Archive for Social media
Make Congress work? I’m in!
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After spending [redacted] years in network news, covering every Presidential race from 1980 to 2004, my level of exhaustion and cynicism when it comes to politics is … epic. I vote in every election, because dammit-that’s-my-right-as-a-citizen, but often it’s a case of holding my nose and doing the best I can with the (rotten) choices I’m offered.
When I was invited to Capitol Hill last Tuesday, Dec. 13, to be in the room when a new Make Congress Work initiative was announced, I accepted with some of that exhaustion and cynicism. But like the old news warhorse I am, I saddled up and rode up I-95 to see what I could see.
What I saw made me feel like someone who’s been wandering in the wilderness for … ever, who stumbles upon a tidy little town that welcomes the weary wanderer with open arms. And gives her a job: help spread the news about the tidy little town. Help it grow into a big ol’ city.
So think of this as metaphorical political tourism. You can come along on the trip and enjoy the scenery with me.
Oh, come on, work with me, people. I’m a writer, and sometimes a comedian. I’ll bring this all home, I promise.
Here’s what happened: over 400 people showed up in the Caucus Room at the Cannon House Office Building to talk with, and listen to, a literal parade of bipartisan leaders from all points of the political compass.
The point? To break the chains of gridlock that have the folks we elected to represent us in a constant state of get-nothing-done.
That point was tidily contained in a 12-point plan to literally make Congress work. For its pay, for its privileges, and most importantly for the CITIZENS THAT ELECTED THEM TO OFFICE.
OK, I’ll stop shouting. I just get excited at the idea of those do-nothings actually doing something.
Here are the 12 points:
- No budget, no pay. [This is a personal favorite. If I don't produce for my clients, I don't get paid. Why should Congress?]
- Up-or-down vote on Presidential appointments. [Must vote within 90 days. No vote? Confirmed by default!]
- Fix the filibuster. [Sentimental memories of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington are Hollywood fiction. What really happens is a process hijacking. It has to end in order for the business of our country to move forward.]
- Empower the sensible majority. [Simply stated: don't let the wing-nuts run away with the game.]
- Make members come to work. [Love this one. They quote Woody Allen: 90% of life is just showing up. So ... SHOW UP.]
- Question time for the President. [Britain's Parliament has Q&A sessions, in public, with the Prime Minister. As should the President and Congress. Just sayin' ... ]
- Fiscal report to Congress: Hear it. Read it. Sign it. [The Comptroller General should give a where-we're-at report annually. With real numbers. What a concept.]
- No pledge but the oath of office. [LOVE THIS. Grover Norquist and his ilk can go sit down and shut up.]
- Monthly bi-partisan gatherings. [It's harder to demonize or vilify someone you actually know. 'Nuf said.]
- Bi-partisan seating. [Sitting next to a member of the opposition makes you a little less likely to call him/her a dirtbag. Really.]
- Bi-partisan Leadership Committee. [No more R or D pep rallies. Leadership means making progress, even when the going gets tough.]
- No negative campaigns against incumbents. [What this means is that Senator Whoever with an R after his/her name can't campaign against Senator Whichever with a D after his/her name. Stop the attack-ad insanity.]
Want to come hang out in the tidy little town? Join the No Labels movement. Share the message on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, skywriting, cave painting, whatever.
Let’s make this tidy town a bustling city. And get Congress to work for US for a change.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
Year-end career-end in review
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This year has seen some really stunning examples of how to completely screw oneself, and one’s career, in public. Here’s a review of some of my favorites:
- Anthony Weiner’s wiener: Do not take a picture of your package and post it on Twitter. This is a rule for everyone. If you do this, be prepared to watch the job you’ve had for 12 years disappear in a bright, shiny flash. And to become a never-ending joke in the process.
- Aflac duck drowns in tsunami: Gilbert Gottfried managed to tank his career with some very ill-advised tweets in the days immediately after the Fukushima tsunami. Note to self: when hired to provide humor and comedy material for a client, insult comedy is the *wrong* approach.
- GoDaddy CEO shoots elephant, wounds brand: Bob Parsons shot an elephant, and almost brought down the mastodon that is the GoDaddy brand in the process. When your business is high-profile, low-profile hobbies are a good bet. Take up golf. Much less likelihood of killing your brand with a 5-iron.
- Ashton Kutcher is a no-talent jerk. Who knew? Well, actually, I think a lot of us knew. But when he leapt to Joe Paterno’s defense in the hours after the Penn State pederasty parade started up, he showed just how clueless and tone-deaf he is. Along with that total lack of talent. I almost felt sorry for Demi. Almost.
