PCH = AIG hmmmm. NO.

When I was approached with the topic for this week’s blog I honestly did not know what I was going to say. Who am I to criticize a company like Phoenix Children’s Hospital? Marketing and other departments in the hospital that don’t directly bring in revenue can sometimes be seen as “company overhead.” I know personally the affects of this issue because growing up my father was laid off numerous times requiring us to move because he worked in Risk Management for different hospitals. From what I have seen the processes that take place in the Marketing department, and the structure of the department here at PCH is far better than other marketing departments at hospitals, but the setup is also very different at every hospital I have visited. The issue of what positions, how large of a team required and which positions to hire comes down to demographics and costs. For example, PCH has a team of four individuals who work as Physician Relations as a part of the marketing team. These individuals bring in about 50% of our patients by developing relationships with Doctors not associated with PCH and creating referrals to our hospital by explaining the specialties in services we can provide (in a nutshell). Even though this team generates half of our patients by a referral program many hospitals, like the one I visited in Missouri, does not have this team of representatives. Should they? Probably not because there is not as much competition between hospitals, and the hospital I visited does not have as many specialty clinics. I could really go on for days talking about this so let’s move on.

Marketers are attempting to establish brand and rapport with its consumers. When it comes down to it, every decision that you make in purchases in products or services whether it be which grocery store you go to, or what hospital you take your child to, the company’s brand and reputation plays a big role. AIG is struggling right now after their recently publicity showing their spending of the stimulus money. All of their exposure deals with media and communications which, when it is out of control, like in their case, it can really hurt an established brand. To completely rule Marketing as complete overhead would be foolish but determining how much funding/positions you provide for a specific company is a trickier thing all together. So, considering all of this, what would I suggest for improvement? Take on more staff. I have noticed that a lot of time is spent on editing work; perhaps an editor in the office would be a good decision. That way more projects can get done. As for the marketing process itself at PCH it is very successful and I really don’t have very much to say about it. Disappointing I know.

Interview Time

This is an interview that I conducted with "The Invincible" Mark Tsuchiya

What types of challenges do you face?
My biggest challenge is managing expectations. People sometimes expect overnight results from a marketing campaign … it just doesn’t happen that way. There are those “lightning-in-a-bottle” ideas that immediately have an impact, but true results take time, and I’m always sure to explain that.

How do you deal with deadline stress, difficult people, and internal politics?
The most effective way I can recommend to deal with deadline stress is to always meet your deadlines, then you don’t have to stress over them.

Difficult people are a part of life, and work life is no exception. I’ve found that listening and delivering on promises are great ways to mitigate the chance of ticking people off, even those who are sometimes difficult.

As far as internal politics go, effective internal communications strategies can go a long way towards quelling organizational politics. That’s why our administration is so supportive of our efforts to keep our employees informed. From “Breakfast with Bob” to STAT, we make a strong effort to keep the lines of communication open with staff.

What do you like or dislike about their positions?
I truly love my job. Sure, sometimes things get tough, but there’s no job out there that’s conflict free. Everyday is a challenge. I work with smart people who work hard, but aren’t apologetic about enjoying a laugh every once in a while. I have a manager and director whom I know I can count on. Most important, I think in a very insignificant way, I’m helping sick kids get well. I may not be doing the surgery, but if mom heard about our world-class surgeon from her child’s pediatrician who read a story about our surgeon in a publication I manage and disseminate, then I take that as a victory.

What do you feel can be done to make work go smoother?
I’m fortunate to have colleagues who work hard and are committed to their responsibilities. When those you depend on deliver on deadline, life is good.

How do you feel about working with others?
I enjoy collaboration … there’s nothing better than a successful brainstorm with great contributions from creative minds.

How do you separate the personal from the professional?
Easy … a 35-mile commute home. I leave work at work. It’s always there when I return in the morning. I do have to admit, I will check the BlackBerry in the evening and on weekends from time to time, but I’m pretty good at turning the “work switch” off and on at appropriate times.

Do you enjoy working on group projects?
When you work with a team of dependable professionals like I do, yes, group projects are great.

