Joseph A. Cerro

Health 2.0 Conference (Oct '08) Twitter Stream

When I attended the Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco last month, I learned that some of the participants planned to microblog the conference using twitter. Twitter is a tool that allows users to post short messages (140 characters or fewer) to the web and to share them easily with others. When multiple twitter users "follow" each other online, the effect is something like joining a near real time conversation.

Somewhere along the way, twitter users began adding a "#" symbol (pound sign or hash character) before key words in their messages, tagging the words as being somehow important or adding context. The neat thing about such "hashtags" is that twitter's search tool lets you find messages containing specific hashtags, even if you aren't "following" the person who originally posted the message.

This is where it gets interesting: if people agree on a hashtag for an event (like a conference), then it becomes easy to follow what is happening at that conference, even if you are not actually attending it. Further, collecting messages with a specific hashtag creates a record of an event, not so different from collecting a series of dispatches by a group of correspondents. Finally, if you are at a conference, following a hashtag thread can let you know about last minute changes, insider info, spontaneous get-togethers, or simply where to find the best beer within walking distance of the convention center.

At the Health 2.0 Conference, people settled on the #health2con and #health20con hashtags. Using these tags truly added to the conference experience, allowing people to connect and to converse with a wide range of participants whom they might not have met otherwise, and, best of all, providing a means to keep the conversation going beyond the conference.

The consolidated #health2con/#health20con search results are available at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23health20con+OR+%23health2con&rpp=100

Unfortunately, twitter's search engine only returns the last six months of results, so that link may not show the results from this past October's conference by next April or May. On the bright side, by then I'm sure that it will show the results from the next Health 2.0 Conference, to be held on April 22-23, 2009 in Boston!

Now, we just need to get the ball rolling for a hashtag for next month's Consumer Health World conference...

2009 Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference

During the last five or six years, I've given a series of talks about the importance of embracing serendipity in industrial R&D, rather than applying too much "six sigma" style engineering to research processes. A different engineering emphasis is required, particularly in early research, where uncertainty is greatest, and where rapid adaptation, rather than a priori prediction, seems more feasible. I've enjoyed developing that basic idea into a reasonable set of process guidelines and best practices that are now recognizably deployed in the real world.

More recently, improvements in consumer technology and software interfaces have made it easier than ever to collect diverse information and, better yet, to respond to unexpected signals in the data which might impact product development or even human health (positively and negatively). This sets the stage for the next phase of embracing serendipity.

The folks at Cambridge Healthtech Institute were kind enough to invite me to give an "enabling serendipity" update at their Molecular Medicine Tri-Conference in San Francisco in February. Perfect timing! This will be a great opportunity to highlight the truly innovative work that some of my clients have been undertaking in the areas of consumer-technology enabled pharma R&D, theranostic development, and care management, all of which incorporate an openness to serendipity. Here is my preliminary abstract:

Democratized Serendipity: Leveraging Consumer-Oriented Technologies into Better R&D and Better Health Care Decisions.
Joseph A. Cerro, President, The Schooner Group, LLC

The combination of (1) ubiquitous consumer electronic devices, (2) flexible, inexpensive manufacturing capabilities, (3) easy to use "Web 2.0" interfaces, and (4) an increasing willingness of individuals to manage aspects of their own health care creates an unprecedented opportunity to collect patient data in the field in near real time. Analyzing such data has the potential to transform the way pharmaceutical companies manage clinical development programs and may create new opportunities for theranostic development, biomarker validation, and, most importantly, individualized care management. Several such projects will be discussed in this session.

If you have any suggestions for the talk, or if there is a particular issue that you'd like me to cover, just send me a note via email or Twitter. I'll also be moderating a session or two in the conference's R&D informatics track. If you'll be at the conference, I hope to see you there!

Updated - Download Presentation: (1.8 MB Zipped PDF file).

