April 2009 Archives
I woke up to a sunny Monday morning last week feeling rather grim. Brushing it off as regular Monday blues, I headed to work to swim in the sea of weekend emails floating in my inbox. As the day progressed, I realized my condition was more than just lack of coffee and sleep, going on to something more serious with a severe headache, muscle ache and a warm feverish feeling.
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I explained in a recent post that Facebook is the phenomenon of the year in Italy, with over 6 million registered users at February 2009. Well, I should have mentioned that FB is not the most common mean of communication for Italians. We seem to have more mobile devices than population in Italy, with 122 mobile phones for every 100 people. It is the highest score in Europe, with UK and Portugal (115), Spain (105), Germany (102) and Greece (100), according to a research by Eurostat. The point is that mobile is not only a device: mobile is a new lifestyle, since people nowadays are mobile themselves.
It would be fair to say that some elements of the health world have been relatively switched on to the world of mobile technology for a while now; the concept of using SMS as a reminder to take medication, for example, is a tried and tested technique for many medical institutions.
But as the technology evolves, so the potential uses do too. The iPhone has taken mobile technology in a really interesting direction and it is rapidly becoming clear that its potential uses go considerably further than the sphere of entertainment for which it has primarily been marketed.
Last week, the FDA issued 14 warning letters about digital advertising, specifically paid keyword advertising. Paid keyword advertising is the text ads that come up in search results, usually on the top or right-hand side, marked “Sponsored Links.” Marketers generally buy their brand names, indications and symptoms of the condition.
As a follow-up to my previous post, I've created a white paper* which summarizes the issues: • The 14 letters were all for search and not related to Web 2.0 tactics • This clarifies that fair balance can’t be one...
Enter the 2009 DiabetesMine Design Challenge, a San Francisco blog-based competition calling for innovative design concepts (devices or web applications) that will improve life with diabetes.
The first half-day at the DTC National Conference was very interesting with some great speakers. It started off with some live-polling of the audience, and the majority there agreed that we will likely see more warning and untitled letters from the FDA.
When the going gets tough, the tough go deeper into India’s rural market. It’s a Pacific Ocean out there!
Just look at these figures of India’s rural power: “If the populations of the U.S., Japan and the Eurozone are added, the total would still be a lower than a third of India’s population of 1.5 bn. Importantly, about 65% or 135 million households are in rural India where the opportunities are enormous.” (Business Standard’s The Smart Investor, Feb 16, 2009)
The second and last days of the DTC National Conference in D.C. went by in a blur with several great presentations and many interesting people to meet.
Public health emergencies, such as the current swine flu outbreak, is an opportunity to engage with a broad spectrum of stakeholders and employees. Thaddeus Pennas, Vice President, CSR/Issues Management (former communication advisor at WHO) explains how.
While it’s too soon to say whether swine flu will become the next pandemic, one thing is clear: news and rumors about swine flu are spreading more quickly than the disease itself at the moment.
Communications during a global public health emergency: The cycle of confusion
posted by Nancy Turett on Apr 30, 2009
posted by Nancy Turett on Apr 30, 2009
Here’s further commentary from my colleague Thad Pennas.
I was the communications advisor to the Stop TB Partnership at the World Health Organization from 2003-2006. While there, my fellow communications advisors and I were on constant alert to react to a range of public health emergencies, including SARS, avian flu and a multi-drug resistant TB outbreak in South Africa. A group of us, lead by Dick Thompson (former communications officer for avian flu) published a report about best communications practices during a public health emergency, and these were some of our findings that are particularly useful as we face swine flu.
Zerene Kahan, Executive Vice President & Director, Health, Lat Am at Edelman questions how personal we can get when a crisis affects us personally…as well as our clients.
Freshly and safely landing into Mexico City from Cancun this week was scary. The airport looked pretty deserted and people were wearing face masks and looking so frightened: you could almost hear them thinking “I will be dying any minute now”. I went directly to buy groceries, at my local Costco, and had to stand in line for thirty minutes just to get a shopping cart. There was no water, no bread, no eggs and people fighting to get whatever they could. I had to stand in line for about one hour to pay for whatever I was able to snatch. To put this in perspective, I have to say that this was not the case for the rest of Mexico City, but little did I know. Panic creates panic. The scariest thing going on today in Mexico is not Swine Flu scare, but panic… uncertainty of what’s coming next.
The best channels for communicating with mass audiences in India (and I would think in most of Asia, too) in a health crisis like the current swine flu is television, followed by the mobile.
So far, India has not figured in stories about the spread of the flu. If that happens, this would be a good opportunity for global companies to showcase their ‘global’ commitment by getting into the education space on containing the flu.
Social Media Gives Officials a Helpful Tool During Flu Emergency
posted by Gary Karr on Apr 30, 2009
posted by Gary Karr on Apr 30, 2009
Communicating during a public health emergency requires a dedication to keeping people informed as quickly as possible. That’s certainly necessary now for companies, government agencies and non-governmental organizations dealing with the swine flu emergency.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began planning for a flu pandemic three years ago, as the AP noted , but in the digital age that was generations ago. The need to communicate effectively and clearly has only increased since then, but thankfully the tools available to do so have become more useful for officials and consumers alike.
For its part, HHS is now aggressively using social media to update the official response to the current emergency. Several divisions use Twitter, with main flu update info at: http://twitter.com/BirdFluGov.
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