LiveBlog: “Edge” Content and the Wisdom of Crowds
Written November 6th, 2007 by Aaron Holbrook8:03 The main session is starting for the last day of the conference. I’m glad that the conference is sponsored but the sales pitch about smart cards is a little tired. I’m really interested in what Shel has to say. I attended his session at the last Internet Healthcare Conference last year.
8:10 Shel starts his presentation describing centralized content. Ebay, craigslist, newspaper classifieds. Democratization has occurred and content creation has become decentralized.
8:13 Some stats for early morning pertaining to the social media space:
* 1.3 Million blog posts daily (18 per second) (glad we could help Shel!)
* 100,000 new blogs daily
* 100 million MySpace profiles
This is all just to show that it’s not just “nerds in pajamas any more”.
8:16 Ah, he just made reference to how myspace isn’t the cream of the crop social network anymore. Thank god, it’s about time – myspace is a good example of a good idea implemented very poorly but still hit it off. Facebook has really taken over – but we’ll see what Google’s OpenSocial will do.
8:17 LinkedIn is the professional social network, says Shel. Check it out. I don’t have an account with LinkedIn yet, but I think that’ll be changing. Not really sure how effective it’ll be to have an account – but we’ll see. I mean, why do we need LinkedIn? We’ve already got WebiScope 
.
8:22 Shel’s begun discussion of the wisdom of crowds.
8:24 Haha, RSS – finally! Thank you Shel, although this was touched on quite a bit last year, I’m still surprised at how many people are still not using RSS.
8:27 One of Shel’s favorite hospital blog. I’ll definitely be checking that out later. Interesting – apparently it’s a blog started by the CEO of a hospital who builds his credibility by being transparent and asking the hard questions.
8:29 Shel continues discussion on how blog’s can be a good publicity tool. I think Shel really understands how useful and yet how sensitive blogs and bloggers can be.
8:32 Hmmm, widgets. Haha, he declared 2007 as the year of the widgets. Not a bad call, seeing as how everything from google to vista have been pushing widgets upon us.
Ok – I get it. Widgets are hot, they’re cool, but seriously? I don’t even use them. Why would I expect my mother to? Or my grandmother? I think we’re really missing the big picture here. And this isn’t a shot at Shel – this is more of a general question to everyone. Why is it that we’re so focused on all this web 2.0 stuff, when we’re forgetting the basics: content is king.
[I'm handing the rest over to Thomas to get his reaction to this session. Enjoy ]
8:39:57 Hello, all! First, a comment. It won’t come as any surprise by anyone who has read any of my previous comments that I don’t, at this time, buy into widgets for healthcare. It might be relatively easy to set up for your news, but don’t expect this to have an incredible effect. Instead, use it as a way to reach out to media.
8:45:06 Here’s another reference to YouTube. I needn’t go into this again. But he did say that it works for things that are interesting. I’ll go along with that. I guess I just don’t see an interview with a doctor about impaction in the intestines as interesting. Particularly not if doesn’t give me any other information than I could otherwise get at Wikipedia.
8:53:18 SecondLife has been mentioned a few times during these sessions. I remember back a few or so years ago when SecondLife was going to change how people networked, did business, and were even taxed! What has happened? None of it. In fact, I recently read an article about how organizations started taking applications from SecondLife users through SecondLife. While they did receive applications, I believe only two people were hired. And, if I remember correctly, only one is still with the organization. So how is this applicable to healthcare? It isn’t. Not unless you create a SecondLife hospital to treat the avatars of these people, but that’s more than ridiculous. Anyway, the point is that I don’t understand why SecondLife is being brought up in some of these sessions. Feel free to discuss if you think otherwise.
8:57:59 Many companies are holding contests to create videos about their organizations. Southwest and Mentos are the two companies he cites. Let’s run this through the Appilicable-to-Healthcare Machine: …computing… undefined. Here’s two problems I see with this idea. First, what will they make a video about? “Make a video about what you think a hip replacement surgery is like!” You probably won’t get many entries. The other problem I see is community support or motivation. Many of us consider our local population as our target demographic. Southwest and Mentos could literally get entries from across the nation and world. Some community hospital advertising a “create your own video about us” would likely get maybe.. maybe.. one or two entries. And I can’t even imagine what they would look like.
9:05:12 Another interesting comment. He says that these social media forms should be “along with” your old mediums, not replacing. This is interesting to me, as I continue to preach that what we lack the most of is adequate, compelling content. Meanwhile, I sit through many social media presentations. I think in some ways, because we are generally small departments, we forget the content aspect and instead focus on the new media techniques that look neat.
Well, that’s it for this session!
Presenter
Shel Holtz
Holtz Communication + Technology
November 7th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
I saw Shel last yr and was glad they had him as a keynote. He’s really very good and brings a good combination of solid PR background with a respectable knowledge of new media to his skills. It’s a unique and valuable combination.
November 7th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
Regarding the “sales pitch” about SMART cards that preceeded Shel’s presentation: Unfortunately, but understandably, some experts charge fees to share their insight at conferences and SMART Association paid those fees to bring Shel to the meeting. We require any “sales” pitch be short but feel we have to let the sponsor justify the cost. We might be able to get around this by having the speaker answer questions following the presentation at the sponsors booth…but that too has some downside. Just sharing the rationale associated with administration a national conference.
November 7th, 2007 at 8:10 pm
@John: Well if that’s the reasoning, I’m glad to sit through a pitch to hear a truly good speaker. I think Shel’s content was spot on and his delivery is always enjoyable. I’m glad he was there again this year, and even more pleased to see him in a general session.
Thanks for your insight and explanation.
November 7th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
@Aaron: We have had Shel present for 2 years in a row … however, social networking is changing so fast he has new and important info to share each time. Therefore today I exchanged notes and arranged for Shel to come to Orlando next year and again present at the Healthcare Internet Conference. FYI.