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8 Ways to Squeeze in Time for Professional Progress

Even with less commute time, there still never seems to be quite enough hours in the workday. However, by incorporating some strategy, you can continue your professional development without too much trouble. After fully embracing the term “maximizing” to describe my life approach, I’ve come up with ways to make time for the important things, including my numerous passions and beloved relationships.

  1. Schedule yourself. Set a pop-up reminder to get yourself to think about or invest in professional development. This could be blocking out 30 minutes once a week for some professional development reading on LinkedIn, a monthly pop-up reminding you to make progress towards your annual goals, or anything in between.
  2. Find an industry-focused email newsletter worth reading, like Michael Smart’s Thursday emails. Start by picking just one that is worthwhile, and don’t be afraid to unsubscribe and try something different if it starts to feel like additional clutter.
  3. Find someone further along in their career who is willing to provide casual mentorship. Now that we’re used to remote meetings, ask about some quick check-in calls before work, over your lunch break, or in the evening, maybe bimonthly or once a quarter. This will keep it from being too cumbersome for either of you.
  4. Listen to industry podcasts or audiobooks on your walks, workouts, drives, or while making meals or folding laundry. Make your chore time extra-productive.
  5. Follow key hashtags or join an industry group on LinkedIn. You’ll stay relatively informed without trying too hard.
  6. Ask someone to keep you accountable. If your former coworker is willing to check in occasionally to see whether you’ve been keeping your list of work wins up-to-date, you’re more likely to do it (and figure out the most painless way for you to maintain the practice.)
  7. Whenever you wrap up a small project, ask for any feedback to make the next project better. Be sure to also share feedback with others to encourage improvement and grow your working relationships.
  8. Volunteer to support a one-time event or for a committee with a minimal time commitment. Choose an event during a time of year that is less busy or a commitment that is infrequent enough to keep it manageable.

I like to pursue many goals at once and have found that with the right planning and reminders, big things are usually more feasible than they sound. If you have any favorite strategies for fitting in professional development or any favorite podcasts or newsletters, please share them. We’ve got this!

Building Your Personal Brand

This article previously appeared in Bulldog Reporter.

Promoting the thought-leadership profile of our clients is a hallmark capability of The Reis Group and something that we do for our health care clients regularly. As the pandemic continues to threaten the health and economy of our nation, and social injustice issues still occupy center stage, it’s more important than ever to amplify the strengths of every organization’s leadership and to position the C-Suite as thought leaders to establish a credible and strong voice in the current climate, and bolster the relevancy of the organization and its issues.

But it’s also equally important to think about your personal brand as well. The old saying “the cobbler’s kids have no shoes” can ring true for public relations professionals. We spend so much time establishing our clients as thought leaders that we can easily forget to practice what we preach for our own public profile.

Establishing yourself as a thought leader will enable you to do four key things: build credibility for you and your organization, expand your network, develop your professional skillset, and create new opportunities for collaboration.

There’s no single way to successfully build your personal brand, but here are a few tips and tricks to get you started.

Social media is your friend.
While it’s fun to look at pictures and life updates on various social platforms, utilizing social media, particularly LinkedIn and Twitter, can help establish you as a thought leader and build your credibility and following. Try sharing relevant articles written by others and adding your point of view to provide a glimpse into your understanding and thinking. Or consider expanding the reach of your perspective by sharing posts, articles, and blogs you have developed, or media stories that you have helped to place. You can also engage with those in your network by “liking” and commenting on their posts. Social media also offers another opportunity to leverage your attendance at events by sharing relevant content and connecting with other attendees.

Share your voice.
Developing commentaries or blogs is an easy way to widely share your expertise on a particular topic. Look for opportunities in industry trade publications to share your thinking and experience. These placements will bolster your expertise around a particular topic, generate content you can share via social, and even create potential speaking opportunities on related topics.

Get involved.
While it may seem like yet another time-consuming commitment to add to your ever-growing to-do list, joining professional organizations can help expand your personal and professional development in important ways. Your membership may create networking opportunities with other like-minded professionals that may result in a connection to a new hire or a new business opportunity. It can also help to broaden your knowledge through courses, seminars, and lectures to keep you up to date on the latest industry innovations, research, and trends. Additionally, your membership may even provide opportunities to develop your leadership skills through committee and Board positions.

Don’t be afraid to speak up.
Finding opportunities to share your knowledge via speaking engagements at professional meetings, conferences, or local universities can further highlight your expertise on a particular topic or issue and build your presentation skill-set. It can also help you to make connections with fellow presenters and attendees and may open the door for future speaking opportunities.

