2012 is here! And that can only mean one thing—time for resolutions.

Aside from resolving to become better-looking, healthier, richer and more successful over the next 12 months—while also knocking off a few bucket-list items—January is also a good time to focus on goals for your professional growth.

1. Become more familiar with the latest industry trends. This is a larger task you can’t simply check off a list. It represents continual growth to become better, sharper and more proficient in your role. And with the whirlwind of change taking place in healthcare IT, it’s a definite “must do” no matter what position you hold in your organization. With busy schedules, it’s so easy to get lost in a niche bubble and overlook hot topics that can indirectly affect your business. Take this time this year to read, discuss, ask questions and read some more to gain a deeper understanding of what’s happening around you.

2. Focus on a project that you didn’t have the time for in 2011. Simple enough, right? Looking back over the past year, are there any projects or activities you wish you had taken the time to tackle, but just couldn’t seem to fit in? Make one of those your priority this year.

3. Embrace social media, and set out to accomplish an actionable task from it. Not to sound like a broken record (if you actually know what one of those sounds like!), but social media is transforming the way we interact personally and professionally; the way we get our news; the way we find out about new products, ideas, people; etc. As its uses continue to evolve, make it your mission to evolve with them. Designate 2012 as the year you embrace social media and work toward achieving incremental goals from it. Inspire a journalist to cover a story from a company tweet, set up a meeting with a prospect, make 50 new connections you actually interact with, etc.

4. Take the time to regularly de-clutter your inbox. Seems small, but utterly important. If you have hundreds—or dare I say thousands—of emails lurking in your inbox that you only quickly scan and do nothing with, things can easily get overlooked. Days get busy, but taking the time to organize your email inbox can go a long way. I use flags, folders, categories and the wonderful delete feature for everything, and keep only the emails “in the works” or that need action in my inbox.

5. Expand personal connection networks. Participate in more online groups, social networks and real-life events in the coming year to build your personal and/or professional networks, and individual standing as an industry expert.

6. Rely less on email or texts, and more on phone and in-person interactions. The ease and convenience of typing out your message in a text or email and simply hitting send makes digital the king of communication these days. But I don’t think we should ever discount the importance of actual conversation via phone, Skype or in person. It’s great to put a voice to a name or email signature, a face to a voice—and to just connect with people on more direct level. This is one of the aspects I really enjoy about tradeshows such as HIMSS, AHIMA, MGMA; we get to sit down and see the clients, partners, editors, etc. that we interact with all year long.

These are only a few ideas, but it looks like I’ve got a lot to do, so I better get to it!

Feel free to share any other ideas for business resolutions this year in the comments! We’d love to hear them all.

In the latest installment of our 10^th anniversary blog series, Dodge Communications’ president and CEO is interviewed to discuss Dodge’s history over the past 10 years. To view earlier installments please click here.

Brad Dodge is president and CEO at Dodge Communications. To listen to the interview, click on his picture or view the transcript below.

Question 1: When you started the company 10 years ago, where did you think Dodge would be on its 10^th anniversary?

Brad Dodge: It’s an interesting question because we didn’t really think about that back then. We were tied up in the day-to-day activities because we were starting a new business. There were so many variables, unknowns and challenges in getting started that we didn’t really think about what the future would hold. Instead, we had to think about what each day would hold. We were doing our own client management and writing our own brochures and things, so we didn’t really think that far ahead. Frankly, we didn’t know if it would be possible to grow the company strictly in the healthcare vertical, and it wasn’t until several years later that we said, “Wow, I guess this thing really can be all healthcare.” We started to get some successes and some long-term clients under our belt, and it became clear there was a real need for these services in the B2B healthcare space; it became obvious we’d be able to grow the business that way.

Question 2: How do you think Dodge has helped shape the healthcare industry over the past 10 years?

