health 20 eating our own dogfood

Health 2.0: Eating Our Own Dogfood

Dogfooding (d�g fud�ing) n.

1. Refers to using the software that one creates in the beta test

stages and especially thereafter.

2. The expression comes from early TV commercials when the dog refused

to eat the food

3. Conscientious effort to use the product you are promoting

The viral spread of the ideas and concepts of Health 2.0 continues

insidiously on the conference circuit. This past week Indu Subaiya and

Matthew Holt were up at the Ix Therapy Conference, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn

was posting at iHealthBeat, and Brian Klepper and on Health Policy

blogs. On Friday, Jane and Brian collaborated on an article attempting

to describe a broader vision of the practical implications Health 2.0

implications.

In this posting, and others that followed, they are inviting wider

participation on the actionable aspects of Health 2.0. But how can a

wider audience truly participate in shaping and forming the emerging

ideas and concepts? Its a rhetorical question, of course, as I

suggested that in true Health 2.0 fashion the thought leaders in this

space should eat their own dogfood.

Say what?

The phrase is a clever idiom that originated when Microsoft product

managers began demanding that employees within the company should be

using the software the company was producing. The phrase was a play on

the Alpo commercials of the day, when the authoritative Lorne Greene

informed the audience the dog food was so good he fed it to his own

manly dogs. The imagery of that commercial and the implications of the

phrase continue to have merit. It is the difference between "do what I

say" versus "do what I do". So, again, as thought leaders espousing

these enabling tools it seems consistent that we should be using them

to communicate our message and collaborate internally as well.

To that end, I have posted Jane and Brian's "Broader Vision"

commentary on the Health 2.0 wiki. It is located right next to the

different definitions of Health 2.0, a catalog of representative

companies, and projects like my own "What is Health 2.0" whitepaper

(which currently contains the first three sections, and the outline

for the remaining 7). Judging by the nearly 13,000 page views to date,

it seems that the wiki is getting at least some traction. In the

coming weeks and months we hope to merge the wiki with other

initiatives underway to have a common place wherein the community can

gather to discuss, debate, and disseminate the concepts of Health 2.0

to as wide as an audience as possible. We look forward to your

participation and contributions.

In terms of a very brief commentary on Jane and Brian's recent work, I

think they have added to our understanding of the practical

implications of Health 2.0. While the graphic is necessarily complex

to describe the breadth of issues in the framework, it can be simply

summarized under three common themes that I have previously identified

as the driving force of the movement. I call it the "Triple A of

Health 2.0":

Presenting by Scott Shreeve, MD at the Health 2.0 Conference. Courtesy

of HealthEquity and used with permission.

What we are seeing is the AGGREGATION of information/experience (this

last one is not talked about much) that has always been disparate;

software/technology/tools that allow the ANALYSIS of massive amounts

of information (and subsequent development of recommendations), and

then a medium to communicate this back to the consumer in some

value-added ADVISORY capacity. You can envision all the different

types of companies that impact the flow of information all along the

value chain.

Look forward to everyone's participation. Chow! Chow! Chow!