OrganizedWisdom Health Blog

What Doctors Are Really Buzzing About!

We're in the midst of unveiling some innovations on OrganizedWisdom Health. One of the most exciting things that we're doing is curating news features and articles shared by of a select panel of top doctors and health experts -- and passing these great resources on to you.

For example, you can discover...

• what internists consider required reading on this week's health care reform legislation
• what ob/gyns have shared about developments in the world of women's health
• what health professionals, like registered dietitians and nutritionists, want us to learn about weight loss

We are busy making this information even easier to find and use, but the potential is incredible -- real time wisdom of outspoken specialists at your fingertips.

Got Great Health Links? Nominate Them on OrganizedWisdom!

A few months ago, I wrote about OrganizedWisdom's ongoing mission to curate great health information. We know that this process doesn't begin and end with our team, and now we have better tools to get outside input.

We cordially invite all of the health experts out there - from doctors and nurses, to students and researchers, to patients and caregivers, to bloggers and librarians - to contribute to our mission by reviewing the "top 10 resources" lists within our WisdomCards and nominating health resources to round out the list of web pages we recommend.

You'll notice that many of our top 10 lists don't always have 10 individual links listed. That's by design. If we haven't uncovered 10 high quality, unique health links during the WisdomCard creation process, we'll intentionally leave room for nominations.

OrganizedWisdom's own team of experts reviews each and every nomination, and if the link is approved it will join our top 10.

Every day we get dozens, sometimes hundreds, of amazing link suggestions. The team at the University of Maryland Medical Center website recently visited OrganizedWisdom and nominated a number of links. Here is an example of one of many instances where their high quality health information made an excellent addition to a WisdomCard: http://organizedwisdom.com/Chronic_Shoulder_Pain (see their helpful video podcast at #9 on the top 10 resources list).

Here's how to nominate your own favorite resource:

1. Search OrganizedWisdom to find a WisdomCard that is the best fit for the subject of your link.
2. Go to that WisdomCard, review the top 10 resources list. If your favorite resource isn't already mentioned, nominate your link. (See sample form at right.)
3. Fill out the form; hit submit. We'll let you know if it's been approved. It's that easy!

Why don't you visit OrganizedWisdom and nominate your favorite health links today?

We're curating the best health information for you!

At OrganizedWisdom, we've always called the men and women who hand-craft our WisdomCards "Guides" but perhaps we should start calling them "Curators."

Let me explain.

Just like the art aficionados who painstakingly select the masterpieces that will adorn a museum's walls, our Guides carefully assemble WisdomCards full of resources to address the very health topics you're searching for.

And it just so happens that the concept of curation is seen as the next big thing in media. Steve Rosenbaum's recent piece in the Silicon Alley Insider explains that there is a new role for media companies that's all about: "giving folks who don't want to spend their lives looking for an editorial needle in a haystack a high-quality collection of content that is contextual and coherent."

Well, as someone on the inside of a company that's actually been doing this for a few years, it's exciting to see that it's catching on! And as the daughter of someone with a chronic illness, I've never been more convinced that it's absolutely essential, especially in the area of health.

My mother has multiple sclerosis. And every time I try to look something up for her, even as a professional health editor with years of research experience under my belt, I am simply overwhelmed by the amount of, well, junk that I find.

On the other hand, here's an example of one of our WisdomCards on depression and multiple sclerosis.

It has a helpful summary, a few interesting facts, and an assortment of links to quality outside resources, thoughtfully picked by our Guide, and medically reviewed by a physician.

OrganizedWisdom has now curated more than 50,000 health topics just like this. Why don't you let us find those needles in the haystack for you?

OrganizedWisdom Interview with Health 2.0 Conference Co-founder Indu Subaiya

We were lucky enough to beg and borrow some of Indu Subaiya's extremely limited time this week to do a wrap-up interview after the hugely successful Health 2.0 conference last month.

