How Digital Storytelling is being used in healthcare for patient management

Pip Hardy and Tony Sumner founded the Patient Voices Programme in 2003 with the intention of bringing more humanity into healthcare through the creation and sharing of digital stories.

Through its carefully developed methodology, the programme facilitates the telling and sharing of reflective stories of care by all stakeholders. The innovative model of free distribution of resulting stories for use in health and social care education and quality improvement ensures that those voices are heard, and that the investment of storytellers is nurtured to develop maximum social capital.

Some 500 people have participated in workshops to create their digital stories and the model of free distribution of stories via the Patient Voices website has resulted in their use in healthcare education throughout the English-speaking world and beyond.

“The Patient Voices programme aims to facilitate the telling and the hearing of some of the 

unwritten and unspoken stories of ordinary people.
The goal is that those who devise and

implement strategy in health and social care, as well as the professionals and clinicians

directly involved in care, may carry out their duties in a more informed and compassionate 

manner. 
We hope that, as a result of seeing the stories, patients, their carers and clinicians 

may meet as equals and work respectfully together for the benefit of all.”

The rise of corporate storytelling as a compelling USP tool

"It is my simple mission: to help everyone in our company understand the power of a single relationship and how to grow relationships to support our business. In almost every account we have ever lost, if we look back it is due to somewhere along the way we lost touch with the relationship."

These words were written by a social media coaching client of mine, Jane, She is a senior product manager with a major multi-national and her words resonate with the truth of experience both within internal corporate culture and with key customers. Jane is a warrior who loves to move into the trenches with her people and get up close and personal when helping them solve problems.

Jane is focused on the outcome she is seeking and builds relationships not because she is nice, kind, and compassionate. She actually is all of those things. She builds and nurtures relationships because she uses her brain. Jane is a pragmatic warrior who has been through countless battles with competitors, clients and upper management. Her philosophy of relationship building is based on what works. Her strategy will beat out more aggressive, brutish approaches over the long haul every time. But why does her strategy work?

She understands the value of networks, relationships and stories both in the online world and offline world. She knows that telling real human stories and embedding those with her stakeholders will win every time. And she is authentic, she uses story telling in a compelling real manner to boost the product she is responsible for into the mindset of her stakeholders. In short she allows them to participate in her story and that is what works. In this three part series we will explore the power of corporate story telling as a compelling tool and look at whose using it well.

But first let's look at the science of all of this, receent brain research suggests that the human brain is not so much a “thinking brain” but a relationship making brain. Dr. Gerald Huther, who leads the Dept. of Neurobiology at the Psychiatric Clinic of Gottingen, Germany, says “Until quite recently, it was held to be self-evident that human beings have a big brain to make it possible for them to think. However, the research results of the last years have made it clear that the structure and function of the human brain is especially optimized for building relationships. Our brain is thus much more a social organ than it is a thinking organ.”

Our brain has evolved over millions of years and our closest ancestors, the great apes, have much to teach us. Apes will fight and even kill members of other tribes who try to invade their territory. However, when scientists observe these animals in the wild they report that for the majority of time these animals spend much more time cooperating then fighting. Great apes have learned that building relationships increases the chance of success for all members of the community. By cooperating and specializing on essential tasks like food gathering, rearing the young and watching for dangerous invaders, they all benefit.

Jane is using her brain when she pays attention to building these interpersonal networks and she reminds her team that relationships take constant attention. She knows that especially in times of stress, building and strengthening relationships will win out over blame and arrogant behavior every time.

I'd like to give credit for much of this post,to a wonderful book which is well worth the read - The Elements of Persuasion Using Storytelling to Pitch Better. It's available on Amazon.

When was the last time you sat down with your troops and cascaded powerful stories of your USP related to your business into a warm human story? Have you integrated this into your business both offline and online, particularly social media?

What is this thing called.. ‘Creativity’

What is creativity? The dictionary defines creativity as “to make or bring into existence something new.” You’ve probably heard of right- and left-brain theory. That is, the right hemisphere of the brain is the intuitive, abstract thinking part of the brain, while the left hemisphere is the seat of rational, logical thought. The right side handles big-picture stuff, while the left handles the details. Creativity is commonly thought of as purely a right-brain activity... head in the clouds, nothing logical about it at all. Well, through my own research and personal experience, I’ve discovered that creativity is actually a three-phase process. It’s the right and the left hemispheres of the brain working together in a balanced way combined with a physical act to bring the idea into form. It’s a holistic process of body, mind, spirit. My definition goes like this: Creativity is to make or bring into existence something new by generating ideas (right brain); developing, reorganizing, and refining them (left brain); and taking physical action (body).

