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Archive for December, 2017

Golden New Year Oldie: Successful New Year Resolutions

Friday, December 29th, 2017

It’s been 10 years since Joe switched from New Year resolutions to New Year goals. He recently shared the ones for 2018 and said he’s still crushing them every year.

He also said that his 15-yr-old son, “Kevin,” doesn’t believe he is “Joe” and asked me to reprint the original. OK, Joe, here it is, along with a shout out to Kevin that yes, your dad really is “Joe.”

“Joe” an executive I know, sent me his list of New Year’s resolutions and it reminded me of a cartoon I recently saw, and the written counterpart that’s been around for ages:

Person 1: “Would you like to see my New Year’s resolutions?”
Person 2: “Aren’t they the same ones you show me every year?”

He sends the list every year, as kind of an informal accountability function. He keeps it short, just a few things that he really wants to do, but, sadly, they are too often variations of the same things that were on previous lists.

Sure, we’ve all been there, but this is from a guy who is famous for hitting his goals at the 95 to 100% level.

Why do people so often miss on resolutions, yet rarely blow their goals in a similar manner? What’s the difference?

Let’s take a look at Joe’s list. He wants to

  • stop micromanaging;
  • communicate better;
  • workout daily;
  • lose 20 pounds.

Other than the first item, the list probably duplicates thousands of others. What is the problem?

Have you ever noticed that resolutions are

  • phrased in an absolute manner that leaves no room for incremental improvement—an all-or-nothing approach;
  • short and not quantified;
  • rarely have a viable plan by which to achieve them; and
  • often aren’t realistic when measured by the resources (time and/or mental/physical energy) required to accomplish them.

If you set your company or department goals this way do you believe that they would be achieved?

If they aren’t achieved, did you really fail? Not if you believe in ering, as I do.

This year, why not do what Joe’s finally doing? Learn about ering (use the link!), reformulate your resolutions as goals, do a reality test on them to see if they hold up, and show them to someone (feel free to send them to me) for both support and a few accountability nudges during the year.

Do this and see how far you can really go, as well as the difference it makes to your esteem and peace of mind.

My best wishes to Joe, Kevin and all my visitors. May crushing your 2018 New Year goals this coming year be as sweet as the deserts you indulged in during your 2017 Christmas.

Image credit: Lenabem-Anna J.

Ryan’s Journal: Why Wait?

Thursday, December 28th, 2017

opportunityThe holidays are fully upon us and we are immersed in responsibilities to friends and family, at least I am. My family is spread all throughout the country and, as a result, it can be quite an orchestration to have more than a few people in the same geography.

I tend to be a people-pleaser as well, so, if there are multiple parties involved, I find myself pulled in various directions, all to keep them happy. I will tell you that this is not fun and does not benefit anyone.

The capstone holiday, of course, is New Years. It is a chance to renew and rebirth yourself into the desired image you have set forth.

My desired image would include not worrying as much about keeping people happy and more focus on my long-term goals.

Which brings us to the question, why wait? Why wait ’till that magical stroke of midnight to enable us to be our best selves?

In one regard it can be easier to wait until the tide of society is on board with us when making good decisions. I made a decision some time ago to no longer drink alcohol; I realized I could be a better version of myself by cutting it out. I will tell you that it can be a lonely walk when you are the only one making a decision like that. It wasn’t a New Year’s choice, but done during an off time of year. As a result, I really didn’t have anyone to share in the decision.

So perhaps that’s it?

Do we like the positive peer pressure of making informed choices together? It is a lot more fun going to the gym when out of shape if other folks in the same boat are there. It can also be fun to indulge in that extra piece of chocolate during the holidays’ guilt-free in the knowledge that next week you will be your best self.

How do we apply this to work?

Do you sit at your desk on a Friday and think, “I’ll get to that next week?” I know I do and it can be destructive if left unchecked. Or perhaps you are the type of person who embraces all tasks with gusto and will work to solve that problem regardless of time.

First off, I want whatever you have, and secondly, how do you sustain it?

Either approach has its benefits and risks, but which can lead to our best self.

What is your best self?

