Health Secretary: funding crisis threatens the NHS


By Betsy Raymond Stevenson, posted June 2, 2011

Communication versus Communications: What your Organization can Learn from Songwriting


By Betsy Raymond Stevenson, posted April 25, 2011

Making your messages sing.

Some weeks ago, I acted on one of my New Year’s resolutions, taking my first songwriting lesson with Bill Pere, President of the Connecticut Songwriters Association and a former researcher at Pfizer.  Communication is central to songwriting and  Bill’s advice to musicians is just as applicable to organizations.  Adapting a quote from Bill’s Songcrafters’ Coloring Book:

[Organizations] that mistake expression for communication are the ones with poor or, at best, lukewarm relationships with the groups that matter to them the most.

Hmmm, does this describe the pharmaceutical industry? An industry bewildered by its negative reputation when it has done so much to restore the health and improve the lives of millions of people? Perhaps, if industry messaging was more like songwriting, relationships – and reputations – would improve.

Is your company communicating or expressing itself?

Expression is the act of sharing your own thoughts and feelings without considering what happens to those messages after you put them out.  Or, to put it another way, “I expressed myself, so now you must understand me.”

A classic example of an expressive message used by the pharmaceutical industry is: “It costs more than a billion dollars to bring you a new medicine (so you must understand why we charge what we do).  Logical as this is, it has done little to change public opinion on drug pricing.

Read on …


By Betsy Raymond Stevenson, posted March 21, 2011

@Brian Solis, “Defining the Convergence of Media and Influence”

In the latest part of his interview series Revolution, Brian Solis interviews Technorati Media CEO Richard Jalichandra on their annual ‘State of the Blogosphere’ report, which has found that “Blogs are not only thriving, they’re challenging traditional media in trust and influence.”

Could Social Networking Save Big Pharma?


By Betsy Raymond Stevenson, posted January 24, 2011

Social Networking Research Spawns a Healthcare Company


By Betsy Raymond Stevenson, posted December 8, 2010

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