March 26, 2015

Vol. 13, Issue 5

I am constantly amazed by what is available to us in technology today. When we were helping my husband’s daughter look for housing in Lake Oswego, her real estate agent told us that when his car needs attention, it notifies him via email. The washing machines in an apartment building we visited could text or email you to let you know when your load is done! Really?

I’m curious as to how technology tools are affecting your meeting planning. I ran across this online article – “A Cheat Sheet for Planning Excellent Events.” I’m sharing a few relevant ideas in this issue, and if you want to read the entire article and get a nifty infographic, click on this link.

October dates for breast cancer events are hot, hot, hot, so now is the time to book your speaker.

If you haven’t already inquired, let me know your date, and we’ll get to work checking availability and getting recommendations to you. Meantime, on the technology front in breast cancer, there’s a hot new app that promises to be a game changer in breast cancer research, while helping patients who are dealing with the aftermath of treatment. Learn about the “Share the Journey” breast cancer app in this issue.

 

Meeting Planning:

The Changing Landscape

Unless you’re lucky enough to have a consistently sold out event, promoting attendance takes high priority on the meeting planning agenda. Email and electronic meeting invitation programs give you easy ways to send reminders, boost awareness, and ultimately, attendance.

According to “A Cheat Sheet for Planning Excellent Events” by Lindsay Rothfeld that appeared on mashable.com [Click here], event reminders sent 1-2 days before an event increase RSVP’s by average of 8%.

For free events, only 35% of RSVPS will attend. Paid ticketed events are 95%+ attendance.

But take note of these two uses of graphics that are the major movers. Displaying attendees, speakers or hosts is the #1 driver increasing RSVP’s. And lastly – and this is a biggie – Promoting with music, photos, and videos increases website views by an average of 221%.

In a past issue, I wrote about our speakers’ willingness to record short promo invitation videos, and the client’s results. This has become increasingly popular added value for our meeting planners. In fact, there’s a current one on our home page here, that Zonya Foco created for an upcoming womens wellness event.

Want more? Click here for a fascinating article about how technology is changing the way we experience events.

I’d love to hear and share any changes you’ve implemented as technology has come into the picture. You can write to me at barbara@speakwellbeing.com

 

New Breast Cancer Research App —

SHARE THE JOURNEY

Women love to help each other, and women in the breast cancer community are champions at this. It goes back to the old adage that under stress, women tend and befriend. Recently that concept has been joined with the wizardry of technology into an app that promises great potential for helping survivors who participate and accumulating even more valuable knowledge for future generations.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that after treatment, breast cancer patients are dealing with the long-term effects of treatment that often make it difficult to work or care for their families, let along live happily day to day. They experience fatigue, pain, memory loss, anxiety, mood swings, difficulty sleeping, cognitive and other debilitating symptoms. Doctors and other caregivers are aware of these long-term effects, but they have been unable to give guidance to their patients because there’s been no large scale scientific research about them.

The “Share the Journey” app fulfills this simple purpose: it will help millions of survivors, their doctors, and their family members understand and manage these after-effects of their breast cancer treatment. In addition it will enable its users to contribute to a body of knowledge that can smooth the journeys of those who follow. Using this app, breast cancer patients can measure for themselves their post-treatment progress daily, tracking five of the most common after-effects of breast cancer treatment: fatigue, sleep issues, cognitive issues, mood and exercise. The data they feed in also becomes part of a larger body of research aimed at improving quality of life for millions of others living with the effects of breast cancer treatment now and into the future.

Meantime, users will benefit immediately from the practice of daily recording by noticing their own patterns and making adjustments to benefit their own well-being.

There is tremendous expertise behind this app. It was developed by the nonprofit Sage Bionetworks (in response to an inquiry from a doctor), with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the expertise of nationally recognized cancer researchers Dr. Patricia Ganz of UCLA, Dr. Ann Partridge of Dana-Farber, and exercise expert Kathryn Schmitz, Ph.D., MPH, of the University of Pennsylvania. These experts also worked with Dr. Susan Love, and Dr. Judy Garber of Dana-Farber.

Share the Journey is open to women in the U.S. between the ages of 18 and 80, with or without a history of breast cancer. You need to own a personal iPhone. (An Android version is in development.) A Spanish-language version of the app and efforts to expand the study to additional areas around the world are under development. Sage Bionetworks and its collaborators are also working to extend the study to include men who have been treated for breast cancer.

Here’s the free download link. Please share this with survivor friends and organizations.Until next time, take of yourself for your well being and those you love.

 

For Your Well Being is published bi-weekly. We bring you insider speaker reports, exclusive stories about special events around the country, meeting planner tips, and fun stuff from the worlds of health and well being. Be well and be in the know!

The Speak Well Being Group is a specialized speakers bureau, focusing on speakers for hospital-sponsored community events, healthcare organizations, nurses, conferences and women’s groups. Our speakers are hand-selected. They are not only experts in their fields, they connect with their audiences while bringing them life-changing information, smiles of recognition and ultimately a sense of well being and hope.

Finding the perfect keynote speaker for your special event or conference is my personal passion, not just once, but year after year. It brings me great joy to know that your audience was delighted and moved by the speaker we selected together. I’m committed to making the process easy, pleasant and fun.