Flickr image credit: BK

Wisdom for 2018 — and Beyond

Wednesday, December 27th, 2017

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Just a few days left this year, so I thought it would be a good time offer up some wise words for the coming year — actually, they are wise any time and any year.

I rarely quote those who cultivate guru status, but this from Craig D. Lounsbrough really resonates. It’s something many of our so-called leaders should embrace.

“An exceptional future can only be built on the transformation of the mess I’ve made out of my past, not the elimination of that mess.”

We all have messes, some worse than others, so stop minimizing yours or offering glib apologies and mea culpas.

Alan Cohen reminds us that there is no “right” time to start, including New Year’s.

Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.

Beginning opens the door to success, but also to failure — or does it? (I got into a lot of trouble for this post, but I still stand by it.)

There is no failure except no longer trying. —Elbert Hubbard

Finally, a few words from two folks who have forgotten more about succeeding than most of us will ever learn.

Unlike Jeff Bezos, Tony Hsieh does a great job channeling many of Henry Ford’s attitudes. While Bezos is devoted to “delighting customers” and taking care of his professional employees, the same can’t be said for the rank and file.

A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.

Finally, it seems that too many founders and investors have forgotten, if they ever knew, what drove Thomas Edison’s inventing.

I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent it.

Useful thoughts and good guidance no matter when or where you are in your life.

Image credit: Eddy Van 3000

The Precision Health Summit Wrap: Technology and Big Data Transform Healthcare

Friday, December 22nd, 2017

AMAZING! Health 2.0’s Precision Health Summit was an absolutely amazing event focused on the future of health, highlighting how technology and big data are transforming healthcare.

Health 2.0, the conference organizer, is a digital health media company, and in addition to its signature event in Santa Clara, has run conferences in Europe, Latin America, India, Japan and more.  The Technology for Precision Health Summit delivered.

I arrived at the summit, was greeted by Joan Hwang of their Marketing and PR team and obtained my badge.  I took the elevators to the 15th floor and sat at tables with health professionals, researchers, venture capitalists and healthcare entrepreneurs.

The second session, Precision Medicine Pt. 2 – Underlying Technologies Enabling Precision Medicine and Precision Health, perked me up, where I learned that Redox is building an API for healthcare. Genius!

The New Diagnostic Screening Tools and Predictive Analytics – Oncology and Beyond panel was FANTASTIC!  For me, one of the highlights of the conference were the live demos by healthcare companies.

I was super impressed by Color, Helix and Kenzen. Here’s why.

Color offers affordable genetic testing to help understand your risk for common hereditary cancers & hereditary high cholesterol.  Pretty amazing if you think about it.

Helix, founded by a former VC, blew us away. Think of a app store for DNA testing. Using DNA, you can discover your ancestry, slumber habits and more. Welcome to the future: now.

Hands down, my personal favorite was Kenzen. Kenzen uses sweat analysis and continuous health monitoring to help you get ahead of injuries and avoidable health conditions.  Imagine a wearable that provides real time feedback, infinitely more powerful than FitBit or the Apple Watch. INCREDIBLE.

This conference is one of the best I’ve attended.  As a tech professional, I’ve attended many tech conferences.  The Technology for Precision Health Summit was focused, drove excellent conversations on the future of health, showcased healthcare startups leveraging technology as a differentiator and highlighted the importance of data collaboration in order to address today’s health challenges.

In my experience, a culture of collaboration both intra-company and industry wide, leads to greater outcomes for all.

This conference should be attended by every healthcare professional concerned about the future of health and every venture capitalist looking for new platforms to deploy capital.

This is the place to view demos, learn how startups are creating Health 2.0 and understand how to partner with these companies.

I highly recommend the Technology for Precision Health Summit and look forward to their next conference!

Image credit: Health 2.0

Interviews From The Precision Health Summit

Wednesday, December 20th, 2017

Ever noticed how new projects needed by year-end put a cramp in other projects?

This is not the post I was planning to go with the interviews, but when it’s 1 am and your deadline is upon you, you do what’s necessary,

We’ve all been there.

One interview was with a researcher, who preferred to be anonymous. I’m not sure why, but his DNA privacy concerns really resonated with me.

The second was with Reed Tayler, founder of Method Yoga.

