Focusing in digital platforms in particular value-added marketing platform where education meets marketing
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: Welcome back once again to the outcomes rocket podcast where we chat with the day’s most successful and inspiring health leaders. I really thank you for tuning into the podcast and I welcome you to go to our outcomesrocket.health/reviews where you could write and review today’s podcast because we have an amazing leader on the podcast today and we’re coming in with a different angle today. She is an entrepreneur that has a focus in digital platforms but in particular of value added marketing platform where education meets marketing so that you could share your message with your end user or patient and have the greatest impact. She’s a builder, she’s a learner, she’s a risk taker, she’s a motivator, a rainmaker and speaker, her name is Sherisse Hawkins, the CEO of Pagedip. And so I want to go ahead and open up the microphone to Sherisse to fill in some of the gaps in the introduction that I missed. Sherisse, welcome to the podcast.
: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m smiling and hearing all of the wonderful adjectives and very kind. Well I would and I came at this particular path and unorthodox environment. I’m an engineer and a technologist by training. One of my first jobs would be in the Walt Disney imagineer in designing roller coasters and now I find myself a CEO of a software development organization with a detour through corporate America and being the vice president software development.. But when people say you know how did you as the CEO of the software company focus on medical sales. I had to tell you it was not a linear plan but I’m thrilled to be here. And I have to say that what we’re working on now and the impact it had with individual. How we have the most, It’s the most fulfilling of anything that I’ve worked on including Disney Roller Coasters.
: That’s so awesome Sherisse and listeners, I met Sherisse at a health IT meeting and we just kicked it off. She’s just electrifying personality really knows how to connect with people and I think you know it’s that putting that care back in healthcare no matter how it is that you do it that really matters and so that’s what really struck me about Sherisse and say we’ve got to get you on the podcast. And folks I don’t know if you know this but Sherisse was also on Shark Tank. She was up on the stage, right Sherisse?
: Yes we were.
: Now also recently I was I was looking through the news feed here. I saw you on Vanity Fair?
: Oh my gosh. Yes. Just this month.
: Tell us a little bit more about that?
: Vanity Fair reach out to a number of individuals, women CEOs actually women CEOs of color and ask us to be a part of a piece that ran in April magazine. It was a fantastic experience being able to be recognized. So the women that were in the piece. I was one of 26 women who we have one photograph taken and in it some details around what we do. But it was really highlighting the fact that so many women are turning to entrepreneurship and starting companies. It’s a really interesting groundswell of economic growth. And so they highlighted the 26 of us and I was, oh for the numbers on that…
: Super awesome Sherisse. Since the beginning, you’ve taken an unconventional path and an exciting one. And so one of the things that I want to kick off our conversation with Sherisse is really giving the listeners an understanding level, setting them to what Pagedip your platform does?
: Absolutely. So Pagedip is, it was born out of frustration on the part of our team of how we’re currently engaging with content and we’ll watch the content right now and all sets the form and we noticed a couple of things. The first is that we tend to consume content based on what extension that is. So if you send me a text file or a pdf or a movie or audio file. There’s different behaviors or even a web link. Specific behaviors that we make assumptions around to how we’re goin to need to that content, how we will store, remember it, go back to it or not, whether it’s current or whether it’s not. And there’s really no reason that that comes out of 20 years of maybe pediatrics read and I don’t know how long they’ve been around but we were following the same helpful traps of having what we refer to as stale, an engaging content and not being able to share it very easily or go back to it. So it was born out of primarily just frustration. In the early days, we work considering how that one have a positive impact in healthcare say that that became well apparent we’ll talk about that a little bit later. So at the heart of what we do is we are experts in creating interactive engaging of ever current and measurable content. What that looks like is a responsive document called the pagedip that that will be shared in a number of ways. It could be a part of someone’s Web site. About 20 percent of our clients who did that way. It can be a replacement for something that you might print out and hand it to someone. It can be something that you send to someone’s phone or have them utilize in a mobile or smaller screen device and there is elements that allow you to telescope in and see additional information common thinks that allow you to go in and actually delve into the information and understand even more. So the key benefits are being current, engaging, measurable and being able to help drive content reader towards a desired call to action and make this entire process very, very fast easy and actually fun for the content creator.
