Webicina.com is a free service that provides curated medical social media resources in over 80 medical topics in 17 languages. Their mission is to let empowered patients and medical professionals access the most relevant social media content in their own languages on a customizable platform. So how does it work? Well you simply select your condition and the form of social media you’re interested in – news, blogs, podcasts, videos, twitter feeds, etc. – and Webicina gives you a nice little list of everything available on those platforms. Currently the site covers a range of medical conditions from acne to arthritis and cancer to epilepsy. Amazing. They obviously have this whole social media and healthcare thing wrapped up.

This brings us back to course they’re running: The Social MEDia course, the idea being that “digital literacy must be in the medical curriculum globally”. The course was launched two weeks ago; it’s online and Prezi-based, with tests and gamification. The best part? It’s free!

On the site there is also a list of interesting presentations on topics such as health search engines, e-patients, medical blogging and virtual worlds. You could spend the whole day on there and still come back for more.

Have a look for yourself at www.webicina.com and www.thecourse.webicina.com/

Culminating in a biggie transition event where the baton was handed over to the markets to start to build local plans.

Usually this would take the form of a M4/Heathrow/PowerPoint orgy/branded pads/pens/salad bar. This week has seen us kick this tradition into touch and activate using 27,000 sq. ft of The Old Truman Brewery, (that’s 4 times the size of an Olympic Swimming pool), 19 countries, 150 people, 9 sets built, 1 stage, cool caterers and a rather fun sized graffiti wall. An uber-rollout.

The opportunity proved to be a step towards us using some of the principles of experience design that Central St Martins set me up with – focus on the narrative, not just the story, examine the geography, figure out the level of covert/overt communication you want and don’t do a sticker campaign. With these in mind we have been working hand in glove with our guys on the inside to develop a journey, support and train facilitators, developed some cool stimulus and set the brand above and beneath all activities. It culminated in a pretty mind blowing 5 days, with action stations/audiences in the room for 2 of these.

As with anything new risk was present. If you want predictable then head to the Radission – they do meetings really well, just the same one. If you want Wow, then grow a pair and strive for the new. It’s been a mixture of bloody scary, buzzing like mad and organisational focus.

I was lucky enough to be host/master of ceremonies for the two days. A far easier job than the rest of the team, who I could see the other side of the footlights orchestrating the most creative meeting in my career. As we set up sessions, hired heaters, built the energy, the team made it come together like no other. Matt, Nat, James and I certainly had the odd moment  where the scale and distance from the traditional certainly caused us to need to get our shit together. But for me that has been part of the joy.

Once our ace client team left to head off on well deserved holidays, we all experienced a Ocean’s Eleven moment of reflection and classical realisation. We did it. Simply smashed it.

The pressure was most evident about an hour into our post event wash up/quiet drink that turned into a Lock Stock style session that resulted in me being banned from a restaurant for life, us highjacking a 21st birthday, a trapeze artist’s manly chest being touched up and a wine waiter pretending to be a pirate. It was surreal, only now are the receipts starting to help it all make sense.

I wish you were here to see some of the set up, ideas and scale of the event. It’s truly awesome. Truly. We are showing and telling next week to the group and beginning to plan the next wave which sees us take on 35 local markets. James (midway through 21st birthday shots with a stranger) kicked us off with an interesting idea regarding approaching our next task as an sequential experience theatre. Now there is an idea.

Facilitated by the efficient and straightforward to use Lotuslive Meetings software , 17 of us from across Hive and Ebee pushed towards the bleeding edge of people development. What resulted was a publication centred around our specific development requirements.

Once through name co-creation, and prioritising a list of our desired skills. In hacking pairs we searched, filtered and curated content from across the world on time management, presenting with nerves, selling creative, communications strategy, leadership, giving feedback, negotiation, communicating ideas, adapting behaviour, regulatory environments, dealing with change and also facilitation.

LotusLive was brimming with banter, encouragement, and articles to be scooped into Swarm. We voted for Hack favourite; pizza (thanks Dominos - 2 for 1 Tuesday and all) and washed it down with Stella/Carling/DC.

In two and a half hours we packaged up a diverse group of 72 articles to make anyone of us better all in a readily accessible format. Having never run a hackathon before, the most rewarding aspect for me was the vibe, everyone buzzed with efficiency and the quality focus was really there. Skills development has never been thus! If you fancy having a look through Swarm do stop by. If you want to follow the evenings activity check out  Twitter, the pace of activity was pretty cool to follow. Live it was ace.