I hope you enjoy the interviews and will join me Friday for a more personal view of the Summit.

Image credit: Health 2.0

Wally Bock On Leadership And The MacArthur Maxim

Tuesday, December 19th, 2017

I love occasionally sharing Wally’s posts. I consider him one of the clearest thinkers on real leadership — he makes sense, as opposed to noise. In this one he uses Douglas MacArthur to illustrate something many so-called leaders have either forgotten or ignored.

Despite the moniker “Dugout Doug,” Douglas MacArthur was an exceedingly brave man who was often heedless of danger. In his book, American Caesar, William Manchester tells about the time MacArthur was asked about why he remained in dangerous circumstances instead of seeking cover.

The General replied: “If I do it, the colonels will do it. If the colonels do it, the captains will do it, and so on.” That’s the MacArthur Maxim, what you do sets the example for the people who work for you.

The people who work for you will watch you carefully. They will pay attention to the things you pay attention to. They will be as ethical or not as you are. They will work as hard as you do. What you notice and reward, they will value.

You must make sure that your actions and your words deliver the same message. Which brings us to the Lazarus Corollary to the MacArthur Maxim.

Shelly Lazarus is the Chairman Emeritus of Ogilvy and Mather and former Worldwide Chairman and CEO. Many people consider her a role model. She’s not entirely comfortable with that, but she takes her role as a role model seriously indeed and she works consciously to make sure her actions and her words match up. The following quote is from her pre-Emeritus days.

“I know that work-family balance is important … I choose always to go to the school play, and field day and all that [because] it gives other women in the company, or clients, the confidence to be able to say, ‘I’m going, too.’”

Your example is the most powerful tool you have to influence the behavior of the people who work for you. Make sure you set the example you want and that the example you set and the one you talk about match up.

Reading Resource

American Caesar is William Manchester’s excellent biography of Douglas MacArthur. Manchester’s experience as a Marine who fought in the Pacific side of World War II gives him some special insight and he manages to capture both the genius and absurd posturing of Douglas MacArthur.

Copyright © 2017 Wally Bock, All rights reserved.

Golden Oldies: The Most Valuable Gifts: Time and Books

Monday, December 18th, 2017

It’s amazing to me, but looking back over more than a decade of writing I find posts with information that is as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of what I consider some of the best posts during that time.

It’s that time of the year. No matter what media you prefer you’ll find something about the best stuff gifts for your first apartment, tech gifts, various gift categories at different price points, and on and on. You can also find a myriad of options to give experiences, instead of stuff — if you can afford to give experiences.

Below I’ve described two ways to give something unforgettable, no matter your budget,  

Read other Golden Oldies here.

Dhttp://xkcd.com/1616/uring the holiday media gift frenzy it is the truly wise who remember that the best gifts aren’t electronic or screen-dependent.

The very best aren’t paid for with money, either, but with a much more precious currency — time.

Time to love.

Time for friendship.

Time to play.

Time to talk and laugh together — F2F

Food cooked and shared together at (someone’s) home.

Not just during the season, but scattered throughout the year like diamonds on a velvet cloth or stars in a clear night sky.

Along with time, the most wonderful gift you can give a child is a love of books — real books.

Real because reading a printed page affects the brain in different and better ways than words on a  screen.

Whether your child reads or you read to them start with the books from Lost My Name, which creates personalized books using your child’s name.

Lost My Name — founded in 2012 by Asi Sharabi and Tal Oron — creates customised books based around a child’s name. The books are created and ordered online, then sent out to printing partners around the world. (…)  “As a technology company, we’re very proud to be innovating on one of the oldest media formats in the world – the physical book,” said Oron. “We think technology equals possibility. And possibility is the dominant currency in wonderful, nostalgic storytelling, where the book’s job is to inspire children to believe in adventure; that anything can happen if they imagine it. As screens become more and more seductive to children, there is an increasing need to inject more magic into books – to find new ways to spark their imagination.”

Even better are the books by Randall Munroe, former NASA roboticist, who specializes in science humor and whose 2014 book, “What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions,” became an unexpected mainstream hit.

