Covering news, events, and clinical research in healthcare

 

I've been writing for Innovate Healthcare since August 2023, serving as Editor of Health Imaging and as a contributing writer for other brands (HealthExec and Radiology Business). 

Check out the link below to see my work. 

Click Here

Avoid These Common Mistakes on Award Applications

 

Winning an award is a big deal, especially in the health tech and life sciences space. The exposure not only earns a company, thought leader, or product media attention, but the prestige of an award also carries bragging rights that open doors for new partnerships and customers across the healthcare ecosystem. As with anything coveted in this world, winning an award is hard work and not everyone gets to leave with a trophy. However, a great application will maximize the chances of winning.

Nearly every healthcare award requires a written application – a chance to inform the judges on who you are, what you do, and why you deserve to win. If you want an award application to stand out from all of the others in the stack, it’s best to identify these all-too-common errors and remedy them before you hit submit.

Read the Full Blog Here 

 

 

Leaping over Media Interview Pitfalls

 

A media briefing or interview is an important chance to reach a wider audience. Furthermore, it’s a chance to exercise your communication skills, enhance your message, and go beyond the press release. Every interview is a chance to have a conversation with another knowledgeable person and develop your resume as a notable thought leader.

Over my time as a newspaper correspondent, magazine editor, and media relations professional, I have conducted and sat in on hundreds of media briefings and interviews. And, honestly, most of them go fine. The ones that don’t go well (where it isn’t the media member’s fault – which it sometimes is!) usually are a result of a spokesperson tripping into three common pitfalls:

Read the Full Blog Here

 

Branding: Be Yourself, Earn Engagement

 

In public relations, there’s a lot of talk about a company’s brand and its messaging – the ideas and public imagine the institution and its representatives. The value cannot be overstated.

Messaging and branding give a company its identity, making it appear “human” in the eyes of people. It gives anyone interacting with a company or organization an identity they can latch onto and work with.

A loyalty to your messaging and branding as a company is important. However, things are changing. If you’re an individual, even a CEO, the rules are not quite the same.

Read the Full Blog Here

 

 

In 2020, a “Thought Leader” is just a Regular Person

The phrase “thought leader” is one that is thrown around a lot in public relations. And it’s understandable: For any public facing organization or business, it’s important to have experts on hand who can speak to the public.

However, as someone involved in day-to-day media relations operations at an award-winning PR and marketing agency, I have a major gripe with thought leaders, and I wrote this blog specifically for them and their coaches.

In short, my gripe is this: You need to be able to talk about something else other than your products and services. You must be able to speak about something other than your business and your brand.

If you can’t do it, you’re not a thought leader, you’re a spokesman. And there is a difference. 

 

Read the Full Blog Here

 

Embrace the Paywall Future – Because it’s Coming

For several years now we all have lived in luxury, enjoying free content on the Internet that’s paid for through ads and data mining, with no paywall to contend with. But, as many prominent media outlets have noted, things are beginning to change.

Read the Blog Here 

Unless You're Monitoring the Media, You're Missing Out

In college, I had a journalism professor ask our class how many of us had signed up for Google Alerts as a media monitoring tool to support our coverage areas. Aging myself a bit, Google Alerts was a relatively new idea then. All the same, when no one in the class raised their hand, we all got scolded. It’s a painful memory.

Luckily, I never forgot the core tenets of that lesson. Media monitoring is crucial for anyone with a media life, including healthcare tech companies. If you don’t know what is being said about your area of expertise, it’s hard to keep up with the conversation. And, more importantly, unless you’re actively keeping an eye on what the web is saying about you, you can miss out on valuable media coverage, not to mention all the insights hidden within the coverage you didn’t get.
 

Read More:
Agility PR

What Star Wars and Loot Boxes Can Teach Us About Avoiding a PR Crisis

If you follow the world of video games like I do, you’re familiar with Electronic Arts (EA), a wildly successful, publically traded, developer/publisher whose industry prominence has earned them exclusive licenses to some of the world’s biggest brands, including the NFL, UFC, and Star Wars. EA is no stranger to controversy, be it a conflict over pricing or their purchase of smaller development talent. However, in late 2017, the company’s stock took a $3 billion hit after their latest controversy became a full-blown PR crisis, prompting legislative action that equated EA’s business practices to gambling, in addition to a major drop in consumer sales.

While the situation now stands as a shining example of a communication failure, the truth is, things should never have spiraled out of control. Hidden within this PR nightmare are lessons to be learned for communication professionals in every industry on how to better manage a crisis.

  

Read More Here

The Cinematic Tangent Participates in #12DaysOfChristmasMovies

The Cinematic Tangent attempted to watch Christmas movies as part of Twitter's #12DaysofChristmasMovies trend. Below are links to my associated reviews. 

