The Health Wisdom Blog™ (by OrganizedWisdom)

Personalized Health Information Based on Your Genome

Navigenics Health Compass is launching this week in NYC at a series of events and panel discussions called DNANYC.  OrganizedWisdom Health is thrilled to participate on the panel Personalized Genomic Health: New Paradigms, New Industry this Thursday evening.  Steven Krein will join John Doerr, David Agus, MD, and Dean Ornish MD  to focus on the impact these new services will have health care services and health information.

As more people use services like Navigenics Health Compass or 23andMe.com, they will need personalized information and education to help them better understand their genomic report. One reason the service from Navigenics is so interesting is because it provides 24/7 access to a team of Genetic Counselors to help explain what your genetic analysis means and support you in knowing how to take next steps. OrganizedWisdom is supporting this concept by developing WisdomCards on each of the relevant SNP Codes and health conditions currently mapped by the reports. Get your genome mapped, and use OrganizedWisdom's WisdomCards to research more about each of the specific conditions in your report.

Personalized health information tailored for an individual is here.  Just like people want specific information tailored to their location and interests, they will be able to get education and WisdomCards that map to their human genome. 

Pretty amazing where this is all going.  And it's only just the beginning.   

OrganizedWisdom Introduces LiveWisdom: Connecting People with Doctors Should be Easy, Affordable, and Accessible to All

We've just returned from the second Health 2.0 conference that took place in San Diego earlier this week.  It was a tremendous event with standing room only, as was to be expected given Indu Subaiya and Matthew Holt organized it. 

Over 30 companies presented and hundreds more attended.  The networking was fantastic and we were happy to meet with so many other thought leaders, friends and colleagues in the Health 2.0 world.  Some highlights included Esther Dyson showing us 23andMe in action, spending quality time with Adam Bosworth (formally Google Health now Keas.com), participating in the Unconference, announcing the dCard at the Health 2.0 Accelerator, learning more from Susannah Fox, working with IDEO, catching up with Craig Stoltz, finally meeting David Hamilton from Venture Beat in person, doing video interviews with ICYou.com crew, finalizing details with Cheryl Greene from DrGreene.com, convos with Scott Schreve David Kibbe, and Enoch Choi, hearing from Josh Seidman that the next Information Therapy Conference will be in DC, and having drinks with East Coast friends Bill Allman from Health CentralNetwork, Paul Gollash from Virgin, Jack Barrette from WEGOHealth, Jay Parkinson from Myca. The list goes on and on...

But the highlight for us was presenting LiveWisdom for the first time.   

On stage with AmericanWell and Jay Parkinson, OrganizedWisdom demoed something we are extremely excited about and believe will help change health care forever.  We launched LiveWisdom, a new Live Chat and Email service that is currently in a beta pilot and will soon be integrated on all of our WisdomCards.

LiveWisdom enables people to chat LIVE and anonymously with a board-certified doctor, health professional or health advocate for only a $1.99 a minute.  Yep, $1.99 a minute.  We are brining micro payments to health care so that anyone (insured or not) can at least ask a doctor a question when they need to.  LiveWisdom is embedded directly into WisdomCards so that people can ask important questions or get additional information directly related to the health topics they are searching on at the time.  It's that simple. 

We believe that connecting with doctors should be easy, affordable, and accessible to all.  There are millions of people who have questions they need answered quickly, privately, and from the convenience of their own home.  LiveWisdom is not meant to replace a doctor visit, like the service AmericanWell will provide, but people often have important questions that a live chat with a doctor could quickly answer.  If more information or an actual visit to a doctor is required then we can refer people to American Well, Myca,  a local mediclinic, hospital or doctor depending on the situation.

(Click to read what VentureBeat had to say about our new service).

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the service and integrating LiveWisdom into all of our WisdomCards so that people who are searching for important health information will now have access to a doctor.  If you are a board-certified doctor or health professional and are interested in joining our LiveWisdom program please contact us at info at organizedwisdom dot com.

Information Therapy Movement Taking Off

I'm in Park City, Utah participating in the 6th Annual Information Therapy Conference, hosted by the Josh Seidman and the Center for Information Therapy.  It's a great event so far and I'm looking forward to speaking about Health 2.0 trends and presenting OrganizedWisdom along with RevolutionHealth and DailyStrength on a panel hosted by Matthew Holt and Indu Subaiya.