Brad Dodge: I think we’ve helped B2B vendors really understand how important it is to have clear messages. If you have clear messages and an integrated campaign that moves those messages forward, then that helps you drive awareness and grow your company. Because a lot of our clients have new technologies, they are way ahead of the markets they serve, and it’s not so easy just to say you’re out there in the market. If you’re selling cell phones, you can say you have the coolest new cell phone because it’s got better coverage. People understand that because they already know what a cell phone is and they’re already using one. They’ve probably tried different cell phones, and they understand the value of good coverage. They know whether or not they need that because those things are easy, but when you’re selling technology like our clients are, they are selling things that people don’t know. They can’t say cell phone because their market doesn’t know what a cell phone is.

A lot of times I use a car example: it’s easy for Volvo to sell a car that is safe because people already know what a car is. If they didn’t, then it would be a different kind of challenge of how to communicate that. Helping our technology clients say, “Back up and try to understand that the marketplace doesn’t even know your product exists or that they have a need for your product, never mind why yours is the best.”  You have to approach it from a different messaging perspective, and I think that’s one thing we’ve helped the vendors do.

One other thing is that we’ve really helped and stressed the importance of reinforcing messages through thought leadership. Through blogs, social media and the types of articles and white papers we develop for our clients, we really help them understand that when a prospect goes to a website and sees all kinds of content—relevant content—that’s approached from different angles but always advances the same message, that goes a really long way. I think vendors are finally starting to understand the work we do and that having a strong thought leadership position is a real strong requisite for what they are trying to do.

Question 3: What’s the best piece of advice you could give to a client who is trying to implement and integrated communications campaign?

Brad Dodge: I think the key to that question is the word integrated, and we help our clients understand what communications is in today’s world order—the speed and diversity through which we receive information—is not consumed the same way it was when we started the business 10 years ago. There was barely an Internet, there definitely wasn’t social media and magazines were all the rage.  Today, there are so many venues to get information from, and we help people understand that they need to be engaged in all types of communication venues to get your message out. So, just pick one thing like doing a webinar—there are dozens of ways you can make your market and your followers and your audience and clients aware that’s coming up. The more types of communications vehicles you use to promote an event, the better results you’re going to get from your investment in PR and marketing.

Question 4: What are your goals for the next 10 years for Dodge?

Brad Dodge: I think we know now that the business is well-established—we have 30 employees now—and we understand what the opportunity is. We understand where we can get better, where our strengths are and how we can distinguish ourselves from competition. We have a plan that says there is going to be a great need for our types of services in the B2B healthcare industry for a long time. That’s because of all the visibility that healthcare has at the federal and global level. There will be a lot of need for what we’re doing.

The business model has been proven and now our challenge is to execute it.  We have a 10 year business plan in place that has us growing to a certain size, and we just want to continue to build on the success we have and continue to grow the way we’re growing now. We realize we are going to have to go into some adjunct markets such as a bigger expansion into medical devices or medical providers or general technology. We know there’s an opportunity for a lot of growth, and we need to approach it systematically with the best practices we have developed so far.

Question 5: What are some of the most memorable moments of Dodge’s history?

Brad Dodge: You know, I think it’s every time we have some sort of a milestone. Just having moved into this office space that we’re in now was a pretty momentous occasion. It caused us to reflect for the past years we were in the other office location and what it was like when we moved in there. It also helps us look forward as to what it will be once we settle into this space. That’s kind of one of the times that you look at it—every time you move your office.

It’s also interesting to look at the employee list from awhile ago. I’m so fortunate to have a really awesome group of people who work in the company because it’s not an easy business to be in. Healthcare and technology are pretty heady business, and for someone to thrive in an environment where they have to have an understanding in healthcare and technology and a domain expertise in integrated communications as well as the fortitude to manage multiple brands at the same time—which is the definition of an agency—really requires a different breed and a stellar person. That’s what we’ve built over the years—employees who have those skill sets. It’s really awesome to work with people who are so competent and capable, and I look back and say, “Wow, the days before we had this employee or the days before we had that employee,” are the momentous times. I think about having first started a relationship with those employees and now they are really part of the fabric of the organization.

