Junkmail Inspiration

 Our telemedicine team is extremely indebted to a Kanata mailman and one particular piece of unsolicited advertising (aka junkmail) that was delivered last spring.

  This is a story that reminds me of the importance of a skill that Dr. Edward DeBono taught me known as the creative pause. It is the act of making an intentional effort to look for creative ideas from the least likely sources of inspiration. It also reinforces the power of heartfelt and animated visualization when setting and reaching goals.

  You may recall from a previous blog that our Telemedicine Program at the Royal was recognized for its fifteen years of work in the field with a donation of one million dollars over five years by Bell Canada. One of the deliverables in the gift was the creation of luxurious telemedicine suites where our clinicians can provide care by live videoconference to patients in rural and remote areas of Ontario. These suites would proudly wear the Bell Canada name in appreciation of its support.

  It was April and the time had come for Sarah, Martin and I to start building that marquee facility. We looked at each other without a clue on how to start. We had plenty of collective experience purchasing the videoconference equipment and placing it in rooms to simply enable clinical consultations to happen – but a luxury suite with multimedia and television quality was way out of our comfort zone.

  To make matters worse, there were no vendors in the region who delivered the total package (beautiful room plus technologies). We were at a project impasse.

  Then fate took over. On most days upon arriving home I can identify and discard the junkmail in seconds. On this day, the typical pile included an Audio-Visual company specializing in high-end Home Theatre. Noticing this one unusual piece, I gave it my attention and within its pages was a picture of a beautiful room with customized woodwork and the requisite plasma monitor and all the technical bells and whistles.

  We now had the mental image we needed. I took the flyer to work. Handed it to the team and said “this is what I want it to look like. I want this room to be the wet-dream office for any mental healthcare specialist.” The picture and those words gave us the launching blocks for our race to the deadline.

  Within weeks, and with outstanding partnerships within our own supply-chain management and facilities teams, this luxury studio project came to life. And I’m proud to say that most of the planning happened while I was blissfully relaxing at the cottage. The junkmail image and effective description of our goal powered my colleagues through the summer.

  Today, the studio is ready for its celebratory opening, on time and well within budget. I still have that junkmail flyer that provided the spark that ignited our team’s efforts toward achieving this daunting but fulfilling challenge. 

As per our blog policy - the opinions and comments in this article represent those of the author and should not be considered representative of the ROHCG.