like” your brand of choice but be able to “Buy” it on Facebook. Where is the need to go to Google or Amazon or the company’s website anymore when I can get real time feedback from my friends on Facebook who I know will give me an honest opinion.

 2. Share and Seek Friends’ Reviews Before Buying: Trust me, my friends had a lot of influence on the Honda that I drive or the sexy flat panel Sony that sits in my living room. With Facebook E-commerce, you will now be able to share the next item on your shopping list and get your friends to give their two cents, vote, like etc. and then finally buy it. The entire buying process will start and finish on Facebook in the near future. All you retailers better be ready for this powerful last but one critical step that might become a part of online shopping psyche: sharing with friends before buying.

Just so you don’t think I am making this Facebook E-Commerce revolution up, I had the wonderful opportunity to sit next to a gentleman who was showing off his brand new iPad on the Virgin America flight headed to San Francisco to F8, the Facebook Developers Conference while I was heading to NewComm Forum. The iPad guy also happened to be the Chief Executive Innovator of EAI Technologies (www.eaiti.com), a company that helps to bridge the social aspects with enterprise applications. In the Chief Innovaion Officer, Velan Thilairajah’s words, “It should come as no surprise that social interaction has a direct impact on consumer behavior and hence the consequential transactions resulting from the online engagement.  For Facebook, there are 100 million active users in the US alone and based on their high daily online activity, there are numerous touch points where/what to buy, where to get it, how to pay for it type discussion occur freely and at a rapid pace.”

So yes don’t just make Facebook a key ingredient to your engagement strategy but start thinking in terms of e-commerce and online shopping when it comes to this largest social community. Are you ready to go shopping on Facebook?

Image Courtesy: http://www.jordankasteler.com/images/social-shopping.png

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Priya Ramesh | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Jun 11 2010

BP Plan Snafu: Maybe Time for Wisdom of the Crowd?

June 11, 2010 – 12:30 am

The most recent revelations about the state of BP’s crisis plan offer important lessons for public relations professionals, and to ignore the wake-up call is to ignore a moral obligation.

The AP ran its story Wednesday night, noting a long list of problems with the 582-page regional spill plan and the 52-page plan for the destroyed Deepwater Horizon rig. The AP notes that BP’s plans ”vastly understate the dangers posed by an uncontrolled leak and vastly overstate the company’s preparedness to deal with one.” The story also indicates that the plans ”were approved by the federal government last year before BP drilled its ill-fated well.”

While the litany of problems found with the BP plans is frustrating, it is likely that other crisis plans in place throughout the world would offer up a similar ratio of out-of-date or ill-conceived responses per page of plan.

Spending time in the chemical industry made a believer out of me that the plan that sits in volumes on the shelf or in the shared documents file is no plan at all. We focused on length, readibility, thoroughness and a long list of other “must haves” when it came to the written word, but the real proof of a crisis plan is the performance of the plan under the stress of a crisis.

A key factor in preparation of good communications section of crisis plans is simplicity. Tim O’Brien and others have written about the importance of user-friendly plans, and the news of the day should prompt all PR people to go back to their plans for a review. While it’s conceivable that more than 500 pages were needed in the case of BP, the more words you have to navigate, the more likely you are to have errors like those that showed up in their plans. The BP team gave it their best shot in developing their plan, and I’m confident that many smart people created aspects of the plan that were right on target.

In the end, though, the shortcomings of the plan were married to the obvious shortcomings of the company in responding to the actual crisis, creating yet another level of consternation among alrady-angry publics. This was avoidable.

Here are a few things to think about as you review the state of your crisis plans:

Prepare. Have you done an adequate job of defining all of the problems that could be faced by your client or company? Have you used the internal and external resources available to you to rate the probability of these crises arising? Are you over-prepared for the top five problems based on the combination of high impact and high probability?  A key criticism of BP, right or not, was the lack of preparation for an obvious high-iimpact event. 