There’s also been a lot of trips—the standard conferences like HIMSS, MGMA and AMGA—where we connect with hundreds of people we’ve worked with as clients, vendors, editors or ad reps. It’s so much fun to do an event like that and connect with all types of people. It’s one of the things I look forward to all of the time—going to events and seeing people I haven’t seen in over a year and seeing them face-to-face to have some good social time together and really reconnect.

I think there are a lot of momentous times that I remember at the agency, but they are usually celebrating the people or the milestones, and that’s what make it a momentous event.

I just returned to my office in Atlanta after spending some time this week in sunny Orlando for the Annual HIMSS Conference. Ok, I was on the show floor inside the Orange County Convention Center for eight hours, but the weather outside was absolutely perfect!

While sitting in meetings with clients, ad reps and editors from Healthcare IT News, Health Data Management and Healthcare Purchasing News, I learned that this year’s HIMSS conference was the biggest to date with the number of attendees roughly at 31,000. It was my first HIMSS. Not my first tradeshow by any means, as I’ve worked many tech/telecom focused shows over the years, but this was HUGE.

As I walked for what seemed like miles across the trade show floor, I wondered, if I was a company exhibiting here, how could I attract people to visit my booth? Especially if my booth isn’t a 2-story mansion with video walls from floor to ceiling flashing my company’s name, taking up 3 rows of real estate on the floor. And how do I keep people’s attention long enough to learn what it is my company is trying to promote? After all, tradeshows are all about enhancing brand awareness, increasing sales leads and expanding your customer base, right?

When pulling together your tradeshow marketing plan, plan it out in three integrated communications stages: pre-show, during-show and post-show.

Pre-show

Get the word out to your customers and prospects that you’ll be exhibiting. Use a direct mail and email campaign promoting what your company is going to be announcing during the show. Promote some kind of giveaway you’ll have at the booth (such as a chance to win an Apple® iPad®) to entice customers to fill out a registration form and have to physically bring it to the booth.

During the show

Develop a strategy that makes your organization’s booth stand out from the others. This is probably the most important stage as you have the opportunity to directly reach thousands of people per day. Remember, many people did not receive your pre-show information.

If you can get just a few people to gather round, the small crowd will naturally attract more people until you’ve got a decent audience. Once the people are in your booth, it’s up to you to deliver the message and capture their information for lead generation!

Live entertainment, interactive activities, audio/visual presentations and friendly, knowledgeable staff are all very effective ways to help attract foot traffic to your booth.

Here are a couple of booths I noticed at HIMSS that seemed to successfully generate traffic.

NextGen – Splash Artists
This was very cool. “Splash” artists created sports themed paintings throughout the day. Two artists worked on the same painting together, dancing to music and ‘splashing’ the canvas with paint. The neat thing is that they would paint the picture upside down and at the end spin it upright to reveal the finished painting. While the artists did their thing, a gentleman talked to the audience comparing the two artists working together to how the company’s solutions work together.

A member of the audience could win one of the final paintings – but only if they stayed for a NextGen product demonstration. Making people stay for a demo before they can enter to win a prize is an excellent way to capture leads. It can help weed out the serious leads from the people who just want something for free.

This particular booth attraction created quite a buzz. I heard several groups of people talk about this throughout the conference center.

OnBase – Sports Bar & Grill
This was one of my favorites. Perhaps it’s because I’m a huge baseball/sports fan. Or maybe because I also enjoy the frequent pub from time to time. Anyway, the two coupled together caught my eye. They literally had a full bar (and a good sized bar at that) in the middle of their booth with plenty of bar stools. Every time I walked by, people were going in and pulling up a chair. I can’t blame them – you’re feet get really sore walking this trade show floor.

While seated, company representatives would come up and chat with you about their solutions. People didn’t seem to mind the quick elevator pitch as long as they were bellied up to the bar and off their feet.

