Davida Dinerman

Leading From the Heart to Transform

By Anne Lundregan

From the start of his keynote speech, Bill Warner brought an unusual twist to Xconomy: 5X5: Five Cities, Five Big Tech Ideas last week.

Warner began his presentation by asking audience members to provide an “elevator” pitch on their startup company. Warner is authority on the subject – he’s a well-known start up evangelist and angel investor in the Boston area. He also founded two companies, Avid and Wildfire.

After listening to several ideas, he walked across the room and asked the audience to pick up their chairs and face them in the opposite direction to the back of the room.

Everyone who described their organizations started with their invention or technology, Warner noted. His goal, beginning with rearranging the furniture, was to provide a different perspective on creating and launching startups.

According to Warner, most companies start with an invention-focused approach. Even though the model works, Warner encouraged companies to embrace a different approach. Using playing cards as props, Warner encouraged the audience to “play from the heart.”

“People are pushed to follow their head versus their heart,” he said.

Leading from the heart was a recurring theme during Xconomy’s event, which spotlighted five transformative ideas from around the country. Each city where Xconomy has a presence (Boston, Detroit, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle) was represented. The ideas ranged from mobile robotics in the warehouse (Kiva Systems) to ending poverty by creating an efficient fuel source recycling nuclear waste (TerraPower).

Several emerging startups also had the opportunity to present their company in a short, “burst” presentation. Many said that their company was the result of a topic or idea that they were passionate about such as:

•    Fashion Playtes—Lets young girls create and design clothes that they can wear. In addition to manufacturing the clothes, the site also features interactive games and plans to expand the social networking aspect.

•    CarWoo—Frustrated with the car shopping experience, Founder and CEO Tommy McClung is hoping to change the way buyers and dealers interact with each other. With Car Woo, dealers compete online to provide buyers the best deals.

•    peerTransfer—Iker Marcaide started peerTransfer while earning his MBA and Masters in Operations Management at MIT with the goal of lowering the fees and expenses associated with transferring money overseas.

It was refreshing to see how the companies featured at 5x5 underscored Warner’s theory; when starting a company, it’s important to start with your passion or lead from your heart. As Warner noted, invention can then become the pathway to make your intention or dream become reality, resulting in an idea that is truly transformative. We hope you will join Xconomy in 2011 as they report on the innovation and inspiration from many promising companies around the country. 

Posted by Davida Dinerman on December 17, 2010 at 1:09 PM
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What do Shakespeare and Social Media Have in Common? (Part Deux)

In my last post, I focused on how you can go about identifying the main trends and issues in your industry as you start working with social media or work to focus your program. In this post, I’ll discuss how to find out where your target audience is getting information and how to understand what your audiences are saying about you.

Where are your target audiences getting information?

Your industry has its own community and much of it is probably talking at places like Facebook, LinkedIn Answers, Twitter, Google Groups, Yahoo Groups, YouTube, forums and mailing lists or other places. Alternately, you might check out the social news and link aggregation sites like Digg and delicious.

This might seem simple, but have you asked customers what they read online and in print? Are there specific trade publications or journalists they follow? Bloggers? Trade shows? Webinars? Are they on Facebook and Twitter? If so, let them know that you are, too. Displaying it on your website, put it in your company's email signature, add it to press releases, hang signs in your trade show booth and include it in lead gen or online marketing campaigns.

iGoogle is another news aggregator that lets you create a personalized homepage that contains a Google search box at the top and your choice of any number of gadgets. Gadgets come in different forms and provide access to activities and information from all across the web, without ever having to leave your iGoogle page. Here are some things you can do with gadgets:

- View your latest Gmail messages
- Read headlines from Google News and other news sources--use it to track what the media and others are saying about your company
- Check out weather forecasts and stock quotes
- Store bookmarks for quick access to your favorite sites from any computer
- Design your own gadget

What are your customers, partners, employees and the media saying about you?

Monitoring your reputation is critical. Again, one of the most direct ways to find an answer is to ask. Find out if there are any discussion groups or forums in which you appear. Getting customers to put their thoughts in writing on a questionnaire or survey is one of the most well-established feedback techniques.

