Tag Archives: public opinion

“We live in the United States of Amnesia”

Gore Vidal said those words in the documentary Why We Fight. To me, it is the punchline to the question: What do you call the country that ignores the lessons of history and is doomed to repeat them? Vidal was explaining why we don’t understand the animosity that people in the Mideast have for the [...]
Posted in Opinion, USAmnesia | Also tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A book for resolve: Change or Die

Change or Die by Alan Deutschman was referred to me by a physician who is using its ideas to help her patients make life changes (thanks, Deb). It was an ideal read to usher in a new year, a new decade and a new phase in my career. Many of the change ideas were familiar to [...]
Posted in Book reviews, Leadership, Life, Organizational communication, Organizational culture | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The word for what I feel about Obama: Disappointed

I’m trying to be patient. But WTF: first we line up behind Russia and China in favor landmines, and now we’ll be escalating war?
Posted in Opinion | Also tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Health care reformer ahead of his time

Book review: The Story of Dr. Sidney R. Garfield by Tom Debley and Jon Stewart Sid Garfield’s plan for health care reform was so far ahead of its time that the organization he founded — Kaiser Permanente — still drives toward the vision, years after his death. (Disclosure: I am senior director of communications and [...]
Posted in Book reviews, Leadership | Also tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Stories trump facts: The mammography lesson

The facts are clear: You have to give 1,900 women mammograms before you save one life. Along the way are hundreds of false positives, needless worry and unnecessary procedures. The stories are more compelling: We all know someone whose breast cancer was caught early. That one life is real to us. The hundreds of false-positives [...]
Posted in Applied stories, storytelling theory | Also tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bioscience vs. PETA: The told story

A researcher once called me to his lab, spitting mad at PETA. His inbox was filled with nasty-grams, spurred on by a PETA campaign against his research, which involved killing small animals. He wanted me to help him publish an op-ed in which he methodically laid out the reasons for using animals in research that [...]
Posted in Applied stories, Marketing and PR, Opinion | Also tagged , , , | Leave a comment
  • Latest Tweets