With the fervor over health care reform, many have been consumed with the debate over the “public option” and how we will pay for it.  With all the banter about who should be covered, there has been little discussion about how medical science and technology will converge to change the rules of engagement for the medical community.

There are fundamental flaws in the way our system is constructed:

A)     The people who most need medical insurance (like the uneducated and poor) cannot afford it

B)      The system is highly reactive, based on treating the sick instead of preventing disease.

C)      Without market forces at work, people are less apt to take responsibility for their own health.

The Federal government has already allocated $19 Billion in funding for the creation of electronic medical records (which could cost $30 Billion by some estimates). Electronic record keeping when combined with new nano-technologies will allow medical science, doctors and insurers to predict specific ailments based on a multitude of factors. Your health care provider could mine data to know how many steps you took at the gym in a given day, your  prescription history, and preference for Jamba Juice into an algorithm that could better predict your likelihood of heart disease or cancer . The potential for abuse is alarming. Yet, the emergence of such capabilities mark the true innovations that could result from reform, and the real opportunity to lower costs and improve the effectiveness of health care for American families.

If we really want health care reform to meet its potential, we will need to see past our fears about privacy and embrace predictive modeling.  Those of us who make good choices about our health should gravitate towards solutions that will allocate costs based on risk factors.  I should not be granted the privilege of superior care at a reasonable cost because of socio-economic status, but because I choose not to smoke or regularly frequent Burger King.

Much like the recent melt down in the financial sector, when risk is not distributed thoughtfully within an industry, the total costs escalate.  If the Federal government  (i.e. the tax payer) is going to foot the tab for national health care, we can only expect that we find a better method for distributing the risks and the costs.

Many of my older colleagues are feeling a bit out of sorts with Facebook, RSS feeds and the plethora of online media which have disturbed the sanctity of our desktops. Many feel compelled to join the party, regardless of their place within the world order. 

I wonder if all of this panic is really necessary.  For some, running Facebook ads seems trendy, but for others it is like selling Yankee pinstripes at Fenway Park. My point is that if you have an old world product, it is hard to convert to online marketing techniques overnight.

Peter Drucker said all management is marketing but I wonder if he is turning in his grave at the prospect of Twitter and its lack of a sustainable revenue model.  He couldn’t have expected marketing to change so dramatically, practically overnight.  Print advertising is dying a rapid death.  Yet some products and service have an experiential component that make Internet marketing difficult.  Companies are spending a lot of money on ad words and other SEO (search engine optimization) tools, sometimes void of any real strategy or measurement other than click through (which is a ridiculous measurement if I ever heard of one).

Companies are well advised to consider their Internet strategy within a broader effort that blends different approaches into an integrated marketing plan.  Marketers must take the time to acquire the skills, resources and technology to compete effectively in the online space. 

One advantage that online marketing offers us is the ability to measure specific outcomes of web traffic, and we should all be a bit more vigilant in measuring the effectiveness of our marketing so that we can better allocate resources to the approaches that work best.  See you all on Facebook.

I hear it from everybody, from the accountants to the architects, the world is simply much more competitive than it used to be. 

No industry has faced more brutal price competition than construction. In an environment where differentiation is hard to come by, The Concrete Network stands alone.

Concretenetwork.com is positioned on the Internet as the go to site for information on, well…concrete. The site provides everything from training on how to mix concrete to a database on how to find contractors.  They even have sponsors for their website. If an organization has the initiative and entrepreneurial spirit to be subject matter experts in an industry as basic as concrete, imagine what is possible for the attorneys, insurance agents, and manufacturers. It just takes some imagination.

I have spent the last year writing a book, blogging, writing articles and creating video testimonials to make my point.  If you don’t value your services, no one else will.  Creating a differentiated offer takes time, money, energy and resources, but mostly it takes will….the will to compete, the will to charge the hill and take on the competition. The easy thing to do is to whine that competitors are undercutting your prices and sabotaging the market. Of course, they do that because they are bit players in your production, but you have the ability to take them down.

Regardless of your offering, if you want to maintain price continuity and profit, one must find a way to add value whether it be through education, additional services, technology, support, etc.   You may need to experiment to find the right formula, but in the end, customers expect to pay more to vendors who offer more services and pay less to the lackeys who offer less.

Do you have the will to compete with the business that is replacing you?