Wishing I was at #HITMC (Pssst: Hey buddy, wanna buy some workflow?)

I wish I was at the Health IT Marketing and PR Conference (the first of its kind marketing & PR event focused solely on healthcare B2B marketing and PR) today and tomorrow. But unfortunately I am at the beach on the other side of the continent! I’ll monitor the #HITMC hashtag while I’m out and about on the beach. I may even see if I can watch the live video feed via Google Glass!

81 degrees temperature here in Fort Lauderdale

— Charles Webster, MD ()

Also, I’m monitoring the #HITMC looking for any mention of workflow. Hint, please mention it! I’ll be sure to reply to it and retweet it. In fact, the probability I will is 0.9654! Apparently I’m getting a reputation for being monomaniacally obsessed with workflow.

Of course, and anyone who knows you Charles will know 96.54% of your tweets are about workflow. We all tend to specialize.

— Steve Sisko ()

Since you may have landed on this page due to #HITCM, I would like to point you to a post I wrote a few years ago titled Walking the Fine Line between Marketing and Education. Here are the relevant paragraphs…

For years I’ve occasionally given a stock presentation with the title “Walking the Fine Line between Education and Marketing.” Its genesis was in the very first two presentations I gave at a trade conference. After the first presentation, the survey comments came back “Too commercial!” and “Infomercial!” I retooled and the comments came back “Excellent!” and “Very educational!” but also “Didn’t tell me where I could find a product with the described characteristics.” I began to wonder about the fine line between marketing and education.

Above is one of the slides (based on Monroe’s much cited Motivation Sequence) from the resulting presentation. The column on the right is my application of Monroe’s motivational sequence to selling an idea, not a product.

In the presentation I define a number of terms–selling, advertising, marketing, editorializing, informing, and educating–along a spectrum of benefit to the vendor versus benefit to the audience, and point out that there are many areas of overlap. In order to educate one has to persuade; in order to sell one has to educate, etc. The trick is to find a presentation that maximizes benefit for *both* the audience and a presenter.

(I told you this was an old post!)

This is a version of the disclosure slide that I recommend (although, of course, specific conference instructions and policies regarding disclosure take precedence). It accomplishes two very important goals. First, it of course alerts your audience to take what you have to say with a grain of salt. Second, if in fact they find your talk informative and persuasive, they sometimes take the next step and ask if you happen to know of a product that is a good example of what you are talking about. A classic win-win presentation.

The average adult American has seen more than a million ads. We are appropriately wary and skeptical about any and all information sent our way. We also understand there is unspoken quid pro quo. If someone respectfully provides valuable information, we usually extend to them the right to implicitly and discreetly ask for our consideration of their product.

Words to live by, at least within the healthcare IT marketing and public relations arena.

Back to the conference, you may also be interested in a number of short videos I shot of John Lynn with Google Glass at the recent HIMSS conference. Here’s my favorite.

“Why are you doing social media?” Sales, something broader, brand experience….?

So, in closing, if you have found this blog post interesting and potentially useful, I hope you’ll consider following me on Twitter at .

P.S. Pssst: Hey buddy, wanna buy some workflow?