As you know, Twitter is a real-time conversation between thousands of people in a public forum. Twitter Search lets you filter those Tweets and find the information you’re looking for. Using the tool’s Advanced Search, you can craft your queries and find out what people are saying about your company and brand. Just type in the word or phrase you want and from there you can find which Tweets contain it.

Take it a step further and set up columns in TweetDeck, your personal, real-time Twitter browser, which allows you to view several contacts you are following at the same time. By connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and more, you can better monitor the people you are following on a daily basis. This is extremely valuable during product launches, for example.

You can also set up Tweetbeep to send you a daily email with a list of all the mentions of your defined brand on Twitter.

As with Twitter, there are many ways to evaluate media coverage. Was it the right sort of press coverage? Did it reach the right people? You can judge the tone (positive, negative or neutral) and volume (how much your company was included or quoted). Did the article include your core messages? Or did your competitors dominate the article?

One informative graphic to help you understand the most commonly used words in a blog post, article or other piece of writing is Wordle. Simply paste text into the Wordle engine and see what words dominate. For advanced users, Tagxedo can create dynamic, easy-to-read and customizable word clouds. If Wordle is the average four-door sedan of word clouds, then Tagxedo is your high-end mini-van with options. The highly versatile tool allows users to control to font, color, orientation and even shape of their cloud.

Trying to impress a client? Word clouds allow us to present literally any quantitative data we can imagine in an illustrated format. As humans, we are drawn to visually stimulating graphical representations, and spending the extra few minutes to create a powerful visualization of the words most relevant to your client can go a long way.

Social media…online networking…or whatever we call it…is constantly evolving. Finding your place in this etherworld takes time and there is no one right or wrong way. What works for one launch might not work as well for another. The important thing is to start experimenting with a couple of tools and building up your network…or whatever you’d like to call it.

Posted by Davida Dinerman on October 6, 2010 at 7:29 AM
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What Do Shakespeare and Social Media Have in Common?

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

This excerpt from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet came to mind when I read a recent blog post on socialmediatoday.com by Dave Fleet, “Is ‘Social Media’ Hurting Social Media?”

The quote means that what matters is what something is, not what it is called. Dave suggests upgrading the term ‘social media’ to ‘online networking,’ as social media should be more interactive and long-term and not a short, one-way street. He writes:

What changes if we use that term?

•    YouTube: “Videos with comments” becomes engaging people in a story, or enabling other people to tell your story as they see it
•    Blog: “Text with sharing” becomes a genuine conversation, where you solicit and respond to feedback from your stakeholders
•    Twitter: “Tweets of links to stories about you” becomes an opportunity to engage in real-time conversations with people

I think Dave has an excellent point. Although social media isn’t a new concept, its use is getting broader and deeper by the day. It seems that we can never quite catch up with new social media strategies. Things are moving so rapidly so we really shouldn't get caught up in nomenclature vs. understanding how a social approach fits into a broader corporate strategy.

In order to get the most out of online networking and getting your messages out at any one time or period of time, you will want to know four things:

1. Who are the leaders and media influencers in your industry?
2. What are the big trends and issues in your industry?
3. Where do your customers go for information?
4. What are your customers, partners, employees and the media saying about you?

One place to find the leaders in the technology arena is Technorati, which offers both a topics directory and keyword search to find blogs in a particular topic area. Technorati also provides an “Authority Rating” on each blog to give you a rough idea of the blog’s influence. And while you’re at it, see if you can find out about a blog’s author to see where he or she is participating. This will help you determine your industry’s thought leaders.

Another neat tool is Twiangulate, which analyzes connections between competitors, friends, followers and industry leaders on Twitter. Twiangulate helps you find out who you should care about reading on Twitter. Pick any two or three Twitter users and then use Twiangulate to find which friends or followers they have in common. Twiangulate shows the overlap between your social graph and any two other people on Twitter. It shows the resulting names as a list or an interactive social map.

Here is an example of three technology tweeps with 13 people in common of 1153 total tweeps followed.

In this graph, we see that some people who follow Scott Kirsner also follow Jason Meserve. And some people who follow GigaOm also follow Jason. So, if someone is following Jason and finds value in his tweets, that person may also want to follow Scott and Om. By the same token, those who are following Scott might consider following Jason.

