Mayo Clinic | Social Media University, Global (SMUG)

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.

“Don’t Try This at Home…”

Normally when you hear a warning like that, the implication is that the task should only be done by a trained professional, not by amateurs.

I had a different experience of this admonition today as we were getting ready for Tweetcamp III. Instead of using a phone conference call or professional video Webcasting, as we had done for our first two tweetcamps, I thought it would be great to do this one via uStream.tv.

I even tested it “at home” Saturday night, with my very first ChancellorCast embedded here on SMUG.

It seemed like the perfect solution. Put the slides on Slideshare.net. Use the PC in the room to show the slides to the local audience, and use the built-in camera on my MacBook Pro to Webcast video and audio to the 100+ participants from all over the U.S. and Canada (and even one from the Netherlands.)

Unfortunately, when I went to uStream.tv at about 8 minutes before the scheduled start of #tweetcamp3, here’s what I saw when I hit the Broadcast Now button:

It said it was “Finding Server” but the reality was different.

So after trying to get through for about 7 minutes, at 1:59 CDT I decided we needed to revert to the audio conference method…and after a few hiccups with getting the right number and authorization code, we were able to get going about 2:13.

In some ways it was an interesting audio representation of the “Tribe” that had gathered, because for the better part of five minutes we had a popcorn-like sound of beeps as new callers joined.

It also showed the power of Twitter, in that by using the #tweetcamp3 hashtag we could get word to almost everyone, and switch probably more than 100 participants from video Webcast to phone conference in less than 15 minutes.

My takeaway: “Don’t try this at home” has a second meaning beyond the traditional. Just because something works at home in testing doesn’t mean it will work in a presentation. It’s important to do a run-through in the exact room where the presentation is taking place, and using all of the technology that will be used in the actual event.

I generally have my slides for presentations uploaded to Slideshare.net for two reasons:

I don’t like to give out the presentation in hard copy, because I want to have people looking at me and the screen instead of their laps. I don’t want them reading ahead either. By having the presentation on Slideshare, I can tell them where they will be able to refer later, and we can just engage in discussion.
In a pinch, I can present from the Web instead of my computer, so if for some reason my computer doesn’t talk nicely with the LCD projector I can use one that does.

It’s what grandpa used to do when he would wear both a belt and suspenders to ensure that his trousers stayed put.

It’s good that we had audio conferencing as another option. It would have been better to try the broadcast from within the room when I arrived there about 25 minutes before the program’s scheduled start. I just though that since I could get to uStream.tv from behind the firewall I wouldn’t have any problem connecting to the Video server.

I know better now.

And let this be a lesson to you, too.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Tweetcamp III today. I hope you found it helpful and worthwhile. I look forward to going through the #tweetcamp3 tweets and seeing what I can learn.

I won’t thank you for your patience, because I don’t know whether you were patient or not. Maybe you were secretly stewing. But at least nobody flamed me. So I’ll thank you for that, and for hanging in as we worked out the kinks.

Update 8:45 p.m. 7/13: I was able to record the video Webcast tonight, so now I think the Tweetcamp III post is a nice archive you could share with people you want to introduce to Twitter.

Tweetcamp III – Reserve Your Spot

On Monday, July 13 from 2-3 p.m. CDT I will be presenting Tweetcamp III (Twitter hashtag #tweetcamp3) as a training session for Mayo Clinic employees.

You are invited to join remotely. I’ll have details on that in a bit. But meanwhile, here is background on the agenda:

General principles of social media
1. The Dinner Party Rule vs. The Law of Large Numbers
2. How to avoid being “That Guy”
3. Be real and transparent
4. Give more than you take
5. Integrity
6. Mayo Clinic Employee Guidelines
Understanding Twitter
1. Why does it matter?
2. How is it different from Facebook, email, long-format blogs and other forms of electronic communication?
3. So what can you say in 140 characters anyway?
Case studies that show Twitter’s potential, or “A Series of Serendipitous Events”
1. Listening and connecting
2. Real-life meetings
3. How Twitter has contributed to Mayo Clinic’s reputation
4. Journalist interactions and media stories
5. Blogger interactions and resulting posts
How to Tweet Productively – it’s not an oxymoron
1. Understanding #hashtags
2. Twitter etiquette and building “Tweet cred”
3. Using Twitter with Yammer
4. The Twitter API
5. Twitter applications for desktop and mobile
6. Finding “Tweeps”
Assignments and Extra Credit

As we have done with previous Tweetcamps, #tweetcamp3 will be open to participation from outside of Mayo. If you would like to join via Webinar, please leave a comment with your name, city and location below. Here’s why:

Leaving your comment here helps to demonstrate the worldwide community connection potential of Twitter. Part of what we do in Tweetcamp is show how practical Twitter is for bringing a community of interest together on short notice. I will be asking people to introduce themselves at the beginning of #Tweetcamp3, but by leaving a blog comment it’s more of a permanent record to which we can refer.

