14 Mil Personas con Diabetes Revisarán sus Niveles de Glucosa en Sangre al Mismo Tiempo

El próximo martes 14 de Julio a las 4:00 pm hora del Este de Estados Unidos, 14.000 personas en el mundo analizarán sus niveles de glucosa en sangre al mismo tiempo y compartirán el resultado a través EsTuDiabetes.com, una red social para personas que viven con diabetes que inició sus actividades el año 2007 así como en su comunidad hermana en Inglés TuDiabetes.com.

Participar en esta iniciativa para alzar la voz en torno a la diabetes es muy sencillo:
• Si eres miembro de www.EsTuDiabetes.com, haz clic en el banner de la página principal y comparte tu nivel de glucosa en sangre.
• Si tienes una cuenta en Twitter, comenta tu lectura en Twitter (utiliza #14KPWD hashtag) y enlaza de vuelta a: http://14kPWD.org.
• Si prefieres, puedes actualizar tu estatus en Facebook o tu red social favorita compartiendo tu lectura y enlazando a: http://14kPWD.org.

Esperamos ver la mayoría de los resultados el 14 de Julio a las 4pm hora del Este. Si se les hace tarde por unos minutos compartan sus resultados cuando puedan ese mismo día,

Lo que realmente importa es que chequees tus valores de glucosa en sangre de forma frecuente. Si no vives con diabetes entonces pide a alguien que viva con esta condición de vida que revise sus niveles y comparta la cifra con el mundo el próximo 14 de Julio.

YouTube ads: An Intrusive user experience!

After I saw the video of Michael Jackson's daughter crying at his memorial today, I saw this:

What is wrong with this picture? At least a couple things!
1) From a human standpoint, I find it pretty insulting how commercialized things have become around MJ after his death. There are not 2 but 3 ads appearing in the end frame for this video of his daughter crying her dad's death...
2) You can't get rid of the ads to be able to click on the video that is sitting directly behind them. So, they are killing the user experience to make a buck, basically. Reminds me of the popups of the early days...

Become A Partner With The Patient Blogger

Last week I did a presentation alongside Kerri Morrone in a conference aimed at people from the pharmaceutical industry. We tried to get three main points in the presentation:
1) We're people first: not far from the concept of "Call Me Patient, Not Consumer" I wrote about a few months ago.

2) Trust is key in this space (arguably in all spaces) and it works both ways. An important step to build trust is to start humanizing pharma more. Pharma can humanize itself more in many ways: starting with putting a name and a face to the building, the company name and the stock; thinking of the patient as people (as just mentioned).

We may not be getting hit by a hurricane every day but the cost of health care and the barriers to access to care make it harder and harder for people with chronic conditions to get the care they need. Pharma should find creative ways to emulate efforts like P&G’s "Loads of Hope" initiative to help Katrina victims with their laundry after the hurricane – so many people need help today.

Can you make patient assistance programs easier to find? Easier to enter? Broader? Things like these could go a long way to help build up trust from people towards pharma. A place to start may be to mine your organization for stories of people working in pharma because they were driven from within by a personal connection to a particular condition.

3) Adverse Event data is a good thing: Adverse events (AE) seem to be the elephant in the room most pharmaceutical companies are running away from when it comes down to working with online communities and patient blogs. Not engaging patients may save pharma the "trouble" of dealing with AE but it also results in missing opportunities for dialog.

Here is the presentation:

Become A Partner With The Patient Blogger

View more documents from Manny Hernandez.

Mazinger Z y Koji Kabuto

Hoy vi una serie de episodios de Mazinger Z junto a mi hijo. La verdad es que era una serie bien basica comparada con los manga de hoy en dia, pero me encantaba. Aqui tienen un videito para rendirle tributo al gran Mazinger y Koji Kabuto:

Interesting Uses of Ning in Education

I recently asked the tweeple following @ningfordummies about creative uses they have for Ning in Education.

Here's what some of them replied:

From @imaginedpm
Using the ning to develop and share new curriculum across different educational institutions & other stakeholders.

From @RIFWEB
Here's how RIF uses Ning to educate: http://www.airspace.ning.com

From @bethanyvsmith
I did my thesis on using ning in a distance ed class for class discussions

From @jmiscavishhttp://lhshonorsla9.ning.com/ http://lhscreativewriting.n... how don't I use it in edu?
... and you probably knew about this one, but I frequent the english companion ning: http://englishcompanion.nin...
... and well, too. I'm running my summer reading program through the ning groups right now.


How about you? What interesting uses you are making of Ning in education? If you choose reply @ningfordummies on Twitter, please include the #ningedu hashtag.

Oxfam America Raises Funds to the beat of Sigur Ros

The Global Hunger Epidemic from Oxfam America on Vimeo.

Tribes: Unimpressive and lacking substance

I don't consider myself a fan of Seth Godin, but I have enjoyed many of his books. When I saw a video of him talking at TED Talks recently, I decided to order Tribes. The truth is that the book was more than adequately summarized by the speech he gave @ TED.

Beyond that, I cannot help but agree with the reviewers that point out the lack of substance in this work by Godin... By the end of the book, you are inevitably left wondering why did he need to publish an entire book about it. There's really indeed an unfortunate lack of substance in Tribes.

Instead, I recommend The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick) and Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable.

Clay Shirky speaking at NTC 2009