That’s a screenshot of my 3600×1800 dual widescreen desktop after upgrading to Linux Mint 7 (Gloria) x64 Edition. It’s fast, elegant, painless so far, and a fresh install (including installing some extra software and the usual tweaks) took less than an hour. You can see a nice writeup that includes videos of the new features on the Linux Mint site.
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.
I’m in Austin at the request of the Texas Hospital Association for Where Social Media and Health Care Meet – Harnessing New Media Tools. If you can’t attend you can still follow along on Twitter via the #thasm hastag. Just hit search.twitter.com for updates.
The photo was taken with my new Nokia e75. It’s awesome and I’ll have more to say about it later.
The highlight of ASCO’s annual meeting, for tech types like me anyway, was this comparatively obscure gathering on Sunday evening. The tweetup, a first for the group, was coordinated by three ASCO employees at the core of their social media strategy:
Matt Gillman (CaptMatty)
Deputy Director, Integrated Media
Wil Vargas (AeroVargas)
Assistant Director, Internet Technology
Bernie Khoo (Bkhoo)
Other attendees included:
Dr. Steven Tucker (DrStevenTucker)
An American oncologist practicing in Singapore
Serena Stockwell (OncologyTimes)
Editor-in-Chief, Oncology Times
Eric Rosenthal (etrosenthal)
David Sampson (djsampson)
Director, Med/Sci Communications at the American Cancer Society – PR for two medical journals (CA and CANCER)
Martin Fenner (mfenner)
Clinical fellow in oncology, working in a university hospital
Journal for the National Cancer Institute (JNCI_Now)
Oncology Congress (OC2009SanFran)
Edward Aten (EdwardAten)
and a few others. If I missed you and you’d like to be added to the list let me know.
The really interesting part of the whole event, outside of this great mix of social media and healthcare personalities, was the involvement of key ASCO leadership. Two of the physicians responsible for leading ASCO’s Integrated Technology Committee attended the event:
L. Michael Glode FACP,MD
Chair-Elect
Bio
Daniel D. Karp MD (DanKjazzMD)
Chair
Bio
Drs. Glode and Karp really set the tone for the event. Roughly twenty chairs were assembled in a large circle, we each introduced ourselves, and Dr. Glode began to explain the (very briefly) the evolution of ASCO’s Internet presence, the significant risks involved in talking about research and treatment models, and their current exploration of Twitter. In talking about Twitter both Dr. Karp and Dr. Glode expressed the sort of healthy skepticism about the benefits of social media that I think are typical of many healthcare leaders at the moment. The fact that ASCO communications can shake Wall Street or impact oncology treatment worldwide significantly complicates matters. However, the consensus from the group was that risk shouldn’t silence the organization. My response on this issue never varies. Organizations should plan for risk, develop editorial strategies to address it, get internal buy-in, and involve decision makers in the workflow, but they should never let others define their position by staying out of the game.
The ASCO team also asked the group to contribute new ideas. Again, the feedback was passionate and productive. I won’t go into what ASCO might do with Twitter this year, and at next year’s meeting in Chicago, but if they move forward with some of the group’s innovative suggestions I believe it will profoundly change the way medical professionals view the platform. Keep an eye on them.