Plan. The ideal match of simplicity and thoroughness is based on your response team. In the case of BP, the complexity of the challenges and the abilities of the people on the response team probably dictated a more thorough treatment of the plan. For most of us, though, our attention narrows dramatically in a crisis. The best plans realize this, and outline clear, concise and accurate ways that can be used to meet the problems head on. The other important element of any good crisis plan is the formation of the team. You will never be able to anticipate and plan for every potential crisis, so the creativity and ability of the team will be called upon in most every instance.

Rehearse. Most companies are not good at this step. The more realistic your rehearsals, the more likely your success in responding to crises. Include social media “monitoring” in the mix, if possible, as Jeffrey I. Cohen covers in his recent post. In some businesses, this will mean crying spouses at the gates and “media” camera crews attempting to force entry. Make it real.

Create Transparency.  One of the most useful aspects of a crisis plan is its ability to attract constructive criticism from stakeholders. Businesses have traditionally treated local emergency officials as partners, for instance, but perhaps it’s time to provide others with access to the plan. Suppose that your crisis response plan was posted on your web site with a request that interested parties give you feedback. Would the wisdom of the crowd make for a better plan in your company or for your client?

Stay Informed. The reporting on the BP plan included a reference to a long-dead advisor to be called in case of an emergency. Your plan is only as good as your latest update, and the importance of contact information, plant site plans, office building layouts, guard station locations and the many other verifiable elements of the plan cannot be overstated. Put someone to work quarterly to do a top-t0-bottom, fact-checking style review on these vital pieces of the plan.

I’m sure many public relations colleagues reading about BP this week have been reviewing the communications aspects of their crisis plans. The crisis in the Gulf of Mexico continues to dismay us, teach us about the potential consequences to be unleashed and at the same time challenge us to overcome. Be  prepared.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michael Whitlow | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , | Comments (1)
Jun 10 2010

HIPAA: Why the Sky Isn’t Falling (Despite Recent News)

June 10, 2010 – 7:00 am

Photo courtesy of ffg's photostream

By Jenn Riggle

Hospital lawyers, long known for being extremely cautious and risk-averse, have been acting like Chicken Littles when it comes to social media. They warn hospital administrators about the dangers of social media – when for the most part, their concerns have been unwarranted.

Hospitals across the country are posting updates to their Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, largely without incident.

But just when we thought the coast was clear, HIPAA made the news again.

Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, Calif. announced earlier this week that it intends to fire five of its employees for posting personal discussions about hospital patients on Facebook. And while hospital executives assured the media that patient names, photographs and similar identifying information was not posted by these employees, the fact that hospital employees thought it was okay to speak publicly about patients is a huge breach of confidentiality.

According to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), people can violate regulations by sharing specific patient details, without ever referencing the patient’s name. This means that if hospital employees have a casual conversation about a patient within earshot of others not involved in the patient’s care, it could constitute a HIPAA violation. The same holds true with having a conversation online.

And now, the California Department of Public Health has confirmed it has opened its own investigation into the case.

What does this mean?

Hearing this type of news is going to give hospital legal teams heartburn. However, when you realize that hospitals have been engaging in social media for almost four years when Arkansas Children Hospital established the first YouTube channel in September 2006, there have only been a handful of HIPAA violations.

Some violations may have been the result of good intentions by medical staff, while others are the result of medical workers snooping into the private files of patients. High profile victims have included George Clooney and Britney Spears, who had their medical records viewed by star-struck staff members.

And in April, a licensed cardiothoracic surgeon in China who was working as a researcher at the UCLA School of Medicine, was sentenced to four months in jail after pleading guilty to looking at patient medical records he was not authorized to view.

The good news is that these violations could have been avoided by following good PR principles and respecting patient confidentiality rules. At the same time, it’s important for hospitals to remind their employees about how these rules transfer to social media.

That’s why I was happy to hear that Tri-City Medical Center is going to take this time to “re-emphasize hospital policy on patient privacy through employee training.” In addition, if they haven’t already created a social media policy that outlines how employees should behave on social media, now would be a good time to do so.

Rest assured, social media isn’t going to cause the sky to fall. However, like everything else, you need to follow the rules.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (2)
Jun 9 2010

The Peter Brady Factor: How to Keep Your Brand from Throwing a Social Media Pity Party

June 9, 2010 – 11:25 am

By Marcy Walsh

peter

Remember the episode of The Brady Bunch in which Peter Brady throws himself a “hero” party and no one shows up? Many brands today are feeling the pizza and soda pop blues when their contests or sweepstakes fail to attract hundreds of friends or followers in spite of what appear to be great incentives. All the effort that is put into these activities can feel futile when only a handful of people enter. And now that social media is making it easier for companies of all sizes to create buzz online using contests and sweepstakes, it’s getting harder and harder to get noticed.

Peter’s mistake was that he was patting himself on the back for doing a good deed, and his friends and family didn’t feel he needed any more attention. In kind, organizations introducing contests and sweepstakes can’t take the approach that “if you will build it they will come.” The microsite is up, the tweet is out or the Facebook contest is ready. So why is the room empty?

If this has happened to you, your invitation probably falls into one of three categories: it wasn’t compelling enough, or people didn’t care enough about what they could get by participating; it was too much of a hassle, or the ask was too great for the reward; or people didn’t have enough notice to make it (and their friends weren’t going or didn’t tell them about it if they were!).

The first (and yes I am aware this may not need to be said) critical step is to be strategic with your contest or sweepstakes, according to Francisco Rosales of SocialMouths:

  • Start with the basics of objectives, target audiences, incentives, tactical execution plan and measurement, and you are setting up the contest for success.
  • Decide where to hold your party. Is the sweepstakes or contest better held on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or other social media platform? And how can you tap into other networks to promote the sweepstakes or contest?
  • With that decision, you can determine where you want people to land – whether that is on a landing page specific to the contest, your YouTube Channel or Your Facebook page.
  • Know the legal rules of engagement. Sweepstakes and contests have very different legal requirements. Sweepstakes require no skill and include a random drawing. Contests involve a competition in which participants are judged on a requirement (i.e., photo contest, video contest, essay contest). And know Facebook’s new rules for contests and sweepstakes before launching.

Once you’ve reached the tactical stage with your contest, Michael Stelzner offers a few tips to create successful contests with social media:

  • Don’t make me sweat too much. The reward must be equal or greater than the effort for me to participate. Air New Zealand’s Kiweets contest was launched on Twitter and was very successful at building a 3,000 person Twitter community in less than one month for the airline’s promotion because the ask was simple and the reward was great: Answer a trivia question correctly and be entered into a sweepstakes to win a flight to New Zealand. Each day for thirty days there was one winner, and the grand prize winner received a business class seat. Easy to participate, easy to share with friends, enough time in the promotion to build a buzz. The 3,000 person community tweeted daily, and all participants combined generated more than 4.1 million earned organic brand impressions within Twitter alone. Had Air New Zealand asked entrants to write a 300 word essay or film a three-minute video on why they deserved to win a flight, the participation level likely wouldn’t have been as high.

Dunkin Donuts “Keep it Coolatta” Facebook promotion asked 800,000 fans to go into its stores, buy a Coolatta, and upload a picture of themselves with the Coolatta for a chance to win prizes and their likeness on the fan page. Not only was the ask simple, but Dunkin Donuts was tapping into its already existing fan community to spread the word about its new product.

  • Make the invitation compelling and measurable. You have one shot at getting people to care before it falls off their Facebook and Twitter newsfeeds. Both are great ways to spread the word quickly, but use your words carefully and include short URLs and hashtags for tracking participation and winners.
  • Promote. Promote. Promote. Companies can learn a great deal from General Motor’s promotion of its “Chevrolet’s SXSW Road Trip Challenge. The brand invited eight teams of social media folks to go on a road trip/scavenger the week prior to SXSW from Austin in some of Chevy’s new products. They were asked to compete in 50 challenges along the way. The winning team was based not only on completing the challenges but also on how much they interacted with their own and the brand’s social media communities. Involving the social media community in promoting the brand via the challenge was key to the success of this contest and the brand’s awareness. For many brands, relying on your Facebook and Twitter following alone to promote your contest or sweepstakes is not maximizing the potential of social communities. Working with bloggers, promoting both online and offline if appropriate, and allowing your contest or sweepstakes the amount of time necessary to properly promote will help your organization to be successful.

