For more than 6 years, before my return to consulting several years ago, I served as Communications/Publications Manager for Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, leading an internal team to conceptualize, develop, design and produce myriad kinds of collateral including: newsletters, annual reports, brochures, procedure manuals, rack cards, signage, give-aways, and conference displays. I collaborated with senior leadership and department directors to plan strategy and tactics, and then managed projects with both staff and freelancers/vendors.
During my six years leading internal/external communications efforts, I enjoyed tremendous autonomy and flexibility in developing marketing materials for a number of venues and purposes. I successfully:
- Conceptualized and hired a publication group to replace all work previously done by external advertising agency, including: graphic designer/production person, photographer, writer, and editorial assistant.
- Established procedures and protocols and created planning documents to guide conceptualization, planning, and production of newsletters, brochures, and other collateral as well as events.
- Conceived and initiated—jointly with staff from DHMC Development office—Skylight, first publication intended for external audience.
- Proposed first integrated communications strategy across academic medical center disciplines. Developed action plans to support initiatives that coordinated activities of human resources and marketing in support of major development and recruitment campaigns, with the goal of strengthening the employee brand in support of campaign themes.
- Managed annual budget of $250,000 collateral printing costs.
- Coordinated production of brochures, rack cards, annual reports, advertisements, and several newsletters.
- Participated in strategic planning groups including, Recruitment Marketing, Wayfinding, Patient Education, Administrative Skills, Appreciative Inquiry, Staff Satisfaction Communications, etc.
- Supervised development of digital asset management system to catalog, retrieve, and disseminate all DHMC images and other information e.g., periodical content, logos, and key information.
- Co-facilitated, Communication Skills for Managers and Thinking Outside of the Box courses.