It's clear that the iX movement is evolving and is moving beyond the education phase to becoming a full-blown "movement".  Six years into the great work and education from the thought leaders attending over the years, there's no doubt the information providers, media companies, hospitals, physicians, nurses, marketers, etc. all get the value in prescribing information to patients as a solution to improving people's health, and solving some of today's biggest health challenges. 

It makes sense that just like prescribing medications to patients, one of the most essential solutions to improving patient care and people's health is to prescribe the right information, to the right patient, at the right time.

Making sure patients get quality information is perhaps the most essential solution the healthcare universe can implement when you consider that more people are now searching online for health information than seeing their doctor and that 80% of patient care today continues to be self-care.  That is, most people today continue to self-diagnose and self-treat (links to the powerpoints where I got these stats will soon be available on the iX Alliance Web site).

Attending this year are not only some of the country's largest hospitals and health providers, but also a new crop of Health 2.0 innovators as well as major media companies like the NYTimes which continues to make amazing innovations to The Gray Lady's health section under the leadership of Sarah Greene.

The energy is palpable and it is exciting to see such a great group of thinkers, entrepreneurs, leaders, health practitioners, and organizations working together to push this mission forward. There's no doubt that access to better information will help a lot of people.

Why Ning And The Commoditization of Social Networking Matters

Not long ago companies like Blogger (now owned by Google), Sixapart, and Wordpress forever changed the Web by making it easy and virtually free for anyone to create their own blog and become an online publisher.  After only a few years blog search engine Technorati is tracking over 70,000,000 blogs!

Today, at least two new companies, Ning and KickApps, are evolving the Web even more by making it just as easy for anyone to quickly and inexpensively (FREE!) create their own social network on any topic.

Social networking has been around as long as blogging, but only within the last year have these new turn-key software solutions made it plug-n-play simple for anyone (or any company) to create their own networking communities.  For years, people have been creating Yahoo! Groups, and leveraging the power of MySpace and now Facebook.  But people have little control in these walled gardens and they make it difficult to customize their services.  (Yes, even with Facebook Apps).

Ning and KickApps on the other hand have leveled the playing field yet again and as a result the social network has been commoditized.  In fact, in the past few months tens of thousands of people have launched their own social networks.  Ning alone now boasts over 80,000 communities created since they opened up their platform a few months ago with more than 5,500 new social networks created in the past 10 days!

With the commoditization of social networking we are about to see a lot more niche communities launch in the coming weeks/months/years.  The question is, how will this impact all those companies who are spending a lot of money and resources to build their own proprietary/closed online networks?

Web 2.0 continues to make it easy for anyone to publish.  Now it's just as easy to create your own network, open or closed.  You don't need a budget.  You don't need servers.  And you don't need any technical ability. It truly is a flat world for social networking.

This means that the power of social networking is open to your local lyme disease foundation, or the regional network of nurse practitioners. You can create a temporary community for a friend's fund raiser, or compete with the big social networking platforms to create an environment more tailored to the needs of your group. You are now in control and can create any social network you want.

This is going to have a major impact on many companies in the Health 2.0 space as well as the Web overall.  Over the past 18 months we have seen the launch of dozens of niche social networking communities in the health sector focusing on everything from MS and ALS (PatientsLikeMe.com), to more comprehensive health communities like DailyStrength.org.  We've also seen millions of dollars be invested in companies like Eons.com focusing on the boomer market.  And over the coming months we'll see many more new companies launch to help bring new solutions to healthcare.

When OrganizedWisdom first launched we billed ourselves as the "first social network for health" with a mission of organizing all the world's best health wisdom.  We quickly realized that building a walled garden community was not the solution and over the past few months we dramatically evolved our strategy for a relaunch this fall (we're in private alpha right now). If you pay attention to OrganizedWisdom.com, you may have noticed that several months ago we stopped building new technology on the live site.  That's because we learned some valuable lessons early and quickly saw that we needed to make big changes to improve our service, stay competitive long-term, and tap into the power of a world where people are sharing such great wisdom across thousands of blogs and now social networks, just like they have in online forums for so many years.  The changes we are making are not merely technological.  They are about adding value to a world where everyone has access to great technology.

For companies like ours, and many others working hard to bring better solutions to people to help manage their health, there is still a significant need for better information, services, solutions.  The opportunity remains to continue to innovate, focus on quality, and add value in a commoditized technology world.

