The Demo conference two weeks ago was in Santa Clara, not San Diego. Sorry for the error — Demo has often been in San Diego, but not this time. My last posting summarized what the event is all about and mentioned a few companies that launched there. In addition to the excitement of seeing so many enthusiastic start-ups I gained some new insight at the conference as well. Executive Producer Matt Marshall made some brief but profound comments in his opening talk. The content was not really new but he pulled together and nicely summarized the big picture of where things are headed (See more about his talk at DemoBeat. In a nutshell Matt said the future of the web is evolving around social networking, mobile, and cloud computing.
All three of these topics are written about throughout this blog but I truly gained some new perspective on them at Demo. I have often said that social networking is not about eleven-year old kids on MySpace. It is more about grown-ups looking for jobs, hunting for people to hire, or collaborating on a new venture. The new ingredient is e-commerce integrated with social networking. People can buy what their friends are buying and can offer help to a colleague who wants to know how a particular product works or might fit into their environment. More broadly speaking, social networking is finding its way into every web application, not just a separate application of its own.
The mobile Internet is booming as we can all witness from the massive press coverage about every new phone, phone rumor and network pricing change. The new trend I observed at Demo is that startup companies showed off their new application and pointed out that in addition to the mobile app, the data from it can also be viewed from a PC or Mac. That is a 180 degree flip since a year ago. The iphone and Android phones have the power and speed and graphics to make e-commerce, business apps, video conferencing, and other sophisticated apps practical on the handheld devices. The iPad and coming tablets take things to the next level. The PC and Mac become secondary.
Every start-up at Demo either offered some form of cloud computing service or had it built in to whatever they were offering. While there are still skeptics about cloud computing it is clear to me that it has evolved to where the Internet was ten years ago. Cloud is a natural evolution of the Internet. What makes cloud computing so powerful is actually what is on our computers and devices — the browser. Browsers are getting very sophisticated and able to execute javascript incredibly fast. The result is that apps in the browser have the look and feel of what we expect from a desktop computer or better.
When you combine all three of these market factors — social networking, mobile, and cloud computing — you get a new generation of capability. It takes things up a notch in terms of power, flexibility, convenience and ease of use. I no longer say we are just 5% of the way there. I revise that to 10-15% overall but still 5% in healthcare.
Tags: ethanol, find a doctor, health care, Healthcare, mac, vmware, windows
Posted by John Patrick on Sep 14, 2010 in
Conferences,
Healthcare 
Demo has always been my favorite conference and this past week in Santa Clara proved valuable once again. This was the twentieth year I have been attending. The Demo conference allows entrepreneurs to show off new gadgets, software, hardware and business ideas and enables the press, analysts, investors, and technology enthusiasts to assess what they see. The product introductions that take place reveal key technology trends over the coming 12 to 18 months.
Sxity-six companies were launched in two days. Only one was healthcare related but I was quite impressed with it. The site, healthinreach.com, is designed to make it easy for patients to find a doctor that meets their criteria — based on ailment, cost, location, speciality, rating, bedside manner, and a host of other things. They get data from state medical boards. How does it know about bedside manner? Crowdsourcing, of course. HealthInReach is free for patients but doctors pay a fee; in effect a finders fee. The site is very user friendly. They even provide scheduling of appointments. The company is focused on the west coast now but plans to go national.
There were many other start-ups of interest but I will mention just a few that I found of interest. See the complete list and details at demo.com.
MicroFueler – a portable organic waste conversion ethanol system. Looks like a gas station pump, complete with nozzle. Converts grass clippings to fuel for your car.
Footfeed – the first dedicated location-based check-in aggregation platform. Check-in to Brightkite, Foursquare, Gowalla, Facebook, and Twitter simultaneously.
Parallels – runs on the Mac and lets you run Windows apps side by side with Apple apps. No dual boot required.
VoiceBase.com – brings storage, search and sharing to voice communications just like email did for text. Very handy idea for conferences, presentations, meetings, and negotiations.
See the rest at demo.com.
Tags: ethanol, find a doctor, health care, Healthcare, mac, vmware, windows
Posted by John Patrick on Sep 10, 2010 in
Education,
Healthcare 
The grandkids have their backpacks loaded up. I hate to see them bent over hauling many pounds of books and look forward to the day when they have just a Kindle and some wholesome snacks in their backpacks with room to spare. The four grown children are thankfully gainfully employed but two of them are back in school to advance themselves. Believe it or not, Pop Pop is also in the mix.
I have been thinking about a doctorate for years. I have been fortunate to be able to earn a good education during my life, including three degrees, but I have a personal desire to achieve the pinnacle of education and use it to make an impact on something I am passionate about — healthcare. My education and career up until now have been heavily focused on technology. I believe that in the near future there will be a merger in the healthcare field of traditional information technology and clinical information technology. Bioinformatics will make personalized medicine a reality and we will no longer have to rely on anecdotal medicine. It will not be long until the healthcare information technology industry will be larger than the IT industry as we know it today. I want to be part of this revolution. By combining my information technology experience with a new focus on healthcare I believe that as a doctor of health administration I can help develop techniques that can improve healthcare outcomes and quality of life for many people.
Having been a member of the board of the regional hospital near where I live and having participated as a member of the planning, technology and medical affairs committees, I have been able to learn a lot and have become passionate about the key issues and opportunities that lie ahead. I plan to focus my dissertation on the intersection of the Internet, mobile computing, video chat, and remote primary care for patients. More on this as things develop.
Studying for a degree using the Internet as the classroom is hardly a new idea. When IBM made forays int0 this area years ago it was called “distance learning”. Some call it e-learning. I call it the natural way to learn. Whatever you call it, e-learning has come a long way. Over the last ten years I have looked at various programs that are offered. Most universities have some form of e-learning but the one I found to have the broadest and deepest commitment is University of Phoenix. For them it is big business — $4 billion in revenue and $600 million in profit last year. I was particularly impressed with their doctoral program. They follow what their School for Advance Studies calls the scholar, practitioner, leader model. The idea is to combine scholarship and theory with practical skills and knowledge that you can use in the workplace. The course work is almost entirely online but there are three intense week-long residencies during the next three years to support and expand on the education received online.
Being a student again fits well with e-tirement. I started on August 31 and have been doing research, writing papers, and participating in the online forums. So far, so good. The journey has begun. No turning back. Wish me luck! Oh, and if you don’t see an many posts here, rest assured I am posting scholarly work in the online classroom.
Index of stores about My Doctoral Journey
Tags: bioinformatics, dha, doctor of health administration, e-learning, facetime, health information technology, hospital, video