This exercise will lead you to people are talking about your industry, whether it be blogs, forums, Twitter, Facebook pages and so on. Take note of their conversations on Twitter and Facebook. Are they interacting with people? Only promoting their wares? Offering valuable industry information? They might also let you know where they’ll be, which can tip you to an in-person meeting.

What are the big trends and issues in your industry?

Based on the results of the influencer analysis above, you should choose a few blogs from the posts and articles that industry leaders are tweeting. This will be a dynamic list, which you will add to and delete from as you fine tune your marketing campaign. By following the right people, it will lead you to the right content, enabling you to stay apprised of news and happenings in the industry and locate other influencers. An RSS feed is a great way to aggregate the sites and keep them in one place.

A great RSS tool is Google Reader, and if you’re already a Gmail user, it’s an easy step to take. 

With RSS, you’ll stay updated whenever the blogs have new content.  After reading through these feeds, you will be more informed about your interest area.

Aggregation Tools

1.    Google Alerts – I can’t get over how easy and helpful this is. In a few clicks, you can have new search results (from the web, news, blogs, etc.) delivered to your email.

2.   Summize – Searches within Twitter conversation. After performing a search, click “Feed for this query.”

3.    Technorati Advanced Search – Allows subscribing to specific blog tags, which can be much more specific than searching for that as a Google Alert term (for example, the category productivity would be useful, but Google results for the word productivity would be all over the chart). After performing a search, click the “Subscribe” button on the upper right corner.

4.    Blogdigger – Searches blogs, but has a fair amount of overlap with Google Alerts. After performing a search, click the RSS icon in the upper right corner.

Stay tuned for "What Do Shakespeare and Social Media Have in Common? Part Deux," where we'll discuss how to find out where your target audience is getting information, and how you can find out what are your audiences saying about you.

Posted by Davida Dinerman on September 29, 2010 at 9:08 AM
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Xconomy XSITE 2010 Highlighted Innovation and Technology in Building the Next Economy

If you attended Xconomy’s XSITE 2010, the second annual Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at Babson College and the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, you were in for a treat. This year’s theme, “Building the Next Economy,” brought together leading technologists, entrepreneurs, and investors from around New England—and beyond. It delivered on its promise for a full day of learning, stimulation, debate, networking, and inspiration.

Throughout the day, special Innovator Profile presentations highlighted the efforts of new and exciting companies in New England that will transform the future of healthcare, life sciences, and technology. XSITE 2010 examined the state of capital markets, explored the realities of the startup life cycle and the obstacles entrepreneurs must overcome to succeed in frontier fields as diverse as wireless health services, new drug discovery, and smart energy technologies.

During the afternoon, attendees participated in breakout sessions on life sciences, energy/cleantech, health IT, and information technology, and heard firsthand how New England’s startups, large companies, and academic leaders are driving dynamic change. Finally, a dozen of the region’s most promising emerging firms in IT, life sciences, and energy showed their stuff at XSITE Xpo, a rapid-fire session with audience voting on which companies will be the most transformative.

Highlights ranged from Alkermes CEO Richard Pops to Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of the Ethernet and a general partner at Polaris Venture Partners, who, with skill and humor, likened the energy bubble to the advent of the Internet. Xconomy CEO Bob Buderi surprised even the event planners with his musical talents.

Heartland Robotics Founder Rod Brooks assured us all that robots won’t be taking the place of humans, but rather assisting us. John Chuang, founder and CEO of Litl, took a different view of customer service. Peter Diamandis, founder of the X Prize Foundation, delivered an exciting keynote about entrepreneurial competition to accelerate innovation.

John Moore of the New Media Medicine at the MIT Media Lab, said, “The real solution is getting rid of fee-for-service and to move toward a patient-centric model that allows doctors to care for patients.”

In the smart energy breakout panel, Phil Adams, the president and chief operating officer of World Energy, said Americans need to “wake up,” and that “energy is a different animal” from software, in terms of how much work it takes to acquire customers.