Indu Subaiya is one of the leading thought leaders of the Health 2.0 movement. She has worked with a wide range of life-science and healthcare companies helping to translate innovative ideas and early-stage technologies into market realities.  Indu, an MD and MBA, is the founder of Etude Scientific, and previously served as Vice President of Healthcare and Biomedical Research at Gerson Lehrman Group where she facilitated due diligence research in the life sciences sector for investment fund managers and as Director of Outcomes Research at Quorum Consulting, Inc. where she conducted Phase III-IV quality of life and pharmacoeconomic studies and advised clients on commercialization and reimbursement strategies for novel drugs, medical devices and diagnostic tests.

Indu is the co-founder of Health 2.0 Conference with Matthew Holt.  You can read her blog here.

OrganizedWisdom: You and Matthew Holt helped ignite the Health 2.0 movement by launching the first Health 2.0 Conference in the fall of 2007.  You've just completed the third Health 2.0 Conference in San Francisco and it was the largest event ever.  How would you sum up each of the three events?

Indu Subaiya: The first Health 2.0 event was a total surprise.  I think we were caught off guard by the interest and the momentum.  It was as if all this incredible activity was going on anyway in different parts of the world and we just happened to hold the first party where these people who were doing interesting things came together in one place.

My biggest takeaway from the second event was how much new technology there was compared to just 6 months before.

And the event we just had in someways was the biggest surprise.  While the rest of the world was going through and still is going through the biggest financial crisis, over a thousand people still showed up more enthusiastic than ever about the potential for this space.  We were totally humbled.

OW: Why did you and Matthew first decide to launch Health 2.0?

IS: I think because we wanted to meet and hang out with people interested in what we were interested in.  Matthew has been a longtime analyst and observer of all things healthcare and was beginning to write about Web 2.0/Health 2.0 and I'm a huge web fan and had the entrepreneurial bug in a big way, so together it was a good match.

OW: The next Health 2.0 conference is going to take place on the East Coast for the first time.  How will the fourth event be different from the first three?

IS: We're really excited to be partnering with the Center for Information Therapy and Josh Seidman on this event.  The group at InfoRx has been focused on patient education and empowerment for a long time and we're having a lot of fun discussing the challenges and tensions between the user-driven aspects of Health 2.0 and the information 'prescription' themes in the Information Therapy movement.  But we also share a lot of common ground.

OW: At OrganizedWisdom, we've always described Health 2.0 as simply being about innovation.  How do you define Health 2.0 today?

IS: I think that's a great definition.  I agree in many ways.  I won't attempt to create yet another definition about Health 2.0 - you should link to Matthew's and Ted Eytan's and Scott Shreeve's.  But to me, Health 2.0 is about the consumer first and what happens when consumers create powerful, self-organizing communities without an institution in charge. It's about uncompromising transparency, fairness and common sense utility of various services. Somewhere at the core of it it's realizing that each of us really has ownership over our health...and lots of things come out of that basic concept.

OW: Running the Health 2.0 Conference and Blog, you and Matthew have a great perspective on new start-ups.  What trends and innovations are you most excited about?

IS: There's a lot to be excited about.  I love seeing the power of horizontal communities surpass the power of any one individual or institution. When PatientsLikeMe accumulates more robust data than many post marketing clinical trials just by lay people entering in information about themselves because they're inherently motivated to do so ...that gets me excited.  When I see anyone trying to make doctors more accessible, accountable and responsive to consumers/patients, I'm all for that.  The work you are doing with LiveWisdom, what American Well and Minute Clinic and Hello Health are doing, also the power of a Yelp or Angies List where doctors behaviors as well as credentials are totally exposed and discussed without them being able to control the message...all that's helping to move things in a better direction.

OW: How do you think the economic downturn will impact Health 2.0 companies

IS: I think Health 2.0 companies are businesses first, so unfortunately I think this will be a painful time for many.  Financing is harder to get for sure.  Getting customers to spend money will be harder.  But at the end of the day, health isn't going anywhere.  And we're kind of on this irreversible path toward the healthcare system improving in all the ways we've been discussing, so I think the downturn may slow the pace but it won't change the course this collective community is on.   Also, my bet is it's a great time to recruit talent!

