Does this introduction have the potential to change how we think about computing going forward? It might. Consider this…many companies (including Positive Eye Consulting), government entities, and educational institutions have switched from Microsoft Exchange and the Office Software to a suite of Google applications that provide similar and integrated software as a service (SaaS) at a lower price point and easier integration.

Now, our digital life can live safely and accessibly in the cloud regardless of where we are or what device we use to access it. Plus, imagine you spill coffee on the keyboard or leave it befind at airport security at LAX…no worries, you can get a new one or access everything from the cloud, barely skipping a beat.

So, will this change our lives tomorrow? Doubtful. But, like the iPhone and iPad introduced in the last few years, the Google Chromebook and Chrome OS may have a significant influence on changing how we think about computing in the very near future.

Until recently, corporate road warriors, distributed small companies, and freelancers were stuck working out of hotel rooms, coffee shops, or home offices. This was okay occasionally, but not sustainable for the longterm. Plus, people longed for a sense of community, collaboration, and networking. Enter coworking. Now, in cities around the country, coworking spaces are opening their doors and redefining the concept of the workplace. The trend has even been noted in Fast Company and the New York Times. For many, these spaces and communities offer the best attributes of a “workplace” with all of the freedoms and flexibility of being independent. Whether you are a traditional organization or an independent entraprenuer, coworking may be for you. Check it out. Now, back to work.

A few years ago, the Retreat was searching for patient populations that were underserved. This was post 9/11 and several years into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Uniformed services professional including police, fire, EMS, prisons, and military were identified as sector with unique similarities and needs. The result was the ground breaking Uniformed Services Program (UPS).

David M. Williams, PhD has had the pleasure of serving on the UPS advisory board since the program’s genesis. The Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) recently interviewed Dr. Williams about the program. You can read the article here.

On St. Patrick’s Day, the New York Times published a story about what makes hospitals great. The article was the result of a qualitative study published this week in the Annals of Emergency Medicine looking at the what distinguishes top performing hospitals from low performing hospitals in the care of acute myocardial infractions (“heart attacks”). You can read the abstract of the study here. What’s interesting (yet not surprising) in both the study and the NY Times article is the discovery that it wasn’t exceptional talent, big urban medical centers, or the latest equipment that made the difference, it was: “a cohesive organizational vision that focused on communication and support of all efforts to improve care.” Included was a deep focus on doing it right the first time and focusing on improving systems. You can read the whole NY Times article online here.

***UPDATE: The TEDxAustin talks have been added to YouTube. Watch them here.

Last month, if you followed my contributions to social media (@dmw911), you likely caught one of the many snippets from my experience at TEDxAustin. On Saturday, February 19^th, 2011 Austin, Texas played host to an all day, locally organized TED event. (Yes, sadly I’m just now getting to blogging about it). The core theme of the event was Right Now. This was the second year of TEDxAustin and I was thrilled to be a part.

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to “Ideas Worth Spreading.” In its beginning (25 years ago), it was a four-day conference in California. Today, TED has grown to support world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world’s leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, “TEDx” is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.) (Source: Tedx Austin about page).

Unlike traditional conferences, TED events are invitation only and attendees must complete a progressive application and be selected. In a city with many great thinkers and doers, I was honored to be one of the 500 plus attendees live at the Austin Music Hall for the event. The following is a snapshot of what I took away from the day from some of the artists, videos, and speakers. You can read a summation in the Austin American Statesman as well here.

Mother Falcon (Music) – The day started with power as the curtain pulled back to reveal a dozen teens and young 20 something band kids that make up the unbelievable group Mother Falcon. They turned on the energy for the event and I found myself downloading their album to my iPhone. You can learn more about them here.

