“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” 
Apple Inc.

Lessons From Norman Rockwell

by Brandon Betancourt



This past summer I got a chance to visit Washington DC. While I was there, I saw a Norman Rockwell exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. As it turned out, the exhibition was the private collection of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. The exhibition highlighted Rockwell’s masterful storytelling.
I didn’t know much about Norman Rockwell before that day. I knew he was a famous American painter and I had seen a few of his replicas in restaurants. But after seeing the exhibition, I got a deep, deep appreciation of Rockwell and especially, how he was able to communicate an entire story with a single frame.


The old days
My 75 year old grandfather was with me that day and told me how, back in the day, he couldn’t wait to get the Post Magazine to see Rockwell’s cover and to read it cover to cover. He also shared with me how Rockwell’s pictures told stories about growing up, how they instilled patriotism and depicted American family values.




The influence of storytelling
The exhibition and my grandfather’s account reminded me of how powerful storytelling is. Rockwell did it with pictures and to some extend he moved a nation. But could we use storytelling to do other things such as inspire patients, communicate with customers or stir up emotions in people? I think so. Companies do it all the time. And the ones that have stories that resonate with the public are generally some of the most recognizable companies in our society.






Toyota, Hummer, Harley Davidson, American Express & Target
A perfect example of companies telling stories are car manufactures. When a person buys a Prius, they are telling a story to others about themselves. They are telling others, (and themselves) they are environmentally conscious and are doing their part to contribute towards the “green” cause. The opposite end of the spectrum is Hummer vehicles. The person that drives a Hummer is not concerned about the environment. We know at least that much.
On a Prius, one might find a sticker that reads, “my kid is an honor roll student at George Washington Elementary School,” whereas on the Hummer, you may find a similar sticker but it reads “my son can kick your honor roll kid’s ass.” Each car tells a different story.
Harley Davidson motorcycles tell a story of freedom, ruggedness and loudness. American Express tells a story of class, success and refinement. Which is the complete opposite of “Capital One’s” story. Wal-mart’s story is low prices. But despite being in the same business, Target has a completely different story. Target’s story is “design democratization.”






What is the story?
The story is essentially how we think and feel when we see a product or a service and what we tell others (and ourselves) about us when we use the product or service. Clear as mud, right?






What does all this have to do with our medical practices?
Glad you asked. Just like Starbucks creates a warm, hip, comfortable experience to support their story (different from the Dunkin’ Donuts experience), we too can use some of these storytelling elements I learned from the Norman Rockwell exhibition to help us define the narrative we tell our customers and patients.






Lessons From Rockwell
1. Define the story. We have to characterize what our narrative is going to be. For example, Subaru has had multiple advertising campaigns to support their story. Recently, they’ve used: “Love. It’s what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.” That slogan reinforces their story that people who own a Subaru, LOVE Subaru. It also talks about the Love that goes in to making a Subaru. It is not just an ordinary car. More recently, they’ve focused a lot on “safety.” That’s a story as well.
In our medical practices’ we too can define our story. We can have a customer service story or our story can be about being compassionate, loving and caring. We can tell the story about how we embrace holistic medicine or even be known as an obesity and nutrition clinic. A while back I met a dentist that wanted to have a high-tech dentist office. That was his story.
Answer this: What do you want others to think when they hear your practice’s name?


2. Paint the picture. Rockwell used a canvas to tell his story; Spieldberg and Lucas use movies; Apple Inc uses design to tell their story of sophistication, simplicity and innovation.
In a medical practice, we too can paint our picture and tell our story by how we decorate our offices, how we design our advertising, how we answer the phone and how we treat patients.
Painting the picture is simply the vehicle we choose to tell our stories. It can be done in many different ways. It doesn’t matter how we choose to tell our story. Heck, it could even be a simple as creating a blog for your practice. But always have the story at the center.


