DALLAS, Texas (March 16, 2009) — On the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, when all the amateur drinkers dash to the bars to honor the patron saint of hangovers, I thought it was a good time to unveil the new look for HealthCare Voice. It was time for a change, especially when you consider that on Sunday morning, with coffee in hand, I hit a button and inadvertently erased months of accumulated formatting and additions of new content and features. In a nano-second I went from a stylish format to white pages that could be classified as NCAA – no class at all.
They say formatting a blog on Typepad is easy. Anyone can do it. They lie. What should have been 45 minutes of work for a slow moving web designer, took me six hours and numerous expletives deleted.
But here it is. I have added a Career Management section on the left sidebar with links to articles and a resume development guide. I have moved the Twitter comments to the right hand side of the page for those who might be interested in the searches we are leading and the types of candidates our team is recruiting.
In the navigation bar across the top, I have added active links to my Firm’s web site and on-line brochure – The JohnMarch Difference. I will add links later this week to allow visitors to the blog to see my speaking schedule and a list of programs I can present to your organization.
As many of you know, I began my pre-healthcare career as a cub reporter for a small daily newspaper in Tyler, Texas. I moved on to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal where I served as a copy editor and assistant night editor for one year, three months, four days and 12 hours. In one of my favorite songs about this little hamlet on the South Plains of Texas, Mac Davis wrote: “Happiness is Lubbock in your rear view mirror.”
I ended my news career in 1976 at The Houston Post where I served a brief stint on the copy desk before transferring to the crime beat covering the city’s spiraling homicide rate, corruption in law enforcement, and writing investigative pieces on the growing problem of alcoholism, the sharp rise in the import of Mexican heroin and problems with the then Texas Department of Corrections.
This blog has been a great experience. I have reconnected with my writing and I have had the great pleasure of thinking about some of what I feel are important issues in healthcare, leadership, and executive search. I have enjoyed immensely the process of learning and writing.
So now you know why my writing lacks that certain academic flare and why you may sense that I am always tempted to close my sentences with, “police said.”
John G. Self, Chairman and Founder of JohnMarch Partners, is the Firm’s senior client advisor. A 32-year veteran of the healthcare industry, he is a former investigative reporter and crime writer for a major daily newspaper. Candidates and clients say he is one of the most thorough executive recruiters working in the healthcare industry.
