The new category, Human Lens: The Lived Experience, is a category that elevates authentic human experiences, honoring work that is rooted in authentic patient, caregiver, and community experiences. This new category will celebrate storytelling that gives voice to real lives, challenges stereotypes, and fosters empathy, understanding, and connection.

In this series of the Health Pulse, we will get the inside scoop on what strikes a chord with members of our Specialty Jury for this inaugural year. 

Walter T. Geer III is an award-winning creative leader whose career sits at the intersection of storytelling, design, technology, data and research. A veteran of the digital advertising space, he holds six U.S. patents for digital ad formats and has developed innovative products, creative strategies and biometric research for some of the world’s leading technology and media companies. Recognized by Adweek, the American Advertising Federation and Savoy Magazine for his influence and impact, Geer continues to push the boundaries of how creativity, technology and human insight come together.

NYFH Awards: Why did you say yes to judging this category specifically?
Walter T. Geer III: Because this one felt personal. I’ve spent years creating work in health, but my own health experience completely changed the way I look at that work. There’s a huge difference between imagining what a patient is going through and actually listening to someone who has lived it. I wanted to be part of a jury that recognizes that difference.

NYFH Awards: Why is the Human Lens category important right now?
Walter T. Geer III: Because health communication can’t just be clinically accurate, it has to be humanly accurate. Patients and caregivers understand things about fear, uncertainty, hope and even the healthcare system that you simply can’t find in a brief. When those experiences actually shape the work, you create something people can recognize themselves in.

NYFH Awards: Have you worked on something where a patient/caregiver changed an actual decision?
Walter T. Geer III: Absolutely. On Believe My Pain, listening to real experiences fundamentally shaped how we approached the problem. We weren’t interested in simply making advertising about pain, we had to understand what it feels like when someone says they’re hurting and isn’t believed. Those voices weren’t decoration around the creative; they helped determine what the creative needed to do.

NYFH Awards: What tells you lived experience genuinely shaped an entry?
Walter T. Geer III: You can usually feel the difference between work where someone was consulted and work where someone had influence. I’m looking for evidence that lived experience changed something, the strategy, an assumption, the language, the execution, maybe even the thing the brand originally wanted to make. If the same idea would’ve existed without those people in the room, then I’m not sure they truly shaped it.

NYFH Awards: Five years from now, what would you want this category to have changed?
Walter T. Geer III: I’d love for this category to become unnecessary. Five years from now, involving the people whose lives we’re talking about shouldn’t be considered a special way of working, it should just be how good health work gets made. Patients and caregivers shouldn’t be brought in at the end to validate an idea. They should help shape it from the beginning.