If you haven’t gathered from our previous blogs, Aria is an office of food fanatics. Many of us whip up epic creations for our Wednesday breakfasts and monthly happy hours, and we often convene over lunch from one of our go-to restaurants and discuss everything from healthcare IT to PR to life in the Boston area.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then an Instagram account must be worth a million, right? Using my favorite mobile app as a guide, I got to know more about Aria’s two newest team members: account executive Courtney Landi and account coordinator Kahler Buckley. Here’s what I learned:

When we re-launched Aria Marketing four years ago, the leadership team had a unique opportunity to rebuild the company and its culture. We looked back at the previous fifteen years and reflected on what was working and where there was opportunity for improvement. We kept some stuff, ditched some other stuff, and tried some new stuff. For this blog post, I wanted to share some of the initiatives we undertook that garnered the most and quickest positive responses from staff.

HIMSS, aka the Super Bowl of the healthcare IT world, has come and gone, and with it some very typical HIMSS moments—one’s that Scott Collins, our president, dubbed #ThatsSoHIMSS.  These are the things that, after 15+ years attending the conference, our team comes to expect, and actually even looks forward to each year.  So, instead of posting another traditional HIMSS round-up, we are taking a deep dive into those quintessential HIMSS moments. Read more below to find out the #ThatsSoHIMSS moments that captured our team’s attention this year:

As we gear up for the holiday season and the start of 2018, it’s a perfect time to reflect on the past year and everything we’re grateful for. That’s why we want to give thanks to 10 blogs, and the people behind them, that we think do a superb job drilling down into the complexities of healthcare IT, and highlighting how exciting, innovative, and inspiring this industry can be.

After our combined decades of experience in the business, we know a great healthcare blog when we see it. Here are our 10 favorites:

During the month of October, things always get a little spookier — bare tree branches cast eerie shadows, nights are longer and more bone-chilling, and neighborhoods are full of haunting Halloween decorations. In the world of public relations, however, October isn’t the only time of year when horror stories abound. Over the past year, some companies experienced truly nightmarish PR blunders that they hardly escaped from alive. These are their stories…

I’m going to let you in on one of our secrets for success. As a smaller PR agency, we know we can’t do it all. So, we’ve partnered with some amazing companies to help expand our capabilities and add value for our clients. One such partner is Altos, a digital marketing agency whom we bring in for client projects such as website design. We think they’re the best in the biz, which is why I reached out to Altos Creative Director, Justin Martin, to see if he could share his top website design tips with our blog readers. Lucky for us, he obliged. So, take it away, Justin:

It has been more than a year since HHS proposed a set of rules to improve electronic healthcare data interoperability among payers, providers and patients. With the rules expected to roll out later this month, healthcare providers and payers will be required to implement open data-sharing technology to improve access to patient information. The rules require health plans to offer patients and clinicians access to their medical claims and health information, but providers will also be on the hook to increase patient access; as non-compliant physicians will be included in a public report that consumers could reference when selecting a provider. Here at Aria, these proposed rules have been a hot topic of conversation for a couple of our clients in particular.

Happy Thanksgiving! One tradition that has made its way into homes across the country is sitting down at the dinner table and answering the question, “what are you grateful for?”.  It’s common for this question to be met with silence as everyone tries to scramble for an answer. When life is full of busy workdays, nights of cooking, and weekends of errands, it’s easy to get lost in the monotony and forget about the things that truly matter. If the last two years have taught us anything, it’s that life can change in the blink of an eye. That’s why it’s important to slow down this holiday season, savor the moment, and treasure the people closest to you. Since we couldn’t be together in person this year, the Aria Marketing family sat down virtually to reflect on the past year and share what we’re grateful for.

Every now and then, our VP, Ross Homer, brings up a quirky fact about himself or an interesting story from his past. So, the team thought it would be fun to base a blog post on this. In that spirit, we bring you the top ten list of curious facts about Ross (in no particular order):

The year has taken quite an unusual turn with a pandemic sweeping the globe and forcing everyone to stay inside in an effort to flatten the curve as quickly as possible. As a result, our beloved Boston Marathon has been postponed to September. While we’ll have to hold our celebrations for a few months, we thought we would honor the day by sharing some of our favorite memories.

April was a busy month for Aria. Not only did Boston experience summer-like temperatures, but the Boston Marathon was a great success and some of our professional sports teams made it to the playoffs. Aria’s clients had some pretty big wins as well, here’s a recap of April highlights!

Here at Aria we have a number of #workperks that keep us motivated, on task and well nourished (so many snacks!). One of my personal favorites has to do with Aria’s location. Aria is housed within a converted mill building just steps away from entrances to the Newton Conservators walking trails. These trails wind along the Charles River and provide a beautiful, relaxing space for a mid-day break. Curious as to what else Aria offers? Well, there is too much to fit into one blog post, but check out some Aria team favorites below!

A frostbite-like rash on feet or hands is just one potential symptom of the novel coronavirus. If you search Google Images for the colloquial term, “COVID toe,” you’ll find dozens of photos of toes with reddish or purplish splotches – almost entirely on white skin. You’ll likely have to scroll and scroll before finding a single image of brown or black skin. (That is, if you find one at all.)

I have always been very passionate about the environment, sparked from my early days helping my dad sort our recycling and reaffirmed by studying political ecology and environmentalism, volunteering on organic farms, and continually researching and practicing ways to live a more sustainable life. At Aria, I have earned the role as our resident sustainability expert and am known for things like avoiding plastic, not wasting food, and reusing salsa jars as Tupperware.

As we mentioned in our last post, we asked our interns, Gaby and Alex, to recap their internship experience at Aria Marketing. Below is Alex’s summary of her time with us.

At Aria, we provide each of our clients with a dedicated PR team that typically consists of a Vice President, a Senior Account Executive, an Account Executive (AE) and sometimes an Account Coordinator (AC). Given this set team structure, AEs and ACs typically do not have many opportunities to collaborate directly with each other on client work.

The Aria team took a break (mostly) from the world of health IT PR for a full two weeks this holiday season. After a year of hard work, a crazy pandemic, and a transition to WFH, we took some well-deserved time to relax. Read about the team’s much needed R&R over the holidays:

There is a plethora of social media platforms to choose from nowadays, but it can be difficult to determine which to leverage for your business. When it comes to healthcare IT, matching the social platform with the business goal you are trying to achieve (e.g. attracting customers, prospects and employees) is key. In this post we will review three newer social media applications and explain which marketing goals each can help you achieve.

It is finally starting to feel like spring in Boston, but for us New Englanders, this past winter felt extra long and cold. So, the best thing to do when dealing with what seemed like the 107^th day of January was to take a cabin fever reliever trip! A few Aria team members took mini vacations across the country and down south to seek a little sunshine, so we thought it would be nice to share these #Instaworthy trips with you.