A Hatchet Job on Health Care Advocates

The American Journal of Public Health published yesterday an article examining the relationships between health advocacy organizations and the pharmaceutical industry. The following is my response to the author:

I am writing to express my complete and utter disappointment with your article “Efforts to Undermine Public Health” which examines the relationships between health advocacy organizations and the pharmaceutical industry. I’ve worked with many non-profit health organizations over the last twenty years – several of whom are named in your article – and take great exception to your characterization of their relationships with pharmaceutical companies.

Given the nature and scope of our health care system, it is inevitable that health advocacy organizations and pharmaceutical companies have overlapping and shared interests. That a company would choose to fund initiatives in alignment with their business interests is also inevitable, and not surprising; would you expect Halliburton or General Motors to fund a cardiac health awareness campaign? And while I agree that disclosure of these relationships is beneficial, their mere presence does not constitute de facto “conflict of interest” or “biases” as your article strongly implies.

In the 1990s I served as the National Director of Advocacy for the American Diabetes Association. At the time, insurance companies routinely denied patients coverage for necessary diabetes supplies – insulin, meters, testing strips and syringes. To address this problem, the Association launched a nationwide advocacy campaign to enact laws to require coverage for these items. This campaign was supported, in small part, through the sponsorship and technical support of Eli Lilly and other companies.

As a result of our efforts, nearly 40 states enacted laws requiring coverage of these items; Congress also enacted a law that required Medicare to improve its coverage for these medical supplies. Did our corporate partners benefit from the enactment of these laws? Most assuredly. But the real winners in this campaign were the millions of Americans affected by diabetes who, prior to the laws enactment, were unable to obtain these necessary medical supplies and effectively manage their condition.

This was made clear to me one morning during a summer vacation in Maine. Seated at a small town lunch counter, a woman overheard my conversation and approached me. “Were you involved with the diabetes campaign here in Maine?” she asked. I responded yes and she said that for the first time, her elderly father could now obtain the test strips and insulin he needed to effectively manage his type 2 diabetes. “Thank you,” she said, almost in tears. “You have no idea how much this has changed our lives.”

That conversation took place more than a dozen years ago, but I still remember it vividly. It reinforced to me why we launched our campaign, and the positive impact we could have on people’s lives. That is what health advocacy organizations do, on a daily basis. Your article not only discredits that honorable work, but demonstrates a stunning lack of understanding about their missions, the who work there, their millions of committed volunteers and the needs of the people they represent.

From the Vault: 2005 Media Coverage

I was searching for an old file the other day and came across this video.  It shows the media coverage generated by the Vision Council of America in 2005. As the organization’s Vice President of Strategic Communications, I was responsible for generating media coverage on eye health, eyewear fashion and our political advocacy. In retrospect, I think a valuation of $7 million is far too low for the amount of coverage we generated.

Here’s Why No One Visits Your Facebook Page

I have a great friend who is super smart.

Her name is Jacquelyn Kittredge and she trains organizations on how to optimize their Facebook strategy and create awareness. In her post, The 5 Biggest Facebook Page Mistakes, she discusses something you may not know:

“Facebook uses an algorithm to determine what appears in each individual’s news stream. If you fail to interact with your fans, you will literally disappear from their news stream.”

This is why when I went to speak with one nonprofit today, the director was clearly discouraged. He said because a staff member had gone on leave, no one had had time to manage their social media.  As a result, the organization had not posted to their blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed for 60 days. As a result their website  traffic was down, their call-center volume was down and they could not understand why their recent advocacy efforts with greeted with a “ho hum” response.

Now they know.

When Will the Left Stop Whining about the Tea Party?

I read yet another left-leaning article today whining about the Tea Party and their organizational practices.

Written by Stephanie Mencimer and published in Mother Jones, the article aims to discredit the Tea Party by comparing their organizational practices to the Herbalife weight-loss company.

What do they have in common? Both organizations hold massive rallies, distribute yard signs and flyers, they constantly recruit new members, and have a decentralized leadership structure that empowers individuals.

Duh!!!  That’s exactly what an effective grassroots organization should be doing!