Some rules to live by: don’t do or say anything on social media that you wouldn’t want on the 1st page, above the fold, of the New York Times. Because that’s exactly what could happen, even if you’re not Anthony Weiner, Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Parsons, Ashton Kutcher, or countless other social media idiots.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it …
Why is business expected to pay for healthcare in the US?
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve asked this question frequently over the years, starting in the ’80s, continuing to today … and I’ll keep it up until someone realizes that it’s a failed paradigm.
What we have here, kidz, is what happens when a society decides that socialism is anathema, but doesn’t empower and educate its citizens about how to take responsibility for themselves in ways that will keep them healthy, productive community members.
Business started picking up the tab for healthcare during World War II, when stiff wage controls made it impossible for defense plants to give their employees raises. In place of more money, they started to pay for health insurance – which state and federal government were more than happy to turn into mandated employee benefits over the next 20 years.
What happened then was predictable: three generations have been out of touch with the true cost of healthcare, and the true cost of their choices about their health. If you’re a good little American consumer, you do whatever your television tells you to do: eat this. Buy that. Otherwise the terrorists win!
Three generations of disconnection from the real costs of our medical care have delivered us an epidemic of obesity – thanks to plentiful empty calories, courtesy of agri-business, and our willingness to beach ourselves on our sofas, in our SUVs, or at our computers, the better to receive more messages about what we should buy and eat.
Health insurance costs have skyrocketed as we’ve become a nation of couch potatoes. Companies are scaling back their employee health benefits as those costs continue to rise, putting more and more people in the un-insured or under-insured bucket.
Here’s a suggestion: sell health insurance like auto, home, and life insurance are sold. Put consumers in charge of shopping for, and purchasing, their own insurance. Let business help their employees, if they choose to do so, as a true benefit rather than a mandate. Help every consumer set up a Health Savings Account for their healthcare expenses. And stop the state-by-state divvy-up that lets health insurers essentially gerrymander the health insurance marketplace.
Put consumers fully in charge of their insurance, and their care. Turn the health insurance market into a car-insurance model. People can buy minimum levels of insurance, and assume the risk of that choice. They can opt out completely, and assume all the risk for their healthcare costs. Make it a true marketplace, rather than the giant mess that we currently call health insurance.
Radical? Perhaps. Necessary? I’d say it’s essential.
Until we’re put in touch with the costs of our healthcare, we won’t be encouraged/empowered to take control of our health. As long as we’re using other people’s money to pay for healthcare, we’re stuck where we are.
Which is a very bad place to be.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
#1 patient rule in #occupyhealthcare: be responsible for yourself
Posted by: | CommentsHealthcare providers are waking up and realizing that they need to partner with their patients to get better outcomes for their facilities and practices, and for their patients. As Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) get more and more press, the healthcare delivery side is the entity being held accountable.
Patients must step up to the bumper on accountability, too.
Two phrases have entered the medical lexicon thanks to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, a/k/a “healthcare reform.” PPACA is not actually healthcare reform, it’s health payment reform, but I digress. The two phrases are “patient-engagement,” and “patient-centeredness.” Doctors are being told that they must engage with patients, and offer care centered on their patients’ needs … but that engagement and centeredness message is not being simultaneously driven toward patients.
Therein lies an opportunity for #fail.
Patients need to take responsibility for their health, their actions, and their care. I’m not saying that we should shut up, sit down, and do what we’re told. What we must do is ask questions, work to understand the answers, and then do what is in our own best interest, health-wise.
That does not include ignoring instructions to cut down on salt or saturated fats. It most certainly does not involve living on drive-thru meals and expecting a prescription to resolve your expanding waistline or blood sugar numbers.
In this month’s HealthLeaders, Joe Cantlupe talks about how doctors are making more robust suggestions to their patients, with the goal of turning medical care into a true partnership between patients and providers.
Healthcare providers need to step up and work with their patients, turning healthcare into a team sport.
Patients MUST step up and take responsibility for their choices as well as a full share of decision-making.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
Healthcare: It’s time for us to #arabspring this b*tch
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I had the opportunity to speak at a digital pharma marketing conference – DTC Perspectives’ Marketing to the Digital Consumer – last week. “DTC” is Direct To Consumer, by the way. I was representing the patient voice, at the invitation of my friends at the health activist community WEGO Health.
