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Beyond Buzz Slideshow

April 3, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I came across this and thought I would share it.

General Business, Innovation, Marketing / Communications, Research, Social Media, Software, Technology, Value Propositions

What’s Your Blog’s Personality?

March 28, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I found this an interesting “blog analyzer“.  You put in your blog’s URL and it tells you the Myers-Briggs personality type of the author.  Mine was right on – INTJ.  I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising, but I can imagine all the opportunities to use that information in scale in the future.  As blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites become the norm, an analyzer like this could categorize people’s personality types.

If a service could be created, communications could be tweaked based on personality to best get people to respond.

Innovation, Marketing / Communications, Social Media, Technology

Using Twitter For Health Care

March 16, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

Last week, I talked with a reporter about using Twitter for health care.  It can add a new dimension to communications, but I am not sold on it replacing current communications.

Some of my jumbled thoughts on this:

  • I like the one to many concept of Twitter with the opt-in concept (preference-based marketing), but it doesn’t personalize to the individual the way the information is delivered.
  • It definitely provides a stream of consciousness which is interesting.  I see a lot of application for a reality show type of health tools…like Biggest Loser via Twitter.
  • I like the idea of posting a question to a broad audience for quick response – Does anyone have research showing the impact of statins on asthma patients?
  • I don’t see this helping with patient to provider communications.  Do I really want my blood sugar posted to Twitter and sent to my physician from my smart device?  Do I (the physician) really want to see all that real-time data?  No.  What about HIPAA…from what I know Twitter is not meant to contain confidential information.  There are plenty of rules engines which can be used to capture data; look for things outside the norm; and then send an alert.
  • A lot of healthcare information has caveats and requires more than 140 characters to get across the message.  Most clinical things couldn’t be send this way.
  • As with most inbound things (i.e., I have to register or search it out), Twitter feeds get those that know what they are interested in and are active in their health management.  It still doesn’t help to drive action from those that aren’t engaged in their healthcare.
  • I can certainly see it as an alert to information, but since one tip to productivity is to batch things, do I really want them broken out during the day in a bunch of Twitter feeds.  I would rather get a daily synopsis from a website (which might be created by Twitter feeds).

Some things I found when looking on the web about this topic:

Here is a presentation on Twitter (they even have one of my old posts in there…which was a pleasant surprise to me) around healthcare.

So, my general perspective is that there is some value in pushing basic information out, reality show type of healthcare (Twitter surgery), capturing feedback, and developing community, but it’s not a tool for the corporate to individual communications that I typically deal with.

Consumerism, General Thoughts, Healthcare, Marketing / Communications, Social Media, Technology, Value Propositions, Weblogs

Personal E-mail Replaced By Social Networks

March 11, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

This plays into my post earlier about changes in communication patterns…

I certainly have begun to see more of my social (personal) online communications moving from e-mail to social networking tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Plaxo.  I almost never trade e-mails with my siblings any more.

So, it wasn’t a big surprise when I saw the blurb in the USA Today which said that “social networks and blogs” have moved ahead of personal e-mail as the most popular online activities (per Nielsen report).

A few facts:

  • 1 of every 11 minutes is spent on these social networking and blogging sites.
  • Time spent on the sites is growing 3x faster than overall Internet usage.
  • 2/3rds of the world’s online population visit these sites.
  • The US was third (after Brazil and Spain) with 67% of the population visiting these sites.
  • Facebook is visited by 3 in 10 people monthly.
  • 10.6M people in the US access these sites through their mobile devices.
Books / Articles, General Thoughts, Marketing / Communications, Social Media, Technology

Biggest Loser…Losing Credibility

February 28, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

In one of those classic examples of why do smart people do stupid things, the show The Biggest Loser on NBC shows one of their recent contestants completing a marathon in under 4 hours while weighing close to 300 pounds.  I saw the show and was amazed.  I haven’t been able to do that on 3 tries and wondered what the heck I was doing wrong.

Well…come to find out that he didn’t run the marathon unaided.  Depending on which report you believe, he got a van ride for 3-6 miles toward the end and was crossing the finish line at just under 6 hours.  I just don’t get why the show would be so stupid. 

It’s a show about inspiring people with amazing transformations.  Having him run a half-marathon or even completing a full 26.2 miles at a slow time would have been a great story.  Instead you ruin it and cast down on some of the things that the contestants do.  

Story in the Detroit News about it.

You can read the official statements from Dane (the contestant), the show, and NBC in The LA Times.

“I always intended to run the full marathon. At the 17th mile, I knew I would not make it in time to cross the finish line before it closed at 6 hours, so I then received a ride from the field producer, who wanted to show me crossing the finish line. He drove me for three miles, and then I ran the rest of the way. After all the filming was done I went back and finished the last 3 miles later that day with my wife and cousin Blaine. I apologize for stating that I ran the entire marathon before I actually ran the whole 26 miles. I am proud of the feat of just running 26 miles in one day.”

Books / Articles, exercise, Social Media, Value Propositions

Debate And Real-Time Changes

February 27, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

As he typically does, e-patient Dave has started a very interesting discussion on sites like Medpedia and the concept of participatory medicine. As Dave and others have shown, information flows slowly such that physicians (or others) cannot digest all of it and be constantly up to date on everything. Patients facing a chronic or life-threatening condition are motivated to do a deep dive on one topic.

Finding, sharing, and having access to information that is relevant, timely, and peer-reviewed (by patients and professionals) is critical.

“Participatory medicine is a phenomenon similar to citizen/network journalism where everyone, including the professionals and their target audiences, works in partnership to produce accurate, in-depth & current information items. It is not about patients or amateurs vs. professionals. Participatory medicine is, like all contemporary knowledge-building activities, a collaborative venture. Medical knowledge is a network.” (Wikipedia)

The posting and comments are interesting and demonstrate the power of web 2.0 where the founder of Medpedia comments and even makes some real-time changes to address the patients and professionals weighing in on the discussion.

Consumerism, Healthcare, Social Media

Social Media Myths

February 21, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

This was a great article in Business Week.  It lays out nicely six myths to watch out for as you jump on the social media bandwagon.

  1. Social media is cheap if not free
  2. Anyone can do it
  3. You can make a big splash in a short time
  4. You can do it all in-house
  5. If you do something great, people will find it
  6. You can’t measure social media marketing results
Books / Articles, Innovation, Social Media, Value Propositions
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