the renewable assignment - part 2

The fall semester is officially behind us - the students have left for break, and I have submitted my grades.

In my course HMP 721, Management of a Healthcare Organization, I tried to continue my experiment with open pedagogy. I was not able to go to full open ped in this course, but I did introduce some elements of open ped, in particular the renewable assignment. 

What is a "renewable assignment"?

“A Disposable Assignment is any assignment about which students and faculty understand the following:

• Students will do the work

• Faculty will grade the work

• Students will throw away the work

A Renewable Assignment is any assignment where:

• Students will do the work

• Faculty will grade the work

• The work is inherently valuable to someone beyond the class

• The work is openly published so those other people can find and use (5R) it”

One form that renewable assignments might take is in the form of books and textbooks.

More here.

I first learned about this concept from Robin DeRosa at UNH's sister school at Plymouth State University.

I call this "the renewable assignment - part 2" because I first tried this concept with my students last semester in HMP 722, an organizational behavior and leadership in healthcare organizations course. The students wrote a primer on organizational behavior. More about that effort here.

This semester the students wrote a primer on the management of healthcare organizations. In line with the course, the primer is more about functional divisions within healthcare organizations, rather than management and leadership, though there is some of that. This first iteration consists of 13 chapters on different topics. Next year's class will inherit their text book and develop it further - revising and adding to the original - thus making it both a resource for the next class as well as a baseline for the next class's assignment.

You can view the primer here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d008oMRP5X0P46lkHwRNkxYGFDG1e5oito-0Ne2JdUU/edit?usp=sharing

I think what they have done is quite impressive, remembering this was a self-managed group of almost 50 students (juniors and seniors) who put this product together. What will be exciting is seeing what happens next year.

I would be pleased to share more about this process if you are interested. Just leave me a comment or message me directly.

RWL Newsletter #75

Greetings from the now-empty University of New Hampshire! All the students are gone and I still can't find parking. What's up with that? Sigh. Luckily I live close enough that I can walk to work. Technically today is the second day of winter, but winter seemed to have officially settled in about two weeks ago with our first two storms of the season. I took the above picture after the first storm on my walk to work. This is the Oyster River running through the back side of campus - you can see the UNH water pumping station through the branches on the right. 

Here's this week's links. No theme, but I think they are all super cool. What do you think?

PS - Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate. Happy week to the rest!

Read

What: Wired Magazine, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE LET TECH CARE FOR OUR AGING PARENTS, by Grant Cornett

https://www.wired.com/story/digital-puppy-seniors-nursing-homes/

Why: Reading this article yesterday at the breakfast table hit me for three reasons. First, over the course of this semester, many of my students came to realize they had an interest in long term care. They are drawn to it for the opportunity to have high-touch interactions with residents and really make a difference in their lives. Their interest has piqued my own - trying to get them more exposure to what they want to learn about. Second, I just did an interview with the administrative director for telehealth services for Dartmouth-Hitchcock on Wednesday for the Health Leader Forge (look for it in January). What they do at D-H is fundamentally the same as what is being done here - except they provide a much higher level of skill. And third, this exposes more of the evolution described by Tyler Cowen in "Average is Over" - the future is not robots taking our jobs, but humans working with robots in a complementary capacity. I have to say, I really loved this article. A little bit of a tear jerker at the end.

Watch

What: Insider, Here's how prosthetic eyes are made (2 min)

http://www.thisisinsider.com/prosthetic-eyes-are-made-2017-10

Why: This video definitely belongs in the "this is so cool" bucket. As in, we do some really cool stuff in health care. It's fun to take a step back and look at the small miracles that we as leaders help enable.

Listen

What: The Art of Manliness Podcast, The Art of Mingling (40 minutes)

https://www.artofmanliness.com/2017/12/07/how-to-mingle-at-a-party/

Why: Last week I sent out a few links having to do with networking. This podcast goes very well with those links. In this podcast, the host interviews Jeanne Martinet, author of the book The Art of Mingling. Martinet realized at one point that most people were uncomfortable striking up casual conversations at public events like parties, or even networking events, but she was not. So she wrote a book about her techniques. I haven't read the book yet, but it's on my list now. She gives some great advice about how to read a room, start a conversation, and withdraw from a conversation to make the most of your mingling (networking) opportunities.
 

