Tag: Lee Aase

Healthcare Social Media Events This Week

I’m taking three days off for travel this week, and look forward to a big virtual event on Tuesday and interacting in real life on Wednesday and Thursday at some interesting healthcare social media events.

  • On Tuesday, I’m going to be in Chicago for some meetings and then to present a Webinar for Ragan Communications based on our social media experience at Mayo Clinic. Registration is FREE and open until noon CDT on Tuesday, August 4, so there is still time to sign up if you’d like to join. The Webcast runs from 2-3 p.m. on Tuesday. I will be tweeting using the #mayoragan hashtag.
  • On Wednesday, I will be in Indianapolis for the Eli Lilly Web 2.0 Summit. I understand there will be about 20 outside presenters for this event, which is for Lilly employees, so I look forward to an opportunity to meet some folks face-to-face with whom I’ve previously only conversed via Twitter. Not sure what the Twitter hashtag will be, but if you follow me on Twitter (always a good idea!) you’ll discover it soon enough.
  • On Thursday, I’m in Omaha for a breakfast with the American Marketing Association’s healthcare interest group. Contact Megan O’Dea if you want more info.

The interest in social media among healthcare communicators, marketers and medical staff is extremely high right now, as this story from Forbes.com indicates. For example, I understand that more than 1,500 people have signed up for the Ragan Webinar. They aren’t all necessarily involved in healthcare; some may be from other industries. So, I’m looking forward to that “broadcast” opportunity to reach a large and widely dispersed group, but the in-person meetings will also be great, allowing more in-depth discussions.

And speaking of in-person discussions, if you’re involved in health care and interested in social media, I hope you’ll consider attending the social media summit Mayo Clinic is hosting and co-sponsoring with Ragan in October. It will be on our Mayo Clinic Scottsdale campus. I’m excited about the faculty we’ve assembled and I’m confident it’s going to be a great couple of days in which we can all learn from each other.

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.

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.