- When it comes to community size, 54% of consumers agree that the smaller the community size, the greater the influence. (Healthcare is a niche market, subspecialties even more so)
- Online services most trusted: (1) News Sites (51%), (2) Facebook (32%), Retail Sites (31%), YouTube (29%). Blogs (29%), Google + (26%), Twitter (16%), LinkedIn (5%) (Heh, glad to see blogs ranked neck-and-neck with kitty videos)
- Online services shared the most: (1) Facebook (57%), (2) YouTube (40%), Blogs (26%), News Sites (26%), Google + (25%), Twitter (18%), LinkedIn (5%) (Blogs are shared more than Twitter? Surprised by this - perhaps this is because of the relatively static nature of blog posts.)
- Concerning creating influence: 86% of "Influencers" blog - one third of which have been blogging for more than five years. (Rock on!)
- Most bloggers operate 2-5 blogs (52%) while 43% operate just one. (OMG, I can barely handle one).
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Technorati's Social Media Update 2013
In preparation for my upcoming talk at the Heart Rhythm Society's 2013 Scientific Sessions in May, I came across this information from TechnoratiMedia's 2013 Digital Influence Report. While these data are primarily directed to general online consumer influence, doctors interested in social media might find this information interesting (my comments are italicized):
Monday, July 18, 2011
How To Teach Facebook to an Eighty-Five Year Old
I got off the phone yesterday with my 85-year old mother following her fifth Facebook training exercise. Only now can I say I feel she might find this interesting after all.
The need for my mother to get on Facebook came from a clear realization of the suffocating effects of being homebound following a fractured ankle. (I wrote about this some time ago.) I was not sure how this would go. But thanks to the tireless efforts of her care team (including my sister and brother), after 9 months she can now bear "20%" weight on her ankle. Sadly, this still means she remains homebound more often than not and is stuck watching the mind-numbing boob-tube in a geri-chair for way too many hours. She found the monotony discouraging and so many others in a similar circumstance, she grew depressed and despondent regarding her condition. And having some of her kids over 1000 miles away didn't help things.
So, in a burst of social media enthusiasm, I had an idea: maybe Facebook could offer her a chance to see the outside world and to re-connect with her long lost friends and family. Easy enough, right?
Wrong.
Getting someone who's depressed, concerned and cautious about their health to ambulate to, turn on, and "engage" with a computer for any length of time is not easy. For those of us relative youngsters, this is a snap. But for the older generation: if you want to succeed having them use this medium, I've found you have to stick to it. Here's some of the obstacles I encountered:
Physical and Cognitive Challenges
For many elderly, computers are uncomfortable distractions that require fine motor skills that should be used elsewhere. Simple things like getting to the darn thing, sitting, then moving a mouse, clicking, typing are challenging enough. Add the difficulties seeing the screen to the mix and it really gets interesting. Next, asking a computer Luddite to type a URL in the address line of Internet Explorer to go to Facebook? Patience becomes your middle word.
But if you persevere and carefully guide them across these hurdles, another hurdle quickly arrives: "What was my password again?" Cognition moves slower at eighty-five. So make sure they have a note pad and pen nearby to jot a few "reminders" down. Also, if you want to have any chance at all at teaching someone how to use Facebook from a thousand miles away via phone, use the "speaker" function on the phone to communicate: they simply can't type on a keyboard and talk to you on the phone at the same time any other way.
Persevere
Despite lots of effort to cross these physical and cognitive hurdles, I still found my mother never made it back to the computer after our first session. The hurdles proved too challenging for her to adopt Facebook after one try. Too little reward for too much effort, I guess. But the doctor in me just wouldn't give up, so we tried something different: we set up "Facebook tutorial sessions." I called her to arrange a time to sit before the computer and then called her to walk her through the process again. And again. And again. And again. Each time, a few more Betz cells were activated. Things that took two hours before, took 1 hour the next time, then thirty minutes, then fifteen. Slowly, it seemed, the burden and anxiety over the computer was lifting.
Get a Computer/Facebook Buddy
The other great realization was that having someone at their side helps them gain confidence, too. My sister played a pivotal role with my mother in this respect. She helped reinforce what she was doing and helped speed the tutorials along considerably. Bottom line: the medical philosophy of "see one, do one" proves equally effective when using Facebook, too.
So we'll see. I still haven't received a spontaneous message from my mother yet, but we'll keep trying. At least it gives her a chance to see and do something different. And, who knows?
Maybe she'll soon become an internet junkie, too.
-Wes
The need for my mother to get on Facebook came from a clear realization of the suffocating effects of being homebound following a fractured ankle. (I wrote about this some time ago.) I was not sure how this would go. But thanks to the tireless efforts of her care team (including my sister and brother), after 9 months she can now bear "20%" weight on her ankle. Sadly, this still means she remains homebound more often than not and is stuck watching the mind-numbing boob-tube in a geri-chair for way too many hours. She found the monotony discouraging and so many others in a similar circumstance, she grew depressed and despondent regarding her condition. And having some of her kids over 1000 miles away didn't help things.