So, as you think about the challenges ahead in 2021, remember that investing in yourself is important! You are your best asset, so make sure to carve out the time to do this–and have fun with it!

Following the “COVID Story”: Reflecting on Coronavirus Media Coverage

Whether you’ve been working in health, public health, media, or public relations, or you’re just a human trying to survive, 2020 has been an unforgettable and bizarre experience. Endless depressing case counts and deaths. COVID-19 special reports. White House coronavirus briefings. CDC, WHO and Task Force updates and trending hashtags about PPE, testing, ventilators and plenty of depressing things that many of us had never planned to think about.

Remember hearing about COVID-19 in February, back when it seemed to only exist on cruise ships or in Wuhan? When first responders had inadequate PPE? The first week we learned that we should wear masks? The continuing flow of contradictory stories on “miracle” drugs and speculative vaccine timeframes? In hindsight, the situation sometimes seemed to become clearer, only to turn even more confusing.

I recently spent several intense hours reviewing and organizing seven months’ worth of COVID-19 drug stories, and all of these things streamed back through my thoughts. In our work, it’s important to gather story numbers and impressions and to tally both original pieces and syndications in order to accurately report results and continually refine future media strategy. Proofreading, essentially what I did for the five-thousand-line spreadsheet, involves using the tools available (particularly Office’s spell check, find, and sort functions) while also buckling in for thoughtful reviewing and re-reviewing. By nature, this work cannot be done quickly. It’s also helpful to incorporate the proofreading best practice of reading backwards: starting at the bottom of the document instead of the top and working in the opposite direction. Not only did these tactics yield an accurate overview of media coverage, but this experience really impressed on me how much the COVID story has changed throughout 2020.

Thankfully, we learn more about COVID-19 all the time, thanks especially to researchers, health and public health professionals, and dedicated journalists. Yes, the media coverage has been exhausting and sometimes confusing and problematic. It remains important to consider sources, cross-reference guidance, and prioritize experts. However, in great part thanks to the media, most people now know about the variety of actions that we can each take to fight COVID-19, with more knowledge gained all the time. One of the top things we can do this fall is get a flu shot.

The dedication to service and innovation that I’ve seen throughout society this year—though inevitably twinged with tragedy and loss—encourage me to do whatever I can as an individual to keep myself and others safe and to help share useful, accurate information as a medical public relations professional. In the next seven months, the “COVID story” will surely develop and progress, and as it does, we can find hope in remembering what we can control as well as embracing the sure-to-come helpful new information and developments to keep us safe and pursue the return to our pre-pandemic lives.

Shifting Health Care Communications Strategies

This article originally appeared in O’Dwyer’s October 2020 Healthcare Issue.

Failure to stay relevant is a catastrophe for PR professionals. For 2020, relevancy is the primary determinant of success in the era of COVID-19.

For all of us, not just those in health care communications, this has been a year of chaos. We were forced to repeatedly adapt to a rapidly changing environment and continually learn unexpected lessons for moving forward in this bewildering new reality.

We were pushed to constantly reevaluate messaging and positioning to demonstrate engagement and sensitivity to the COVID-19 situation. For every news story, social post, speech, and product, PR professionals needed to take daily and weekly checks on the environment to figure out when and how it was appropriate to step in and step up.

As a health care PR agency, our first priority in this tumultuous time is taking care of our team. The only way we can serve our clients well is if we first take care of ourselves. For our team, self-care is no longer a luxury. It is a survival mechanism. When the federal Emergency Declaration hit, we abandoned our Washington, D.C. office and went fully remote. It was a seamless transition because we already offered our team members “Work-from-Home Fridays.” It was our best answer for telework. When we opened our small, woman-owned business four years ago, we started working remotely once a week on the day of your choice. But that became too confusing; some people would take it, others would not. It got to the point where we didn’t know whether someone was in or out of the office. Our solution was giving everyone the benefit of Fridays at home, with the requirement to use video calls as the primary form of communication. Everyone needed to have a home-office set up. Wow! Did that ever pay off when the coronavirus hit!

I remember reading a post on Instagram that said, “We are in a crisis…and working remotely.” To help our own staff practice self-care, take time to nurture their mental health, and figure out their new life, we immediately activated our annual summer hours program several months early: Everyone takes a day off from work every other Friday. It gives all of us a time to reflect, recharge, and reconnect with what matters to each of us personally. And the positive effects are felt professionally too.

