What does your brand say about you?

Make no mistake about it. If you are working in the public arena, you are a brand. Google yourself. What do you see? Before you strike out on your own, a careful assessment of your unique niche is in order. After all, there are many colleagues in the space that you are in. Do you want to be the cheapest, the fastest, or the best? You can't be all three.

I hope you were able to catch the PBS documentary, The Human Face of Big Data. Don't worry it will be rebroadcast. Check your local listings. The image of the city lit up and described as an expansive nervous system was sobering. Each of us is an intricate and willing dendrite moving information to the collective pulsating network.

During the first day of a baby’s life, the amount of data generated by humanity is equivalent to 70 times the information contained in the Library of Congress.

The problem with big data is the scope and scale. How do you harness relevancy? I find that on a professional level, the biggest buckets of trouble are either "too little of the right data" or "too much of the wrong data".

The simplicity of a digital universe has deluded many to view data capture as a billable commodity. Gather it up and ship it out. Here is the problem. What if you are doing it wrong? I am going to suggest that you might want to shuffle over to the "unpleasant truths" queue and get a jump start on improving your brand.

You are developing your surveys wrong--you likely know it.

​Go ahead and Google "surveys suck". I observed over 1,820,000 results so we may be on to something. A survey isn't just a few questions you write and post, waiting for respondents. I would argue that anytime we seek to query a healthcare provider, an EHR system, or any stakeholder--we are creating a survey instrument of sorts. ​

We are gathering information from a subset of a larger population. Asking appropriate demographic questions, question development, and answer choices (choice architecture) to explore a larger question is vital.

The purpose of a survey isn't to limit our inferences to only the respondents but don't we hope to form a composite profile of the larger population?

What if I told you to begin with the story? What is the narrative you are creating? For example, if I want to know how healthcare providers are managing patients that remain resistant to the standard of care in a particular disease state--I  create the report first.

Now you need to consider the type of data you will need to reach your objective. How will you visualize this data? ​

---

I thought it might be interesting to invite colleagues responsible for survey design along for the development of a book about survey methodology. Sort of like a collective crowdsource of information where you are able to insert comments, make suggestions, or ask about a few pain points. You can sign up for the newsletter here:

or

​You can sign up below and in a few weeks you will start receiving the content as it is developed!