Participate in a Community of Character. Honor Veterans. Reach Out to Friends. Take a Real Look at Self-Care. These are just four of the month of constructive suggestions provided by long-time SIPA member PaperClip Communications to their audience of "hard-working campus professionals" in their November Support Calendar.

"Every day is hard. Often, there's very little or nothing they can do. [In addition to patients,] they see their own colleagues pass away... It's very stressful. Plus their hours might be getting cut. Many of them have had their budgets frozen because many hospitals and emergency departments are really suffering right now. They're not getting business from elective surgeries and overall volume in EDs [emergency departments] is actually down."   That was from a conversation I had with Stephanie Williford, CEO of EB Medicine and a new SIPA executive board member, a few weeks ago. She was describing many of her customers who are ED personnel and ER doctors. I had interviewed people on the frontlines of COVID-19 before, but more in loans and banks and people hurting that way.   This was different.   "They have to deal with all of this. And then we have to assess that and figure out how to respond." If t ...

Putting COVID-19 resource sections prominently on your site and in front of any paywall you might have seems to be a win-win-win proposition at this point. On Saturday Stephanie Williford, CEO of SIPA member EB Medicine, posted this on the Discussion Forum in response to an article about a subscription jump at Wired.   "We put our COVID content in front of the paywall on March 3rd and have seen an explosion in website traffic (153% increase) and a modest increase in subscriptions (9%) since the same time period last year," wrote Williford. "We're pretty happy with that all things considered—particularly since our customers (emergency physicians) are the ones on the frontlines managing this crisis. (They certainly have much bigger things to worry about right now than subscribing!) We also think the goodwill and brand awareness we're generating now will pay off in the long run. Plus, like the article below says, it was the right thing to do."   So ...

According to the findings of a new study from PodcastOne and Edison Research, 60% of super listeners—people who spend at least five hours a week listening to podcasts—view advertisers positively on their favorite podcasts, appreciating the support they offer. Nearly half of respondents, 44%, have a more positive opinion of a company when it is mentioned in a podcast they listen to.

"Identify the problem," Jim Sinkinson told us last year in a session on developing new products. "Customers aren't going to tell you what kind of product to develop. They're only going to tell you what their habits are and what the problems are. It's up to you to determine the solution."

One session at SIPA Annual 2019 June 3-5 in Washington, D.C., that already has my attention is How 3 Publishers Became Award-Winning Podcasters starring Joseph Coleman, director of content, Coleman Publishing, Lynn Freer, president, Spidell Publishing Inc. and Stephanie Williford, CEO, EB Medicine.

More than half of the adults polled in a new Pew Research Center Survey say video is important for helping them make purchasing decisions. The survey also reports that users are turning to videos—and that means YouTube, of course—for much more than entertainment.

What do people trust most these days? It's not government, media, for-profit organizations or even nonprofit organizations. It's online reviews. According to a study last year, a whopping 91% of people trust an online review, even if they don't know the person behind it.

In my member profile last week with Clive Riddle, president of MCOL, a leading publisher of healthcare business information, there was a description of a micro-site they have called Health Sprocket.

I attended a film premiere last week of a movie called Puzzle, about two people thrown together to compete in a national jigsaw puzzle contest. Glasgow native Kelly Macdonald stars in the film and came to talk to us after. She has appeared in several films such as one of the Harry Potters and No Country for Old Men plus the award-winning TV show Boardwalk Empire.