Visualize Your LinkedIn Network

Visualizing your business network can give you some interesting insights about where your connections are.

This is a map of my personal network on LinkedIn. (You'll see me in the middle there.)

What I find most interesting is that large blue mass to the the left. Those links are to individuals who are entrepreneurs, angel investors and startup guys. The green links are the same but differ in location from what I can see. The pinkish links to the right are my current connections through Freelance MD.

If you're looking for a nonclinical job or building any business on the side, your business network is the place you'll start.

Join the Freelance MD Group on LinkedIn here

Get your own LinkedIn network map here

So Wassup Doc?

Physician Entrepreneurs are creating great products and services.

Physician entrepreneurs continue to innovate their way out of the healthcare mess. They are not just commercializing drug, devices and diagnostics, but healthcare IT apps and platforms, creative new business models and scalable practice ideas.

It's been a while, so here's what's going on at the Society of Physician Entrpreneurs, a not-for-profit global biomedical collaborative online innovation network that you can join for FREE and participate in our linkedin group.

1.  We are now approaching 850 global members consisting of healthcare entrepreneurs, investors, service providers and industry reps

2.  We are about to roll out a new website with much improved user benefits and services

3.  We are creating global chapters, including Washington DC and Denver

4.  We are collaborating with several top-rated business schools to offer easy to access, affordable bioentrepreneurship education to our members

5. We are brainstorming our next international meeting

6. We have created an Innovation Scholars program for residents, fellows and faculty who are interested in working in a biomedical company for six months as a paid employee.

The time is right for healthcare entrepreneurs to embrace the radical change taking place around the world and emerge with new solutions for patients. Please join us at www.sopenet.org and linkedin.

Should I Self Publish Or Look For A Traditional Publisher?

The most frequent question I hear from aspiring authors is, "Should I self-publish or traditionally publish?"

Which publishing option will better suit your needs? If you don’t answer this question when you begin writing your book, you may end up doing a great deal of extra work. Authors who intend to self-publish can simply write their book, but those who intend to traditionally publish need to write a book proposal first, particularly for a nonfiction book.

A book proposal can take almost as much work as writing your book–and the time and resources you put into writing a great proposal can make the difference between no publisher and finding a publisher, or between a small advance (maybe $3,000) to a much larger advance (low- to mid-five-figures and up).

So, how do you make that important decision?

1. To interest a publisher, you almost always need a platform (think big: a following of tens of thousands of people or even hundreds of thousands is ideal). You may reach these folks through the your blog, high profile blogs like Psychology Today, WebMD or the Huffington Post, an e-mail list, your newsletter, public speaking, radio, TV, a print column, or a variety of ways, but you need a strong following to interest publishers nowadays. If you don’t have one, are you willing to create one now, before you pitch your proposal? If not, self-publish this first book.

2. If your story or subject is unbelievably compelling, it’s possible that an agent and publisher may see the media potential and be interested without a current following–but not terribly likely. And they will most likely still want you to develop a following or platform before publishing.

3. Okay, let’s say you have a following, should you definitely traditionally publish? Not necessarily. Assess your situation: look at time, money and other important needs to determine whether to self-publish or seek a traditional publisher. For starters, take these things into consideration:

• The biggest benefit of a traditional publisher is their distribution channels: they will get your books into book stores (ideally).
  • It’s easier to get publicity as an author on major TV, radio and in national print publications if your book is traditionally published. Usually, at the upper echelons of media coverage, it’s hard to get publicity for a self-published book (but not impossible).
  • A traditional publisher does lend credibility to your book.
  • A traditional publisher has experience with book covers, layout, editing (some publishers do more editing than others), marketing and other aspects of publishing–you’ll have to learn many of these things, or find a qualified professional, if you self-publish–and you’ll need to beware of people who are not that competent.
• If your goal is to build your business and use the book as a multi-dimensional business card, you’ll want to self publish.
  • You’ll make more money per book self-publishing.
  • You’ll have more control self-publishing.
  • Any mistakes can be corrected faster by self-publishing.
  • You’ll have your book much faster, generally at least two years faster, if you self-publish.

Sometimes people assume that a traditional publisher will handle all the publicity and marketing for your book. Wrong. Either route, self-publishing or traditional, you will be responsible for marketing and promoting your book.

"What about e-books?" you may ask. We'll save that for another post...but certainly e-books are a viable option nowadays--depending again on your goals.

Please share your experiences with publishing--including any pros, cons or cautionary tales. And, of course, ask your questions...