Creativity began about 40,000 years ago when our ancestors first made tools out of bone and ivory. Before that they just made do with whatever they could find. A rock for a hammer, a sharp stick for a knife. Once human beings began making things, they began to take control of their own destiny –– thus embarking upon a path of intelligence and consciousness separating them from other animals. Human beings used creativity to survive and prosper, as well as to express themselves through art, music, and dance.

Human creativity grew steadily over the millennia until something rather interesting happened in the not too distant past –– the Industrial Revolution. Creativity brought forth incredible scientific discoveries, including the invention of the steam engine which lead to railroads and factories. These changes did much to add convenience to our lives, but there was one problem. People were needed to do the monotonous, non-creative jobs of operating the machines and working in the mills. Ironically, human creativity had gotten us to a place where creativity itself was no longer a requirement for survival –– we could exchange our time doing a repetitive task for a day’s wages. Creativity became optional, some might say a luxury, and like an unused muscle, creativity began to atrophy in the masses.

Even in the days of the Industrial Revolution, those with a more rural existence often expressed their creativity through music, quilting, and storytelling. Then another product of our amazing creativity, the invention of the radio, caused an even deeper divide between the “creatives” and “non-creatives.” Now, rather than telling stories or bringing out the instruments after dinner, the family would gather ‘round the radio and passively listen to music played by the most accomplished musicians in the world. We began to believe that creative expression was for the truly talented –– not for regular people like us. This “great creative divide” was further deepened by the advent of television. Now we were not only passive listeners, but watchers too. The steady stream of images and sounds from an outside source (when taken in on a regular basis) tends to numb our senses and diminish our creativity, while on the other hand, active entertainment –– like going to a concert, dance, or theater event –– stimulates creativity. Don’t get me wrong, I love radio, and I think both radio and TV have an important place in our lives, but it’s interesting to notice how they’ve affected our creativity.

So where does this leave us here in the beginning of the 21st century? If you take a look around, you can see that we live in a society in which about 90 percent of the people are left-brain dominant –– really good analytical thinkers –– and many people don’t think that they’re creative at all. Now this isn’t much of a surprise since we’re just beginning to come out of the Information Age. For the better part of a century, success has been defined by our ability to manipulate and analyze information, and as a result our educational system is almost entirely focused on developing left-brain analytical thinking. So, yes, it’s not surprising that we live in a world where creativity is indeed undervalued.

Can you see that there’s an opportunity here?  As someone who has based her entire professional career on using creativity I can tell you that creativity was often undervalued until recently. The tide is turning.

Take note of all the rapid innovation appearing around us, often it is the result of the young rejecting the sometimes stifling education system and using creativity and innovation to surge forward. Take the rise of Facebook for example, or Google. Both at their lowest denominator are simple concepts using technology to facilitate and both are outstanding examples of creativity.

If creativity is seriously lacking in our society and indeed your business, wouldn’t we have an advantage if we just invested a little bit of time and energy into exercising our creative muscles and tapping into our inner creative brilliance? Think of the advancements we can make around sustainability, social good and of course, the planet. Creativity and innovation are needed. Your thoughts... •

Marketing Mastery Bootcamp – a passionpuslator event

I was reading Sir Ken Robinson’s wonderful book ‘The Element’ and was struck by a wonderful story he led with as his opening and to illustrate that all of us have a natural wonder about us, it is just that over the years life experiences, education and our own belief processes eventually get in the way of us being creative and thwart for many of us our own natural talents and passions.

It goes something like this: ‘An elementary school teacher was giving a drawing class to a group of six year old children. At the back of the classroom sat a little girl who normally didn’t pay much attention in school. In the drawing class shed did. For more than twenty minutes, the girl sat with her arms curled around her paper, totally absorbed in what she was doing. The teacher found this fascinating. Eventually, she asked the girl what she was drawing. Without looking up the little girl said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” Surprised the teacher said, ‘But nobody knows what God looks like.”

The girl said, “They will in a minute."

A beautiful story,it certainly reminds us young children are wonderfully confident in their own imaginations. Sadly most of us lose this confidence as we grow up. Ask a class of first graders which of them thinks they are creative and they’ll all put their hand up. Ask a group of university students this same question and most of them won’t.

We are all born with tremendous natural capacities, and we simply lose touch with them as we spend more time in the world. Ironically, one of the main reasons this happens is education. The result is that too many people never connect with their true talents and therefore don’t know what they’re really capable of achieving.

