The Plight of a Health Activist

Comment by skypen on January 20, 2010 at 4:34pm

Amy,

Like you said, the frustrations you express are not just those of the health activist, but represent those felt by many who have fully embraced today's technologies for the purpose of seeking, organizing, and understanding information (health-related or otherwise). While it's both a blessing and a curse, it's also an opportunity -- an opportunity to pause, like you have, and ask the simple question: "What am I really trying to do here?". In one moment I find myself hopping from engadget to mashable trying to keep up with the latest gadget and technology news, then suddenly I am slipping down the proverbial "Tube Trail" of Augmented Reality videos! (“Tube Trail” is what I call it when I start watching videos on YouTube, and start clicking on "related videos", and before I know it hours have passed and I feel like I've been in some kind of hypnotic tube-trance. Know the feeling?).

Because we are not just an employee or a patient or a friend, we often find that we have so many different information desires and needs, and each of these can pull is in a different direction, at the same time. Sometimes we end up feeling like our brains are literally being pulled apart. And even if we can find the information we are looking for, then what? What do we do with it? How do we organize it? Who do we share it with? How do we validate and process it? I liken it to being in a batting cage and having all these balls being pitched at me – and I have a split-second to make a decision of either letting it pass or hitting it in some direction -- where hopefully it reaches someone that it matters to. So what, you ask, can we do to deal with all this?

I have no “silver bullet” answer, but I have some thoughts and ideas, most of which I have yet to fully adopt myself. First of all, I try as much as possible to keep a short-list of key information sources from which I can draw from – sources which I regularly review and count on for being up-to-date, relevant, and accurate. In my tweetdeck, these are my groups. In a browser, these are my bookmarks. I rely on approximately a dozen key sources in any one category to deliver 95% of what I need. I also try and artificially compartmentalize my day in such a way that I don’t hop between different categories of sources within the same time slot – meaning, if I am doing research on the latest blogs and news regarding Social Media and its use in Pharma, I try not to jump over to Ad Age or Media Week to see what’s happening in the marketing/advertising world. In addition, if information comes my way that is not relevant to me at that moment and threatens to de-rail my current focus, I find quick and easy ways to “tag it and bag it”. To help with this, for example, I keep a Google spreadsheet where I simply cut and paste headlines and links that I plan to visit later. Another tool I am just starting to use in Twitter is the “favorite” button, not because I necessarily like a story, but because I know that once a day I have reliable place that I can return to where I can review what I have put aside.

In addition, I use technology tools to help me. For example, I often use Blogger as a way to simply capture news and articles because Google indexes it and I can search for it later. I also have been using a tool called Twittinesis ( http://twittinesis.com) to help me keep track of my daily tweets. It automatically publishes my day’s tweets into my blog so at any time I can go back and review what I’ve sent out, and perhaps dive deeper if necessary. In addition, because it’s now on my blog, I can also user the Blog Search function to find it easily (keep in mind, Twitter Search only archives a couple of month’s worth of tweets, and then they are deleted. So this is a helpful way to have a publicly indexed record of your tweets). Also, probably like you, I download dozens of interesting reports every day, but I often don’t have time to read them. And like many of us, if I don’t read it within 24 hours it’s likely that I even forget that I have downloaded the report. To deal with this, I put all downloads in a folder on my local hard drive and then let Google Desktop work its magic. Even if I completely forget about the report, whenever I am doing research I will always search both my desktop and the web via Google – and all the articles I have saved are now part of my entire library, without requiring me to organize them in folders, tag them, make notes, etc…

Like I said, it’s not really just one solution that helps me, but a combination of discipline, focus, and technology that allows me to avoid information overload. The biggest challenge, frankly, is the discipline. If you are an information junkie like me, it’s very easy to find yourself consuming in inordinate amount of information on an hourly basis. Frankly, as wonderful as our brains might be, I really don’t think they were designed to be effective data managers. Yes, the information gets stored somewhere in there (I think!), but retrieving it at the right time is almost impossible. So the key becomes being focused on what we are looking for, becoming very fast at extracting the necessary details, developing mental shortcuts and systems to process the information so it doesn’t sit in our heads, and then leveraging technology to help store, organize, and index the information for future retrieval. This last piece is really important. At any given moment, our brain has a way of deciding what’s important based on a specific set of very “local” and “time-sensitive” variables. That automatic filtering process enables us to sift through large volumes of information and quickly decide what’s relevant and discard or ignore the rest. However, that information we are “discarding” might still be valuable, just not at that given moment. So I find it critical to find ways to have 10% of my brain peripherally-focused, looking for keywords that enable me to quickly flag a possible piece of information, and then quickly dump it somewhere that I know is intended for that purpose.

I can’t stress enough how much leveraging Google’s phenomenal indexing capabilities can take away a lot of the mental burden – whether it’s indexing folders and files on your desktop, your blog (public facing or private), or your own set of Google docs, spreadsheets, and presentations.
To be honest, many of these principles were applied in the development of www.fdasm.com. At the beginning, I just wanted to have a single place to follow the twitter stream based on the hashtag #fdasm. From there, it grew to becoming a place to help organize news, articles, presentations, and other important information that was being generated from multiple sources at an incredibly rapid rate. I believe the popularity of the initiative highlights that we are all dealing with information overload, so anything that helps remove the burden of finding, organizing, and remembering large quantities of data can be of huge value.

Anyway, I am not sure that is helpful, but if nothing else, I hope you hear me loud and clear when I say that what you are experiencing, while very frustrating, is actually quite common. I applaud you for bringing this issue up, as it once again reminds us all that we need to continue the quest to reduce mental clutter while at the same time enjoying the wonderful adventure of learning.

Sincerely,
Fabio Gratton
Chief Innovation Officer, Ignite Health
(twitter: @skypen)

Comment by Amy K on January 20, 2010 at 5:23pm

Fabio,
I can't thank you enough for your time and effort in responding to my post. The clearest message is that I am not alone, and I thank you for reminding me of that and sharing your experience and tools.

You perfectly describe the challenges we face and our common plight. The "Tube Trail" is something I could all too easily float down with you. Twitter saps my time and focus like no other type of social media has to date, and yet it is the doorway that I utilize most, leading to information, resources and relationships that I am so grateful to have opened.

You also touched on the struggle of the different pulls we feel, "Because we are not just an employee or a patient or a friend, we often find that we have so many different information desires and needs, and each of these can pull is in a different direction, at the same time." As a wife, mother, friend, employee, advocate, activist, and passionate person, I agree with you completely when you say "Sometimes we end up feeling like our brains are literally being pulled apart." This describes very well how I have been feeling!

You are absolutely correct about the opportunity that we need to take to remind ourselves "what am I really trying to do here". I think I might want to post that phrase on a post-it note to the top of my lap-top. It goes back to the discipline aspect, to be disciplined enough to set up tools, to use them, and to refocus when we have strayed away from our goal.

I am particularly interested in finding ways that I can utilize Google to help me. I have yet to tap into that properly. I think it would be very wise of me to follow your example and take advantage of the tools Google has to offer.

Although my words are few, I wish to speak volumes of appreciation for your input and advice! Knowing that I am not alone, I am certain so many others can also benefit from your perspective.

With gratitude,
Amy K
@Abeeliever/@wegoAmy

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