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last day of classes - advice

I always try to leave my students with a little advice on the last day of classes. I taught an introductory finance class and an introductory management class this semester. Most of the students were enrolled in both classes, so I tried not to overlap.

Here's is a transpose of the slides from each.

Finance

1.

Bonica’s rules of personal finance

Max out your retirement the day you are hired

• You’ll get used to living on less. 
• Do it. Even if it means taking longer to pay off your school loans.

Create a cushion savings account –

• start with 1 month’s pay --> eventually want 3 months

Pay yourself 10% of your take home

• Pay down your debt as fast as you can
• Debt is a chain and will hamper your freedom

Buy a used car – 2-3 years old, 30-50K miles

• High value/dollar

Don’t rush to buy a house – transaction costs, asset concentration

2.

What do you really value? What is important? Ask this all the time.

Don’t let your beautiful things become a prison.

Find joy in the simple and the non-material.

3.

“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Management

1. 

“You are, in fact, a mashup of what who you choose to let into your life.”

― Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

2.

“Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.”

- Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince

3.

“The love of praise is the desire of obtaining favourable sentiments of our brethren. The love of praiseworthiness is the desire of rendering ourselves the proper objects of those sentiments.”

- Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments

4. 

“The many speak highly of you, but have you any grounds for satisfaction with yourself if you are the kind of person the many understand? Your merits should not be outward facing.”

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

5.

Focus on improving what is inside you, because what is inside you eventually becomes what everyone sees and experiences. If you are better on the inside, you will naturally become a better leader.

RWL Newsletter #71 - thinking about disability

Happy belated Thanksgiving and Happy Black Friday from chilly little Durham, home of the very quiet University of New Hampshire! The students are gone for the long weekend and the streets are very empty - a prelude for what is coming next month when we go out on winter break.

I came across a Nietzsche quote last week that I have been meditating on, "Love is blind. Friendship closes its eyes." That seems like an appropriate quote for Thanksgiving week. No one is perfect and no friendship would survive without a dose of willful tolerance. I took the above picture last weekend out on the shore of New Castle. I like to sometimes compose with this little crystal ball my daughter gave me because it shifts perspectives, and you get in one picture your perspective as well as the shifted one. The key is to blend the two perspectives together to make an interesting composition. I think that is a nice metaphor for friendship, as well. 

For this week I've assembled a few links that deal with disability and society. A lot of what is called for in universal design is a willful tolerance, a willingness to integrate different perspectives into our societal composition, and a willingness to understand that we are not all the same. The glory and challenge of the American project is the bringing together of a highly heterogeneous society in relative peace. 

I'm thankful to be a part of that project.

Read

What: The Atlantic, The Digital Ruins of a Forgotten Future

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/second-life-leslie-jamison/544149/

Why: One of the subjects of this piece, Alice Krueger, I wrote about in a book chapter I wrote a few years ago about public health communication. I stumbled across her work in Second Life and was absolutely fascinated by the community she had helped create and nurture in this digital world. What she realized was that people with disability could be like anyone else in a virtual world, and so she started an organization to help disabled people get online and engaged in online communities. I had a bit of correspondence with Alice and shared my chapter with her after it was published. She is still working in Second Life as well as other virtual communities to help disabled people have richer lives. This Atlantic article is a bit harsh on Second Life, but it does do a decent job highlighting some of the advantages virtual worlds have for the disabled. There are about a million regular users of Second Life now - a tiny fraction of the number who go on Facebook - but to put that in perspective, if Second Life was a country, it would be the 161st most populated country out of 237 listed by the CIA world factbook, three times the size of say, Iceland, in population. That's something to consider. 




Watch

What: TEDxBoulder, Why We Need Universal Design (10 min)

https://youtu.be/bVdPNWMGyZY

Why: I first learned about universal design when I interviewed Jill Gravink, the founder and executive director of Northeast Passage, a few years ago. Northeast Passage works with disabled people in a number of capacities. They have an adaptive sports program that provides a variety of opportunities for disabled people to engage in outdoor activities and team sports, as well as a school program where they help schools create inclusive activities for disabled kids. And they do other cool stuff, too. Universal design in principle is the idea to design our built environment in such a way that it allows access for everyone, not just the fully able - ramps instead of stairs, for example. This short video is a nice explanation of the concept if you aren't familiar. The speaker, Michael Nesmith, is deaf. 

