End of Module 4

3 Top Key Insights:

1) Organizations such as ACS do much more on the media and promotion side then I ever realized.
The guest speaker we had really opened my eyes with regard to all of the behind the scenes work that goes on at an organization like ACS and what all occurs in order get the message out there. There seemed to be a lot of hoops to jumps through and a lot of coordination that took place. I found it interesting that he played the middle man most of the time between news reporter and physician and that most often he would write the letters to the editor and then have an intern or someone else put their name on it. Everything he said really, caused some sort of thought. From the type of people the recruit to work there, to the process of getting the message out in the public, to the focus groups conducted and research being done, to the personal anecdotes. It didn't really leave me with any questions but just more a sense of awe and gratitude and a greater appreciation for the amount and type of work that goes into those types of campaigns.

2) Health promotion professionals tend not to understand all of the key factors involved in social marketing
I found the article that discussed this topic interesting. Because we, as health professionals, really do a lot of discussion about promotion and talk about trying to integrate marketing strategies into our campaigns, but the article made some valid points about the other aspects of marketing that health professionals tend to miss. So I felt the article presented good examples of things that were of necessity in order to truly reach your target audience and use social marketing to benefit your health campaign. I think the issues addressed will be beneficial to refer back to in the future.

3) Using the Logic Model guide can really help with program development and evaluation.
My extra credit presentation / book was beneficial. While I would not recommend reading it during the middle to end of the semester when you're swamped with other work, I would recommend others who are looking to get involved in program development and/or evaluation to read the book as it is dense. But even so, it could really be helpful in allowing you to develop a plan for creating your program, and tying what you're trying to get, with what you're trying to do and how to really go about doing that. I wish I had read the book prior to beginning group projects this semester because I feel that having a better base knowledge and plan to go about things would have made the projects a little bit easier to approach and not feel so discombobulated. And I think the different parts would have flowed together nicer as well. Overall I will end up at least referring back to it, if not re reading it as it is a very good guide. And EVALUATION is the key!

Maybe its because its the end of the semester...but I don't really have any open questions. My only thought is with regard to the group project. I think at the beginning of the semester it would be helpful to let the students know the overall objective of the 3 assignments and to give them an idea about what they will be doing. Breaking it down by the assignments is good as it forces you to go through the various steps and allows for feedback...but for most of the groups I think we didn't really have an idea as to what the overall purpose was or what results we were trying to attain.