Author: Lee Aase

Husband of one, father of six, grandfather of 15. Chancellor Emeritus, SMUG. Emeritus staff of Mayo Clinic. Founder of HELPcare and Administrator for HELPcare Clinic.

Florida Hospital Association SMUG Extension Course

I’m delighted to be in Orlando today for a SMUG extension class, presenting a workshop for the Florida Hospital Association’s Florida Society for Healthcare Public Relations & Marketing (FSHPRM) at their Winter professional development workshop. My presentation runs from 12:30-2 EST.

The slides I’m using are embedded below. I’m told there will be wifi in the room, so I’m hoping many of the participants can take the opportunity to add their comments and questions even during the presentation, either in the comment section on this post or by tweeting using the #fhasmug hashtag.

We’ll see if we can address some of the questions and comments at the end of the presentation, but if any SMUGgles are following along remotely and want to chime in with your observations, you’re most welcome to participate.

FSHPRM Presentation on Social Media 

View more presentations from LeeAase. (tags: social media)

A Few Resource Links:

Homework

Understanding that we likely have a wide range of social media familiarity among the workshop participants, I’ve outlined some options for your concrete action steps to make your the learning practical for you. I’m starting with basics and moving to more complicated or involved steps. Just go down the list and pick at least one thing you haven’t yet tried.

  1. Join Facebook. Facebook 102 would be a great place to start. You can request to join the FSHPRM group so you can all network and learn together. And of course I hope you’ll join the SMUG group, too.
  2. Get a Twitter account. Twitter 102 will take you through the process step-by-step. I have a bunch of courses yet to be added in the Twitter curriculum, but there are a few there to get you started, and you can follow me (@LeeAase) and/or @SMUG_U to keep up to date.
  3. Start a personal blog. Blogging 108 gives you the guidance you need.
  4. Try Yammer. Yammer is like Twitter for the workplace, and is limited to people who share your email domain. The Yammer curriculum has more background, but Yammer 101 gets you started.

If you’re one of those really risk-averse types who needs to completely scope out a situation before joining, you have two additional options:

  1. Begin the Core Courses, which are kind of the SMUG appetizer sampler platter. They’ll give you a hands-on taste of social media. Or, you can…
  2. Start the Podcasting curriculum, which takes you in 10 steps from an introduction to the podcast to having your own personal podcast listed in the iTunes store, all without spending any money. You can complete the first two courses without having to take any concrete action.

Finally, I hope you’ll enroll in SMUG so you can continue your social media exploration as a SMUGgle.

And if you’re on LinkedIn and would like to connect in that way (or perhaps leave a recommendation for me), that would be great, too. Here’s my public profile on LinkedIn.

Congratulations, Ruthie!

We now interrupt the regular social media curriculum for a point of paternal pride.

As I’ve mentioned previously (here, here and here at least), several of my kids have been involved in an amazing program called Bible Bowl, in which the participants (at least the most dedicated ones) memorize huge chunks of the Bible (last year it was the Gospel of John, 1-2 Peter and 1-3 John) and then compete in a contest similar to the old College Bowl based on that text. You know, buzz in on the toss-ups, and then if you get them you earn the right to answer additional questions for bonus points.

My youngest daughter, Ruthie, has been our most intense Bible Bowler. It’s her sport. When basketball season is over her siblings (Bekah and Joe) will become more actively involved, but they couldn’t go with her this weekend to the first major tournament of the year, the Kentucky Christian University round robin. Until this point in the year the competitions are all in the local round robins, but this tournament had kids from Minnesota, Texas, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, North Carolina, Michigan, Kansas, Florida and Iowa. (No particular order in the list, but I always like to leave Iowa for last)  😉

Lisa and I couldn’t go to the tournament, but it was fun to watch the results come in online as they were posted to the Bible Bowl site.

As you can see from the final standings and her round-by-round results below (click to enlarge), Ruthie got off to a slow start but came on strong to win in the 23-team tournament.

picture-19

After the tournament was completed, we also got the pleasure of calling Ruthie to tell her that she had received a letter saying she had advanced to Finalist status in the National Merit Scholarship program.

She was pretty excited about that, too. She said, “Wow! This is my lucky day! Things are going so well, I should go out and buy stocks or something.”