Munroe believes that anything can be explained simply using normal language and proves it in his new book (which is a good choice for anyone on your gift list).

“Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words.” The oversized, illustrated book consists of annotated blueprints with deceptively spare language, explaining the mechanics behind concepts like data centers, smartphones, tectonic plates, nuclear reactors and the electromagnetic spectrum. In his explanations, Mr. Munroe avoided technical jargon and limited himself to the 1,000 most commonly used words in the English language. This barred him from using words like helium and uranium, a challenge when describing how a rocket ship or reactor works.

For book links and great comics (sample above; chosen for enabling holiday restraint) visit Munroe’s site.

Books are good for adults, too. There are great sites beyond Amazon that offer critiques of books that run the business gamut from being a better boss to upping your game wherever you are in your career.

Another great thing about real books is what you can do when you are done reading them.

  • Some you’ll want to keep for your own library;
  • some you’ll share with friends, colleagues and those you mentor; and
  • the rest can be donated to your local library.

Happy reading! Happy discovery!!

Image credit: Randall Munroe

 

Muema At The Technology Precision Health Summit

Friday, December 15th, 2017

Muema At The Precision Health Conference

Today I’m pleased to welcome Muema Lombe, a new voice at MAPping Company Success. He’ll be sharing news from conferences and interviews with founders.

Health 2.0 runs some of the best conferences for anyone passionate about the future of healthcare and medicine.  I just attended  its Technology for Precision Health Summit which focuses on predictive health and predictive medicine.

Linda Molnar, Chair of the Technology for Precision Health Summit, set to the tone for the day, speaking of what we can do today to improve care for the future.

In 2005, the market cap of Illumina, now the major gene sequencing company, was only $250 million. There was a relatively negligible amount of venture capital investment in digital healthcare. Now, in 2017, the market cap of Illumina, I checked this morning, is approaching $32 billion. And 2017 was a record-breaking year for venture capital invested in digital healthcare. When you start past $4 billion…

I sat next to Carmen Perez, a Healthcare professional passionate about innovation. Other attendees included physicians, researchers, oncologists and venture capitalists.

Claudia Williams, CEO of Manifest MedEx gave the Keynote.  Claudia served as Senior Advisor for Health Innovation and Technology in the Obama White House.  Claudia’s goal is to create an open platform of data, a health information exchange for the 21st century that brings together plans, providers, hospitals to share data and make it accessible through open API platform.

When I was at the White House, I helped launch and lead the precision medicine initiative, which was an ambitious project to found the framing hand of the 21st century, bringing together data, genomics data, health record data, wearable data from a million or more Americans, making that accessible on an open platform and with the goal of revolutionizing the discovery of new therapies and treatment.

Following Claudia’s Keynote, the first panel focused on Precision Medicine Pt. I – How Science and Technology are Changing Patient Care in Oncology.  We heard from Jonathan Hirsch, founder and president at Syapse, which is in the business of implementing precision medicine in oncology.

Also on the panel was Anna Barry, a molecular pathologist and the Scientific Director at the Personalized Medicine Program at Swedish, a large private hospital that’s very research focused. They have over 700 clinical trials.

We heard from Vineeta Agarwala, a Director of Product Management at Flatiron Health. Vineeta shared that she had the epiphany that if we don’t figure out how to annotate genomic data well, and annotate it well at scale, sequencing data will never make it into the clinic in a meaningful way.

At it’s core, one of Flatiron’s mission, we are an oncology focused health-tech company based in New York. We make both provider facing software, such as an EMR product that’s used by a significant fraction of the community of oncology practices all across the country as well as research product and data sets, that are gleaned, again, largely the wealth, the majority of cancer patients today, in American who happen to be seen at excellent community centers all across the country.

Trained as a Neuro-Oncologist, Andrew Norton, Chief Medical Officer at Koda Health was also on the panel.   Koda is a healthcare data analytics company, which focusing on cancer.

Essentially our core innovation that led to the founding of the company was the idea that without deep clinical data, and without the ability to stratify patients into meaningful, clinically determined sub-groups, you really can’t compare patient treatment pathways and outcomes across centers and across geography.