This week I spoke to a large group of business owners keen to learn the in's and out’s of social media. All attendees had participated in a 7 day social media learning intensive from how to use twitter, facebook, linkein and so on.

My presentation was about putting it all together and guess what? All the training in the world won’t deliver results unless you put together a creative campaign that is different, innovative, fresh and inspires others to take action.

So I spent a lot of time during the presentation talking about creativity, innovation, the long tail and social media best practice campaign models. Why? You can learn all the how to’s of social media but if you fail to develop a creative campaign that resonates with your audience you miss a wonderful opportunity to inspire others to take meaningful action.

Why am I using the words inspire and meaningful? Maybe because I have yet to meet a business owner that doesn’t have a real purpose that they enjoy sharing and, this purpose has the potential to transform their brand into something that adds value and makes a difference. Be it a cause they contribute to, the way their culture provides service, a unique product offering and so on.

Just look at the great case study of Zappos. They sell shoes! But their whole customer and cultural experience is about delivering a unique customer experience no matter the channel of communication and in so doing they have empowered their employees and customers as evangelists for the brand. Be it on the phone, via email, in social media and more.

At our forthcoming Marketing Mastery Bootcamp in October we are going to explore exactly that with each attendee identifying what is the unique selling point of their company and how can this be turned into a campaign that makes a difference. Sure we’ll cover the nuts and bolts but it is my goal to ensure that everyone leaves with a complete A-Z blueprint for how they are going to drive marketing through their business to deliver the results they are seeking to achieve. That requires tow things: 1. The uh huh moment of what communication can truly make a difference and 2. A sense of personal passion to stay the course to deliver that and not get sidetracked by other things.

I’m really looking forward to working with 50 dynamic business owners and hoping you will join us too.

Is your business innovative enough in this era of social media?

The inexorable rise of web-based content, social media and mobile devices is forcing marketers to take a long hard look at their online brand presence and digital reputation. And this digital influence is happening at such a rapid rate that it is often hard for businesses to mobilise their efforts fast enough to keep up with the online consumer evangelism now taking place.

Smart businesses are reorganising resources, skills and processes to adjust to the new reality of conversational and participative media. Concepts of paid, owned and earned media provide a useful prism through which to plan campaigns and attract new customers.

This re-engineering, if you like means that no longer can you delegate your digital requirements to your resident ‘geek’. We are now in the era where everyone is a marketer and, a geek by default given the rapid offering of new technologies being launched almost daily.

But how do you know what technology and communication needs are suitable for your business. The offering is so diverse that it can be overwhelming. It starts with what you want to communicate and how? Mobility is the key. One company who specialises in assisting businesses assess their communication needs independent of any of the carriers or vendors is Team Telecom.

According to General Manager, Tony Carrozza, “Every business from 20 people to those employing thousands has productivity challenges. There is little place for off the shelf and customisation sends fear into the hearts of the finance manager. The market is highly customisable but sometimes the innovation is ahead of what the business actually perceives is possible. It is surprising how much technology out there that was designed for one purpose but deployed and viewed in another application can deliver significant productivity and financial benefits. The bottom line is to provide what the customer needs to communicate in this new digital era, not what the vendor has.” says Carrozza.

The other area business needs to get its head around is the notion of big brands continuing to establish complex and expensive marketing outposts in the form of corporate websites. These ''owned'' media formats provided a safe and controlled environment where brands could lay out their stall. This was the first phase of the web and is now outdated and restrictive to operating in the web 2.0 landscape.
Why? The game changed completely with phase two. Social media today consumes more than six hours of the average online Australian's time every month. Confronted, almost affronted, by the empowered customer many brands are soul-searching for a reason to engage and a manageable social media strategy.

Consumers, your customers, in every form are drawn to social media because it allows them to create their own experience. The opportunity to generate ''earned'' media in the form of word-of-mouth recommendations and advocacy within social networks, forums and blogs has sparked a gold rush with each marketing discipline laying claim to what will be a major source of income for the industry.

The successful brands online will be those that understand their customer, optimise their various marketing channels, identify the connection points between media types and deliver a consistent message or experience. The metaphor is a river, with a source of strategic messaging that trickles down to a variety of channel connection point.

The branded website, an owned media format, will play an important role in this mix but not in its current form. In most cases, traffic to branded websites is in decline. It's no wonder given the brand-centric rather than user-centric nature of most and their poor search functionality. Today's branded websites are, in the main, Web 1.0 hangovers, which prioritise presentation and usability over content and interaction. Content today is king.

The theory behind digital PR and marketing is that relevant experiences facilitated by brands will build relationships which make customers more inclined to take action, such as share content, click 'Like' in Facebook, make a recommendation to a friend or colleague via Twitter or make a purchase.

