The Art of Terminology - Telemedicine or Telehealth?

Image courtesy of Chicago Tribune.

With the relentless pursuit of efficiency in the delivery of healthcare, combined with advances in technology and policy, two terms that are increasingly being used in the USA are telemedicine and telehealth.  Are they meaningfully distinct terms?  Do we need both?

Blog Post Basics

Blog posting is not exactly rocket science, but there are some basic best practices that can help you create content that is engaging and useful for your audience.

Focus T25, Done, Not My Style

I originally purchased T25 with the hope of learning some great new moves for body weight exercises.  I did not formally try to execute the program until recently.

I am now done with T25.  I am not a fan and I can't really recommend it, but it might be your cup of tea, depending on a few things.

Agile/Scrum - The Product Backlog

The Product Backlog is vital to Agile/Scrum.  It enables agility and responsiveness while insuring that you are creating the highest possible value for your customer.  How does it do this?

Spoiler alert: It's not magic.

Agile/Scrum - Key Concepts

Agile/Scrum is a relatively simple framework in concept.  If you watched the Scrum Training Series videos I recommended in my first post on Agile/Scrum, you understand that well.

In execution, the concept is often sabotaged by a lack of attention to the key concepts that make Agile/Scrum successful.  Don't be that person.

Agile/Scrum: Introduction

"Agile" and "Scrum" have become blurry buzzwords too many people.  They speak of "sprint that" or "scrum this" and all too often it is a misapplication of the concept.

Focus T25, Week 3 - The Priority Shifts

It's week 3 of the Focus T25 workout.  Calves are still taking a beating from all of the hopping around, but there has been a shift in priority as the workouts change.

Job Search Lessons - Maintain Search/Life Balance

Don't be this guy.  Looking for a new job can be consuming, especially if you are out of work while you do it.  If you show up to interviews frazzled, exhausted, and desperate, you are probably not going to get hired.

The good news is that we can mitigate this.  And thus begins the final job search lesson.

Job Search Lessons - Contact Management

That thing in the picture is a Rolodex.  It used to be such a commonplace tool for contact management that it became the defacto noun used to refer to one's contacts, e.g., an "extensive Rolodex" meant you had a lot of contacts. I never had one.

By the time I really started worrying about maintaining contacts, I was using an electronic device of some sort to do it.  But that does not mean I did it well.  Let's learn from my mistakes.

Focus T25, Week 2 - Restless

The second week of Focus T25 is complete!  Another week, another week of observations.

Focus T25 Workout - Week 1

Last week I decided to try the "Focus T25" workout for real.  I bought it some time ago, to get some ideas for bodyweight routines, but I never really went by their prescribed schedule.

Well, last Monday, I decided to follow their schedule and here's what I learned.

Job Search Lessons: Cover Letters Are Your Friends

I remember when I first had to write a cover letter.  It was yet another step in applying for a job.  Just interview me already!

That's the wrong way to look at it. Let's re-think it.

Job Search Lessons: LinkedIn + Indeed = Win

I have just wrapped up a successful job search and embarked on a great new opportunity.  I feel like this is the first "real" job search I have ever performed, because my prior jobs had been a long string of being recruited into the next job.  I learned a lot about the process and a little about myself along the way.

In today's job search, the job search site is ubiquitous, and they all promise to be better than the rest. Well, they surely cannot all be right.

Job Search Lessons - LinkedIn, A Cautionary Tale

I left a job with the intention of taking 6-12 months off to take some trips, work on the house, and execute an ambitious volunteer project.  Just to be safe, though, I maintained a Premium LinkedIn account to a Premium account, specifically, Job Seeker.

I went about the things I wanted to do and exactly 12 months later I ramped up my job search.  I set up various searches and alerts, reached out to a select group of contacts, and started going through my personal contact entries and evaluating whether or not to add them as LinkedIn connections.

I was a job search machine.  Then I hit a speed bump.  Less than two weeks into March, I started seeing a strange message and most of my search results blurred out. Had I broken the Internet?

Job Search Lessons - Take Advantage of LinkedIn

I have just wrapped up a successful job search and embarked on a great new opportunity.  I feel like this is the first "real" job search I have ever performed, because my prior jobs had been a long string of being recruited into the next job.  I learned a lot about the process and a little about myself along the way.

Job Search Lessons - Taking a Break

I have just wrapped up a successful job search and embarked on a great new opportunity.  I feel like this is the first "real" job search I have ever performed, because my prior jobs had been a long string of being recruited into the next job.  I learned a lot about the process and a little about myself along the way.

