A collection of stories, quotes, and ideas that inspire us to continuously explore and learn.
"But most human beings don’t naturally organize the world through metaphors of domains or hypertext; instead they mentally map the world according to their social networks of friends, family, and colleagues. So it should come as no surprise that we now find ourselves gravitating toward a new platform grounded in those social maps."
Can Anything Take Down the Facebook Juggernaut? | Epicenter | Wired.com
"But doctors? No doctor ever asked me a QoL question or probed into such a matter, though I never expected it, either. I only wanted my wound looked after, my cavity filled, my eyes tested or something medical attended. But, if asked, I would have been responsive, and probably delighted."
AWR 615 - Quality of Life - A New Focus That Is Transforming Health Care? - April 25, 2012
"1. Look for cross-pollinators.
2. Surf the exponentials.
3. Favor the liberators.
4. Give points for audacity.
5. Bank on openness.
6. Demand deep design.
7. Spend time with time wasters."
Pretty good set of principles!
"With the health plans preparing to sell their coverage directly to individuals, they’re starting to think like consumer marketers. Instead of focusing just on what happens when a member has an extraordinary diagnosis (and extraordinary cost), insurers are beginning to ask about what happens between billable moments, and between incidents of clinical care. When customer acquisition costs are high—as with a mobile carrier, or any subscription business—the key business success metric becomes customer retention rate. Unlike the mobile carriers, health insurers bear financial risk, so they’re even more motivated to keep around their healthy members, the ones who don’t anticipate using high-cost services and who are more likely to shop around based on features. The new plans clearly have incentive to optimize not just for cost, but for member experience."
"Unmet social needs – like access to nutritious food and adequate housing – are leading to worse health for all Americans, according to 85 percent of physicians recently surveyed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Although most physicians say patients’ social needs are as important to address as their medical conditions, four in five feel they don’t have the capacity to effectively address social needs. This is health care’s blind side: Within the current health care system, physicians do not have the time or sufficient staff support to address patients’ social needs."
"This finds that in both the U.S. and Europe increases in inequality have (other things equal) produced reductions in happiness."
"Powerful memes of cultures and environments, traditions and circumstances, DNA and other genetic factors and more combine to constrain how we think and how we can act, even though most of us want to think we can choose to be different from the way we are."
AWR 613 - Needed: Less Medical Testing and More Wellness Promotion - April 10, 2012
(via CBC.ca Player)
"FOCUS ON WELL-BEING, NOT GROWTH The recognition that countries have not grown happier as they have gotten richer has caused many to question the idea of “growth for the sake of growth.” In fact, our dogged pursuit of economic growth has undermined our ability to use natural resources sustainably, as well as the resilience and prosperity of communities across the globe. In the words of Paul Hawken, “We have an economy where we steal from the future, sell it in the present, and call it GDP."
5 Big Ideas For A New Economy | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation
