One of the topics on the table during last night’s Healthcare Social Media (#hcsm) community discussion was innovative ways that the micro-blogging service Twitter can be used to promote health. In my mind, the question that health professionals are facing is how does taking care of yourself become cool? There are things that people like because they are sexy or fun or just plain awesome… How does health get into one of those categories for people?
One of the ways to coolify health is to integrate it into things that have already been established as being cool. Like twitter, for example.
So when the question came around last night about other uses for twitter and health, besides the traditional meeting new people and pushing out messages, I remembered some things I have come across related to twitter and pregnancy. My wife and I were expecting parents last year. We had our second child last September. So when I read these stories after the fact they seemed to resonate with me. If you’re in to twitter and expecting a child soon, then these two twitter innovations should be right up your alley.
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Kickbee
Kickbee was developed by Corey Menscher and it’s cool because it lets an unborn baby communicate with the outside world, with its movement. Kickbee is a wearable device that tracks the tiny electrical impulses associated with movement within the human body. What I really like about it is is its integration with Twitter. Twitter time stamps every entry, so when fetal kicks occur they are captured and logged. This provides an automated digital kick count record which can be very useful for expecting mothers. Tracking kicks and movement is recommended for expecting mothers anyway, because a decrease in movement can be an early warning sign for a preventable problem. Kickbee takes out a lot of the guess work associated with trying to keep track of movements throughout the day, while providing insights for friends and family alike.
Tweetlet
Tweetlet was developed by Stef Lewandowski and is cool because it gives expecting parents daily updates on how their baby is developing in the womb. Dads, relatives, and friends can now all stay abreast of an individual baby’s developmental process when a Tweetlet account is created for the unborn child. Messages "from the baby" are then sent out every day, in the form of tweets, establishing the child as a family member with a voice well before they appear on the scene.
Think “Hi dad! I just opened my eyes for the first time” or “Hi mum! I’ve just grown fingernails” – pretty cool details that make you think during your busy life
Its uncertain at this time whether receiving tweets about a child’s movement and development in the womb fosters increased engagement for expecting family members, but I personally think that its more engaging then looking at the generic picture books. Not that there is anything wrong with those picture books… Another byproduct is allowing geographically separated friends and family to stay connected throughout the development process. Both of these tools bring the information to a format that people can easily use on a daily basis. That kind of accessibility is cool in and of itself.
What do you think? Is baby tweeting cool or freakish? Is it an innovative use of twitter, or a waste of time? And what other unexpected ways can health and social media cross paths? Please leave a comment below with your take.
@hallicious
Photo by: davhor
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DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
The consumer revolution is still spreading. It’s already upended a whole slew of industries . . . publishing, media, entertainment, consumer goods, retail . . . but until now it’s left healthcare relatively untouched. But that’s changing.
Yesterday I wrote about the growing phenomenon of online communications forums (aka “Twitter Conversation Communities”) based in Twitter.
Today I wanted to talk about one of those communities that’s of particular interest to me – a group that’s focused on using the power of social networks to help people to get healthier and create a system that works better than the one we have today.
There are over 500 people following the “official” twitter account of the Health Social Media group (@healthsocmed). Inspired by @PRSarahEvans ‘ #journchat group, a PR student from the University of Alabama named Dana Lewis (@danamlewis ) founded the Health Social Media group in January of 2009. The group meets every Sunday night at 9 p.m. EDT, and it’s easy to follow along using the hashtag #hcsm .
Sometimes the topics are predictable. HIPAA, privacy and data security. Health care reform. This past Sunday, we strayed into some new territory – territory that got a lot more exciting and interesting for me. We tackled questions such as:
- Who owns social media inside an organization?
- What’s the role of the IT department in social media?
Both of those are subjects that I feel passionate about, and had a great time debating – always respectfully – with my colleagues. As to who owns social media, refer back to Chris Hall’s post on Humana’s Social Media Chamber of Commerce (”Meeting of the Minds“). As to the role of IT . . . let’s just say that I’d love for that role to be different from what I see in most companies today. In healthcare, it’s been my experience that the IT department is concerned with data security (which is as it should be) and little else (which is NOT as it should be).
