GroundFloor Media Teams With USA Swimming Foundation

GroundFloor Media's own Jim Licko and Alexis Anderson just returned from St. Louis where earlier this week they kicked off the 2011 Make A Splash tour on behalf of client the USA Swimming Foundation. In addition to working with Olympic swimmer Cullen Jones and engaging with amazing kids at the local Mathews Dickey Boys and Girls Club in St. Louis, the team secured fantastic media coverage and are looking forward to future tour stops.

Watch this video for an overview of the story and some highlights from the St. Louis trip!

Managing Tough Situations

In the midst of one of the busiest weeks in GFM’s 10-year history, I attended what I called an “ill-timed” yoga festival in Boulder. And as it turned out, the timing couldn’t have been better…

The Hanuman Festival celebrates the Hindu deity, Hanuman, who is “…symbolic of the perfect mind, and embodies the highest potential it can achieve,” according to exoticindiaart.com. This reminded me of the teachings I learned as a Heart Math instructor during my days at Swedish Medical Center.

When you’re faced with busy, stressful situations, it all boils down to this: We cannot control what happens around us, but we can control how we react to the things that happen around us. When faced with countless hours of work to do, ever-changing demands and moving deadlines, you can choose to get frustrated, throw a tantrum and complain about the situation OR you can choose to take a deep breath, remember that “we’re not curing cancer here” and find something in the situation to laugh about.

I’m so proud of the team at GFM and how our teammates tend to take the latter approach. Sure, change is frustrating, but why let it ruin your day? I truly believe that we’re honored to work with extremely talented team members and clients, who tend to keep things in perspective and do amazing work.

So, as we helped The Colorado Health Foundation announce that they had signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding to sell their approximately 40 percent equity share of the HCA-HealthONE LLC joint venture to HCA; worked closely with the St. Anthony Hospital team to manage the media relations and social media surrounding their historic move to a new campus; prepared to launch USA Swimming Foundation’s six-city Make a Splash tour; guided a few clients through challenging issues in the media; and kept more than a dozen other clients’ PR programs afloat, it was calming to remember that we couldn’t control the situations, but we could control how we reacted to them.

Next time you feel your blood pressure rising because of the demands of the day, take a deep breath and take control of the situation. You’ll feel a lot better!

Namaste,

Ramonna

Social Media While Under the Knife?

Where do you draw the line with social media? No Twitter or Facebook after work? No LinkedIn while still in bed in the morning?

I recently found my “line” while getting married and going on our honeymoon. Aside from a few Facebook and Twitter updates during the wedding weekend and honeymoon, I left my phone in the hotel and tried as hard as possible to focus on everything and everyone around us. It was a break from my online world that was very much needed, yet extremely difficult. Many times I found myself digging for my iPhone in my purse to check Twitter only to laugh at myself because I had just left it in the room minutes earlier.

What about social media while under the knife? As long as my hospital gown covered all the important places, I would not balk at doctors sharing educational information that could help medical students and future patients. And I’m not alone. One patient in Ohio apparently felt the same way while preparing to have a new kind of knee surgery.

“Live tweeting during surgery: lessons from a successful debut,” offers an interesting overview of this next phase of social media for the health care industry. Doctors, via three hospital communications employees, relayed tweets as the procedure progressed. UStream was also used to offer followers a live feed of the surgery.

There are certainly a lot of privacy and legal issues to research and follow but by tapping into the hospital’s legal counsel early, the staff was able to plan for emergency scenarios – including stopping the UStream feed if needed – and have the contingency plans pre-approved by hospital counsel.

In the end, Ohio State University Medical Center weighed the pros and cons of this very public approach and recognized the tremendous opportunity that existed for bringing new research, technologies, the doctors’ expertise and a first-person patient account to life in a new way. The organization is certainly not the first in the health care industry to think outside the box when it comes to using social media—in February my colleague Kimmie Greene blogged about work The Fearey Group in Seattle was doing for Swedish Medical Center using Twitter.

Do you think live-streaming content will become mainstream among health care providers? Would you be willing to have your surgical procedure chronicled and broadcast across the Web while under the knife?

~Alexis

The New Voice of Television

By now, it’s well known that the Internet has wrought a widespread revolution in the news and entertainment industries. Old and young, early adopter or Luddite, the Web is central to, and consistently changing, the way we gather and share information.

