Ten Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes To Be a More Connected Health Professional

You need a break and, instead of heading to the coffee pot, take 10 minutes to follow one of these 10 suggestions to be more connected and better at communicating health messages:

1. Become a social networker: Take your pick, LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo, … Create a profile, including a picture, and invite some colleagues. If you search, you’ll find many of them already there. (You can connect to me!)
2. Try twitter: Join twitter and try out micro-blogging. Invite some colleagues or find some who are already there. Try following me (I am a sporadic user but I post health links occasionally) or try BBC Health.
3. Read a blog: Health blogs range from very professional and constantly updated to navel-gazing ones that were last posted in over a year ago. I recommend you start with Well, Tara Parker-Pope’s health blog at the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog, Consumer Report’s Health Blog, or Health 2.0. For contrast, try Leroy Sievers’ NPR blog or one of WebMD’s blogs. Not feeling overwhelmed yet? Do a search on “health blogs” or even “health blog directories” and I guarantee you will be suffering from information overload. Now comment on a blog. Not only do bloggers like to know you read a post, but you undoubtedly have something to contribute. After all, if you wrote a blog post, wouldn’t you like to know what your readers think? Be a producer, not just a consumer!
4. Create a blog: You knew this was coming! But only do it if you can commit to posting regularly. If you think you can only post sporadically, start one with a few colleagues. I recommend wordpress but there are many other blogging tools.
5. Create a community: try ning and set up an online community about your health specialty. First search to see what else is there. If you find some, check to see how many members they have and the date of the latest site activity.
   
6. Do a search on a health topic: Select a topic of interest to you professionally and do a search. Look at the number of results first. Next look to see if there are sponsored links. Finally, look at the first 10 results and see if you think they represent your topic well. If your work isn’t there, come up with a plan for greater visibility. (If you don’t know what SEO stands for, then at least become conversant with it.)
7. Learn how information spreads: Post an article you like (or wrote) to digg, mixx, StumbleUpon, or reddit. Or post a picture to Flickr or a video to YouTube. If you aren’t ready to post, then participate by commenting on or voting on it.
8. Use Wikipedia: Have you read Wikipedia’s entry on your health specialty? Read it and enhance it. If there isn’t one there, create it. There are other wikis out there too – for instance, you might want to add your name to the list of Health 2.0 people – and see who else is on it.
9. Connect with a person: Email a colleague about something you read or are thinking about. Or pick up the phone. Or even invite someone you’ve been meaning to talk to out for coffee. (See, you get your coffee break after all.)
10. Just for fun: What would it take for you to be the first health specialist on TechCult’s Top 100 Web Celebrities list – besides a blog (see #4) and funky hair?

Finally, think of your own idea for a 10 minute activity that can improve your health communication skills and post it as a comment below so others can benefit.

Thanks to the students in Emerson College’s Summer Institute for Social Marketing and Health Communication who inspired this post following my lecture on New Technologies for Health Communication.

Tech Populism and Learning: Integrating Everyday Tools

CIO Magazine lists tech populism as a trend for 2008, a term that refers to the use of consumer technologies in the workplace. Teachers, students, and subject-matter experts are all bringing everyday tools to learning. Teachers want to use the same tools to teach that they are using in the rest of their lives, and may feel constrained by the tools a school has in place although it may be easier for students to have consistency between their courses. Students similarly may have many tools they use for personal communication that can’t be used with their teachers. And despite the greater understanding of the value of informal learning, subject-mater experts may not want to learn complex tools to capture their expertise.

My own recent experience with tech populism is that, after starting to use WordPress last month, I immediately saw how to reformulate the final project in my Online Health Communities course. Since only some of my students know Photoshop, html, etc., WordPress will make it easy for all of them to do their projects online, which will in turn give them a better learning experience since it will be easier to get feedback from each other as well as from me. The biggest danger I see with tech populism is if chaos ensues, for instance, if I offer a default tool but my students can choose any tool they know, for those who prefer to use Facebook or ning. There will always be a trade-off with tech populism, since what is easiest for one group, say my students, may create more work for another, in this case me.

Web 2.0 and Web x.0

I wish I could report that my computer can read my mind. It may come in Web X.0. Until then, I continue to enjoy many Web 2.0 features. I recently played with Twitter, amazed that so many people apparently are interested in the activities and whereabouts of so many other people. Is Twitter the inverse of a calendar – a calendar tells one what to do and Twitter reports on what is being or has been done?

As I was trying to determine the perceived societal benefits of Twitter, I can across a lovely Web 2.0 feature where immediate feedback is given on the availability of your user name as you type it in. How refreshing to not have to submit something, wait for it to be processed, and then act upon the results. Other sites do similar things; WordPress’ registration gives immediate feedback on the “strength” of a password as it is being entered. My favorite Web 2.0 example is the slider bars in Kayak to refine a travel search in place.

While it is great to not have to submit a request, wait for it to be processed, make changes, and resubmit, I would prefer mind-reading, which will undoubtedly be available in Web X.0. Ideally mobile mind-reading so I am no longer tethered to my computer. Perhaps then Twitter’s usefulness will be more apparent to me, since I will be off dancing or at the movies, not typing at my computer.