Historical Artifacts

Welcome back to Connecting the Dots! I hope everyone had a lovely long weekend (super long for me, sorry about that!) and I'll bet you're all ready to get this show on the road again. Well, today, we're going to spend a little bit talking about MCN's past. 

Now, I bet you're wondering what this guitar has to do with MedCenterNetwork, right? A) It's plain awesome, even if you don't like country music (all those signatures are country stars). B) It's good entertainment during down times. C) Everyone who has signed that guitar has worked with us in some capacity or another, mostly before we were formally MCN. This guitar has traveled through two office spaces, and been around since before MCN was created in 2007. I really should have some sort of amazing anecdote about how this guitar represents us as a company, but, in all honesty, it's just one of the neat little artifacts hanging around our office.

Like the bookshelf of awards that Keith has won over his years in broadcast and other forms of television media. At the moment, said shelf holds only a very small portion of all that statues and other art pieces that count as awards; the rest are still either in the old space or in storage. I swear, I'm not exaggerating. I'll post a picture as soon as all of the awards come out.

Where did all these awards come from? Work with NBC, CBS, ABC, Animal Planet, Discovery, Disney, Outdoor Life Network, History Channel and Great American Country. Keith was also involved with Lifetime Network and Discovery Channel's weekly health programming, as well as co-founding American Medical Communications, which was another innovative company allowing medical professionals to view relevant programming over broadcast television. So he's definitely got a history in different thinking and fabulous video production!

And what does a bookshelf full of awards, a crazy mind and a guitar signed by country singers make? Keith Singer: created by a man who doesn't have a box to think outside of. He has a Bluebell ice cream container. And a strong reputation for creative, innovative videos and ideas. What do you get when he takes those ideas and bases a business off of them? MedCenterNetwork: a company unlike any you've seen before.

Pitches and Titles

Today I finally got to attend a formal meeting instead of sitting in my cubical and eavesdropping. It's quite a lot more fun to sit in the other office and watch the expression of our potential partners change from "oh, um, okay?" to "oh, wow, my brain has totally just been blown because this is such an awesome idea and I can't believe no one else has come up with this before. Except I'm still not entirely sure how to explain this to everyone else at my company." That just means that we're going to have to go into said company offices to explain on our own. Oh, woe, whatever shall we do? Going into a local news station to explain our standpoint and ideas again sounds just like torture, doesn't it? (Note the ample sarcasm. I actually think that'd be pretty cool).

As you might have guessed from the last sentence of (minus the aside) of the previous paragraph, today we're meeting with representatives from local news stations! It's pretty fun to actually see other people in the office instead of listening to half a conversation on the phones in the other room.

But what really amused me about this meeting was how much it reminded me of a prolonged novel pitch session. As a hopeful novelist, I got the opportunity to pitch my novel idea to a literary agent at a conference last year (it didn't go well), and watching Keith pitch MedCenter's philosophy to a potential partner felt a lot like that: the eager, earnest pitcher talking a mile-a-minute to the agent/partner, who's sitting in a corner, nodding, looking mildly impressed and slightly confused. The good news is this is probably going to go a lot better than my novel pitch!

I also officially received a title today, which was very exciting: "MedCenterNetwork's Social Media Coordinator." Sounds a lot more official than "social media representative," doesn't it?

MedCenter...Weather Gods?

Guess what today is! That's right, another rainy, thundery day! What's that mean? The folks here at MedCenterNetwork have their thinking caps on again! We're not entirely sure why or how, but it seems that all of the recent rain has been a direct result of MedCenter's brain trust getting their think on. Every time you see a lightning bolt or hear thunder rumble, one of us has come up with a brilliant new idea. We're just that good.

Don't worry, though, we're working on a way to keep our magical, idea-generating brains from affecting the weather like this again. Hopefully we'll have the tin foil caps installed within the week, so keep an eye out for the sun again soon.

