1.
Third Millennium Communications
in Healthcare
Lee Aase
Manager, Syndication and Social Media
Mayo Clinic
#OHA
November 12, 2009

2.
About Lee Aase (@LeeAase)
• B.S. Political Science
• 14 years in politics and government at
local, state, national levels
• Mayo Clinic since April 2000
− Media relations consultant
− Manager since 2004
− Media Relations/Research Comm
− Syndication and Social Media

3.
A Grandpa who appreciates the
power of Facebook

4.
Disclaimers
• These results not typical
• Use as directed
• Read and follow label directions
• Side effects may include vertigo, watery
eyes, crackberry thumb and iPhone
application addiction
• Social media tools are an essential part of a
balanced communications diet
• If insufficient media coverage persists,
consult your communications doctor
• Batteries not included
• Some assembly required
• Your mileage may vary

5.
Disclosures
• No financial interest in any product or
service mentioned in this presentation
• Full-time salaried employee of Mayo
Clinic

6.
Demonstrate that social media
tools are...
• Immensely powerful
• Consistent with your organization’s
values (or should be)
• Free (or ridiculously inexpensive)
• and...

7.
Warning to Epilepsy Patients
This presentation does not
use strobe lights, but it
may seem like it, with 139
slides in an hour, or one
flashing every 26 seconds.

8.
Thesis #1: Air was the
original social medium

9.
Mayo Clinic and Word of Mouth
• 91 percent of patients surveyed say
they have said “good things” to an
average of 40 people after a Mayo visit
• 85 percent say they recommended
Mayo to a friend
− Advised an average of 16 to come
− 5 actually came

10.
Sources of Information Influencing
Preference for Mayo Clinic
Word of mouth 84
Stories in the media 57
MD recommendation 44
Advertising 27
Internet/Websites 26
Personal experience 24
Mailings to home 18
0 20 40 60 80 100

11.
#2: Electronic tools merely
facilitate broader, more
efficient transmission by
overcoming inertia and
friction

12.
#3: The mass media era was
a temporary anomaly

13.
Evolution of Community
• Local: Pre-1930
• National: 1930-2005, made possible by
mass media
• Global: Post-2005, individuals members
of multiple communities of interest
without regard to geography
• Succeeding levels build upon earlier
stages without completely supplanting

14.
#4: Social media are the
third millennium’s defining
communications trend

15.
Intro to Today’s FREE Tools
Blogs RSS
Podcasts Social Networks
Skype YouTube
Wikis Twitter
Slideshare uStream

16.
Intro to Blogs
• Just an easy-to-publish Web site that
allows comments
• Blogs in Plain English - Lee LeFever
• You read them all the time without
even knowing it

17.
RSS = Really Simple Syndication
• Lets you easily track dozens of blogs
or other Web sites without surfing
• Truly opt-in “email”
• RSS “baked in” to IE 7, Safari
• Google Reader a free Web option

18.
Podcasts
• TiVo for Audio (and now video)
• Don’t need an iPod to use
• Series of segments to which you can
subscribe via RSS
• iTunes free for PC or Mac
• Create your own FREE podcast (listed
in iTunes) through SMUG

19.
Social Networking Sites

20.
Wikis
• Collaborative editing tools
• Wikipedia the most famous
• 2.9 million articles in English
• Definitive stories quickly on
− 35W Bridge Collapse
− Virginia Tech shooting

21.
YouTube
• World’s second largest search engine
• Google bought for $1.65 Billion
• “The world has voted, and we want to
watch videos on YouTube.” - Andy
Sernovitz, SocialMedia.org

22.
#7: Hand-wringing about
merits and dangers of social
media is as productive as
debating gravity.

23.
What else do patients
know about you?
 Copyright 2009, Health Grades, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

24.
#9: Mass media will remain
powerful levers that move --
and are moved by -- social
media buzz.

25.
#10: Social media strategies
can’t compensate for an
inferior offering or bad service

26.
United Breaks Guitars Breaks United

27.
#15: You can hear a lot just
by listening

28.
A Story from Twitter

29.
Ensuing Conversation

30.
#17: Social media are free in
any ordinary sense of the
word (or at least ridiculously
inexpensive)

31.
Total Cost for Mayo Clinic
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter
$0.00

32.
In England, based on current
exhange rates:
£0,00

33.
In the European Union:
€0,00

34.
Cost for a Standard Definition
Flip Video Camera
$149.99
HD available for an additional $50

35.
podcasts.mayoclinic.org

36.
newsblog.mayoclinic.org

37.
sharing.mayoclinic.org

38.
Yearly Cost for a
Customized Blog
$75.00

39.
Cost for Your Global TV Station
and Publishing Platform
$300.00

40.
#18: As I approaches zero,
ROI approaches infinity

41.
#19: MacGyver is the model
for social media success

42.
The MacGyver Mindset

43.
Mayo Clinic Medical Edge
News Media Syndications

44.
First Foray in New Media
• Existing Medical Edge radio mp3s
• Launched Sept. ‘05; Downloads up
8,217 percent Oct. vs. Aug.