OpenProj

Via Matt Asay, I just learned about OpenProj, a free, cross-platform, open source alternative to Microsoft Project. Despite needing a little GUI polish on MacOS X (it uses a retro-Copland theme), it's very impressive. If you are a heavy Microsoft Project user, I wouldn't recommend switching to OpenProj, but if you work in a cross-platform environment (Unix, Windows, Mac, Linux), or if you only need to open or edit Microsoft Project files on an occasional basis, it's definitely worth a look. OpenProj is maintained by Projity, a firm which also offers subscription access to a web-based project tool, Project-ON-Demand, which uses a SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model.

Now, where can I find a good, cross-platform, open source Visio replacement?

The Semantic Web in 280 Characters or Less

An interesting aspect of Twitter is that "tweets" are limited to 140 characters, forcing a certain discipline when trying to express complex concepts. In response to a tweet about the definition of the Semantic Web, I tried to boil it all down to two tweets worth of characters:

First:

Info that's tagged so that software can help you find what you are REALLY looking for. Same as today's web but w/better Sig2Noise.

Second: 

...add some cool agent tech and you can even do some real work with it. Not many working examples. Still early on the hype curve.

Yes, I derive perverse pleasure from trying to describe ideas in 140-280 characters that many speakers can't explain in a sixty minute talk. (He smiles an evil grin.)

Today's assignment: explain your company's business or your key product in a single tweet.

Interviewed in InfoWorld

Ephraim Schwartz has a nice profile of my colleagues at Mirador Capital in the May 14th edition of Infoworld, and Ephraim was kind enough to use a few quotes from "yours truly."

Disclosure: I advise Mirador on some of their business development and networking activities.

IT Governance / IT Leadership

Nicholas Carr points out a recent article in The McKinsey Quarterly entitled "What IT Leaders Do" which suggests that "governance initiatives often end up making a bad situation worse". I fully agree! Getting governance "right" is a real challenge, and, yes, it does require real leadership. If you are interested in the topic, the referenced article is worth reading in full, as are many of the governance-oriented articles which have shown up in The McKinsey Quarterly over the past few years. I recommended a few in particular some months ago.
 

Amish Cell Phones

I just came across a wonderful article from a few years ago about the use of technology within the Amish community.

Key insights:

Far from knee-jerk technophobes, these [Amish] are very adaptive techno-selectives who devise remarkable technologies that fit within their self-imposed limits.

and

"Does it bring us together, or draw us apart?" is the question bishops ask in considering whether to permit or put away a technology.

As the cliche says, "Read the whole thing."

(Hat tip: Slashdot)

Friendly Advice to Folks in e-Marketing and e-Publishing

Today's winner of the "Pet Peeve of the Day Award" goes to all email newsletters which repeatedly and spontaneously (at least to the recipient) stop arriving in plain text format and begin to arrive in HTML format, even though the subscriber has previously chosen plain text instead of HTML formatted email!

Compounding the irritation is the fact that the "plain text" option still exists, but it can be quite a challenge to reset the subscription back to plain text due to confusing web pages or the requirement to dig up an old username/password combination.

Just a quick reminder to anyone in e-marketing who cares to reach their potential clients: many companies disable HTML rendering (particularly image retrieval) in their email clients, and, believe it or not, many companies do not use Microsoft Exchange. Oh yeah, one other thing - many companies also place tight quotas on user mailbox size -- by switching to HTML, one newsletter's message size went from approximately 10 kB to approximately 80 kB, which makes it that much more likely to be deleted quickly.

Maybe I'm over-reacting, but as of today, I am cancelling all of my Bio-IT World email newsletter subscriptions. Given my responsibilities and my budget, I can't imagine that this was the outcome that they were looking for, but given my responsibilities and my budget, I am simply tired of continually having to reset a preference which I have never changed!

PS. I don't intend to pick on Bio-IT World. They are actually quite a good publication, and I know some of the staff pretty well. Bio-IT World is merely the latest culprit. Many publications are guilty of the same offense, but all of them really should know better than to do this to their customers.

PPS. Please, no advice on choosing a new email client. It's not going to happen anytime soon.

Update: I just remembered an interesting article about newsletter usability by Jakob Nielsen. If you are in the business of sending out email newsletters, it is worth reading.

Avoiding Identity Theft

Bob Lewis has an excellent column (free registration required) on avoiding identity theft this week. Great advice, easily followed.