(Disclaimer: any and all claims made herein that the crew of MedCenterNetwork have any actual sway over the weather or any other magical powers are here for comedic effect. Except maybe me. I might be the next Hogwarts valedictorian. But let's keep that on the down low, shall we? They don't really like me talking about it. )


On another note, I have a few shoutouts today. The first goes out to Lee Suttie, our cofounder, who has recently complained about not being on the blog. Here you go, Lee, your very own half a paragraph! The second goes out to Rebecca and Colby, who helped me figure out today's post (kinda). Thanks, guys!

Aborted topics for today: the health benefits of owning a pet, the health benefits of chocolate, chocolate cats, and chocolate thunder. Aren't you glad I didn't wind up talking about any of those?

Things That Keep Us Awake at Night

Apparently, the thing that keeps our director up at night is the state of the office carpet. Oh, the things I learn by eavesdropping on the random meetings that happen on the other side of the room. Last night, Keith had a dream that MedCenter was the object of a huge corporate uproar over the way our carpet looks. Now, I must say, the carpet itself isn't too terribly bad. Not anything I'd want in my house, sure, but it's in pretty good shape for the most part. Cleaner than my former dorm room, at least. Kind of ugly, though.

And then I saw this:

 

I'm not sure where it came from or  if it's fixable, 

but there appears to  be a rip/snag/other deformity

of your choice in our carpet by the computers. 

And now I totally understand where that nightmare came from (note the sarcasm in that last statement). The good news, I suppose, is that this is the only thing keeping us up at night at the moment. No worrying over whether we're doing right by our clients; no fretting about getting projects done on time; no tearing our hair out over where we're going. Just our carpet. Our lovely, ugly, torn up carpet. 

Oh, we worry about how hot the office is, too. We've got a big set of windows facing out east, so the rising run always shines right into the room and heats it up until it's basically sweltering by the time we get in here around nine. Four or five people sitting around, brainstorming, and sweating like pigs isn't all that attractive, I can promise you that. We've been tossing around plans to get a fan or something to help with this problem, but nothing's been done as of yet. That keeps me up at night. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be creative and funny when I'm practically melting all over my desk? 

Brainstorming

Today, I'm sitting in my newly decorated cubical (read: I put up a poster of a dragon and an anime wall scroll, both of which can be seen below), listening to the brainstorming session going on in the other room between Keith, Rebecca, and Colby--our founder, our customer service director and our sale guy--about one of our new projects. It doesn't make a terribly interesting picture, but I put it up all the same, for kind of a vague idea of what goes on around here. A lot of sitting around and talking at this point.

While I'm writing this, Keith's going over how we make stories interesting, which I find terribly appropriate. He's saying, "it's sort of like product placement; except, instead of putting a product in, we're embedding a concept." In other words, we take the project (cancer awareness, training videos, whatever) and focus on making an entertaining story, and slipping our sponsors' messages inside those tales.  In my opinion, that's a pretty neato way of going about things. Get people sucked into the interesting stuff, then subtly plop our message into that. Much better than taking a big, broad message (aka heavy, blunt object) and beating people about the head with it.

So there's, hopefully, some insight into the sort of thing we've got in mind when we say "Our goal is to create fun, interesting, entertaining stories to help our sponsors, partners and clients reach their own goals." 


And here are the promised photos of my newly decorated cubical. So exciting. 

The awesome dragon poster. 

Bonus points for anyone who knows what this is from! 

Emerson's Health Tips #1

I've decided that, since we focus on health-related stories, I'm going to try my hand at making up some health tips for our readers (yes, it's a quiet day in the office and I've got no other ideas for today; why do you ask?). Some of them might actually be good ideas, like the day I decide to delve into the medicinal properties of various herbs and teas. Some of them, not so much. Those in the latter category are likely to be just plain silly/fun/ridiculous/take your pick. If anyone's reading this and decides to try any of these tips, please feel free to let me know! I'd love to hear how they work out for you (if they do), especially the not-so-serious ones.

