I’m just getting caught up on emails and i came across the following article that made me ponder the latest health+web efforts here in Nashville. Considering that the majority of for-profit healthcare companies (sans Tenet) are headquartered here in Nashville — is the Country Music City becoming the Silicon Valley of Health2.0 [e.g. Peerclip, connectivhealth, and change:healthcare] Also, do local entrepreneurs have the fortitude to launch their web tools with a “long-view” approach?
Granted, internet phenoms like Twitter are not models that people look to when it comes to healthcare, but i think that many of the same human needs (e.g. Twitter’s notion of instant communication) do align with a person’s healthcare needs and decision-making desires as more and more responsibility gets pushed on to the employee and avg consumer’s shoulders. Think about.
Back to twitter…
What of the business model. I guess in this day and age, put the product out first and go with the flow. I agree that ideas that are not executed are doomed to stay on that ever winding road that leads you back to where you started. I call that “living in square one, round hole optional” syndrome. While popular business thought says to write a business plan, make a half dozen matrix’s, and crunch all those numbers; in today’s world - that just doesn’t work if you plan to succeed. Why? Because as Jason was saying in his post “We all live in Brooklyn (and need to get out) and need to get to the Valley.”
It’s almost like a band. Unless you get out there and just do it, it never gets done. Believe me, all the bands I was in didn’t have a business model. It never prevented us from reaching a level of success. The only thing that stopped us was the personnel factor or personal issues within the band. As far as a business, any of the bands I have been in could have survived and been a successful business. They were all the same, original music done the old fashioned way. Now would a business model have helped much? Yes and no.
Just in the case of twitter, the idea was the foremost item necessary. Just like a band, the players that wanted to play music and write new tunes were needed, so is twitter. An idea that was based on a basic need for instant communication, done in a Web 2.0 way. Nothing really scientific about it. Nothing really ground breaking on what they are doing. They kept it simple, just like rock n’ roll.
Back to twitter again - why do I like twitter? Well of course I use it to help promote my work, as well as keep in touch with people that I like to chat with. It’s almost like that big water cooler of the cubicle days. I think that twitter has a big future in 2008 as it grabs more mainstream recognition. I also believe that now there are local STL news sites on twitter, it has reached that level of acceptance. For me though, it is like the chatter of the cubicle environment where I use to have a job at.
