Against Internet Discrimination!

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & Corporate Evangelist

I just read a good piece by Kathy Divis from Greystone about Net Neutrality.

I think it’s particularly important that members of the healthcare community share their thoughts with legislators as many of the examples that are bantered about opposing Net Neutrality relate to healthcare along the lines of “should your MRI need to compete with YouTube for bandwidth.” 

Kathy is encouraging us to fill out the “Save the Internet” petition .   I encourage you to take a moment to read her thoughts on the issue and let your opinions be known.

Internet Can Cause Physical Harm

By Michael Herring, Interface Designer

In late March, some malicious internet users attacked an Epilepsy Foundation forum. This forum is aimed at helping people affected by epilepsy, a condition that can cause seizures and headaches when the brain is presented with a number of brief, strong surges of electrical activity; such as flashing lights and colors.

This was possibly the first attack on a Web site that caused actual physical suffering, according to the news article on Wired.com.

New concerns on PHR security

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & Corporate Evangelist

In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, two researchers express concerns about the privacy of health information after the entrance of Microsoft and Google into the Personal Health Record space.

The authors apparently hope to begin a dialogue on the implications of private organizations like Microsoft and Google as stewards of such large volumes of patient data.  Fueling these concerns is the lower burdens that they perceive such organizations would carry to protect this information. And, they suggest these organizations would not be required to follow privacy regulations, such as HIPAA.

Taking Small Actions to Stem the Tide of Climate Change

By Genie Gratto, Senior Project Manager

In a thought-provoking article in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Michael Pollan asks the question: Why bother about climate change at all? The problem is too big to address one person at a time, one action at a time. “There are so many stories we can tell ourselves to justify doing nothing, but perhaps the most insidious is that, whatever we do manage to do, it will be too little too late,” Pollan says.

So it may be, but Pollan advocates for taking small actions, nonetheless, and argues passionately for everyone to plant something from seed, nourish it with homemade compost, and grow even a little of their own food. Gardening-particularly kitchen gardening-is such an earth-affirming activity that it can’t help but make the doer think differently about the natural world and their impact on it. As a gardener myself, I can’t help but agree.

Surfing a Tsunami

By Devendra Shrikhande, Senior Project Manager

If there is one thing synonymous with the Web, it is its tie with change and youth. The public persona of the Internet is largely shaped by and for younger generations.  However, the Web is starting to pay more attention to seniors.

Fulfilling the Promise of Content Pages

By David Sturtz, Information Architect

I’m at the 2008 Information Architecture Summit where I attended a great session titled “Content Page Design Best Practices,” presented by Luke Wroblewski, Senior Principal for Product Ideation & Design at Yahoo!

I’ve tried to quickly summarize Luke’s points here, and provide some actions you can take today to improve the UX for visitors to your content pages.

Work Hard, Play Hard

By Tracy Trettin, Marketing Manager

As the lead SQL developer at Geonetric, Jason Adams is well-known around the office… both for working on challenging database projects and for his passion for grilling. Often on summer days, you’ll find Jason at the grill – cooking something special for his hungry coworkers. Jason’s specialty: stuffed jalepenos.

Facebook for corporate communications?

By Ben Dillon, Vice President, and Corporate Evangelist

Paul Levy, President and CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess, told a great story in his blog last week about how Facebook is seeing use in his organization as an internal communications tool.  I had an opportunity to see Paul speak last year and he’s a passionate advocate for the potential of social media tools.  While I’m not quite ready to endorse Facebook as a core management communications tool as he suggests, I do think there are some excellent lessons in his story.

Decentralized Authoring

By Eric Engelmann, President & CEO

There’s a great post at Webiscope about decentralized authoring - allowing many individuals within the hospital to create and edit content for your Web site - and some of the challenges it brings.

Since we’ve done this for many clients, I’ve pulled together a few of the things that we’ve found work best.

Aaron lists three main area of concern:

Brainstorming/Mind Mapping

By Heather Rast, Interactive Experience Manager

The Geonetric creative services team has started having internal abstract brainstorming sessions, centered around a random Web issue, to charge up the ‘ol creative batteries and shift gears to challenge folks to think outside of their everyday task lists. Wow, that’s a couple of automotive metaphors I didn’t intentionally make.

But the gist is applicable. No matter how well-knit a team is, or cleverly constructed cross-functional its genetic makeup, it’s a truism that we tend to use our own agendas, assignment lists, and frames of mind/exposure points to assess work-related issues and to get things accomplished.