3. Cast to support your story. One fascinating tidbit about Rockwell was that he casted the people in his paintings much like a filmmaker cast an actor for a role in a movie. Once he found the right person or group of people, he used them as stand-ins while drawing the picture. He knew that the characters he choose would support his vision for the story he wanted to tell. This was brilliant in my opinion.
Let’s say your story is customer service … do you hire people that can support that story or do you have Ms. Grumpy McGee as the front office clerk?
At their retail stores, Apple “cast” geniuses (if you’ve been to an Apple store, you know what I’m talking about) and Starbucks don’t just have servers, they have “baristas.” Both of which help reinforce each company’s story.


4. Pay attention to detail. Norman Rockwell did not leave anything to chance. Everything in his painting was there for a reason. Every single little detail, every prop, even the supporting characters helped tell the story. In fact, for some, the details were what really emphasized the story. In other words, often it was a little detail that made the story complete.
As Walt Disney once said, “There is no magic in magic, it’s all in the details.”


In a medical practice, there are details that can enhance our story or detract from it. It could be the cleanliness of the waiting room chair or the old magazines or the pictures hanging on the wall. It could be how we answer the telephone to how the doctor is dressed to the manicure of the nurse.
We often underestimate details because, well, they are details. But I’m sure many of you can agree that sometimes, one little detail is the difference between a good story and a bad story. Don’t leave the details to chance.
Well, what do you think about this correlation between Norman Rockwell and a medical office? At first, there might not be much of an association when you first think about it. But I think there are many lessons.

iPad May Be Best Suited For Nondiagnostic Role

Apple's iPad shows significant potential for a number of radiology applications, but primary interpretation of medical images probably isn't one of them, at least for the current generation of the tablet computer, according to researchers from the University of Maryland in Baltimore.

While its display technology is probably sufficient to handle the job, the iPad's utility for primary interpretation in radiology remains limited by visual, ergonomic, technical, and regulatory hurdles, according to Kamran Shah, MD.

"Where the potential lies in terms of existing technologies and applications [includes] [electronic medical record (EMR)] dashboards, patient interaction and consent forms, education, and as an adjunct for PACS workstations," Shah said.

Shah discussed the prospects for the iPad in radiology during a scientific session at the 2010 RSNA meeting in Chicago.

A lot to offer

At first glance, the iPad's hardware has a lot to offer. It's about one-third the weight of the average thin laptop and about three times the weight of Amazon's Kindle e-reader.

"And it's a whole lot lighter than a 40-lb PACS [display]," he said. "So it's definitely portable."

The iPad's 9.7-inch backlit display employs white LEDs in lieu of cold cathode fluorescent lamps; this provides a higher contrast ratio and increased light output compared to nonwhite LEDs, Shah said. And the LEDs are deployed in an edge-lit configuration, which facilitates a thickness of only 0.5 inches.

It also utilizes in-plane switching technology, which offers benefits such as wider viewing angles and improved color reproduction. Though it doesn't have the retina display featured on the iPhone 4, the iPad provides a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels. That's sufficient for two frames of 512 x 512 CT or ultrasound images, Shah said.

The iPad display yields a pixel density of 132 pixels per inch, which approaches the pixel density found on 5-megapixel displays, Shah said. It also provides a resolution of 2.6 line pairs per millimeter, which meets the American College of Radiology's (ACR) display recommendation.

It has a display luminance of 300 cd/m², which is similar to what is found on 24-inch PACS monitors.

"If you turn this up to, say, 100% max brightness and hold it in your hand, a 9.7-inch display that you're going to hold a few inches from your face is incredibly bright," he said. "This is a very bright device. Its contrast ratio is on par with what we're seeing with monitors that are being used in diagnostic applications."

Under the hood

The iPad is powered by the proprietary A4 System-on-a-Chip, which combines central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), and hardware controllers. The fully autonomous GPU can render 720p video and do it in parallel with CPU tasks, Shah said.

Speed is not a high point for the iPad, however. Tests have shown that the iPad is orders of magnitude slower than a PACS workstation, Shah said.

"The iPad is anemic when compared to a PACS," he said. "This is a mobile-class processor, it's not a desktop-class processor. So it's important to recognize that."

Data connectivity is provided via 802.11n Wi-Fi, 3G capability, and Bluetooth 2.1. Memory is nonupgradeable and nonremovable, Shah said.

The iPad runs on a heavily modified version of the iPhone operating system. Multitasking was only recently added in late 2010.