: that’s a great great way of summarizing what you guys do and listeners if you haven’t seen that what Shari’s just described go to their Web site. It’s Pagedip.com and you’ll find that their website really just goes through the functionality and the way that the layout of their tools makes your information easier to access friendlier to access. And let’s face it, PDFs and print outs oftentimes become either a fan in the summer or a doorstop that don’t actually get used. And so at the end of the day, why not make it interactive. And that’s what they’re doing. And so I love this Sherisse. And so when you think about what got you to focus this on health care you know the answers could be plentiful but what would you say the core reason that you focus this initiative on health care where you could have focused it on a lot of different things but you landed on health care, Why is that?.
: That’s a great question. And I’m smiling because when people look at the tour they say they can used it for anything basically whatever they’ve read most recently they say, what are you ding this days and the reason health care is definitely, we have our team our culture is really interested in how we can help humanity and healthcare was an excellent space to be able to do that in but more practical more tactically I should say. When we were on the show Shark Tank as you mentioned before the first two organizations that contacted us millions of viewers we had a really interesting we have kind of tidal wave of excitement that came towards us that the first two people that contact us is the World Health Organization and GE health care. At this time we were pitching something I will save you the time of having to go the show. The sharks could not provide us money and we were looking at more long form an Ebook like face of the time, so the fact that those two organizations well respected organizations saw the technology aligned in a slightly different way and thought that it would apply so well to medical wat a really big wakeup call for us.
: Absolutely.
: The second thing that caused. Yeah yeah, the second thing that allowed us to really be open to this change, was the fact that we all have people in our lives that are dealing with difficult medical situations and I happen to have a friend at the time that was going through a pretty dire situation and we looked at and tried to help that person with their understanding of what was happening. It was a very frustrating process. And we talked about how to share information with friends and family and how to have a higher education understanding of what was going the puss they were going through and we realized that this was a really great way to make their lives a little bit easier.
: Super super interesting sherries and super glad that you landed in health care. How did you deal with the sharks. Did you eat them alive. Tell me you ate them alive. I haven’t seen your episode.
: You know what was interesting about that is we’re very much engineering lead, you know kind of technical individuals and so we weren’t reality TV people, so we went and did a very straight pitch and talk about the value proposition but I will pray that you know what you see on this show versus the areas we had a lot of interesting feedback that didn’t necessarily get the final cut but sure the Sharks does. The publishing industry is one place you can go. But there are a lot of other industries that have even bigger. Put that type of interact or at the contents, we recommend that you can consider though because at the time things like ebooks you know though the cost of them were falling. And so there was a great advice particularly from Harvard that there is a great market for this, you need to go out and find the best tip. And that’s when we got the call. So it all worked out the way it was supposed to.
: That’s so great. You know it sounds like you were still able to get some good guidance, Barbara help you out. And you left with maybe something even more valuable than money.
: Exactly exactly that.
: That’s awesome. I’m a firm believer that things happen for you. Not to you. And so you like that.
: Yes I do.
: Yeah. You know whenever whenever you find yourself in a tough spot I always ask myself or I talk to my wife about this or my son, it’s like, all right it’s happening for us not to us. We’re just maybe not seeing it right now and it’s cool to hear your story Sherisse because this is a great example of that right. You know if they would’ve given you a million dollars on an idea that wasn’t fitting well then heck, that would suck.
: Yeah yeah.
: You know instead they let you in the right direction.
: And being part of the emerging technology, it’s really important to get those subtle messages and to look for those sort of tweaks the path to find the place where you get the today’s impact. So I absolutely believe you have, if you laser focus on the one end to go quickly in the direction you are headed but you also have to have the peripheral vision to understand where those opportunities might lie that are just you know kind of left the center. But they are the ones that you want to pursue. And that’s exactly what’s happened as we’ve gotten closer to and begin to do more work in the medical space in a number of different areas.
: That’s a great point Sherisse. Listeners take this note and apply it to whatever you’re doing right whether you be in clinic practicing or whether you be at the executive level looking to move some levers to create change, you’ve got to take a look at all the different angles because it’s oftentimes the angle that maybe you didn’t anticipate. Check out the periphery and the results that you could get could be pretty amazing. Sherisse, Can you chat with us a little bit about how you guys have improved outcomes with your platform so far.
