Skip to main content

Thoughts from the Doctor's Office

I went to the doctor today, nothing serious, just needing a little check up and prescription. Anyway, I had two thoughts that came to mind, and I think I can apply them to the association world.

1) There was a magazine among the usual suspects in the waiting room, called Garden and Gun. What? Excuse me? Where is Fish and Bicycle? Two seemingly unrelated things in one magazine. Why? It has a subhead, which mentions something about the South. Ah-ha. Garden for the women. Guns for the men. A magazine that both can enjoy (part of).

Could you do that in your association? Put two seemingly different items together to reach a broader audience? Maybe someone won't come for just one, but if there was a second thing, even something they were only remotely interested in, would it be the clincher?

2) I waited at least 30 minutes before I was seen. That is 30 minutes after my appointment time. Why do they make appointments then? There were 4-5 other people waiting with me. The killer was that during my 1 hour total visit, I saw at least 5 drug reps visit. There may have been more that I missed during my 10 minutes in the exam room. 5 in one hour. Does that happen all day? If so, when does the doc see anyone? (I think he is a one man shop.) Oh wait, that is why we all have to wait so long. He has twice as many appointments - his patients and his drug reps.

Associations - be sure you know who your real customer is. Know who can wait and why you are really there. That may be my last visit to that doctor.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Doctors have long waits. This is a fact, but if you have questions to ask the doctor, he should be able to answer all of them. Even if it takes much longer than anticipated. Unlike other professions that get paid by the hour, doctors have to give you as much time as you need to diagnose and treat. If the average patient takes 15minutes to see a doctor, and he books appointments one after another at that average, what happens when a patient takes 30min to an hour of the doctors time.... everyone else gets pushed back. Keep in mind that most physicians get paid very little for an office visit or a consult, and in order to stay in business they have to make sure a certain amount of patients get seen per day... this leads to double booking. A doctor that has no wait to be seen might not be the best doctor... maybe he isnt following his patients close enough to generate visits. By the way.. I am not a physician, just a more understanding patient.

Popular posts from this blog

Where do you draw the line on social media?

I try to keep up. I have a feed reader . I blog . I comment on other people's blogs. I tweet . I have multiple websites . I have accounts on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and others. But you have to draw the line somewhere. I wrote earlier about being app'd out . I still feel that way. But each day I feel farther behind. Maybe not behind, but not necessarily maximizing potential. I don't Digg. I don't StumbleUpon. OK, maybe I do like once a month if I have some spare time. But I know I am missing out on a lot of cool things. I usually check out other people's links to cool tools or the next new thing. But right now, I feel like I am in the Dip . Any suggestions on how to get out?

10 Thoughts on #ASAE10

Ok, so I could have spelled out the title, but chose the hashtag - #asae10. Supposedly there were over 8,000 tweets with the hashtag, but probably countless more direct messages of messages that left out the hashtag but were conference related. Two years ago, we were using twitter as a backchannel to talk about speakers. Now, over 800 people sent conference related tweets. If you aren't on Twitter, you are already late to the party. Anyway, on with the post... In no particular order, my thoughts on this years ASAE Annual Conference: 1. LA was a good venue. Lots to do. Hotels close by. Only downside was the rooms were a bit of a hike. 2. I missed Sunday because of family obligations. That really put me behind the 8 ball. Since I led a session, that meant I only got to go to 3 true sessions. Sorry, I don't count Joy Behar and the closing session. Although Marshall Goldsmith was good, I probably wouldn't have gone to see that speech as a Learning Lab. 3. Based on #...

Sunk Costs, Marginal Costs and Economics

When I was in college, I hated Economics. Then, several years later, I found myself teaching undergrad Econ and learned an appreciation for it. Now today, I have an even bigger appreciation for it. I have also noticed that not enough people have a solid grasp of some basic econ concepts that can be applied to everyday life. Two of these are cost related. Here are some basic definitions from The Economist website : Sunk Costs - When what is done cannot be undone. Sunk costs are costs that have been incurred and cannot be reversed, for example, spending on ADVERTISING or researching a product idea. They can be a barrier to entry. If potential entrants would have to incur similar costs, which would not be recoverable if the entry failed, they may be scared off. Marginal Costs - The difference made by one extra unit of something. Marginal revenue is the extra revenue earned by selling one more unit of something. The marginal cost (or whatever) can be very different from the AVERAGE c...