April 28th, 2011 by AndrewSchorr in Health Policy, Opinion
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Imagine you’re a pharmaceutical company product manager and your specific product helps people with a chronic illness, or a cancer that can be managed by taking a pill or an injectable medicine over many years. You want to be part of the dialogue patients have with each other. You want to be part of the community. Facebook users, and other social media participants, are increasingly forming groups around health conditions, big and small. You want to be there, because, after all, your company has invested hundreds of millions of dollars developing the approved drug and hopes this medicine, and perhaps a successor, will be on the market for a long time.
This is an exciting time on the Internet and pharmaceutical product managers want to be part of health discussions. But it is fraught with legal pitfalls and penalties that can range into the millions of dollars if the product manager, or associated marketing agencies, make even an innocent mistake. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Andrew's Blog*
April 25th, 2011 by Berci in Opinion
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I’ve been building a medical community on Twitter for years and now I have about 6000 followers including doctors, medical students, patients, medical librarians, scientists, etc. Whenever I have a question about my profession, PhD, or social media, generally I receive a valid and relevant answer in minutes. I don’t always know who might have the answer for my questions, that’s why it can be beneficial to put that into a large pot full of people with similar interests and wait for the answer. There is always someone with an answer or there is always someone in the communities of my community who might have the final solution.
That’s why I use Twitter for everyday communication, even though my main platform is my still blog.
It’s an honor to be included in the world’s top 10 medical Twitter users’ list. Last year, I was selected by The Independent and later my Twitter story was mentioned in the New York Times. Although, I publish the core content of my activities on my blog instead of Twitter, but now that is the place to track interesting medical stories. According to Peer Index, I’m the 6th in a list of 1000 medical Twitterers. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
April 8th, 2011 by PhilBaumannRN in Opinion
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“The world will be better if you share more.” That’s what Mark Zuckerberg claims. And it’s part of a general philosophy of many fans of social media: that they help us to be more “social”, friendlier, cooperative, collaborative…in other words better.
But what – in truth – is the default mode of social media? On the surface, one would think “social”. That can’t be true though, for no technologies have social implanted in them – by definition, human-social belongs to humans.
So when I dip into my Twitter stream, for instance, I see huge volumes of people saying nice things, quoting positive aphorisms, replying to each other with accolades. If you didn’t know any better, you might conclude these are conversations between people who’ve know each other for decades. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*
April 4th, 2011 by PhilBaumannRN in Opinion
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Kevin Kelly wants us to undertand what he calls the “technium” and outlines his life’s work in What Technology Wants. I’d like to riff on the way Kelly uses the word “want” with respect to Social Media, and ask: “What does social media want?”
Social Media wants…
- Your time
- Your attention
- Your friends
- Your brand
- Your business
- Your data
- Your privacy
- Your publicity
- Your location
- Your behaviors
- Your wants
- Your life
There’s nothing wrong with “want” in itself – maybe it’s OK that Social Media wants all these things – and more.
The more critical question, rather, is: What do you want?
As the power of technology increases the number of choices we can make, we will have to intensify our awareness of who we are and where we’re headed.
Whatever Social Media wants, what you want determines how much it gets.
@PhilBaumann
*This blog post was originally published at Phil Baumann*
April 4th, 2011 by Michael Sevilla, M.D. in Medblogger Shout Outs, Opinion
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Shout out to @DanaMLewis for pointing out this post from Mashable entitled, “Why Curation Is Just As Important As Creation.” When people are starting out in social media creation, whether it be blogging, or podcasting, or whatever – the phrase always comes up – “Content Is King.” But is content really king anymore?
Now, I certainly wasn’t the first physician blogger, but I would probably consider myself “in those early days.” I mean, starting in 2006 was a few years ago. Back then, writing every single day was imperative. And, the way that you were judged were the amount of comments that you received. I mean, this was in the days before facebook and twitter, when the comment section of the blog was the only way to give feedback publically.
Back then, the way to make a name for yourself was to have the home base of the blog, and that’s how people knew you. Now, with so much content out there, people are overwhelmed and just cannot read everything that they want to read. I definitely can relate to this.
Now, many people are becoming “internet famous” by just sharing through their twitter or facebook stream – the items which they think are important. Maybe, sometimes, not even creating a bit of content on their own. Does this make them a second class citizen in the social media world – not anymore.
I agree with the assertion that being the “information maven” – meaning evaluating social media information – meaning being a curator – instead of a social media creator – this will be very important in the days ahead. Am I wrong, let me know in the comments below – or on twitter, or on facebook, or other social media way…
*This blog post was originally published at Family Medicine Rocks Blog - Mike Sevilla, MD*