Listen

What: Design Matters, Kenny Fries

http://designobserver.com/feature/kenny-fries/39699/

Why: Kenny Fries is a disabled, Jewish, HIV positive, gay man who makes his living writing about disability. Beyond the usual discussion about what we mean by disability, what made this podcast interesting was Fries' discussion of disability in an international context: he has lived and written about disability in the United States, Japan, and Germany. I personally had not thought about the cultural specificity of disability. Other aspects of the interview are interesting as well, such as what makes a life worth living, which as many of you know is a question I perpetually think and write about.

https://tinyletter.com/markbonica/letters/rwl-newsletter-71-thinking-about-disability

RWL Newsletter #70

Greetings from cold and blustery UNH! The color has been drained from the trees and we have entered what I refer to as the long grey interlude, part 1. Summer lasts just long enough here that it feels like nothing is ever going to change. It's always going to be green and lush, and it's always going to be in the 70's during the day and just lovely and cool at night. And then all of the sudden it all changes over what feels like about two weeks. The leave change color, it suddenly gets colder, and then the leaves fall and all the trees look like dead sticks. That's the beginning of the long grey interlude, part 1. And then it snows and in New Hampshire, we pretty much get a good blanket of snow going and it stays for the next several months. It hangs on long enough that it seems like it's never going to end until what seems like, over a two week period, everything warms up, and the snow melts, leaving mud and grime everywhere, and you get so excited, except the trees go back to looking like sticks because they don't get their leaves for a what seems like forever: we enter the long grey interlude, part 2. The long grey interlude, part 2 is so much worse than the long grey interlude, part 1 because you haven't seen anything green for months and you just want it to be over, but it won't end. And then suddenly it does. Then within a few weeks we get used to having lush green all around us and we forget that this is only temporary. It takes an extraordinary ability to forget to live in New England. I think those of us who don't have it eventually move to Florida. 

Well, here's a few tidbits to chew on while you join me in the long grey interlude. Unless you live in Florida. Then I just have to say I don't want to talk to you right now. Call me in May.

Read

What: Forbes, The One Thing Every Organization Should Learn From The New England Patriots, Lance Salyers

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lancesalyers/2017/02/06/the-1-thing-every-organization-should-learn-from-the-new-england-patriots/#521a96da3c81

Why: Recommended Ryan, one of my students. The article draws some lessons from the Patriots' success - adaptability and resilience.

Watch

What: Brookings, Unpacked: What’s wrong with the congressional budget process? (4 min)

https://youtu.be/5Yse1RCqurM

Why: An interesting discussion that explains some of the reasons why Congress seems to have so much trouble doing one of its constitutional duties - passing a budget for the federal government.

Listen

What: Health Leader Forge, Timothy D. King, VP of Business Development, G. Greene Construction

http://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2017/11/timothy-d-king-vp-of-business.html

Why: I interviewed Tim King about working in business development for a healthcare construction firm. I got to learn a lot about two things I have never worked in myself: healthcare construction and business development. Tim is really passionate about what he does and what his firm does, so this is a great interview.
 

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Thanks for reading and see you next week! If you come across any interesting stories, won't you send them my way? I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @bonicatalent .

Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica

Have a great weekend coming up and do amazing things!

Mark

Solve someone else's problem

Insight in my life often comes when I see the connection between two seemingly unrelated things. This weekend I've been listening to a The Chase Jarvis Show, a podcast about creative entrepreneurs and I've been grading an assignment for my finance class. 

I think it was Jarvis's interview with one of the co-founders of AirBnB in which the guest said entrepreneurship is about solving someone else's problem. Think about that - it's not about getting rich, it's not about being famous, it's not about being powerful - it's about finding a solution to a problem for someone else. I think most of my anti-business friends and colleagues have this perception that business people are only in it for themselves and all they care about is money, power, and maybe fame. Indeed, they do care about those things, but tell me about a politician who also isn't driven by those same desires. But an entrepreneur has to convince someone that the thing s/he has created is worth the customer spending her/his money on. That requires convincing the customer that the product is worth giving up some of their hard earned cash. 

The assignment I gave my students was to do some analysis on some financial statements, and then provide me, in briefing format (I.e., PowerPoint) an answer as if I were the CFO. For example, one of the questions was "tell me the three most important changes in this financial statement over the last year". Some of the answers were literally a list of three things with no further discussion. Just three bullets. Now some of the students got it and provided an explanation for each item that they selected. The latter is an example of solving someone else's problem. Give me a list and you haven't really added any value. Maybe you've even created more work for me because now I may not agree with you, but I don't know why you chose the three things you chose. 