By leaving your comment, you help show the reach of social media in general, and Twitter in particular…and in a forum to which you can refer later, to show your internal doubters what can happen in less than three days, over a weekend, via Twitter.

Check back here for details on how to participate, or follow the #Tweetcamp3 hashtag.

Update: Here’s the link for the Tweetcamp presentation and video Webcast. Go here at 3 p.m. EDT/2 p.m. CDT/Noon PDT to participate live, and join the discussion via Twitter at #tweetcamp3 or by entering the #tweetcamp3 room at Tweetchat.com.

Please do leave a comment below with your attendance plans, though, so we can have a record of the scope of participation.

FREE Ragan Webinar on Mayo Clinic Social Media

On Tuesday, August 4, I’m going to be presenting a free webinar, sponsored by Ragan Communications, on our Mayo Clinic social media experience.

The webinar was announced this morning, and Ragan CEO Mark Ragan tweeted this afternoon that the response has been strong:

I have no idea what kind of record is in the making, or what the old record might be, but if you’re interested I hope you will sign up to join us. Please pass this along to anyone you think might find it helpful.

Twitter Case Study: Finding GPS in a Hospital Haystack

I was in a meeting today with Kim from our Mayo Clinic Quality office discussing how social media and tools like the Flip video camera could be used in her work, and she mentioned that she had heard about a hospital in Texas that was giving GPS units to patients when they checked in, so they could more easily navigate to their appointments.

She said she had been wanting to track down the name of that hospital so she could get in touch and learn from the experience to see whether it’s something we might want to try, but that she didn’t really know where to start looking. So she had procrastinated for a few months at least because, as David Allen says in Getting Things Done, if you don’t know what the next action is, you can never move projects forward to completion.

I asked Kim if she would like to try a little Twitter experiment, right then and there, with me putting out the call for the information on Twitter. She was game, so here was my tweet at 2:27 p.m. today:

Within seven minutes my message had been re-tweeted five times, including these:

…and I also had several other responses telling me about RFID options and a pilot program that puts GPS devices in the shoes of Alzheimer’s patients to help track them if they go wandering.

By 2:39, 12 minutes after my original tweet, I had what I think is likely the definitive answer:

But besides the answer I was seeking, having asked the question on Twitter led to some new alternatives that I think Kim hadn’t been considering.

Lessons and Observations:

Using relevant hashtags is a great way to have your tweet go to people beyond those who follow you directly. In this case I used #hcsm and #hcmktg. I’ve participated more in the former than the latter, but knowing about them enabled me to ask a relevant question in a virtual space where like-minded people gather.
Investing time in Twitter builds capacity for future efficiency. The fact that I was familiar with Twitter, had some followers and knew some appropriate hashtags meant that I could find out in 12 minutes what had stymied Kim for several months. It’s possible that a new Twitter user with a question like that would get an answer, but likely only if a vendor had a Twitter search term set for “GPS.” Twitter isn’t a quick fix; it’s built on relationships. That takes some time, but once you’ve put in some effort you will see that the community will come to your aid.
With Twitter, I didn’t have to know where to start looking, or who to ask. I asked my tweeps, and some of them passed it along to their tweeps. With email I would have had to decide where to send the message. With Twitter the message just seems to find the right people, provided you have started by putting in a little time to start a network.

Thanks to @stephaniethum, @nanoni127, @shamsha, @BethHarte, @JohnSalmonHUP, @josullivan, @lwelchman, @Cascadia, @lisacrymes, @DaphneLeigh, @DynamicRFID, @NickDawson, @tstitt, @mkhendricks, @MikaLofton, @mkmackey, @ljstarnes, and @gelogenic for participating today!

That’s the power of Twitter: 18 people coming together with no notice to discuss a topic and get an answer to a perplexing question (and to suggest other interesting alternatives) in less than an hour.