Storytelling & Presentations

If you're going to be a thought leader, you must convince.

If you're ever in the position of giving a presentation or of convincing an audience - even of one - of your position, you'll want to learn how to tell a tale. Storytelling is a cornerstone of any good presentation and learning to convince others of your point is a necessity.

Duarte Design is the force behind a host of powerful presentations. (If you're ever putting together a presentation you should take a look at how the great ones are built.)

More advice on how to present. Guy Kawasaki is a well know speaker and author and nails it with his 10 - 20 - 30 rule.

Pam Wible's Using Youtube To Promote Ideal Medical Care

Dr. Pam Wible's casting a long shadow by using Youtube to get her message out about community design and involvement with healthcare's many issues.

Here are some of Pams videos.

Click to read more ...

How To Manage - Or Save - Your Online Reputation

Controling your professional reputation as a physician.

Dr. Julie Silver recently posted about my colleague, Rusty Shelton’s comment, “Your reputation is what Google says it is.”  She asked me to provide some guidelines for managing your online reputation. The first thing you need to do is research: What is that reputation now? Rusty calls that part of your “Online Brand Audit.”

What comes up on the first page when you Google Your Name or Business? You want it to be:

1. Positive

2. An accurate representation of your brand, including the image and attributes you want people to associate with you and your business.

3. Likely to resonate with your target audience(s)

Rusty suggests you put yourself in the shoes—or mind—of a New York Times reporter or TV talk show producer. I might add a conference organizer. When they’re looking for a trusted source or a speaker and find you on Google, what will they see first? How about if they Google your name?

• Will they see videos?
• How do these represent you?

If the first video they see if a six year old interview when you were first getting your feet wet, you might want to find a way to get other videos to show up sooner than this one.

So, how do you manage your reputation online and shift what people see?

1. Respond graciously to a poor review, indicating that you strive for patient/customer satisfaction, you’re so sorry they had a bad experience and you’d like to make it up to them by x. Of course, if there are any legal implications, check with your attorney first.

2. Ask happy patients, clients and customers to write positive reviews. They can review your business or practice at sites like RateMDs, Yelp and Yahoo! Local, Healthgrades, Angie’s List and Vitals. Never have anyone write a “fake” review. There are legal implications in addition to the moral one.

3. Blog: The more you blog, the more you create content on your website, so that your own website and blog posts tend to come up on the first page.

4. Add videos on your blog and website and use appropriate keywords to help these videos place in search engines.

5. Blog for high profile sites: If you blog for Psychology Today, WebMD or the Huffington Post, you’re likely to have those posts come up high in search engine results—a nice credibility bump for you and it gives you control of what people see.

6. Be sure to claim your listings on search sites such as Google Local, Yahoo local, etc.

7. Note any Facebook photos of you posted by friends and relatives. You should be able to at least “untag” yourself in photos. You may also want to request them to be taken down.

8. Put your best videos on YouTube and tag them with keywords. YouTube videos tend to rank high.

9. If you find something that doesn’t represent your brand or image, see if the person is willing to take it down, replace it or fix it. It may not be as heinous as a bad review, but it could be something that no longer represents you.

Searching online for the phone number of a very reputable and conscientious literary agent I know, I was shocked to see her name come up next to some un-complimentary remarks in a Google listing of a website that rates agents and editors and “outs” the bad guys.

When I clicked on the actual page, it looked fine—so it just “appeared” she had a bad reputation because of the way the website’s listing came up (some issue with title tags, I assume). I immediately e-mailed her to let her know about the issue. She did know and was working with the website owner to fix that misleading information.

So, if you see something bad, don’t panic. Even if you can’t get it taken down, you can work on these other strategies to drive it to a lower ranked page. Take control of your online reputation today.

Here are some additional resources on the subject:

New York Times Article   Mashable Post

Here's a free webinar for physicians on protecting your reputation

Your Reputation Is What Google Says It Is!

Recently I went to a series of lectures by a top social media publicist.  It was all very interesting, but one thing I keep thinking about is when he said, "Your reputation is what Google says it is."  Can that be true?

How often do you Google others' to learn more about them?  I do it quite a bit.  And, I certainly do form opinions about an individual based on what I find online. 

What is your reputation?  Google your name and find out!! 

If you want to change your reputation, how do you do that?  I'll see if Lisa Tener can give us some tips in one of her upcoming blogs.  Lisa???

Here's a free webinar for physicians on protecting your reputation