: Yes, there are always fighting to make the switch. There are a number of institutions that began to reach out to us and we worked with them around we imagining their content to put it in a form that again engage in current imaginable. That I like to share as we did our own. We believe in focus group testing laughably then talking to individual directly. Last year last fall we actually called a hundred patient and provided them with some content wih a color flat document and as the Pagedip. Over 90% of them said they preferred Pagedip. And the reason was because it allowed them to access material on any screen exactly left them where they were. We were also able to … telescope and more about what areas they might have questions for. And we were able to help the content provider know what was happening with this particular audience. So that data point alone we had one person has bit for paper and it was because they wanted to be able to enlarge it into the deal with it from a stability standpoint. So we took that feedback and actually turned our offer environment into an AVA compliant solution. And now we’ve taken that that last with all kind of barriers to wanting to use Pagedips away. Now people can look at these two screen readers and have an easier time to get the information that are what their individual constraints might be. So that was really fantastic. It is great experience and we got a real opportunity to work closely with the blinded organization in Boulder in Colorado and learn more about AVA compliant, reaching people where they are.
: That’s awesome. Yeah. And I just you know imagine yourself sitting. And let’s just say the doctor’s office you get taken care of and then you’re off to your appointment. We all have so many appointments to go to but we leave that document in the car and it just so happens that your next appointment is late. Well guess what. If you had Pagedip you could pull it up on your phone and get ahead of the game. But if you had a PDF it would be sitting in your car. So kind of cool to think about the potential that this technology has Sherisse. In your mind, what does the future look like and what is the number one thing that you guys are going to alleviate with this.
: Well, one of the things that’s less intuitive is in this case not have a compliant content. Other people need to share material with others in their care work. And for example we did a project that helps parents critically ill children after surgery. And one of the biggest request was how do I send that information to the grandparents of the child or the other caregivers. So I do think that sometimes we get very focused on the patient and coalition relationship. But there is an entire other group of individuals that are a part of the well-being and outcomes for any given situation and so being able to provide everyone again with the most current and the best up-to-date information in a way that they can consume it, will really change the dynamics. And I think it will have further impact on outcomes and accessibility for information in ways that we can’t really predict right now. But just one simple one is the ability to have the same data in front of everyone and it’s absolutely the greatest and allow people to look at content whether it is printed or incorporating their video or other methods of learning or marketing. And I could say you know whenever holograms are available, we’ll be the first to incorporate those as well. We enjoy being on the clean edge. We also recognize that text and being able to reread, scan and take notes to them. Text is still a very vital part of the way we communicate.
: Very cool. And the one thing that I will say listeners is that the reason why the outcomes racket exists is to knock down silos right crush silos to make health care better. And so what I want to do right now is open up the invitation for you to if you’re listening to this and you think of a new application or an application that somehow this could be useful to you again just go to pagedip.com. Check out what we’ve been talking about but also at the end of the podcast Sherisse is going to give you her information so that you can reach out if something about this podcast resonated with you and if you want to collaborate. You open to that Sherisse?
: Absolutely, I welcome any and all suggestions and I will make a commitment. I really make, I will personally follow up with whoever I want to provide though but that’s one of insight it is vital and I will take that seriously so I will.
: Amazing.
: Til midnight but I will personally follow-up..
: I love it. Sherisse, thank you for that. Listeners, you heard the woman, she is going to follow up with you personally so if I heard that and I had a connection or just a dot to connect with what she’s doing, I would totally take her up on that. So coming from a busy woman like her. So no doubt this is a pretty amazing platform Sherisse, and I know that you guys are making a big difference with this. In your thoughts, what would you say the number one way to improve outcomes is through value added marketing?
: A worry a bit understanding what people are first leading them where they are. I think that’s really number one and we have assumptions around even by demographics what people want to experience. They don’t want experience oh my grandmother would never do that because we have found we really shattered some of those perceptions around who it is to be connected that we never thought that have phones for example smart phones and are comfortable with them is surprising in some ways and not surprising at all in others. So first of all, we need the people to be where they are making sure that they have access and with it the most convenient for them. And it is our responsibility as communicator to take responsibility for that. The other thing is really being able to have a way to have a feedback loop and iterate on content so we often help people reimagine material. The first thing I ask them is what you want to do, immediately following using content and you’d be surprised at how people look at us and say, I’d never thought of that. You’re communicating, you’re sharing that information for a reason and bringing that to the forefront it’s not an afterthought. We can certainly have help with a call to action. We’ve got examples of how well we’ve been able to put to earn call to action. Intent has been placed on widgets that you might want to call on that in site. Ans we see it a direct correlation between giving people interactive content and having them take a step toward whatever that next step might be. Whatever the goal is. Is .. it is a little bit of psychology, a little bit of making sure that the navigational flow moves in a way that’s natural for us humans to move with. But it’s been a really fascinating process and we actually have data that shows it is a better experience.