It was terrific for several reasons – connecting with other healthcare social media peeps in pharma, meeting and mingling with some powerful voices in pharma leadership, learning more about the regulatory environment that pharma marketers work in – but the biggest “wow!” that day happened between my ears.
I realized that pharma – and healthcare in toto – is desperate for its own #arabspring. A complete re-alignment of the entire system, driven from the bottom up, that will benefit all players: pharma, health systems, clinicians, researchers, patients … people. All of us.
This epiphany arrived courtesy of a combination of factors.
First, I felt a little like a zoo animal, since I was the only one at the conference wearing an Official Patient sign. I found that amusing, since everyone in the room is a patient at some level, even if they’re only seeing a doc once a year for a check-up. I’m not even a pharma consumer who’s on a buffet of drugs, although I do take a fat handful of supplements every morning. Why are patients seen as exotic creatures by pharma, and by most of the healthcare industry?
Patients = people, people. Treat us like … people.
Second, since I also wear a PR/media/content-creator hat, I saw that they were making a real effort to understand how they could take advantage of social media as a direct-marketing tool. They were approaching this as an industry with a huge regulatory oversight burden, from the FDA to the US Patent & Trade Commission to the host of regulatory bodies in other countries where these companies sell pharma products to doctors or direct to consumers.
Some of the regulatory step-on they’re struggling with they brought on themselves with “me-too” drug formulation and disease-mongering (“restless leg syndrome”? Really?). In conversation with a couple of high-level folks from big pharma, I learned that they routinely hear “we’ll have to run this past sales” when they want to try a new approach to communicating with their market. Why does sales drive communication? If pharma wonders why they’re seen as a scrum of hucksters, look no further than “running it past sales” when it comes to new ideas.
That combination of being seen as an exotic because I was a patient, and recognizing that, as an industry, pharma is an inverted pyramid crushing itself under the weight of heavy regulation caused, and continued, by a run-it-by-sales communication model, led me to the idea that people (a/k/a “patients”) need to #arabspring this b*tch.
People – patients – need to examine their relationship(s) with healthcare, and pharma, and ask what value they are getting from those relationships. Tell those that help how they’re doing, and tell those that aren’t to either clean up their act or take a hike.
Don’t fall for disease-mongering.
Don’t settle for less-than-full disclosure from any of your healthcare providers – in other words, ask why your doctor is prescribing a name drug, if a generic is available.
Act as if your health is YOUR responsibility. Get off the couch, call a halt to drive-through nutrition, examine your habits and ditch what doesn’t serve you, and your health.
Engage with pharma companies who provide you or your family with drugs that work, and tell them so.
Rabble-rouse the FDA to stop standing on innovation, and to start freeing up both farm AND pharm to help us eat better, and help researchers bring new drugs that actually help to market.
Take to the the streets by visiting your local farmer’s market and buying/cooking local. Boycott processed cr*p disguised as food.
The presentation deck I used at the conference, with added narration, is linked here.
I welcome comments, arguments, suggestions.
I recommend that you read my buddy Phil Baumann’s take on “we are all patients”. (He’s right, BTW – which is why I say patients = PEOPLE, people.)
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …
Raising Cain … then lowering him. 3 tips to avoid that mistake.
Posted by: Mighty Casey | Comments (0)photo credit: Toby Harnden|Daily Telegraph
The quadrennial silly season known as the US Presidential race has been in full cry on the Republican side for about six months now, with some highly entertaining spectacle already on display. Unfortunately, a popular favorite, Herman Cain, who had built up quite a head of steam as a leading contender, has been somewhat sidelined by accusations that have put his campaign in PR-crisis-management mode.
First, let me make it clear that I have no dog in this fight. I’m still waiting for the Logic Party to form, and meanwhile am a member of the No Labels movement – in other words, I’m apolitical outside the voting booth. Inside the voting booth, I hold my nose and do the best I can under the circumstances.
My purpose here is to point out the three simple, yet critical, steps Cain and his campaign communications team should have taken to, if not 100% avoid this epic mud-fest, at least keep it at small-mud-puddle level.
I feel for the guy. I covered every Presidential race from 1980 to 2004. As I put it in my bio: I covered wars, Presidential campaigns, and Presidential campaigns that turned into wars. Politics is a rough, nasty, no-holds-barred business – the higher the office, the sharper the knives and the bigger the guns you’ll be up against.
Failing to recognize that, and failing to get in front of any negative information in your past by revealing it yourself first, guarantees painful war wounds.
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it …