Sunny Vanderbeck – Managing Partner at Satori Capitol, Mr. Vanderbeck started the day of speakers with a thought provoking talk about conscious capitalism and a thesis that only companies aspiring to be conscious capitalists will be sustainable. He emphasized 6 stakeholders:

1. Government
2. Employees
3. Customers
4. Environment/community
5. Investors
6. Vendors

Today’s companies are led with short-term views and built to flip, but sustainable businesses need to be focused on stakeholders, have clear purpose, a long-term strategy, and create lasting value. Wouldn’t you rather work at a company creating lasting value?

David Cameron Prime Minister of U.K. (Video) In this video, Cameron makes a very thoughtful case for a conservative view of government. His speech is well worth the viewing. Watch the video here.

Robyn O’Brien - described as the Erin Brockavich of food, she shared a thought provoking view of the U.S. food supply. I’ve been on a food journey for several years now and in the spirit of books like Fast Food Nation and movies like Food, Inc, Ms. O’Brien reminded us of the critical need to understand the state of our food and to be an activist for change against those that are producing something other than healthy. One thing that struck me was that the United States takes a stance that, until proven harmful, anything goes versus other countries that require food companies to prove it’s not harmful first.  Learn more here.

Sylvia Acevedo – Ms. Acevedo follows population shifts and described the rapid growth occurring in California, Texas, and Florida at unprecedented rates. The data was compelling. Her statement that the Hispanic population in the Americas is bigger than all the people in China and a huge market opportunity shouldn’t have been surprising, but it really made me stop and think. She made me want to learn more. Her company Communicard is also very interesting and I like how she brings people together by bridging the barrier of language. Learn more here.

Gregory Kallenberg – A documentary filmmaker who created “Hainesville” about a small town in Louisiana that had a massive natural gas discovery that could change the balance of our energy need. The film focuses on telling the story through three people, but also includes discussion by researchers and leaders about our energy situation. One thing he said that I really liked was needing to draw from multiple views and find “The Rationale Middle.” Learn about the film here.

Intergalactic Nemesis – It’s a live action graphic novel. Part comic book visual art and live radio show like performance. Really no way to describe it and do it justice, so I recommend you check out the trailer here.

Joaquin Zihuatanejo – A spoken word poet and teacher, Mr. Zihuatanejo had us captured in his words. One of my favorite lines was “Don’t measure me by my tax bracket, because I make poets, dammit!” and “They write hard with a pencil to impress the paper where they thought they would not impress.” See his great work here where he shares Haiku poems from his deaf student Jon here.

Gary Thompson – co-founder of CLOUD, Inc is a friend and fellow daycare dad. His daughter, who was in my daughter’s class, is famous for her soccer skills and always showing up for games in the Texas summer heat wearing a red velvet dress. Gary’s wife has battled cancer and won more than once. They have firsthand experience with health care and electronic health records, which led him to rethink how our data is connected and how we should be the tag that brings it together. His talk was very intriguing. Learn more here.

Peter Hall – A designer, writer, and lecturer at the University of Texas at Austin, Mr. Hall is writing a fascinating book about Maps. I loved how he described how they told stories or served a purpose. He reminded me a lot of Edward Tuffte’s work and what I’ve learned about data display. You can learn more about Mr. Hall here.

Dr. Lionel Tiger – An anthropologist from Rutgers University, Dr. Tiger is credited with coining the term “mail bonding” and studies the decline of males. His speaking presence was very much like you would expect from a professor with spectacles resting on his head. Some of his comments about how we raise boys in the modern age made me think a lot about my son. I’m curious to learn more about his work. You can learn about him here.

Brene Brown – (Video TEDxHouston). Dr. Brown is a social worker that studied Vulnerability. Her talk was very good and she shared one saying from the social work profession that I liked, “Lean into the discomfort of the work.” You can learn more about her work and see the video here.

Dustin Hailser – The former assistant city manager of Manor, Texas made this little Austin suburb famous by engaging the community through the Internet to solve problems. I really liked his idea that you can engage stakeholders and empower them to participate; reminds me a little of what Corey Booker is doing in Newark, NJ on a much larger scale. Learn more about him here.

