I asked Libby Springer, with IU Health North, to share her recent video experience with us in a guest post…
Our MLK Video is the perfect example of what can happen when people come together as a team.
It started out as an idea from our CFO, Randy. As someone who admired Martin Luther King and had been positively influenced by him in his life, his idea was to have our associates recite different lines from the Martin Luther King speech, film it with a home video camera, and then have someone edit it so that it all flowed together.
He involved the Affinity Diversity Group and the marketing department at IU Health North Hospital and it was then that we realized what this video could become. It wasn’t “just” a video to celebrate Martin Luther King Day. It was a video we could share with our associates during orientations, a video that the Affinity Diversity Group could use as part of their presentation, a video that we could use every year to celebrate Martin Luther King Day at the hospital.
We knew we needed a professional, but wanted to keep costs reasonable, as this was an unexpected project. 12 Stars Media had worked with our system hospitals before and after checking out their work and comparing prices, we knew they were the company we wanted to use.
The most important thing was that we wanted to keep it fun, and Rocky guaranteed us that would not only be possible, but that is how they always work.
The hardest part of the entire project was coordinating over 80 associates to recite lines. The majority of that was done by our CFO. Our video turned out incredible not just because of the amazing job by 12 Stars Media, but also because we have a CFO who knows his associates. He knew every single associate in the video. He had certain phrases that he wanted specific associates to say. He knew their personalities – he knew what would work. That is why our video is amazing.
The rest of the preparation involved securing areas in the hospital to do the video shoot (we ended up picking four), assigning each associate to one of those areas (while making sure no two associates who had back-to-back lines were in the same area), and making sure each area had different angles to shoot from (so that it did not all look the same). We worked together as a team and got this done.
The day of the video shoot went smoothly, with everyone coming to their designated area at their designated time slot. There was usually a line of associates waiting to get in front of the camera and recite their assigned line, but they didn’t mind because they were having fun and were excited to be part of such a meaningful project.
We released the video to our entire hospital on Martin Luther King Day, with a celebration in one of our conference rooms. There, we played the video. Many people walked out of the room with tears in their eyes. We also emailed the video link to every associate in the hospital. We plan to use this video every year for Martin Luther King Day – and to remind associates how IU Health North Hospital celebrates diversity.
It all started with a small idea and with a lot of determination and teamwork, it turned into a project IU Health North Hospital is proud to call our own.
