So it's the friday between christmas and new years

And this is the last place I'd like to be right now.

Meet Mrs. Grumpy Cat. Despite her grumpy face, she's apparently a right cheerful cat.
But I don't know, as she's from the land of the INTERNET!

I realized I hadn't posted a blog post, so here I go, late and not late at the same time. This is Schrodinger's post. yay science joke

Look at how much time I'm taking to make the words look all different and cool, you must get an idea for how slow things are moving here.

So, for Christmas I went down to Baltimore to spend it with my family, all 40+ people of the extended family. Holidays get quite hectic around my family for that reason alone. Christmas was different this year, as we had to cross out three different names from the 40+ people: My mom's father, my dad's mother, and my dad's uncle all passed away this year, and my dad's mother's (my grandmother) favorite holiday was Christmas. Needless to say, my dad's side of the family was a little blue, but it was good.

Now, for the new years, I'm going to a party at a friends house, and this will be the first time I'm not with my family for new years, so it ought to be fun!

What do I have to do before this weekend? Well, just get new computers as far along as I can. It's bottle-necked though, as I can only do two at a time. Oh well, I shall be doing a lot of that next week, and the week after!

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYZ

 

 

I am SO SO SO excited to go home for the holidays! I took off all next week so I get to spend 12 daysat home! Although, the majority of my time will be spent with my friends. This Saturday I am going to see The Hobbit with my two best friends Derek and Kyle. We have been waiting for this movie to come out FOR EVER and it's finally here! This will be Derek's third time seeing and he has phenomenal taste in movies (meaning we have the exact same taste in movies) so I know this movie is gonna rule!

 

 

 

 

Another funtivity I will be doing with all of my friends is our annual tacky Christmas sweater bowling night! Pretty much we wear really tacky sweaters and just go bowling and cause trouble ;) Of course I will be spending my break with family and my cat Mark who I am convinced is the greatest cat on earth. He loves to fetch and always runs to the door when someone comes in, he's also devishly handsome. Haha, although Shark Week is my favorite holiday, I LOVE the holidays! I love gift giving and just the feeling of the holidays! Before we go on break I do have a number of things I would like to get done:

• This blog post
• Balance Dues
• AHA Cover Letter
• Order new envelopes
• HM13 Registrations

But nothing too terribly painful :) I can't believe it is Chrstmas already! Hope everyone has a great break and I will see ya in 2013! Oh! I am also really excited for our co-op holiday party in January so I am looking forward to that!





SO....what are your plans for the holidays? Are you taking any time off? What do you have to get done before some vacation time?

 I am planning on enjoying the wonderful holidays at home in sunny California! I can't wait for Christmas parties filled with lots of yummy food and desserts! I'm also looking forward to spending a lot of time at home watching Christmas movies with me, myself, and my teddy bear.

I'm planning on taking off the three days in between Christmas and New Year's, but my flight lands on January 2 at 7AM - just in time to make it back to work at 9AM (hoooraaayyyyyyyy)! Though my trip back home will be short-lived, I'm definitely excited to be back home - even if it's only for a week and a half.

Before I return home for vacation, I'm still continuing to work on the monster that is the medication database for MARQUIS. Though it's making progress, I doubt I'll be able to finish it before then.

HOLIDAYS!!

My plans for the holidays (and by holidays I mean Christmas because Hanukkah is over) are seeing my DOGS and sleeping.  I mean I was super popular in high school, so I will probably be welcomed into New Hampshire with a surprise party that my entire graduating class attends. 

I am taking off December 26, 27, and 28^th from work.  I don’t have anything really exciting planned for break, I’m just want to spend some time with my sister, friends, and dogs.  My only definite plan I have is to go to the movies with my mom and little sister, it’s a tradition.  But I will most likely be doing some shopping over break as well.

Before I leave I need to do a lot of email reports.  I won’t finish them before I leave because they are never ending.  Most all of my projects are ongoing, so there is nothing that has to be/can be finished before I leave.  I will continue working on market research when I return from break, creating a survey for membership.  Also, I will continue working on creative briefs and Hm13 staff information when I get back. 

