Ultimately, we are creating synergies across the agency and a more solid infrastructure that supports us as we scale and continually enables us to exceed client expectations.  That’s why we are hiring people who have real world, hands on experience coupled with an approach that can, and will, knock down silos and barriers to ensure we are delivering the most integrated and innovative communications solutions to our clients.

The new hires include Joyce Griggs, Managing Director, Content Strategy; Kieran Walsh, Managing Director, Healthcare; and Snev Dorsonne, Group Director, Systems & Workflow.

All come from diverse backgrounds to enhance our ability to offer integrated and innovative solutions to clients through content strategy, workflow systems and global communications best practices.

A little background on the additions to our team so you can get to know them:

Joyce joins WCG from Centron where as one of the company’s managing directors she led integration between traditional advertising and content and strategy including KOL engagement.  She has over 15 years of experience in strategic planning, early product commercialization, content creation and multichannel distribution for the pharmaceutical industry. She was a Brand Chemist across the J&J CNS and HCV businesses, while at WPP. She played a leadership role in one of the largest healthcare business consolidations in WPP’s history. Griggs will lead the content strategy group and will continue to help WCG further differentiate itself by redefining medical communications and establishing new offerings across clients.

Snev has played key roles in helping to shape 360 workflow solutions designed to provide strategy and cost efficiencies in marketing and procurement at companies such as AgencyRx, a CDM/Omnicom company where she most recently served as SVP, Director of Workflow Systems.  She has over 20 years of operations, project management, re-engineering and leadership experience. Dorsonne will institute a multitude of training, leadership and fiscal best practices to help WCG innovate and further integrate as it scales for growth.

Kieran joins WCG from Kelton Research, one of the fastest growing market research companies in the US, where he served as a Principal of the company. He has over 20 years of experience as a marketing executive in global advertising agency management with such agencies as J. Walter Thompson, Digitas, Lowe Worldwide, BBDO, and Saatchi.  Walsh has led blue-chip accounts including Johnson &Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Pfizer, and Campbell’s, Sanofi, Wyeth and others.  He joins WCG to further develop the agency’s global presence and ensure integration of offerings to healthcare clients.

Stay tuned for more news of industry leaders joining us in creating the positive future of communications.

I have personally seen this through my Mom’s experience successfully keeping pancreatic cancer at bay. Yes, you read that right – I did say pancreatic cancer. Diagnosed more than three years ago after enduring unexplained lower back pain that just wouldn’t quit, Ruth was diagnosed at Stage 1 – pretty unheard of in pancreatic cancer – and was a candidate for the Whipple procedure – where parts of your lower intestine, pancreas and stomach are removed to “cure” the cancer. Following the surgery, she underwent aggressive radiation and chemotherapy with a combination of Gemzar (that would be the old, unsexy chemo) and slightly newer Xeloda. All was well for almost two years until the expected happened – the cancer spread to her liver last May – immediately following a wonderful family cruise to celebrate Mom’s 75th birthday.

Cue the Gemzar please. Immediately following this news, my siblings and I went into “research” mode and discussed some options with her doctor. We evaluated Tarceva – a relatively new targeted therapy- as well as a host of innovative and experimental options. Given Mom’s incredible tolerance of Gemzar during her first go-around (no hair loss, no nausea, minor fatigue that never stopped her from walking her 3 miles a day) and its past effectiveness – we opted to give it another try.  This past May, we celebrated her 76th birthday – something we never thought possible last year. We’re now planning for Thanksgiving, Hanukah and Christmas celebrations – holidays we never imagined having together again.

I am a huge proponent of innovation in cancer therapy and believe many of the recent breakthroughs in prostate cancer, melanoma and non-hodgkins lymphoma will be welcome additions to doctors, patients and their families. In the backdrop of these innovations, it’s comforting to know that some of the mainstays of therapy that have “past their prime” in the public or media eyes can have a profound impact on people’s lives. For my Mom and our family, it’s allowed us to enjoy everyday pleasures, celebrations and unexpected moments we never dreamed possible with a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Have you experienced unexpected results or hope with older therapies? I’d love to hear your story.

