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By julie on
3/2/2010 11:26 AM
One of our clients, Wisdom Legacy, will be having a book signing event for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, San Diego. Please join us:
6:30 pm on March 4th
University Christian Church
Fellowship Hall
3900 Cleveland Ave
San Diego
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By admin on
2/26/2010 9:56 AM
Upcoming Business Intelligence Events
Top Ten Emerging Trends in Business Intelligence & Analytics: March 10, 2010, New York, NY. This event by The Data Warehouse Institute
Gartner Business Intelligence Summit, April 12-14, Mandalay Bay Resory & Casino, Las Vegas: At this year's event, you will learn how BI and performance management can provide you with the insights and metrics you need to make better decisions more quickly.
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By bruce on
2/23/2010 1:17 PM
Data Entry & Quality Healthcare
Great article on why medical organizations should slow down on adoption of EHRs: click here for Readers Write -- issues with EHR design, impact on patient care, and concerns about whether the government will be able to fulfill its obligations under HITECH.
As an HIT consultant, I see another big reason to go slow with EMR adoption: many organizations rushing into electronic health records without recognizing the ways the software will impact their current operations and processes. After years of doing things a certain way, front and back offices are faced with the need to change how they bill, how they track patients, how they complete forms, etc. The failure to do adequate business process work on the front end often obviates any gain the electronic systems could bring, at least for the first year of implementation. And that’s the year that you have to perfect meaningful use.
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By julie on
2/18/2010 8:37 AM
Don't you wish you had thought of that?
Go to Andy Sernovitz's Damn! I Wish I'd Thought of That: Unusually Usfeul Ideas for Smat Marketers. It is one of the best marketing blogs out there.
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By julie on
2/15/2010 10:07 AM
Marketing profs is offering this web seminar on February 18:
Bing Isn't Google: The Differences That Matter for Search Marketing
The description: Since the launch of Bing in June 2009, its market share of search engine traffic has been steadily growing. With all of the excitement around the new engine, though, and its focus on relevancy, marketers are clamoring to ensure their websites get ranked well in the up-and-coming engine.
What you will learn:
How Bing differs from other search engines, including how it portrays your website in its search results
What Bing values most in its ranking algorithm
Things you should do to best optimize your website for Bing
Go to Marketing Profs: Bing Isn't Google to register for this web seminar.
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By julie on
2/11/2010 2:10 PM
Managing Social Media Efforts: Internal or Outsource
Social media has become a hot topic in not marketing, customer service and other areas of business. The task of who is responsible for maintaining social media efforts is not always clear. Experts agree that you can’t determine who is responsible for social media until you have a strategy, but it’s also important to know what your human resources are while developing that strategy.
We recently researched several practitioners who interact with social media at different levels. Here’s what we found to be “best practices” for social media efforts concerning where it functions in the organization and who is responsible for it.
Best Practice #1: Consider Time Involved
Nicholas Cifuentes, an account supervisor at social media marketing firm Overdrive Interactive, says it’s important to consider the time involved in a social media campaign. “You can launch a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, a MySpace page, wipe your hands clean and say, ‘Okay, what's next?’” he says. “What is next? Creating the page…took very little time. Now, you have to worry about the interaction and maintenance.”
Cifuentes suggests that whoever takes the reins of social media efforts have experience in the field. He says it’s a good idea to outsource the work, if you can afford it.
“It might do well to go hire an agency that can handle social media marketing, and has process, procedures, maintenance and reporting already set up,” he says.
Best Practice #2: SMBs Should Look to Individuals & Invest Resources in Training
Individuals and small businesses may not have the budget to bring someone in for full-time social media efforts, but they also don’t have the time to do the tasks themselves. Dr. Debra Condren, author of Ambition is Not a Dirty Word: A Woman's Guide To Earning Her Worth and Achieving Her Dreams, says that she employees a virtual assistant or “VA” to handle her social media marketing efforts. Outsourcing to an individual over a firm, may be more cost-efficient for an SMB or individual. For instance, Dr. Condren paid her VA to co ...
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By julie on
2/9/2010 9:12 AM
Upcoming Social Media Conferences & Events
- Social Media Delivered Networking Event: February 24, 5:30 - 8 pm. Leverage the power of LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Blogging. This free event will be held at CoffeeGroundz, 2503 Bagby St, Houston, TX. Visit the Social Media Delivered website
- Using Social Media to Align the Corporate and Personal Brand: March 4, 8 am - 5 pm, Chicago, IL Click here to register
- Forrester's Incorporating Social Media Into Your B2B Marketing Strategy Workshop: April 21, Los Angeles, CA. In this interactive full-day Workshop, learn how to use social media in your existing marketing strategy to build awareness, drive traffic, tap into real market issues, and energize your most loyal and enthusiastic customers.
- Marketing Profs Business to Business Forum 2010: May 4-5, Boston. Comprehensive B2B marketing education, learn from peers, and interactive discussions
- Big South Social Media Summit: August 13, Nashville, TN. Come listen to some of the most forward-thinking business giants from companies like Southwest, SAP, Comcast, Domino’s as well as social media loving celebrities who will speak directly on how they drive ROI through social media.
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By julie on
2/8/2010 5:38 PM
Five Social Media and Marketing Blogs That We Like
- The Viral Garden: written by Mack Collier who is a social media consultant, trainer, and speaker. The Viral Garden is filled with valuable information about all things concerning social media and marketing.
- Copyblogger: a social media blog about content strategies and copywriting. This blog aims to help its readers get traffic, attract links, gain subscribers, and sell stuff! Visit the Copyblogger.
- Ries' Pieces on the business of branding: this is a great blog written by Laura Ries who is a marketing guru, consultant, and author. Her blog includes excellent case studies of real companies and their branding hits and misses.
- Church of the Customer: written by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, principals for the consulting firm Ant's Eye View. This is one of the top social media business blogs with more than 121,000 daily readers.
- Duct Tape Marketing: real world ideas for small businesses. Proven marketing strategies are the core of Duct Tape Marketing. On this site you will find articles, workshops, products, and ideas galore.
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By AmandaB on
2/4/2010 5:19 PM
Seven FREE Must-Have Social Media Marketing Tools
Social media is all about sharing information, videos and other “stuff” available on the Web. In order to implement social media into your marketing, you’re going to need some tools.
Luckily, many social media marketing tools are available free and they are easy to integrate into your website. Here are five free tools to get you started with social media marketing.
TubeMogul’s free video syndication means your videos are added to the top video and social media sites without all the work of manually uploading them. It also gives you some interesting analytics features including:
· Who is viewing your videos, how they are viewed and how often
· It tells you down to the second when a viewee drops your video
· Where your audience is located
Read More »
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By julie on
2/3/2010 10:02 AM
What Consumers Look for in New Tech
At eMarketer.com there is a good article about consumers and technology. The Phillips Center for Health and Well-Being sponsored the research done by Braun Research. Here are some of the findings:
Most respondents to the survey felt that life has been made better by technology, especially in communication, information, and medical treatments.
To read more go to:
eMarketer for the full article
The Phillips Center for Health and Well-Being
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By julie on
1/22/2010 7:52 AM
This is a guest post from Carrie Carter of Disc, Inc:
Why Did My Hard Drive Crash???
This is the number one question we receive from our recovery clients. Unfortunately, there is no one answer. Technically, we can find out what broke, but it is almost impossible to determine why it broke.
A hard drive is like a record player (for those of us who remember what a record player is!)…
The two main components are the platters and the head assembly. Like a record player, there are other components like circuit boards and various electronic parts that help out, but these can also cause problems. The platters are like records, but they spin at 5400 rpm or faster, depending on the drive. The head assembly is like the needle, but 1000 times SMALLER and it never touches the platters. The head floats back and forth, reading and writing magnetized data on a thin pocket of air caused by the fast spinning rotation of the platters.
Now, back to the question… Why did your hard drive crash? Barring human accidents, like knocking the drive off your desk or dropping your laptop on the floor, the best answer we can give is that the drive is mechanical and when you apply heat, movement and electricity to something spinning and moving at extremely high speeds, anything can go wrong.
So maybe the drive you purchased was the last one on the assembly line being put together the Friday before a holiday or maybe it was just your lucky day… the possibilities are endless.
What is our recommendation? Make sure your data is backed up to an alternate drive or media source on a regular basis. If you are working on a highly critical or important project, BACK UP DAILY. It pays to be prepared, because a hard drive can work fine on one day and crash the next.
Disc, Inc is a company serving nationwide clients with data conversion, duplication, and replication services.
Click here to visit the Disc, Inc. website.
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By AmandaB on
12/31/2009 1:30 PM
Ten Technologies that Made the Grade in 2009
Server Virtualization – Vizard says this saved IT organizations dollars on servers this year, which was valuable in the Great Recession. Business intelligence was also a benefactor of server virtualization. Without this application, BI would be struggling.
Smartphones – Where would we be without these artificial appendages? Not only are they putting personal information at our fingertips; they’re allowing employees better productivity because they can access email and important business info at the slide of a thumb or punch of a button.
Cloud Computing – Vizard says this new technology could threaten jobs, but it has freed up resources in IT.
Multicore Processors – Quad-core processors are “changing the fundamental economics of server systems,” says Vizard. He says the real value is in teaming them with virtual machine software. We concur.
Business Intelligence Apps – BI apps are helping businesses make informed decisions because they have intelligent data readily available. Now, if we could just bridge the gap between business users and IT, it really would be a happy New Year.
Application Acceleration Appliances – Vizard calls these “comparatively inexpensive option” to upgrading networks.
10GB Ethernet – Although this is not widespread yet, the option to deploy 10GB Ethernet as data needs increase is something to feel good about as the year winds down.