We all bring different skills and abilities to the table. Some of us are very good at planning and organizing (not me), some are good at analysis, and some are good at selling ideas. Whatever it is you bring to the table, you have to figure out how you can use that set of skills to solve someone else's problem if you want to be successful- whether that is as an entrepreneur or as a junior analyst in a hospital. 

The key to success in business is being sensitive to other people's needs, and then helping solve their problems. That's what I'm going to try to explain to my students on Monday when I talk to them about their assignments. And, honestly, it's something I need to remind myself of from time to time.

RWL Newsletter #69

Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! It's Veterans Day. I kind of want to say, "Happy Veterans Day", but that somehow just doesn't seem quite right. As a veteran, I also find myself a little sheepish when people thank me for my service. While I appreciate the sentiment, it's always a bit awkward. I think a lot of us feel the same way. Serving is a big sacrifice in many ways - and that sacrifice is born not just by the service member, but by the service member's family as well (just ask my wife and kids). But it's also a privilege, and it gives you entry into a unique and special culture that people who have never served will never understand. So I guess at the end of the day, I feel like the scales are pretty well balanced. I gave a lot, and I got a lot. I didn't join to get rich, and I was successful in that. But I did leave with a wealth of experiences and friendships that I never could have had without putting on the uniform. I think the best way to really thank a veteran is to be interested in preserving our collective freedoms to be individuals, however that may express itself in your life. 

And now for some completely unrelated links!

(picture above is of my buddy Colonel (ret) C.W. taking battalion command back in 2010)

Read

What: NYT, How to Be a C.E.O., From a Decade’s Worth of Them

https://nyti.ms/2iE94xw

Why: Adam Bryant interviewed 525 CEOs for his NYT column, Corner Office. This is a summary of things he learned about leadership. Some surprises. This project is similar to my own Health Leader Forge podcast, so it was fun to compare. (HT to my colleague LS for sharing)

Watch

What: TED, Architecture that's Built to Heal, Michael Murphy

https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_murphy_architecture_that_s_built_to_heal

Why: I don't know much about architecture, so it's always interesting to listen to someone who can talk about it with so much passion. We actually had a guest speaker in class last week who is the VP of Facilities for one of the local hospitals and he talked about all the subtle ways that the environment of care can influence health outcomes. This TED Talk starts by talking about healthcare facilities, but eventually transitions to spiritual and social healing. Worth a listen. (HT to my student Megan, who writes an excellent blog, BTW)

Listen

What: Econtalk, Christy Ford Chapin on the Evolution of the American Health Care System

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/06/christy_ford_ch.html

Why: Great discussion about the history of medicine and medical insurance, and the influence of the American Medical Association (AMA) in getting us to where we are today.

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NNEAHE Annual Meeting

Very pleased that the Board of the Northern New England Association of Healthcare Executives invited UNH Health Management and Policy students to participate in their annual meeting this year at the Cliff House in Ogunquit, ME. We had about 30 students attend the event. Here is a group of them standing with Kevin Donovan, the CEO of LRGHealthcare and President of NNEAHE.

trying to balance the three legs of the stool

The pursuit of tenure is in part a balancing act, I am learning. We are to be evaluated for teaching, service, and research when our tenure clock runs out - but everyone says the first two with something of a wink, acknowledging that it's really research that matters. I was at a mentoring meeting a few days ago and someone quoted advice she had received, "If you want to teach, go to a community college." No one seriously expects to earn tenure by serving on committees, so at least there's that. Though my service isn't focused on committees. I learned to hate committees and meetings after a couple of decades in management. If I never have to be on a committee again, it will be too soon. Unfortunately, I'm on a bunch.

The challenge is that when the semester is underway, teaching takes up the bulk of my time. And what's left is filled in pretty quickly with service. The volume of both is self-imposed. I try to create experiences for my students that will meaningfully prepare them for their future careers - and that means lots of written assignments. Written assignments are the worst to grade. They are massively draining. But they are the most important for professional development - they are the only meaningful way to stretch a student's communication and analysis capabilities. I am actively engaged with several professional organizations, trying to extend the brand of our program in the community, and create new professional opportunities for our students and alumni. And of course I have my podcast, which is also at it's core a branding and networking effort as well. The combination of these things is at least a forty hour week. So research stalls, and the balance is completely absent. But how to get around these other things, that for me are the most important reason for why I want to be a professor?

