South-by-Social-Health (SxSH)

If you pay much attention to the business of Social Media and Interactive technology, you're already well aware of South by Southwest (SxSW). David Armano calls it, "spring break for geeks." I had my first exposure to it last year, and agree that the atmosphere festive and fun. But I think that it's more than that, too ... it's also a time when people who are really passionate about social media and interactive can come together and share what they've learned, what they're doing, and what they think is going to happen next.

There is no better place to connect, and I still keep in touch with many of the folks I met at SxSW last year. This year, though, I am really excited about more than just SxSW. Over the past year, there has been a massive increase in the number of people in my industry - health - who are using social media to make their businesses stronger, and to help people be healthier. The leading Tweetchat for that space, #HCSM, recently celebrated its first anniversary (a celebration I was honored to be a part of). I've even been involved in starting a new Tweetchat with my friend Fran Melmed that's focused on health and wellness in the workplace (#co_health).

For the first time, there will be a sub-conference on health at SxSW ... it's called South by Social Health (#SxSH), and a lot of my colleagues from #hcsm and #co_health are planning to be there. I don't know exactly what it's going to look or feel like yet, but I am really excited to find out. It's easy to follow all of the details on TPS; just search for SxSH to get all of the latest news (and analysis thereof!) See you in Austin ...

The Decision Tree: How Smarter Choices Lead to Better Health | Magazine

via wired.com

After Fran Melmed called this article to my attention, I also heard several other people raving about it before I had a chance to give it a read myself. Now that I have, I am even more intrigued by the concept of visualizing your health decisions.
And while planning out my own decision tree, I noticed that the piece went on to show 3 sample decision trees for people who were dealing with health issues ... and one of them turned out to be my friend Alex Carmichael. Definitely worth a read!

Posted via web from chimoose is (pre)posterous

TPS has a new widget!

We've been adding features galore on TPS ... and are now featuring two new widgets. The first can be seen on my sidebar ... and the second is here. I think that these are great additions to any blog ... or blog post.
We've been experimenting with adding TPS Map widget to all of our posts on CrumpleItUp, and I should probably start doing it here as well. What do you think?

At long last, The State is on video

via amazon.com

This short-lived MTV comedy series featured some of the most memorable skits around ... like "I'm Doug" and "$240 worth of Puddin." Check out Rick Klau's blog for the best writeup on that one.
The show featured Michael Ian Black (one of the funniest guys who hasn't quite made it) plus Thomas Lennon and Kerri Kenney from Reno 911.
If you're into sketch comedy on the edge, The State should be considered the less-well-known little brother of Kids in the Hall, Mr. Show and Chappelle's Show.

Posted via web from chimoose is (pre)posterous

How Might Health Insurers Respond to Medical Loss Ratio Regulation? -- Seeking Alpha

As Washington continues to micro-manage various industries via royal decree, it is becoming increasingly evident that Congress is afflicted by some combination of the following conditions:

1. Ignorance of industry specific business models
2. An inability to read financial statements
3. Willful disregard of #s 1 and 2
4. Delusions of grandeur

via seekingalpha.com

Whether or not you agree with the sentiment on this particular issue (health reform), I think you'll agree that the writing is awfully good - and funny. Carneades, I salute you.

Posted via web from chimoose is (pre)posterous

MentionMap's Gorgeous Twitter Visualizations

I'm a big fan of social network analysis as a means to understand the connection between individuals and groups ... especially if those networks can be visualized in helpful ways. My friend Mathias Kolehmainen (the guy who actually built the Tweet Positioning System) turned me on to this site today, and I was blown away.

MentionMap is a living visualization of your twitter network, showing the connection between you and the individuals with whom you interact, and even the hashtags you use. I can guarantee that you'll learn something about your network - and the mesh of connections it contains - that you didn't know. For example, I didn't know that Chris Hall had connected to Fran Melmed ... Chris and I work together; Fran and I are going to be hosting a TweetChat together. Amazing. Check out MentionMap to see what you can learn from your network ... and let me know what other great network visualization tools you love. I want more!

Edelman hires Armano; sees spike in Twitter reaction

via flickr.com

One of the things I love about TPS (the Tweet Positioning System) is that you can get a sense of trending topics really easily. A nice example is happening now ...

Last night, David Armano (a true Twitter celebrity with over 22,000 followers) announced that he would be joining Edelman Digital as a senior vice president. At that point, the search term "Edelman," which was toddling along at 50-100 tweets per day, shot up to over 1,000. [You can see it yourself, here http://crumpleitup.com/tps/searches/show/2891].

It's also pretty neat to be able to see where those tweets are coming from; I zoomed my map over to Europe and found conversation happening in places as diverse as Austria, Turkey, Moldova and Sweden.

Where are people talking about you and your business? And are you measuring to see what can make that conversation accelerate? I'd love to have you check out TPS and let me know what you think; it's been a boon for our business, but I'd like to see how it might impact yours.

Posted via web from chimoose is (pre)posterous