We are clearly not the only ones who think this kind of respite is important: according to a recent Samueli Integrative Health survey, a majority (64%) of Americans say they are focused on their mental health now more than ever.

COVID-19 hit particularly hard for some of our primary clients, whose work missions put them on the frontlines of the pandemic. Key client concerns shifted instantly and strongly to anything and everything COVID: safety and personal protective equipment, clinician burnout, the surge in telehealth and teletherapy, the incredible impact of the social determinants of health, the no-visitor rules at care facilities, constantly changing care guidelines, patients forgoing care, postponed surgeries–and people dying.

The media world changed too. For a firm that prides itself on excelling in earned media relations and thought leadership, we needed to reconfigure how we shared our clients’ perspectives. Consider the state of media during the first half of this year:

  • Hundreds of journalists were laid off at Vice, Quartz, The Economist, BuzzFeed, CondeNast and elsewhere.
  • According to The New York Times, nearly 40,000 employees of news media companies were furloughed, laid off, or had their pay cut.
  • COVID-19 has literally killed nearly 100 weekly and daily publications, bringing the total to roughly 1,800 news outlets that have just disappeared in the past decade.

Nonetheless, there was some good news about the news media:

  • A Pew study found 69% of Americans approved the media coverage of the pandemic.
  • Other polls found that trust in broadcast and cable network news was growing; and
  • Americans wanted science to guide our way out of this pandemic.

For our clients, in-person scientific meetings came to an abrupt halt. Now the virtual or hybrid annual meeting is here to stay. A recent issue of Science explored COVID-19’s huge impact on annual scientific meetings. A human-centered artificial intelligence conference that typically draws 3,000 attendees switched to a virtual format. The result? The conference attracted more than 30,000 participants. The reported benefits included moderators more effectively screening questions and avoiding non-questions. The virtual meeting was more accessible and affordable. What do the meeting participants miss the most? In-person networking. Many organizations are trying to replicate that connection on social media but being in the presence of another human being is impossible to replace, although online platforms are still trying to figure it out.

For one of our in-person community-based campaigns, we shifted everything online and eliminated all printed materials. One of our clients was in the middle of testing a campaign focused on health and well-being, focused on reaching the underserved population in five pilot markets. The “TakeCare” project is all about the power that every one of us has to improve our own health and well-being. What makes this campaign different and exciting is the use of newly produced documentary film shorts with real people taking small steps to make real changes in their lives. These films make emotional connections and inspire behavior change. Since we could no longer be in-market, we pivoted quickly to online. Within 30 days, we launched a digital micro-campaign within TakeCare, to specifically help people during COVID-19. We released five engaging film shorts that shared powerful stories of people who have transformed their health and well-being through small steps, and highlighting topics that were particularly relevant in the new environment: stress relief, building community, finding meaning and purpose.

Surveys and polls are more popular than ever for the news media. I’ve never seen so many polls covered in the news, posted on social media, and written about by the trades, aside from election season. In just a single week, I counted at least 10 polls covered by Google News before I stopped counting! There was the Harris Poll, Politico/Harvard poll, CNN poll, Quinnipiac University poll, Fox News poll, Kaiser Family Foundation Tracking, USA Today/IPSOS poll, and more. The abundance of survey findings tells us two things. First, they work. Second, they provide your client an opportunity to stay relevant, if you can find something newsworthy to add.

What are we looking at in 2021 for health care PR? We will continue to operate in a chaotic and uncertain environment. Trying to make meaningful personal connections virtually will be essential. Microtargeting on a single platform is a must, and our clients will need science and new data to remain a vital part of the national conversation. Welcome to the new normal!

As the saying goes, “there is wisdom and freedom in accepting that we don’t have all the answers.” While we are figuring those answers out, we as health care PR professionals must strive to find ways to keep our organizations and clients relevant.

Elephants vs Mosquitos: Which Approach to Media Outreach Gets Results

A popular theory of evolution serves as a good analogy for approaches to media pitching, whether we are promoting scientific research or increasing awareness of a health issue.

In biology, organisms are classified according to the evolutionary “strategies” they use for reproduction and long-term survival of the species. Humans and elephants are known as “K-selected” organisms. Within these species, individuals have just a few offspring over their lifetime and devote substantial time and energy to raising and nurturing each baby.

On the other end of the spectrum are “r-selected” organisms such as sea turtles and mosquitos. These creatures lay vast numbers of eggs to produce numerous offspring and invest almost nothing in caring for them. This strategy counts on massive quantity to produce at least a few survivors to carry on the species generation after generation.