Originally, my colleague Bob Pearson, was supposed to present along with fellow author, Rick Mathieson. An immovable set of meetings combined with the fact that I too happen to be a book author (and know a thing or two about Bob’s book, Pre-Commerce) conspired to put me in the presenters seat at the event. After chatting with Bob and Steve, we decided to do a mashup — a best of so to speak — of Pre-Commerce and my upcoming book, Location-Based Marketing for Dummies.

What made my presentation relatively easy is that we live and breath the concepts from Bob’s Pre-Commerce book at WCG. It is also helpful that the idea of location-based marketing works nicely as a sub-discipline within Pre-Commerce. And lastly, location-based marketing fits perfectly across one of the most important core concepts of the book, namely the 4 A’s (which replace the 4 P’s), by providing ways for businesses to create greater awareness, assessment, action and ultimately ambassadorship for their products and services.

While I won’t share all of the slides I presented — you can find all the models, back-stories and anecdotes from Pre-Commerce in the book — I’ve incorporated three of the slides that really resonated below.

These are a few of the major shifts taking place in the world that are driving the way consumers want to (and should be) engaged by businesses big and small.

Leveraging the what people are doing online versus trying to change their behavior is critical to becoming a Pre-Commerce company

Recognizing the "Ten Channels" of online influence and how to create meaningful content for each is key to improving SEO and engaging customers.

As far as the location-based marketing portion of the presentation, I used the content from a previous blog post I did titled, Ten Keys to a Good Location-Based Marketing Campaign. If you want the Readers Digest of the ten rules, I’ve listed them below:

1. Claim your location
2. Pick a service (or two)
3. Find your influencers
4. Set goals
5. Pick a great offer
6. Measure, refine, optimize
7. Gamification FTW
8. Market your program
9. Operationalize, operationalize, operationalize
10. Play with the API

Based on the audience feedback, it appeared that the event was a success. It didn’t hurt that Rick picked up where I left off sharing several important trends from his latest book, The On-Demand Brand, including two that are near and dear to my heart i.e. mobile and augmented reality. My two favorite examples Rick shared were 1) the increasing importance of branded games (people like to play games) citing Burger King’s success with its Kings Game. It sold over 3 million copies and was linked to a direct increase in food sales at the locations where the game was sold and 2) the shopping experience of the future. This second example included not-too-far from reality concepts such as:

• auto-checking in as you walk into the store (he had me at “check-in”)
• receiving special offers based on your profile
• sharing which clothes you are trying on with friends on Facebook and getting their opinion
• watching videos of runway models wearing the item you are trying on background on design by the designers themselves
• the ability to walk out of store while wearing the clothing you just tried on because you are already registered with the store and an RFID or NFC reader scans the item as you walk out

Have you read Pre-Commerce yet? Or On-Demand Brand? If you have, what’s your favorite model or example from the book?

At WCG, we view ourselves as “pragmatic disrupters” of the status quo.  All of the business, psychology and communications models that we learned in school still apply, but it is how we adapt to our changing online marketplace that leads to incremental innovation.  Whether it is analytics or search or how we reach people at the zip code level, there is always a better way to reach customers and build value for brands.

It’s our mission to work with our clients to continually improve their business step by step. 

I thought I would also reflect on what we’re learning as we build WCG.  Said simply, our experience is showing that there are four simple, yet critical pillars for building our firm. 

#1 – Vision – Our CEO, Jim Weiss, had the vision (see Jim’s latest blog post too) to build a leading-edge digital capability before the first employee was hired.  If you heard our conversation two years ago, it would line up well with where we are today.   It’s that ability to look around the corner that we continue to foster in our firm.  We’re already mapping out what we’ll be like in 2013 today and it is different and better. 

#2 – People – If you hire the best people in the business, good things happen.  We are very proud of our team, their intellectual firepower and their desire to learn from each other.  It’s this last point that is a not so secret sauce.  We are a lot smarter when we learn together across disciplines.   All of us know this isn’t easy to make happen.  It actually just “happens” when you have people who are curious and never satisfied with the way things are today. 

#3 – Clients – We seek out the smartest and most innovative people to work with.   If we work with the best, we can also become the best.  Our clients push us to innovate, help expose new opportunities leading to new products and much more.  It’s like having a great manager of a team.  Great clients do that for us. 