Don't get me wrong - I like my research. I think what I am doing is both interesting and important. But I don't really know how to establish balance. When the students are here, I feel like I need to be pushing their agenda as hard as I can, whether they like it or not.

It's hard. I even went to a writing academy over the summer where they grilled us to "write, write, write". I first authored two papers over the summer, and was a co-author on a third. If I hadn't had some teaching responsibilities over the summer, I probably would have gotten a fourth paper out as well. But once school started back up, I have been sitting with a few things almost done, but making no meaningful progress. Now it's November and all I can think is, I can't wait until winter break so I can get back to my writing, because I don't see a meaningful break between now and then.

another experiment in open pedagogy

Last spring was such an amazing experience using the principles of open pedagogy to teach my Org Behavior class that I wanted to implement some of the lessons I learned this semester again. This course is "management of a healthcare organization", so it's a bit narrower than Org Behavior, but it still provides a fertile field.One complication: I have 50 students this semester, last semester I had 13.

Nevertheless, I am plowing forward using two open assignments as part of my course: the students will be blogging, and the students will be writing another primer.

Blog:

The assignment is to create a blog and post one, 200+ word post each week, related to something about health management. 

This isn't really the exciting part, though. What is exciting is I have recruited 34 healthcare professionals who work in management to read the blogs and comment on them. Each reader has been assigned three students, so that each student has two professionals reading their work, plus me. Hopefully that will provide them a sense of writing for an audience, rather than just writing into a vacuum (or writing just to finish the assignment).

Primer:

With 50 students, I have assigned them to teams of four and told them they will be writing a chapter in a book about the management of healthcare organizations. I'm going to focus on them on organizational units or functions - Department of Nursing, Human Resource Management, or FQHCs. We'll see what they sign up for! I am looking forward to another amazing product.

I'm excited. I hope these open ped concepts work well for them and give them the opportunity to explore and grow. 

RWL Newsletter #58 - back to school!

Greetings from the University of New Hampshire where today is freshman move-in day! I live just around the corner from campus, so when I drove down to the gym this morning, I got to see the RAs lined up outside the dorms helping freshmen and their families unloading their cars to start the move-in process. For me, summer is officially ends today. I am looking forward to seeing my students - I teach the juniors in my program and it was their inspiration that caused me to start this newsletter. I was their faculty adviser freshman and sophomore years, so during the summer I was sending them these links to keep their heads in the game. It was only later that I decided to open it up to the public. Starting Monday, I will finally have all of them in my class, which will be fun. Except I need about two more weeks to finish everything I set out to do this summer. Sigh. There is never enough time to do everything you want to accomplish.

(The above pic is from behind Hewitt Hall, where my office is.)

Read

What: from SHRM, 5 Common Questions About Tricky Progressive Discipline Issues, by Paul Falcone

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/communication/pages/part-1-common-questions-about-tricky-progressive-discipline-issues-.aspx

Why: Discipline is the hardest thing we have to do as leaders, in my opinion. This article has some good advice.

Watch

What: Flash Mob - Ode an die Freude ( Ode to Joy ) Beethoven Symphony No.9 classical music (6 min)

https://youtu.be/kbJcQYVtZMo

Why: Because sometimes you just need to feel good. I know flash mobs are so 2014, but there was something to be learned from that trend. We love surprises. At least nice surprises. And there was something especially fun about the participatory nature of flash mobs. As humans, we love to be part of something. There are a bunch of management metaphors to be mixed in there, and some that apply to healthcare. Healthcare today is a team sport - it's people doing stuff together - hopefully to please other people. I think the thing I love about this video is the way the surprises just keep coming. If you haven't seen it (which you might have - it's been seen 13.5 million times), it will make you smile. If you have seen it, it will still make you smile. It's worth thinking about how you can generate this sort of planned, positive spontaneity in your organization.

Listen

What: The Moth, The Freedom Riders and Me, by Barbara Collins Bowie

http://themoth.prx.org/our-life-and-death-barbara-collins-bowie/

Why: I know I just shared a Moth podcast a few weeks ago, but given the recent events in Charlottesville, it seemed appropriate to share the Moth's response. This story is further made appropriate by the fact that much of the story revolves around the quality of hospital care received by people of color under Jim Crow. 

classes start Monday!

