Entrepreneurs! How do you crush your distractions?

Jason Berek-Lewis Founder, Healthy Startups 

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Notifications, @ replies, DMs, SMSes, Likes, +1s, new podcasts, emails, reminders, finely filtered Instagrams, LoL cats, the next Gangnam Style, Foursquare check ins (does anyone still use Foursquare?), RSS deluges, YouTube, memes, Angry Birds, app updates and more... Welcome to the distraction economy, where we get 'paid'/ 'rewarded' for our lack of focus, we live for the next hit, we crave the crush of content and delectable digital delights to alleviate us from the boredom of... well... loving, living and achieving.
 

Entrepreneurs and the double edged despair of distraction fatigue

Why build something, achieve new heights, change the world when you can watch someone else do it in real time, just by following their Tweet stream and YouTube channel?

Why build something, achieve new heights, change the world when chances are no one else will notice because they are too busy retweeting the latest pic of Kim Kardashian's latest pedicure?

Why even bother trying if you are convinced that the builder of the Next Big Thing will be half your age?

You don't become an entrepreneur/ startup founder by being distracted by TechCrunch, Mashable, On Startups or even this blog (but I don't want you to go away just yet! Please be distracted enough to click on one of the Google ads displayed to your right...). You won't build the next Instagram meets Gowalla meets Highlight meets Vine meets Snapchat by losing yourself in the 'stream economy' (hat tip to Gary Vaynerchuk).

Crush your distractions!

How do you beat your distractions? Here are some of the tactics and tools that I am trying...

• Go outside (oh, the horror!) and exercise without your phone. I know we are all healthy cyborgs now, but do we really need to track how far we walk/ cycle/ run? Isn't it more important to just do it?
• Turn off the notifications on your phone/ tablet/ browser - or at least cut off the 'chime' that rings out everytime something happens
• Better yet, actually turn off your phone and tablet for a period each day - my suggestion is don't turn your devices on until you have crossed 1 - 3 things off your (OMG they are always digital!) to do list. I give you the OK to check your Todoist or Any.Do online
• Set, and stick to, rules for each part of your day. Check your (insert distraction vice here) as a reward for completing a piece of work
• If possible, actually meet with your team, face to face and outside the office, over a cup of cofee. And don't bring your devices! Get someone to take notes in one of these (apologies if you are 20 or younger and have no idea what hard copy paper is)
• Turn off your devices before you go to bed. If you are in a relationship, there are sweeter games to play in bed than Candy Crush Saga!

I could well be one of the most distracted people online. I know I need to crush my distractions so that I can Crush It!

How do you escape the double edged despair of distraction fatigue? Share your tips below! 

Providing advice to startups? Don't make this mistake!

Jason Berek-Lewis Founder, Healthy Startups 

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It's tough getting the gig to advise a startup. You have to put years into building your profile, into blogging, into speaking at conferences and meetups, into social media channels and building communities... Along the way, you will find yourself being asked for advice and giving advice - for free - because you want to build your brand, your reputation and your reach.

I do this all the time and I have to stop doing this! Free advice isn't valueless, it's priceless and in the end it's cheating! The person receiving the advice is not the cheater, but the person giving it away for free is! By giving advice away for free you are cheating yourself of income and time that you could be using to earn money.

The real reason that people ask you for advice is because you are an expert. It has taken you a lot of work and a long time to get there, so don't be ashamed or afraid of charging for the advice.

One final tip - don't ever charge people for your time... Charge them for the value that you deliver. 

Why your medical practice needs a social media strategy

Jason Berek-Lewis Creator, Healthy Startups 
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Here are 6 reasons why medical practices, everything from a large metropolitan hospital to a 1 doctor clinic in a rural town, need a social media strategy:

Doctors are real people too

The patient/ doctor relationship is the nexus of Western healthcare systems. Doctors' education and training has become more focused on patients as people, but patients need to see their doctors are 'real' too... For too long patients have felt unable to query their doctor's advice, to ask for a simpler explanation of their health condition and treatment, to make their own views on their health care known.

We live in an era of patient empowerment, but this shouldn't mean disempowering doctors - by using social media, by being active on a medical practice's Facebook page or Twitter account, doctors can share their medical knowledge, but also some of their personality too... YouTube is a great way to do this: have every doctor in your practice record a 1 - 2 minute 'welcome' message for your practice's website and post these videos to YouTube too. For example, doctors can use YouTube to talk about the areas of health that interest them the most. By broadcasting a more rounded view of who doctors are - as practitioners and real people - you can help patients to expand the trust they place in members of your team.

Discover your colleagues

Clinicians can use social media sites such as Doximity or LinkedIn to learn more about colleagues, to share knowledge or to find practitioners that share interests in specific types of medicine. Social media is a powerful tool for knowledge sharing - with no physical barriers, medical staff in your practice can seek opinions, advice and support from other medical professionals across the globe.

Discover your patients

Who are your practice's patients? Do you know what motivates them to be healthy/ causes them to be unhealthy. Having a Facebook page for your practice can be a great way to spark discussions among your patient community and to learn what matters to them. What you discover could lead to the practice offering classes or creating patient support groups, or even becoming more involved in the local community...

