http://www.Better3.com/blog.

It was scary for my friend and his family. But this was familiar territory for me, and I wanted to lend my support.

This big city hospital (which I will not name) had recently gone through a major expansion that changed the skyline as well as changed their ability to provide more services to a growing community. The new building, where my friend’s dad was having his surgery, was stately and grand inside and out.

Well, with some exceptions…

The small waiting area outside the patient rooms had blinds and valances missing on part of the window and chewing gum residue on the carpet next to the uncomfortable chairs. I get it, some things take a while to get finished…

But it was the experience in pre-op that made me anxious.

First of all, the patient chart was left behind. We rolled the bed all the way through the building and to the surgical ward and no chart.

When we arrived in surgery prep, the CCU nurse that accompanied us (who’d been in charge of my friend’s dad while he was waiting in his room) was told to stay by the pre-op nurse, but didn’t agree that she needed to. Apparently it was hospital procedure that a CCU nurse must stay with the patient until 30 minutes prior to surgery. The tension between the two nurses was palpable.

Then, when the anesthesiologist arrived to check the chart (which finally showed up), he realized that the patient’s pacemaker hadn’t been interrogated. So that held up the surgery until a St. Jude’s representative could drive to the hospital, find our pre-op station, open her computer, hook up the wires to my friend’s dad’s chest and get a read on the state of the device so it could be cleared for surgery. The anesthesiologist was irritated to say the least.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I think this hospital has some major issues with communication and follow through. But aside from those issues, who is impacted by witnessing these events? The patient, family and support circle (me).

The medical professionals were distracted and having to focus on non-care and avoidable setbacks. This prevents them from providing total care, total attention, and total responsiveness. They need to be able to make the right decisions, focus on the pertinent items at hand, and deliver excellence.

With all of these gaps, however, my friend’s dad made it into and through surgery successfully and is now home resting.

It left me feeling that no matter how pretty the package is on the outside, the inside can be in any kind of condition. Beware, be cautious, and know what to look for when you are selecting who to give your money to, your time to, or your loved ones to. Make sure that passion is present on the inside, and the outside won’t even matter.

So I left a message.

It stumbled out of my mouth, because what I really wanted was a friendly gatekeeper eager to help me get connected to the right individual. I didn’t know the name of who I should talk with, I needed help figuring that out. Sheesh.

Another website I found got me terribly excited. It talked about a collaborative workspace and this ingenious idea of a collective of creative talent that tickled along the lines of where my business is headed. As I clicked around the site, I couldn’t find any identity to connect with. No person, not even a phone number or email address. One paragraph on the about page listed a name, and then the detective work began.

I searched the name and it showed up in Florida Creatives. Ryan. I knew Ryan would possibly know of this person, so I sent him an email. And he did. He replied quickly with an email address and I sent an introductory email to this contact.

I got a phone call later in the day from the contact, and we had a great conversation that is the first of hopefully many. He laughed when I told him how I found him, and he was surprised that the site was that well indexed, since it was still in development. Ironically, he was in Orlando!

Everyone has reasons for having their website the way it is, but until they do usability studies, they don’t know what type of impact it has on their audience. If you want to do business with the public and other businesses, make it easy for them to engage with you. Remember that the first impression they get of you or your company could be the one from your website. Make it a good one that conveys the passion you have for what you do and for them.

We have another very large firm that has offices throughout Florida (and elsewhere, no doubt) who’s founder is always on camera speaking about scenarios requiring legal assistance, “If you’ve been in an accident…” and being very specific about contacting his firm for legal help. He states: problem, detail, solution, call-to-action with brand punch at the end. His advertising presence is so prevalent he’s become a household name.

But the moment we get in hot water, if we’ve not already established a relationship with a good legal firm, we instantaneously think of those ads and select based on what type of firm we conclude they are. We will hire the first, moral firm because we know they take the high ground. They’re honest lawyers, and believe in ethical, moral behavior. That’s typically a message that will appeal to defendants. The second, case-specific advertising approach will appeal to the litigious and claimants. For some, it’ll be whomever is easiest to recall, because when you’re sitting in the back of a police car with your hands in cuffs, all you’re thinking about is, “who’s going to get me out of this mess?”

This is something that is a hard pill to swallow for some companies doing advertising, especially those with small budgets. The permeability of an ad campaign has the ability to reinforce a company’s brand image in the public’s mind. This has worked for decades in the auto industry, and now the cell phone industry. When customers are ready to buy, it’s often this drift net advertising that scoops them up. It becomes more about who can create the largest impact awareness-wise, and gather up the most prospects and leads as a result.

As with drift nets, this approach brings in everything whether it’s qualified or not. This is a mass approach, not a targeted approach. But it works in spite of itself, because these organizations have systems in place to cull the unwanted quickly, or to convert them into a sale even quicker. They get the job done, the customer on their way, and they move onto the next. They do it well.

Their passion is not in view. Their personality is represented by their founders or spokespeople. Who are they, really? And do I want to continue engaging organizations that I don’t really know?

And it started with a simple idea: clean water.

http://www.charitywater.org/september/

1. Download/launch Google’s Chrome browser (http://www.google.com/chrome)
2. Go here: http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com
3. Turn up your speakers, sit back and let it in.

Share that you.

And you’ll make the difference you’ve always wanted to.

Stick to your passion, and stand by what you believe in. Always.

The first try I patiently waited a few hours for a resolution to the site’s issue. The second try, I grew in frustration. The third try, I realized there was something serious afoot and searched online through the social media outlets to find the hottest topics and what was abuzz.

Twitter won by a leap. Even though a search on Google yielded the last time BoA had a big crash (January 29, 2010) which had indexed through the search engines over time. It was too quick for them to have grappled with any content posted to the web, and even CNN didn’t report on it…still (at least that I could find).

Although there was a plethora on Twitter regarding #BofA, it was still difficult to determine what went wrong and when it would be fixed. Basically, I was left with no answers, but a lot of fellow BofA sufferers. I took little solace in that, and kept trying the website until I could finally transact.

In a time when customers have voice, have access and have control, business still ignores or fails miserably at customer communication. Therein lies an opportunity. Do you hear it?

Now, onto year two…

Thanks to all of the subscribers, contributors, sources of inspiration and frustration, and everyone who had a hand in helping make Passion Miner a great success.

Thank you for keeping passion alive.

We face attention shortages for three large reasons:

1. We are skeptical, cynical and easily bored. We’ve heard it all before, we think, but we’re really only starved for something new and different
2. The way we assimilate and digest information is in bytes and bullets and moving graphics that entertain as well as barely topically inform (thank you, www)
3. Our days are on rails. We do the same darn thing every day. We work the same machine, talk to basically the same people, shop at the same stores, sweat the same gym routine, surf the same sites, read the same blogs, complain to the same friends, get numb with the same vices and check out viewing the same programs.

Maybe the way to make an impression, to get an audience that subscribes to your passion is to derail your audience. And when I say derail, I mean give them reason to get out of the rut; to try something new and different, to see if things can be better. But be careful. Because once you have their attention, you’ll lose them fast if you don’t deliver your message with passion.

Make it count.