I struggle with terminology sometimes.

The word “influencer”, for example, doesn’t always sit well with me. Maybe because I have negative connotations associated with the term.

Here’s the thing: we all influence.

In everyday life, people listen to us.

By the mere act of communicating, we impart influence.

What people say matters. And who the people are that say it matters, too.

Or at least it should.

Non-Clinical Conference: A Beginner’s Guide

Medicine has more doors than most physicians are shown. This SoMeDocs virtual resource brings expert-led lectures on becoming a media expert, life insurance medicine, not-for-profit health care plans, and other career paths worth knowing.

1st Annual Collection

2nd Annual Collection

Maybe the term needs a makeover. Or maybe the people we fit into the term need to be redefined.

In my own quest to promote individual players within the healthcare field, I’ve found myself begrudgingly having to use the term to describe what it is I am trying to achieve. It’s sometimes the only way to get my point across for what I do.

So the other day, I thought – why don’t I just “lean in” to using it?

Literally, just lean into the discomfort, in order to not only better explain what I do, but to also change its meaning.

So I tried it out, in real time. I decided to adjust the tagline of my company, using a term I don’t regularly use – “influencer”.

I played around with the notion that if anyone is to be an “influencer”, especially in the field of health and healthcare, it’s those who have become educated in the field.

5 Branding Tips

Your brand is already speaking. The question is whether it’s saying what you want it to say. Join this free 5-day email journey to learn the key concepts behind building a clearer, stronger professional brand.

Sign Up

By doing this, I had hoped to make it easier for an audience to understand what it is we are trying to do. Even if I wasn’t personally 100% comfortable with the term.

Maybe discomfort is exactly where we’re meant to live. Maybe that’s part of defining innovation.

I kept that term on the front page of our site for a while. But as I regularly do with SoMeDocs, I ultimately changed it. I found a better, more suitable tagline that reflected more of what we were doing, with another, no less exciting term: conferences.

But I’d love to share my thoughts about the “i” word here, and hear your yours: should we use (inoffensive) terms that are familiar to the world, in order to properly reflect and explain what we do, even if we don’t love them? Is it an entrepreneurial-win to use terms we’re uncomfortable with, because we get to potentially redefine status quo, especially assuming what we do creates positive change?

AND what are your thought on our new tagline? (Not Just Health Conferences!: Market your expertise. Grow your network. Create New Opportunities.) Does it work?

This is all quite a fascinating topic, and one that we must remain cognizant of, as we continue to create anew.