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TEDxAustin was a great event and very well organized. I enjoyed being a part of the community and got to meet some wonderful people and fellow Austinites. I long to be part of it again next year. The TEDxAustin talks have been added to YouTube. Watch them here. also, you can enjoy the hundreds of fantastic videos from TED and TEDx events around the world here.

Have you ever wondered what were the attributes of the best leaders? Statisticians at Google, Inc did as well. Enter “Project Oxygen”. So, the masters of data poured over multiple sources of information providing insight into the success factors within their organization and conducted hundreds of interviews. The results are eight rules and three pitfalls to avoid. The summary of Google’s Eight rules can be found here. If you’d like to read the N.Y Times story about the project, you can access it here. After you’ve read the article, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Please share them in the comments section below.

Today I received a copy of EMS World (formally Emergency Medical Services magazine). On pages 108 and 109 is a great article by John Erich, Associate Editor entitled Measure Hunting: Breaching Barriers of Patient-Friendly Design. John sat in on a talk I did at the 2010 Pinnacle EMS Forum sharing the results of my doctoral research on the obstacles to patient centric EMS system design. You can see an abstract of the research here.

John does a nice job summarizing the high points of the research. He focuses in on key findings, including a need for leaders to have a process and outcome focus and to begin to measure a broad family of indicators for learning. You can read the full article online here.

Mr. Stout led one of the earliest research projects in the 1970s looking at what enabled an EMS system (ambulance) to perform effectively at a reasonable cost during a time when EMS systems were being heavily funded and formalized with little knowledge of what worked. His research resulted in the development of two models of EMS system design: the public utility and the fail-safe franchise models. He also became one of the leaders of the charge for process reliability and outcome measurement.  He spread this knowledge through education programs, a series of trade journal articles, and consulting. His ideas were (and remain) both celebrated and controversial in the EMS market space even though the concepts were well tested and accepted outside.

During my doctoral work, I studied EMS systems and specifically the obstacles to patient-centric system designs (I posted my research abstract here). I conducted an exhaustive search of the published literature, which included accessing everything I could find of Stout’s writings and materials. In the process, I discovered that no one had a complete collection of his work. I began to compile hard and electronic copies from professors, consultants, and others and amassed what I believed was the largest electronic file of his work. At the same time, Mr. Stout’s son Todd was slowly trying to create a website with transcribed copies, but he did not have all of the writings. I sent him a CD of what I had compiled. Today, I discover that the electronic collection has been posted for all to access and there’s a very kind acknowledgment of my contribution. Go check it out at JackStout.com.

Dave Konig - Public Safety Social Media Guru

In December of 2009, I posted here about the emergence of social media in health care. I specifically highlighted hospital CEO and blogger Paul Levy and his Running a Hospital blog as he posted updates from the annual Institute for Healthcare Improvement Forum. Recently, I was interviewed by the Saybrook University Forum about social media in public safety. You can read the article here. I’m not really an expert or even effective participant in social media…more of a spectator. For those that are interested in social media and public safety, you should check out my friend Dave Konig (pictured here) who is a paramedic in New York City. He is an active blogger, tweeter, and teaches people about social media in the public safety environment. He’s also a great person, lifesaver, and leader. Visit his website here.

Qmentum Quarterly, July 2010, Volume 2 Number 3

Qmentum Quarterly: Quality in Health Care is new publication produced by Accreditation Canada. This month’s issue (July 2010) is focused on Emergency Health Services in Canada, including pre-hospital and in-hospital care. I contributed a piece called “Enhancing Organizational Performance Through Process Improvement” (pp. 18-20).

Using an ST Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) cases as an example of a care process, the article discusses the importance of approaching improvement with Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge as your underlying theory and then provides guidance on several considerations important to any improvement project, including:

• selecting a project,
• choosing project sponsors,
• forming a good team,
• developing an aim statement,
• defining measures,
• learning in action, and
• spreading changes.

Unfortunately, the article is not available online for free. Copies can be purchased here.