Dec. 27, 2007 at 2:44pm

Story training

Posted by Shari Campbell in Care Line Marketing, Media Relations
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Your clinic gets a new MRI. An occupational therapist garners a special certification. A physician calls you with exciting news that your hospital will be the first and only facility in the state to perform robotic surgery.

What’s news? And what’s not?

For health care marketing and communications professionals, it can be difficult to turn away passionate colleagues excited to share their news with the masses. That’s one reason we created an alternative to the ever-popular media training: “story training.” And while we originally hatched this idea to diffuse a problem, I’ve found it’s been a great tool for teaching physicians, managers and even front-line employees how to spot a good story.

Here are a few ideas for creating story-training seminars at your organization:

1. Create the curriculum. If you want to be taken seriously, be serious about creating a solid class – one that will help those who attend take a different and more pragmatic look at news. We begin our class by having participants watch the first two to three minutes of a few newscasts, listen to some drive-time radio stories, peruse a few newspapers, and click through several Web sites and blogs. We then facilitate a short, but lively discussion about news:
   • If it bleeds it leads
   • Breakthroughs and hope
   • Fears
   • Trends
   • Weird and wacky
   • The stuff we make

   The most popular part of our class is when we have participants “make up” a news story and then “pitch” it to the rest of the group. It’s always lots of fun, and each participant benefits from class feedback and from the professional feedback of public and media relations pros. Sometimes we even role-play with one of us as a “cynical reporter” or busy news producer. In this way, class members learn the importance of telling the story – quickly, concisely and in an interesting way.

2. Recruit the ringers, placate the complainers. When we first started story training, I was careful to recruit physicians I knew would benefit from the training, but whom I also knew would share with their colleagues the value of the course. They spread the word and helped me fill subsequent classes. I also made it a point to invite some of my co-workers who constantly challenged us to promote their care line. And while this doesn’t guarantee a successful convert, it helps develop an understanding and expectation of their role in helping create a good news story.

3. Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Maybe I’m just a news junkie. Or maybe it’s my complete and total fascination with the equipment and technology in today’s modern hospital, but I believe there are always more stories to tell than time to tell them. So I offer one parting bit of advice: When you train people well, they’ll do a great job of delivering news stories to you. Consider the timing of your classes against the backdrop of your department’s and organization’s goals, key initiatives and current workload.

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