One interesting aspect of this is that I took a long break, just over a year.  Many people will tell you that leaving your job before you have a new one is something to be avoided at all costs.  I challenge that notion.

Here is what I learned about taking a break between jobs.

Codecademy: Accessible, Practical, and Useful

Let me sing the praises of Codecademy...

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting with a fellow alumni from Rice University (I earned my PhD in Applied Physics there in 2002).  She is only a few years out of school and still weighing her future options.  However, we both came to understand a shared interest in coding...for fun and personal development.

So, as with everyone that expresses an interest to try out coding, I had to share with her the wonder that is Codecademy.

Creating a Letterbox Matte With GIMP

The GNU Image Manipulation Program, or "GIMP", is a great tool for image editing.  It is freely-available, which is great news for those with a casual need to edit images that don't want to invest in an expensive software suite.

However, it can be a little trickier to use...

Digital Natives Are A Cultural Technology Advancement

I love digital natives.  I believe they are akin to a cultural technology advancement.  They are helping usher in a new age of human-centered design, because they demand a more intuitive, human-centered functionality in their technology.

Creating an Online Presence - Choosing a Path

Note: This post is part of a series on creating an online presence.

So far in this series, we have discussed some key considerations in deciding how you will go about creating your online presence.  By now, you should have a good idea of the following.

• What an online presence is (from post #1 in this series)
• What resources you are willing to bring to bear (from post #1 in this series)
• Your goals (from post #1 in this series)
• Whether or not you want a domain name (from post #2 in this series)
• The type of content you want to create (from post #3 in this series)
• Whether or not you want to self-host (from post #4 in this series)
• And a short diversion to consider "free" applications/services

Now it is time to look at the paths and pick one based on these considerations.

If It's Free, Are You The Product?

Note: This is a respite from the Creating an Online Presence series, but it is part of the next step in the discussion.

"If it's free, you are the product."
- Somebody on the Internet

It sure sounds clever and when people first hear this phrase, it can be enlightening if only to expand your sense of perspective.  But it seems to be used rather sloppily and heavy-handedly. The end result can be the closing of minds and misunderstanding, things we should not propagate.

I feel there is a better way to think about this.

Creating an Online Presence - Should You Self-Host?

This post is part of a series on creating an online presence.

If you have been following this series, and asking yourself the questions I posed, then by now you should have a pretty clear idea about:

• What an online presence is (from post #1 in this series)
• Some ideas of what you can do  (from post #1 in this series)
• What resources you are willing to bring to bear (from post #1 in this series)
• Your goals (from post #1 in this series)
• Whether or not you want a domain name (from post #2 in this series)
• The type of content you want to create (from post #3 in this series)

You have a pretty good idea of what you want to accomplish.  The next important question is whether or not you want to self-host.

Creating an Online Presence - Content Considerations

Image credit: fiveminutemarketing.com

Note: this post is part of a series on creating an online presence.

You may not think of your presence as content creation and some marketers might dismiss it as such, but it is content.  If you are creating an online presence you are definitely creating content.  The question is, what type of content will you create through your online presence?

Some common choices are:

• Static pages (i.e., the content is not changed often)
• Feeds from my other content, e.g., a Twitter feed that shows a stream of posts
• Frequent posting to the online presence site, e.g., blog, journal, photo journal

Now, let's discuss some simple examples.  Your site can easily be a mixture of these (mine certainly is).

Creating an Online Presence - Domain Names and Branding

Image credit: brandgy.com.

Note: this post is part of a series on creating an online presence.

In our previous post, we thought about:

• What an online presence is
• Why we would want to create one
• Our goals
• The resources we will bring to bear
• Our options

But an early consideration should be whether or not you want a website with a specific name, i.e., do you need a domain name?

Creating an Online Presence

This is the first in a series of articles on creating an online presence.  Let's start by pondering what an online presence is, how we might go about creating one, and what main concepts we should consider.

Third-Party Software Products and Components

For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.

- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac [well, at least this version of the proverb]

There are a lot of great software products out there and a lot of companies and developers do a great job of giving their customers what they need.  But sometimes you need a capability that isn't there and that's where the a "third-party" comes into the picture.

Communicating the Right Message - How Much Should You Exercise, Really?

"Coming up, the reason less exercise could be good for you."

That was the teaser from the news anchor as we were getting ready, accompanied by the screen graphic reading "LESS EXERCISE".  Before that, he was explaining that not going to the gym because of the bad weather today could be a good thing.

Fitness is a hobby of mine, so I started trying to guess what it would be.

Executive Summary - Getting Fit Without Equipment, aka Bodyweight Training

Bodyweight training in 500 words or less.