All of these tactics are essential in the development of an effective grassroots movement. If the left would simply emulate these strategies, rather than engage in these kinds of meaningless attacks, there would perhaps be a vibrant grassroots movement on both sides of the political debate.

The Shortcomings of Social Media

Social media is a great tool for spreading information. But as I’ve written before, there are many other tools for reaching people and getting them to act.  And some are much better than social media.

Malcolm Gladwell explores this theme to great effect in the most recent issue of The New Yorker.  Social media is great at mobilizing people to take very small, sometimes seemingly inconsequential actions (e.g. joining a Facebook group, forwarding a video to a friend), Gladwell writes.

But where it falls flat, he notes, is getting people to engage in “high-impact” activism, like desegregating lunch counters or donating money to Darfur and other worthy causes.  That’s because engagement in these kinds of activities requires a close personal connection to the issue.

Social media reduces the barriers between individuals, but doesn’t eliminate them. That’s why, if you are asking people to engage in “high impact” activities, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are probably not the most effective tools to use.

Political campaigns have learned this lesson.  Yes, they use social media.  They use it to stay top of mind and inform their constituency.  And for this it works great, as we saw in the Obama Campaign. But their “bread and butter” tactics are very personal: phone banks, knocking on doors and shaking hands at events.  Even though politicians are reviled, Americans donate billions to their campaigns and turn out by the tens of millions to vote each year.

Unfortunately, recruiting and organizing volunteers for phone banks and literature distribution is really hard work, often requiring a combination of tools. Social media is just one of these tools. Used in conjunction with other forms of outreach it can be outstanding. Used exclusively or without careful coordination of your other messaging, it will not yield the expected results.

Leadership: We Need it from Teachers

I am really tired of education bloggers like Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post.

She rants on and on about the “failed” policies of the President, rather than crediting this administration for its laser-like focus on reform.

Never before has so much media attention been paid to education innovation, research, data and teacher quality and I credit “Race to the Top,” Bill Gates, and the Obama Administration.

But clearly, Valerie Strauss and I don’t agree.

In her most recent article bashing the new movie Waiting for Superman, Strauss spurns teacher evaluation and accountability, as if they have nothing to do with student achievement. And yet data shows us that student success is tied directly to the quality of the teacher in the classroom.

If she would deign to look at any of the research out of The New Teacher Project, or The Education Trust, she would see  this.  If she were to look further, she would see that these organizations, and innovative schools around the country, are working with teachers on how to be more effective in the classroom, in order to differentiate and meet student needs.

Download Our Great Grassroots Fundraising Idea!

We’ve come up with a great grassroots fundraising idea called Let’s Change ________! Click here for the download.

Here’s the concept:  Mobilize supporters to collect (and return to you) “spare change” from friends, coworkers and neighbors.

By filling in the blank with your name, you can custom-brand the campaign.  For example, if you’re collecting money for epilepsy, call it the Let’s Change Epilepsy! campaign. The possibilities are endless.

Does it work?  A few months ago I saw a woman dumping canvas bags of change into a bank coin counter.  She’d collected more than $1,200 this way to support the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Why Good Christians Make Great Advocates

Last January, I wrote an article about Christianity as an example of an effective grassroots movement.  But I recently made another connection between Christian history, evangelism and  grassroots advocacy.

Over the last thirty years, born-again and fundamentalist Christians have become far more visible and active in the nation’s political discourse.  As a result, they often wield political power that is disproportionate to their numbers.

What makes Christians more effective?  I think it’s because “Spreading the Word” is a central tenant of the Christian faith (Mark 16:15), so grassroots advocacy just seems to come more naturally.

Face it, getting someone to talk about your “pet cause” is hard work.  When Mimi ran for office, we had a terrible time recruiting phone bank volunteers.  It stands to reason that any group with a large number of Christians would have an easier time recruiting volunteers to than others.

Malcolm Gladwell writes in The Tipping Point that small things can make a big difference.  Maybe the answer is to finding the born-again and fundamentalist Christians among your members and mobilizing them to take action.