#4 – Offering – We believe that the products on the market are generally ok, but ok is not good enough.  This is why we create our own algorithms, build our own models and will continue to do so at an accelerated pace.  Innovation in the online world is equivalent to being a colony of artists and scientists.  Some of us stare at the canvas and imagine what could be.   Others of us geek out, write code and translate ideas into powerful new models that build advantage for our clients. 

Overall, this award is wonderful and symbolic for us.  We’re also clear enough in our own heads to know that we are fortunate to receive it and it represents a nice marker as we finish Chapter One of a rather long book on how to reinvent marketing and communications for today’s company.  

Thank you most of all to our team and our clients.  All of this happens because of you. 

Hope you enjoy our two videos.  Our first is a thank you to all of you who are clients.  Our second is a video showing how we think of ourselves inside WCG.  Enjoy. 

All the best, Bob

Walking in their shoes for only this brief period made me value and appreciate the balancing act that the Moms of this firm and at our clients’ and so many other businesses valiantly and successfully navigate every day.

With Mother’s Day coming up this Sunday, it inspired me to give them a special Shout Out and reflect on how lucky I am to have such dedicated and talented Moms working here at WCG.  I do not take it for granted.

Years ago as I was starting WCG, a competitor characterized the firm at the time as “Jim & the Marin Mommies” in an attempt to negatively position us as loose band of consultants that could not truly handle the often complex assignments for which we were all competing.  The prevailing attitude and wisdom was that stay-at-home or part-time working Moms could not focus and deliver the goods.

How wrong that characterization turned out to be is the takeaway point and message of today’s post.

When I started this firm 10 years ago sitting next to my wife who was also consulting then, it reaffirmed what my Mom had taught me years before and echoed in the lyrics of a song played by the Grateful Dead:  “That’s right, the women are smarter . . .”

I watched in awe and some envy as my wife calmly and confidently managed her work, gained the clients’ respect and still had time left over to devote to other things.  It was doable with focus, discipline and commitment.

The business assumption was and remains simple:  Because women (and some men who are on double duty) have to juggle work and family life, they tend by necessity to work smarter, more efficiently and in a more focused manner.  True, while many of them can’t stay and burn the midnight oil in the office (they are likely doing that at home after the kids are put to bed), party after work and occasionally or always miss who got kicked off Dancing with the Stars or American Idol on a given week, in my experience they are often the ones who step up and get the work done and done right more often than not.  This serves to prove the old adage that when you want to get something done, go ask the busiest person you know to do it.

While I recognize that everyone at WCG is working hard and balancing life as they know it whether they are Moms or not, I am compelled to say thanks and simply acknowledge Mother’s Day and those celebrating it.

I do it mostly because as I was directed to cut my daughter’s peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into heart-shaped slices and take the crust off the bread this week, I got a small taste of what it must be like for so many of our colleagues and clients — giving me a renewed appreciation of how hard and important it is to strike that balance and the need for me to support and respect it every day at WCG.

Ten years ago, when I set out to start a communications agency from my small, mal-furnished apartment, I was not one of those people.  Digital was still a flash in the pan and the bubble had recently burst.  My goal when I founded WCG was to change how companies communicate with their audiences, and to do it at a different kind of agency.

Digital communications today, in particular via social media, are one of the primary ways in which we are achieving that same goal.  That is why I’m both proud and thankful for the incredible digital team and capability we’ve built at WCG.  Most important, though, I’m thankful for the clients who have helped us get there.  Both from the standpoint of partnering  while we have grown and in pushing our team to continually innovate, our clients are the reason that we are recognized today as Digital Agency of the Year by The Holmes Report.

With more than 40% of our account staff now in creative, interactive, or social media, it would be easy to credit this recognition to our digital team.  The reality, though, is that it takes an entire agency to consistently deliver results.  I’m proud of our entire firm’s commitment to changing how we communicate so that we continue to deliver for our clients who have been so supportive in getting us where we are today.

So, from all of us here at WCG…. THANK YOU!

Day 4 – Supporting Angels

I saw today via a new lens….a video camera lens. While I used the flip cam throughout the week to capture some magical moments, interview parents post surgery, capture some of the team members’ thoughts, today I was the cinematographer to a film like no other.