802.11n Wireless Networks – Before these networking devices arrived, Vizard says “managing a wireless network” was painful. Cheers to less end-user complaints!
Virtual Switches – Vizard says this is an up and coming technology for the enterprise because it will affect virtualization down the road. He says “virtual switch technology will not only be seen as invaluable enabling technology, but also the technology that ...
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By admin on
12/4/2009 10:11 AM
Principles
The key to our project success is that we operate by a few basic principles. In particular, three axioms drive our work and make us unique:
1. Show, Don't Tell - We prefer to communicate in actions and deliverables. The most important key to collaborating is to start with something to see, touch or do. Slideshows are nothing compared to a working model or prototype that demonstrates an idea quickly to all stakeholders.
2. Never Guess - We don't start with "the solution", we start with questions. We focus on building the answers without making assumptions.
3. Early and Often - We succeed by presenting our work to stakeholders early and often. This allows us to quickly refine our understanding of client needs; rapid prototyping and incremental steps add up to something big. Also, we understand that part of the intrinsic nature of problem solving is that some problems can only be understood by attempting to solve them. Thus, by delivering early and often, we insure that we fully understand the problem before moving forward.
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By bruce on
11/30/2009 1:12 PM
As Micah shared in a previous post, we went to the World Health Innovations and Technology Congress (WHIT5.0) in Washington, D.C. last week. It was an awesome experience, and Micah gave a great overview of the conference.
I walked away with several clear impressions: one of them is that before we can make significant progress on health care reform, we need to engage patients (notice I'm talking about health care reform, not reform of the ridiculous financial system that surrounds it). In fact, both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich agreed on this point, and you can't get much farther apart than that on the political spectrum. Many other speakers and panelists at the conference said the same thing.
Why patient engagement? Because patient engagement in their own care will encourage lifestyle changes -- changes like losing weight, stopping smoking, exercising, managing diabetes more carefully. And these changes would result in big reductions in major illnesses: type II diabetes, stroke, heart conditions, and many cancers. In turn, besides increasing quality of life for millions of Americans, billions could be saved on treatment of these diseases -- diseases which are extremely high cost in both length and type of care.
Billions of dollars saved, which can be used to pay for health care for the un- and under-insured; to finance rural clinics; to reduce insurance premiums; to improve care of non-lifestyle-related illness. Okay, this is a little pie-in-the-sky, because some of that money will end up in the pockets of insurance companies; but the possibilities of freeing up that kind of money are pretty exciting.
What's next? Well, lots of companies are working on various platforms that will allow patients to be involved in their care. They range from Web applications that integrate directly with the patient's EHR (like Palo Alto Medical Foundation's PAMFOnline built on Epic's foundation) to Keas' care plans and self-monitoring tools to Google Health's online records. All show promise in different ways, but my bet is on provider or payor driven (or funded) systems, because they have the most to gain by using these systems. Vendors like Keas will be successful only if they can pull in corporate users and figure out a way to be transparent to physicians. But there are definitely some changes going on in this space, and they bode well for health care reform and financing.
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By micah on
11/19/2009 10:18 AM
WHIT 5.0
Members of the VelocIT executive team participated in the World Healthcare IT Congress in Alexandria, VA this month. Bruce Fielding and Micah Dylan attended, and we sponsored Dave Burrill, from Wisdom Legacy, and Joyce Hunter, an executive consultant from Washington, DC, as co-attendees.
A few highlights from the show:
- Bill Clinton spoke on the need to increase healthcare capacity in developing countries, but in the US we have to focus on removing rigidity from our healthcare system. It has become ossified due to a lack of standards that have locked easy flexibility and capability away from patients.
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Newt Gingrich spoke about the problem of personal accountability and the type of programs and incentives that address individual, cultural, and organizational issues before financial ones. His new foundation, the Center for Health Transformation, is focused on these issues.
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Dr. Donald Simborg from Health Level Seven (HL7) became our new hero when he said that "it's more important to agree on a standard than to find the perfect standard. The most value comes from simply having a standard and moving on. The Internet developed because we had TCP/IP, not because that was the best networking standard you could possibly have."
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The 'last mile' problem from a local Health Information Exchange (HIE) to providers is probably the biggest technical hurdle. That encompasses standards, implementations, and adoption issues which may be insurmountable.
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The move to a National HIE (NHIE) is extremely far off and 'unlikely in our lifetimes' according to some. The last mile problem looks more like the last light year.
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Others are focused on orthogonal problems, such as leveraging the skills of healthcare experts to provide personalized healthare to the many rather than the few. One good example is Keas.com, by a former Google VP.
- Within existing systems, value needs to be increased by focusing on usability and better return on value to payers and providers through automation and business process improvements.
- There has to be a focus on involving patients in their own care. Several speakers noted that the largest savings in health care costs will stem from preventing co ...
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