I often think of K- and r-strategies when pitching to the media. Either approach can be successful, but most often, we prefer a K-strategy, in which we thoughtfully nurture a customized pitch. This means taking time to think precisely about who we want to reach, to learn about specific reporters whom we can target, and to consider which particular aspect of our story will most interest them. We take time to learn about the reporters and to clearly understand their beats and their publications. We review bylined articles and plan an approach to the most relevant reporters, with a fresh angle that is most likely to intrigue them. While we may send out fewer pitches and queries with this K-strategy, we generally get more high-quality responses and build better relationships with journalists who come to know and trust us and are willing to keep opening our emails.

Just like in biology, our tactics do not always fall neatly into one category. Occasionally, variations on the r-strategy — sending out a single pitch to a long list of reporters — make sense. When we have strong, time-sensitive breaking news, it can work well to send a pitch to a broad but well-researched list. But too much reliance on the r-strategy is why journalists are often frustrated with public relations. Hundreds of mosquito-like pitches annoyingly fill up journalists’ in-boxes every day.

Media databases and distribution services make it tempting to simply cast out a pitch to larger numbers of journalists. It is quick and easy to identify dozens or even hundreds of reporters in your topic area and then blanket the state, region, or the entire world with a generic pitch. But these databases are far from perfect and inevitably identify innumerable reporters who will find the outreach irrelevant and irritating. They may even block the sender’s email, which means they may not be able to reach that reporter when they actually have a story that might be a good match.

Taking the time to thoughtfully nurture a pitch and selectively send it to reporters who will care about it is better than just letting loose a swarm of mosquitos.

A Formative Four Years

It’s hard for me to believe that we are already celebrating the fourth anniversary of the founding of The Reis Group.  As I thought about this milestone and about my original vision to create a health care public relations agency with the best possible work culture, I was wonderfully gratified to get the news that we were just named one of the “Best Boutique Agencies to Work For” by PRovoke, one of the leading industry trade news outlets.

To be recognized for our culture, being named one of the best in the nation in the “most voluminous and competitive” category, according to PRovoke, is very rewarding for me both professionally and personally. Having a strong, talented, supportive team has been a joy, and it gives me hope for much success in the next year and beyond.

As I looked back at the four-year mark, I found myself marveling at how much has changed in such a short time, even before our world was upended by COVID-19.

The Cloud

When we moved into our brand new Dupont Circle office in Washington, D.C. in 2016, we worked with our tech expert to put all our content into the cloud and to have everything accessible virtually. It’s been an amazing change, particularly with our increased travel schedules, to have the ability to work from anywhere and have access to all our files. And it enabled us to buy the lightest laptops available, which was fantastic news for my poor sore shoulder!

Remote Work

Long before COVID-19, we started working remotely once a week on the day of your choice. But that became too confusing; some people would take it, others wouldn’t. It got to the point where we didn’t know whether someone was in or out of the office. We had a solution: “Work From Home Fridays.” Everyone would get the benefit. Everyone would be required to use video calls as the primary form of communication. Everyone needed to have a home office set up. Wow! Did that ever pay off when the coronavirus hit!

Working from home one day a week is fun. Working from home every day is just hard. I miss my co-workers! Getting coffees together. Chatting about the weekend. Noticing a new piece of clothing or a desk decoration. Being able to tell how each of us is doing by reading our body language. Let’s face it; you really can’t do that as well on Zoom. We are on virtual calls every day together, but nothing replaces being in each other’s presence.

Health Care’s Transformation

Our firm is focused on health and health care. I’ve dedicated the last 20-plus years of my life to these issues. So much has changed so quickly in both a scary and exciting way. Disparities, telehealth, questions about insurance coverage, access to care, prevention, mental health, reimbursement issues, scope of practice, and more. Never have these challenges been more apparent or important.

Supporting Our Community

The sweeping protests around the world are sparking historic changes that have been too long coming. As an employer, I am strongly committed to equity and to having a team that reflects our community, that is open to ideas from everyone, and that supports each other’s successes. Every June, we donate to a cause that helps the community. This year, we made a donation to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

My Proudest Moment

When we opened our doors four years ago, I said something that still holds true and that I keep near my heart. “To give it my best—to really make it shine—I need to work with the best people; people who share my values and my commitment to excellence. I have to work in a culture of support, in which our team members see that a major part of our work is to build each other up and help each other succeed.” I’m very grateful to know that we are doing that, and will continue…

5 Tips for Health Care Public Relations During COVID-19

COVID-19 is overtaking news coverage and overturning every aspect of health care public relations. This unique environment presents new challenges, as well as new opportunities. As the account manager for two health care clients directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, I have learned first-hand that navigating clients through this atmosphere requires taking risks, being flexible, and savoring the small victories.