Eric, the lead surgeon, completed surgery on a four year old boy who suffered from a congenital ptosis (drooping eyelid or blepharoptosis). In this condition, the border of the upper eyelid falls to a lower position than normal. In severe cases, the drooping eyelid can cover all or part of the pupil and interfere with vision. This was, in fact, the case with this child, and Eric asked me to film the procedure as a case study for ReSurge/ teaching purposes.

It was a relatively complicated procedure taking body tissue from an incision in his leg to literally weave through his eye thereby creating  tension along existing eye muscles to form an adjustable rubber band-like simulation using his own flesh.  Mission accomplished! This child has the longest eyelashes  — a feature no one even noticed until post surgery as previously we were focused on his drooping lid and lack of eye symmetry.

This was one of seven cases today and hard to imagine anything more fascinating but between a fireman’s burned hands, a beautiful ten year old girl’s burned foot, a nine year old boy’s cleft lip, a three year old’s webbed hand surgery….there were many moments I stood in sheer awe. And yes, I remained standing without passing out despite the graphic nature of the surgeries. I’ve certainly come a long way from day 1 in a very short period of time.

Today was my final day at the hospital and it was bittersweet. Still so much work to be done (the team is staying another week) and we collectively accomplished so much in so little time. But clearly, much, much more could and should be done beyond what is realistic in a two-week time period.

I am honored to have had the opportunity to support true angels completing miracles on an hourly basis. I hope that ReSurge International continues to be well funded and able to send annual trips to Pucallpa, Peru and other areas in need to carry on the great work it has begun.  In the meantime, I wish the team staying on, another week of delivering hope successfully. Thank you for letting me be part of the hope.

Day 3: Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.

– Gandhi

Today the ReSurge team operated successfully on seven patients ranging in age from 3 months to 21 years old. The surgeries were as diverse as the patients from double cleft lips, to a cavernous cleft palate to burns on necks, faces, hands and feet. My tasks throughout the day were also quite diverse and in many ways insignificant, but I am glad that I am here to do it:

• Carrying the first two babies into the OR early in the a.m.
• Using a syringe to feed water to the babies post surgery
• Playing with the waiting children and making a few of them laugh…and being the friendly face when they first wake up reassuring them in the recovery room
• Visiting the patients from yesterday and already seeing the difference…and bidding them farewell with hugs and well wishes  (wait till you see photos of one of the little rock stars!)
• Watching a skin graft in the OR on a woman’s neck so she can hold her head high
• Seeing a metal pin placed in Gino’s (10 year old boy’s) hand so he once again has movement
• Transporting ALL of the patients post surgery to their rooms on the ward
• Completing some of the electronic file paperwork

All in all closing a 12+ hour day at the hospital without air con on a very hot day with 100% humidity and couldn’t be feeling better about working a long day…and doing it again tomorrow.

Day 2: Early bird gets the worm

Today is the first day of surgery for the ReSurge International team in Pucallpa, Peru. And if the early bird gets the worm, we should be more than good to go considering the early rooster wake-up call. Yes, we were literally woken by roosters on the hotel property. As my friend Jenn once said to me, “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.” So true!

I had the honor of being part of this morning’s scenario-planning discussion in the OR (in full gear: scrubs – graciously bought for me by Rene, shoe covers, mask and hair cap, too) and saw how this good natured, jovial team quickly become serious. It is truly about life-changing surgery but also about the risks of any procedure…especially when dealing with such young patients.

The team reviewed protocols, “what-if” scenarios and how to handle an emergency. For a moment, knowing the control freak I am, I wanted to jump in, as I love a good war game. But I reminded myself that I’m not medical, this is not my gig, and I’m so lucky to be a guest (of course, need to keep reminding cousin Barbara of this too).

The five patients for today range from 7 months to 9 years of age, four boys and one little girl.

