Jane Genova: Speechwriter - Ghostwriter

Healthcare Branding: The St. Raphael, New Haven, CT approach

Organic. Holistic. Systemic. 

Those are the terms which kept crossing my mind today during the 120 minutes I spent in St. Raphael Hospital, New Haven, Connecticut.  That hospital, I concluded, should be the model for healthcare branding.  From the get-go, when I arrived in Radiology for a biopsy, every aspect of the patient experience delivers the message: We care.

Every so often the desk clerk checks if anyone has been waiting more than a half hour.  The technician who had done the original ultrasounds comes over and chats with me, even though she's not involved in this procedure. 

A team of a technologist, registered nurse, resident doctor and the expert doctor then take over.  If I had been a nervous wreck - for once narcissist me was too undone to even check how and what I was feeling - that has passed.  Together the four transformed a medical procedure into a very human experience. They patiently educated, reading between the lines as to what my questions were really about. They  talked with me as a peer.  They made enough light bodily contact to establish connection.  The expert doctor even made herself late to a seminar she was giving when I blurted out last minute concerns.  She told the resident to tell the class to wait.  And I'm not Hillary Clinton or Jennifer Lopez.  That kind of deference for the patient is the platform for healthcare branding.

All this is light years away from what much of healthcare had been when I started out in writing.  An early set of articles was on how cancer patients were Making Today Count. A leader in the movement had been the late Lois Jaffe, a University of Pittsburgh professor in the School of Social Work.  After she was diagnosed with cancer, she made it her mission to force the medical system to recognize her humanity.  And, obviously, she succeeded.  I guess I have Jaffe to thank for today's Handle-with-Caring.

Arrogance: Not meme of 21st paradigm-shifting century

I've found it: The just-right persona to present myself for assignments as well as full time and part time jobs.  It's low profile, helpful, and humble.  As a result, good things are happening for me professionally.  Because work is great, I'm not so needy in my personal life either.  There's a pull force, much like the law of attraction. The meme of this confusing paradigm-shifting 21st century might be push back against arrogance of all sorts. 

A sign of the times is that the influential publication Bloomberg features the non-arrogant attorney Gary Naftalis of Levin Naftalis & Frankel who is defending former McKinsey head Raja Gupta.  That Manhattan attorney mirrors the Providence, Rhode Island attorney John Tarantino of Adler Pollock & Sheehan who got his client ARCO off the hook in that state's lead paint public nuisance trial.

On the other hand, there are the boys (the girls get knocked out of the game way too early) of Wall Street who are being hammered for, you got it, arrogance.  The smart-aleck ways of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon, once featured as self confidence and praised, are being panned.  Other heads of business could also be in line for spankings by the media as well as shareholders, simply because of a persona which is perceived to be, well, arrogant.

This is really nothing new, is it. The literature majors among us recall the ancient Greek artists who positioned arrogance as hubris, the significant variable which brought down leaders.   Of course, there is the very real danger of moving into an era of Uriah Heeps where too many of us are way too 'umble.

Warren Buffett Buys 63 Newspapers: Investment or philanthropy

POLITICO reports that Warren Buffett, age 81, has purchased 63 newspapers from Media General for $142 million. 

One wonders if this is an investment or a good deed on behalf of the distressed newspaper business.  Buffett says he believes in newspapers.  He contends that in close knit communities the newspaper is an important institution.

Tablet, Cloud Doing In H-P: Could lay off 25,000

As usual, the high tech sector is full of fire and brimstone lessons for enterprises which don't keep up.  Bloomberg reports that H-P could lay off 25,000 employees or 8% of its workforce.  Some of the cuts will come from handing out early retirement packages but most will just lop off folks in the midst of their careers.

Much of H-P's current problem, Bloomberg explains, is due to its foot dragging in tablets and cloud computing.  That's where consumer demand it, not so much PCs. No, the PC isn't going away, as Steve Jobs predicted. But its growth is slowing, compared to that of tablets. 

One of H-P's viable businesses remains printers. Kodak, which reversed the H-P formula of low-cost printers and high-cost cartridges, never really presented competition.  The companies H-P has to fear in printers and cartridges are the ones based in Asia.  For example, some have already made inroads on the shelves in retailers like Staples.  Given that I pony up $90 a month for H-P 05A Cartridge, I would welcome a cheaper product from the competition. 

THE NEW REPUBLIC: Where policy and business intersect

A new generation is taking charge of the memes of the 21st century.  One example of that is that Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has taken over the influential THE NEW REPUBLIC.  Now, reports Joe Pompeo in CAPITAL, Hughes is establishing a New York office for this essentially policy publication based inside the beltway.

This move signals that what the new generation will be deconstructing is where policy and business intersect.  There will be plenty to this story as a result of developments such as the JPMorgan Chase $2 billion loss and the trial for "U.S. v Gupta" about alleged insider trading.  The Washington D.C. folks have to respond to this seeming recklessness and corruption in the U.S. financial system.

