Bud Caddell offers up a smart presentation on the value of your brand’s fans. Need more proof? How ’bout the 275,00 positive impressions Trader Joe’s has earned from this fan commercial posted last month. Obviously most fan declarations don’t reach the masses like this, but the countless lesser seen ones can add up too (Snickers below).
A friend forwarded this email to me recently:
Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a gift voucher for cord blood banking!
The storage of cord blood (blood collected from the umbilical cord of a newborn) is something I admittedly don’t know all that much about. I do know that cord blood is rich with hematopoietic stem cells that have the unique ability to differentiate into several kinds of mature blood cell types. This makes it particularly useful as a donor source for the treatment of various childhood diseases, including a few genetic diseases. Parents can choose to donate their child’s cord blood to a public registry (set up for the benefit of the general public) or pay to store it through a private registry, like the one featured above.
In looking at the 2007 American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement, it seems that the medical community is not particularly enamored with private registries. They recommend that “cord blood-banking registries recruitement practices should be developed with an awareness of the possible emotional vulnerability of pregnant women and their family and friends.” I wonder if this includes boyfriends and husbands who are scrambling to find a last-minute valentine’s day gift idea?
Crowd-Sorcery: Don’t Call It A Comeback
Consumer created marketing has been thrust into the spotlight again recently with the Doritos Superbowl Win and with the reality that companies are just spending less. I’ve been keeping tabs on this space for a while now because of AdBakery, so I figured I’d share the players I’m aware of:
Related:
Who knew there was such a whack, eh? I’ll save specific analysis for a later post, but it’ll be interesting to watch how this group evolves. In my mind there is still no clear current front runner, however that can change pretty quickly with a successful story or two.
Bringing The Idea To A Business Near You
With all the recent talk of 1) transparency, and 2) low consumer confidence, I’ve found myself frequently revisiting the value of the Take Your Customer To Work Day idea. So I’ve decided to stop thinking and start doing. I’m going to set a date probably in late April or early May. Then hopefully with a little help from some of you – spread the word and get some companies on board. With consumer trust at an all time premium, I feel the timing couldn’t be better to promote the benefits of openness with a concept that makes businesses more person-to-person.
While this is relatively early in the ‘doing process’, I’ve already reached out to one very exciting company and its looking like they are interested in partaking (hope to be able to share who soon). I’m sure there will be plenty of updates in the coming weeks – but I’ll leave it here for now. Just wanted to put out feelers and get you thinking about how your employer, favorite company, or client’s business might apply the concept in some capacity. Shoot me a note or comment if you have any thoughts or interest – definitely open to suggestions as we consider how to roll this out. Thanks all!
Benefits of sharing health information on the web
I recently attended a talk on the “Importance of the Case Study.” In the world of medical research where large sample sizes and replication studies reign, the speaker, a geneticist, challenged the audience to remember the importance of the single anomalous patient. He described a large filing cabinet full of his undiagnosed cases sitting in his office. It is imperative, he argued, that geneticists revisit these cases every few years for the sake of the patients, parents and the advancement of medicine.
As I listened, I pictured thousands of dusty filing cabinets sitting idle in medical buildings across the world; the files of patients with syndromes of unknown genetic etiology trapped inside. Surely there must be some way to “store” these cases virtually? Enter MyDaughtersDNA.org. As creator Dr. Hugh Rienhoff describes:
The inspiration for this site comes from the unusual coincidence that I was trained as a clinical geneticist and I have a daughter with an unknown genetic syndrome. Were I not a physician trained as a geneticist, it is likely my daughter’s condition would be lumped together with other patients in a category of heterogeneous but similar clinical conditions…It takes the trained eye to spot the uniqueness of a case, sometimes a lucky scientific insight, or simply the tincture of time for science to catch up with the human condition. In all cases, the question at hand — what does she have – has to be asked and re-asked and that is best done of everyone. This site allows that open question to hang out in the public begging unapologetically for an answer.
This article in Wired chronicles Rienhoff’s story in detail.
There has been a lot of talk lately about the benefits of public thinking for personal health issues. In my opinion, MyDaughtersDNA.org is an excellent example of the benefits of an open-source approach to healthcare, and genetics in particular. While I recognize that there are some important ethical and logistical issues with this type of website (of which I hope to discuss another time), I am encouraged by the spirit of collaboration and empowerment that it represents.