With that in mind, here are five tips for managing health care PR in the time of COVID-19:

1. Take Risks, but Be Realistic

This is a time to try something new and not be afraid to get creative. Every organization is wondering how they can break into the news cycle. One good step forward is to host a brainstorming session with your full account team (and then client) to rethink your strategy and pull out the biggest ideas you can think of. Don’t let reality hold you back when thinking up new media angles or even large shifts in messaging!

After getting all the ideas on the table, take some time to think about what’s possible in this environment. Given the unprecedented nature of the pandemic, not all good ideas are going to shine. Think about how the ideas might land with your key audiences before taking them to the next level.

2. Make the Shift to Digital

Whether you are inside an organization or agency, communications professionals can proactively encourage our peers to get ahead of the curve by moving health care events and traditional meetings online. One of The Reis Group’s clients quickly organized an online policy briefing to increase awareness of an important issue that drew more than 300 virtual attendees—for an event they were hoping to attract 50 people to when held in person.

Thought leadership platforms can also work well digitally. Many media outlets are offering digital events and speaking engagements online. This increases the pool of possible engagements that will build credibility, with no worries about time and money for travel.

3. Share Expertise

Many of us in the health care industry have expertise to share. By exploring what an organization can add to the current public conversation, communications professionals will find new avenues for growing their organization’s voice. Perhaps your organization wanted to promote telehealth previously but couldn’t get any traction. Now is the time to re-engage. This is the time to capitalize on sharing expertise that can support good health.

4. Enjoy the Victories

Let’s support our clients and our colleagues when we have a victory, big or small. Keeping morale high is challenging these days but encouraging others can help produce better results for everyone. Perhaps your organization traditionally has been shy about entering the media fray, but they finally are engaging. What a great reason to celebrate and encourage a new behavior!

Perhaps you successfully modified a communications strategy based on the current environment—all from your kitchen table while homeschooling. Good job!

Or maybe you’ve seen cultural transitions in your organization such as remote working or flexible hours. Let’s celebrate those too. Staying positive will help our mindset during difficult times.

5. Lead with Grace

We’re all under a lot of stress, clients and organizational leaders included. While some states are lifting stay-at-home restrictions, we still have a long road ahead of us.

My final guiding principle for health care public relations is that we should lead with grace. When we start to feel like we’re struggling, trust that everyone is doing their best to answer their emails, join video conversations, and meet deadlines. And, of course, this means giving yourself some grace too. You’re doing great! Keep it up!

Think Like a Thought Leader

Our high-speed, media-saturated digital world sometimes feels like a dense, dark jungle with huge shadowy trees and thick tangled vines that block out most of the sunlight and leave us in darkness.

Our job in health care public relations is to shine a light to cut through this darkness on behalf of our clients and highlight their work, their mission, and their values. In the health and science field, we have the ability—and the obligation—to build our clients’ credibility and elevate their reputations so that their key achievements and messages do not get lost in the information wilderness of social media.

“Thought Leadership” has become the mantra for this type of work. At The Reis Group, we represent a wide variety of clients who are doing cutting-edge work in specialized areas such as integrative health, epidemiology, pediatric health, Alzheimer’s prevention, cost containment, and much more. We can effectively promote the value of our clients’ work—if we do it the right way.

In the worlds of health care, science and medicine, the key executives, scientists, and researchers have the ability to become recognized leaders in their fields through op-eds, broadcast appearances, speaking engagements, letters to the editor and other opportunities. After 40 years working in the media, the last seven in public relations, here are a few of my tips on how to help make this happen.

Be ready to respond quickly: In the Twitter universe, the news is non-stop, so at any moment, we have to be poised to act immediately. For us, the COVID-19 pandemic is the most vivid recent example of the need to be constantly aware of how events move so rapidly that we must always be ready.

Be ready to respond smartly: We try to know all the potential outlets that might be interested in hearing from our leaders. Whether it’s a short, quick letter or a substantive commentary, we cultivate contacts with journalists and publishers who may be most receptive to our messages.

Know the message: Our clients have devoted their careers to representing specialized populations and the targeted audiences who care deeply about their issues. We have to be in a position to know how any breaking news event may relate to the specific topics that are our clients’ major areas of interest.

