Lance Armstrong’s confession and the Te’o girlfriend hoax are just the latest in a long line of public revelations reminding us that some things are not all they’re cracked up to be – and in fact may be the polar opposite of what we thought they were. Long-running symbols of success, such as Armstrong or the Penn State football dynasty, are exposed as charlatans or as such masters of the cover-up it would make Nixon blush. John Edwards, Arnold Schwarzenegger … who can count the number of politicians touting family values who have betrayed their own families?
Brand and Beyond
The year of the human?
I’ve been interviewing hospital lab folks over the past several weeks, inviting their appraisals of today’s arterial blood-gas analyzers – machines used in ORs, ERs, CVORs and critical care units. These analyzers have become smarter and smarter, not only in terms of their accuracy in reporting results, but in how they detect and correct their own imperfections – some even document their corrective actions, making it easier for the hospital to stay in compliance with regulations governing this branch of patient testing. As one interviewee said, "If it ain’t documented, it ain’t done."
The bench connection
The vision thing
Hey, St. Jude
By Nadine Choufani
Recently I attended a Lebanese cultural day event at Boston’s City Hall Plaza. Being Lebanese, I was psyched to be there, especially since I had been feeling rather homesick for a few days and figured that Lebanese music and a delicious shawarma were just the things I needed. But even better than that, I also got the chance to represent St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a volunteer.
French spoken here : Why you should attend AdvaMed 2012
We had all been reading, the French couple and I, on the three-hour flight back to Boston from Fort Lauderdale. She sat in the window seat with a newspaper, he read from a Kindle, and I fidgeted in the aisle seat, slogging through a slim but dense volume on ancient history. (The problem with being a writer is that you don’t read books; you read sentences, and it slows things down considerably.)
As we began our descent, the flight attendant came by and asked the gentleman to turn off his Kindle. When he didn’t hear her, she leaned over and gently but firmly told him to power down.
The mysterious case of the baby potheads
What’s out? What’s in? The new rules of medical device marketing
For me, one of the most telling moments at last night’s MassDevice Big 100 Roundtable East came when I asked the audience of about 200 to raise their hands if they were going to see Bruce Springsteen when he swings through Boston next month. I wanted to make a point about how The Boss and his longtime manager, Jon Landau, are both creatively and business-sales-minded, as we medical marketing folks need to be.
About three people raised their hands.
Of kings, cognac and context: Is device marketing on the rocks?
Louis XIII of France was kind of an odd monarch to name a cognac after. The boy king was crowned at the underage age of eight in 1610. Later he became known as “the chaste king,” because he stayed married to the same woman and was never known to have any mistresses. Not the randiest of royals.
FTC, FDA and CYA
By Jackie Gonzalez, Senior Vice President, Consulting Services, KHJ Brand Activation
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently announced that consumers who bought Skechers Toners are eligible for refunds. You’ve seen Toners or maybe their cousins Tone-Ups,Shape-Ups and Resistance Runners; they’re the athletic shoes (and I use the term loosely) with a convex sole. Think Kim Kardashian, Super Bowl commercial.
The other side of the eye chart
By Rob Kinslow, Sr. Strategist, Brand Communication, KHJ Brand Activation
I’m seeing much more clearly since I visited my eye doctor.
Oh, I haven’t gotten my new vision prescription filled yet. Thanks to my near-blindness, new spectacles knock me back the equivalent of taking the family to see a doubleheader at Fenway Park. (Yeah, that much.) So I’m waiting for a windfall.