So essentially what we do, is we go into electronic medical records. We pull out all of the clinically relevant data that oncologists have told us matter in making treatment decisions, we condense that information into a digital code and then we use it to track patient treatment paths and outcomes over time. And really the fundamental goal of all that work is to enable providers to perform under value-based care contracts.

During the panel, Hirsch brought up that we have to think about it as how we combine molecular and clinical data and use that insight to enable a provider to make a better care decision for the patient.

He also made a very clear distinction between personalized medicine and precision medicine.

“And just to amplify that, we sometimes thing that there’s been a shift and personalized medicine and precision medicine are actually the same thing, and we’re just using different language. I don’t think that that’s the case. I really do think that there are these two complementary concepts of precision medicine being a data-driven approach and personalized, hopefully incorporating precision, but really thinking about the holistic care of the patient, supportive care services, psychological counseling, nutrition, etc. So I do think there are these two separate concepts, we shouldn’t confuse them. And both of them are incredibly important.”

Agarwala highlighted key questions we should consider including,

  • Where is the data to help physicians help make a decision about whether or not a particular therapy will work?

  • Where is the data to generate our collective understanding of what mutations confer resistance to therapy?

And I think today, while in some parts of the country there are molecular tumor boards and studies and post-effective studies that are extraordinary in their depth and characterization of patient outcomes they are not pervasive.

Unfortunately, for every patient who was in a study like that there are typically about a hundred who are undergoing the same type of care somewhere that’s completely silent to the research community. In a way that’s passive exhaust in our healthcare system that no one can access to learn from.”

There’s much more that I’ll share with you next week.

Image credit: Health 2.0

Ryan’s Journal: Fail Forward

Thursday, December 14th, 2017

https://www.flickr.com/photos/streamishmc/2340150187/

I attended a tech talk recently that was put on by the Tampa Bay Tech Garage here in Tampa, FL. Like most mid sized cities we have some thriving tech companies as well as startups.

The tech garage is an incubator that provides mentoring, work spaces and community to those that are growing their businesses. One way they facilitate this is by hosting talks with well established owners who can speak to their trials and successes, all in an effort to grow the tech community in our area.

Side note: if your reading this and you’re cold then consider the Tampa/St Petersburg area, it’s warm, full of sun and has a thriving community.

The discussion I attended centered on how failure is inevitable, but creates innovation and break-throughs if approached in the right way.

Our speaker was Chad Nuss, CEO of Inside Out, a sales innovation lab that teaches, tests and optimizes sales teams across the country. He had been the owner of several startups with successful exits and is just a great guy to be around. In his different roles he has also experienced epic failures that he had to learn from.

The topic was relevant in a lot of ways.

In tech we tend to say that revenue covers a multitude of sins. The evidence is there when you look at the Ubers or [insert any other money-losing company] of the moment.

Successful people also have epic failures, but if they are generating revenue it shouldn’t matter.

This is the wrong approach! It leads to us brushing off failure, burying our head in the sand and not learning. It is one reason you see companies have spectacular rises and sudden falls.

There is a better way.

Examining a failure in your life can be humbling, but also rewarding. You can learn from it, approach it differently next time, or achieve a breakthrough.

As I look at my own life I can count the many ways I have failed and repeated that same mistake again. I actually do not mind failing but I hate repeating that.

How often have you achieved a breakthrough or innovation after a failure?

What did you learn and how did you make it better?

As we go forward we shouldn’t fear failure, we should embrace it and grow.

Happy failing!

Flickr image credit: Jason Tester Guerrilla Futures

Stick It To A Spammer

Wednesday, December 13th, 2017

The last few weeks have focused on some pretty depressing topics, so it’s high time for something that’s

  • interesting,
  • useful,
  • creative, and
  • fun for both of us.

Re:scam fulfills all four criteria.

Introducing Re:scam – an artificially intelligent email bot made to reply to scam emails. Re:scam wastes scammers time with a never-ending series of questions and anecdotes so that scammers have less time to pursue real people. (…) Instead of junking or deleting a scam email, you can now forward it to Re:scam who will continue the conversation indefinitely – or until the scammer stops replying.

Add me@rescam.org to your address book and make sticking it to spammers effortless.

Video credit: Re:scam

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