: Yeah, Sherisse, you know and the thing that comes to mind. Thanks for sharing that with your thoughts on the topic of you know making things accessible, refreshable, and getting feedback, this helping achieve your outcomes. I think one of the things that we have to realizes as healthcare leaders is that marketing needs to be measurable. I think the days of marketing is a black box are over. We just we just you know right Sherisse? I mean we just can’t live with that belief.
: Yeah it’s much easier to do now. One of my original mentors many years ago said you get what you measure.
: Amen.
: And we weren’t talking about content in that context, it’s absolutely true. And we seen differences when we start to ask these questions and we’ll get very clear about what we want people to do. You really can move the needle.
: And you know I think about the juxtaposition of somebody is marketing information like for instance I don’t know I just bought a safe. Right. And and I looked at the reviews and then when you look at reviews they got the thumbs up and thumbs down. Was this helpful? Why don’t we have that in our marketing materials? Because if it wasn’t helpful let’s get it off the page. And with an asset like Pagedip you’re able to get that type of feedback versus not. And so again the call to action to the health leader today with regard to this subject is make sure that you’re measuring your marketing because if you’re not then you’re selling yourself, your patients your customers short won’t you agree, Sherisse?
: Yes and I get piggyback on that too. We’ve learned what I call the 6 best practices around what makes content engaging and memorable. There’s a way that we move through content that is really important and in the digital world, there’s definitely patterns around how people consume, remember, engage and enjoy something. And one thing that we’ve noticed is when you’re a content creator, we’ve heard hundred we’ve created hundred of page that we read a lot of material. And what I really talk about we imagine because to a content creator’s perspective it’s impossible for you to have an understanding of what experience experience will be when they come to that material fresh, cold. We all have our own history. Acronyms and jargon. It’s really impossible for your brain to separate what we know or what we live in day to day with someone who’s never experienced. They’ve never seen that word before.
: Yeah.
: And we are out what they oppose. It’s hard for people to admit when they don’t understand someone so there’s a natural gap between those that have the expertise they know and those are king to the content for the first time they may try to learn about a particular topic and we’ve figured out, you know what are the 6 best practice to make that gap smaller and smaller.
: So folks if you want those six best practices, go to outcomesrocket.health/pagedip and you’re going to find them there. Sherisse, I’m excited to share these things with the listeners. I’m excited to continue to see guys expand and the use cases. And I just really want to thank you for being with us today. Before we conclude I love if you could just share a closing thought with the listeners and then the best place where they can get a hold of you.
: Absolutely. The best place to reach us is at pagedip.com and you can also direct info at pagedip.com, really easy ways to reach us. A simple closing thought, I love the fact that we are at this juncture so much different types of content and the more accessible content than ever before. I do think that in order to differentiate yourself from the wave of material that’s out there, it is important to understand how people perceive it and they prefer to engage with it. So doing what’s always been done with an outcome. I think this idea of narrative flow in a single destination for current material is a completely different paradigm shift in how work and things puling together material in the past but we’ve proven that I do without a doubt believe this is the way of the future and that this is the way that people are going to expect to have content. But for to them moving forward so we’re really excited to be a part of that new paradigm shift. There’s a long way to go but have made a great progress and we were again very much welcome new applications, suggestions, questions, highlight for making this new kind of tech the world by storm.
: Outstanding Sherisse. Listeners take that personal invitation from this amazing woman and visit outcomesrocket.health/pagedip to get those 6 insights as well as the best place to contact Sherisse as well as the links to the things that we’ve talked about in a full transcript of what we describe described. So Sherisse again just want to say thank you on behalf of all of us and we’re looking forward to staying in touch with you.
: It was a pleasure.
Thanks for tuning in to the outcomes rocket podcast if you want the show notes, inspiration, transcripts and everything that we talked about on this episode. Just go to outcomesrocket.health. And again don’t forget to check out the amazing healthcare Thinkathon where we can get together took form the blueprint for the future of healthcare. You can find more information on that and how to get involved in our theme which is “implementation is innovation”. Just go to outcomesrocket.health/conference that’s outcomesrocket.health/conference. Be one of the 200 that will participate. Looking forward to seeing you there.
Best Way to Contact Sherisse:
LinkedIn – Sherisse Hawkins
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