Once your successful contest or sweepstakes is over, don’t forget about your new friends! Continue to have conversations with the community created, continue to engage with events that are of interest to them, and don’t let the contest or sweepstakes be the only contact you have with the community or you’ll be back to the pity party! Once you’ve built it, keep showing up, listening and participating.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Marcy Walsh | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (5)
Jun 8 2010

Social Media Calls PR Home

June 8, 2010 – 12:05 am

By Mike Mulvihill

 That’s right; PR folks have taken the lead in owning social media initiatives. A recent survey from the Strategic and Public Relations Center at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism showed that more companies put control of social media in PR’s hands than any other area of marketing.  Why? I defer to the following rationale from center director Jerry Swerling:

Social media “requires a relatively non-commercial approach; entails dialogue rather than monologue; often conveys objective information rather than product features; and tends to be free-form in nature, which is just the opposite of the highly controlled world of marketing.”

The biennial survey, popularized by Shel Holtz’s posts on the findings, reports that slightly more than one-fourth of companies put between 81 to 100 percent of budgetary control over social media in PR’s hands compared to 12.6 percent for marketing. One in four respondents said PR has strategic control over social media in their organizations with only 9 percent giving strategic oversight to marketing. In fact, just over a quarter of respondents said marketing has no budgetary control at all and about 22 percent said marketing had no strategic control.

Shel Holtz also points out that measurement could well be another reason leadership is entrusting social media to PR. The study revealed a correlation between the amount a PR department spends on measuring their efforts and the degree to which the CEO believes PR contributes to the company’s success. As a result, respondents said, senior management is taking PR’s recommendations more seriously.

Colin Alsheimer’s post on socialmediatoday on the same Annenberg survey agrees that PR is more closely aligned with social media and more skilled at measuring social objectives. He aptly points out that social media is also well-suited for a number of marketing objectives. Therefore, we would be doing social media a disservice by housing it solely in the PR function.  (Agreed, but for now, us PR people are still going to celebrate.)

Regardless, it’s a bit early to be leaving the stands and heading to the exit.  A recent survey by digital marketing firm White Horse indicated that almost 60 percent of B2B marketers have little or no engagement in social media while 44 percent of B2C companies also have little or no social media engagement. Obviously, social media has barely reached half time – and anything can happen in the second half.

We’ve already seen a fair amount of consolidation among social media agencies and consultancies, as well as acquisition of social media firms by ad agencies and PR firms alike.  I would be shocked if ad agencies did not go on a buying spree of social media firms as soon as the industry recovers a bit further. A maneuver much akin to the integrated marketing acquisition frenzy ad agencies embarked upon in the 90s. 

Philosophically, PR gets social. It is about communicating between and among audiences. It is about creating relationships. We’ve been doing that for years. While the tools may change – and keep on changing – this is still our sweet spot.

Photo courtesy of shastadaisy

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)
Jun 7 2010

Press Releases Dying. Time to Socialize Your Company Announcement

June 7, 2010 – 9:02 am

By Priya Ramesh

I am not sharing anything that’s not already been said a gazillion times by my peers in social media but I owe it to my clients and communicators like you who still spend countless hours writing, rewriting, editing and going through a herculean approval process to create THE press release. Wake up! No one is reading it, let alone getting the attention of media that receives hundreds of emails a day. Let’s be honest, when was the last time YOU read a company announcement from your favorite brand?

Quoting Marketing Sherpa, “Most press releases stink. The average journalist gets 250-500 press releases a day via email, mail, and the wire services. They trash 80% immediately, skim-and-trash 18%, and maybe contact 2% to write a story.” The traditional press release is a boring, one-way tool that has become a mere check list for most companies. By pushing out your new product announcement or announcing the arrival of a new CEO through a press release doesn’t mean your job as a communicator is done. The process of communication is complete when the target audience has received your message. I am not sure if the traditional news releases fulfill that basic function of communication.

