Hospitals work very hard to ensure the safety of patients while they are in their medical facility. But an equally large concern is what happens to patients after they are discharged. While healthcare professionals agree that the best place for patients to heal is in their own homes, not every patient has the support team and ability to manage their post-hospital care satisfactorily—the focus of my recent blog for Hospital Impact. 

Did you know that (depending on the diagnosis) between 17 and 23 percent of Medicare patients have to be readmitted within 30 days of their discharge? This is according to research from the Kaiser Family Foundation. Of course, sometimes hospital readmission is necessary. But in many cases, experts say, the problems could have been prevented.

This is not a blog about large global companies coping with the $40 a barrel price for oil. Hopefully, they understand Blue Ocean Strategy® thinking and are putting it into practice, or they are just sitting it out until prices recover.

No, this is about all those companies that support the conglomerates. They too are trying to figure out how to thrive in a market that has experienced not just a decline but a veritable crash of unexpected and dramatic proportions.

These are the small, mid-market companies that erect scaffolding, install piping, build living space on riggings, manufacture seals and gaskets, and manage data analysis. And these days, they are often run by the company CEOs sitting in my lectures on "Change Matters: How to Find New Market Space" or on Blue Ocean Strategy. 

For them, as I have been hearing so loudly, they have to find ways to stay in business and grow again, not just shrink and hope. What can they really do? 

Maybe it is a great time to go exploring? For their business to thrive!

We often get asked, Why use social media? We come back with, Why wouldn’t you?

Twitter is one of the best sources of inbound marketing out there. If your company is not using Twitter, it is time to change. I must confess that I didn't start out embracing Twitter, even though I went to hear Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEO, speak at Twitter Boot Camp (what seems like) many years ago.

As we at Simon Associates Management Consultants see Twitter turn into a must-have for book publishing, client development and growing our consulting and inbound marketing business, it's becoming crystal clear that all those "likes" turn into #hashtags that "love you." And, most importantly for marketers, the conversations are deep and endearing.

Daily, there is talk about how our healthcare system continues to be consolidating throughout America. Yet to me, it looks and feels like more of the same but bigger.

In reality, the healthcare sector is more than ready for some creativity and innovation in order to adapt to the enormous changes taking place in the industry, not merely "bigger." Could Blue Ocean Strategy® (BOS) be the way to transform the consolidation of healthcare systems so that they actually work? (More on Blue Ocean Strategy here.)

So here’s a question for you (actually two): Do you really need to have a particular person in mind when you’re writing blogs? Isn’t it enough to just put useful, relevant information out there that establishes your products or services as the best solutions for what people are searching for?

Maybe a decade or so ago, yes, but in today’s highly competitive market…no. Knowing who your target market is—i.e., who is most likely to buy what you’re selling—is key to writing effective blogs that get read by the widest possible audience of qualified prospects.

In two previous blogs, I talked about how to write great blogs (“10 Tips For Writing Great Blogs That Get You Noticed”), then how to get people to read them (“How To Make Sure Your Blogs Reach The Right Audience”). Now I’d like to focus on whom you should write your blogs for: the buyer persona.

As Blue Ocean Strategists, we love to read blogs posted by other BOS strategists about what they are finding. Here are some of the most-shared blog posts for you to browse (along with a couple of ours). I also added a video so you can learn about BOS in a visual way and think about it in new ways.

Maybe now is the right time to try a Blue Ocean Strategy process for your business? Without a doubt, it's the best way to respond to these changing times in a systematic way.