Starting My Second Revolution

It was 10 years ago this month that Minnesota Monthly, the magazine formerly published by Minnesota Public Radio, included me in its story called The Revolutionaries: 12 Minnesotans who are changing the way we think about the world—and its future.

I had started Mayo Clinic’s social media program as part of my role as manager for media relations, beginning with a makeshift podcast in 2005 and then branching into experiments with blogs and the various social networks.

By 2008 we were on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn, and also had a news blog that eventually became the Mayo Clinic News Network.

I understood that as Mayo Clinic’s reputation had been built for 150 years through word-of-mouth, these platforms would be ways that word would spread between people in the 21st century.

While the rest of the world uses youtube to post videos of their cats curled into shoeboxes, Lee Aase is using the medium—along with Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, and blogs—to upend health care as we know it.

Minnesota Monthly, February 2012

Along the way I met up with co-belligerents as we created what would become the Mayo Clinic Social Media Network, and we even wrote a book called Bringing the Social Media Revolution to Health Care. Meredith Gould, Ph.D. was our editor, and besides Farris Timimi, M.D., my great friend and medical director for social media at Mayo Clinic, our contributors included

That was a magical time, as we experimented together and encouraged innovative applications of social media to promote health, fight disease and improve health care.

I have many fond memories from that revolutionary movement, and now I’m excited to help start another one through HELPcare and HELPcare Clinic.

Instead of a health care communications revolution, it’s a revolution in health care practice. My experience in the former has equipped me for this next one.

So has my personal health journey.

HELPcare is my new venture that provides metabolic health coaching, education and peer support for people who want to turn back the clock on their health through lifestyle changes.

HELPcare also provide management services for HELPcare Clinic, a new direct primary care practice my dear friend and high school classmate, David Strobel, M.D., opened in our hometown of Austin, Minn. on Feb. 1.

In just its first month of part-time operation, HELPcare Clinic already has more than 200 members, and positive newspaper and TV feature stories in our local market.

Today we’re announcing HELPcare Clinic’s Corporate Membership program, which gives small businesses who can’t afford ACA-compliant insurance a way to support their employees’ health and well-being.

Direct primary care is a growing trend. Likewise, many people are finding a low-carb, ketogenic diet combined with intermittent fasting is enabling significant health restoration.

I think the synergy between an affordable, membership-based medical practice that provides unhurried, unlimited primary care services in concert with lifestyle coaching that equips members to address underlying causes of disease will be powerful.

Hopefully even Revolutionary.

Using Social Media in Clinical Research

I’m honored to be in Denver this morning to present to the Society of Clinical Research Associates (SOCRA) conference called Harnessing Social Media to Advance Clinical Research.

Julia Thebiay, who works with Mayo Clinic’s Todd and Karen Wanek Family Program for Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), is my co-presenter.

Here are our slides:

We look forward to a good session and hopefully a great discussion.

A SMUG Tour of China

I’m excited to begin a new adventure today as I make my first trip to China.

I’m accompanying Kent Seltman, co-author of Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic. Kent was formerly the Marketing Division Chair at Mayo Clinic, and he wrote his book with Len Berry as his swan song as he approached retirement. It has been translated into Mandarin and has sold 350,000 copies in China.

China TourKent has previously visited China 13 times, always taking a current Mayo Clinic employee with him. I’m delighted to accompany him on his 14th trip. We’ll be there from now until June 27 and will speak at 9 hospitals in China (click the map to enlarge).

According to the Chinese Firewall Test, I probably won’t be able to access Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn for the next couple of weeks.

On the bright side, SMUG does appear to be available from mainland China.

Screen Shot 2016-06-11 at 8.25.38 AM

I’ll hope to post updates here relatively frequently. Since my posts are tweeted automatically, SMUG will be my way of at least sending messages via Twitter.

Aase Family Holiday Greetings 2015

As Lisa and I finished our Lord of the Rings marathon with our youngest son John this New Year’s morning, we looked back with gratitude for the Lord’s many blessings on our family in the past year.

We’re particularly thankful that in this last week we had all of our descendants together to celebrate Christmas, and so I waited to do this retrospective until I could include photos from our Monday-afternoon family photo shoot. (Thanks Photos by Joe!) Here’s the whole Gang of 17:

Snowy photo

Our oldest daughter, Rachel, will celebrate her 30th birthday in two weeks, validating Gretchen Rubin’s observation, “The days are long but the years are short.” Rachel and her husband, Kyle Borg, are currently experiencing the first part of Rubin’s formulation, as their fifth child, Sylvia, arrived Oct. 15. What a great bunch they have:

Borg children

Kyle continues to serve as pastor of Winchester Reformed Presbyterian Church in Winchester, Kansas. The kids (Evelyn, Judah, Aletta, Mabel and Sylvia) have an idyllic life in this town of 500 which is about an hour from Kansas City. Lots of room to run and play, and a close-knit church family. We wish they lived nearer to us, but we’re thankful for FaceTime enabling us stay connected.

Our son Jacob and his wife Alexi live in New Berlin, Wisconsin (near Milwaukee), where Jacob works as a Physical Therapist at Froedert Hospital. They now have two sons, with Isaac Lee Aase joining the family on March 15. Big brother Graham, who just turned two, is a fully certified Minnesota sports fan:

Graham TwinsGraham Vikings

Jake and Family

Our middle daughters, Rebekah and Ruth, still live in St. Paul where they work as float pool nurses at Bethesda Hospital. They both appreciate the variety of assignments, and that they earn the same at 0.6 FTE as they formerly made in 0.9 FTE nursing home jobs, but that they frequently can pick up extra shifts.

