Thank you to the board, staff and faculty of Independence Community College. I had a great time presenting. We are very excited to be working on the transformation and continuing development of indycc.edu.

Here is the presentation:

ICC Destination Transformation! 

I’m often asked about holiday electronics purchases. Here are a few tips and some links.

http://www.decide.com/

Decide.com is a resource for getting the best prices on electronics. They make a fun app for the serious shopper. Take a look as their advice will often get you better pricing than black friday and with much less trouble.

As a rule we advise you to skip the extended warranty, few people get any benefit from them. (there are some exceptions, one being if the person that will own the device will need a lot of support to help use it providing that the specific warranty provides that kind of support)

Check the stores return policy BEFORE you buy.

Don’t fall for “bait and switch” make sure you know exactly which model number you intend to purchase and stick to it. Packaging can be very misleading and many people end up stuck with items that looked identical but weren’t.

Here is a link to Consumer Reports buying advice, it’s a great resource.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2011/11/consumer-reports-holiday-shopping-guide/index.htm

Thanks to the Kansas Academy of Family Practice Physicians and their PCMH Initiative for inviting me to speak. I had a great time and to those who attended you couldn’t have been a better audience.

Here are the slides for all who want them: PCMH 2011 Silence Not an Option

PS: All images copyright respective owners: You can use any of my content via share alike (creative commons) with attribution.

Here be the Storify recap ala Dr. April Foreman:

Storify PCMH 2011 Patient Provider Online Communication: Silence is Not an Option

We can all use a good social media policy. Ours is constantly under development. I feel like I could never learn too much about social media policy because it helps inform my decisions about so called traditional media. The best people and organizations have synchronicity with regard to their use of media and advertising. The worst don’t. Let’s try to get someplace in between.

Here are a few points from this link to the Mayo Clinic’s blog entry written by Dan Goldman, an attorney for Mayo and a charming, pragmatic person who really cares about this topic.

“You cannot control Social Media but you can manage it.”

“Plan for and expect a crisis, if it never comes great! (it probably will)”

“Education and awareness are critical.”

“Plagiarize! Other peoples policies are really helpful in developing your own.”

P.S. Most of this advice is good for all of us, not just the healthcare folks.

photo by Chris Sharp

Well it’s once again time to talk about backups and backup strategies. If you haven’t looked at your backups lately and don’t have reliable offsite backups or you just need someone to explain your options please Contact Us. 620-251-0750 or [email protected]

Even thought data recovery is a very laborious and therefore pretty profitable we would prefer that you backup your data.

The Library of Congress has put together a nice website on digital preservation that can be found here: Digital Preservation. That link will take you directly to the page they put together for photos but the advice goes for the rest of your files as well. BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP. That is all.

Our founder Tony Wood is proud to have been invited to speak at the Kansas Academy of Family Practice Physicians PCMH Summit in Overland Park, Kansas in September. If you are at all interested in the future of healthcare we encourage you to attend you can register below.

Kansas PCMHI Summit 2011: Context for Engagement

September 30th – October 1st, 2011

www.kansaspcmh.org

KU Edwards Campus 12600 Quivira Rd. Overland Park, KS 

Click Here to Register Electronically:

www.mtgs-etc.com/kafp13.htm

Or you can download the paper registration form and brochure here:

Kansas PCMH Summit Brochure

Dan Gilbert, Psy.D. of Harvard and author of Stumbling on Happiness talks to us about current and future comparative value and it’s effects on our decision making. The relationship to IT management is profound, this information can help you budget more wisely and pick projects that will have more far reaching positive effects on the quality of your business.

Rory Sutherland is a brilliant advertiser, he has worked for one of the largest firms in the world for a long time and if you watch this you’ll see why.

facebook logo

Why not?

A new piece of software makes it really easy to take over your account from any Android phone. Basically it’s like good hygiene, you wash your hair so you should enable HTTPS on your Facebook page.

Have a great weekend, with your shiny hair and pretty security settings.

Here is a the Register’s story on the Android software FaceNiff that allows the attacker to easily take over your Facebook page: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/03/android_cookie_stealing_app/

Here is a nifty video from Sophos that explains how to enable HTTPS on Facebook: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/01/28/how-to-enable-httpsssl-encryption-to-secure-your-facebook-account/

Benjamin Franklin perhaps the very first American Technocrat was appointed the first Post Master General in 1775 a mere 236 years ago. Now the technorati of our time will conviene on New England to discuss it’s eminent dimise. (The USPS posted a loss of 8.5 billion dollars in 2010 alone.)  On June 15, 2011 a distinguished group of technology professionals and scholars will descend on Arlington, Virginia for Postal Vision 2020 in hope that they will plant the seed that will grow into a sustainable model for the US Postal Service. The potential loss of the U.S. Postal Service has far reaching implications, for the entirety of our nations history Americans have benefited from a means to exchange information owned by and for the benefit of all Americans. A link to the conference: http://www.postalvision2020.com/