A worlds first? Maybe. Regardless looking through the output this morning I think we can be rightly proud.

Experience design is just that and far from just that. Dozens of man-years have been spent crafting a definition that still struggles with the difference between art and design, let alone the requirement we have to trap, cagoule and force down the edges of what it is to be experiential or to provide experience. The wooliness of the subject is refreshing and helping get my head out of the structured, problem/solution world that billable work often requires (especially on a Monday!).

From 5 senses, to 360 degree immersive sessions it’s clearly going to be an awesome 10 weeks.

My reading list is whizzing past Hegel, Marx, through terms as diverse as relational aesthetics and dystopian community. It’s been a while since I read something (Harvard biz review tends to pride itself on accessibility!) that had me rubbernecking to google this regularly. Blindingly good stuff, even this early session got me thinking like mad on a stack of plans/briefs/trickies I have in front of me.

In a world where ‘Brand is…’ is cumbersome and ‘brand does’ becomes more central to our planning model - experiential planning is pretty sexy for me. It channel planning with lipstick on, spinning on a table, air thick with perfume.

With HBR continuing to kick sand in the face of goods providers with yet another article on the worth of the experience economy. Joining the greying of the boundaries between sponsorship, co-branding, commissioned design, corporate installation etc. And Josephs Pine conforming that customer value has run away from all the  commodities and goods, towards tailored services or authentic experiences. It it  the time to try and consider how we offer these experiences, planned, proactive and of course with an audience insight bang in the centre.

With crossed fingers, in a dark, endless cold room . I am hoping that experience design and the time spent with the talent at CSM contributes a component  to me working on a structured approach to behavioural change achieved along a considered, multichannel, richer journey.

In the meantime – a rather nice Nokia experience, corporate installation, co-branded event, light show or Son et lumière (your choice).

Matt and I are heading up to Salford on the train, it’s pitch black, and dead depressing. This cheered me up somewhat and stirred a long gone memory.

I only just remember my sister being ill when I was about 6. A more distinct memory was her accompanying bear; Peri.  Peri pretty much was present all the way to health. Every now and then Peri is discovered still with his hospital wristband on and much smaller than I remember.  I now know that this little bear was named after a Heath Robinson looking yogurt pot, tube and bag gizmo that provided her with the peritoneal dialysis needed whilst her kidneys took a kicking,

This enterprising inspiring mum took her son’s similar requirement for a cancer companion to the next level. Just after his first birthday, Gabe’s mother, Lu Sipos, made the very first Chemo Duck for him. She thought he could use a companion to take to the hospital, one with whom he could share his journey back to health. Both Chemo Duck and Gabe finished treatment in November 2003 and have remained cancer free since.

Since then Lu along with a board of directors and a newly formed not for profit organisation have taken the chemo duck and made him fly. Chemo duck is now in production and the team are striving to give away 10,000 of these donated friends by Gabe’s 10 year birthday.

More than a companion chemo duck has become a vital part of ‘medical play’, a concept that allows children to communicate with parents and healthcare professionals, offering a window into their world midst the turmoil of cancer. Chemo duck is used time and time again as a powerful therapeutic and teaching tool used in medical facilities to familiarize children with cancer protocol and procedures.

Pretty cool eh?

We finished our session with tactical speed dating. Quick fire selling, demo’ing case studies that answered a question from the brief. We all left buzzing, having met everyone in the session in a more intimate setting and got to grips with some of the team’s specific issues. Emma’s Dynasty style ipad demo, Jas’ meeting in a box Russian doll, Ian’s Guess Who game and Kate’s NICE guidance documents lift challenge all led us to a much richer interaction.

It has been interesting seeing how each of us tackled demonstrating. It’s not really in the typical agency skill set, those of us who have sold stuff door to door  (Ian – paintings, me Pentium II chips) relished the chance to get down and dirty. The rest of the team spanked the task, stretching creativity and storytelling to the max. Some of the lessons learnt were;

• Keeping to 7 minutes is tough when the kitchen timer is split into indistinct minutes
• When cutting out hermit crabs in foamex you need loads of scalpel blades
• 6 boxes with ribbons are really hard to tie in a hurry between ‘dates’
• £90 buys you a very sexy demo film if you know where to go
• When stuck for a concept steal from your kids
• Presenting repeatedly makes it smoother (running counter to the ‘never fully rehearse’ a pitch before the day rule)

Last night a group of us headed back to the Dana centre to fill our brains with some more geek fulled knowledge. The talk this time was a bit closer to our hearts looking at how far patient empowerment and knowledge can be pushed and with what consequences.