Why not take that money you are spending on traditional news distribution and invest in a smarter way? Have you considered a company announcement that’s more engaging and entertaining? You have 30 seconds or less to grab your reader’s attention so the more multi-media rich content you have on your news release, the higher the chances of your bounce rate decreasing.

Give your press release a makeover by doing just two simple things:

1. Add multi-media content to that otherwise boring press release: Social media press releases are all about engaging so add pictures, video, brand logo etc. to the otherwise text heavy release. People love seeing or listening to a real person versus a narration of text. Think about adding a 30 second introduction from your new CEO on the news release announcing his/her arrival. You are getting ready to launch a new product or service, show your audience what that looks like on a 2 minutes video. YouTube is the second largest search engine and the more video content you add to your marketing materials, the better your search engine rankings. A good example of a press release that effectively uses multimedia is the Golden State Warriors’ release that has video, screen shots of a contest they announce, links to their various content platforms and options to share the release across a variety of social networks.

2. Shake up the press release to sound more engaging: If you are a startup competing with thousands of household brands to get the media’s attention, you got to bring innovation and creativity to your press release. A recent post from the Wall Street Journal gives kudos to a silicon-valley startup, Smule that took their news release to a whole different level.  I am not going into the details of this release but here’s a sample of a what the company’s CEO said about his new executive hires: “Sunil can’t sing for his life, and while Scott will at least tinker on the piano now and then, it’s safe to say that Julliard is not in his future,” said Jeff Smith, CEO and co-founder of Smule.  “Jim?  There is no hope frankly, and I worry if that’s true even using Smule products.  Yet our goal at Smule is to bring creative expression to the masses, and so some diversity on our management team is desirable.” Yeah this press release definitely got the WSJ’s attention!

Okay so now you get my point and are probably wondering how to get started with a social media press release? I highly recommend you start experimenting with Pitch Engine social releases. No, Pitch Engine did not pay me or give me a free subscription to their latest social media new release distribution but I did have the opportunity to speak directly to the founder Jason Kintzler who walked me through their latest version of their social PR platform, PITCH. There are currently 24,000 brands using PitchEngine to look at news release distribution in a whole different way. All I will say is that if you are truly interested in getting your message to your audience online, reporters, bloggers and influentials, PitchEngine surely helps you do a good job of grabbing that short attention span online.

You got any ideas on how to spice up a press release to generate the intended results, do share. We are hungry to hear from you.

Image courtesy: http://fruitfly.wordpress.com/2006/12/01/swiftboating-in-forest-lake/

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Priya Ramesh | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (13)
Jun 3 2010

“Refresh Everything” – Even Healthcare

June 3, 2010 – 7:00 am

Photo credit: Suite 2046

By Jenn Riggle

When Jeff Howe published his groundbreaking book about crowdsourcing in 2008, it was hard to imagine it would have such long-reaching effects.

Crowdsourcing has become a household word, largely due to projects like the Pepsi Refresh Challenge. Rather than spend $20 million dollars to create one of those cute SuperBowl ads, Pepsi is using the money to fund community-based projects that were nominated and selected by the general public. Even when 88-year-old Betty White (who was featured in a hilarious Super Bowl ad for Snickers) hosted “Saturday Night Live,” it was the result of crowdsourcing.

While crowdsourcing makes a lot of sense for consumer initiatives, does it make sense for healthcare, an industry often overwrought by rules and regulations? It really depends on what you’re trying to accomplish and who you’re talking to.

Harvard has developed a crowdsourcing project whose goal is to help cure Type I diabetes. Funded by the National Institute of Health, the study is awarding prizes ranging from $2,500 to $10,000 to people who contribute the best answers. This project joins sites like PatientsLikeMe and CureTogether that use crowdsourcing to help drive medical innovations.

