Conversations that lead somewhere please
Jinfo Blog

7th July 2010

By Joanna Ptolomey

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These days there is hardly a moment that goes by without the mention of capturing the ‘conversations’ via social media tools. Everyone (especially organisations) are talking about ‘joining the conversation’ or ‘listening to conversation’. So what? Conversation is hardly new. Social media only presents a new medium or enabler. What happens to these conversations? Are these conversations making a difference to anyone and where do we go from now? A couple of weeks ago I was speaking at the ‘Out of the Box’ conference (#box10) organised by Patient Opinion (http://box10.wordpress.com/). Many key stakeholders in health were represented – health care providers, voluntary healthcare groups, local government organisations, patient advocacy groups, carers and many professionals such as clinicians, nurses, counsellors, social workers, and information specialists. ‘Listening to the conversation’ was very much on the agenda – but for some (including me) there was a sense of wanting more. In the online world, health information from patients is especially welcomed and indeed the crowd-sourcing presents real business opportunities for some. Social networking sites like PatientsLikeMe (http://www.patientslikeme.com/) offer a real time forum for patients to share real world information about their conditions and specific treatments. It is also a for-profit business model that sells health data from member’s profiles with identifying information removed. Who really gets the most out of unlocking the power of the conversation? Jeff Chester in a recent New York Times article (http://digbig.com/5bbxge) considers the ‘digital pharmaceutical stealth economy’ that is emerging. There is no doubt that this industry knows how to unlock the power of the conversation in a business model. This leads me back to health care providers, health professionals and information specialists at the #box10 conference. There was a feeling that we could achieve more with this information captured via conversations – how could it be repurposed, re-used, mashed up? There was a sense that we are at some ‘tipping point’ at what to do next. I found that many of my tweets found like-minded folks at the conference and many others joined from outside. A professional acquaintance pointed me towards Tom Fishburne’s blog (http://www.tomfishburne.com/tomfishburne/) and the 99% (http://the99percent.com/) - reminding me that it is ‘not just about ideas, but about making ideas happen’. Innovation is the easy part – brainstorming, crowd-sourcing, or just being invigorated by a great conference. But it is the day to day shepherding and harnessing that will make ideas successful. So here I am back to ‘conversation’. Conversation for conversation sake is not useful, although it can feel like brainstorming or ‘doing stuff’ but it is not action. Social media enables the conversation to take place more easily and it provides a great platform to do it. But where is it leading too? I wish I could end this article with the definitive answer to where we go next in unlocking the power of the conversation. I think I will go with Tom Fishburne on this – perseverance.

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