I stayed in the OR while the first patient, Angel, a 4-year-old boy whose double cleft lip (and palette but only addressing lip) was a difficult case, was anesthetized. Roy, one of the surgeons, explained it is a tricky case as this procedure is usually completed at a younger age. At this age, they need to deal with the open cavity, the lip that is raised very high, teeth, lack of tissue, and so much more. Truly fascinating. Roy and Eric tag-teamed this surgery which took over 4 hours. We saw the results of their work immediately in the recovery room, and I personally helped the child drink some water via syringe I emptied into his mouth while his mom held him.

Literally on the next table, was a 2-year-old boy who, while his cleft palette was the main problem, it could not be addressed due to massive tonsils at the time. Realistically, his tonsils need to be removed, then he needed to wait 6 weeks before addressing the palette. Given this health challenge, Richard, the Webster Fellow, performed a less complicated surgery that was more cosmetic to help even out his lips.

And yes, after they were both asleep and before the cutting happened, I stepped out of the room.

I spent 3 hours sitting on the floor playing with the half dozen little boys in the waiting room prior to their surgeries speaking broken Spanish and gesturing grandly.  SO fun. Got a good laugh when I attempted to tell one of the 10-year-olds he was tall and said I was too … or at least that is what I think I said. One mother asked me how old I was, and I replied I was too old to ask. I was going to respond with my standard answer: 29 for the 10^th time (or maybe more) but couldn’t figure out how to translate it in my broken Spanish! Not sure if she asked because I was so into the game with the kids or because I look so young.   Shared a picture of my dog Barkley, of course, but they were much more interested in the snake photo I had from the Bronx Zoo. Ninos! And at the picture of  the Statue of Liberty – lots of head nodding from the moms when I said I was from Nueva York , Estados Unidos.

After playing, I made my way back into the OR to see the final touches of surgery on the 7-month-old little girl. She is beautiful baby and is now even more beautiful with her cleft lip addressed by Richard. Her mom was so happy holding her in the recovery room. The baby was able to breastfeed right away and no complications are anticipated.

Yes, I made it into the OR and stayed a bit longer. I saw a 2-year-old coquette (flirtatious) boy, who stole my heart while we played games earlier, under the surgeon’s knife. He was originally scheduled for a cleft palette but due to some infection noticed once he was asleep, Roy switched gears and worked to improve the lip cosmetically. He will certainly have all the more reason to be an even bigger flirt now! His mom was very relieved.

Last, but not least, was a 9-year-old boy. This nino was repeatedly my game challenge winner and clearly muy inteligente. He came into the OR very brave, without tears, and I helped Mike lay him on the table once he was a bit groggy from the anesthesia. I left the OR before the first incision and can’t wait to see the results of the team’s work tomorrow. As I exited the hospital, I saw his mom who seemed reassured as I told her in my broken Spanish her son was in good hands.

As you can begin to see, today’s surgery is probably one of several surgeries these children will need. Ideally, ReSurge International will make the Pucallpa, Peru trip an annual trip and we will be able to come back and finish the work the team started today … and begin to help many others as well.

For those of you not aware of ReSurge International, it is a not-for-profit that helps transform lives by restoring the health and dreams of those with deformities and injuries repairable through surgery (cleft lip and palate, burns, hand and other conditions). ReSurge works in many of the most impoverished countries on earth, serving the bottom billion of the world’s poor who have limited or no access to health care.

My heart melted

I received a chocolate heart tonight at dinner from the pediatrician, Janice, to celebrate Valentine’s Day and the first day of the ReSurge International mission in Pucallpa, Peru. The fortune — your heart will melt — said it all. My heart melted today during the first day of clinic. We saw more than 60 patients and 30 are currently approved for surgery.

The 1^st day

It was a day of many firsts for me:

