Introducing the SHSMD Social Media Network

With my retirement from Mayo Clinic last month we decided that the time had come to sunset the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network. I had envisioned and launched #MCSMN in 2011 as a connection hub and learning space about social media in health care for not only Mayo Clinic staff but also colleagues nationally and even worldwide.

All of the services were available to Mayo Clinic staff at no charge, while external members had both free and paid options. We also hosted annual conferences on health care social media, and even international conferences in Australia (Brisbane and Melbourne) and Dubai, United Arab Emirates and two virtual conferences with the Society for Health Care Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD).

We had a good run with #MCSMN and it aligned with Mayo Clinic’s history and values, but with my retirement it was time to reassess whether it should be a priority for my successor. Social networking and social media is important for health care organizations, but hosting an external social media network for health professionals isn’t exactly Mayo Clinic’s core business.

As a membership organization of the American Hospital Association, this IS very well aligned with the SHSMD mission.

Many members of #MCSMN expressed interest in having a space to stay connected, and so I’m glad to announce that SHSMD has established the SHSMD Social Media Network to meet this need.

I’m committing to participating regularly, and I hope you will join and help to create a vibrant and mutually supportive community.

How to Join

If you’re already a member of the broader SHSMD community it’s easy to join: just go here and once you’re logged in, click the Join Group button at the top.

Everyone who participated in the #MayoSHSHMD Virtual Conference this year already has a SHSMD membership!

For those who didn’t, SHSMD Executive Director Diane Weber has gotten the AHA IT team to create a mechanism so non-SHSMD members (even our international colleagues) can participate in this group within the SHSMD community too, but it takes a few additional steps.

If you’re not currently a member of SHSMD:

  1.  First set up a FREE account with the American Hospital Association (SHSMD is part of AHA) by clicking on Register/Login Button, then “Create an Account” at aha.org.

2.      Log in at shsmd.org using your new credentials.

3.      Click this link to sign up for the community.  It will seem like a checkout cart with $0 purchase.

Once you have completed those steps, go to the SHSMD – Social Media Network group and click the Join Group button.

I hope my health care colleagues with an interest in social media will take advantage of this opportunity to stay connected and continue growing together.

Leading Change from the “Other” C-Suite (That’s Communications)

That’s the title of the presentation I’ll be giving in Washington, DC today along with CareHubs CEO Paul Speyser, for the annual conference of the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, a.k.a. #SHSMD15. Yesterday we had our Social Media Residency at UC-Davis in Sacramento, and so as I write this, I’m at the airport in Detroit on the way to Washington, DC, having taken the Red-Eye from SFO to DTW last night.  If all goes well, I should be in DC by 9 or so.

I had an opportunity to preview some of what we’ll be discussing in our presentation in a podcast conversation with Stewart Gandolf, which he published last week. As I mentioned in the interview with Stewart, I think it’s been about a dozen years since I’ve spoken at this conference, back when my main job was media relations for Mayo Clinic. It’s fun to consider all that’s changed since then, and yet how our work now with the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media is consistent with what we were doing in 2003, but also with more than 150 years of Mayo Clinic history.

Here’s the slide deck Paul and I will be using:

We’ll be talking about how we’ve collaborated to create social networking capacity through an owned platform for our Center for Social Media, and how we’re now applying those capabilities for patient education, patient communities, blogs and news delivery.

While many of the slides contain hyperlinks to some of our WordPress-based sites and communities, here are a few initiatives I’d like to particularly emphasize:

Here are a couple of our sites that will have significantly redesigned looks in the next few weeks:

If you haven’t yet signed up, please take advantage of our free Basic Membership in the Mayo Clinic Social Media Health Network.

Finally, here are links to some of the books we mentioned, which have influenced our thinking:

I look forward to a good discussion.

Buy a Vowel?

In the past couple of years I’ve given presentations on “new media” or social media to several marketing-oriented health care organizations.

At Monday’s meeting with FSHPRM (Florida Society for Healthcare Public Relations &Marketing), I began to notice a pattern. Some other similar organizations to which I’ve presented:

  • MHSCN (Minnesota Healthcare Strategy and Communication Network)
  • WHPRMS (Wisconsin Healthcare Public Relations and Marketing Society)
  • FHS/FCBMS (Forum for Healthcare Strategists 12th annual Forum on Customer Based Marketing Strategies)
  • SHSMD (Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development) – that one was in my pre-blog days, and was just  a presentation on media relations.

I was struck by the complete absence of vowels in any of these acronyms, and the resulting difficulty in pronunciation.

First Rule of Word of Mouth: To have word of mouth about your organization, people need to be able to pronounce its name.

Possible reasons for the completely consonant acronyms:

  1. They were created by committee. PR needed to be included in the name. So did Marketing. With a letter to represent the state name, you have four consonants, including a P and an R that need to be together, and everyone gave up on the possibility of pronouncability.
  2. They want to keep the organization secret. Maybe they don’t think marketing, public relations and health care go together — or are concerned that other people might have that opinion. So by choosing a vowel-less acronym they are sabotaging word of mouth about their organization, to keep a lower profile.

What do you think? Is it #1 or #2, or is there some other explanation? And do you know of any health care PR/marketing associations for which the acronym contains a vowel and is able to be pronounced?

(Organizations from Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah don’t count, since their state names begin with a vowel. But it would be interesting to know whether they still managed to avoid a catchy acronym.)