Overall, it was simple, not very flashy, but extremely effective as there was a continuous steady flow of traffic. A steady flow of traffic equals a steady flow of leads. I later found out that OnBase has used this booth set up for quite some time now. I guess ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’

Other booth attractions I saw that were successful at drawing crowds:

• the gymnasts from Cirque Du Soleil – if you’ve seen a Cirque show, you know how amazing these performers are
• a wall of arcade games – definitely eye catching; who doesn’t want to take a timeout to play free video games
• an electric vehicle from Tesla motors – the newest and coolest, electric sports car – you do not expect to see a car on the show floor at HIMSS
• a flash mob dancing to hip-hop – I don’t think we’ll see them on Dancing with the Stars anytime soon but it sure did create quite a buzz – and many puzzled looks
• and of course magicians – about as sure of a thing you can hire; people are fascinated by magicians – very interactive with the audience

After-show

Follow up with your leads within two weeks of the tradeshow ending. An email including highlights from your company’s success during the show (along with some product/service brochures if requested) is a great way to continue the conversation you had with a prospect. For solid leads, don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and call them, thanking them for stopping by.

What has your organization done to attract people to the booth during a tradeshow? What was your favorite booth this year at HIMSS? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

One of the most challenging elements of marketing communications is that it can be VERY subjective. When vendors are considering their investment to exhibit at a conference like HIMSS11, how important is it to have a brand new booth? Sure, it’s cool, but also expensive. Does the incremental investment bring in a commensurate number of leads into the booth? And how on earth do you measure that? How about a question like, “Thanks for coming into our booth. Would you have come by if our booth was 20% less cool? 40% less cool?” Didn’t think so.

So, no disrespect intended, let us acknowledge our best and worst of HIMSS awards. Don’t forget, there were more than 1,000 exhibitors, so if you think you were the worst in a category that we awarded to someone else, it’s probably because we didn’t see you. Which is for another conversation altogether on visibility.

WORST IMAGERY: The see-through head with colored veins running down to the spine at Cattails Software. Turns out that the entire brand identity is centered on the see-through head. Maybe it appeals to physicians. Not us.

MOST SURPRISINGLY NICE THEATER AREA: CDW. Very engaging, close to the aisle, nice little talk-show-interview area off to the side and very clean presentation technology.

WORST SIGNAGE: Merge Healthcare. A whole backdrop of patents that the company holds, we guess. They were too small to read, but big enough to look like we were supposed to be able to read them. If we hadn’t asked the guy what they were, we’d have never known. Lost opportunity.

MOST OBVIOUS CASE OF LITTLE-BOOTH-IN-A-BIG-SPACE: Healthwise. Refer back to our comments in the opening paragraph. Our opinion: if you’re going to the black tie event, you gotta spring for the tux.

MOST OVERUSED BRIBERY TOOL: The Apple® iPAD®. We lost count of how many vendors had stacks of them that they’d give/raffle to attendees who’d listen to the pitch. And don’t get us started talking about the misuse of the trademark.

WORST FASHION STATEMENT: As in the shortest skirt. As in who thought that was a good idea? We saw her at the ACS booth. We thought that booth babes had toned it down? Maybe their parent Xerox forced them into it.

WORST FLOOR PLAN FAUX-PAS: HIMSS interoperability showcase was WAYYY at the end of the hall, and it was a really cool exhibit. If you went a little bit past it, you’d be at Cape Canaveral. We think it should be the absolute center of the show floor.

HONORABLE MENTION FOR LONGEST USE OF THE TRUSS BOOTH: We’re sure there were OLDER booths in the hall, but nothing says 1990 like a booth built using trusses. We guess they’re still paying off the loan. Award goes to  ESRI. At least the booth staff wasn’t wearing leg warmers.

MOST OVERUSED ICON: The world. As in global healthcare. Get it? ESRI wins it again. Mainly because we didn’t write down the others.

MOST BLATANT DISREGARD FOR TRADEMARKS: This list is entirely too long to publish. For a taste, go here. What was so surprising is that every one of these companies would go ballistic is their own IP or trademarks were compromised similarly.