Ruthie’s really smart, but sometimes lacks practical sense. I had to remind her it was Saturday, and the markets were closed.

But at least she’s smart enough that she didn’t say she should go buy a lottery ticket.

As a postscript, we learned early this afternoon that Ruthie took first place in what they call the “Brain Test,” which is an insanely difficult 200-point exam covering the entire text memorized to this point. Ruthie scored a 192.

Ruthie’s the one on the left in the picture below (from last Christmas, when she and her sisters received some family heirloom aprons as part of their gifts from my parents.) Rachel, our oldest daughter (and first Bible Bowler) and the mother of our first grandchild, is in the middle, and Bekah (our lady hoopster) is on the right.

 

Ruthie, Rachel and Rebekah
Ruthie, Rachel and Rebekah

 

Lisa and I are extremely blessed, and this is only the female half of our offspring!

When is 137% Growth in 4 Months “Not Keeping Up?”

The highlight of this post earlier this month on Inside Facebook was that women over age 55 are the fastest growing demographic in Facebook.

While the fastest growing age group by total users is still 26-34, the number of women over 55 on Facebook grew by an astounding 175.3% since the end of September.  Their male counterparts, however, weren’t able to keep up – growing by only 137.8%.  The number of women over 55 on Facebook almost double the number of men over 55 on Facebook today.

It says something about the phenomenal growth of Facebook that men over 55 could increase by nearly 140 percent in just four months, and that it would be considered “not keeping up” with their female counterparts.

It’s not surprising to me that the growth among women is faster than that among men. I see that among colleagues at work, and with my wife and her friends (all of whom are well under 55, but still baby boomers.) This is particularly interesting for people involved in health care communications, since women play the primary role in family health care decisions.

If you work in health care and you’re not in Facebook yet, you should be.

The SMUG Facebook curriculum can help you get started.

Chapter 11 = 11 Cents Per Share for Sirius XM

They aren’t the only ones filing for bankruptcy lately, but it’s interesting that even a “new media” company like Sirius XM satellite radio is contemplating seeking relief from creditors:

 Sirius XM Radio Inc. has hired advisers to prepare for a possible bankruptcy filing, which could come in days, according to a news report. 

The New York Times said late Tuesday documents and analysis of a potential Chapter 11 filing are nearly complete, say people close to the company. 

Sirius, whose radio personalities include shock jock Howard Stern, has struggled to refinance its debt load at a time when banks are skittish about lending. About $1 billion worth of debt comes due in 2009. 

One of the supposed Sirius advantages was commercial-free music, available anywhere. But with Pandora available on the Web providing the same service (and customized channels that fit individual interests), and also with an iPhone application, that seems like a less distinct advantage for Sirius XM.
I’ve enjoyed the rare occasions when I’ve had a rental car with satellite radio, but can’t see paying a monthly fee for the service.
Apparently I’m not alone.

RAQ: What Does RT Mean in Twitter?

Here’s a question from Julia:

I’ve seen a lot of tweets that start with RT, like this one

retweet-picture

I’m thinking it means “Return Tweet”???  But I’m not sure.  Is there a new lexicon of TLA’s evolving as a result of Twitter and do you know specifically what this one means? Maybe this should be a RAQ if you think relevant?

 

Answer: RT means “retweet” or “re-tweet” and it’s a way for one Twitter user to pass along information found on Twitter to his or her circle of followers.

For example, if Julia sees this recent tweet of mine:

picture-8

She might want to pass it along to her followers, who may or may not be following me. She would use the following syntax:

RT @LeeAase http://snipurl.com/bovi2 – UW selling students’ personal information for $90 apiece

…and would add any additional comments that fit within the 140-character tweet limit.

By using the RT @LeeAase she is crediting me for finding and originally tweeting this, which alerts her followers that I was the source, and then they might decide to follow me directly.

When I originally responded to Julia via email, she replied:

Ah!  That makes sense.  There have been times I’ve wanted to pass something along, but didn’t want the person I learned it from to think I was stealing their thunder (so to speak).  I love that they’ve solved that issue…

That’s exactly the reason for the RT. The ethos of social media is

  1. to share and pass information along, but also
  2. to credit the original source.

Two little characters – RT – plus the username of your source, meets both goals in Twitter.