• 'The Christmas Bunny'  
• 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'  
• 'Elf' 
• 'Christmas with the Kranks'
• 'Christmas Vacation'
• 'Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever'  
• 'Four Christmases'

Heath Management Technology - October 2016 Issue

I served as the Features Editor for the October 2016 issue of Health Management Technology.

PDF Backup

Visit HMT's Website

Movie Review: Don't Breathe

Another flawed-but-effective horror film from director Fede Alvarez.

Read the Review:

The Cinematic Tangent

Movie Review: Swiss Army Man

A well-crafted prank.

 

Read My Review:

The Cinematic Tangent

PlayStation 4 Review: Doom

2004’s Doom 3 was a shooter that focused on survival, pitting the player against hordes of monsters in a progressive environment where opening fire isn’t always the best path to success. It’s a great game, but it’s not a Doom game. Classic Doom is about run-and-gun action, where one brutally clears a map of foes and triumphantly moves to the next area to repeat the process – armed now with cooler weapons and faced with demonic enemies that are harder to put down than the ones that came before. It’s simple fun, providing a constant adrenaline rush and non-stop carnage.

It’s this type of gameplay that has given the shooters from developer iD Software their identity, but recent releases seemed to signal the end of the formula. That is, until now.

Fit 941 Magazine - May/June 2016

I contributed to the May/June 2016 issue of Fit 941 Magazine.

Read the Full Issue:
PDF

 

Review: Mad Max

'Mad Max' used me up like a bloodbag and, much like the false promises of the warlords, Valhalla wasn't waiting when everything finally faded to black.

If you’re like me, an open-world game set in the universe of George Miller’s Mad Max has always been on your wishlist. It’s a setting ripe with possibilities for great gameplay: The Big Nothing, a barrier of sand, encapsulates an isolated enclave where the last remnants of humanity struggle to survive against the harsh elements of the post-apocalyptic landscape – including the maniacal warlords hellbent on conquest. We haven’t seen Max on a console since the NES, but finally his true sandbox title has arrived. And now that it’s here, I’m sad to report the experience feels devoid of life, but ironically not because it takes place in a desolate wasteland. There is fun to be had, and the game faithfully creates the look and feel of the movies; however, Mad Max falls short in capturing the depth and immersion that make its source materials beloved classics.

Fit 941 Magazine - Issue 2 - March/April 2015

 

Check out the March/April 2015 issue of Fit 941 Magazine.

For this issue, I contributed editorial and news to the magazine and associated website, including the Friday Night Fights feature story. Additionally, I served as the editor for much of the content. 

Read the Magazine:

• Digital Edition
• PDF Backup
  

 

 Check out the Website:
Fit941.com

HVAC & Refrigeration Insider (Florida Edition) - 2014

I contributed to the September and October (2014) issues of the Florida HVAC & Refrigeration Insider. Check out the full print editions below.

September 2014:
Read it here

October 2014:
Read it Here

Various Custom Publications - 2014 (Part 2)

I worked on several custom publications as an editor, writer, and occasional photographer. Below are two of those magazines.

 

Crystal Clear (Issue 2):

• Read the Magazine
• PDF Backup
  

Crystal Clear (Issue 3):

• Read the Magazine
• PDF Backup
  

 

Fit 941 Magazine - Issue 1 - Jan/Feb 2015

Check out the January/February 2015 issue of Fit 941 Magazine.

I contributed editorial and news to the magazine and associated website, and wrote the American Ninja Warrior cover story in this premiere issue.

Read the Magazine:

• Fit 941 Magazine
• PDF Backup
  

 

 Check out the Website:
Fit941.com

 

 

 

 

Xbox 360 Review: Alien: Isolation from Creative Assembly Delivers Genuine Scares

'Alien: Isolation' sets the foundation for what a proper game in the series should look like.

After last year's abysmal Aliens: Colonial Marines, the prospect of playing yet another title based on the famous film franchise filled me with dread. Thankfully, Alien: Isolation makes it clear out of the gate that this isn’t some action-based shooter that makes poor use of the license, but instead a tried-and-true homage to the original Ridley Scott classic, complete with a slick retro vibe and a gloomy, foreboding atmosphere that conjures the spirit of the timeless science fiction-horror masterpiece.

Fans who have been waiting to see Alien translated into a proper videogame finally have what they've they been looking for: A fun game that delivers the tense thrills and cheesy fun of the original movie. While not without its flaws and frustrations, Isolation's adherence to classic survival-horror mechanics and its dark cyberpunk setting make it a must-play for anyone craving some effective Xenomorph scares.