But I digress (please, come digress WITH me next Sunday night!). I spoke yesterday with Tom Stitt, who has helped Dana Lewis to moderate and bring some order to the conversation (it’s a big job for a single person – especially one who’s working and going to school!) Tom is a longtime healthcare pro (he’s currently working on a fascinating project called http://patientcast.org) who’s helped Dana to manage lots of the action that happens between Sunday meetings.
On any given Sunday, there are 50-100 active participants on #hcsm. But there are a lot more “lurkers” who are watching the action, and are often unsure of the rules of engagement. Many of them will contact Tom or Dana after the meeting to ask how to participate. The funny thing is that, while this might look like a committee meeting where one shows his or her credentials before entering, it’s really an open forum. Anyone can participate at any time. The only rule is that there’s no “pitching” allowed during the hour of the forum – a rule that seems to be taken quite seriously.
So what do I get out of it?
- First, I get access to a network of people who care about many of the same things I do. I’m now following most of the people who are following @healthsocmed.
- Second, I get to hear what things those people are concerned about, working on and wondering how to begin. That helps me both to learn things I didn’t know before, but also to contextualize my own work a little better
- Third, I have a forum of true experts on whom I can test my ideas and thinking, and be referred to the best thinking out there.
So I think that we’re going to be seeing more communities like this showing up . . . in fact, if you know of other Twitter Conversation Communities, I’d love to see your comments here.
And if you’re interested in Health and Social Media, I suggest the following:
- Join in the next conversation on Sunday night at 9 p.m. EDT
- Follow @healthsocmed on Twitter
- Check out the web site at http://healthsocmed.com
- Follow along in the HealthSocMed friendfeed room
See you Sunday!
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DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
Every Sunday night an interesting group of people gets together . . . except that we’re not really together, and (almost without exception), we’ve never actually met one another.
That interesting group of people are in a “Twitter Conversation Community.” What that means is that, at a predetermined time each week, a group of 50-100 people who are interested in health and social media will arrange to be on Twitter. A designated moderator will then ask a question:
. . . and the conversations begin.
Sound like a free-for-all? It is. At any given time, there might be 10 conversations going on. And the only way that things hang together at all is that all of the participants use a hashtag to identify themselves. If you’re asking, “what on earth is a hashtag,” you’re probably in good company. A hashtag is a unique identifier that allows you to aggregate a conversation happening between multiple participants – most commonly on twitter. Specifically, you add a “hash” sign (#) in front of an identifying code (like #hcsm for “health social media”).
Using a hashtag makes it easy to run a Twitter Search on the tag . And once you’ve generated a twitter search, you can run a live feed from that search into any feed reader. And that’s how all of these disparate twitter users can follow all of the action.
While twitter doesn’t allow for tremendously deep conversations, twitter conversation communities can be really valuable:
- They allow people with similar interests to find each other
- They promote conversations and the spread of ideas and best practices
- They form the basis for new communities that can work together for mutual benefit – whether that’s by increasing their collective knowledge base, crowdsourcing new ideas, or just through the value inherent in having an expanded network
The most significant conversation community (and as far as I know, the first) was #journchat, a “weekly conversation between journalists, bloggers and PR folks.” It was created by Sarah Evans, the Director of Communications at Elgin Community College. Over just a few months, journchat has grown to several hundred weekly participants – and each session lasts for three hours.
For anyone interested in participating in a twitter conversation community, journchat has posted a nice “how to” document on their web site.
Greg’s Want Ads:
- An index of Twitter Conversation Communities
- A new name for Twitter Conversation Communities, which is both too long and too boring. Although admittedly fairly descriptive.
