Category: Social Media

Minnesota Social Media Innovators List

SMInnovatorBadge

In the last 10 days or so, Arik Hanson took nominations for a list he called “Top 20 Minnesota Social Media Innovators.” It was a neat project, and looking through the nominees introduced me to a lot of interesting people I haven’t yet had a chance to meet, since I live about 100 south of the Twin Cities. And I’m glad he opened the list beyond the Twin Cities area, so that we who live in what used to be called “Greater Minnesota” could be considered.

Yesterday he announced the list, and I think the best thing about it is he sorted it alphabetically. 😉

As Arik says, one strong message from this project is how vibrant the Twin Cities/Minnesota social media community is. I haven’t been able to attend the MSP Social Media Breakfast yet, but I understand the attendance has been in the hundreds, and look forward to getting there sometime soon. And earlier this month we had about 120 people attend a social media seminar sponsored by the Rochester (Minn.) Chamber of Commerce.

This is also something of the power of social media; you don’t have to live in a huge media market like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or San Francisco to use social media tools creatively and effectively.

Thanks to Arik for undertaking this project and introducing me to some people doing really interesting work, and I’m honored to be included.

My Third Anniversary

Today I celebrate three years of blogging. It was on this date in 2006 that I wrote this brief post about being one of 50 million blogs tracked by Technorati. A year later, when I did my first anniversary post, I had just been getting into Facebook. That led to some opportunities to do training sessions on using Facebook, including the Facebook 101 presentation that became the inspiration for rebranding this blog as SMUG. And so a year ago today I looked back on another fascinating year, as I had “found my voice” in helping people learn how to use social media, and particularly how to develop business applications.

The year since that point has been amazing. It’s really telling to look back on some of my previous posts and to see how my thinking has changed over time. And in my work I’ve been involved in some significant new projects, most notably the launch of our Sharing Mayo Clinic blog.

Our Tweetcamps have also been fun and interesting, and it’s been gratifying to have so many people from outside of Mayo participating. Aside from Sharing Mayo Clinic, I think for me the biggest development of the last several months has been getting much more engaged with Twitter, and I appreciate all the people I’ve met through the #hcsm and (to some extent) #hcmktg chats. Having this video go viral after embedding in our Sharing Mayo Clinic blog was a delightful experience, especially getting to meet Mr. and Mrs. Cowan and their daughter, DeDe, when they went to appear on Good Morning America. That whole experience was really special.

It seems odd to think that the next year could be as interesting and exciting as the last one has been, but all signs point toward a continuing adventure. Next week, for instance, I’m going to be doing a Webcast with Ragan Communications about our Mayo Clinic experience, and I’m hearing that we have 1,500 people registered to participate. And in October we’re hosting and cosponsoring a Health Care Social Media Summit with Ragan at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. It’s unlikely we have another viral video in the works, but then again we didn’t see the last one coming either.

Thanks to everyone for reading, participating and Tweeting, and I look forward to another interesting year.

Two Kinds of Viral Videos

I got a request from Jason DeRusha of WCCO TV to shoot and upload a video talking about some of our videos at Mayo Clinic that have “gone viral.” So here’s a little discussion of the two basic kinds of viral videos we’ve had:

Here’s the blog post on Sharing Mayo Clinic where we embedded the video of the Cowans. You can see other highly viewed videos on our Mayo Clinic YouTube channel.

I will update this post later with some more details, but mainly want to get the video available for Jason.

Update: Here’s the story Jason ran. My video submission was mentioned briefly at the end.

MHSCN Accomplished

Yup…that’s how they say the acronym for the Minnesota Health Strategy & Communications Network. I’ve noted before that health care communications organizations seem to have the opposite problem of cardiology clinical trials: while the latter insert extra letters (or pull them from the middle of words in studies’ titles) to create acronyms like HOPE, LIPID, PICASSO and CABANA, Minnesota’s is only one of several health communications organizations that need to just buy a vowel! (Florida has FSHPRM, and Wisconsin has WHPRMS.)

Here’s the presentation I’m offering as a keynote this afternoon for the MHSCN 2009 Summer Conference (PDF):

MHSCN Presentation on Mayo Clinic Social Media

View more presentations from Lee Aase.

Update: As I sometimes do, I mentioned my granddaughter Evelyn a few times in this presentation, and showed some video of her. I also mentioned how much we enjoy getting to see her across the miles via Facebook and Skype. So after my presentation, Deb McKinley of Stratis Health asked me to turn on the Flip so she could send a message back to Evelyn. Here it is:

Speaking at BlogWell

I’m looking forward to participating in my third BlogWell conference on Thursday, August 13 in Minneapolis. I presented in Chicago in January and attended in New York in May. Both were excellent.

BlogWell is sponsored by the Social Media Business Council (formerly called the Blog Council.) The August version of the event will be held at General Mills headquarters, and in addition to my Mayo Clinic presentation will include case studies from:

  • General Mills
  • H&R Block
  • CME Group
  • Ford
  • McDonald’s
  • Walmart
  • Progressive insurance

If you’re in Minnesota (or can get there…we do have fine airlines serving our state) and are interested in seeing and hearing examples of how large organizations are using social media, this is a great chance to pick up some tips and to find models you can emulate in your organization. It’s a fast-paced afternoon and I’m sure you’ll find it worthwhile.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about it, or go here to register.