The Power of The Blog

First some context - a little lengthy but there's a funny story in it.

One of the most popular blogs in the health IT industry is HIStalk (50,000 visitors and 90,000 views a month). Written anonymously by "Tim", HIStalk covers the industry with humor, insight, and very smart writing. As an industry veteran I occasionally give Tim stories of interest and commentary. Tim usually posts such items as being submitted by pseudonyms drawn from popular culture. It is very satisfying to see my input in print.

I am in Orlando speaking and exhibiting at the health IT industry's biggest conference and trade show - 28,400 attendees and over 900 exhibitors. Tim is here too - incognito - and blogging daily. One of the highlights of Tim's blog is that he reports on interesting products and marketing ideas from the show floor.

On Monday, I was grabbing a bite of lunch in the very crowded food court at the Orange County Convention Center. I sat down with a gentleman whom I discovered was a former partner at Arthur Andersen and was at the show helping his son who had recently started a company called Seal Shield. They make anti-bacterial and submersible computer keyboards and mice. Hospital-acquired infections are, unfortunately, quite common and keyboards are a prime source of cross-contamination. The same is true in schools, especially in light of recent MRSA outbreaks (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) that have required extensive decontamination. A submersible keyboard is somewhat of a holy grail because you can literally throw it in the dishwasher to decontaminate it and then re-use it.

I stopped by their booth which was very near ours and thought the fact that they actually had a dishwasher there was pretty nifty. Their guerrilla marketing, however, was evident when I went to the mens room. At the bottom of each urinal was a blue plastic strainer/splash-guard that said "Your keyboard has 400 times more bacteria than this urinal. Visit Seal Shield at booth . . ." It was hysterical, and even funnier was listening to other men stepping up to the urinal and within a few seconds start laughing.

As I knew that Tim was covering the show I emailed him with the Seal Shield story including the urinals on Monday. Tim blogged about it the following morning quoting me directly. The Seal Shield guys were thrilled and traffic at their booth was booming.

Apparently, Seal Shield's competitors read the blog as well and complained to show management who made Seal Shield remove the screens from the urinals later that day (I really don't want to know how they removed them . . .). I reported this to Tim as well.

As a fan of quirky marketing and a champion of the "little guy", Tim - who had apparently visited the booth on his own at this point - ran a second story the next morning, chastising the competition for sour grapes, and extolling the virtues of Seal Shield even more including a link to their website.

You guessed it. Booth traffic was up even more for these guys.

Ahhh, the power of the blog. I'm glad it helped out the guys at Seal Shield.