Leading up to my recent visit to the Technology Innovation Center at Johns Hopkins, I was palpably excited. There, five teams would present their newly created business startups and software solutions to a seasoned group of industry insiders and leaders for feedback. My excitement, as it turned out, was entirely warranted. It was all about […]
Recent Posts
The Johns Hopkins Community Outreach Program
Last spring, I asked my staff a simple question: “If you were the senior vice president for a day, what would you do differently?” I received many insightful, thoughtful responses, but I was struck particularly by one idea. One person said they would allocate some time for members of our teams to support community outreach […]
How We Explain Our Marketing Services to Our Colleagues
In this unprecedented age of digital connectivity and predictive modeling, we in the field of marketing and planning are uniquely positioned to reach — and help — more people than ever. But not long ago, I realized that how we come to understand consumer behaviors, mine admissions and population data, and gauge physician preferences may not be […]
Three Principles for Change in a Complex Organization
As in any industry that touches so many people’s lives, health care can, at times, be as byzantine as it is inspiring. We help improve the health of countless people—yes!—but we are often challenged by complex external forces: from policy shifts to evolving payment systems. At times, we are also slowed by our own internal […]
Are Kids Receiving Quality Health Care?
I was recently at a meeting at Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in Florida, an organization that is now a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine. I remember though that when the hospital joined us in 2011, some people had questions about the union. Why Florida, for example, when our flagship hospital and others are all […]
Precision Marketing and Digital Business Strategy: It’s Still About People
I recently contributed an article to Marketing Tech Insights about how marketing is being transformed because of the vast amount of data that is available and our increased ability to digitally connect. I wrote about the amazing speed at which we gain consumer feedback, and how we are delivering better messages, improved educational information and […]
Hospital Rankings: Things Change yet Stay the Same
For my colleagues who follow hospital rankings, you probably know that the hospital held the number one spot for a very long time—21 years straight, and a total of 22 years out of the ranking’s 27 years of existence! This year, The Johns Hopkins Hospital was ranked fourth in the nation by U.S. News and […]
Making Sure Our People Have Clarity
This year’s Gallup Q12 Employee Engagement Survey presented unusual dynamics for me. Though my team’s scores indicated a high level of engagement—largely consistent with those of the past—and my direct reports had high scores in all 12 questions, there was one area in which we as a department were not as high as I would […]
Think Fast: It’s About Charisma
We’ve all known them—those charismatic people who exude an effortlessly magnetic je ne sais quoi. But what makes these often captivating people the way they are? Recent research led by William von Hipple at the University of Queensland and covered in a recent interview in the Harvard Business Review suggests that it may boil down to […]
Can’t Categorize Millennials? It Might Be Better Not to Try!
In a recent New York Times article titled “Trying to Pin Down the Mosaic of Millennial Tastes,” writer Sarah Lyall explores the ways that media companies are hedging their bets on the millennial market and feverishly targeting the wide swath of people born between 1977 and 1995. Lyall brings up the prevailing cliché that older people […]
Out-of-the-Box Perspectives 