The talk entitled ‘My beautiful genome’ explored the science behind genetic testing and its future roll out to the general population, and looked at the possible ethical and practical consequences of doing so.

Lorna Frank, the author of ‘My beautiful genome’ discussed her experiences getting her genome sequenced and learning the risk factors that her genetic profile predisposes her to. She likened the genetic revolution to that of the PC revolution – something that will take ours and the next generations by storm and become so widely accessible that in her view all individuals will be armed with their genetic profile.

But what are the consequences of this? Ethically is it right to be informing patients that they are predisposed to diseases like Alzheimer’s without firstly being able to directly predict that they will actually develop the disease and in full knowledge that currently there is no cure or possibility to prevent onset? Does this lead to greater anxiety, potentially lower quality of life and ultimately greater pressures on the medical system as patients armed with greater knowledge appear at far greater frequency in front of their GP? Lorna’s view was no and that the current studies underway are showing no negative impact of this nature. I would question the bias of the sample at the moment with only those truly interested and well informed individuals being tested. If the genetic revolution does explode in the way predicted then I think there would need to be a far more robust infrastructure of pre and post patient counselling as well as education and information on what the results actually mean – they do not correlate to a direct prediction and as such the general population would need to have their expectations managed or we would have an entire host of terrified hypochondriacs on our hands!

However it did raise a load of interesting questions and is something that once the science evolves a bit further could be quite tempting. Most interesting to me was the more psychological side of things – the thought that some of my more annoying personality traits maybe down to my genetic profile and so ‘not my fault!’ It would re-open the discussion of nature versus nurture – with the potential that far more of our personalities than we think are actually outside of our control.

Either way a fascinating debate and one that will only become more heated as the technology and availability of these tests increases.

The star of the film; Author Steven Johnson talks on the launch on his new book covering the myths and rules of innovation. The book spans a huge period in history, ranging from the invention of double entry accounting, and Gutenberg’s printing press in the 15th century, through to Tim Berners Lee and the world wide web, and ultimately YouTube.com.

If you have 5 mins, and are interested in innovation and history  its well worth a friday afternoon muse, I have the book on order, so will fill you in, when I am through it.

If you are interested – have a browse at www.howsmyfeedback.com

This focus of this column is pretty straightforward. It’s Apps – not just mobile apps, but also apps that live on social media platforms. It’s got to be healthcare, something in the wide realm of pharmaceuticals and medical services. It’s got to be targeting any one of the audiences we have in our world, whether that is internal, HCPs or patients. As most of us are marketeers, I am going to select those apps that interrupt the status quo, those that seek to change behaviour. What that means is no Angry Birds, no Mafia Wars, and no Shazam. Boring of me I know, but this is work. If you want to discuss any of the above apps email me. In fact scrap that – I want pitch invites from this baby!

This world isn’t complicated. If you are an online ostrich or you don’t have any app experience this isn’t for you (yet). Get your phone out, download a few from the relevant platform, play around and dive in. If you own a Blackberry, order a family bucket, sit down and talk to the kids (ideally your kids; “can I talk to you about what’s on your phone” – can come over as scary to strangers). Prepare yourselves to learn – these guys are the experts. It’s not worthwhile getting all ‘business’ until you have seen the fun side. Then consider your experiences and figure out how this new tactical channel fits into your work life. This is a channel you have to get comfortable with; it’s not an option to be hiding behind the regulations. It’s titanic time. The well mannered stayed behind, shiver and drown. You need to be pushing your way onto the boats.

When reviewing the dozens of apps for these columns four criteria were front and center. Firstly utility – it’s not difficult to plan an app. Third party developers are equipped with the minimum standards with which to make something function. Despite this it’s common to see crappy build quality and some shocking architecture. Secondly focus – confidence to concentrate on doing something properly, not pretending that adding a search engine and twitter client is useful. We don’t want apps that do everything – my phone’s got that covered and it’s just not the way we consume. We want dedication, defined remit and concentration. Thirdly comes insight – how does this app reflect one? Has it been built around an actionable audience requirement that’s taken a bit of rigor to get to? Will shortcutting a faxed form drive efficiency? Or is it lowest common denominator app strategy? Does it keep its customer front and center? Making sure that it’s going to add something beyond just a departmental requirement to get an app out there before the virology team does? These tools allow us to solve problems that we could never tackle in the past. We should be forcing our insight process to help feed them. And lastly, for this column Apples are not the only fruit. The App Store has stolen a march on the slow coaches at Google. But for me if it’s good enough, share the love across at least Android and if needed Facebook. Blackberries have been ignored here – thus far most of the healthcare apps for these devices have been missing key functionality, and the numbers are not big enough to warrant them being a destination. For similar reasons I am not going to be talking about Etch-A-Sketch as a platform either.

