Last week’s social media workshop was, at least from my perspective, quite successful. Reed Smith and the crew the Texas Hospital Association pulled together an excellent group of presenters that gave the group just the right mix of theory and practical advice. Those who follow me on Twitter know I’m pretty hard on the exploding “social media guru” population, most of them are hacks frankly, but my fellow presenters and panelists knew their stuff. You should be following them on Twitter:
Dave Evans – @evansdave
Jennifer Texada – @JennTex
Cynthia Baker – @CynthiaBaker
Mike Chapman – @MikeChapman
Jon Lebkowsky – @jonl
Shawn Zehnder Lee – @shawnz
Richard John Groos and Robert F. Corrigan, Jr. of @Fulbright
It was particularly encouraging to see that for many hospitals the discussion has shifted from questioning the usefulness of the tools to determining how best deploy them. Many people showed up with Twitter accounts – both personal and organizational, they tweeted during the presentations, they used hastags, they uploaded photos to Twitpic. True, none of that would be unusual at many conferences but we do not see enough of it in health care. There were some folks who were still off the grid but they were there, and learning something, so that’s a start. I hope all of the attendees left with the realization that the perceived legal and process challenges can be addressed and that with a little bit of planning and creativity social media tools can transform their communications.
Updates:
The Austin-American Statesman has a short article on the subject.
Aaron Hughling has a writeup on presentations by Jennifer Texada and Jon Lebkowsky.
John – thanks for the feedback! We really appreciate you taking the time to be involved!
Thanks for the mention John, and I defintely agree with your thoughts here. We’re (healthcare) making progress!