In the face of these changes, you often heard critiques that the industry “didn’t adjust quickly enough” or that they “dismissed the Internet as a passing fad” – blame didn’t fall far from the industry itself.

But finally, traditional media is fighting back, supported in part by the iPad, courting the publishing industry and America’s addiction to reality TV.

However, one show currently stands out – NBC’s The Voice. The Voice not only gets that primetime television can no longer live in a vacuum, but the show has also taken the next step by redefining the relationship between television and the Internet.

The Voice is actively engaging audiences via the website, social media and popular entertainment outlets, rather than using the Internet as a central hub for online audiences to view past episodes, vote for their favorite participants or read the latest scuttlebutt about the cast.

Specifically, The Voice is joining a new rank of social media savvy TV shows, such as Glee, The Colbert Report and Tosh.O. The Voice live tweets during each episode of the show and promotes its Twitter feed and hashtag #TheVoice in banner updates across the bottom of the television screen. Taking a page from American Idol, The Voice also encourages fans to download special single releases on iTunes.

During the first week of the show, The Voice hit the top 100 chart on iTunes – Javier Colon's version of the classic Cyndi Lauper tune "Time After Time" shot to #57 only hours after its release. And now that America is voting for The Voice, iTunes is an early barometer of which contestant will make the next round.

Such immediate and direct opportunities to connect with judges and contestants are making The Voice a whole new experience on television. I’ll admit, I enjoy the banter between judges Christina Aguilera and Adam Levine, but more than anything, I watch The Voice as a fan of the media industry. It offers a positive example of traditional and new media working together to create new forms of entertainment.

Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that television remains an effective advertising tool. By 2016, television advertising will capture 38 percent market share while online advertising will continue to increase steadily to 22 percent. Michael Zuna, chief marketing office at Aflac comments, “video is still an unbelievable medium that combines sight, sound and motion in a way that print and other static mediums do not.”

The Voice adds social networking and a new level of interaction to that list. The show is good for television, good for the Internet and good for audiences worldwide.

What’s on Your Plate?

On June 2, First Lady Michelle Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack unveiled the federal government’s new food icon, MyPlate, to serve as a reminder to help consumers make healthier food choices.

Out goes the food pyramid and in with a new generation icon MyPlate to prompt consumers to think about building a healthy plate at meal times and emphasizes the fruit, vegetable, grains, protein and dairy food groups.

I’ve heard the USDA spent $2 million to create the MyPlate logo and launch the campaign which included an event with the First Lady, a website, blog, video, press release, partnership program, interactive tools, social media outreach and more. The launch has been a huge success. MyPlate has been everywhere. When I scanned my TweetDeck last Thursday and Friday it was like an explosion of chatter from mom groups to foodies to health and wellness organizations. Everyone was talking about the MyPlate and most of the chatter seemed favorable.

And why not? The new visual is simple. One of my favorite broadcast segments covering the new plate was on CBC News. Correspondent Taryn Winter Brill asked kids what they thought of the new plate and got some great answers from “I need to eat more vegetables” to “I know what to put on my plate.” However, it isn’t without its critics. The LA Times ran an opinion piece “My Plate: The Food Pyramid for Dummies” that made me chuckle. “The design illustrating the U.S. Dietary Guidelines seemed so hit-you-over-the-head obvious, I thought they might as well have called the new graphic Eating for Dummies. Clearly, I'm the dummy. While poking around the Web, I've come across several frustrated commentators noting that MyPlate doesn't address nuances (e.g. are potatoes carbs or vegetables?) and leaves too much room for interpretation.” Guess I’m a dummy too.

Businesses have also jumped at the opportunity to capitalize on the new plate. I’d like to send major props to the California Walnuts PR team who put out a press release: Where are the Walnuts on YOUR Plate? just four days after the USDA made the announcement. It is great to see a nimble and forward thinking team pull a release, video, photos, and recipes together that quickly. I’ll be adding walnuts to my grocery list this week.

I look forward to watching this campaign roll out in the coming weeks and how the USDA will measure its success. Thank goodness the food pyramid is gone and I know what foods to put on my plate. What I want to know is when can I get my new place mat?

~ Amy