And at the end of the day, a dozen of the region’s most promising emerging firms in IT, life sciences, and energy strutted their stuff at XSITE Xpo, a rapid-fire session where the audience voted on which companies will be the most transformative. The life sciences winner was medicine authentication company Sproxil. Marginize, a TechStars company that lets consumers see what people are saying about the websites they’re visiting, took the IT crown. And finally, the audience warmed up to Promethean Power Systems, a maker of solar-powered refrigerators, the winner of the cleantech/energy track.

View some great photos and commentary of the day at http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/06/24/xsite-2010-slide-show/.

You can continue to stay apprised of all things business and technology year-round through Xconomy’s in-depth, engaging journalism and networking events in key hubs: Boston, Detroit, Seattle, San Francisco and San Diego.

We hope to see you next year at XSITE 2011.

Posted by Davida Dinerman on June 25, 2010 at 1:13 PM
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The XSITEment Returns on June 17 to Explore "Building the Next Economy"

On June 17, Xconomy will once again bring out the New England revolutionaries in business, academia and technology for XSITE 2010. XSITE has become one of New England’s most anticipated conferences. This year’s theme is “Building the Next Economy,” reflecting the region’s obsession with inventing products. It will offer the perfect venue to explore the realities of the startup life cycle and the obstacles entrepreneurs must overcome to succeed in frontier fields like wireless health services, smart grid technologies, biotech, and even the design and manufacturing cluster. Schwartz Communications is eXITEd to sponsor this event for the second year. This year’s host is Babson College, with support from the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Wellesley.

The day will begin with opening remarks from Babson College President Len Schlesinger and Olin College President Rick Miller. Keynote appearances will include Rodney Brooks, co-founder, chairman and CTO, Heartland Robotics; Peter Hecht, CEO, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals; Peter Diamandis, chairman and CEO, X Prize Foundation; and Richard Pops, chairman and CEO of Alkermes.

Throughout the day, Innovator Profile presentations will highlight the efforts of new and exciting companies in New England. Massachusetts continues to be at forefront of technological advances. According to a recent study from the Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy by Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, on a per capita basis, Massachusetts inventors were granted more patents than any other state or nation.

Plenary sessions will include “Innovation After Acquisition” featuring IBM and Schwartz client E Ink and “Is Venture Dead?”, which brings together leading investors from around the U.S., including Vulcan Capital, Intel Capital, and Boston Millennia Partners. During the afternoon, attendees will participate in breakout sessions on life sciences, energy/cleantech, health IT, and information technology, and hear firsthand how New England’s startups, large companies, and academic leaders are driving dynamic change. 

Finally, a dozen of the region’s most promising emerging firms in IT, life sciences, and energy will strut their stuff at XSITE Xpo, a rapid fire session with audience voting on which companies will be the most transformative.

XSITE 2010 will take place on June 17 from 8:15 a.m. – 5:30 p.m., with a networking reception to follow. For information about the agenda and registration, go to http://xsite2010.eventbrite.com/. You can also follow and participate in the Twitter chatter using the hash tag #xsite10.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Posted by Davida Dinerman on May 17, 2010 at 9:25 AM
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Private Companies are Setting the Pace in Massachusetts

I attended the Boston Business Journal’s Pacesetter Awards last Friday. It was a very nice breakfast event at the Westin Copley in Boston. The event honored the 50 fastest growing private companies in Massachusetts, ranked by revenue growth. It shows that growth is strong even in the midst of a staggering recession. You can view the entire list here.

The list is determined by survey information gathered and analyzed by the BBJ from private companies throughout the Greater Boston area. Companies are selected on their revenue growth between 2006 and 2009. Revenue had to exceed $1 million as of 2006.

The top 10 companies came from different industries – from Internet marketing, healthcare technology and IT services to environmental engineering and design, anti-static flooring, general contracting and international business services.

The event began with an hour-long panel discussion moderated by Dan Hutchins, Boston Private Company Services Market Leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The panelists were: Wendi Goldsmith, CEO, Bioengineering Group; Steven Hauck, Co-Founder and President, AgencyPort Insurance Services, Inc.; Girish Navani, CEO and Co-Founder, eClinicalWorks; and Mont Phelps, CEO, NWN Corp.