Up Next: the Health Social Media conversation community
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DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
It seems like everyone just can’t stop talking about social media. Just last week my wife received the American Council on Exercise’s (ACE) bimonthly newsletter and sure enough the cover story is “Marketing Your Fitness Business with Online Social Media”. (So yes, she now has homework to do!) It’s no wonder that sole-proprietors in the service industry have caught on. Times they are a changin’, and this economy is a catalyst for finding new ways of doing business.
But if you’re new to social technologies, as I was not so long ago, it can seem seriously overwhelming—not unlike those remote controls above. Blogs, micro-blogs, social networks, aggregators, feeds, sharing, and privacy issues, does it ever end? There’s a flurry of these tools and it seems like a new one catches my eye every time I fire up my laptop or iPhone. My first experience came when I finally gave in and created a basic MySpace page last year. The first time someone “dropped by” my page to “leave some love” was my cue to skedaddle out of there. I deleted my first invitation to Facebook and I couldn’t understand why anyone would want to read the ranting and raving of us common folks in a blog. I just didn’t get it at that time.
I started in the Innovation Center in January of 2008. Since social media was on our horizon, I decided that it was time for me to tiptoe in again. I am happy to report I’ve found what I consider to be the right tools for my needs. This might help if you find you’re overwhelmed.
First things first: limit your time online on any social media/networking site. Set a limit and stick to it. I spend no more than 30 minutes online and usually at night. Some of these actually allow me to be more productive.
Facebook – Sign up, build a profile, add a photo, find friends, and share. It’s that easy. Thankfully, it has enough privacy settings to lock your profile down like Fort Knox. We ought to know—Fort Knox is just down the street. AllFacebook has the must-read, skinny on privacy as well as how to get the most out of the social networking flagship. (Thanks @chimoose)
Google Reader – you can search the blogosphere for blogs centered on topics of interest to you and then read them all in Google Reader. First get a Google account and then simply look for the RSS feed on a website or a blog and click subscribe. I don’t browse to news sites anymore. I let them come to me in the reader. I can share the articles I like with my Gmail contacts.
Blogs – there are several ways to start blogging. You can create your own blog, or contribute to other blogs by posting comments. There are about a dozen of us who are taking our blogging baby steps right here on Crumple it Up. I have found Guide to Blogging very useful.
Twitter – this micro-blogging tool is the latest rage in social media. Messages are limited to 140 characters yet millions of people are using this. As far as I’m concerned, the key to Twitter is that it’s all happening in real time. Want to know what people are thinking about a brand right now? Check. You’ll find out. Also check out what our social media guru @naimul wrote about the rise of the health tweeple.
LinkedIn – this is an online resume and networking hub all in one. If this economy has you down, LinkedIn must be part of your solution to get back up. I hear it’s being used as a really inexpensive recruiting mechanism. It’s ideal for networking and connecting with hard to reach people. You really never know who’s in your network. In my experience, your profile on this page should be kept professional. Save the socializing for other sites.
Delicious – if you’re like me, you have a computer at home, a computer at work, and now a mobile device with a browser. Delicious is social bookmarking. What I love about it is it doesn’t matter which computer or device I am on because all my bookmarks are stored here. I can share them or keep them private.
SlideShare – this is like YouTube but only for presentations. The first three times I used it I found what I was looking for within two minutes. Priceless.
There’s no shortage of social media tools. I haven’t mentioned any video sites like YouTube or 12seconds.tv because I haven’t had much use for them other than entertainment. The theme here is utility. Hone in on what you need, try out a few tools, and keep the ones that make your life easier.
For further reading, our social media buddies Jason Falls, @jasonfalls, and David Finch, @davidfinch, have written extensively about all these topics on Social Media Explorer. Their motif is to embrace possibilities, and these guys know their stuff. Regardless of whether your desire is to build a personal brand or to learn something new, don’t be afraid to wade in.
What did I miss and more importantly, how are you using these tools to make your life easier?
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DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
18 percent of people who tweet are losing the ability to form words with multiple consonants, and ideas with multiple levels.
