A Primer for Bloggers

Chris Brogan has blogged a brief list of things for newbie Bloggers to think through when starting up and maintaining a blog. Good hints and tips in here for healthcare and NHS bloggers.

I like #18 "Inspiration is both a verb and a muscle."

Digital Engagement: From participation to partnership PDF Report

Life moves on. Things change, well, mostly.  What seems not to be changing is the methods of involving, engaging and interacting with the public.  Some public sector groups are starting to grapple with how best to use technology to best effect. For instance, I learnt recently that after 6 weeks on no replies to email and 30 minutes waiting time on phone calls, that the best way to get a response from our local Council Waste and Recycling department, was to tweet. Instant response. Instant relief. Problem solved fairly quickly.

So what is healthcare doing? There's a proliferation of Twitter accounts being set up but these are mostly used as another channel for advertising with little listening going on.

Public and patient engagement is mandatory for the NHS, especially for the new CCGs (Clinical commissioning groups).  Digital engagement is more than setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts, or sending out emails asking for responses to documents.

This report from Future Digital, published in June 2012 has some excellent strategic and tactical ideas on how to get with the times and to design interventions that are appropriate for our 21st Century.

Book Review: The 29% Solution by Misner & Donovan

How can you improve your networking skills so you become one of the 29% of people who are separated from the rest of the world by six degrees? After explaining that we are not all connected to everyone by six degrees and that it takes some work to be in that position, this books provides a 52 week guide to achieving this.

Here are the week by week headings (it is worth reading the book to understand the detail underlying each one):
1. Set networking goals
2. Make time to network
3. Profile your preferred client
4. Recruit your word-of-mouth marketing team
5. Give to others first
6. Create a network relationship database
7. Master the top 10 traits of an effective networker (these include positive attitude, trustworthiness, good listening skills, helpfulness, timely response etc)
8. Diversify your contacts
9. Meet the right people
10. Reconnect with people from the past
11. Talk to your family
12. Break out of your "cave-like" routine
13. Participate in a web networking group
14. Become a centre of influence (develop magnetism)
15. Go the extra mile; be value-added
16. Become a catalyst who makes things happen
17. Find a networking partner to help accountability
18. Volunteer visibly
19. Send thank you cards
20. Follow up today
21. Be available 24/7
22. Create catalyst events beyond the workplace
23. Have purposeful meetings
24. Make first impressions count
25. Seek out a referral networking group
26. Join a Chamber of Commerce
27. Sponsor events
28. Host a purposeful event
29. Ask questions of others
30. Talk about benefits not features
31. Comunicate your business succinctly
32. Speak about your business
33. Leverage your business card
34. Give high-value presentations
35. Create an informative newsletter
36. Write press releases
37. Write your own identity
38. Ask for written testimonials
39. Share your success stories
40. Write your own personal introduction
41. Blow your own trumpet (or toot your own horn if you're in the USA!)
42. Ask for feedback
43. Adopt a host mentality at functions
44. Use the law of reciprocity
45. Write a letter of support
46. Ask for referrals
47. Read the paper with the intent to discover referrals
48. Conquer your public speaking fear
49. Become the hub of a power team
50. Become a networking mentor
51. Recruit an advisory board for your business
52. Commit to lifelong learning

(I've tweaked the wordings on the list a bit to suit my own understanding.)

Paper: Review of dimensions of community and organisational readiness for change

For the last few months I've been catching up on the latest papers about readiness for change. Mostly there is nothing new - just a confirmation of what we already know. But that doesn't mean it's not useful to check out what others are discovering.

This paper reviews other papers (a sort of not-quite-systematic-but-still-useful review). From this the authors note that climate, attitudes, commitment and capacity are the themes linking most of what they reviewed on the topic.  Makes sense to me.

Prog Community Health Partnersh. 2012 Summer;6(2):219-26.
Dimensions of community and organizational readiness for change.
Castañeda SF, Holscher J, Mumman MK, Salgado H, Keir KB, Foster-Fishman PG, Talavera GA.

Book Review: Tribes: we need you to lead us; by Seth Godin

All of Seth Godin's books are amongst my favourites - sometimes you just resonate with an author. I like the way he speaks his mind and is unafraid to test out new thoughts and ideas.

He explains a tribe is nothing ore than a group of people connected to an idea, a leader and one another. His point is that with the web as it is developing we have more ways to find people of similar ilk and to join the "tribe". However, not all of these groups are fruitful and they need leaders and facilitation in order for them to be productive and constructive. This leadership angle is important.

Seth Godin's thoughts as I connected to them in this book is that being a leader of a tribe is tough and demanding. Often tribal leaders are accused of being outside the norm - a bit of a heretic. He believes that the leaders who are perceived as such and who stick to their views will win out in the end.

What does the author suggest we do to grow these tribal social movements?
1. Publish a manifesto; state who you are and what you are about
2. Others need to find and connect to you - make this as easy as possible
3. Keep the financial stuff in the background
4. Publicly track your movement's momentum and growth
mmm easy on paper though I wonder just how easy it is to do these things.


As good as his books, I also recommend Seth's Blog http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ and you can find out more about him and his books at http://www.sethgodin.com

Paper: Framework for analysing collective action events on Twitter

This freely available paper (PDF) is one for the nerdy person like me who wants a bit of theory and a framework to figure out what goes on when Twitter is used for collective action.

It's a shortish, easy to read and I think valuable addition to our thinking and understanding of the use oif Twitter for large scale change.