Two themes that kept reappearing in various forms were customers and employees. “Look internally….” “Listen to customers….” “Keep your culture and motivate your people….” “Bring in good, quality people to serve the customers well….” “Hone in on the company….”

Balance was another topic of discussion. Whether it pertained to balancing the kinds of clients a company goes after or balancing one’s own lifestyle, balance seems to be an important part of a company’s success.

Another interesting point to make is that the top 10 aren’t brand new companies. Founding year ranged from 1992 – 2006, and percentage growth (from 2006 – 2009) ranging from more than 100% to more than 400%. This aligns with the customer and employee focus. If your leadership and employees are creative and understand the market and their customers, then a business can stay flexible and survive even in the most difficult times. Easier said than done, sure, but it’s working. They keep their eye on the prize. One of the panelists even said, “Don’t overthink risk.”

A proud moment came at the end of the 50-company countdown, when they announced Schwartz client High Street Partners as the #1 Pacesetter for 2009, with revenue growth at 473.92% to $12.4 million in 2009. Larry Harding, founder and president, accepted the award. He offered thanks to his clients and to his employees, without whom HSP wouldn’t be where it is today. In an interview with Keith Regan, Larry also said that High Street enters 2010 in “full-throttle hiring mode,” with the firm expecting to add significantly to its head count of 60 employees over the course of the year. “In 2010, our focus is on putting our foot on the accelerator and really growing now.”

Schwartz offers its congratulations to High Street Partners and all of the winners, and wishes them the best in 2010 and beyond.

Photo of High Street Partners, from left to right: Scott Aldsworth, Vice President, Business Development; Larry Harding Founder and President; Deborah Millin, Vice President, Client Operations; Christian Snyder, Managing Director, Higher Education
 

Posted by Davida Dinerman on April 19, 2010 at 9:12 AM
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Sustaining the PR Buzz from All Directions

My colleague Mark McClennan recently posted Top News Source Surprise, which is a great introduction to what I’d like to talk about – blending what some might call “traditional" PR with social media PR. In other words, don’t abandon traditional PR.

In his post, Mark reported on a survey from the Pew Internet and American Life Project that revealed the top three news sources:
 
• 78% of Americans say they get news from a local TV station.
• 73% say they get news from a national network such as CBS or cable TV station such as CNN or FoxNews.
• 61% say they get some kind of news online.

Take note that the online venue came in 3rd.

The other day a fellow Schwartzer and I remarked at how much PR has changed over the last decade. Gone are the days of sending press releases to reporters by fax. Email was a huge productivity saver, but it now pales in comparison to the number of social media tools and channels we use. There’s no doubt that social media has shifted the way companies gain publicity and raise awareness. But it’s not going to replace what we call “traditional” PR – outreach to influencers at newspapers, trade publications, analyst firms, awards, speaking venues – the core elements and foundation of any PR program.

Sure, there are many newspapers and journals that have moved online, but they're still professional media outlets.

We like when clients ask, “What’s the best way to get my message across?” That gives us the opportunity to find the best strategies given the target audience and goals. While we’re creating that plan, we never forget the importance of traditional media. Where social media comes in is to build the brand at the individual and community level. To create a comprehensive, up-to-date communications strategy, a company must understand how its customers, employees, investors and other stakeholders receive and share information in today’s “always on” world.

It boils down to balance between traditional and new public relations techniques. The use of online conversation with tools such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogging should be combined with, but not replace, the tried-and-true.

One of the main reasons to stick with trade publications and other mainstream outlets is that a majority of most companies' audiences are still reading them. Social media strategies are critical and in many cases can generate mainstream media coverage. But companies breaking through and sustaining media attention using only social media are rare.

Smart companies are capitalizing on social media. Many are blogging, joining online communities and keeping their websites fresh and current. Social media has taken a potentially static material generated by professional media and turned it into something that’s dynamic and the subject of extended conversation.
 

Posted by Davida Dinerman on April 8, 2010 at 4:35 PM
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The Push for HITECH is On: Marketers Can Make a Difference

Last month, I attended the Massachusetts Health Data Consortium’s "HIT 2010: HIT at a Crossroads" event. Why is health IT (HIT) at a crossroads? We’re at a critical juncture in the history of the healthcare industry. The industry and the government must figure out how to progress from the enactment of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in 2009 to making billions of dollars available to providers to use healthcare IT in meaningful ways. We need to move from the ideas to the action.

