September 29, 2009 
There is a great “cartoon” at the end of the recent Fast Company magazine that gives an example of how using information can lead you to a wrong decision. It’s one of the reasons that I always point out the difference between someone who has provided services to an industry and someone who has worked in an industry. It’s not the same. Sometimes, you need to truly understand the nuances and how decisions are made.
It also made me think of a great Facebook example of how using social connections can lead to bad business decisions. Given all the talk about making peer-to-peer recommendations based on your social network, this is a slippery slope to watch. We are still new to this area and mistakes will happen. One of the bigger ones that I have heard occurred in Facebook where they allowed advertisers to use member’s pictures. Well, how do you think people felt when they saw the advertisements that say “Meet Singles In Your Neighborhood” with a picture of their spouse. It didn’t go over well.
Great idea. Interesting technology. Bad application.
This will happen in healthcare. The question is who will be first to stub their toe in the new world.
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
When your blogs show up in my email, it says “Enabling Healthy Decisions”, I make note of the fact that you never discuss enabling exercise, which is the healthiest decision you can make.
Frederick – As always, good point. I have discussed exercise before on the blog, but it has been a while. The blog definitely ebbs and flows with my work and research which is typically around how communications can enable consumers (or patients) to navigate the existing healthcare system to choose lower cost options and minimize their customer service hassles (for example). And, as I’ve disclosed before, in my job, I work for the PBMs and managed care companies of the world so a lot of times I try to bring my perspective to them about how to think about interacting with consumers.