"Applications will have to be rewritten to take advantage of the multitasking -- to, for example, enable DICOM viewing, speech recognition, and EMR right at the same time," he said.

As for security, the iPad offers integration with enterprise security standards and supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync policies. Local data are encrypted, and both local and remote data wipe is supported in case the device falls into the wrong hands, Shah said.

There are many DICOM visualization applications being developed for the iPad, all of which are going to require server-side rendering given the iPad's mobile-class processor, Shah said.

Another hurdle for diagnostic use will be the iPad's 9.7-inch display, which is going to pose ergonomic challenges if used for any protracted period of time for primary interpretation, he said.

And U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for these applications remains a difficult road, Shah said.

"No DICOM visualization applications have been FDA 510(k) [cleared]," Shah said. "There have been a couple of mobile patient data applications that have been FDA 510(k) [cleared] for the iPhone and iPad, but none for image interpretation."

The iPad may also find a niche in a number of nondiagnostic image viewing applications, such as having house staff review images and reports while on rounds, Shah said.

Electronic medical record applications are another active area for the iPad, and there are more than 20 such apps in the iTunes App Store.

"The important thing about these applications is that while they do integrate with the enterprise EMR, there's the possibility of really novel integrations of data," he said. "So that you can have customized views for clinicians or for patients, [providing] a specialized dashboard for the individual user."

Clinicians could also use iPad for showing images to patients without being tethered to a PACS workstation, he said.

In addition, the iPad could be used to transform paper-based processes such as patient consent forms and questionnaires. Resident education also represents a promising application for the iPad, allowing users, for example, to interact with images while reading actual presentations, Shah said.

The iPad could also be used as an interface device, replacing other devices that are prone to failure with a multitouch device that's easier to use and less prone to fail, he said. It could be used for controlling a PACS or even for controlling an imaging modality.

"Multitouch capabilities are built into Windows 7, so it's not a huge step to imagine that this could happen," Shah said.

The iPad could be also used as inspiration for next-generation interfaces, he said.

"The whole concept of what the iPad has done for [user interface] design can be dramatic," he said.

by : Erik L Ridely

How Facebook Eclipsed Google In 2010

Facebook beat out Google as the No. 1 most-visited site in the United States in 2010, according to Internet analytics firm Hitwise.

How was Facebook able to outplay the former Web champion? And can Google make a comeback in 2011 and beyond?
Let's begin by admitting that the Hitwise data doesn't represent the whole truth. For starters, Hitwise only measures unique visitors in the United States. What's more, Hitwise measures sites on a per domain basis: If the analytics firm were to include Google-owned YouTube in its calculations, Google's network of websites would outrank Facebook properties.
Nonetheless, there's a tectonic shift at work here: Facebook, once easily dismissed as the next social networking fad, has seemingly discovered Google's weak spots.
What are they, and can Google regain ground here?


Identity Wars
The first area in which Facebook has bested Google is online identity. Remember the days when trying out a new website required entering your name, username, password and other details into a form? Now sites can opt to use your Facebook account for one-click signup, making life easier for both websites and their users.
Facebook was able to make this move because the service was founded around the principle of real names. While this may have slowed Facebook's growth in its early days, the company now owns a massive database of more than 500 million identities, most of them real.
As a result, Facebook is becoming the de facto identity system for the Web. The social optimization service Gigya claims that Facebook accounts for 46% of website logins versus Google's 17%.


Social struggles
Where else is Google behind? How about "social," one of the biggest Web trends of the past five years? Understanding the connections between people is Facebook's core competency, but Google has struggled to compete in the social networking arena.
Google Buzz, widely considered a flop after a highly anticipated launch this year, unsuccessfully tried to turn Gmail contacts into social networking friends. Gmail users, it turned out, didn't need yet another social network, and didn't see their email contacts as synonymous with their real-life friends. That's a major hurdle for all of Google's social efforts: The company doesn't possess a "social graph" of our real-world connections.
More troubling is that social gaming, with such Facebook hits as FarmVille, has become a megatrend over the past few years. Google has few inroads here.
Google is expected to roll out a "social layer" uniting its Web properties in 2011, but the company has played down claims that it will launch a full social network, and expectations are low for Google's next social foray. Google could change its social fortunes through an acquisition, however: The purchase of social messaging service Twitter is the obvious move.