The summer officially ends tomorrow for me. Monday is the first day of classes for the fall semester. I finished my syllabus for my finance class on Tuesday, but I've been wrestling with my management class syllabus for two days and I just can't find the right combination of topics, assignments, and grade weights. Getting the right mix is much harder than it seems when you are a student.

First you wrestle with what you want the students to come away with from your class. This is a difficult starting point for me because my answer is "everything they need to know to be successful." Unfortunately, that's just not possible in one class. And yet I keep trying.

Once you have a sense of the take aways, you have to look at content. What book, articles, web sites, etc. will provide the base material you want your students to interact with before or after class? Here's a secret - you won't have time for all of it no matter what.

Then you think about the deliverables that will help create the learning experience the students need to achieve the take aways. Inevitably, the best deliverables are massive drains on your time and energy (i.e, papers). No one likes to write papers for class. I guaranty you, your teacher likes them even less. Correcting a massive pile of papers is like drinking sand. With a side of fire ants. The multiple choice exam is a complete cop-out. But with large classes, that's about all you can do.

The flip side is, if you assign too much work, students moderate their effort and hand in mediocre products. If you don't assign enough work, they don't learn anything. If you don't assign the right work, they learn that you are a jerk and don't know what you are doing.

It's a complex puzzle to solve, especially with a squishy class like "management". I was stunned to find out I will have 50+ students in my class this semester - about 25% more than last year. Great for the Registrar, terrible for me. You can't have a good discussion with more than about 20 in a class, preferably less. So now I have to think about exercises and activities and assignments that I can do for 50+. Right away that kills any serious use of class time for presentations, a key management skill. It makes me weigh how much writing I can assign, because every paper I assign means I have to multiply that by 50 for grading. Three to five page paper? 150-250 pages of reading - a medium length novel. And I can't just relax and read it - I have to mark up and judge every page's quality. Class size is a game changer.

Nevertheless, I've committed to having the students blog. They will be writing one post a week - which means I will be reading 50 posts a week on top of class prep and any other assignments. I am excited about this assignment, despite the volume, because I've recruited a huge (30+) team of healthcare leaders to read the posts along with me. They will have three students each to follow and they have agreed to comment on the posts, which I think is awesome.

The other parts of the class I am still not sure about. I believe I am going to have them create an open educational resource (OER) book about health management and put it into the creative commons, based on my experience last semester. But how to keep them engaged with the actual class work? That is the question. Multiple choice reading exams? More written homework?

I'm going to use the Army's MDMP process to teach them formal decision making. And then I think I am going to have them produce decision briefs, but probably just hand in the PPTs, not brief them, because I have 50+ students and that is not physically possible without sacrificing half the class meetings to boring briefings.

I am working on killing the disposable assignment, but I am not there yet. Sigh.

RWL Newsletter #57 - the marketing and branding edition

Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! The end of summer is arriving as my father brought us peaches from his tree. We made a fabulous cobbler last night with them. With the end of summer, I turn now to preparing for my fall courses. I am looking forward to this class because I was the faculty adviser to most of them during their freshman year, and now they are juniors. I only arrived on campus one semester before them, so in some sense we have been learning about the UNH at the same time. And it was for them that I started this newsletter.

This week I released my interview with Sean Tracey, the founder of a full service marketing firm specializing in healthcare clients, and so this week's theme is around marketing and branding - personal and organizational branding. This is a fascinating and important topic. I hope you enjoy the links.

Read

What: from Eater, What Brands Are Actually Behind Trader Joe’s Snacks? by Vince Dixon

https://www.eater.com/2017/8/9/16099028/trader-joes-products

Why: I love Trader Joe's. I don't know anyone who doesn't love Trader Joe's. What's to not like about Two Buck Chuck and a box of Joe-Joe's? It's like an unpretentious Whole Foods. And that is the power of their brand - good quality, great prices, interesting selection. What's fascinating about the store is almost everything is store brand - the branding is at the store level. Brands convey all sorts of information - particularly quality. A brand is a guarantee because the firm behind the brand is putting its reputation on the line. Most grocery stores have store brands, but they are a small part of their business. Mostly grocery stores sell branded goods from other companies. If you are disappointed with Campbell's soup, you buy a different brand. Campbell's suffers, but you don't hold the grocery store accountable. With a store brand, it's the store that's putting its reputation on the line - you don't even know the firm who made the product. That's what Trader Joe's does by selling almost all of their products under the Trader Joe's brand - it puts its reputation on the line. It's an interesting choice. To some extent, health care is moving in the Trader Joe's direction, and probably should move faster. Whereas branding used to be more focused at the individual provider level, branding is moving up to the organization level. Physicians are blending into a team, and the brand is moving up to the team level (practice, hospital), and away from the individual components - physician, hospital.

