Heroes and villains - From The Editor - Editorial

Health Management Technology, Dec, 2001 by Robin Blair

Twice a year, by decree of Publisher Mike Hilts, I'm allowed to goof off in this space. This is one of those times. I'm going to enjoy it by bestowing the first HMT Heroes and Villains awards.

Articles pitched to us emanate from one of three sources: a PR person from an external agency representing the vendor, the vendor's internal PR or marketing staff, or you, the user. Respectively, the percentages are: 80 percent, 19 percent and--you guessed it.

My selection for the 2001 Arch Villain award is actually a composite, not unlike a police artist's sketch crafted from the memories of victims. Arch Villain sends me press material via snail mail and fax, then again via e-mail, and invariably calls me during lunch and in a breathless, wispy voice utters in less than six seconds: Hello Robin this is Ashlei Grumblereck I'm calling from Spam Communications on behalf of our client Inner Voice Tech I sent you a press release two hours ago and I wanted to follow up and see when you are going to use it and then arrange an executive briefing for you. Ashlei knows little about her client, less about its products, nothing about you the reader, and on occasion she asks me, "Uh, what's the name of your magazine again?"

Recently, the editorial staff took an afternoon out to organize and categorize the 4.2 million product media kits lying around our office. The governing rule was--if, after three minutes of reading, you still couldn't figure out what the product was, put the kit in the "indecipherable" pile. Next day, the indecipherable pile was two feet tall. Villain Runner Up goes to all those marcom writers who confuse verbosity with clarity.

Fortunately, heroes outnumber villains. Oleen Healthcare and Inter Valley Health Plan (November) get the Heroes in Writing award for a letter-perfect article submitted two weeks before deadline. Dr. David Brailer from CareScience (August and November) gets the Hero With Patience award, having fully explained the contents of both articles to me at HIMSS--and then I made him repeat it all in subsequent phone conversations--and still, he delivered before deadline.

HealthTrio's Kim Ivkov gets the Heroes' Elbow Grease award for lending us plenty in August. Homer Warner of 3M Health Information Systems gets the Heroes' Bulls Eye award for his regular, insightful and non-commercial contributions. Melissa Frediani of QuadraMed gets the Communicator Hero award; she is the singularly most responsive senior exec I know.

For going the extra mile with precision, Everyday Hero awards go to David A., Shannon, Paul B., Jon, Mollie, Rita, Linda, Jenn, Jim F. and Ross (external heroes), and to Tesha, Mary Ellen, Catherine, Liz, Melissa and Ellen (internal heroes). Keep it up.

We count on authors Rich Rogoski and John Morris for consistency and give them the Reliable Heroes awards.

Finally, the coveted You the User-Hero award for 2001 goes to John Hummel, a creative, resourceful and poetic CIO from a West Coast health system. John himself pitched me an irresistible story that you'll have the opportunity to read it early in 2002.

So how about you get your name in this space next year? Until then, happy holidays from the HMT editorial and sales team.