The mistake branded websites make is to act as e-commerce shopfronts or online brochures. They fail to understand the user and bury the subtle relationship-building content. Social media is user-centric; its currency is human voices and entertaining content. It provides brands with a platform for conversation. Here, value lies in the content as opposed to the context. There's no need for high value production. The human voice is, however, almost completely absent from branded websites.

A recent social media study by B&M found that just 20 per cent of the top 20 brands in Australia have a company blog. Yet we have seen the rise of super bloggers who influence your customers about everything imaginable. Suffice to say, if you don’t have a dialogue with your customers via a blog then you miss a powerful opportunity. Further, only 10 per cent of corporate newsrooms offered video downloads, yet You Tube dominates consumer and business downloads not just for fun but for intelligent insightful commentary. With social media, customers build relationships that shape discovery and add features that personalise their experience. Branded websites treat every customer equally, presenting each with a limited number of choices and predestined workflows. Future efforts will be highly personalised.

At the end, the same the same principles apply. It all starts with vision, strategy and innovation. Where do you want to be as a business. Not what have you been doing to date...Think outside the box, because anything is now possible. And that is the very issues, those that adapt cleverly to the new digital world with innovation have tremendous commercial opportunities. It is however challenging for old school businesses to move away from the linear mode of communication to the new interactive dialogue with customers and business.

If we crystal ball gaze it is fairly obvious that we will see the rise of a new band of trusted advisors in micro niche specific areas working with business. Why? Change is so rapidly upon us that it is simply impossible to keep up to the minute with every relevant change and that’s where these new micro advisers will emerge. Ensure you have trusted and expert counsel in the area of technology provision, marketing counsel who are abreast of new web 2.0 developments, establish appropriate social media policies and guidelines but make them empowering, you have the opportunity to turn everyone in your organisation into a sales person. And of course, work to make your customers your evangelists. There will be times when you have dissatisfied customers in the social media space too, take note, respond and work to correct their concerns quickly and transparently.

But to succeed in this new digital era it must start at the top, the CEO has to embrace this new paradigm of communication and rapidly to compete. Make sure your make it your business to explore the future and innovation is the key.

How are you as CEO using Social Media

A Harvard University study “Society For New Communications Research” (SNCR) in November 2009, is a great insight into the rise of social media and usages by CEO's

I thought that a summary of their findings would be a great backdrop and insight into how the CEO and major decison makers are using social media, particularly as CEO's now have to consider themselves personal brands as well.

In the survey they asked questions like

* Are professional networks being utilized by decision-makers in business?
* Is social media typically regarded as a trustworthy source of information for
professionals?
* In what ways do professionals rely on social networks to support business
decisions?
* Will social media change the business and practice of enterprise-level
operations?

The survey was administered online to 356 participants via online survey with close to a quarter (23%) are CEO of their organization, 50% are “Director” or “Manager”.

Company size ranged from less than 100 to over 50,000 full-time employees and age was well distributed with the greatest proportion in the 36-45 range, 25 countries were represented, with 58% of respondents living in the US and all respondents were either the decision makers or influenced the decision process.

So what were the “30 Key Findings”

1. Professional decision-making is becoming more social, traditional influence cycles are being disrupted by Social Media as decision makers utilize social networks to inform and validate decisions.

2. Professionals want to be collaborative in the decision-cycle but not be marketed or sold to online, however online marketing is a preferred activity by companies.

3. The big three have emerged as leading professional networks: LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.

4. The average professional belongs to 3-5 online networks for business use, and LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are among the top used.

5. The convergence of Internet, mobile, and social media has taken significant shape as professionals rely on anywhere access to information, relationships and networks.

6. Professional networks are emerging as decision-support tools.

7. Decision-makers are broadening reach to gather information especially among active users.

8. Professionals trust online information almost as much as information gotten from in-person.

9. Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% – combined strongly/somewhat trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust).

10. Reliance on web-based professional networks and online communities has increased significantly over the past 3 years.

11. Three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support business decisions with reliance increasing essentially for all respondents over the past three years.

12. Social Media use patterns are not pre-determined by age or organizational affiliation with younger (20-35) and older professionals (55+) are more active users of social tools than middle aged professionals.