• Took my first moto-taxis (aka a tuk tuk for those who have been to Asia) in Pucallpa to the hospital to start the day
• Received an education from the surgeons on clefts and burns and developed a new-found respect for their patience, willingness to educate me/others and their ability to change lives
• Observed up close double- and single-cleft lips, cleft palates, and burns and formed a new appreciation for the complications and the personal heartache
• Witnessed hope live and die in many a mother’s eyes…hope at having their child seen and their tragedies “erased” as one woman articulated it…and despair as the doctors said they couldn’t help either at this time…or ever
• Some patients were not cleared for surgery due to age (too young) but mostly because of malnutrition, overall health concerns, lack of ICU capability for more intense and complicated surgeries. According to Eric, the medical team leader on the trip, this is typical.
• One particularly sad case, a mom traveled more than 4 days by boat with her 9-month-old son and 10-year-old big brother. The baby has a single cleft lip but due to an ill-timed cold, scabies, malnutrition and overall health concerns, they were informed surgery isn’t an option at this stage. The ReSurge team worked with the local health authorities to help set her up for greater success though and provide food and shelter provisions.
• Had my first vasovagal episode. (OK: for those that know me, it wasn’t my first, but it was my first watching someone else give blood. I survived without passing out and then went back into clinic.)
• My first full day of clinic ended on a high note; I was able to help a woman with severe burns on her face, neck and chest.

Our goal is, first and foremost, to “create the positive future of communications” for clients and our staff. This means that we are committed to creating a culture at WCG that promotes excellence, innovation and creativity to assure flawless execution for clients and ultimately achieve profitability and growth. We cement this by remaining independent and investing in our staff and innovation.

While the growth is a by-product of our commitment to our culture and clients, the 2010 financials were noteworthy and were primarily driven by a healthy mix of organic growth from our core healthcare business combined with an expansion of integrated service offerings, great new strategic hires and targeted expansion into new business areas such as consumer products and technology.

We certainly delivered a lot of breakthrough work for our clients this year that is building our portfolio and reputation across all offerings. We are off to a roaring start and are well positioned to continue growth on the same scale in 2011, which marks our 10^th year in business, during which we expect revenues to exceed $45M for the first time in our history.

I can’t underestimate the role that our clients have played in our success. Frankly, nothing we accomplish would be possible without the extraordinary quality of our clients, who believe in us and value our partnership. We are grateful and appreciative of these relationships that span across our entire client base and have put us here today. Our success is their success.

I’m confident we’ll get there with our individual and collective commitment to…

Go. Ahead. An invitation to challenge convention, brave the unknown, and change your perspective.  RSVP.

What’s changed is fairly significant.  The leaders include several independent agency heads who have always followed their own path.  Folks like Richard Edelman and Margery Kraus.  Kudos to them.

It also includes visionary leaders of Fortune 100 companies, like Sally Susman, whose team is innovating communications in ways large and small.  No surprise to see Google and Disney and Wal-Mart among others.  All great leaders within great companies. 

The larger agencies presence is much smaller than I would expect.  And here is why I believe this to be the case.

The old model of big agencies is like a ball and chain.  It’s hard to figure out how to innovate beyond it.  The people running agencies are smart as ever, but their model is an impediment. 

Leaders want big picture, marketing-oriented thinking from us….they want us thinking like CMO’s, not silos, whether it is social media or creative or PR or other.  Synergy needs to be real and lived every day.

PR firms are too often thinking like PR people…..this is frustrating clients who want bigger, more  integrated thinking. Most PR firms are in major danger of becoming less relevant at a time when more opportunity than ever is leaking out of  the big agency model into next gen firms.

Clients are looking for great  ideas…..well rounded, measurable, game changing ideas and models and metrics.  They want next practices, not best practices.

What it means is that integration within a firm has to happen yesterday.  It is partly “how we do it”.  It is about the talent mix.  It is about encouraging our team to learn about new areas of the marketing mix.

We need to keep  hiring people from different backgrounds in the marketing spectrum, who will challenge our thinking/add new ideas/new ways to  move.  We should be asking ourselves if we are  hiring too many people who think the same way.  We want great PR people right next to great digital leaders right next to creative geniuses.  No silos,  just great teams.  We all raise our game as a result. 

The next gen agency is equally comfortable handling PR or social media or advertising or direct marketing or other opps as they arise and can do so in an efficient manner.  They won’t need to call on separate departments of separate people in separate P&Ls.  They will simply tap their team.  Agencies will either be ready when the market is ready or the opportunity will simply fly by.  Integration is happening today in ways never imagined 15 years ago when we started talking about it continually.

Jim is building this type of next gen firm every day at WCG .  We know it because we are living it.  It’s why I believe he made the power list.

Now back to work….

