Mayo Clinic Social Media Health Care Summit: Day 2 and Day 3

(apologies for the late posting, but it's been a heck of a week in the lab)

Days 2 and 3 of the Social Media Health Care Summit were very busy.  

Tuesday's keynote was by Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic's head of social media.  Lee told the crowd about how social media is starting to integrate into the DNA of Mayo.  He talked about some of the Clinic's big social media successes as well as unveiling a few surprises.  

After the keynote, I wandered from session to session.  I was impressed with the quality of each speaker.  Each presenter had a personal story to tell.  I was exposed to many new ideas from medial professionals, social media experts, entrepreneurs, marketers, and lawyers.  

By far, the people who had the strongest impact on me were the patients that had made the trip to learn about social media.  I especially enjoyed talking with Katherine Leon and Laura Heywood-Cory, two Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD) survivors.  Katherine and Laura met online and soon formed a community of SCAD survivors.  These women decided to take charge of their rare medical condition and bring their community and their willingness to participate in research to Dr. Sharonne Hays of the Mayo Clinic.  Dr. Hays organized a small pilot trial and the online SCAD community contributed records and DNA samples for further studies.  This study was recently published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.   

I believe that as social media continues to grow, we are going to see more and more people willing to take control of their own health.  

The conference closing speaker was Dave deBronkart or "ePatient Dave".  I think that his talk can best be summarized by listening to his TEDx talk from a few years ago.  Dave presents such an honest and compelling story, that it's hard not to find yourself caught up in it.  

I did not attend the "Social Media Residency", but it offered onsite training and advice on almost every aspect of social media.  

If you are a medial or research professional, I would strongly urge you to attend next year.  I will even buy you a beer at the bar after the conference is over.

Update on Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 08:37PM by Jamie Sundsbak

Note: Changed "Sudden" on SCAD to reflect its true name "Spontaneous"

Adventures in Social Media: Day 1

The pre-conference session of the third annual Mayo Clinic Social Media Health Care Summit kicked off what's hopefully going to be an exciting week.  The first day was the pre-conference session that served as a primer to social media.  The next two days are going to be jam-packed by presentations from some of the best minds in social media health.  

The first presentation was by independant social media consultant Shel Hotlz.  Shel is a walking stat machine about social media. In many ways, these numbers (as well as the case studies he discussed) are what will help convince any organization that they NEED to adopt a social media strategy.  Shel explained why if you don't adopt a responsible and proactive social media strategy in your organization, you will be left behind.  

The afternoon session was a panel moderated by Dr. Farris Timimi from the Mayo Clnic.  The panelists (Christian Sinclair, Mark Ryan, Matt Katz and Jennifer Shine Dyer) are all fantastic examples of physicians who were early adoptors of social media. It was extremely helpful to someone like myself to hear from such strong voices in the community. All of the panelists came from very different backgrounds, but seemed to converge in the social media space.  They revealed that they developed their social media platforms because they had a real passion for what they were doing, not out of some personal finanacial gain or institutional mandate. As I sat there, it seemed that they all wanted the crowd to just "jump in with both feet" and embrace social media in their organizations, but were a bit reluctant to actually say that.  As someone that has "jumped in" numerous times, I admire the dedication and the passion that these individuals bring to medicine.  

I know that there are researchers out there who are just as passionate about what they do.  If you are one, I'd love to chat with you about your first forrays into social media.  

(more to come....I know I'm a day behind....)

Adventures in Social Media

Well, I'm off to my first social media conference.  Strangely enough, it's in the same town so at least that nasty travel won't be so bad.  Nothing like getting up first thing in the morning and driving YOUR CAR to a conference.  

I'm really looking forward to meeting some great people and getting some great ideas about how we all can use social media in research. 

I will try and give a few summaries of what I have learned each day (as long as my laptop holds out).  

Stay tuned...

My Top 8 iPhone Apps for Research

I use my iPhone 4 in the lab every day.  In fact, I’m starting to consider it a vital research tool.  Sure there are plenty of great apps out there that are specifically for the life sciences, but I seem to rely on basic apps rather than “field specific” apps.  

In this post, we’ll briefly touch on what I consider the eight vital apps that will make your iPhone invaluable in the lab.   

NOTE:  All of these picks work for the iPod Touch as well.

This is the first screen of my iPhone.  Like most people, my main screen is where my most used apps live.  As you can see, there aren’t any research specific apps here, so how do these apps relate to research?

1.  Mail:  Sure, it’s the basic email program of the iPhone, but it’s my primary means of communication throughout the day.  It’s paging and email all in one.  I’m not one to waste a lot of time.  I like to get back to people ASAP.  This helps to keep me in my “Inbox Zero” state of grace throughout a busy day.  