14. There are more people collaborating outside their company wall than within their organizational intranet.

15. Professionals tend to belong to “Multiple Social Networks” for business with

* Half of respondents report participating in 3 to 5 online professional networks
* Another three in ten participate in 6 or more professional networks
* More than 7% used more than 10 professional networks

16. The Big Three Social Networks Have Emerged as Professional Networks, so popular social networks are now being used frequently as professional communities with

* More than nine in ten respondents indicated that they use LinkedIn (91%)
* Half reported using Facebook (51%)
* Twitter followed closely with (41%)

Note: The closest next channel only scored 13%. Blogs were frequently listed as ‘professional networks’

17. Mobile Is Emerging as a Frequent Professional Networking Access Point with 94% using a PC and 44% using a Mobile.

18. Usage Of Professional Networks Is Increasing

* Three quarters of respondents visit their social networks at least daily
* Four in ten visit many times each day
* All indicated that their usage has increased over the past three years
* Those who belong to more online professional networks are more likely to
visit many times per day
* Small companies are more likely to indicate that they have increased their use
significantly

19. Professional Networks Are An Increasingly Essential Decision-Support Tool

* Three quarters of respondents rely on professional networks to support
business decisions
* Reliance has increased for essentially all respondents over the past three
years

20. High Levels of Trust Exist in Information Obtained From Online Networks

* Offline is strengthened by online engagement – to extend relationships and
collaborate
* Information obtained from offline networks still have highest levels of trust
with slight advantage over online (offline: 92% – combined strongly/somewhat
trust; online: 83% combined strongly/somewhat trust)

21. Connecting And Collaborating Are Key Drivers For Professional Use of Social Media.

22. More than half of respondents expect that in 1-2 years their company will increase social media use to share more content.

23. Over half the respondents will increase social media use to do more company-wide communications.

24. Changes in Company External Use of Social Media with More than half of respondents foresee more marketing programs and content distribution in the next one to two years.

25. Social Media is supplementing the traditional professional decision-making cycle with great affect.

26. The era of Social Media Peer Group (SMPG) has arrived and information will travel at a business velocity that has never been seen before enabled by the Internet and Web 2.0 technologies.

27. Challenges are facing marketers who endeavor to mange or control social media network content.

28. Traditional cycles of decision-making are being disrupted by Social Media Peer Group (SMPG) .. I like this new acronym!

29. Managing and influencing professional decision-making will be the major challenge as professionals often do not seek the information that marketers want to share online.

30. The greatest opportunity business has is to engage collaborative influence – via immediacy of impact through social channel.

So how are you as CEO using social media?

Social Media Strategy - The Basics

Social Media Marketing has the presented the marketer with so many choices in the last few years.

* What platforms should I be using to promote my blog or company?
* How many channels will I select to achieve my goals?
* Should I stick with what I know or what should I push the boundaries and
test something new?
* What channels should I use to to communicate to my target markets?
* What are the messages I should send out?
* What listening tools should I use?
* What apps should I use to increase my effeciency?
* What analytics tools are the best for our situation?

So where do you start?

First: Define your audience – get very clear on who you are communicating to (eg Is it Gen Y, Gen X or Baby Boomers?)

Second: Set the goals (they don’t necessarily need to be all financial in nature) – Leads, brand awareness,quality of leads, increase in dollar value of the sale and number of sales

Third: Develop your social media marketing strategy

Fourth: Then the tactical level of selecting the different social media platforms that are appropriate for your audience .. where do they hang out? Facebook, YouTube or other channels? You then can calculate what resources you need such as financial, tools and people.

Fifth: Optimize and Integrate Your Social Media Channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn as well as Optimizing your website and blog for search and don’t forget the PR. Many companies are now cranking up their PR efforts as this skillset has probably a better understanding of social media than most.

Are you ready for the social media transformation?

The Internet and social media have transformed the way companies communicate with consumers. Are you ready for the next levels of change?

If you are a business owner you must be ready for these new wave changes. Don't get left behind. Here's a quick review.

1. Marketing is far more than just advertising. In fact the marketing, advertising and PR industries are themselves, going through the greatest shakeup their industries have ever known as they too learn knew ways of interacting with consumers.
2.PR is now a long way from a just a mainstream audience, it's the era of micro niches
3.People want to know you and your brand, they want authenticity, NOT spin
4. People want to be involved with your brand, to participate, they don't want sales propaganda
5. Marketing is about delivering content in the way your audience wants it, they choose. It is no longer one way
6. Marketing your company and or product now requires you to shift your thinking from mainstream marketing, to how you can reach vast numbers of underserved audiences via the Web.
7.PR is about your buyers seeing your company on the web in many different venues.
8 Public Relations is now 'public' relations, not media relations.
9. Great content is king and information sharing is a great tool
10. Everyone is now a marketer, PR agency and advertising agency all in one. Harness your supporters and listen to the feedback they give.