What is your ideal work environment?
My ideal work environment is one where I’m given the latitude to develop my own ideas, take initiative, manage projects, and where I can be trusted to deliver a quality project on deadline. That’s why I enjoy my work at Phoenix Children’s … I’m given space to do what I do best, but always have colleagues I can lean on when I need help or some constructive criticism.

“The Invincible” Mark Tsuchiya

The work environment at Phoenix Children’s Hospital and the Marketing/Communications department is very unique in my opinion. A lot of work gets accomplished during each and every day and numerous projects continue to become refined. Mark Tsuchiya, the Communications Specialist, one of my many bosses, has a variety of responsibilities. Everyday seems to be entirely different than the next, and I believe he prefers it to be this way. This is a very basic list of some of his set responsibilities:
Producing a variety of Informative Newsletters and External Publications on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis provided for our audience of Physicians. These publications being most or our entire external outflow.
Managing Interns. (And apparently I am a lot of work!)
Scheduling Meetings / Press Conferences.
Producing Marketing ideas for a variety of Medical programs and Specialties.
Take part in the Creative Process during meeting with Agencies and PR companies.
There are many things that I have learned from shadowing Mark, most importantly being that being a member of this team requires that you be flexible in what projects need to be accomplished. Also, determining what projects deserve priority over others, and knowing what projects are worth our efforts.
I have not worked too much in a corporate office environment, and there have been many times when my college critique voice kicked in and Mark had to tell me to be careful how I talk. During college you are told to critique functions and processes without regard of audience and regard for the other members of your office. This is something that I had to work on, but with the help of Mark, was able to get much better at. Also, it is Mark’s birthday today!

Transferrable Skills

This is a short list of transferable skills that I hope to portray to employers in the future during my job search.

Representing Others
Phoenix Children’s Hospital has a delicate image to keep up and during my internship I was able to portray the image of quality and professionalism that my clients expected of me. I represented Dr. Vaughn and the Sports Medicine Program for Young Athletes, when I arranged and conducted meetings with local businesses.

Initiating New Ideas
During my internship I was head of promoting the new Sports Medicine Program. During my time I analyzed more developed sports medicine programs and developed and initiated new ideas in promoting the program, also created new promotional items to give away at events.

Teaching
During my internship at Phoenix Children’s I had the opportunity to present a case study to a Marketing class at Thunderbird High School where I lead a discussion and taught students about my own experience and listened to their ideas.

Setting and Meeting Deadlines
At Phoenix Children’s promoting Doctors and medical programs can sometimes be challenging because of their workload and limited availability. However, I was consistent in meeting my deadlines for events and meetings even when I received little notice in advance.

Identifying Problems
One of the major reasons why I was brought on to the team at Phoenix Children’s was to conduct research and find problems in the Marketing process. A new perspective, fresh from school, I was able to identify certain issues and successfully report those to my superiors.

Editing
My editing background starts back in college during my studies in Creative Writing. There are many theories in grammar that I use on a day to day basis but also realizing and implementing theories such as tone, voice and audience.

Work Now, Work Later

My ideal career choice was something in Marketing with a preferred location in Healthcare. My applied study is exactly the same as my ideal career and this is definitely something I want to be doing in the future. If I don’t get a job offer from Phoenix Children’s when I am finished I will take all of the things I have put together and bring it to a different company. I have been keeping printouts of everything that I have worked on or been a part of and put it in sheet protectors in a three ring binder. I have even been taking pictures of some of the events I have coordinated and plan on printing those out as well.

My perception has changed definitely. What are cool are all the different responsibilities that marketing asks of you but also the flexibility as well. Some weeks I might do meetings and others I might be teaching marketing at Thunderbird High School and somehow those are related. It is really fun, but don’t misunderstand me everything is a process in this industry. You start with an idea and it could take a long time for it to become any sort of substance. Honestly, I don’t know what I am not going to get out of this internship; everyday has been something new and exciting.

* Taught a Marketing class.

* Coordinated a soccer event.

* Helped coordinate a gymnastics event.

* Dressed up like Dudley the mascot, and was on Television.

* Written press releases.

* Managed meetings with possible clients/businesses to Dr. Vaughn

* Made sales calls to possible contacts and partners.

* Shared ideas with Ad Agency on issues concerning exposure/brand.

It's examples like these and many more that makes me feel like I am not just some intern but I am actually an equal part of the team.

