I went to Boston to present on Friday 19 July at Lisa Gualtieri’s health communications class at Tufts University. It was called “5th Tufts Summer Institute on Digital Strategies for Health Communication“.
I gave an overview of the health content on Wikipedia and suggested that anyone with a health message to share could share it on Wikipedia. Pete Forsyth was with me by Skype. We were worried about technical problems in having him Skype in but it seems that technology is at a point in which people can go to a typical conference room with no preparation and just expect that the Internet connection, projector, and speakers will all work for someone who knows nothing about any of these things and that any speaker can just video into the lecture. Pete gave an introduction to Wikipedia then I went on to present about health content. Pete was good to chime in and he detects subtlety that I miss when people ask questions, often showing insight about what people want to know when I miss their point.
As is usual, people there criticized the quality of information. My usual way of countering this is by saying that people’s demands for health information should be met a the places where they are seeking this information. The usual stance of the field is that organizations should have good quality health information on their own websites and then run an advertising campaign to get people to go to those websites. My stance is that this is expensive and ineffective, and that organizations should invest a little in developing Wikipedia articles because people find those articles naturally and without advertising and in large numbers. As always, I got a mixed response, but I feel like I at least introduced the option.
Part of the class was that students were in groups of about five and they had to propose a new digital strategy for an example health organization. The case study for this project was the Massachusetts Medical Society, which is the organization most famous for publishing The New England Journal of Medicine. In the project, 5-6 groups of 5 students each imagined four archetypal people and gave recommendations of what the MMS could do to serve that kind of person. My own bias is to evaluate these kinds of communication campaigns in terms of the audience, and not in terms of what the organization would like to give, so from my perspective, all of the recommendations seemed like typically coercive advertising campaigns in which the base assumption was that MMS should control all messaging and that no one should be allowed to talk about the MMS without the MMS moderating the discussion. Example strategies were that MMS could do Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest campaigns; that the MMS could create and control graphics and messaging and ask that people distribute them in such a way that the MMS would continually control the media, and that the MMS could host community events which celebrate MMS history and accomplishments but in which the MMS controls what is said. I recognize the instinct that organizations have and that even are impressed upon the public that brand ownership, even when that brand enters public consciousness, should be controlled tightly and that the public should recognize that even brands which affect their lives are to be seen as off-limits, but I find this view to be contrary to my philosophy of increased public interaction and participation in community matters.
One of the groups suggested that e-cards should be made. Their proposal was that MMS make cute graphics and then ask people to distribute them through their social networks. One person in that group talked about incorporating “memeification” into the campaign. This group presented a jokey graphic in which a child said something morbid like, “My mommy said that if my grandparents do not get their vaccines then I will not see them at holidays”. The message was that public health authorities recommend that the elderly get flu vaccines, and the audience was supposed to be younger people who would see the message and then talk with their grandparents about getting vaccinated. I think that this is a fair campaign. However, it is my opinion that for something like this to be effective in spreading around social networks, then individuals have to be granted the trust and right to be able to personalize it for their own needs. For example, some demographics may only respond to a rude and crude message, like “Grandma, get the vaccine or die!” or any other such variation which conveys the same message but is not so conservative. If people were encouraged to actually interact with the messages rather than just pass on pre-made advertisements then this campaign could be more successful, but I know that organizations are loathe to grant any resources which could result in anyone changing their exact messaging even if that means curbing the efficacy of the campaign.
In another case, one group suggested that the organization host a period performance in which they re-enact the 18th century founding of the organization. I also think that this could be a great idea, were it not for the fact that the organization has no published record of its history and accomplishments which is free for anyone to read and discuss. If the organization already had a historical account of itself – such as a history which included any controversies and missteps and which was vetted for bias on Wikipedia – then I think people would trust the organization more and feel like they had a stake in the brand. Right now, the brand only belongs to the organization and is not allowed to be part of the history of Boston, medicine, publishing, or America, so I feel like their valuable assets as an organization with which people could identify are captured and unused because they insist that only they may control these assets, even if their control means that they only want to store and hide them. If I were to make a recommendation of first steps that the organization could do to introduce their prestigious and respectable history to the public and make it a part of our shared cultural heritage rather than just part of their own advertising assets, then I would suggest that they themselves first honestly and candidly catalog all serious criticism which has been lodged against them in their history and bring this information into the public and present it as a truthful historical account. If the organization itself can be trusted to do that, then they can then also be trusted to present their accomplishments and integrate themselves into popular consciousness.
Another group talked about CVS Pharmacy, a US commercial chain, and their attempt to share information by having a YouTube channel which shows their informative and high-production cost videos. It is my opinion that these videos are great, except that CVS only wants people to watch them on their own channel so the videos have limited utility for reuse, remixing, or adapting to community use. Here is an example of one of their videos –
They rented a talk studio, arranged an audience, and produced something of television quality. Still after a year, and despite the huge number of people seeking diabetes information, this video only has 1000 views. What a waste of resources that so many organizations make such excellent videos, but then will not license them in such a way that the audience can watch them in a context which is convenient for them. Is the intent with these videos to share health information or to bring people to CVS? If those things were mutually exclusive, then which would be more important to this organization? Obviously they have chosen that these videos are only for use when they retain control of them.
Another group had a “befriend a doctor” proposal. Doctors are in short supply, but I like the idea of “befriend a health care worker” campaign because I really like the idea of empowering typical people to represent a brand and I would like to see the MMS say that anyone can represent the MMS and feel free to talk about the organization as they like in their own way.
In summary, I like all ideas which allow people to talk about the MMS freely without the MMS moderating the talk. I feel that this permits the existence of a fan base. I dislike all campaigns which actively restrict the growth of a fan base. Fans are not people who merely listen to or parrot the messages of the adored entity. Fans are people who talk to each other about the adored entity, and that conversation must be encouraged to have a fan base.
Lisa mentioned during the class that she had interest in health communication in Chennai. My interests are more in North India but I am still interested in India generally, and I told her that I would follow up with her.
After the talk I went to Thinking Cup with Jared Shinabery, who attended the class. He was telling me that he was going to graduate with a Masters in Public Health after studying health communication and was planning what to do next. He said that he wanted to interface between the health outreach community and the software development community, because he knew something about both sides while members of each side, even when working together, typically know nothing about each other. I talked to this guy for hours – I felt like we had a lot of common interests in the kinds of societal problems we recognize in health communication and the tensions that the health community feels when it tries to partner with other interests. I hope to stay in touch with him.