GoogleHealth Screen Shots

Move over small-time EMR Guys,.. the Googlemeister is doing a cannonball in the pool.

clipped from blogoscoped.com Google Health, codename “Weaver”, is Google’s planned health information storage program. Google’s Vice President of Engineering Adam Bosworth lobbies for the program for quite a while now. Adam said the current US health care system is challenged when it comes to “supporting caregivers and communicating between different medical organizations.” Adam went on to say that people “need the medical information that is out there and available to be organized and made accessible to all ... Health information should be easier to access and organize, especially in ways that make it as simple as possible to find the information that is most relevant to a specific patient’s needs.” Adam adds that this – making information accessible – happens to be along Google’s mission. The New York Times today writes that “about 20 percent of the [US] patient population have computerized records

You Are Responsible for Your Child’s Creativity

From GodbeyWorks:

Back to School
by Diana Long, Ed.D.

The summer flies by. Already the Back-to-School ads are dominating television and newspaper advertisements. Memorial Day gives way to the 4th of July in a blink of an eye. Labor Day is the official mindset end of summer and many kids go back into the classroom well before the holiday.

GodbeyWorks is a company that is promoting and yes, screaming for the public to pay attention to development activities that promote entrepreneurship, development of creative jobs, design and value added products and services. The recent “white paper” by Vision Shared, Culture, Creativity and Innovation, West Virginia in the New Economy, recommends actions to government, education and business to encourage such development. Taking the responsibility down to a personal level, I gathered thoughts on this question, “How do parents encourage the creative development of their own children?” more >>

Ballmer Monkeyboy iPod Mashup

Sent by David "Monkey Mind" Owens:

Original source video of Steve "Raging Bull" Ballmer. \

Select mash-ups:

• Young Dr. Frankenstein's Puttin' on the Ritz
• Adolf Ballmer
  

Best comment posted on YouTube: "Why don't you shoot a .44 Magnum into a pillow, vent out some of that anger."

E-Base: Leadership on the Edge of Antarctica

2041.com was founded by explorer, adventurer, lecturer Robert Swan, OBE, the first man to walk to both the North and South poles. Swan has dedicated his life to the preservation of the Antarctic wilderness and promoting recycling, renewable energy and sustainability to combat the effects of global warming. see video

clipped from www.2041.com The E-Base is a sustainable green building operated in an environmental and resource efficient manner. The materials which were very carefully selected include recycled and renewable resources. It is believed that a cornerstone of sustainable design is to retain as many resources as possible within a community however, there are no building materials produced or indigenous supplies available in Antarctica. All of the building materials chosen are sustainable products and include, structurally insulated panels from WinterPanel, 100 percent post consumer recycled rubber interior flooring from EcoSurfaces and an energy star watertight blanket with low VOCs for the roof and siding from Metacrylics. THE E-BASE GOES LIVE In 2008, Swan and a small team will live in the E-Base for two weeks demonstrating the use of the renewable and sustainable technologies. Their daily actvities will be covered on this website and transmitted 'live' around the world throughout their stay.

Fast Company: Design meet Business: "Business, this is… Design"

by Mark Dziersk

Business people need to develop a better understanding of design, form partnerships between themselves and creativity, and apply strategy to design thinking, in order to compete effectively today.

This article shares 6 tips "to help navigate thoroughly confusing waters."

1. Design Strategy…an oxymoron?
2. The world is upside down, embrace it.
3. Invent new training, train thyself
4. Understand your DNA
5. Visualize strategy
6. No PPTs. Tell stories

clipped from www.fastcompany.com As an accomplished businessperson you probably know a lot about strategy and little about creativity. Creativity is the key to innovation. And, if innovation is (as testified almost everywhere these days) the Midas touch for business today, understanding creativity involves a lot more than orchestrating regimented processes. Most businesses are run by adding columns of numbers, and led by financially motivated business managers armed with…. strategies. If creativity is the fuel that brings innovation to life, then strategy is the mirror equivalent for business. Visual thinking, storytelling, DNA, and adaptable processes all help enormously. For designers today, a good understanding of the" business comfort zone" with ideas and concepts is a tool as powerful as any Alias rendering or beautifully executed aesthetic prototype. Creativity is the currency, but the strategic foundation is equally important.

Fast Compnay Sketch Pad: Elizabeth Arden

This series from the business innovation mag shows how the creative process works -- from brainstorming to sketches, color and font selection and webdesign.

clipped from www.fastcompany.com The spa for ladies who lunch goes for younger, more contemporary women with a new line of hair-care products. The brand-identity designers at Alexander Isley Inc. created the packaging to speak to that audience.

Xerox's inventor-in-chief

An innovation revival has lifted profits to $1.2 billion. Fortune's Geoff Colvin asks CTO Sophie Vandebroek: Can the company keep it up?

There has been much ado about Hillary's appearance on Fortune Magazine's cover in July, but what caught my eye was this interview with Xerox's chief innovator.

The company's smart document technology holds much promise for the paper-glutted medical field.

clipped from money.cnn.com One key to the turnaround: Xerox has become an innovation power again, producing new technologies that can read, understand, route, and protect documents, among other things. Leading that effort is Vandebroek, 45, the company's chief technology officer since late 2005. Her task is to keep Xerox at the leading edge of infotech progress in ways that make shareholders richer. Born and raised in Belgium, Vandebroek has a doctorate in electrical engineering from Cornell; she first joined Xerox in 1991. Before an invited audience in New York City, she talked with Fortune's Geoff Colvin about the difference between invention and innovation; why Xerox employs anthropologists; how to make girls passionate about engineering; and much else. Edited excerpts:

'Green' Tech Shops Have a Way to Go

As the use of HIT rises, so does the need to conserve it's direct and indirect costs: electricity and the unhealthy methods we produce it.

clipped from news.wired.com A new report from the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the easiest, least inexpensive changes to data center operations - involving tweaks to software, layout and air conditioning - could boost efficiency by 20 percent. But even that level of improvement would still lead to higher overall electric use in the coming years. Going further, and actually reducing information-technology's strain on the electric grid, will require a more aggressive commitment. The EPA says 45 percent improvement - enough to lower electricity usage by 2011 - can be achieved with existing technologies.) For example, almost all the energy that goes into the air conditioning systems is used to run giant chillers that make the air pumped through the rooms' raised floors a brisk 55 degrees or so, sometimes as low as the 40s. Such extremely cold air is blasted in to guarantee that no single server's temperature gets much above the optimum level, which is around 70 degrees.

eHealthRisk: The Human Factor

The eHealthRisk blog is a forum for examining privacy, security, safety, project and business risks associated with the application of information and telecommunications technologies to health care.

clipped from ehealthrisk.blogspot.com The Human Factor Without question the best book I've read about human factors engineering and the issues that arise when we put human beings and technology together is The Human Factor: Revolutionizing the Way We Live With Technology by Kim Vicente. Vicente has written a very readable and fascinating book drawing on real life experiences from the aviation, nuclear, health care and other high risk industries. The book is organized around the "Human-Tech Ladder" which describes a hierarchy of relationships that explains why things sometimes go wrong when humans and technology mix. The ladder looks at the following factors: Physical - Size, shape, location weight, colour, material Psychological - Information content/structure, cause/effect relations Team - Authority, communications patterns, responsibilities Organizational - Corporate culture, reward structures, staffing levels Political - Policy agenda, budget allocations, laws, regulations