Last Tuesday I was fortunate to moderate a session on public
health blogging as part of the eCDC Seminar Series sponsored by the e-Health Marketing Group in the National
Center for Health Marketing. Joining me were Susan Promislo, the communications
officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio, Toby Bloomberg from Marketing Diva, and Marianne
Richmond of Resonance Partnership. Our task was to provide an introduction and
overview of blogging for the health marketing and communication community at CDC.
The issue that stood out for me among the presentations was
the recurring theme of ‘telling stories’ and ideas of personality, engagment and personal. When the opening comments were
completed, the first observation/question I asked the panelists to respond to
went something like this:
We are at the CDC, the world of scientific publications like
the MMWR - facts, charts, figures, objectivity. I often hear about how difficult it is for
such an organization to consider the tactical question of whether to open up a
blog to comments. Yet, there seems to be a larger issue that goes largely
unnoticed; the one you have all touched upon today. How does a public health
institution discover and nurture a voice for blogging that is so different,
perhaps antithetical, to the usual way of doing business and communicating with
the public?
The answers were not prescriptive, but recognized the need
for serious internal recognition and exploration of the issue. I also talked briefly about the Fall
bloggers outreach initiative the CDC did with some health and medical bloggers
on a pilot basis. Several of the panelists noted how giving bloggers (and not
just health and medical ones) the resources about public health issues such as
was done last Fall may indeed lead to greater personalization of the ‘stories’
around the health topic. What we tried to be clear about is that CDC does not
control messages anymore (if they really ever did). What they can do is monitor
the blogosphere and engage in conversations and outreach wherever and whenever the
needs arise (such as countering false or misleading information or
recommendations for personal health and safety). In her write up of the
session, Susan seemed particularly interested in the comparison I drew between
the ‘then and now’ communications environment for a series of anthrax attacks.
Within the next couple of weeks the CDC will be posting more
from the meeting and I’ll make a note about its availability here.
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