is this community worth continuing?

[Tony]

I won't feel bad if the answer is "no." I started this as an experiment - to see if folks would be willing to share thoughts and interact - i.e. make it more of a 2-way street instead of constantly reading my blogs =).

what do you think? are there reasons that this hasn't worked out for ya?

A couple things come to mind for me:
1. Ning is actually pretty slow in loading up... that speed in our microsecond culture feels sooo slow to me.
2. we're a mix of old friends and complete strangers. probably the old friends will keep on interacting via email/phone just as before. where as the complete strangers were probably waiting in the back to see how things went & get a feel for the "etiquette"

would love to hear any thoughts. and of course, if I don't hear anything for a few weeks, I guess that in and of itself helps me answer the question at hand.

I am thinking about a twitter for hospital impact... actually, that might be a pretty cool add to this or the blog...

[Mike]

Good question Tony. I know I have been away for some time with several pokers in the fire. I dumped my first site and started a new one using blogger as base. I see not much has changed with the discussions in my absence. That being said I also see you sent out a whole lot of invites and everyone here at some point thought the idea was a great one - myself included. I wonder if the lack of activity is due to time constraints or perhaps the collective group is unsure what to discuss. Even with the activity not being very much I would keep the social network going. As a group if we can find a common topic of interest that we would like to discuss - healthcare related or otherwise than that might provide some discussion.

One topic which I found quite interesting was the piece that NPR did on the Japanese healthcare system today and how their main problem is that healthcare costs are too low and they may have to increase them. Can you believe it.

On a side note, hope the new family is doing well.

[Maarten den Braber]

I completely agree with Mike here: maybe the discussion part is lagging, but being able to know and contact who is interested in the same issues concerning hospitals and healthcare is truly great!

Let me give you one great example of something that came about all starting at this very Ning community. Early this year Jen McCabe Gorman (member of this community) contacted me through LinkedIn. She contacted me (NL resident) wanting to come into contact with people sharing the same interests. I very much liked the suggestion of sharing ideas and Jen suggested to have coffee some time.

We finally fixed a date for April 12 and we're all ready and set. But we also thought it would be nice to invite some more interesting people. From salon-style gathering it went completely off the scale in just 3 weeks and became the first Health2.0 Unconference in Europe. Instead of 2, now 35+ people attended, shared ideas, networked did, free flow diagramming and all for the sake of improving health care! You can read much more about it at http://health20nederland.ning.com or Jen's blog: http://healthmgmtrx.blogspot.com. It was picked by many bloggers, Twitters and 'offline' people. We're now already in the process of planning the next event to keep going what we started right here at hospitalimpact!

So Tony, if you ask yourself whether this network is valuable? I can only answer: YES!

[Tony]

wow. what a great and inspiring story - thanks for sharing Maarten! I'll have to check out the other links you mentioned! I love it when these "online" contacts/collaboration turn into real off-line face-to-face meetings and connections.

[Albert Maruggi]

how great is this, I met Maarten on Twitter eariler this year. Now from this you can draw one of two conclusions

1) it's a small world

2) not many people on in this thing called social media

and if it is number two then we should take pride in what we have acheived and enrich our lives by sharing, regardless of whether we gain another member or not.

good luck all

[Jen McCabe Gorman]

Tony -

I met Maarten Den Braber via the Hospital Impact community a few months ago. Moving from DC to Holland, I was really nervous about finding contacts in The Netherlands whom I could talk to informally.
He told me I really needed to 'meet' fellow community member Martijn Hulst.

The three of us got together via emails, Twitter, and then Skype calls.

As Maarten details below, what we expected to be a small chat about healthcare and the hospital industry in the US and Holland snowballed into the first international Health 2.0 unconference last weekend. The first time the three of us were physically in the same room was at the event itself.

The Ning communities can be very useful even when in a 'static' phase - I've found them particularly helpful before/after an event (whether its a Grand Rounds type posting or a real-world meetup). Then they're great for expanding contacts and seeing who is interested in similar (and different) issues.

One more bit of food for thought - I've also found people with whom we're making initial contact are more likely to respond to a Ning message organized around a specific site or event - it's like we've all already gotten past the bouncer and are in the club enjoying the same band.

That being said, I've also found the same rate of return using LinkedIn and more recently Twitter.

The Hospital Impact blog is very valuable, you're doing awesome work, and I think the most active readers create value here - but I can't answer the question re: is this the best social networking tool for Hospital Impact to channel that interaction - I leave that to my more web-worldly colleagues. :)

[Sean]

keep it going is my vote. I am just getting started!

[Christopher Cornue]

Hey Tony (& folks) ... the answer is YES. I think the only reason it's been slow to take off is simply the lack of time (that's my issue anyway). I definitely believe it's worth continuing and we've had off-line chats about other venues that might work as well. I say keep at it and I'll do my best to be a better citizen in this important community!!

Chris

[medXcentral]

Tony, as I am a stranger in the group, I'm going to tip-toe a bit for fear I'll be misunderstood. I'm relatively new to the blogosphere... and, must admit I do more friend requesting these days than intellectual contributions. As much as I'd like to sit and write about and share my interests and opinions... time has become my adversary.

With the multitude of social communities and platforms out there, it is becoming ever more difficult to find one place to call home. That is why I created medXcentral.com. I hope my presence here is not viewed as a cheap "plug" for another community. What I've done at medXcentral is give all community operators, blog publishers, forum operators, etc., a location where they can inform the medical public of their product, service or informational portal.

Growing a community, as I'm quickly discovering, requires time and attention (please refer back to my first paragraph). Unfortunately, that is not always something we can all spend freely.

Therefore, whatever you choose to do, please remember medXcentral.com and feel free to introduce this community and the activities of it's members at our community so that others may find you and make your location their home.

With platforms such as Ning... things are exploding so fast it blurs the mind. Help pull everything back to the middle. We'll all have to work together to make the web a productive gathering.

I welcome your friendship and connections. I've put a bit of information about me on my page here at Medical Impact.

Kindly,
Jim Canto
medXcentral.com

[Lavinia Weissman]

Jim,

I got your email. Thanks. Right now I have no time for online networking and I always welcome private inquiries about my work or interests at [e-mail]

I have reduced my on line social network time. It distracts me from my professional work. My new portal is not going to have blogging or forums for this reason.

all the best,
Lavinia