A Special Delivery

My colleague Nicole Engler, who works with our Mayo Clinic Cancer Center and its communications, is a great Mayo Clinic employee and a true believer in the power of social media. She’s involved in the leadership of a young professionals group in Rochester that invited me to do a presentation on social media and be part of a panel last July, and it was a tremendous event.

But it was nothing like her blessed event last Thursday. You can see the story below, embedded from her appearance Sunday morning on Today:

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We will all miss Nicole during the next few months as she’s home with Austin, but it’s typical of her work that she would find a way to get national media attention even as she’s going on maternity leave.

A Twitter Quote That Crushes It!

I’m listening to the audio version of Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book, Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, and Gary just used one of the best, most direct lines about Twitter’s value I’ve heard recently:

If you’re not using Twitter because you’re in the camp that thinks it’s stupid, you’re going to lose. It’s as simple as that. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s stupid. It’s free communication, and there’s a crapload of users.

If you have sensibilities about salty language, this book may cause hypertension (figuratively speaking). He’s got some solid insights, though, backed by his experience of having applied social media profitably.

I’ll probably do a full review when I’m done, but couldn’t resist sharing this quote. So far, it seems like his book might be a good introductory text in “Why you should enroll in SMUG!”

Gary has some good examples of how social media (Twitter in particular) can help you build your personal or business brand. I think SMUG can give step-by-step help for people Gary has inspired to get into social media, but who need some how-to handholding.

Why I’m glad I’m not at SXSW

Watching some of the tweet stream, I’m sure I would have really enjoyed being in Texas for South by Southwest. But I’ve had a lot of fun this week watching basketball, including Wednesday night when my son Joe, a high school freshman, got his first game action with the varsity team in the first round of the Section 1AAA Minnesota High School Basketball Tournament. Here’s a snippet of his play:

Joe isn’t the guy who nailed the three in that sequence; that was Connor Gunderson, a senior who scored his 1,000th career point in the last regular season game.

Joe only has 998 to go.

Tonight the Austin Packers, seeded third, travel to second-seeded New Prague for the semifinal. I would definitely feel badly if I were missing it. I’ll have to rely on @EdBennett and others for the #SXSW and #SXSWi scoop.

Update: The Packers made a valiant run at it, but came up just short after falling behind by about 20. They cut it to 5 but couldn’t quite make it.

Where have all the polyps gone?

When I heard that Peter Yarrow of the ’60s trio (with Paul and Mary) had recorded The Colonoscopy Song to increase awareness of the need for colon cancer screening among those of his vintage, all sorts of lyrical possibilities ran through my mind…

Where have all the polyps gone?

Long time passing

Where have all the polyps gone?

Long time ago

Where have all the polyps gone?

Gone to lesions everyone!

When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?

I naturally saw the progression moving from polyps to lesions to metastases (although that had too many syllables for the song’s meter) to graveyards. But instead of just recycling one of his oldies, Peter came up with a whole new song, which he performed on the CBS Early Show this week (and also posted to YouTube):

To support this screening awareness initiative, we interviewed a Mayo Clinic physician about for more background on colon cancer and colonoscopy.

I had my first colonoscopy about a year ago, a few years ahead of the time when I would otherwise qualify for a screening colonoscopy, as part of the journey that led to my diagnosis of celiac disease. The prep wasn’t the most fun, but I actually have no memory of the colonoscopy itself.

I don’t know whether my colon, like Peter’s, is “really cool.” But I’m glad to know it doesn’t have precancerous polyps. If you’re over 50 and haven’t had a colonoscopy, make an appointment this week to find out about the coolness of your colon.

Two Podcasts and a lowercase conversation

I’ve had the pleasure recently of some discussions about social media, two of which were recorded as podcasts and one that was summarized nicely in a blog post.

I enjoyed all of those discussions, and thought you might enjoy hearing or reading about them as well.