A brave new Life

Have you tried Second Life? This rather bewildering online world is powered by some very strong software, and as the name implies, once you get into it, it can be addictive. It also extends the power of Internet health information into a realm previously inhabited by gamers. Big guns of health -- from the American Cancer Society to the Centers for Disease Control -- have built their own SL presences.

So what's it all about? I first tried Second Life a year or so ago, and had a wonderful time creating an "avatar" (an image that represents "me" in SL). This part of the experience is great -- I made one that looks a great deal like me in the the real world (or First Life, as it's called in SL). If you've always wanted to be a knockout blonde or a cat-eyed ninja, you can do that, too.

Once you learn how to move around, the choices are almost overwhelming unless you sign up for a paid account and devote yourself to building your own "land." Puzzled by the array of choices and motivated by the fact that I do actually have a "first life," I let my account languish unused for several months. Little did I know! During that time, the possibilities have exploded for turning SL into more than a game or glorified chat room.

Second Lifers have held events including their own Relay for Life and a  health fairs. There are health-related photo exhibits and information displays. Here are a few of the coolest health-related places in Second Life (if you have SL software installed, the links will "teleport" you to those places):

• Ann Myers Medical Center: A real-life doctor in the United Kingdom has named this medical center after her mother. The idea is to explore ways to train medical students online. (Also see the AMMC blog.)
• HealthInfo Island: Contains information from a number of different health providers, including a free three-month trial of Reuters Health and an in-world gateway to do PubMed searches. Most recently, this location was host to a seminar on "Self-Esteem and Empowerment." (Blog: infoisland.org)
• The Gene Pool: Interactive genetic education including quizzes, animations, even the chance to get a T-shirt for your avatar, decorated with the markings of your favorite chromosome.

For those of you who haven't experienced Second Life, you'll probably need a fast connection and a semi-recent computer. Here's an introduction to get you started.

If you're not ready to start exploring, but want to know what it looks like, check out this video.

What are you doing in Second Life? E-mail me at pat@organizedwisdom.com. I'll share the best ideas in this newsletter.

Health Foundations and Charities Have Discovered Twitter

Today, I got an interesting "Friend Add" on my Twitter Feed.  It was from "Pink Ribbon Search".   

Whenever a new person (or company) adds my feed to their list I check them out to see if I want to reciprocate by following their Tweets too.  So when I clicked on Pink Ribbon Search profile link I was intrigued to by how they are using Twitter to help raise $1 million for breast cancer research.  While I wasn't all that impressed with the content in many of the Tweets (posted messages), this was the first time I have seen a charity or health foundation use the Twitter technology to advance their cause.

It will be interesting to see how many foundations and charities pick up on this new application of Twitter.  Judging that Pink Ribbon Search already has 8,540 Friends and 746 Followers, I suspect pretty quickly.

Health Wisdom Podcast #5: Joshua Seidman

Joshua Seidman, President of the Center for Information Therapy, participated in our most recent Health Wisdom Podcast where we feature people working to push for innovations in health care. 

Beyond covering the basics like the goals of The Center for Information Therapy and the information therapy movement, we focused on how new technologies, social media, and "connected" patients are impacting the quality of the information available and how people are getting information. 

Download the 25 minute podcast here: Download JoshuaSeidman.mp3

You can also read Joshua Seidman's new blog here, and find out about how to help promote information therapy and get involved with the IX Action Alliance at www.ixcenter.org.

(Technical glitch note: there is a slight delay between question and answer. For some reason the audio overlaps and leaves pauses between questions.  We will post transcripts in the near future).

Craig Newmark, Founder of CraigsList Shares Site's Secrets To Success

It's easy to see why Craig Newmark and the community posting site he founded in 1995, CraigsList.com, have become so successful (7 billion page views this month! ): a simple vision, consistent follow-thru and the golden rule.

One of the great advantages of being located in a place like New York City, is you frequently get to meet people like Craig and learn from their wisdom and experience.  I was lucky enough to attend Craig Newmark's discussion today at NYU as part of the iBreakfast Series.

Here are some of the nuggets of advice and knowledge he shared today that will be useful to anyone building a community-focused company, product or service:

Six Important Search Trends To Watch

This week MediaPost.com's Search Insider published two important columns about developing trends related to innovations in search and search marketing.  The first by David Berkowitz, Tuesday, January 2, 2007 and the second was published today by by Rob Garner, Wednesday, January 3, 2007. 