One topic that I found to be interesting was the Regional Extension Center, which will offer providers in Massachusetts technical assistance, guidance and information to update their medical record systems and train workers on new technologies. The US Department of Health and Human Services awarded $375 million to 32 nonprofits for Regional Extension Centers around the country.

Rick Shoup, Ph.D., director of the Massachusetts eHealth Institute (a division of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative) and Massachusetts State HIT Coordinator, said that the state has appropriated $15M for 2009. The Regional Extension Center will not only create jobs, but should also help hospitals and providers figure out what they need to do to comply with meaningful use and implement EHRs.

Ray Campbell, MHDC’s executive director and CEO, said that the key to disseminating knowledge and experience will be through the Regional Exchange Centers. The MHDC is working on a mentor program to do just this, as well as a private online community.

John Glaser, senior advisor, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT and CIO of Partners HealthCare, also spoke at the conference. He is a major advocate for electronic health records and said that that interoperable electronic health records are a critical contributor to efforts to improve the quality, safety and efficiency of care. Requirements for meaningful use include maintaining an up-to-date list of current and active diagnoses, sending reminders as needed to patients and providing summaries of care.

One thing I found during the show is that although the industry is honing in on the definition of meaningful use, it’s still not entirely clear how they are going to check off all of the boxes. A healthcare IT marketer’s challenge is to take what’s there and develop a vision for how you can add value. If we know that e-prescribing, certification, interoperability, test result management, patient safety and quality reporting are pieces of information available, the HIT marketer will speak with decision-makers about how their products meet these requirements now and in the future. HIT marketers should also find out how they can partner with the Regional Extension Centers.

In the absence of certainty, the HIT marketers and the Regional Extension Centers might be the ones to ensure that providers will approach meaningful use appropriately for their organizations, and implement the right processes and technologies to comply with the requirements.

Posted by Davida Dinerman on March 11, 2010 at 2:55 PM
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Branding for the Better

The brand and messages a company starts with usually don't last forever. Markets evolve and with them so do a company's strategy, product/service offerings, competitors, level of recognition and customer expectations. These days, it’s important to be flexible and to be able to adjust with forces within and external to the company.

We enjoy working with our clients to ensure their messaging resonates with the media. One client, Phytel, which provides physicians with technology to deliver timely, coordinated care to their patients, spent a couple of months on a branding exercise. The executive team put its assumptions aside and took a hard look at the following questions with a fresh set of eyes going into 2010.

What does Phytel do well?
What do our customers value?
What is the area of the market that we can own (or lead)?

These are questions that can help define Phytel’s brand or promise to its customers, while helping to position Phytel in the marketplace. After dozens of interviews with key clients, internal interviews and thought leaders in the industry, they analyzed the results and did more brainstorming. They realized the market is Population Health Management. The new tagline is:  Engaging Patients. Better Outcomes.

This is an excellent result for several reasons. First, it truly captures what Phytel does. Second, it’s not a seismic shift, but rather something the company can grab onto and take with it for many years. It won’t be a hard message to portray to its customers or the media. In fact, they tried it on for size at HIMSS last week. The VP of marketing told me journalists understood the message and reacted very favorably.

One aspect I liked about the approach Phytel took in its branding exercise was that it consulted with employees and customers. As Tony Roberts, a change management expert, suggests, “Employees mustn't feel like they are losing their identity for no reason. It can't be done by management dictates -- 'We are changing.' Anything to do with the brand needs consultation with employees and customers to let them have their say."

I might also point out that this new message isn’t a drastic change, but rather one that will better portray the company’s identity and direction going forward from both the sales and PR angles. Phytel understands its brand is evolving and improving with the times, but not changing the core identity drastically. 

Posted by Davida Dinerman on March 8, 2010 at 11:28 AM
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Mass Health Data Consortium: HealthIT at a Crossroads

When the Mass. Health Data Consortium started planning for its big event, HealthIT at a Crossroads, Senator Kennedy was still alive and the healthcare bill looked like a slam dunk.