Home for THe Holidays....I HOPE

This holiday season I don’t really have any awesome plans, besides just seeing friends and family and relaxing. I am going home this Friday after work hopefully my mom can pick me up if not later that night my dad will get me after he is done with work. I took off the 26^th, 27^th and 28^th like everyone mostly so I can have a nice 12 days off from work. Once I get home I will probably hang with my good friends and just chill watch some NBA games since we are all huge basketball fans! GO KNICKS! I started my Christmas fun already this past weekend when I went to New York City with friends to see the tree and just walk around which was sick! NYC during Christmas time is honestly the best time! While home, I am excited to see my family and going to Brooklyn where most of my family is and just eating a lot of great food! 

Besides the holiday festivities, I plan on catching up on a lot of TV and watch so many movies while I am home which I always love to do! Besides that I am going to be chilling listening to music, going out with friends and just having a good time! I will probably be buying a lot of things while I am home also, specifically clothes. (I am a girl when it comes to that but I don’t even care hahaha). I am excited to get back home especially because Drexel’s campus is dead and it’s super boring.

Before I return home, I have to continue my work with the Media Kit as well as working on the Membership Benefits webinar that is coming in the end of January. Both these projects will not be finished before I leave but it is work that I hopefully make a dent in so when I come back there is not as much to work on. I also am working on a few smaller projects for Ashley that she needs me to do before the 21^st. Overall, I am trying to survive to the 21^st and go home!

PS. I hope we go home because if the world ends on the 21st we are all going to die at SHM (Which would kind of be depressing hahaha) 

 

Holiday Holiday HOLIDAAAAY

I, for one, am SO EXCITED for my holiday vacation. On Saturday I'm waking up early and hitting the road with my fiance to spend 11 glorious days in North Carolina.

Last week and this week have been very deadline heavy, which is fine - but the break is much needed and rewarding. On my to-do list before my vacation:
-Get that newsletter out!
-Report on CODE-H
-Update a policy about CODE-H that I wrote
-Web updates
-Some things for the upcoming February Board Meeting


There's some little things mixed in there but it's nice having a list to cross off. It reminds me that I'm getting closer and closer to some R&R (which, at 25, I just realized means rest and relaxation).

SO....what are your plans for the holidays? Are you taking any time off? What do you have to get done before some vacation time?

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I GUESS I'LL ANSWER MEREDITH

Before I get 5,000 questions again, I should probably answer the Blog from last week.

So where do I start? Every project is rewarding in it's own way, and how does one measure the reward? Is it personal reward, corporate or otherwise? For the sake of the question, and for what I'm sure Meredith is going for here, I'll assume the reward is personal. More specifically, what has made me better or smarter.

Again, where do I start? On one hand, there is the QSC, and on the other there is the numerous IT Projects I've worked on so far this time. (I'm assuming my first time here is not part of the question.)

The QSC has been the biggest project in terms of importance (which is almost irrelevant in a corporate setting, as everything anyone in the company does is important) but if you look at all the IT projects, they're right on par. So lets name all the IT projects:

Dual Monitors - Completed - Purchasing and installing dual monitors on everyone's desks
Computer Replacements - In Progress - Purchasing and replacing old computers
MIL (Master Inventory List) updates - Always In Progress - updating the MIL project from my last time
Automatic Email Signatures - In Progress - getting everyone set up with the automated service
PerfectIt - Completed - Purchasing and rolling out the PerfectIt software for Marketing & Communications
Policy Pak - Always In Progress - updating and maintaining software I purchased last co-op
And the multiple high-level IT issues I had to handle.

Each of these is rewarding in it's own way, as is the QSC. However, I do have to pick one. So, in terms of knowledge gained in ONE project, it would be the QSC. Learning how to coordinate multiple departments and how cross-departmental work will be very rewarding in the future.

Rewarding Projects

 

I have had zero interesting tasks/projects.

 

HAHA TOTALLY KIDDING. I have been learning more and more about the Experient program which is the portal we use for HM13 registration. It's very scary and when I register someone I feel like if I mess up one little piece of information I am going to pee my pants.