Opinion Leaders: Past, Present and Future

Last week in class, we discussed a number of historical grassroots movements.  From Christianity, and its call to “spread The Word” to the Tea Party, we examined their similarities but also how methods of communication have changed over the last 2,000 years.

So imagine my surprise when a friend forwarded an article by Carl Elliott from recent edition of The Chronicle for Higher Education on the evolution of “Thought Leaders.”  I was surprised to learn that developing “opinion leaders” as a  marketing strategy dates back to 1955 and the publication of Personal Influence by Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz.

At its core, the effort to develop opinion leaders was an attempt to facilitate face-to-face conversations (the “opinion”) about a particular product or service from a highly credible source (the “leader”).  “It is not hard to see why marketers liked this idea,” Elliott writes. “Mass-media advertising can be expensive. What if there were a way to avoid the masses and simply concentrate on the special people.”

Today opinion leaders are still a crucial part of pharmaceutical industry marketing practices (and no doubt countless other industries).  But as we discussed in class on Tuesday, the communications landscape has changed markedly since the publication of Personal Influence in 1955.  And so has the role of the opinion leader.

Today, nearly everyone is an opinion leader, or has the potential to be one.  Because we are so completely inundated with marketing messages (at least 3,000 per day by most estimates), savvy marketing and communication professionals are working to generate face-to-face conversations between their members/supporters/customers and their neighbors, friends, and business colleagues.

Not only do these conversations cut through the clutter, they are far more credible than traditional forms of mass media.  What would influence you to try a new restaurant? A newspaper ad or a personal recommendation from a friend?  And as in 1955, generating those personal conversations is far less expensive than a flashy and eg0-boosting media campaign.

As we wrapped up our conversation in class, we agreed that the future of communications remains largely unknowable (implantable chips that deliver messages into our conscience, one person suggested).  But it seems clear that with the ever-increasing decentralization of media and communications, the power of those “ordinary opinion leaders” will likely continue to grow.

Illustration by Michael Morgenstern for The Chronicle Review

5 Fast Ways to Make Facebook Work for You

If you aren’t careful, you can spend a lot of time on Facebook and accomplish very little.  You begin with the best of intentions, and before you know it you’re on your cousin’s page, clicking through to her new boyfriend’s profile, and reading about their  weekend activities.

Stop. If you’re on the clock, limit your FB time to strategically marketing yourself and your work.  Meandering aimlessly is a waste of valuable time.  Instead, by focusing on the five things below, you will be doing something good for yourself, your company and your FB friends.

1. Post Something Helpful – I like to post on education since that’s related to my client work and the school board.  But I also post things that are relevant for my friends. For example, I recently posted about a new documentary film for which I am planning a group viewing.  Once it’s organized, I will add it to my FB “Events” tab.

2. Ask for Input and Feedback – I was monitoring blogs for a client and asked my FB friends “What are the best economic blogs?” I received at least ten really good responses and the client was impressed with the list I developed. So not only did I get the information I needed, I was able to tell people what I am working on.

3. Be Interesting – Share what you’re doing each day, and with whom you are talking.  For example, “Analyzing social media for the Epilepsy Foundation and meeting with @Joseph LaMountain.”  Tagging your FB friends in your status update (with an @), places your post on their wall, doubling your exposure by sharing it with their friends.  Now twice as many people know what you do.

4.  It’s Someone’s Birthday – Check your birthdays list every day and give everyone a HBTY on their wall. This is just a great way to make their day and is quick and easy and keeps you top of mind.

5. Reply to Your Friends Posts – What are your FB friends talking about or commenting on?  If it’s related to your line of work, or even if it’s not, add your two cents to the mix.  Again, this is super fast, keeps you top of mind, exposes you to other people, and lets them know what you’re interested in and what you do.

Lately I’ve been reading two good books about Facebook and social media.  One is The Zen of Social Media Marketing by Shama Hyder Kabani and the other is Facebook Marketing: Designing Your Next Marketing Campaign by Justin R. Levy. Both of these are excellent and I cannot recommend them highly enough if Facebook is part of your marketing and communications plan.