SMUG | Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

Launching the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Blog

In my work for Mayo Clinic, my major responsibilities are for our Mayo Clinic Medical Edge syndicated news products and for leadership of our social media team. Last week I wrote about our Mayo Clinic fan page in Facebook, which has been successful so far. After a low-key start, we’ve seen strong growth in our number of fans, with 376 as of this writing, and have also had some gratifying wall posts. Check out our page here.

Now we’re starting our first major blogging initiative, as part of our Mayo Clinic National Symposium on Health Care Reform, which will be held next week in Leesburg, Va. You can read about it here.

I hope regular readers of this blog also will check out the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Blog, and will participate in the discussion. While we had a low-key start with the Facebook fan page, I expect the Health Policy blog to get active much more quickly. With live streaming of the general sessions, with a high-profile keynote speaker and moderator in Tom Brokaw and with the work that has gone into developing a first-rate program, hopefully the blog will have high visibility.

I’m planning to connect with bloggers who write about health policy, health reform, health insurance, health care quality and related issues. We also will be linking the blog from the symposium site starting next Monday, so people can watch the streaming live (or archived) video and share their ideas.

You can subscribe here to RSS updates from the symposium blog, or click here to sign up for e-mail updates.

What other suggestions do you have? How can we most effectively engage people in this health reform discussion, so we can begin to build the consensus for effective health reform?

Engaging Key Stakeholders through Social Media

Today I had the pleasure of giving a presentation to MHSCN, the Minnesota Health Strategy and Communications Network. This also provided me an opportunity to try Slideshare.net, a service that is like YouTube for presentation decks, so that I can share the slides with those who attended (and anyone else.)

This was a great group, highly engaged and interested in the subject matter, which was using social media to engage employees and to communicate with outside stakeholders. It was a fun opportunity to offer a SMUG Extension Class. I hope lots of the MHSCN members will decide to enroll.

For those who attended, I would appreciate any feedback on the presentation, and would be happy to answer any additional questions you may have.

Facebook 203: Security and Applications

Late last week I got a message from someone who wants to be known as “The Harmony Guy,” saying he had devised a method that could have been successful (eventually) in meeting the terms of the SMUG $100 Facebook Hacker Challenge. Harmony Guy is a social hacker of the “white hat” variety, as you’ll see in his blog, where he publicly exposes security flaws from social networking sites and urges the companies to fix them.

I learned a lot about Facebook security through my interaction with him, and if you click the (more) link, you will, too. Here’s what he said:

Continue reading “Facebook 203: Security and Applications”

“Free” and Higher Education = SMUG

Two recent blog posts that are required reading for SMUG students come from Chris Anderson and Jeff Jarvis. They explain why an institution like Social Media University, Global can exist (and much of what makes the rest of the Web work.)

Anderson (Editor-in-Chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail) has a link to his cover story in the current issue of the magazine. It’s called “Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business” and here’s an excerpt:

What does this mean for the notion of free? Well, just take one example. Last year, Yahoo announced that Yahoo Mail, its free webmail service, would provide unlimited storage. Just in case that wasn’t totally clear, that’s “unlimited” as in “infinite.” So the market price of online storage, at least for email, has now fallen to zero (see “Webmail Windfall”). And the stunning thing is that nobody was surprised; many had assumed infinite free storage was already the case.
For good reason: It’s now clear that practically everything Web technology touches starts down the path to gratis, at least as far as we consumers are concerned. Storage now joins bandwidth (YouTube: free) and processing power (Google: free) in the race to the bottom. Basic economics tells us that in a competitive market, price falls to the marginal cost. There’s never been a more competitive market than the Internet, and every day the marginal cost of digital information comes closer to nothing.

Anderson’s article explains the proliferation of blogging tools like WordPress.com offering 3 gigabytes of storage, and unlimited bandwidth, for $0.00. As technology prices fall, the marginal cost of adding another user to the server farm becomes so close to zero as to become negligible.

From the consumer’s perspective, though, there is a huge difference between cheap and free. Give a product away and it can go viral. Charge a single cent for it and you’re in an entirely different business, one of clawing and scratching for every customer. The psychology of “free” is powerful indeed, as any marketer will tell you.

I’ve definitely found that to be the case as I talk to people about blogging, or joining Facebook or trying other social media tools. When I can tell them they can do anything they see on my blog without spending a penny, it takes away their excuses for inaction.