They live within a few miles of the airport (MSP), so I had a few opportunities this year to stay with them before flights, or even to get together during a layover. And because they have some schedule flexibility, I was able to take them on one of my trips this year, to Boston, where we took a little extra time to hike the Freedom Trail…

Freedom Trail

… and to take a drive to Kennebunkport, Maine:

Coast of Maine

Joe is still at Minnesota State University, Mankato where he’s a member of the basketball team. Last season the Mavericks made the NCAA Division II tournament, and they’re currently 9-2 and ranked 25th in the country. Joe is planning to go to law school after graduation, and is thankful that because of basketball he’ll start that part of his education debt-free.

John is a high school junior attending Riverland Community College full-time through the Post-Secondary Education Options (PSEO) program. His four eldest siblings graduated high school with their AA degrees thanks to PSEO, and John plans to follow suit. He also is working part-time at the new Hardee’s just down the street.

Joe is on the left, and John on the right, in this photo of the Aase men…

Lee and Boys

…and here is Lisa with our young ladies:

Lisa and Girls

We’re also blessed with a wonderful church family at Trinity Presbyterian in Rochester, where I’m an elder and Lisa teaches Sunday School.

Lisa and Joe (with some help from John) spent a good part of the summer giving Old Main a new paint job and completing other exterior upgrades. It was a LOT of work, and it shows up nicely in this version of our family photo:

Wide Porch Aase Clan

Lisa hit another milestone this year, with John starting school at the community college: after 23 years of homeschooling, she is officially retired! She appreciates the freedom this gives her; when Sylvia was born she was able to go to Kansas for 9 days to help Rachel with the adjustments.

This has been a memorable year for me professionally, too. Highlights in our Mayo Clinic social media program include:

Here are some other Facebook photos and memories from 2015.

We have many hopes and plans for 2016, and we know there will be some surprises, too. From our family to yours, we wish you a blessed New Year!

NIghtime photo

P.S. To go further back in our Aase family memories and see how we’ve changed in the last nine years, check out these year-end posts from 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2014. 2013 was a pretty busy year in which I was occupied with this site, so I failed on the Christmas letter.

A PDA for My BFF and Holiday Greetings for You

Wedding pictureOn December 22, 1984 at 11 a.m. I stood at the front of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in New Richland, Minnesota with a lump in my throat as the most beautiful vision I can imagine walked down the aisle on the arm of my soon-to-be Father-in-Law.

On that day, I married my best friend, and for three decades the Lord has blessed us with a wonderful life together. As we heard on our Wedding Day, He told our first parents, Adam and Eve, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. Since then, Lisa and I have done our part to fulfill that cultural mandate.

Here’s what we have to show for it, in the first generation:

Jacob, John, Joseph, Rebekah, Ruth and Rachel
(Clockwise from lower left) Jacob, John, Joseph, Rebekah, Ruth and Rachel

…and the second:

Graham, Evelyn, Mabel, Aletta and Judah
Graham, Evelyn, Mabel, Aletta and Judah

Our first 29 years together were wonderful, and this year the blessings have continued:

Rachel and her husband Kyle, a Presyterian pastor, are happily married and living with their four children (the ones on the right in the photo above) in Winchester, Kansas. They were in Grand Rapids, Michigan for several years while Kyle was in seminary, and it’s great that now it’s only a six-hour drive for us to get together.

Jacob completed school and passed his boards, and is now working as a Physical Therapist in Milwaukee. As a Gophers/Vikings/Timberworlves/Wild fan he is adjusting to his exile  among the Cheeseheads, but he and Alexi are doing well. Their son Graham (at left) had his first birthday on Halloween, and they’re expecting a second son in March.

Rebekah and Ruth will possibly resent being in the same paragraph (we’re individuals, you know, Dad!), but it’s hard to their stories separately. Both finished their BSN degrees at the end of September. They’re living in a house in St. Paul with one of their best friends from high school. And they’re working as nurses in the same nursing home, and are involved as member of City Life church.

Joe transferred from Davidson College at the end of his Freshman year and is now at Minnesota State University, Mankato where he is playing basketball. We’re delighted to have him so close to home. We celebrated our family Christmas last week, and he was able to drive back and forth for practice every day. He enjoyed his Davidson experience, and last year we got to attend about a dozen games. This year they’ll all be a lot closer, and we’ll get to most of them.

John is a sophomore in high school, in his last year at Aase Academy. Next year he will be going to Riverland Community College (as his four oldest siblings did), and Lisa will have completed her 23rd year of homeschooling. John is in the Austin High School Symphony Orchestra and Bible Bowl, and enjoys being in Youth Group at our church, Trinity Presbyterian in Rochester.

Lee and LisaLisa and I enjoyed some getaways and got a lot more familiar with North Carolina last winter (combining with some work-related travel) as we attended some of Joe’s games. We’re both involved at church, where I’m and Elder and Lisa teaches Sunday School and manages the book ministry. My work at Mayo Clinic in social media has remained interesting and challenging (in a good way), and led to my first trip to Alaska and also a chance to go to Dubai as part of my service on the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Social Media. That was unforgettable.

As you can see, our appearance has changed a bit over the years. Our deep affection and commitment haven’t.

We look forward to another year of fruitful work, Lord willing, and wish you and yours the best of everything in 2015.