Speaker's Corner: Adele Cehrs

As we lead up to the AAMSE Annual Conference, the AAMSE Blog will be featuring sneak previews of the speakers and presentations from the 2014 conference program by welcoming Annual Conference speakers as guest bloggers in the AAMSE Blog's "Speaker's Corner".


Guest Blogger: Adele Cehrs, CEO, Epic PR Group
 
2014 Annual Conference Breakout Session Speaker: 
      
What's Your Association's Endgame? Learning  Critical Survival Moves - Thursday, July, 31 9:30 - 10:30 AM

Handling Online Criticism: Social Media as An Ally, Not an Enemy  - Thursday, July 31 1:00 - 2:00 PM 
                            

If 'The New York Times' says it, it must be true.

How Medical Associations Will Be Affected by the Changes in the Digital News Cycle

By Adele Cehrs

CEO, Epic PR Group and AAMSE Speaker

How often has a board member or executive said, “Why aren’t we in the New York Times? Our issues, members and ideas are important, but they don’t come to us and we don’t know why.”

Let me share a little insight into how the media landscape is changing and how you can become a valuable source with a few tweaks in how you promote members, ideas and breakthroughs.

The New York Times recently launched its own blog called The Upshot. The blog will serve two very important roles for the traditional media outlet that has been glaringly missing. First, The Upshot will attempt to explain the NYT’s own content, something that has been left up to external bloggers, commenters and pundits.  Secondly, it will ensure that the stories that get reported are the ones that are trending and most interesting to the public by measuring data and clicks.

This shift in data-driven, explainer journalism will change the game for associations big and small, trying to make an impact on the news cycle. The public will now decide what they think deserves further exploration and analysis.

The good news is this is a perfect opportunity for physicians, health care associations and big thinkers to explain complex issues, conditions and medical breakthroughs that used to be boiled down to a 3 second sound bite.

The bad news is that explainer journalism that comes with the launch of The Upshot requires language that is easy to understand, repeat and share. That has never really been a big concern for the medical community, but times and attitudes need to change in order to remain relevant.

If medical associations want to have a say in the most important issues reported by A-list publications like the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal – they need experts who can speak in laymen’s terms. That means clear and concise stories, messages and data that doesn’t confuse, but enlightens the American public. As Albert Einstein once said, “You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.”  

Sounding like the smartest person in the room will no longer get the attention it used to when media like the NYT determine story importance by clicks, shares and likes.

Traditional media outlets will do more with the data in their own stories and it is up to the medical associations to make the information of our members accessible.

Adele Cehrs is the CEO of Epic PR Group. Epic specializes in working with healthcare organizations and has worked with clients such as the American Physical Therapy Associations: Private Practice Section, American Board of Optometry and the Emergency Nurses Associations. Visit: www.epicprgroup.com. 

Attend Adele's presentations at the 2014 AAMSE Annual Conference; registration now open! Click here to register and download the complete preliminary brochure.