 



 

I was just asked to do a mail merge and send out certificates to those who attended the AHA meeting in October. I am super good at putting things into envelopes and I love sticking labels on things so this is actually something I am enjoying because I can put my talents that I thought were useless to good use. I think it's awesome that we send out certificates acknowledging each attendee's participation and I'm sure they enjoy getting those certificates, I mean who doesn't enjoy getting an award? It's also kind of cool to see how many people attended and where they all live. Okay well now that I read that back to myself it sounds kind of creepy but it's a lot like looking at people's license plates on the highway, or am I the only one who does that too? #procreeperstatus #notashamed

 

Who is excited for all of the holiday festivities coming up? I am SUPER excited!



What has been your most rewarding task or project during your co-op with SHM so far?

Ever since starting here at SHM, JoAnne has slowly started giving me more and more tasks to work on for SHM's project on MARQUIS.  From entering patient data to creating excel spreadsheets for hospital sites, I've really been able to appreciate more the behind-the-scenes work for patient quality and improvement. It reminds me more and more that you are able to serve in healthcare not only by directly making patient contact, but helping improve their stay in hospitals and prevent patients from re-entering the hospital.

Especially for entering med history for patient data into QuesGen, I am constantly reminded how lucky I am to be healthy (for the most part). Seeing patients taking 30+ medications at the same time really reminds me how painful it is for a lot of people who are struggling physically with their health. With all those medications, it also encourages me to continue studying more to become more knowledgeable in pharmacology so I am able to effectively care for my future patients.

My Most Rewarding Projects

Since working here at SHM, I would say there have been two projects that I have worked on that I would say have really been rewarding and beneficial to my career development. The first project is the monthly work done with the Communications Dashboard. This allows me to take into account multiple communications channels such as social media, HMX and Cision/Google Alerts. Doing this monthly project has really given a great window of opportunity to learn a lot about Marketing and PR as a whole. It also has been great because Brendon and Ashley have been allowing me to do my own work with this project and as a team we have worked together to create what we believe is a strong Communications Dashboard. With this project I am learning a whole lot of information and skills that I can use in my future career development. 

For example, I had no idea what Cision was until I started working here at SHM, but Brendon and Ashley let me do the monthly reporting of media on SHM in Cision. This is a great skill for me to have at future jobs to say I created media lists as well as created Excel documents using Cision. Another thing that the communications dashboard allowed me to do is do social media reporting and tracking using Tweeter Feed and Google Analytics to see how well SHM is doing using social media. This really has been a great way for me to measure myself on how I am doing with social media and what I could be doing better to make SHM social media more successful. 

Another project that has been really helpful for me is the creation of the 2013/2014 Media Kit. This has taught so much not about just PR and Marketing at SHM but SHM in general. Leading the Media Kit project is awesome for me because its letting me learn a lot about myself as far as work ethic and making timelines. So far Brendon and Ashley have been an awesome help with the whole process and again are giving me awesome feedback when I need it. It is going to be great to see what the final project looks like when I am done and look back and say I did that! These are what I think have been my most beneficial and rewarding projects so far!

PS. This is random but I still need to be tested if I know the lyrcis to every Lil Wayne song! hahaha Feels so long since having that meeting where we had to answer Meredith's crazy questions!

I knew eventually there would be a really difficult blog question and I guess today is that day.  I was hoping this was going to be another question where I could write about my dogs.  I really like my dogs, but ok time to be serious.

The most rewarding project I’ve worked on during my co-op so far was the project with market research.   Market research was something I was interested in before starting my co-op here at SHM and I was very excited when I learned I could be a part of it. 
 
The website for making and sending surveys was not user friendly and it didn’t help that the marketing department wasn’t familiar with it.  Through trial and error, we figured out how to use the site.  It was a very frustrating and rewarding experience to learn this skill along with my department.  I didn’t feel like a co-op, I felt like a full time employee because my ideas and opinions were important to completing this project.  I look forward to future market research projects.  For example, analyzing the results of the surveys and creating surveys for the membership department. 

And for the record this is my rating for Surveymonkey’s tec. support team:

What has been your most rewarding task or project during your co-op with SHM so far?