Watch

What: TED, Susan Colantuono, The Career Advice You Probably Didn't Get

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_colantuono_the_career_advice_you_probably_didn_t_get

Why: This is sort of an anti-branding message. Anti-branding in the sense that I've read a lot about personal brands and cultivating personal brands. The argument Colantuono puts forward is a bit of "stick to your knitting". This is a good message for men and women. Business, strategic, and financial acumen - "That's a given". Apparently conventional advice to women does not focus on that - instead personal branding. I find that odd, since I (hope I) would never give that advice. Personal branding matters at the margins - you have to be damn good at what you do. Everything else is fluff. 

Listen

What: Health Leader Forge interview with Sean Tracey, Founder, CEO, and Creative Director of Sean Tracey Associates

http://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2017/08/sean-tracey-founder-ceo-and-creative.html

Why: This interview was a bit outside my norm, but Sean introduced himself after he became aware of my interview with Sheila Woolley, the CNO at WDH. Sean had done work for WDH in the past, and so we talked and ultimately he agreed to be a guest on the podcast. This was a really interesting interview, getting an inside view into the world of a marketing firm that specializes in providing services to healthcare organizations. There were several takeaways from this interview that make it worth listening to. First, Sean is a really interesting guy - a modern renaissance man with interests in philosophy, music, art - and all of those things influence his business. Second, we get into the idea of branding (this week's theme) and some of the unique aspects of branding in high trust industries like healthcare and financial services. And third, we talk about the unique management structures of the marketing and advertising world - the "Hollywood Model" as Sean refers to it - where teams of freelancers come together on a project basis to produce most of the products. I think that is absolutely fascinating. 

 

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I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @bonicatalent .

RWL Newsletter #56 - not swimming with the sharks edition

Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! I spent the last two days on Cape Cod finishing up visiting our department's summer interns - the last two being in Yarmouth and Chatham. The above image is from an actual sign above the beach in Wellfleet. It's a beautiful beach. I didn't even put my toes in the water, though. Call me crazy, but swimming in a great white feeding ground doesn't pass the cost-benefit analysis. Sometimes the better part of valor is knowing when not to engage!

This week's links don't really have a theme - just some interesting things I came across that I thought you might find interesting. Enjoy!

Read

What: Thinking about leadership - a brief history of leadership thought from the Australian Public Service Commission

http://www.apsc.gov.au/publications-and-media/current-publications/thinking-about-leadership-a-brief-history-of-leadership-thought

Why: I'm working with a colleague on a qualitative study on leadership and was looking for a quick definition for adapative leadership and came across this nice summary of a variety of leadership theories. This may be of interest to those of you who have a little bit of a nerdy interest in leadership theory. Worth a quick scan. Go ahead, I won't tell anyone you're a nerd.

Watch

What: Ben Sasse on the Space between Nebraska and Neverland (full), Conversations with Tyler (1hr 19 min)

https://youtu.be/Rhe0NrFXxpI

Why: This is a long interview, but I really enjoyed it. There is an audio-only version available as well. I liked it so much, I bought Sasse's book, The Vanishing American Adult. I recommend it. If only we had more leaders who were as erudite as Sasse. 

Listen

What: JAMA, Robots Help Patients Change Behaviors

http://jamanetwork.com/learning/audio-player/14473887

Why: This podcast discusses the development of "socially assistive" robots for patient rehabilitation and training. These robots combine the physical and social - we are hard wired to respond to social cues. If we can get the cues right, it doesn't matter if we know it's a robot. I've been interested in evolutionary psychology for a while - particularly as it plays into economics - so that's how I listened to this podcast. It's fascinating how we can be manipulated - for good, in this case.

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That's it for this week! Drop me a line and let me know what you think. I really like hearing back from you about the links you liked.

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

Also, if you find these links interesting, won’t you tell a friend? They can subscribe here: https://tinyletter.com/markbonica

I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @bonicatalent .