Could we be entering a time of excessive regulation which happened after Enron?  Could be.  I look at this for financial information company Motley Fool.  Here you can review my thinking.

Mary Kennedy, Former Wife of RFK Jr., Found Dead: Suicide suspected

Tragedy again visits the Kennedy dynasty.  Mary Kennedy, former wife of Robert F. Kennedy's son Robert, was found dead in her Westchester apartment.  Suicide, the media report, is suspected.  She is the mother of their four children.

A few days after papers were filed for divorce she was arrested for drunk driving.  Those of us in 12-step programs felt her apparent pain. 

One of the last times Mary and Robert were seen in public was at Ted Kennedy's funeral.   Not too long ago Ted's daughter Kara died of cardiac arrest when working out in a gym.  Her body had been weakened by treatment for lung cancer.

JPMorgan Chase Remind You of Enron? - It should and here's why

Enron was a tragic saga put in play by what were called "the smartest guys in the room." Shareholders lost everything.  Employees lost jobs and no one in Texas wanted to hire them because of the taint of corruption.  Communities lost their stability.

The one big difference between the Enron disaster and what's happening at JPMorgan Chase is that the latter is not going to fold.  In fact, we believe its head Jamie Dimon when he predicts it will go on to make plenty of money.  But there are also striking parallels.

I analyse those similarities between Enron and JP Morgan Chase for the financial information company Motley Fool. Here you can read about it. Then you might rethink if you recommend that the speaker you're writing for or coaching project charisma.

Beyond Steve Jobs: Maybe we should be digging elsewhere for lessons to be learned

Question: Am I the only one who has wearied of looking to the life and work of Steve Jobs to find lessons for my own much smaller-sized matters?  The answer to that will determine if there will be any audience for the screenplay Aaron Sorkin is writing for Sony.  According to THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, Sorkin will be adapting the Walter Isaacson biography of Jobs for the large screen.

We miss Jobs just as we miss author Christopher Hitchens.  But there are many others out there, alive and well, to inspire and teach us.

DYI: They tried on their own with X, didn't get results, and now come to us

The Do It Yourself movement has become not only a trend but a game changer.  More of the clients we are going to work with in communications have already done some, a lot of, or even all the work themselves.  After all, technology has given them the tools to plan and execute a social media campaign.  Webiners teach them how to research, write, and distribute press relases.  Smartphones empower them to create visuals cheaply, and, with practice, well.

Some communications pros may feel threatened.  Get over it.  If you frame DYI as a lemon, you are being short-sighted.  There is a growing field for us who parachute in when the DYIer needs greater expertise, is not getting the expected outcomes, or has set in play an ongoing disaster.  This is not just in communications.  Here in an analysis of DYI for the financial information company Motley Fool, I look at the business of DYI.

The challenge in becoming a vendor pitching to the DYI is that we have to make that internal paradigm shift and branding makeover to put ourselves out there as enablers, not so much brilliant, creative strategists and content-providers.  That entails studying this new kind of business to determine what are the pain points and how we can address them in our work and promotions.  The first step is speedreading each situation, holding back comments and recommendations.  On the basis of that, we ask questions.  At the top of the list is: What do you want? Then we give them that and only that.  The DIY economy does not reward providing more value than the situation requires. 

You can study up here on how other DYI vendors are making a good buck.

Class of 2012: Dollar Stores, Aldi hiring

A campaign issue, reports POLITICO, is the million members of the Class of 2012 without jobs.  Yet, there are jobs, not just in what those new graduates might have majored in or what they expected to do after four years of college.

For example, the explosive growth of dollar stores, which I analyze here for the financial information company Motley Fool, is creating jobs.  They range from manager to cashier.  With this as background the Class of 2012 can move on to much bigger jobs in retail or even becoming an stock analyst covering that sector.

Aldi is another retail success story that has big boxes wary.  For example, the East Haven, Connecticut Aldi has lettuce for under a buck.  In Wal-Mart down the road it sells for $1.38.  Entry level jobs start at $12.50 an hour.  Management trainees begin at more than $20.  All these open the door to career paths in the food industry.  Some of the Class of 2012 could make it big as a fresher version of Martha Stewart.

The rub is to be able to make that internal paradigm shift from "I was an English major" to "You bet I can provide a great shopping experience for America's new frugal." We Baby Boomers are doing something similar, migrating from "I am a speechwriter and ghostwriter" to "I turn browsers into buyers."  What's being sold might be the idea of alternate energy, B2C legal services, or hybrid autos.  These shifts are nothing new.  It wasn't until I veered away from what I had focused on during my doctoral studies to what was in demand in the marketplace that I began to earn a living, which turned out to be a pretty good one.