Where’s Lee?

This isn’t an allusion to my travels; I’m staying in Minnesota for the whole month, with no trips scheduled until February.

It’s about this video we did through our Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media, in cooperation with our colleagues in the Office of Women’s Health and our cardiology group.

I wrote the lyrics to this parody of Tommy TuTone’s 867-5309/Jenny and was the Executive Producer, and Makala Johnson from our team shot, edited and coordinated production. We had a great team for the project, including a band and back-up singers drawn almost entirely from our Mayo Clinic employee population, and over 100 enthusiastic concertgoers.

So here’s the trivia question for the day:

Where are my two cameos in the video?

Put your guesses in the comments below. And with February Heart Month coming up, I hope you’ll also help spread the word.

Holiday Greetings

Ever since I started this blog, I’ve used it as my Christmas Letter 2.0, instead of bothering with the cost and hassle of snail mail. Besides, with my celiac disease diagnosis, I can’t lick envelopes anymore, lest I get some gluten in the paste.

It’s great to take time in this season to reflect on God’s blessings from the previous year (and I’ve also enjoyed reviewing again the amazing changes in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.)

Lots of things are different this year. When I wrote last year’s letter we were in the midst of the snowiest December on record in southern Minnesota. Here was the view out our porch window on Christmas morning a week ago today:

Part of the reason for my delay in writing this year’s edition is that for the last week we’ve had a full house, as our son Jacob and his wife Alexi and our daughter Rachel and her family have been here for Christmas. It would have been odd to spend the time writing instead of taking in the fun. But now that we’re down to our usual complement of the four youngest kids who are still at home (and since we got some updated pictures during Christmas, which you can enlarge by clicking), it’s time to recap 2011.

Continue reading “Holiday Greetings”

New Mayo Clinic Heart Health Campaign

Today at our Mayo Clinic Social Media Summit, which we have produced in collaboration with Ragan Communications, we launched a new awareness campaign about heart health. Here is the story behind the project (including the back story behind the video.) This video is the cornerstone of the campaign:

We also have a Facebook app on our Mayo Clinic page, and a contest site for friendly competition in helping to raise awareness of heart disease through this video. Here’s my profile on the site.

Note: I can’t win the contest, and neither can any other Mayo Clinic employees. But others can win Mayo Clinic books, pedometers or other prizes, including a trip to next year’s Social Media Summit. And teams can win a one-year Social Media Health Network membership for their organization.

Please help spread the word!