Marjorie Clayman’s Writing Portfolio

Professional writing profile of Marjorie Clayman

Margie Clayman

3 ways Social Media will change health care

by

Dr. Susan Giurleo is an amazing woman whom I met initially via Third Tribe. I asked if she’d be willing to write her thoughts on how health care could more effectively use Social Media, and this is her response!

Social media isn’t just for business, marketing or showing all your friends how cute your kids are. Social media has the power to change how we access and use health care. The Pew Internet Research Foundation found that over 80% of Americans search for health care information online. Many use information and suggestions offered by friends and family on Facebook and Twitter.

Social media is changing how we find information, communicate and how we define “relationship.” Patients and health care providers can leverage social media to improve health outcomes and lower costs.

Here are just 3 ways I think social media will change health care:

[Read more…] about 3 ways Social Media will change health care

anybody can play the fool

by

I am starting to dig into Mark Twain’s epic autobiography, and I just got through reading his accounts of how he ended up publishing General US Grant’s memoirs. There are two rather surprising discoveries in these Twain writings. First, you can tell that he absolutely worshiped Grant, as many likely did in the 1880s. Grant, after all, had led the Union to victory in the Civil War. This is funny only because Twain was often so cynical that seeing him idolize a person is downright weird!

The other lesson you see in these writings, though, is something quite different. What you learn is that Ulysses S. Grant, “Unconditional Surrender” Grant, the man who accepted Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox Courthouse, was often played for a fool.

[Read more…] about anybody can play the fool

Social Media and the Journalist

by

In this section of the Engagement Series, I want to explore how industries other than marketing are using Social Media engagement. I asked this question of Debbi Morello, a journalist and a woman whom I admire  a great deal. This great post is her response!

Where do I begin? Needless to say there is a great deal of discussion and many opinions about journalists using social media and if you asked a journalist six months ago I suspect the answers would be different than they are today, or more specifically, since the dawn of the Arab Spring. More broadly, since the beginning of 2011, what I consider to be an unprecedented year insofar as ‘news events’ literally one after the other in natural disasters, civil unrest and conflict. Try to imagine these “major news events” before social media. I know for the younger audience, that may be difficult. For the more seasoned of us, it’s not.

I am one of these “cross-cutting” people, an experienced journalist, experienced in the world of disaster relief, experienced in conflict zones …  at a time when the only way to transmit information was through satellite phones… kind of like messages in a bottle when we fast forward to 2011. And certainly being a purist and a traditionalist I was not using any social media tools at this time last year, May 2010. Fast forward to May 2011, I’m in a new world.

[Read more…] about Social Media and the Journalist

You can only control your own destiny

by

When we think of Abraham Lincoln, we think of a man who is idolized not only by Americans but by people from all around the world. Because we idolize him so, it seems easy to visualize everyone during the Civil War (well, okay, everyone in the North) idolizing him. In fact, though, few things could be further from the truth. Abraham Lincoln, after barely winning the Presidency in 1860, was in fact despised and ridiculed by most people he encountered.

How can a man whom so few admire evolve into one of the most beloved historical figures in the world? Circumstance is certainly one aid. Would Lincoln have been such a great President if he had not encountered all of the events of the Civil War? Would he have been remembered as such a great man if the war had not forced him to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?

But there is another side to this man’s long-lasting fame too, I think. It can be summed up by a short line that appears in Team of Rivals.

Lincoln never wrote a letter while angry.

[Read more…] about You can only control your own destiny

A Reminder of What I Could Not Bear

by

Today we mark Memorial Day here in the US. Memorial Day is one of those holidays that seems to gain more meaning with every year that passes.

When I was a kid in school, Memorial Day always seemed like a bit of torture – it was a glimpse at what summer vacation would be like, but we’d always have 1-2 weeks of school left to go through. When you’re a kid, 2 weeks of school can seem like an eternity, especially when you know the sun is shining and warm outside.

As the years have gone on, the enormity of what Memorial Day is all about hits me a bit harder. I think about my ancestors who fought in the American Revolution, side by side with George Washington. What were their experiences like in that war, fighting a war the likes of which had never been seen before?

I think about my ancestors who fought in the Civil War, and the fact that family legend says our family was split over that conflict. I think about my ancestors who, it seems, were killed when the Sultana exploded.

I think about my grandfather, who was in the Navy throughout the World War II conflict, and who saw things that I can’t imagine. I always knew him as a kind of bear-like man who loved his  Cleveland Indians and who never seemed to move out of his favorite chair. Could that be the same man who sailed from Iceland to the Philippines and everywhere in between?

Even more than all of that though, I think about what it must be like to have a loved one fighting in a far-off place. My life is filled with people I love who are spread around the world, and there is always a kind of anxiety that distance causes, even though I know they are all as safe as we can all be in this world. How can you struggle through when you are not only dealing with distance but also the uncertainty of whether that person you love has survived the day? Especially with 24/7 news and the internet. Every report of violence in the world would make my heart sink.

I don’t know how people cope with that.

And I certainly can’t imagine how the people who are in the thick of it cope with it.

I can say, with no small amount of shame, that I am not sure I would be able to bear either of those scenarios.

As I get older, those are the things I think about every Memorial Day. Rather than lamenting the loss, which is too hard to grasp, I think about how lucky I am. All of my loved ones are in their homes, safe, untouched by the wars being waged around the world except in indirect ways. How lucky am I? How lucky are we?

With a bowed head in reverence to those who are not so lucky, who have not been so lucky, I will humbly celebrate, today, the immense wealth and fortune my heart gets to experience on a daily basis, thanks in no small part to those who have lost their lives and their loved ones.

Even if you are in a place that does not mark today as a holiday – it is worth thinking about, don’t you think?

Image by Robert Linder. http://www.sxc.hu/profile/linder6580