Tag: Social Media

Bringing the Social Media Revolution to The Last Frontier

I’m excited to be at the Alyeska Resort in Girdwood Alaska today to speak to the Alaska State Hospital and Nursing Home Association.

The trip here helped me understand just how big Alaska is, and how far it is from the lower 48. One little-known fact (at least I didn’t know it): The flight from Seattle to Anchorage is the same length (about 3 hours and 15 minutes) as the flight from Minneapolis to Seattle.

Once I got to Anchorage, it was a relatively short, but amazingly scenic, trip down AK-1 to the Alyeska Hotel. The highway has lots of places to pull over for photos, and while a photo can’t really show the full beauty, here’s a taste (click to enlarge):

AK-1 Big

One extra positive of coming to present in Alaska is that it’s highly unlikely that many of the participants have heard me speak previously. That lets me do a best-of-the-best presentation. My slides are embedded below:

I look forward to the discussion today, and welcome your comments and questions.

Illustrating the Health Care Social Media Revolution

The Association of Medical Illustrators is holding its annual conference in Rochester, Minnesota this week, and my colleagues in Mayo Clinic Creative Media asked me to be part of the program, discussing our growth and application of social media at Mayo Clinic. Here are the slides I’m using:

I had stopped by the conference briefly yesterday and was impressed by the energy and enthusiasm in the room. It will be a quick ride; my presentation time is 20 minutes…so I want to have the slides here for review. I look forward to the discussion!

The Social Networking Imperative

At the Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) meeting in Baltimore this morning I will be presenting on innovative uses of social media. The theme of the meeting is Embracing Change: Transforming OPOs for Future Success.

I hope I can help. Here are the slides from my presentation:

Weathering the Georgia Healthcare Landscape

The theme for this year’s Georgia Hospital Association is “Weathering the New Healthcare Landscape,” and I’m glad to be here in Greensboro at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge at Reynolds Plantation to talk about how the impact of social media in this new environment.

Just before my presentation, we’ll be hearing from Meg Fischer, who is the Director of Public Policy for GHA. The title of her talk is “The Affordable Care Act: The Seismic Shift in Healthcare and Its Aftershocks.” It will be interesting to hear her perspective, and I’ll be tweeting from the front lines.

Here are the slides from my presentation:

Here’s more information about the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media and Social Media Health Network.

I’m looking forward to a good discussion.

What’s Next Big Thing in Health Care Social Media?

It’s an understandable question, and one I’m frequently asked. In fact, it came up again this morning in a phone conversation.

Those who ask it typically are looking for tips on the new, cool platform that everyone will be using next year, and that currently is relatively unknown or obscure to the broader population.

The answer that came to me is one that I think will become my new standard:

The next big thing in health care social media will be that social media in health care isn’t a big thing.

I’m not saying that social media won’t be important in health care: I think it will be just the opposite. Social media tools will be incorporated throughout health care, and will be vital elements in all of our communications.

But they won’t feel big because they’ll just be normal. They will have become accepted as a standard way of working. They’ll be as unremarkable as email is today.

That’s when social tools will have realized their enormous potential: when using them becomes standard operating procedure.

Interestingly, just a couple hours after the first conversation, I had a wide-ranging and stimulating discussion with a gentleman from Germany, Peter Carqueville.

Peter PhotoWe enjoyed our video discussion via Skype, and I reminisced about my college days in the early 1980s, when I had to wait in line on Sunday night for the one phone on our dorm floor, to make an expensive collect call. I talked about how amazing it is that today we can talk across seven time zones and an ocean, and that it’s free.

But Peter topped my story: while I looked back on what seemed to be scarcity of telecommunications access,  he had grown up behind the Iron Curtain in what was formerly East Germany, where most families didn’t even have phones.

The next big thing in health care social media will be when we come to take use of social tools for granted as we do unlimited cell phone minutes and text messaging — and free video calls via Skype and Goolge+ — today.