BEST GIVEAWAY THAT THE DODGE TEAM WANTED TO WIN: The waverunner at the SCC booth. We’re looking up SCC on Google, and once again are stumped by the acronym that’s shared by a zillion other organizations. Is it Spokane Community College? (first result) Scottsdale Community College? (second result) Seminole State College? (third result, and it’s not even an SCC!) Did you already see our opinions on the strength of acronyms in healthcare brands? So, we had to go to the HIMSS pocket guide to figure out who the winner is. SCC is SCC Soft Computer.

FRESHEST GRAPHICS: IBM. We know it’s a challenge to have noticeable graphics at a behemoth conference like HIMSS. We think IBM did a nice job. Colorful. Different. Link to healthcare.

BEST NOT-FEELING-THE-THEME: Epic. The stacked stone, jewel tones, solid-walled booth is obviously very expensive to build, ship and store. We felt like we were in the past. Does anyone care?

BEST NEW BOOTH DESIGN: We have to say that we liked the way that the long, narrow Moss headers were used in a number of new booths to pull the exhibits together without cramping the space. Allscripts and Ingenix both did a nice job at this.

All in all, we were thrilled to have a dozen of our employees at HIMSS11 meeting with clients, editors and others. We thought it was a great show and look forward to 2012 in Las Vegas.

Here are five unique ways that the Apple® iPad® trademark is being displayed at HIMSS11. Which company did their homework and got it right?

Allscripts:

Emdeon:

Scale Computing:

BMJ Group:

TeleTracking:

Quality 101: Quality 101 is a new site developed by the HIMSS Patient Safety & Quality Outcomes Committee to help healthcare vendors and providers understand the details of quality measurement and improvement as it relates to EHRs and meaningful use incentives. The site is divided into several sections, such as The Basics, Key Industry Players and Public Reporting, and it serves as an aggregator, providing updated information and data from several resources. New phases of the site will be rolled out each quarter.

Past Words of the Week
MedlinePlus, HITSphere, URL X-ray, Mashup, Blog Talk Radio, TweetedRanks, Ping.fm, Digsby, Qik, Posterous, Ning, API, Lifecasting, Crowdsourcing, Meme, Social bookmarking, Trackback, Twitter Grader, Authority, TweetBeep, Compete, Astroturfing, WEGO Health, BackTweets, PDR.net, socialmention, Twazzup, Health Exchange, Health Tweeder, DIDGET, Thoora, Google Buzz, bit.ly, E-patient, Alltop, mHealth, Augmented reality, OpenID, ROI, #hcsm, Medpedia, Almost.at, Hashtag, FollowFriday, Beta, Microblogging, Sidewiki, Meta tags

The Fifth Annual National Health IT Week is being held June 14 -18, 2010 in Washington, DC. Join us for this collaborative forum where public and private healthcare constituents will work in partnership to educate industry and policy stakeholders on the value of health IT for the US healthcare system. Now, with the enactment of economic stimulus and healthcare reform legislation, there is no better time for the health IT community to come together under one umbrella to raise national awareness!

Planning to attend HIMSS10 in Atlanta, March 1–4? If you’re new to the area, check out the Dodge Communications Guide to Atlanta’s Best installments on the Healthcare IT News Destination HIMSS10 blog. Current posts include suggestions for tourist attractions to visit in your pre- or post-conference free time, and a guide to where you can score some authentic Southern food between conference sessions (and you gotta eat, whether or not you get that free time). Stay tuned for future posts exploring other opportunities for fun—and food—that the city has to offer. And welcome to our hometown!

Looking to get more out of Twitter? Avid users and newcomers alike can easily expand their industry knowledge, stay on top of the latest trends and monitor best practices − all by following the right mix of associations, pundits and experts. Here’s a brief guide to get you started:

1. Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (@HIMSS). Few PR and marketing professionals in the health IT field aren’t affected by the current dialogue surrounding EMRs, interoperability and the related technologies. HIMSS provides valuable updates on industry events, healthcare reform and a multitude of other topics.
2. Medical Group Management Association (@mgma). If physician practices are part of your target market, this is an excellent resource for staying on top of those issues that impact physicians from a clinical, administrative and financial perspective.
3. Healthcare Financial Management Association (@hfmaorg). By following HFMA, you’ll learn how financial trends are affecting healthcare organizations. You’ll also receive results of recent studies and valuable statistics.
4. Bulldog Reporter (@BulldogReporter). While not specific to healthcare, this is a great resource for B2B PR professionals looking for news and insights to better hone their strategies for generating positive media exposure.
5. Public Relations Society of America (@prsa). As the world’s largest PR organization, PRSA offers tips on educational tools, like webinars and publications, as well as news on issues affecting those working in the field.
6. PRSourceCode (@PRSourceCode). Geared specifically toward PR professionals within the IT industry, this resource provides ways to grow your PR savvy, from Webinars to interviews with editors and industry influencers.
7. HISTalk (@IngaHISTalk). This well-read blog covers a wide range of news and opinion related to the healthcare IT industry and is a great way to hear the perspective of those professionals working in the trenches.
8. iHealthBeat (@iHealthBeat). Compiled by the California Health Care Foundation, this free newsletter combines recent headlines from a variety of news media, including healthcare trades, magazines and daily newspapers. With so much content being written about healthcare IT, it’s a simple way to scan the headlines and make sure you’re not missing something specific your unique interests.
9. The New York Times Prescriptions Blog (@NYTPrescription). Monitoring the constant activity surrounding the proposed healthcare reform is no easy task. This blog from The New York Times is a great all-in-one-source for the latest on current proposals, what they mean for various stakeholders and what the experts have to say about it.
10. AP Style Book (@APStylebook). Keeping up on the latest style rules is much simpler when you follow the AP Style Book. You can even ask the editor a question and receive a response to a specific style question.

Any others you’d add to the list? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Twitter has been all the buzz for the past few months, but many people still have misconceptions about this social media tool from who is using it to how it can be used. Following, we’ve decoded some of the most prevalent Twitter myths in the healthcare industry.

1. Nobody in healthcare uses it.
   To the contrary. I think everyone has seen the story of how hospitals are utilizing Twitter during surgery to connect with potential patients, share information with other practitioners and improve the educational value to residents. This other article discusses how physicians and hospitals are using the social media tool in public health emergencies, like swine flu, to disseminate information to various audiences.

 

2. Twitter is just for celebrities who want more media attention and people who feel the need for their friends to follow their day-to-day activities, from what they ate to the most recent gym workout.
   Not quite. Although Twitter does hold value for these audiences, it also is a good tool for healthcare companies to connect with their customer base, listen to what’s going on in the HIT industry, keep track of competitors and improve search engine visibility, etc. This article provides some insight into the importance of using Twitter as a business and the value it can bring to your company.

 

3. You have to be a major corporation to be on Twitter and gain followers.
   Nope. Associations like HIMSS with 2,885 followers and MGMA with 673 followers use Twitter as do other small and large HIT companies, such as NextGen. In other industries, mom-and-pop companies have revolutionized their businesses through Twitter as shown in this New York Times article.

 

4. Tweeting is just a black hole for companies to waste time doing unproductive stuff.
   In fact, many companies are creating a two-way dialog with target audiences, others are strengthening company loyalty and some are just listening and learning by following competitors, editors and associations. And Gartner released a report earlier in the year further highlighting a few of the different ways companies are using Twitter.

 

5. Healthcare editors and trades don’t cover Twitter or even use it.
   Definitively false. In June, American Medical News published an article on Twitter and whether or not physicians should be using it. Editors from numerous HIT trades use Twitter to highlight what they’re currently writing about, seek potential sources, post blogs they’ve written and promote their interests. It’s a great way to connect with editors and find out more about what types of stories they’re looking for to ensure you’re targeting the right person with story pitches. By posting thought leader commentary and links on your Twitter page as well as providing editors with the information they need, you may gain a few editors as followers and become a go-to source for information on particular topics.

Now that the myths are decoded, perhaps you’re wondering how to get started. This 101 guide will walk you through the process and you’ll be tweeting or just listening in no time.