The important thing to know about these sites is that they’re not all created equal. Someone is funding these projects and in many cases, it’s a pharmaceutical company. For example, the online physician community Sermo has a strategic relationship with Pfizer that allows the world’s biggest drugmaker to communicate with and review doctor’s opinions from the site. Others, like PatientsLikeMe, sell the health data collected on its site (minus identifying information) to drug makers.

Kevin Walsh’s blog in Communique’ looked at how crowdsourcing is impacting healthcare. In addition to online communities, he also references great tools like Flutrackr or Google’s FluTrends that use crowdsourced data to track flu outbreaks and estimate flu trends.

Next week, the University of Oxford will launch Global Voices for Maternal Health, a crowdsourcing project that will include an online survey (in 9 languages) of 10,000 caregivers in developing countries to learn about the problems they face in delivering maternal healthcare, as well as a discussion forum to explore how they can overcome these barriers. Supported by Maternal Health Task Force at EngenderHealth (an international organization focused on improving healthcare in the world’s poorest communities), this program is focused on saving the lives of women and mothers.

Crowdsourcing has the potential to change healthcare as we know it by leveraging the “wisdom of crowds.” But before we get too excited, it’s important to understand who’s funding these initiatives and how this information is going to be used. It’s one thing to answer a survey or talk about the challenges caregivers face in delivering care. It’s something completely different to talk about your disease and how your body reacts to different medications.

What do you think?

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , | Comments (5)
Jun 1 2010

Salt Wars: Food Processors Draw a Line in the Sand

June 1, 2010 – 10:17 pm

image New York City has been the battleground for the new Nanny State of Food Police. First it was the ban on trans-fats, then menu labeling laws. Now, the city has its sights set on salt. Other municipalities, states and even the federal government are joining the fight in an effort to reduce the chronic diseases straining our health care industry.

This Sunday, New York’s paper of record looked at the looming battle between processed food companies and government regulators looking to curb our addiction to salt. While the accusations of the processed food industry’s attempts to “delay and divert” are not surprising, the justification for it by the industry was a little shocking, if not disturbing. Industry scientists described the “warmed-over flavor”, a side effect of food production that can result in food that tastes like “cardboard” or “damp dog hair” as justification for their liberal use of salt.

Cargill, one of the leading salt marketers in the world, hired food scientist Alton Brown, to explain the miracle of salt and its food (and life) enhancing role. While it certainly has been fundamental to civilization, the question remains, how much is too much. Food labels base serving sizes on a recommended daily intake of 2400 mg of sodium per day, however, that is for healthy, young adults without other risk factors for hypertension. The majority of Americans (about 69%) are recommended to consume only 1500 mg per day. Cutting back isn’t as easy as putting down the salt shaker. The Mayo Clinic estimates that 77% of our sodium intake is from prepared and processed foods. It is unclear if that includes restaurant meals, which The New York Times story includes and cites at 80%. Similar to the debate on high fructose syrup, it is not the additive that is inherently bad, but its prevalence in our daily diet that we don’t even realize.

Some companies like Campbell’s have been proactive in finding solutions, while others are beginning to make strides and pledging reductions in coming years. The bottom line for many is that salt is a cost effective solution for making cheap, palatable food, and in today’s economic times, an effective argument to make. Others are looking at the long term costs of high-sodium diets. The American Heart Association is making a strong push, including a national advertising campaign, to warn people of the dangers of a high-salt diet, but invariably when people hear the word “diet” they think of weight loss.

The libertarian in me sees the overstepping of government involvement in our personal choices, while the pragmatist sees the financial burden from a system that covertly encourages unhealthy, cost-effective practices. With increased government involvement in health care, and companies and cities being crushed by increased insurance premiums, expect a growing focus on steps we can take towards prevention of chronic, debilitating diseases that are linked to our diet and lifestyle. We already have taxes on tobacco and alcohol, and more have been proposed for sugary drinks. This debate has been raging for over 30 years, and sometimes combating one problem, has led to the rise of another.