OW: Both you and Matthew Holt have your own ventures in addition to Health 2.0. Can you share any details about what else you are working on?

IS: Believe it or not, preparing for Health 2.0 conferences behind the scenes has become more than a full time job for us!  Matthew will be working on a report/analysis service with a great group of consultants, called the Health 2.0 Advisors.  We're both helping the amazing Julie Murchinson and Aaron Apocada get the Health 2.0 Accelerator off the ground. Matthew continues to run The Healthcare Blog and I might be working on a video interview series.  I've been lucky to work with some really smart people on a medical records sharing site - it's a young project and moving along at a slower pace with everything else going on, but I still believe we haven't solved the problem of consumers who have to deal with multiple doctors in different clinics and hospitals and getting them to communicate about their case, while allowing the consumer to stay abreast of things.  So I supposed I'll be plugging away at that solution for quite a while.

OW: You've seen OrganizedWisdom evolve and grow since we launched two and a half years ago and we are really excited about how our service is evolving.  What are your thoughts on OrganizedWisdom and the human-powered search service we are building?

IS: I've always thought of OrganizedWisdom as the Wikipedia of healthcare. It's astonishing to see the number of new WisdomCards and the depth of the service now with LiveWisdom and also WisdomCards on doctors and the menus at restaurants!  I also love the request a WisdomCard/research option.  I send a lot of people to your site.  I think it's one of the few places where the value is obvious right away and it's useful minute 1 - no matter what your age, background or issue is.  I get lots of positive feedback from people I send over.   

OW: What feature would you love to see integrated into the OrganizedWisdom service one day?

IS: OrganizedWisdom to understand health insurance?  Or maybe you already have that!   Probably even more with communities or communities of experts about a particular topic. Like maybe there's a panel of 7 oncologists I can query with a question to see what the "(un)conventional wisdom" is on a particular question I have.  I'd probably pay for that.

OW: Any additional words of wisdom that you'd love to share with the industry?

IS: I think it's basically to think big and to think 5 years ahead always.  To never think about this space as a trend.  And to believe in people, because health is ultimately personal, and if we remember that, the road ahead will always be exciting.

20 Benefits of Building A Green Start-Up And Going 100% Virtual

One of the best decisions we've made since we launched OrganizedWisdom Health two and a half years ago was to build a green company and get rid of our brick and mortar office.

We call it "Going Green, Virtually."

That's right.  No office.  No commute.  No paper.  We don't require team members to punch a time clock. No spending wasted hours in traffic driving to work just to sit in a desk much farther away from one's home and family.

And as a result of Going Green Virtually, the benefits have been enormous. In fact, we believe it's one of our key ingredients to our rapid growth, dramatic increase in productivity, agile innovation cycles, and team member happiness.

Since we officially made this transition to Going Green Virtually over a year ago, we have debated the merits of our decision many times.  We've often asked, would we be more productive if we were all sitting in the same room everyday?  Would our team members be better off commuting to and fro? Would our ideas be better?  Would we attract better talent? Would we have more or less expenses? Would our business be more successful?  Would our product be better? Would we be more happy?

The answer to every question each time we assess our operations is simply, no.

The fact is, on the rare occasions when we do need an office, we still have access to great space and conference rooms because anytime (usually once a month) we can use one of our investor's offices. We use this space for strategic brainstorms, to white board in person, or to host investors or interview new team members.

We're not only proud to be building our company this way, but we believe that there are countless benefits to growing our company this way.  We see the way we are building OrganizedWisdom as the wave of the future in terms of how start-ups will be founded and great companies grown. And it's becoming clear that much larger companies are going to have to learn to operate this way too. For all of you entrepreneurs out there, here are 20 major benefits we've seen so far by Going Green Virtually.

1. Access to the world's very best talent pool: We can hire our team members from anywhere that has great Internet access.  This essentially means we can hire someone in the mountains, the woods, and cities and towns large and small.  This means we can hire globally. We are not confined by the city our main office is in to find the best talent.  We don't force people to relocate when they join our team. We don't have boundaries for where we can hire. We just work to hire the very best people, period.

