Thursday, December 28, 2006

OrganizedWisdom.com Makes the Wall Street Journal

I was thrilled to wake up yesterday to see Laura Landro's article in the Wall Street Journal titled, Social Networking Comes to Health Care (subscription required but this link should work for 7 days).
There are several important web communities featured in the article and OrganizedWisdom.com is listed in the following break out box as one of the new health sites adopting social-networking, custom search and new interactive technology.


Landro's article is a major trend piece about what's going on with online health care, and the validation and coverage from such an important news source is a great way for our company to enter 2007.

Since you may not have access to the WSJ, here are a few highlights:

The social-networking revolution is coming to health care, at the same time that new Internet technologies and software programs are making it easier than ever for consumers to find timely, personalized health information online. Patients who once connected mainly through email discussion groups and chat rooms are building more sophisticated virtual communities that enable them to share information about treatment and coping and build a personal network of friends. At the same time, traditional Web sites that once offered cumbersome pages of static data are developing blogs, podcasts, and customized search engines to deliver the most relevant and timely information on health topics.

The same technologies are making it possible for advocacy groups, government agencies and health-care providers to update consumers on relevant health news and deliver personalized health-awareness messages, reminders and alerts to email accounts, wireless devices and mobile phones. Online collaborations known as wikis, which let different users jointly work on Web-based information such as photo albums and contact lists, are developing to help communities plan for public-health emergencies, such as fluwikie.com, a flu-pandemic planning site. Mainstream advocacy groups and government agencies are offering their own specialized health-information "feeds" to consumers, and even experimenting with three-dimensional online computer worlds that use surrogates known as avatars to let visitors interact.


Landro continues...
While some sites don't offer all the bells and whistles of full-blown social networking sites, they are taking advantage of the phenomenon to reach out to special audiences. The Wellness Community, a nonprofit group that provides free support and education to cancer patients and families, launched a Web site, grouploop.org earlier this year to help teens with cancer connect in a private, safe environment. The group says it has reached more than 15% of the approximately 50,000 teen cancer survivors in the U.S., and is also connecting teens in nine other countries. In addition to weekly scheduled support groups moderated by a professional, teens can log in at any time of day to post or read messages in a password-protected site. A comprehensive search engine allows users to search for other teens with cancer on such criteria as age, location, or diagnosis.


We have big plans and many exciting new developments for OrganizedWisdom.com in 2007. Thank you all for your support helping us launch the company this year. Your contributions, feedback, and suggestions have been invaluable. Please keep checking in and sharing your personal health wisdom to help others!

Friday, December 22, 2006

Oasis!








Three More of Mark Cuban's Invaluable Business Rules

Mark Cuban's Blog Mavrick is always one of the first blogs I click to in my news reader. That's because he's always sharing such useful advice and wisdom that as an entrepreneur I find invaluable.

Like these 3 Lessons he details in his recent post about Success and Motivation:

1. Everyone is a genius in a bull market

2. Win the Battles you are in before you take on new battles.
Its a huge lesson for entrepreneurs. Win the battles you are in first, then worry about expansion internationally or into new businesses. You do not have unlimited time and/or attention. You may work 24 hours a day, but those 24 hours spent winning your core business will pay offer far more. It might cost you some longer term upside, but it will allow you to be the best business you can be. To use a sports metaphor, get the fundamentals right and then add to your fundamental skills before you try to take on the trick shots.

3. Few businesses only have one opportunity.
Every entrepreneur's mind goes crazy with the new and exciting things they can do beyond the new and exciting things they are already doing. The risk is that you can drown in all these opportunities. Far too often when an entrepreneur hits a rough patch or competitive challenge, the temptation is too "turn on the thinking cap" and find something new for the company to do. Don't fall to the temptation. As an entrepreneur you have to know what the core competencies of your business are and make sure that your company focuses on being the absolutely best it can be at executing them. Bottom line is this. If you are adding new things when your core businesses are struggling rather than facing the challenge, you are either running away or giving up. Rarely is either good for a business. In fact, by chasing these opportunities, you may be assuring that you drown in them.

These rules may seem like common sense to many business pros, but the reality is, it's useful to rethink/relearn/remember great lessons like this as frequently as possible and to ask yourself frequently: am I following these rules?

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Joe Apology Gets Some Press


My good friend Andy DiSimone launched a very interesting blog last March called JoeApology.com. It's a simple concept that packs a punch and is starting to get noticed. Take a look at what The Standard Report had to say about the site last week here in its article titled: Shh...I'm Sorry. Give him a hand by Digging the article by clicking here.

Congrats Andy!