Know the messenger: Our leaders have carefully nuanced positions on issues. We need to talk with them as often as possible, interview them on major topics of the day whenever possible, and keep up on their published writing and research.

Speak in their voice, not yours: Our thought leaders are passionate about their issues and have distinct ways of expressing themselves on the most vital topics. We should be able to virtually memorize the language that they would use. Then, when the client sees the message that we are planning to put out, they feel that the voice is authentic.

This kind of work is competitive and difficult, but it’s definitely worth the planning and the effort.

Are You Prepared in Case of an Emergency?

Does your organization have a plan in place to respond to an emerging issue like a negative media article, a major reorganization or a controversial legal matter? According to a recent PR News article, PR pros anticipate a rise in crisis communications as we enter the new decade and it’s important that your organization not be caught on its heels.

The goal of managing crises is to mitigate the immediate danger, along with any subsequent serious negative repercussions–while maintaining leadership and transparency on the issue at hand. While we all hope we never have a reason to actually implement a crisis communications plan, it’s vital to have one in place. It is crucial to assure that all key players understand their role in a crisis and know how to initiate action so they are able to quickly and efficiently respond to any situation.

Here are four things to keep in mind when developing your organization’s crisis communications plan:

  1. Identify the most likely scenarios. You can never fully anticipate all the details of a potential crisis, but it’s important to think through whatever situations are most likely to occur and then determine whether any potential scenarios can be grouped together in terms of how you would respond. Identifying a few key situations will help keep your plan manageable and actionable and will allow your response system to be easily adaptable to a variety of situations.
  2. Determine a threshold for responding. Not every situation warrants a response, as sometimes the response itself will only add more fuel to the fire. It’s important to always assess the caliber of the threat and determine from there how best to publicly respond, if at all. Even if a response is not deemed necessary, it’s still important to monitor the situation and have some draft materials in place should things escalate.
  3. Determine chain of command and have appropriate back-ups identified. This is a very critical piece of any crisis communications plan. By having key members and back-ups identified, it allows your organization to quickly put your crisis plan in motion and ensures that everyone who needs to be in the know will be notified quickly. A crisis can occur at any time and, as much as we’d like to be, we all can’t be available 24/7. So, having a back-up person identified for each role in the crisis plan will guarantee that the plan progresses as it should, regardless of whether someone is unavailable.
  4. Develop draft materials with key messages that can be easily updated depending on the crisis. Time is of the essence during a crisis, so having outlines with key talking points and messages at the ready will help jump-start your response efforts and help you move quickly. Having some of these draft materials pre-approved will save valuable time during an actual crisis, which will mean your organization can respond as quickly as needed to all situations.

As Benjamin Franklin said “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” If your organization doesn’t have a crisis communications plan in place, contact The Reis Group and we can work with you to ensure you are ready to set the right processes in motion should a crisis situation arise.

Growth Spurt. Excitement at Age 3

When we started our adventure three years ago, we felt the thrill of the new: a new name, new logo, new offices, new furniture, new benefits, new opportunities. And even new coffee shops and fresh new lunch options in our spiffy new Dupont Circle home.

As we celebrate our third anniversary today, we are filled with a surge of energy, a sense of momentum, and great excitement about how far we have come and how much further we want to go, together. Kind of like a growth spurt of an excited 3-year old.

We recently were honored to be named one of the best new agencies of the year by PRSA’s National Capital Chapter, and PR News recognized The Reis Group as one of the best places to work. In fact, in our three years in business, we have won 9 industry awards, and I couldn’t be prouder.

Our clients are leaders in advancing some of the country’s most pressing health and social causes. Many are focusing on new ventures in exploring health, well-being, complementary medicine, and the social determinants of health. Science promotion is more exciting than ever, as we move closer to finding a way to prevent devastating diseases ranging from childhood cancers to Alzheimer’s. Other clients are researching the hidden drivers of health care costs and educating the public. We continue to be in awe of our client partners who are incredibly smart, talented, and committed to making the world a better place.

As we enter our fourth year, we are growing in our personal lives, too. Tamara Moore, vice president, just this week gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Our colleague Kathleen Petty, account supervisor, is expecting her first child later this year. And my own baby just graduated from high school and is heading off this fall to college!

To our current clients, partners, and friends, we are grateful for you. You are the heart and soul of our success. We deeply value your support.

To my amazing colleagues, I am honored to be with you on this continuing adventure.

Thank you.

Sharon