Concepts from Classes to the Workplace

This blog is all about how my classes have affected my performance in accomplishing specific tasks at the Marketing Department at Phoenix Children’s. Let me first start off with the more obvious discipline Business. During my studies for Business I have taken a lot of classes relating to Management, Communication but nothing relates as much as my studies in Marketing. Probably the theory that I use the most from my Marketing class to the workplace is concept of “Brand” and “Brand Recognition.” Establishing a good brand is a way for a Business to be better recognized by the consumers in a good way according to an image, logo, slogan, and ext. anything that “represents” a company and receives recognition by our consumers is part of your “brand.” The Sports Pediatric Medicine Program is struggling with brand recognition because it is still new and many people don’t know about it. So if I were to say “PCH Sports Medicine for Young Athletes” you could probably figure it out if you read critically and thought about what it probably means, but if I said “Cherry Pepsi” you know the company, logo, the can design and probably even the exact way that it tastes. That is an example of really good “Brand Recognition.” A lot of people think that Branding is easy but it very carefully monitored and established over a long period of time. This theory is really complex and would require me to go on for pages so I am going to move on. The next theory that is required from me is a unique one. “Guerilla Marketing” is a term to describe Marketing techniques that are “untraditional.” These are extremely important especially with a company that is Non-profit because of the lack of funding available. Low-cost strategies that I have employed since I have been here is drive out to different children sports centers in Arizona and ask for their involvement with them in exchange for free orthopedic services at events and weekly check-ups by our physical therapist.
The next discipline is Creative Writing and the glory of discussing why it is important is because I get to say to myself “Why isn’t this important.” People underestimate the amount of writing that business people do on a daily basis, and it has been my impression that managers complain about the usual lack of editorial and creative use of language many of their employees posses. Therefore, I will list two theories that I have learned in writing, however there are thousands of theories pertaining to the English language which are impossible to cover in this blog.
Audience: Is important because you have to focus what you’re writing to appeal to a certain audience such as announcements at events, commercials and others.
Tone: When writing internal publications especially in today’s market it is important to remember the type of tone that you use and make sure that it is positive.
Again these are only four of the thousands of theories I could apply to what I am doing at my internship.

Sports Pediatric Medicine, Overwhelmingly Interdisciplinary

So my main project this semester as indicated before was to work on marketing the sports medicine program at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. I got some questions about the last blog on “What is a Sport Pediatric Medicine Doctor?” Basically it the same as sports medicine in a regular hospital, i.e. treating sports related injuries, with one huge difference that we specialize in treating “growing” athletes. What many doctors do when the see that a patient has a condition that they are unable to treat properly or afraid to treat it due to their lack of understanding of the growing adolescent is say, “Don’t play this sport anymore.” At Phoenix Children’s Hospital we are focusing our efforts in specialized care so that we don’t have to say “don’t play the sport anymore.” This is amazingly interdisciplinary process marketing for this type of service. What I have done thus far is do a lot of research on what other hospitals are doing with their pediatric sports medicine program, and then applying some but not others ideas to our strategy. I am blessed that we are the only hospital in Arizona with a pediatric sports medicine specialist in staff, because it allows us to say we are the best because we are the only ones in Arizona. I am also blessed by PCH’s overall reputation, because when I talk to several different companies about the program, they hear that it is PCH and they want to get involved, to the point where I have to choose what events are most beneficial for us to either sponsor or provide health coverage.

            This week I did a lot of mix between communication, marketing and business to business sales. Although the sales were not costing anything, I classify relationship building between different businesses sales because a service is exchanged for marketing. I am getting ahead of myself… To back track, this week my supervisor and I decided that we should go and contact different youth related small business in the Phoenix and Mesa areas providing them with information about the program and invite them to contact us for health coverage possibilities and so on and so forth. This was a process which I am learning that everything is a process in this industry. I noticed at first when I started I was ready to go out and just do everything, however, the processes are so time consuming it is unbelievable, and these processes always deal with different disciplines making the overall process very interdisciplinary. On top of these bigger projects again I am utilizing my skills in Creative Writing to write more news releases and paragraphs for internal publications. Nothing about the marketing process that I have experienced can be classified as interdisciplinary.