The Power Of Blog-Inspired Collaboration
I have been fortunate to be involved in some interesting healthcare blogosphere events this week that demonstrate the power of blogs. Following are some observations about them:
Blogposium Demonstrates That Bloggers Have Plenty Of Intellectual Firepower: This week, Jack Mason of HealthNex invited a group of healthcare bloggers to provide content for the Clinical Informatics Wiki. This project demonstrates that bloggers have a tremendous amount of intellectual firepower and can do “real work.” Click here to learn more about this event and here to read my contribution to the wiki.
Health Wonk Review Highlights High-Quality Blogging: I had the pleasure of hosting the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review this week, a bi-weekly compendium of the best heath policy, economics and technology blog posts. Click here to read the latest edition. And, if you blog about any of these subjects, click here to learn how to participate.
Live and Learn
It goes without saying that you can learn a lot from bloggers. Anyone interested in the benefits and drawbacks of launching a corporate blog would be remiss if they ignored the ongoing commentary about Sheraton Hotel’s foray into the blogosphere. Overall bloggers have not been pleased with Sheraton’s efforts. For example:
- B.L. Ochman called the blog “a dud”
- John Cass graded a few recent entries on the blog and gave most sub par marks.
- Robert French chided the company for allowing Sheraton’s legal team to run amok on the blog. Click here to view the stunning amount of legalese featured in each post.
In my report on healthcare blogs, I suggest that pharmaceutical/medical device companies post a comment policy on their Weblogs, but Sheraton’s approach is far from ideal. GE Healthcare does it the right way. They have a pretty long editorial and comment policy, but it is tucked away on the blog, not featured in every post (see the 'legal notice' link.)
Study Sheraton's blog and follow what bloggers are saying about it. It’s well worth it.
My First Pitch
I’ve spent a lot of time pitching the media, but have never been on the receiving end of a pitch until now. I was contacted by the folks at Prescription Access Litigation Project (PAL) and asked to attend a telephone media briefing next week. During the April 26 briefing, PAL will present four Bitter Pill Awards to pharmaceutical companies they believe have engaged in inappropriate marketing practices.
The event sounded interesting so I decided to attend. I’ll be posting commentary on this issue and the event next week. In the meantime, click here to read a recent post of mine on the subject of pharmaceutical marketing.
Comment Preview