All the best, Bob Pearson

PROI is the world’s largest partnership of independent agencies by fee income with over 50 partners, 3,000+ staff members servicing 95 cities in 29 countries. It is comprised of some of the largest and top-rated national consultancies across the globe. The philosophy of PROI is one of partnership – it makes cooperation and service amongst entrepreneurial cultures of independent firms the drivers of the relationship rather than profitability seen in the holding company model – thereby giving our clients a partner that is collaborative and business savvy.

With five offices mapping the United States, WCG has been able to guide clients at a regional and local level in the US. We opened our London office in ’08, and opened the gateway to Europe in a significant and meaningful way that has helped our clients “be the change.”  WCG has always thought strategically at a global level, some of our team members have led the biggest global brands, and recognized early in our history the need to develop local relationships. To this end, WCG nurtured relationships in multiple markets, driven by client need, with several independent agencies — agencies we continue to work with and value.

As the world of healthcare evolves (new technology, aging populations, empowered patients, pandemics, healthcare reform, market access, social media, the worsening economic climate, patent expirations, biosimilars, etc.) it is imperative to understand the dynamics locally – where healthcare happens — and have the ability to assemble teams that fit our clients’ specific needs while working seamlessly to integrate local and global efforts.

PROI offers us the ability to provide on-the-ground knowledge of local markets steeped in culture, connected with media, influencers and stakeholders on a worldwide scale.  The teams offer independent counsel and are selected into the PROI network after rigorous vetting based on local quality performance. This local expertise provides the global intelligence needed to craft truly impactful solutions.

WCG is very excited about creating the positive future of communications with our new PROI partners around the world.

Don’t do the yoga. Fortunately, I not only can stand the heat, I chase the heat – literally all over the world. Well, to be specific – in approximately 20 cities spanning the US , Europe and Mexico.  Who in their right mind would chase the opportunity to spend 90 minutes in a 105 degree room doing funny little yoga postures in cities far and wide? A Bikram yoga enthusiast who travels a lot for their job and truly NEEDS the heat and postures to feel balanced, healthy, and physically and mentally ready for a challenging and sometimes “heated” job. My job often takes me to NY, Chicago, Austin, London, Atlanta and other cities for client and company-related business. I love the travel and always make the time to search out and take local Bikram yoga – or more recently hot Vinyasa flow – classes – before 7 am no less. It’s the only time I can carve out of my day– with no blackberry, cell phone or meeting interruptions – that is truly all for me. Now staying “present” as the teachers counsel is another story. After nearly nine years of my practice, I still struggle with quieting my mind and fully meditating during the 90 minutes. Turning off the constant racket of work and personal “to dos” in my head is no easy feat but if I can spend about half the class just thinking about letting the thoughts dissipate through my breath, I figure I’m ahead of the game. On the flip side – and don’t tell my teachers this – but I’ve experienced some of my most creative breakthroughs during my classes – the big idea for a new business presentation or clarity about an organizational challenge the company is going through. Together, these are just some of the reasons I must stand the heat especially when I’m on the road.

Case in point. I recently traveled to our New York, Chicago and Austin offices to present first quarter results to the staff. In New York (my hometown), I always go to New York Yoga on 85^th and Lex for a “juicy” (the teacher’s adjective!) hot vinyasa class. This class is always amazingly satisfying because it’s super hot and humid, the teachers are inspiring and the class kicks my butt. To top it off, I get to do the class with my sister, Debbie, who loves it too.  

In Chicago, I caught a Bikram class at 6 am with one of my local colleagues – god bless you Jess for getting up with me! The studio – located in Lincoln Park – was one of the larger studios I’ve been to and uncharacteristically, it had a hard wood floor versus carpet – much better on the stinky smell factor Bikram is known for. The class was good and hot, but I had to leave early to get to a meeting – something some studios frown upon and this one did. Oh well – my theory and the one my SF studio, Global Yoga supports – is some sweat is better than no sweat.

I’m now just returning from a few days vacation in Florida and enjoyed Bikram in Delray Beach and a soothing vinyasa class on a cruise to the Bahamas!

Next week it’s back to NY for business and more “heat” on the road. I’ll continue sending updates for yogis near and far to check out the hot spots for yoga around the world.

Namaste.