Salt is not an option in our lives, and excluding it is not a solution. As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle, but the opinions of those with the biggest marketing budgets tend to have the most influence. The battle is not between health and flavor, but rather health and time. Increased demands on our time lead to prioritization of activities. Do we go to the gym and cook dinner, or sleep in and work late? Would we rather spend an hour to make a meal, or spend that time watching someone else do it on TV and order a pizza during the commercial break? We have the choice to take food preparation back in our hands, but where do our priorities lie?

I think we can all agree that we don’t want to eat anything resembling cardboard or dog hair (damp or dry), but are these the only choices we have? A panel at this year’s IACP conference created a spirited debate questioning the time we have to prepare food at home, which led Michael Ruhlman to declare “cooking is fundamental to our humanity”. However, with the realities of a time-starved society, you can take that with a grain of salt, and that is what food processors are banking on.

Image credit: Salt Word via Fitnessabout.com

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jason Stemm | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Let BP Fix It

June 1, 2010 – 12:02 am

by Mike Mulvihill

BP sure has made a mess of things, literally as well as figuratively.  Their continuous ineptitude from a communications standpoint  is astonishing. But, it pales in comparison to the operational futility BP has displayed in stemming the flow of oil into the Gulf.  Like Mary Shelley’s Victor Frankenstein, BP appears to be much better at creating a monster than at controlling its errant rampage.

I’d like to see the well squelched and, so  far, BP hasn’t given any evidence they’re up to the task. But, I ran across a Robert Reich Memorial Day editorial on The Huffington Post that seems to be a prescription to make a bad situation even worse: a federal takeover of BP’s North American operations.

For the record, I like Robert Reich.  I often agree with a fair amount of what he pontificates.  But Reich is calling for the federal government to put BP under temporary receivership. In other words, take over BP’s operations in the Gulf of Mexico until the gusher is stopped. In Reich’s words, “This is the only way the public will know what’s going on, be confident enough resources are being put to stopping the gusher, ensure BP’s strategy is correct, know the government has enough clout to force BP to use a different one if necessary, and be sure the president is ultimately in charge.”

Reich also claims that if the government can take over giant global insurer AIG and General Motors, it should be able to take over BP’s North American operations to stop one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

I respectfully disagree. Government intervention is not a cure all. In fact, many would consider it to be the antithesis of a cure.  While the U.S. government did prop up AIG and many other financial institutions, as well as a few big companies, the feds never dictated how to run their businesses. As President Obama has already stated on more than one occasion, BP knows a lot more about deep sea oil wells than the U.S. government. What the government knows how to do is to slow things down – we don’t need any more of that.

Colin Powell, on ABC’s This Week had a more plausible approach – put the military in control. But the current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Mike Mullen, noted one problem.  The military may have the organization and deep sea equipment, but they haven’t a clue what to do.  The oil industry has the technology, he said, not the military. 

One approach the military does have the expertise to execute is to nuke the site. (Yes, seriously, that is an option.) Christopher Brownfield, a nuclear expert, in a Daily Beast editorial, talked about it last week. Apparently, the Russians have successfully used nukes at least five times to seal off gas well fires.

Short of a military led nuclear intervention, BP – or at least the oil industry – is our best hope. They have the technology and the know-how (what little there may be of it out there). And, they have the capital – according to the UK newspaper, the Telegraph, BP is spending $33 million a day in the Gulf but it also had reported cash flow of $7 billion in the first quarter and $14 billion of borrowing capacity. They will need all of that and some more when the final price tag for remediation in the Gulf Coast region is tallied.

It may be August before the only strategy that seems to have a high probably of working – drilling a relief well – is achieved.  If the well flows unchecked until then, the breadth of environmental damage will go from unprecedented to cataclysmic. (Maybe the nuke idea isn’t so wacky after all.) As BP said in ads purchased in major cities across the nation this weekend, “this is their problem to fix.” Agreed, so let’s get on with it gentlemen.

Photo courtesy of Pan-African News Wire

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Digital Marketing, PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (2)