How Internal Communication Can Prevent Physician Burnout

Engaging physicians is vital—and an area of internal communication that is too often neglected. While health care professionals have a strong impulse to help others, daily work can sometimes make it easy to forget this. That's when engagement slumps, burnout happens and the drive for excellent quality and service wanes.
 
The antidote? Stories. Not just any stories, but stories that show how a peer is keeping the impulse to serve awake. Stories that remind people of their purpose at work.
 
Watch and see for yourself. Were you different at the end of this remarkable story?

Great Design Is No Longer a Luxury

In some circles, great design is still considered a luxury. But more often than not, this idea is a fatal flaw for a brand.
 
Today’s consumer has sophisticated visual tastes created by the most creative communicators in the world. Their reference point for this is not just your competitors—it’s every message they get from any industry.
 
This is why great design is actually a brand differentiator. Great design provides instant visual cues about your brand that affiliate it with other brands familiar to the viewer—allowing them to decide in as little as a second if they want to further engage with you. The more oversaturated people are with information, the more they rely on these cues as short cuts for adjudicating a product or service. It’s simply an efficient way of navigating information.
 
Here are some common mistakes brands make when they don’t embrace this important truth:

• Spend heavily on a media buy, but use so-so stock images and design that send the viewer packing after one look.
• Spend millions on a new building and cheap out on photography. A top-drawer architectural photographer will bring a wow to your image that will pay off handsomely.
• Invest in new technology or services, then depict them on a visually inferior website.

It’s better to go with less in other areas than to settle for also-ran design.

Why Good Ideas Aren't Enough: A Message To Leaders

Most leaders can see a vision for their company that will help it thrive. But the next step is the hard one—how to get these critical ideas adopted—and executed?
 
Here are some tips:

1. Create a strategic communication plan that lists the key messages, how often and when they’ll be delivered, and who will be responsible for each.  It doesn’t have to be complicated—just clear and executable.
2. Deliver the vision of the destination before you go into the how. Paint a picture of how life will look after the idea has taken hold.
3. Use language employees understand. Corporate-speak adds weight that drags down a message, so if you struggle with this, have an outsider review it and point out places where this is occurring.
4. Make it personal. How will it impact them? What exactly should they do differently now?  What is their role in success?
5. Use the media they relate to. Is it a video on a mobile-friendly site? An e-letter? A forum? (And yes, you’ll need to use multiple ones.)
6. Engage the senses. Today’s employee is saturated by visually rich messages—so an overworked text-heavy power point isn’t going to have the impact you need. Great visuals are now essential. And to kick it up a notch, use video to bring motion, music and sound and dramatically increase the impact of your message.
7. Understand their world. Employees get too much information—but not enough inspiration. Connecting your ideas to their sense of purpose is the best way to inspire them.
8. Keep it short. Employees like their information in short, snackable formats that they can ingest quickly.
9. Repeat it. Yes, over and over and over. By the time you’re weary of saying it, it will just be gaining traction.
10. Listen. Communication is a two-way street. Employees should have some way of submitting questions and ideas that get answered. 

These tried-and-true strategies will absolutely help your ideas spread. What other tools are helping you get your ideas heard?

How Much Does a Video Cost?

This is akin to the question “how much will a house cost?” There are many variables—the location, size of the house, quality of construction, amenities. So the price range for videos, like houses, is big.
 
Different business needs call for different kinds of videos, and each of those have unique costs. Here are some things that will impact the cost of your video:

• What kind of video is it? Basic interviews with b-roll? Animation? Whiteboard? It’s much more time-consuming to create a whiteboard video, since it requires custom drawings, than an interview video. Animations add cost. Complex graphics add cost.

• How and where will it be shot? Flying a crew to the outback of Alaska will add cost—as will shoots that require more days.

• Does it require professional talent, like a narrator or custom music? Adding narration requires writing a script (not necessary for an interview video,) researching, auditioning and recording the voice talent. Adding custom music requires composition and production of the song to fit your piece exactly. Both of these add cost.

• How much creative effort is involved? The creativity that goes into a Super Bowl ad isn’t the same level of creativity required for a CEO’s video update.

• What level of post-production is required? The possibilities here are almost unlimited, but most of them add cost.

• What kind of talent and equipment is needed? A simple concept can be executed by a freelancer with a camera and basic editing skills. Add complexity, and you need more equipment (lights, cameras, software) and talent to pull it off.

• What other services are needed? Do you need help developing your brand story before you produce the video? Do you need help ensuring that your video gets seen? Do you need a company that understands the unique aspects of your industry? All of these require broader talent than video production, and can add cost.

So does your house have granite counters and a swimming pool? Or is it a tiny house in your grandma’s back acre? The range of costs is so big, it’s impossible to quote either a house or a video price without knowing the goals, what you want to achieve and your resources (time and money).  But a good video vendor can not only help you decide how video can advance your business goals, but work within your budget to give you those answers—once the parameters are outlined.