CTSI COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY & PLAN

1. CTSI COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGY & PLAN Maggie McDonald, Ph.D., M.F.A. 28 April 2008

2. TARGET AUDIENCES • Health sciences faculty investigators and their research teams—TOP PRIORITY • Junior investigators a focus—they need the most help. • Senior investigators—how can CTSI add value? • Research team members, especially lab managers, coordinators, and administrators who are so vital • Health care providers, including office staff • The general public, including patients—some aspects of this communications component are taking place through UPMC and are focused largely on the Research Registry

3. PROMOTION ABCs Message—What single key message about CTSI will each communications tool convey? Mechanism—What marketing tools (posters, brochures, Web/electronic) would be most effective in reaching each segment of the target audiences? Outcome—What desired thought, belief, or action is the message intended to evoke?

4. EXAMPLE Message—If you need assistance with some aspect of your research, CTSI may have the tools and resources to help you. Mechanism—Posters in Pitt research facilities to promote CTSI services—to raise awareness Outcome—Call a research facilitator or go to a Web site to learn whether CTSI can provide the help you need.

5. TIMELINE

9. KEY QUESTIONS IN SEARCH OF ANSWERS What do faculty/research staff perceive as the major impediments to securing funding for and conducting clinical and translational research? How do they think CTSI can/should help? What do they know about CTSI now? What does CTSI want them to know? What is the best way to convey these messages? “Just in time.” How can CTSI use tools like posters to increase knowledge and action? What message should be on these tools?

10. PORTFOLIO OF CTSI SERVICES Core directors are providing a list of all programs and services offered by that core as they develop. Because this list is in constant flux, the web design challenge is to create a site that will grow with the service list without requiring a radical change in interface or design. The critical issue is to approach this task from the perspective of the user, not of CTSI administration.

11. CTSI CONNECTORS • “Organically” evolving group of early adopters at the functional unit level; they spread the word to others. • “Having CTSI makes my job easier.” • This role can’t be designated from the top; it has to emerge naturally. • CTSI wants to find ways to accelerate and support this network of “viral marketers,” maybe with small incentives. • We want connectors to: • Answer questions and distribute info about CTSI • Help others to request CTSI services • Collect feedback that will help CTSI respond to researchers’ needs

12. WEBSITE ARCHITECTURE • The home page will be the primary shared page on an otherwise bifurcated site: • One simple choice: “researcher” or “community member” • The footer will have links to basic info on CTSI—mission, administrative structure, etc. • The home page content items will include: • Visual organizational identification • Self-identification and initial navigation (choice), with cookie scripting if desired • News, announcements, and calendar feed

13. WEBSITE ARCHITECTURE • The home page will be a bifurcated page • Each user chooses “researcher” or “community member” • The footer will have links to basic info on CTSI—mission, administrative structure, etc. • The home page content items will include: • Visual organizational identification • Self-identification and initial navigation (choice), with cookie scripting if desired • News, announcements, and calendar feed

14. WEBSITE ARCHITECTURE • On the site’s second level, “researcher” and “community” audiences will each have a landing page that displays custom content for that audience. • Each landing page will have a distinct visual style. • The footer, home page button, and other navigational structure will remain as global elements. • Only news, announcements, and calendar items designated in the feed for that particular audience will appear on these audience-specific landing pages.

16. THE FEED • The feed will be adapted to interact with currently existing and planned distribution formats (like e-mail lists). • The feed will be adapted for use with Web 2.0 technologies like really simple syndication (RSS) feeds to deliver a wider variety of media in other places on the site and directly to individuals. • Feed info will be tagged as “community,” “research,” or “general” to sort content and steer it where it needs to go. • Can also do “internal” or “core director” tags as necessary

17. THE FEED A good model is a more streamlined and flexible version of the Health Sciences Portal structure.

19. CRITICAL COMMUNICATIONS ISSUES • Federalism versus states’ rights; examples: • The Research Gateway is part of the Center for Clinical and Translational Informatics (CCTI). Yet, the Research Gateway has engaged a team of business students to create a branding strategy although the Research Gateway’s products are still under development. • The Institute for Clinical Research Education (ICRE), an existing program that is now part of CTSI, already has its own identity. How do we blend it into the CTSI umbrella identity? • Do we really want to create an acronym farm?

21. MORE CRITICAL ISSUES • “Where’s the beef?” • Some CTSI programs and services are well evolved, but others are still in formative stages. How do we represent what is planned but not yet available? How do we manage expectations? • Cart before the horse—Cores are eager for communications tools for their own programs even as we’re working to implement communications essentials useful for all cores.

22. “VIRTUAL OPEN HOUSE” An opportunity to roll out the CTSI identity An overview of what the CTSI is and does A tour of the website and what’s on it An introduction to the CTSI core directors and CTSI’s major services, especially the research facilitator Unstructured time to “ask the service providers” Take-away with web address Late spring-summer 2008

23. A FEW EXAMPLES OF ACTIVITIES AND WORKS IN PROGRESS

24. WHAT IS CTSI? BROCHURE

26. PITT BRINGS RESEARCH TO MIDDLE SCHOOL CTSI cosponsored a National DNA Day educational outreach event at Dorseyville Middle School in collaboration with the Department of Biological Sciences, a SEPA grantee, and Boston University.