Tomorrow is the launch of Greystone’s first OpenSpace, Unconference. For those of you who know me, you probably already realize this presents a bit of an uncomfortable spot for me. I’m the kind of person who likes to write to-do lists and craves structure. And, the idea of hosting a meeting of senior Web leaders with no pre-set agenda and no pre-generated presentations and materials is just a little scary to me.
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Ask any market researcher if they have some examples of funny things people have said on surveys, and then stand back and watch what happens. I am willing to bet that you will have to stop him or her after a few minutes. Do not be surprised at any excessive exuberance, as we research geeks are generally not called upon for humorous insight and tend to cherish these rare opportunities.
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It is with immense sadness that we announce the passing of John A. Eudes, after a courageous battle with cancer. John was an innovative leader in healthcare marketing, a Greystone.Net founder and the chief architect of the Annual Healthcare Internet Conference, now in its 15th year. He was a mentor to many in this industry, a change agent with an enormous passion, an amazing friend and a constant source of inspiration and motivation. For over 35 years, John served our industry as a visionary and to the very end was dedicated to moving healthcare marketing and the Web to new levels within hospitals and healthcare systems. John will be greatly missed by all of us, but his energetic spirit and contributions will live on.
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Ok, so Kathy Divis said some very nice things in her New Year’s blog post about me joining the Greystone team. I thank her for that and want everyone to know I feel just as fortunate to be a part of such a great organization and an incredible group of people. From the very first day I met John Eudes, many years ago, I had this feeling that we may work closely together one day. Although I did struggle with the decision to make a change, I just felt the time was right to take on a new challenge! I have always believed that you need to go with the feel and never look back! Read more…
As I sit watching football on New Year’s Day and thinking about 2011, I can’t help but reflect on the year we’ve had at Greystone.Net in 2010. It was a good year. Read more…
This week we went live with two new areas in our Greystone.Net Benchmarking database: traffic from referring sites, and mobile traffic. Both areas were added based on feedback from participants. After I had a chance to review the preliminary data, two interesting findings jumped out:
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Good internal reporting of Web data should document successes, illuminate failures, and serve as a key component in evaluating overall strategy. Yet for many healthcare Web marketers, the challenge of producing quality reports has proven to be extremely elusive and frustrating. In my experience, most organizations do not go much further than tracking basic Web analytics metrics like page views and visitors. It is not uncommon for me to come across a mishmash of numbers pasted onto an Excel spreadsheet, with a webmaster telling me, “I am embarrassed to be showing you this report.”
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We are pleased to release the conference brochure for the 14th Annual Healthcare Internet Conference, which will be held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas beginning November 15-17, 2010. It took a ton of work to get the program in place, but it was also a lot of fun. Download a copy of it from our Web site. We think it is offers a wide and strong variety of educational and network opportunities.
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Greystone is pleased to announce the results of our recent survey on hospital/ health system Web budgets. We sent the survey invitation to more than 100 healthcare marketers, and received responses from 65. (please note: Greystone’s research panel is made up of hospitals or health care systems with at least one FTE dedicated to the Web, and members tend to be more “Web 2.0 savvy” than other hospitals and health systems)
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At the height of last year’s financial struggles, Greystone.Net sent out a survey to its current and former customers about their budget outlook for the coming year. We certainly struck a chord with our hospital and health system audience, who at the time were wondering if the sky truly was falling. We received a tremendous response, with more than 170 hospitals or health systems submitting a survey. The study yielded some interesting findings. The biggest revelation was that despite 40 percent of hospitals/health systems experiencing some sort of budget cut, 68 percent said funding is stable or increasing for the Web. Based on the findings, Greystone.Net cut back on some of its events that require travel. We also added a new category to our annual Best in Class awards for successful Web initiatives amidst severe budget constraints.
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