Inspire your patients

Why not use Pinterest (http://healthystartups.com/founders-blog/2012/1/24/could-pinterest-be-the-healthiest-social-network.html) to create boards where you can post healthy recipes, exercise tips or motivational quotes? How about using the practice's Facebook page to organise a community health challenge like a mini marathon or diet goal? You can then use Facebook or YouTube to boast about the challenge's success...

Empower your patients

Provide a space like a blog, Facebook page, YouTube page or forum for patients to share their stories - particularly their health 'success stories'. Post, or encourage patients to post, some great examples of people losing weight, getting control of their cholesterol levels, keeping track of their INR results, managing the pain of their musculoskeletal condition, becoming better managers of their medications...

Create spaces for people to talk to each other: spark discussions on the health topic of the week on your practice blog (always sharing or crowdsourcing tips to overcome that week's challenge) or use your social media channels to organise online/offline patient support groups or to share information on new treatments/ therapies.

By creating opportunities to share knowledge and experiences, you will bring your patients closer together and potentially create a supportive community, of which your medical practice and medical staff are the hub.  

Build healthy communities 

While we live in a hyper connected world, we also live in a hyper local one and medical practices are often an important part of a community's fabric. By focusing on sharing locally relevant health information, promoting local health activities and empowering doctors and patients to share their (health) stories, you can use 'cyberspace' to build closer connections and better health outcomes in the real world...

Some tips for building your practice's social media strategy

• set clear objectives around how and why your will use social media and what you want to achieve.
• find out which social media sites are relevant to your patient community and 'go where the eyeballs are'.
• make someone in the practice responsible for social media.
• decide what types of information you want to share.
• use the offline world to reach out to patients and encourage them to participate on your practice's social media sites.

Social media is about sharing

Does your medical practice have a social media strategy? Are you a doctor/ who is  working to a social media strategy? Are you a patient who is using a social media tool to engage with your doctor? Share your experiences in the comment below, or contact me about writing a guest post for our Startup Blog - http://www.healthystartups.com/startup-blog

I'm available for interview...

Jason Berek-Lewis Creator, Healthy Startups 
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So, that's me above... looking all corporate. But, these days I am not wearing a suit and tie that often! I am, however, available for interview if you are looking for someone who is:

• passionate
• opinionated
• media savvy

What I can offer you, if you are interested in interviewing me for your blog, website, newspaper, magazine, podcast, radio or TV station is:

• a strong knowledge of healthcare communications and issues in healthcare
• a background of 13 years in communications/ PR roles, with the majority of that time being in health
• genuine excitement and passion for the contributions being made to healthcare by entrepreneurs, startups and patients and doctors who are embracing technology and social media
• a passion for how social media is empowering patients and changing medicine forever
• good connections in the healthcare, tech and startup space
• experience as a cardiac patient for more than 35 years

You can find out more about my professional background on LinkedIn (see http://au.linkedin.com/in/jasonbereklewis) and you can find out more about my work on this site.

To arrange for an interview, please contact me on jason [at] healthystartups.com or on Twitter on https://twitter.com/healthystartups 

Why is Siri ignoring healthcare?

Jason Berek-Lewis Creator, Healthy Startups 
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Image via http://firetuts.com

Siri, Apple's interactive voice assistant is a tool that I got bored with pretty quickly. While I no longer own an iPhone, I did use Siri on my wife's phone - and I used it for a total of 5 minutes. I didn't see the point of using it.

I do see the point of using a voice assistant on my phone and, as a user of a Galaxy Nexus, I am looking forward to what Google will introduce in the form of its own voice assistant, reportedly named Majel.

But...

There is a danger in Apple, Google and other smart phone manufacturers and develpoers ignoring the huge benefits voice assistants and voice interaction with phones and tablets could bring to healthcare. Here are just a few areas of healthcare that could be disrupted by a digital voice assistant:

• Medication reminders
• Self management of chronic conditions
• Helping patients to access health information
• Prompts/ reminders for healthy behaviours
• Diet planning - should I eat X or Y?
• Managing medical records

I have a mechanical heart valve and I take Warafrin. I get regular INR tests. I track my test results and my Warfarin dose by adding the latest INR and dose to a note in my Evernote app. This isn't a particularly efficient or actionable way of managing my INR/ Warfaring dose on a smart phone. Image if I could do this: 

• open Siri or an Android equivalent - or an app that can access this feature
• Tell the voice assistant/ app my current INR and Warfarin dose
• Ask the voice assistant/ app to "map" my INR
• The app then creates a graph charting the ups and downs of my INR over the last 12 months.
• I could then ask the app to transpose another graph charting my Warfarin dose over the same period.

I'm super interested in comparing different layers of data. I don't know if there is a correlation, but imagine if I could ask my phone's assistant to compare a graph of my INR with my bike riding workouts stored in RunKeeper or with my dietary intake data stored in another app.

Then voice assistants became social

This is likely some way down the track, but the true power of voice assistants on phones may lie in them becoming more social. Imagine if I could do this:

• I could ask my voice assistant to compare my calorie intake and exercise patterns with those of my (consenting) firends or a random sample of people who share my demographics
• I could ask my voice assistant to scan my social networks for healthy recipes being shared by my friends
• I could ask my phone to set up an exercise or diet "challenge" with my friends on Facebook or Google+.  

The future use of voice assistants in healthcare is only limited by technology and imagination - the boundaries of both are being pushed all the time. Where and how do you think Siri, Majel and others will disrupt health? Let me know in the comments below.