Enough of this. Thumbs at the ready lets start to dissect some of the recent offerings.

Medibabble

Imagine a world where the quality of a consultation depends on a physician’s ability to take a history. Where language and culture get in the way of the cornerstone of diagnosis. This app should make us sit up. Why didn’t we do it? It would have changed the space in which we could talk to prescribers. MediBabble is a robust history-taking and examination application designed to improve the safety, efficiency, and overall quality of care for non-English speaking patients. In a nutshell it’s a professional-grade medical translation tool containing an extensive database of clinical questions and instructions, ordered to fit within the typical consultation style. It’s written and reviewed by a panel of physicians, translated by professional medical translators and vetted by medical interpreters. What makes this a real killer app is that you, the physician, can tell them what you need to have amended – making it a genuinely organic resource. I gave it a go in two of its five languages (Mandarin and Russian) and it performed excellently, getting it right in both tone and content. What’s more it’s free, and currently works on the iPhone, with Android being an “exciting near term goal”.

Medical Educator

Here, the app itself is free in Apple’s App Store, and if you like it you can pay a one-off fee to get unlimited access to the website too. The app provides a good amount of digital content to provide UK medical students with a rich media revision resource. As well as having over 1000 multiple-choice questions, 40 video exam guides and audio case files, it hosts a forum to discuss online performance with other medical students. This is far from an aesthetic app, with its content having pretty low production values. It could also do with some structuring and categorization. But for me this gives it a real world feel – a little chaotic, and authentic enough to learn from. A good app, using rich media right, helping those with 90-hour weeks to learn efficiently. Android users must stick to the old ways of revising I am afraid.

NHS Drinks tracker

Quickly calculate units, keep on top of your drinking and get personalised feedback. It’s billed as

“a great iPhone app if you want to cut down on how much you drink.” The interface is clean and sensible, with the ability to select a drink using one of the four drink icons, then choose the strength, size and number of drinks. Mid session, tap on the ‘add drink’ button to calculate the number of units which is then automatically displayed. There is also a desktop version of the tracker, featuring a personal drinks diary and regular feedback.

You would have thought that a database of alcohol would have been within the app builder’s plan. At the very least, the flexibility to input varying strengths rather than be limited to a set of inflexible bands. It’s also not possible download your progress – to either share with an HCP, or keep offline. This is a big limitation.

With no fortified wines but alcopops galore, it looks like this is aimed at the younger app user – this feels strategically naïve. There doesn’t seem to be any understanding of what makes the user reduce their consumption, which is presumably the aim. Surely an awareness of consumed units is not the chief driver of a change of behaviour – especially in a young audience. When I contrast it against their quit smoking app, which has clear financial impact displayed, this seems to be devoid of any end benefit to reducing down your units. This smacks of an off-the-shelf database, and feels lazy. NHS drinks tracker has been primarily designed for the iPhone, but there is a broken down version for other smart phones.

iBody

If you are going to consider a behavioral change app your first port of call should be iBody. This market has been filled with dozens of little apps concentrating on specific sports, or diagnostic measures. It’s been crying out for a Swiss army knife of an app. iBody is one of the best health and fitness applications designed to help users get in shape and keep track of their progress. It doesn’t restrict itself to simple metrics like BMI, and basic exercise types. This app pushes it further, striving to be the whole dashboard of your health and fitness. Beyond BP, weight and exercise, it utilizes GPS functionality to calculate distance/calorie. Beyond this, the most impressive is the use of graphics to summarise progress, breaking down all the factors you are measuring into simple intuitive displays. It feels as if you have a real partner in your quest for perfection. Another lovely touch is an allowance of 4 password-protected accounts – healthy generosity from this very tidy app. All this is packaged up with exportable files, and regular updates including integration packages for various Bluetooth/Wi-Fi devices allowing everything ‘fitness’ to integrate. The one shame is the restriction in platforms with no plans to broaden this to Android. A German gem available in a load of supported languages.

I would welcome news of any app you love or one that you have developed to review in this column. Send it over and Beapart.

A suitable tune

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