Things have changed dramatically since last summer. This year will be a crossroads for health information technology. What will the progression look like from the historic enactment of ARRA in 2009 to the availability of billions of dollars for providers to meaningfully use HIT systems in 2011?  The Consortium will aim to address these and other questions, reflect on a transformative year, and try to predict the future. Schwartz will be listening from the front row on Friday, February 5.

The forum will feature experts offering their predictions for in 2010, and technology companies unveil their plans to help providers achieve meaningful use. The day will  begin with Breakfast Briefings from Covisia and InterSystems, and lunch will feature the presentation of the annual Investing in Information Awards.

The keynote, by Dr. John Halamka, co-chair of the HIT Standards Committee for the National Coordinator for HIT, and CIO of CareGroup and Harvard Medical School, will speak on “Achieving Meaningful Standards for Exchange of Health Information.” This will address which of the meaningful use requirements are expected to be the most challenging and which ones will be the most achievable.

This should be a very packed and informative day. Hope to see you there.

Posted by Davida Dinerman on February 4, 2010 at 9:52 AM
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Who Owns Social Media Within Your Organization?

If your company is starting to use social media, the next question you might ask is “Who should own social media in the organization?” This isn’t straightforward and there are different answers depending on the company and what you’re selling. You might consider each area of your organization to determine how social media can open lines of communication, solve problems, improve efficiencies, reduce costs and/or help to generate more revenue.
 
This assumes that someone must own your social media program, and I agree with that. I don't think an organized, coordinated and valuable social media program can happen organically. There are many people who generate content and foster it along, but like any other large communications effort in an organization, it needs a head of state — someone to set the tone, make the plans and take the plans to the masses.
 
According to the 2009 Digital Readiness Report, PR leads digital communications at 51% of organizations, while Marketing leads 40.5% of the time. The report was produced by iPressroom, Korn/Ferry International and PRSA to help marketing professionals better understand and appreciate how organizations are integrating online communications into their business practices. Over the course of a six-week period during spring 2009, they surveyed 278 public relations, market­ing and human resources professionals to identify trends regarding their approaches to social media.
 
One finding, as noted above, is that PR leads social media in most organizations. This makes sense since most social media activities revolve around communicating with external audiences and producing content. If your social media programs call for audience targeting, message strategy and a regular flow of content and interaction with external audiences, PR is best equipped to deal with these programs.
 
I also think different departments can take ownership of a program or process, particularly if the goal involves direct customer interaction and user forums. For example, the customer support department might use Twitter to respond to common support issues. Facebook is a useful took for the product management department to gather feedback on a beta product or to push out announcements.
 
The legal department should be involved at some level for social media outreach. Some may argue that legal isn’t required but I believe that it is due to the transparent nature of social media, and how it can expose a company. The company should decide on the best ways to use social media from a business perspective, while staying in the confines of legal and HR best practices. For example, are there limitations on what the company and its employees can/cannot say? What if an employee starts sounding off about a client, and the client sues? What if an employee discloses proprietary information? Can we post trademarked or copyrighted material? The company needs to know what to do in those cases, create policies and understand how to enforce the policies.
 
According to the study, the most common areas in which PR leads digital communications are blogging, microblogging and social networking. Each organization knows best which people and departments are most likely to find success leading social media programs, so I think the structure will vary depending on what types of programs you’re going to conduct. On the other hand, if your company has a Twitter handle, you can assign a person or group of people to tweet from that handle. But at the same time, you can also encourage employees to Tweet on their own on behalf of the company and personalize the medium that much more.
 
Another interesting finding was that small to medium-sized enterprises are significantly ahead of larger organizations when it comes to adopting Twitter (64% versus 47%) and social networking (74% adoption versus 38%), but not blogging, which is now squarely in the large organization’s repertoire.
 
Social media is growing in importance as way to communicate to your diverse audiences. How to employ social media varies greatly by company. There is no formula and sometimes it takes some trial and error. However, in order to get into the game, it can’t be an aside or done in your spare time. Rather, you must consider it a core discipline, such as product development and marketing, and be managed by dedicated resources.

 

Posted by Davida Dinerman on February 2, 2010 at 11:36 AM
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