Creating Better Healthcare

Eric Topol’s book The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Healthcare gives a really great overview of how technologies like wireless communication, genomics, imaging, information systems, the internet and social networking are being used in medicine today. Dr. Topol discusses cases where using these converging technologies saves lives, brings up the current problems that are associated with having this information and discusses solutions! This is a great read if you want to know what’s going on with biotech -especially in San Diego!

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Inspiring and Leading through Storytelling

I just read The Magic Mural and How It Got Built: A Fable for Children of All Ages by Pat Welsh and Betsy Schultz, 2005.

The Magic Mural is a really entertaining book that describes how the mural in front of the Del Mar library was conceived and built.

The author shares details that are also found in a design brief, such as who’s working on the project and what their roles are. There are also lots of great details about the people in the community and what they treasure, similar to a user profile.

Storytelling and story boarding is a great way to get people to work together and understand a projects common vision. This book inspired me to go to the Magic Mural at lunchtime today and see if I can help. The mural began renovation Dec 2012 and should be completed March 2013.

Postscript:  I went later that day and enjoyed helping out so much that I brought a Troop of Girl Scouts with me the next time. Here is a picture of Pat telling the story of the gnome, the tortoise jungle and the case of the wayward Hollywood parents to the girls.

It turns out that listening to a great storyteller makes mural restoration work very enjoyable too!

Going Places With Technology

Audi A6 with iPad

When shopping for a new car, I’m most interested in the number of cup holders, the gas mileage and emmissions, and the Internet Connectivity.  

I just found the article “Car we there yet?”.   It tells which cars will have the gadgets.  I’d like better phone calls, map use and gas price finding. 

I have a friends who whould like a device like an iPad to watch movies on in the backseat. It might be nice to use just one device, like an iPad, for traffic maps so you don’t have to switch between looking up maps and traffic on a home pc and then your smart phone in the car.   You could take your iPad into any or all of your cars.  A removable device like an iPad would also make for a consistent experience between vehicles.