Your Tax $ At Work: Innovation In Social Media By Health and Human Services
05/29/2007
The Questions: What would you do if you were charged with developing a national healthcare policy that could impact millions of people? How would you involve citizens, the healthcare community and other stakeholders to ensure that their ideas and questions were heard and discussed? That was the challenge facing the Health and Human Services Department as it prepared for an important Leadership Forum on pandemic preparedness.
The Solution: The Health and Human Services Department stepped into the world of 
social media and invited 16 business, healthcare, faith-based and community leaders to particiapte in a five-week Blog Summit. The blog summit provides an opportunity to have an open conversation
and shape the thinking about how to communicate the critical need for
preparedness at home and within workplaces and communities.
Each week the Pandemic Leadership Blog will address a different question, the Leadership Forum will be live blogged and follow-up conversations to discuss lessons learned and next steps will be continued on the blog.
Sidebar: I call this a short-term campaign blog. It has a specific purpose and limited time period when blogging activity will occur.
Week 1: The Need to Prepare
Why is it critical for each of us to prepare for the threat of pandemic influenza?
Week 2: My Role as a Leader
What are my constituents concerns? How can I play an important role in communicating the need to prepare?
Week 3: Getting the Job Done
What do I need to succeed in communicating the importance of preparing for a pandemic?
June 13th - Leadership Forum
Live blogging from the Leadership Forum
Week 4: Forum Results
Report out from the Leadership Forum
Week 5: Making it Happen
What steps do we need to take to successfully move forward?
“The conversation about individual preparedness for pandemic flu must extend nationwide through all possible channels, including social media and the Internet. The blog summit is an innovative and efficient forum for bringing together leaders for a lively discussion on the pandemic-preparedness movement."" HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt
I was delighted to see Nedra Klein Weinreich among the prestigious experts. Nedra brings a wealth of social marketing and social media marketing experience to the conversation. Her first post addresses both topics and ask critical questions including how to best use social media in times of a public healthcare crisis.
- What are some of the methods we can use to reach each of the audiences with our messages? (e.g., online social networks, blogs, Oprah, school district newsletters)
- Who are the spokespeople that are seen as most credible by each audience? (e.g., local officials, doctors, peers)
- Who are the partners that we need to hook up with in order to best reach each audience? (e.g., doctors, “mommy bloggers,” media organizations)
Sidebar: Can bloggers make a difference? Read the story of how 2 mommy bloggers used their blog to help Katrina people.
Check out the How The Blog Works page for ideas if your readers are not blog savvy. There is also a Comment Policy page.
Sidebar: HHS an RSS feed unique to each blogger would be nice.
Bravo and congrats to the Health and Human Services Department .. or should I say 
"
toss of a pink boa?" .. for its innovation and courage. If a government agency can step out of its comfort zone and explore avenues to engage and leverage conversations online think of what a Big Brand or medical center, or non profit or school or business or .. or .. or .. As the saying goes, you are limited by only your imagination and a little bit of chutzpah.
Read more about at PandemicFlu.gov