If you follow search trends all the time, these won't be new.  But we'd like to highlight six of the search trends (first 3 from Rob and last 3 from David) because we are seeing innovations take shape rather quickly in each these areas and we believe there will be many new developments to come...

Don Kemper, CEO of Healthwise, Speaks About Social Media, Information Therapy and Key Trends

We had the pleasure of interviewing Don Kemper, the CEO and founder of Healthwise last week.  You can click here to listen to the MP3 of the discussion which is about 40 minutes long.  We'll also be posting a complete transcript and our Podcast feed of the interview within the next week or so.

OrganizedWisdom decided to partner with Healthwise, and license their comprehensive evidence-based health library, for several reasons.  First because of the quality and credibility for the content Healthwise has assembled and continues to update.  Another big factor, was the reputation and vision Don Kemper has put forth over the past thirty plus years -- his efforts have truly helped transform the information available to consumers and patients. And as a result millions of people now have access to better doctor reviewed health information.

My partner Steven Krein and I conducted a 40 minute phone discussion last week with Don Kemper.  Here are the issues we covered:

1) History and background of Healthwise
2) Information Therapy
3) The biggest trends that will help people get even better access to health information
4) How the web and new Internet platforms play into the future of better health information access
5) Social media and patient participation as the missing link until now
6) How evidence-based health information, patient contributed content, and industry content can compliment each other to help consumer patients
7) The key to getting more people participating and sharing their health wisdom
8) Rating the quality of health information
9) The effect of information windows closing in the health care space and the impact on physicians
10) Solving the challenges of people finding the health information they need when they need it
11) Future trends

If you want to subscribe to our podcast series, go into iTunes and hit "Advanced -- Subscribe to Podcast" add this feed: http://wisdom.blogs.com/health/rss.xml

WOMMA Issues Blogging Guidelines For Marketers - 10 Principles for Ethical Marketing Contact

The Word Of Mouth Marketing Association has just announced a new set of guidelines.  Called the WOMMA Ethical Blogger Contract Guidelines, the 10-item checklist aims to help marketers ensure they are always appropriate and ethical when communicating with bloggers.

"It is vital that marketers understand the rules of the road when communicating with bloggers," said WOMMA CEO Andy Sernovitz. "We're committed to making it easy to be ethical."

From the press release (which you can read in full here):

When companies engage with blogs, they are more open, transparent, and accountable. As companies respond to this call to participate, they need clear guidance on the rules of the road.

Marketers who want to join blog conversation must, 1) decide if and when it's appropriate, 2) do it ethically, respectfully, and with good taste. If they choose to engage bloggers, then these guidelines will help them do it right.

Modeled on the WOMMA Ethics guidelines of honesty of relationship, opinion, and identity, this simple tool helps companies educate their entire staff on exactly which behaviors are appropriate.

"It's an easy way to teach your team and to avoid mistakes that will be harmful to your reputation," said David Binkowski, director of online outreach, Hass MS&L, who is co-chair of the project. "Prevention is a powerful protection."

WOMMA  has opened the dialog for public feedback which you can share here.

10 Principles for Ethical Contact by Marketers

• Review these guidelines before initiating any contact with bloggers.
• Share these guidelines with vendors, agencies, and staff.
• Keep disclosure and transparency top of mind.

Remember: Consumers come first, honesty isn't optional, and deception is always exposed.

1. I will always be truthful and will never knowingly relay false information. I will never ask someone else to deceive bloggers for me.
2. I will fully disclose who I am and who I work for (my identity and affiliations) from the very first encounter when communicating with bloggers or commenting on blogs.
3. I will never take action contrary to the boundaries set by bloggers. I will respect all community guidelines regarding posting messages and comments.
4. I will never ask bloggers to lie for me.
5. I will use extreme care when communicating with minors or blogs intended to be read by minors.
6. I will not manipulate advertising or affiliate programs to impact blogger income.
7. I will not use automated systems for posting comments or distributing information.
8. I understand that compensating bloggers may give the appearance of a conflict of interest, and I will therefore fully disclose any and all compensation or incentives.
9. I understand that if I send bloggers products for review, they are not obligated to comment on them. Bloggers can return products at their own discretion.
10. If bloggers write about products I send them, I will proactively ask them to disclose the products’ source.