We are so cultured

This morning I read an interesting blog post from the New York Times about what makes a hospital great. Given that we work a great deal in health care, I was particularly interested in understanding what helps build a good reputation in the health care industry. What I learned was not only surprising, but also applicable to industries across the board.

So, what makes a great hospital?

According to Pauline W. Chen, M.D., who authored the post, one of the biggest factors is organizational culture. Dr. Chen points to a study that was released earlier this week that revealed a link between positive patient outcomes and investment in the culture of the organization itself. The results of the report show that high performing hospitals had clear organization values and goals as well as high levels of involvement of senior management, communication and coordination among groups.

As I was learning about the large role that culture plays in building a good reputation, it dawned on me that the concept likely reaches far beyond hospitals into a number of other industries (including communications and public relations).

Office culture isn’t something we take lightly here at SE2. It’s something that we (dare I say, smartly) invest time and energy into building and take great pride in. And I believe that the investment pays off, just as it does for hospitals.

When SE2 staffers were polled about our office culture, responses ran the gamut from, “sad” and “hungry – literally and figuratively,” to “that question makes me uncomfortable.” That just goes to show what a sarcastic, hilarious and downright brilliant bunch we have working at SE2.

In all honesty, SE2 has built an organization that values teamwork and balances old fashioned hard work with fun. The culture at SE2 breeds an office full of creativity, innovative storytelling and problem solving, which comes through in all our work.

What about your company’s culture makes it successful?

Start thinking like a television network

Everyone wants to know what the secret sauce is for building an awesome online presence. The secret sauce is this: start thinking like a television network.

Think of everything you do online – email marketing, social media, website, online advertising, etc. – as your own little television network. Why? Because people want to go to your online platforms for the same reason they go to TV channels: education and entertainment.

Imagine this… suppose you were running your own network and you had the choice to either run the same television show in a loop for three months (option one) or run different shows every hour (option two), which would you choose? The answer seems obvious, right? But why?

It’s obvious because you know that if you chose option one you’d be in serious trouble. Eventually everyone is going to tune out, and once they find a new network they’re not coming back.

Of course, you’d pick the second option because you know deep down inside (or perhaps it’s just obvious) that it’s the content that keeps people engaged.

But why then, if the importance of creating lots of content that engages and entertains the audience is obvious, do organizations overlook that? Why do they put so much effort into establishing a presence on many platforms and never produce content that’s worth paying attention to? Why do they make such little effort to generate content?

Many will blame it on one thing – time – but let me ask you this: If the president of ABC came onscreen and told you, “I’m sorry but we’re really just too busy right now to show you something new, so instead we’re going to replay the 2011 Oscars in a loop for the next month… please bear with us until we find some more time,” what would you do? Answer: [CHANNEL CLICKS] “Time for NBC!”

And, if this isn’t good enough reason, I can literally think of a dozen more:

1. Good content leads to great audience engagement.
2. Good content helps people market your organization for you.
3. Good content isn’t as hard to create as you might think.
4. Good content helps an organization’s search engine rankings.
5. Good content helps to demonstrate that your organization is a thought leader.
6. Good content leads to additional media coverage.
7. Great content inspires people to take action.
8. Great content makes people want to learn more.
9. Great content energizes your audience.
10. Great content isn’t hard to create. (Did I already say that?)
11. Amazing content tells a story that brings your organization to life.
12. Amazing content isn’t that hard to create (…you get the point).
    

It’s not an option to ignore content.

You would also be mistaken in thinking you just need to be slightly more entertaining than the competitor network. Remember, there are other networks out there that want your audience’s attention. Not only do you need to produce good content, but you need to produce content that rivals every other “network” out there.

Listen, I am asking begging pleading for you to entertain me. So is your audience. We want to hear what you have to say but you have to start talking, sharing and creating. We’re giving you another chance. I’ve even promised you something in return (see #1-#12 above).

So here is the takeaway: Content creation isn’t optional.

Now where is that remote?

Trend alert: The Internet is here to stay

That’s right folks. It looks like this whole internet thing is finally catching on.

A few weeks ago I made a presentation to the Pikes Peak chapter of the Public Relations Society of America about engaging audiences online. The group that attended my presentation was a savvy bunch representing some great and important causes.

Here are a few quick highlights from our conversation that day. You can click through the full presentation below for more.

• Message is still everything. Just because the internet opens up new frontiers for audience engagement doesn’t mean you can skip out on the fundamentals of public persuasion.

• Determine who your online audiences are and incorporate them into your communications planning. There’s a good chance that in addition to opening up new ways for you to communicate with existing audiences, the advent of online communication also means that you can communicate with audiences that you didn’t have access to before.

• Perhaps the best thing about online engagement is the ability to measure success. Newspapers have been around for centuries so we have a sophisticated and trusted way of measuring the success of traditional PR—counting impressions, assigning dollar values to earned media placements, etc. While social media has only exploded this decade, the analytics tools that are available today are the just tip of the iceberg when it comes to measurement.

Tools for Online Engagement: Pikes Peak PRSA

The Impact Report

When I first walked in the door at SE2 in January, I was introduced to one of my first clients, the Denver Preschool Program (DPP). At the time, they were in the middle of finalizing their 2010 Annual Report and sending it out to their supporters. In the course of talking with DPP and gaining a better understanding for what they were looking for in the Annual Report design, we quickly realized we had a bit of a challenge on our hands.

The Denver Preschool Program provides quality early childhood education to all Denver kids through tuition credits and quality improvement grants for preschool provider. DPP is a very human, emotional program that deals with young children, yet the Annual Report was very numbers-driven.

How do we design a report that reflects of DPP’s primary mission, while at the same time shows the responsible use of tax-payer money?

We worked with our Interim Creative Director Joel Hill to come up with something that achieved all our objectives. He created a young and fun report that reflects the nature of the Denver Preschool Program but also looks professional and displays all the numbers and figures necessary to show its success.

Joel also did a great job of incorporating the DPP logo (below) throughout the document to tie the Annual Report to the DPP “look” reflected in its letterhead and logo.

Take a look at DPP’s 2010 Annual Report.

Health Care or Health Scare?

Laura Giocomo and I just turned a presentation we made to the Colorado Healthcare Communicators called "Health care or health scare?" into a guest column for the Health Policy Solutions website. In it, we address public opinions on federal health care reform, including widespread misconceptions about what elements the new law actually contains.

While our piece was intended to point out that there are opportunities for health-related organizations to better inform the public, it certainly begged the question of who or what is responsible for the current level of confusion.

Denver Post Staff Writer Michael Booth, who has extensively covered this issue, commented, "The print media and some responsible broadcast outlets, including public radio, have dedicated deep resources to covering federal and state health care reform, in neutral, fact-based fashion. There are some legitimate cases where you can blame media inattention for public ignorance – in the case of health care reform, it’s much more accurate to blame public ignorance on either public inattention, or attention to willfully irresponsible media such as Fox News."

That's certainly a valid perspective and highlights an ongoing challenge: Informing the public requires not only producing quality content but finding to ways to encourage the public consume it. There have been some creative efforts to make this dry subject somewhat more digestable but, as the polling we highlighted demonstrates, they appear to have had limited impact so far.