I’ve been following Friendfeed this week and I’m proud to say that I’m not an addict yet. I suspect it won’t take long though. Dana sent me an invitation to another interesting service called LibraryThing which allows users to catalogue and review their own books. It’s sort of like a “book-wiki” but with the features of a social network which include being able to export your posts to Friendfeed. I like this much better than Amazon as a way to research reader reviews.

I am working a post for Webiscope about the Quality site I’ve worked on at Piedmont Hospital. So far good reviews, but I am waiting on the boss for clearance before I release it. I did this as a courtesy because I mention certain names and I want them to know that their brand is going to be on display in a less formal format than advertisement or press release.

My foray into Healthcare 2.0 has been an enlightening sort of disillusionment about our expectations of where Web 2.0 is leading and not leading our culture. I’ve learned that changes in this era need to begin with an increasing sense of responsibility on the part of institutions if they are to maintain their relevance and usefulness.

I guess that brings me to the subject of why I am blogging. I came up with the idea for Social Media Frenzy a couple of years ago after attending the 2006 Healthcare Internet conference in Atlanta and listening to Shel Holtz speak about social media.

I was working for Saint Joseph’s Hospital and had just finished launching a new website for them. I was invited to present about incorporating video into hospital websites, and I accepted an award for Best Site Design. It was a high point of my career and my blood was roiling in a swift current of breakout-session muffins and conference coffee.

When Shel Holtz mounted the pulpit to give his presentation about social media, my sunny day was suddenly interrupted by a dark cloud. By that I don’t mean anything negative. The ideas I brought from his talk just sent me back to the drawing board, back to the lab. I knew right then as I know to this day that we have a huge responsibility ahead of us in healthcare. We are pulling back the curtain on the information that has always been closely guarded by the medical community. But in doing so we also have the responsibility to educate the public in an ethical manner.

What would the hospital website with a Web 2.0 skin look like? Were message forums and blogs on a hospital website realistic given HIPAA restrictions? Was there a place for Wikis on our Intranets, and was an Intranet just another wall to take down? Was management ready to relinquish control of the brand message? How did we avoid the mistake of thinking this was just another trend, and prevent ourselves from jumping in with a me-too mentality? Anyway, how was the social media really implicated at all?

These were some of the questions I’ve been exploring over the past couple of years. It has been a slow, steady crusade but I believe I am beginning to see sunlight crack the cloud that Shel brought with him that day. This blog is the beginning of it.