45.
Step 2: More, Longer Podcasts

46.
#20: Social media enable
authentic communication if
you don’t purposefully
complicate things

47.
Key Tool: Flip Video Camera*
• Affordable
• Recording interviews (with tripod)
improves existing processes
• Authenticity without writer’s cramp
• Provides potential blog resources
− Audio of full interview
− Video excerpts
• Limited group of video editors to ease
adoption, ensure quality

48.
Case Study: Simple Storytelling
• 8:45 a.m. Colleague mentions article
coming off embargo at 3 p.m.
• Interviewed M.D. via Flip at 10:20
• Edited video, had password-protected
post on blog by 11:55 for pitching
• Uploaded files to YouTube channel
• WSJ Health Blog used video

49.
#24: Compelling content is
much more valuable than
advertising time or space

50.
The Octogenarian Idol Story
• Alerted to interesting video of elderly
couple playing piano in Gonda atrium
• Video shot by another patient and
uploaded to YouTube by her daughter
• Video had been seen 1,005 times in six
preceding months since upload
• Embedded in Sharing Mayo Clinic,
posted to Facebook, Tweeted on 4/7/09

51.
The next day...

52.
Six days later...

53.
April 22

54.
Sunday, May 3

55.
May 4

56.
Cinco de Mayo

57.
May 10

58.
May 11

59.
May 12

60.
May 15

61.
Early Morning May 26

62.
May 26, 2009: Live in Studio
Good Morning America

63.
Results to Date
• More than 4.8 million views on YouTube
• >1.4 million views on Sharing Mayo Clinic
• From 200 views/month to 5,000 views/hour
• Validation of Thesis #26

64.
#26: Your mileage may vary,
but you’ll go a lot further if
you get a car.

65.
#25: If you’re remarkable
enough, your customers will
create content for you

66.
Jillayn Hey’s “Remarkable” Story
“One statement has stuck out above all
of the medical jargon written by the
surgeons and various nurses who cared
for me, and that is this: ‘patient's stay
was unremarkable.’ Well, although
things went fairly smoothly after a
difficult surgery, I would like to say that
there was nothing unremarkable about
my experience with Mayo.”

67.
Therapeutic Storytelling...
“I recently read an (Utne Reader) article ... (which said) that
through telling our personal stories of illness and disease, we
assist in creating a new story of wellness that facilitates
healing and in turn directs a person towards recovery. This is
just one aspect that Sharing Mayo Clinic provides. It is not
only an opportunity for many patients and perhaps future
patients to tell their unique stories to work their way towards
health but it also provides a voice for its employees to share
parts of their daily work which I know must include joy and
sorrow as some of us become well and some of us
unfortunately do not. In my opinion, this is just another area
that Mayo is ahead of the curve in caring for its patients and
obviously their employees as well.”

68.
Answers to Objections
• “But what about the cost in staff time to
maintain all of these social media
platforms? They’re not really that
cheap!”
− AT&T free phone service in 1969
− Pitney Bowes free fax machines and
supplies in 1989
− YouTube, Facebook and Twitter free in
2009

69.
Thesis #27: A Step Beyond 7 Habits

70.
“8th Habit” Opportunity
I can go to any group, and I do it all the time, all over the world, and I
ask a simple question: “How many honestly believe that the vast
majority of the workforce in your organizations possess more talent,
more intelligence, more capability, more creativity, more resourcefulness
than their present jobs require or even allow them to use?” Literally,
almost everyone raises their hands…. Think of the loss of what we could
call “voice,” of people’s intelligence, capability, creativity. And yet I
can ask the next question: … “How many feel pressured to produce
more for less?” and you know what, the same amount of hands go up.
Now just put those two questions together: Here there’s this enormous
capability and talent and intelligence, and also this great pressure to
produce more for less, and they’re not able to even use it.
-- Stephen Covey

71.
Stephen Covey’s “8th Habit”
Going beyond effectiveness to greatness
“Find your voice and inspire
others to find theirs”

72.
If getting involved in social
media doesn’t excite you...

73.
#28: Paying for advertising
while not taking advantage
of FREE social media tools
isn’t particularly astute

74.
A Story from Facebook...

75.
Tamiko says...
“I’ve had lots of people ask me about the
YouTube video and I’ve told at least 30
people they should go to Mayo. ”

76.
“Kids will take a chance.
If they don’t know,
they’ll have a go.”
-- Sir Ken Robinson, TED 2006

77.
#29: Your kids aren’t smarter
than you are. They’re just
not afraid to look dumb.

78.
#31: Unforeseen implications
of social media are more
likely positive than negative

79.
#33: Social media will
decrease diffusion time for
research and innovations

80.
Thesis 9 and 33 Combined!

81.
#34: Challenges of
introducing social media in
healthcare are not unique

82.
#35: Social technologies will
transform healthcare

83.
Businesses Already Revolutionized
• Music - iTunes vs. Tower Records
• Classified Advertising - eBay, Craigslist
• Bookstores
• Movie rentals - Local, Blockbuster, Netflix
• All mass media
• Video cameras
• See The Innovator’s Dilemma; TI Solution
and TI Prescription - Clayton Christensen

84.
How can we accelerate the pace?
• Free/low-cost practical experiments
− On-line chats about research findings
instead of just surgical tweets
− Journalist-level access to embargoed
research findings for bloggers
− Virtual support groups w/medical pros
− More collaboration within and among
organizations via Yammer, Twitter, etc.
− Share case studies within industry

85.
If you have an iPhone, Let’s Bump!

86.
If not, contact me by...
• Googling Lee Aase or SMUG U
• @LeeAase on Twitter
• aase.lee@mayo.edu
• Continue conversation at #hcli, or via
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