So, Emerson's Health Tip for today: when it's raining, try dodging raindrops. When I was a little kid, I used to try to do that all the time, when it was drizzling or only lightly raining, when it was still possible to dodge a majority of them. I suppose all the recent rain around here has got me thinking about it. Only problem comes when it's a misty or heavy rain, but that just makes it more fun: exercise, game and shower, all in one! Just remember your soap. If nothing else, it can be a game with your kids (if you have them): whoever gets the wettest loses. Just don't stay out too long, especially if it's cold, and have a dry set of clothes on hand to change into when you're done. Maybe even get some hot cocoa or tea going for afterwards. If you're making it a game with the kids, you could give them some sort of prize at the end, a sweet or a little toy or something (since we all know the kids are going to win, regardless). Of course, this'll only work if you like 1) dancing, 2) rain, and 3) potentially looking like a crazy person. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

And, so I don't get us sued or something: none of these health tips are designed to replace traditional medicines/doctors. Most of them are just for fun.

Office Shenanigans Pt. 1

Despite the fact that MedCenter Network has been in existence since 2007, we've never had an office of our own. Until now. Over the last few weeks, we've been moving furniture into our nice, new space, setting up cubicles, reorganizing all of our equipment, and all sorts of other fun things that go along with moving. And it's all been overseen by our very own captain.

For those of you who know us, you're probably thinking I'm talking about Captain Keith Singer or Captain Lee Suttie, the two in charge of this whole company mess. But I'm not. I'm talking about Captain Picard of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

He's the Big Cheese around here, as far as I'm concerned. But, then again, I've always been kind of a Trekkie. It's comforting to know that we've got a Star Fleet captain on our side.

Besides the Captain, we've got four cubicles set up--mine was just finished minutes before this posting--and a side office for Sales and whatnot. They're the ones with the good desks. The rest of us getting the stuff that came with the cubes. Not that I'm complaining. A desk is a desk. It just doesn't come with the sense of prestige that the nice ones have. Today, actually, the chaos of moving has calmed down to a dull, organized roar. Only thing we're missing now is a good set of office chairs. Notice the camp chairs in the photos below of some of our set-up process.

The guy in the last two pictures is our founder, Keith. See, he's not afraid to get his hands dirty.

Also, I've decided we need better candy in the office candy jar. Ironic that a health organization should have a candy jar to begin with, but everything is good in moderation. We just need something actually appetizing, instead of mysterious hard candy with no label.

Still to come: video introductions, how to decorate a cubical, and what happens when the social media rep is left alone in the office.

Hello World!

I think the title says it all. Hello world! I'm Emerson, and I'll be your MedCenter blogger for, well, as long as you decide to follow us. I've just recently signed onto the MedCenter Network team and I'm still getting my sea legs, but, hopefully, I'll at least be entertaining.

At this point, you're probably asking "what in the world is MedCenter Network? And why did they feel the need to hire this crazy person to blog about it?"

To which I respond: MedCenter Network is, in short, a media production company, focusing on health-related stories (and a few other things) inspired by the people involved. We help other companies and organizations get messages out to their target audience, via personalized stories presented through multi-media outlets, including traditional, web-based, print and mobile media. Our goal is to create fun, interesting, entertaining stories to help our sponsors, partners and clients reach their goals.

As to the second question, I say: a) I promise I'm not completely insane; I'm just energetic and excited about this project and b) we decided to start a blog in order to help spread the word about our company, our sponsors/partners' programs, and to give anyone who wants it an insight into what goes on behind the scenes of video production.

And, as an entertaining (hopefully) first post, I present you with watermelon smashing! As part of a ladder training video Mr. Keith Singer (read: my boss) is working on for the cable installers of CableOne, we went out into an empty parking lot, took the safeties off a 28-foot extension ladder, and used it as a guillotine to smash two large watermelons and a cantaloupe. The point is to use the footage of the dying melons as a sort of cautionary "this could be your head/foot/other body part of your choice!" for the folks watching the video. For little old me just tagging along, though, it was just pure fun.

Just imagine if that was your foot! Remember kids, ladder safety is no joke. But just think about how entertaining this video is going to be for those installers. Who doesn't like watching something get utterly destroyed? Below is the final carnage of the day.

And this is the sort of stuff we do here at MedCenter Network. Just a taste, though. Still to come: robots, medicine, race cars, and airplanes!