2.  Calendar:  Calendar serves as my personal assistant.  It bugs me at just the right time before meetings and allows me to determine if I have a chance to fit that meeting in before my daughter’s piano lesson.  If your institution has an Exchange server, than you have no reason not to use Calendar.  

3.  Yammer:  The Yammer app is my personal connection to the “brain trust” of my organization.  For those of you that aren’t familiar with Yammer, it’s essentially Facebook for business.  It allows organizations to set up employee private networks to facilitate communication on almost any topic.  I subscribe to many such groups and contribute regularly to them.  Have an Excel problem?  Just post it on your institution’s Yammer site and I can guarantee that someone will get back to you with an answer right away.  Research specific groups can be extremely powerful (more on that in another post).  

4.  Evernote:  Evernote is the “crown jewel” of applications on almost any platform.  Billed as your “second brain” Evernote allows you to store almost any scrap of data (in physical form or digital form) in a massively searchable database that can be accessed from any computer or mobile device.  In fact, I have begun using Evernote as a digital laboratory notebook.  More on that later.  I use Evernote at the bench to jot down quick notes, look up references/publications and snap pics of reorder numbers on boxes of lab supplies.  It really is the most invaluable app you can download.  Evernote is part of a service, but their free account will be enough to get you started.  

5.  Toodledo: There are many todo list applications in the App Store.  As always, I prefer the free ones.  Toodledo is a free app that is extremely powerful.  I don’t use a lot of the app’s functionality.  I just use it to add a new todo item and to check items that are due during the day.  The app is tied to Toodledo’s excellent web service which gives you a true Getting Things Done (GTD) system.  Used in combination with the Calendar app, you will be able to think through a project and actually get it done on time!  The app is free and so is the basic website.  There is a pay service, but for all but the most experienced GTD’er it’s probably not necessary.  

6.  Clock: Yet another standard app that is tremendously useful in a lab.  The power comes from the built-in timer.  Unfortunately, there is only one timer.  Most busy bench workers need multiple timers.  Usually, I’ll just set an alarm if I need multiple timers.  This is probably the one app that I wish I could find an alternative for. 

7.  Calculator: The thought of purchasing a $300 iPhone and using it for a basic calculator might sound ridiculous, but how many of us carry a calculator anymore?  Tip: For advanced science calculator mode, just turn the iPhone into landscape mode.

8.  iPod:  In my humble opinion, the iPod is the most important app on an iPhone.  It allows you to suffer through monotonous (and let’s be frank, BORING) bench work by listening to your favorite music, podcasts, or audiobooks.  It also allows you to tune out the outside world and actually focus on your task at hand.  I would be totally lost in the lab without it.

So those are my top 8 apps.  Surprisingly, all of these apps either come with an iPhone or are free downloads from the App Store. 

What are your favorite iPhone/iPod Touch apps?  Feel free to post your thoughts in the comments section.  

Introductions

Why am I qualified to write a blog about the crossroads of science and technology?  The answer most certainly is that I’m probably not the best qualified, but I’ll give it a try anyway.  

I’ve been a research or clinical technician for the last 13 years.  For those of you that don’t know about the hierarchy of labs, techs can range from high school graduates to PhD’s who basically stay in the lab performing tasks and running experiments.  They usually work under the direction of a Principal Investigator (or PI) and act as the “hands” of the PI.  

I have had a love of technology since I was little.  When I was very young, I was given a Beta VCR.  It became the sole mission of my life to learn how it worked.  From that moment on, I started to fall in love with technology and how it could make our lives easier.  My love of tech slowly evolved to computers and finally to the internet.  

It was during the early 2000’s that my passion the internet turned into my obsession.  I began to see that the internet was allowing people to reach across the world to communicate with each other.  I started an early version of Life Science Nexus to act as “social glue” for scientists.  LSN’s main goal was to provide a home for the life science community by providing insightful articles, allowing scientists to make connections, and (gasp) entertain themselves by doing a weekly podcast (which can still be found on the web if you look real hard).  I was energized every day.  This is what I was born to do.

Then life got in the way.

See, I’m not just a technician and a technology fanatic, but I’m a father as well.  I would come home exhausted from a day in the lab to again exhaust myself as a father.  This left very little time to think about an emerging business.  I put my website on the shelf and told myself that I would come back to it.

Every year the lifescienceneuxus.com domain came up for renewal and every year, I renewed it.  I just couldn’t give it away.  It was an unfinished dream that I just couldn’t shake.  

It took the death of Steve Jobs, one of my role models, to convince me to “just start”.  

So LSN is back!  Instead of a social network for scientists, I’m just trying to create a blog that helps those in the life sciences make their lives easier by using technology to their advantage.  

If I can help just one person use technology to make a huge breakthrough or get out of the lab early and home to his or her family, I will consider this blog a success.  

Enjoy!