I can’t wait to get Anderson’s book when it’s published next year. I understand he’s working with the publisher on a method to make it available at no charge.

In his post from this afternoon, Google U, Jarvis explains the essence of Social Media University, Global:

Once you put all this together, students can self-organize with teachers and fellow students to learn what they want how and where they want. My hope is that this could finally lead to the lifelong education we keep nattering about but do little to actually support. And why don’t we? Because it doesn’t fit into the degree structure. And because self-organizing classes and education could cut academic institutions out of the their exclusive role in education.

So what if the degree structure is outmoded? What does a bachelor’s of arts really say you’re ready to do? Once you get a medical degree, if you practice, you’re required to take refreshers as the science changes. Shouldn’t we be offering journalists updates as new tools and opportunities emerge in their craft? (Short answer: yes.) And while on the example of journalists, what if it were easy for them to take a course in, say, accounting when they get assigned to the business section, or science when given the environmental beat? So rather than signing on for a one-time degree, what if I subscribe to education for life? Or what if the culture simply expects me to bone up because it’s so damned easy to (and I don’t have to go through tests and admissions and all that)?

This sounds a lot like what I said in my Message from the Chancellor. Credentialed learning certainly has its place. But SMUG is an institution for lifelong learners to get this refresher education Jarvis describes. He is focused on journalism, but I believe this kind of training being available on-line is absolutely essential for professionals working in communications, PR or marketing to keep their skills relevant.

As Anderson says, what makes this all possible is that the marginal cost for each additional user (or student) is practically zero. We’re up to 50 SMUG students now; if you’re interested in hands-on, practical training in social media, why not audit a few classes?

SMUG Week in Review 2-24-08

It was a full week for Social Media University, Global (SMUG) students, of whom there are now 49 (up from 34 just a week ago!)

The Facebook Hacker Challenge was updated and expanded. Then a commenter raised the issue of whether encouraging someone to try to hack the group would constitute a violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service. Your Chancellor decided it may be worth up to $200 to find out how secure Facebook’s secret groups are, but it’s not worth getting his Facebook account suspended, so I brought the challenge to an end.

Which is, I guess, a way of saying Facebook (even though it’s free), is worth more than $200 to me. That got me thinking that maybe a $15 billion valuation for Facebook isn’t all that outlandish; if you multiply 65 million active users by $200 each, that’s $13 billion. I may not be typical; there may be lots of users who would walk away from Facebook forever if you offered them five bucks. But I suspect many others wouldn’t trade their access to Facebook for $500 or even $1,000.

In one way, this back-of-the-envelope calculation doesn’t mean much. The fact that I perceive Facebook as being worth more than $200 to me doesn’t directly put money in Mark Zuckerberg’s pockets. But it does suggest that there will be a reasonable tolerance for Facebook trying to monetize its service, even if it means some minor annoyances, because users find Facebook so personally valuable anyway. Of course, the best scenario is one in which the targeting of relevant advertising actually enhances Facebook’s perceived value to users.

In other developments this week, SMUG got a great new URL: social-media-university-global.org. This is part of growing up from a blog that started on a whim about 19 months ago to an on-line higher education institution (even if it’s not accredited). The process was pretty painless on my end, and the total cost was $19 (although I did spend another $10 for the .com version of the domain, too.) I hope it’s not too painful for those who had subscribed to the original feed from leeaase.wordpress.com, or the one that had been burned through Feedburner. I would appreciate any feedback from anyone for whom this has caused a problem (but then, if it has cut off their feed they wouldn’t know about this request, would they?)

We also added two new courses, for which there are homework assignments:

Remember, SMUG is built on the principle of self-paced, hands-on learning. Don’t worry if you get behind. The Curriculum section will always have an up-to-date listing of available courses in sequential order. Complete the coursework as you have the time and inclination.

Unlike traditional colleges and universities that offer degree completion through cohort programs, you don’t have to work at the same pace as everyone else. The SMUG cohort is always growing and accepting new students (15 in the last week alone). So you can’t get behind, because there’s no pace you’re expected to match.

Of course the other major difference between SMUG and other universities is they actually give you a real, accredited degree. And even the cheapest public universities charge tens of thousands of dollars for it.

At SMUG, the B.S. degree you earn has a double meaning. But since it’s free, and since you’ll be gaining a lot of practical knowledge and experience through the process, I’m confident you will find it an exceptional value.

Happy studies!