2. Increased productivity: We don't waste time monitoring what time people come into an office.  Our technology, collaboration tools, and goals are designed to focus on productivity, not merely time spent. Our system gets better because it's not about how much time something takes, it is about how efficient and productive it is.

3. Metrics based goals: Because we are productivity focused, we are forced to make sure every goal is measurable.  When every goal is measurable, then chances are it is more clear what needs to be done.  This make it easier to keep your strategy and team focused on the goals that really drive the health of the business.

4. Less interruptions = less wasted time: Offices breed politics, disruptions, excess meetings, etc. We still have group chats in Campfire and on IM, but we've noticed many of the distractions that come with office life are replaced by things like being home when you kids get home from school or being able to make yourself lunch at home. Being virtual replaces the negative interruptions with meaningful interruptions.

5. No commute: This saves everyone of our team members probably at least 10 hours a week and lots of money on transportation, parking, and food costs.  People can use this time to spend with their family, get more rest, on hobbies, and even on being more productive.

6. Flex time: We let our team members work when they are most productive and set their own schedule. We monitor production, not a time clock. We trust our team members to do a great job and as a result they do an even better job.

7. Huge cost savings: There's huge cost savings for the company AND for our team members. They don't have to spend money on gas, tolls, parking, less car maintenance, food away from home, after school daycare, etc.  We don't have to spend money on expensive office space, chairs, desks, equipment, energy, and on and on. To us it's a no-brainer.

8. Rapid innovation cycles: Because we use collaboration technologies and new communications tools we are able to work in smaller teams and innovate more rapidly.  There is no big bureaucracy to slow us down. 

9. No more meetings:  We don't do meetings.  We publish goals and metrics.  We have an ongoing group chat. We build a team run knowledge base and community forums which get smarter with every input. We don't travel to meetings and take our team members away from doing what really matters: building a great service to help more people. We'd rather spend our time doing and less time talking about doing.  Again, because we are metrics focused, people already know what to do.

10. No searching for office space: For those of you entrepreneurs in San Fran or New York you know how much wasted time and energy goes into finding and setting up an office. Imagine never having to do this again. Imagine not ever growing out of your office space. Pretty great dream huh. It's a reality when you go green. It also enables us to focus on innovation rather than operations.

11. Ability to scale quickly: Because we depend on bits, not location, we can scale up or down instantly. This makes us nimble, efficient, and ready for growth and opportunities within minutes not months.

12. Diversity: Our team members come from all over. They live in the community we serve: all over the US. Often time, especially with media, Internet and content companies there's an unintentional bias influenced by the might of a city like New York or San Fran.  Growing up in Iowa, I know that often times the coasts just don't get it:-)  So we're happy we get to bake in a much more diverse perspective and cultural outlook into our product then that of one particular region.

13. Global operations: Again, because we are not constrained by a brick and mortar office, we can leverage resources from overseas whenever it makes sense.

14. Forced to learn new technology: We are an Internet and technology company.  By being forced to practice what we preach, we are early adopters at every turn.  This keeps us ahead of the pack and helps us keep finding new ways to save time, energy, money and increase productivity, quality, and team happiness.

15. Tap the power of part-timers: Lots of people don't want to or can't work full-time jobs, but they have an interest and passion in working part-time.  We get to work with these people too.

16. A 24 hour work cycle: The web is open 24 hours a day and so are we. We don't have the same constraints because our team members are in multiple time zones already.

17. More time with friends and family: One of the best advantages to building this type of business is the ability to be there for your friends and family more.

18. Happier employees: Because our team members don't have to commute, relocate, waste time on the train, can work when they are most productive, and can spend more time with their families, we have happier employees.  Happier employees = more loyal and productive team members.

19. We're Going Green Virtually! We're trying to do our part to help the environment and our team members anyway we can. People don't have to buy gas, we don't use paper, and we don't have a big office to waste energy on.Let's get thousands of companies to do this!