Search Rivalry?
Google is synonymous with search and continued to reign supreme in 2010. Surely this is the one area in which the company can maintain its lead in the coming years.
Google would indeed prove difficult to unseat in search, and yet Facebook may eventually gain a little ground here, too. Not only does Facebook possess a large database of every users' personal preferences, but its increasingly popular "Like" buttons allow members to express interest in particular Web pages.
If the company felt so inclined, Facebook might be able to provide a search engine that delivers highly personalized results. Better still: Facebook may stockpile enough personal information to recommend relevant content without the need for a search box.
Such a move is unlikely to unseat Google overnight, but this means of social discovery could lessen our dependence on search engines in the long haul.


Google's big gains: Mobile, video
Facebook is only "beating" Google if we limit the playing field to the Web. But in the rapidly growing mobile sector, Facebook is a minor player.
While the leading social network is attempting to bring social features to phones, Google owns an entire operating system: Android. What's more, Android is spreading like wildfire and proving to be a real challenger to Apple's iOS. Facebook, meanwhile, doesn't even have an iPad app.
What about watching online video, one of the Web's most popular activities? Yes, Google wins there, too: As the owner of YouTube, the company serves up the vast majority of online video views. In neither mobile nor video does Facebook look to be a threat to Google's position.
Google will always retain the lead, meanwhile, in professional life: From collaborative document creation to enterprise email, it's hard to see Facebook challenging Google's role in the workplace.


An uncertain victory
In 2010, Facebook challenged Google where it is weakest: Online identity and the social Web. Given that "social" is the Web's fastest-growing trend, it's hardly surprising that Facebook has benefited from the rising tide.
And yet Facebook only outranks Google on that very narrow metric: U.S. Web traffic. As mobile operating systems and app stores grow in popularity, is Web traffic really an accurate measurement of an Internet company's success?
and let's not forget that Google still crushes Facebook on the number that really counts: Revenue.


by : Pete Cashmore
@CNN

Cisco and T-Mobile Announce Wi-Fi Calling For Business

Cisco Systems, Inc. and T-Mobile USA have announced the Wi-Fi Calling for Business. This service ensures reliable voice calls over a Wi-Fi connection. The service also ensures seamless roaming of voice and data traffic between cellular networks and Wi-Fi.

This service will help businesses save on communication costs. Cytec Industries is one of the early adopters of the service. About 1,000 out of 6,000 Cytec employees have actively been using the service for the last 6 months.
This service requires a Cisco wireless LAN infrastructure. The infrastructure includes Unified Wireless Network technology and Cisco Compatible Extensions (CCX). Unfortunately CCX currently only works for BlackBerry and Nokia smartphones, but not Android and iPhone yet.