So, in a burst of social media enthusiasm, I had an idea: maybe Facebook could offer her a chance to see the outside world and to re-connect with her long lost friends and family. Easy enough, right?
Wrong.
Getting someone who's depressed, concerned and cautious about their health to ambulate to, turn on, and "engage" with a computer for any length of time is not easy. For those of us relative youngsters, this is a snap. But for the older generation: if you want to succeed having them use this medium, I've found you have to stick to it. Here's some of the obstacles I encountered:
Physical and Cognitive Challenges
For many elderly, computers are uncomfortable distractions that require fine motor skills that should be used elsewhere. Simple things like getting to the darn thing, sitting, then moving a mouse, clicking, typing are challenging enough. Add the difficulties seeing the screen to the mix and it really gets interesting. Next, asking a computer Luddite to type a URL in the address line of Internet Explorer to go to Facebook? Patience becomes your middle word.
But if you persevere and carefully guide them across these hurdles, another hurdle quickly arrives: "What was my password again?" Cognition moves slower at eighty-five. So make sure they have a note pad and pen nearby to jot a few "reminders" down. Also, if you want to have any chance at all at teaching someone how to use Facebook from a thousand miles away via phone, use the "speaker" function on the phone to communicate: they simply can't type on a keyboard and talk to you on the phone at the same time any other way.
Persevere
Despite lots of effort to cross these physical and cognitive hurdles, I still found my mother never made it back to the computer after our first session. The hurdles proved too challenging for her to adopt Facebook after one try. Too little reward for too much effort, I guess. But the doctor in me just wouldn't give up, so we tried something different: we set up "Facebook tutorial sessions." I called her to arrange a time to sit before the computer and then called her to walk her through the process again. And again. And again. And again. Each time, a few more Betz cells were activated. Things that took two hours before, took 1 hour the next time, then thirty minutes, then fifteen. Slowly, it seemed, the burden and anxiety over the computer was lifting.
Get a Computer/Facebook Buddy
The other great realization was that having someone at their side helps them gain confidence, too. My sister played a pivotal role with my mother in this respect. She helped reinforce what she was doing and helped speed the tutorials along considerably. Bottom line: the medical philosophy of "see one, do one" proves equally effective when using Facebook, too.
So we'll see. I still haven't received a spontaneous message from my mother yet, but we'll keep trying. At least it gives her a chance to see and do something different. And, who knows?
Maybe she'll soon become an internet junkie, too.
-Wes
Monday, October 18, 2010
Healthcare's Facebook
This morning, the Wall Street Journal's front page story exposed a significant privacy breech of online personal information via the world's most popular social networking sight, Facebook:
To which I say: "Duh!"
When it comes to money, people get awfully creative.
So while Facebook grapples with its latest public relations nightmare, we should realize our electronic medical record app vendors are doing exactly the same thing. Worse, it's perfectly legal, even though each of use has been assured our privacy settings are set to 'maximum' through the reassurances of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (PSQIA).
That's because Clause 4302 of our new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) dealing with "Health Disparities" mandates:
Welcome to healthcare's Facebook.
In comparison, the open-ended phrasing of many portions of our new PPACA law makes Facebook's privacy issues look like chump change.
-Wes
Many of the most popular applications, or "apps," on the social-networking site Facebook Inc. have been transmitting identifying information—in effect, providing access to people's names and, in some cases, their friends' names—to dozens of advertising and Internet tracking companies, a Wall Street Journal investigation has found.How could they? Imagine the nerve of marketers using Facebook ID's to develop profiles on people using little socializing games! Facebook has a privacy policy! I was assured that if I set my privacy settings to 'maximum,' this would never happen!
The issue affects tens of millions of Facebook app users, including people who set their profiles to Facebook's strictest privacy settings. The practice breaks Facebook's rules, and renews questions about its ability to keep identifiable information about its users' activities secure.
To which I say: "Duh!"
When it comes to money, people get awfully creative.
So while Facebook grapples with its latest public relations nightmare, we should realize our electronic medical record app vendors are doing exactly the same thing. Worse, it's perfectly legal, even though each of use has been assured our privacy settings are set to 'maximum' through the reassurances of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the The Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act of 2005 (PSQIA).
That's because Clause 4302 of our new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) dealing with "Health Disparities" mandates:
The Secretary (of Health and Human Services) shall ensure that, by not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this title, any federally conducted or supported health care or public health program, activity or survey (including Current Population Surveys and American Community Surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of the Census) collects and reports, to the extent practicableJust like Facebook's apps that look for certain characteristics of social media games, patients with health "disparities" will be mandated by law to have their data transmitted to "the Office of Minority Health, the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Indian Health Service and epidemiology centers funded under the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the Office of Rural health, other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, and other entities as determined appropriate by the Secretary."(A) data on race, ethnicity, sex, primary language, and disability status for applicants, recipients, or participants; ...
(D) any other demographic data as deemed appropriate by the Secretary regarding health disparities.
Welcome to healthcare's Facebook.
In comparison, the open-ended phrasing of many portions of our new PPACA law makes Facebook's privacy issues look like chump change.
-Wes
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