Archive | March, 2013

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “Big Data Can Bring Patients to Water, But It Can’t Make Them Think” provides an excellent example of the frustration the health insurance community experiences.

Joe read the Go Army ads and enlisted. He’s a good guy. Not Harvard or Stanford material, but a hard worker, a guy who knows that courage is acting in spite of fear.

Making things simple turns out to be a difficult task for many in cognitive heavy worlds of healthcare, science, government and business.  The art of simplification is an art.

He can only hear his story: He found her in bed with another man when he returned from war. She can only hear her story: She’s tired of being his second wife – the military is his first.

I have a thought to share with you. And it’s simple. Over the years, I have been fortunate to create and produce stories for some of the smartest people and best organizations. Along the way, I’ve learned a few things.

Mike Bradley joined the Army to be a medic, but an improvised explosive devise and traumatic brain injury cut his career short. With health issues and without a degree, his employment options were limited.

Is it safe yet to talk about Trayvon Martin? Will it ever be? In the aftermath of the shooting—and even more so after the trial and not guilty verdict—the social media and blogosphere were ablaze with angry rhetoric and rebuttals.

Nature abhors a vacuum and so do we. Nature filled the original void with stars, planets and galaxies. When we encounter a gap in our knowledge, we tend to fill it with stories.

I’d like to tell you a story.  A psychologist decided he needed to learn some more about how his patient was thinking, so he chose to do an assessment using the Rorschach Ink blot test.

Years ago, mealtimes in many homes meant story time – retellings of work experiences, report cards and bargains. When friends, uncles and aunts came to visit and mealtimes were longer, there was more storytelling, gossiping and laughing.