20. Share your thoughts: If you've gone green already please post your feedback on what's worked (or hasn't worked)...

Technology has truly changed everything over the past few years.  We feel blessed that we get the opportunity to build our business this way, and proud to share our wisdom as we grow and evolve.

We hope you'll consider Going Green Virtually soon too.

(Here's a link to our careers page at OrganizedWisdom.  We're always looking for the best team members to join us).

Now, What questions do you have for me? A new feature from our Chief Medical Officer

The following blog post is authored by our Chief Medical Officer, Howard Krein, M.D., PhD. Dr. Krein is also Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology: Head & Neck Surgery at Thomas Jefferson University and a founding partner and co-director of Jefferson's Facial Aesthetic and Reconstructive Center. 

As a new feature on this blog, Dr. Krein will be writing regular commentaries about how we can continue to leverage new media, ideas and technology to improve patient experience and change the health care system for the better.

------

Now, What questions do you have for me?

Seems like a direct enough question. Seems to be open ended, seems unbiased, right?

I always thought that this simple question was all I needed to say to allow my patients to gather their thoughts and ask me anything they want. Give them ample opportunity to understand the information that I presented and that will be so important in their heath and wellbeing. Its funny how time and experience can change the things you were once certain of.

I was taught many things throughout my 10 years of medical training.  I know how to collect information, how to do a history and physical, how to interpret data. I can look at a wound and know if it is doing well or not. I can take a person's face that has been ravaged by cancer or by a trauma and make it whole again. What I find increasingly difficult to do is make sure my patients have and understand all of the pertinent information they need to consistently make the right healthcare decisions. 

As the costs for medicine rise (both for the physician and patient) and insurance companies put pressure on healthcare practitioners to see more patients during each day to make ends meet, the amount of quality time I get to spend with a given patient decreases. It is a simple formula: the number of hours in a day is consistent, and if I now need to see twice as many patients in my office to make enough money to keep the lights on, then the number of “minutes” I get to spend with each patient drops.  This is where I have a problem. The choice that I am forced to make is either to spend more time with each patient then I have allotted for them or just stick to my schedule and leave the patient to figure things out for themselves.  For me the choice is simple, I spend whatever time each patient needs to understand what they are dealing with. This unfortunately routinely puts me behind in the office and so every subsequent patient has to wait a little extra. If three or four patients need extra time during a given day, my schedule is shot! For many patients this extra waiting period adds to their dissatisfaction with the current medical system.  Add the extra wait to see a healthcare provider with the frustration of  high cost  and decreased accessibility and no wonder healthcare it at the top our political agenda.

So where do we go from here? How do we arm patients with more information to better understand their health? How do we provide patients the tools to get more out of their healthcare visits?  How do we as caretakers ensure that our patients, our friends and our families are getting the most out of what is available both in and outside of our offices?

We have entered into a new age of medicine. An age where complex information is available to all in an instant.  An age where the knowledge of individuals, experts,  and even the masses are all within a few clicks of a mouse.

Access to health information has never been easier.  Discerning quality health information, however, has never been more difficult. How do we leverage the power of our technology to help our healthcare system take better care of our patients and protect them at the same time?

I think it starts by healthcare providers taking a look at what information and technology is out there and understanding it better.  Rather than be threatened by this “new age” of medicine, there is an opportunity to embrace it.  And by doing so, help develop the resources and technology that are growing and will inevitably be a part of your practice.  Support patient interaction with quality sites and information.  Support the change and development of insurance regulations that limit the way we interact with patients.

After a recent Wall Street Journal article which highlighted some of the changes that are bound to take place in medicine, a physician referred to this technology as non-viable. I assure you, the changes that are taking place in how our patients access healthcare and health information is not only viable, it is both the present and future of medicine. Instead of resisting this “wave” or sitting by on the sidelines waiting to see where it goes, catch the wave and take a ride.  Help others understand the importance of this movement and the potential it has to improve all aspects of healthcare.

Although I’ll never stop asking my patients “Now, What questions do you have for me?”, I know that with our help, patients will be able to get quality, accurate answers to their questions anytime of the day or night…..

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.