@computerworld.com

Be Here Now

And now, welcome back for the hypothesis of our experiment: Wherever your mind went — the South Seas, your job, your lunch, your unpaid bills — that daydreaming is not likely to make you as happy as focusing intensely on the rest of this column will.
I’m not sure I believe this prediction, but I can assure you it is based on an enormous amount of daydreaming cataloged in the current issue of Science. Using an iPhone app called trackyourhappiness, psychologists at Harvard contacted people around the world at random intervals to ask how they were feeling, what they were doing and what they were thinking.
The least surprising finding, based on a quarter-million responses from more than 2,200 people, was that the happiest people in the world were the ones in the midst of enjoying sex. Or at least they were enjoying it until the iPhone interrupted.
The researchers are not sure how many of them stopped to pick up the phone and how many waited until afterward to respond. Nor, unfortunately, is there any way to gauge what thoughts — happy, unhappy, murderous — went through their partners’ minds when they tried to resume.
When asked to rate their feelings on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being “very good,” the people having sex gave an average rating of 90. That was a good 15 points higher than the next-best activity, exercising, which was followed closely by conversation, listening to music, taking a walk, eating, praying and meditating, cooking, shopping, taking care of one’s children and reading. Near the bottom of the list were personal grooming, commuting and working.
When asked their thoughts, the people in flagrante were models of concentration: only 10 percent of the time did their thoughts stray from their endeavors. But when people were doing anything else, their minds wandered at least 30 percent of the time, and as much as 65 percent of the time (recorded during moments of personal grooming, clearly a less than scintillating enterprise).
On average throughout all the quarter-million responses, minds were wandering 47 percent of the time. That figure surprised the researchers, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert.
“I find it kind of weird now to look down a crowded street and realize that half the people aren’t really there,” Dr. Gilbert says.
You might suppose that if people’s minds wander while they’re having fun, then those stray thoughts are liable to be about something pleasant — and that was indeed the case with those happy campers having sex. But for the other 99.5 percent of the people, there was no correlation between the joy of the activity and the pleasantness of their thoughts.
“Even if you’re doing something that’s really enjoyable,” Mr. Killingsworth says, “that doesn’t seem to protect against negative thoughts. The rate of mind-wandering is lower for more enjoyable activities, but when people wander they are just as likely to wander toward negative thoughts.”
Whatever people were doing, whether it was having sex or reading or shopping, they tended to be happier if they focused on the activity instead of thinking about something else. In fact, whether and where their minds wandered was a better predictor of happiness than what they were doing.
“If you ask people to imagine winning the lottery,” Dr. Gilbert says, “they typically talk about the things they would do — ‘I’d go to Italy, I’d buy a boat, I’d lay on the beach’ — and they rarely mention the things they would think. But our data suggest that the location of the body is much less important than the location of the mind, and that the former has surprisingly little influence on the latter. The heart goes where the head takes it, and neither cares much about the whereabouts of the feet.”
Still, even if people are less happy when their minds wander, which causes which? Could the mind-wandering be a consequence rather than a cause of unhappiness?
To investigate cause and effect, the Harvard psychologists compared each person’s moods and thoughts as the day went on. They found that if someone’s mind wandered at, say, 10 in the morning, then at 10:15 that person was likely to be less happy than at 10 , perhaps because of those stray thoughts. But if people were in a bad mood at 10, they weren’t more likely to be worrying or daydreaming at 10:15.
“We see evidence for mind-wandering causing unhappiness, but no evidence for unhappiness causing mind-wandering,” Mr. Killingsworth says.
This result may disappoint daydreamers, but it’s in keeping with the religious and philosophical admonitions to “Be Here Now,” as the yogi Ram Dass titled his 1971 book. The phrase later became the title of a George Harrison song warning that “a mind that likes to wander ’round the corner is an unwise mind.”
What psychologists call “flow” — immersing your mind fully in activity — has long been advocated by nonpsychologists. “Life is not long,” Samuel Johnson said, “and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.” Henry Ford was more blunt: “Idleness warps the mind.” The iPhone results jibe nicely with one of the favorite sayings of William F. Buckley Jr.: “Industry is the enemy of melancholy.”
Alternatively, you could interpret the iPhone data as support for the philosophical dictum of Bobby McFerrin: “Don’t worry, be happy.” The unhappiness produced by mind-wandering was largely a result of the episodes involving “unpleasant” topics. Such stray thoughts made people more miserable than commuting or working or any other activity.
But the people having stray thoughts on “neutral” topics ranked only a little below the overall average in happiness. And the ones daydreaming about “pleasant” topics were actually a bit above the average, although not quite as happy as the people whose minds were not wandering.
There are times, of course, when unpleasant thoughts are the most useful thoughts. “Happiness in the moment is not the only reason to do something,” says Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research has shown that mind-wandering can lead people to creative solutions of problems, which could make them happier in the long term.
Over the several months of the iPhone study, though, the more frequent mind-wanderers remained less happy than the rest, and the moral — at least for the short-term — seems to be: you stray, you pay. So if you’ve been able to stay focused to the end of this column, perhaps you’re happier than when you daydreamed at the beginning. If not, you can go back to daydreaming starting...now.
Or you could try focusing on something else that is now, at long last, scientifically guaranteed to improve your mood. Just make sure you turn the phone off.