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THE IMPACT OF SOCIAL TECHNOLOGYBy James L. Spradlin

At the moment of writing this section, I’m sitting in a semi-comfortable chair at about 30,000 feet somewhere above the mid-West heading towards Las Vegas for a social media strategy conference. My computer, which weighs about 9 ounces has about 7 hours of battery life left. I’m connected to the plane’s wifi network. It seems that Ford Motor Company is running some sort of advertisement that allows travelers free wifi and access to Facebook . They are hoping that I “like” the new Ford Explorer. I do like it, but I don’t want to click the button.

The fact that this is happening is strange to me. Yes,

it’s becoming more normal, but it’s still new enough to be astonishing for at least a few moments.

Stop and think about this for a second -- I’m in a winged silver tube being projected across the sky at 550 mph while also connected to anyone else in the world with Internet access.

Before we took off, my colleague Mike posted a picture on FB saying we were on our way. I commented -- online -- on his photo making some sort of wisecrack. Mike is sitting less than a few feet in the row behind me, and yet my message travelled from my computer, through the wifi service, out of the plane into

a satellite, back down to Earth filtering through who knows how many servers until hitting one of Facebook’s, then back out and up to the satellite, back to the plane, and to Mike’s screen -- all within about the time it takes the woman next to me to sneeze.

A chat window just popped up and it’s my friend Matt. He’s starting his work day back in Orlando.

This is the future. We all live in the moment in human history where for the first time ever millions, even billions, of people are able to be connected near instantaneously regardless of geographical location.

These are two boys that I met on a

recent trip to Tibet. They were one of

many children of a nomadic family that

most likely was visiting Lhasa, Tibet

for the Tibetan Buddhist festival that

was taking place. When I showed

them their picture, they acted like it was

the first time to see one.

FOURQUESTIONSON

I’ve learned that the Online

connections are most effective when

serving the Analog

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It hasn’t always been like this. Everything has changed so fast. Everything is changing even faster. They say the rate of change is exponential compounding day by day.

I was conceived in 1979 and I was birthed in 1980. The first computer I remember using was either an Apple Macintosh or a Commadore 64. I’m not positive which. My father Jim worked at an Apple store back when Apple wasn’t yet cool. He didn’t wear skinny jeans and no one called him a genius. My parents refused to get us a Nintendo as my mother swore that it would rot our brain, and so we rotted our brains with computer games instead. My mother assumed that if it was a game on a computer then it must make you smarter -- somehow. To this day, I have a love hate relationship with technology. I think my brother Bill, who does visual effects in Hollywood (300, Transformers, Avatar) hates and loves technology even more than I do. Of course, that might also be because he’s lived in LA to long and has become jaded.

The first thing I ever remembering using a search engine for was by querying Netscape Navigator “how to build an atomic bomb” during study hall in the library at school. I was only about 12 or 13, and of course had no intentions other than addressing my curiosity to the question of “what kind of information can be found here”. It didn’t take me long to find the instructions for building an atomic bomb,

but luckily (for me) Walmart was all out of the proper ingredients.

A few days ago I received an email from an old friend, Brad. You might know him as Professor Reisinger. Three years ago I was in Brad’s wedding, and then a month later he was in mine. We went to high school together, skateboarded and played soccer together -- and got disconnected after high school but reconnected after college.

Not too long after Brad and Jenny were married, they moved North. Brad and I attempted to stay in contact with each other through digital dialogue, but unfortunately we were not able to see each other in person much over these years.

Most of our conversation has always revolved around the great questions of life, and the intricacies of exploring them not just alone, but also with other people.

I can’t remember the last time I even saw Brad. Maybe it was a few Thanksgivings ago? I’m really not sure.

But what I am sure of is that because we have lost close geographical touch, we have lost touch as friends. We’ve tried to stay in contact minimally, but it hasn’t really worked.

Of course, I’m sure we’ve both kept up with each other’s blogs, our Facebook posts, maybe even links spit out through Twitter, but that’s about it. That’s pretty impersonal actually, and nothing to maintain a relationship off of -- so I’ve learned.

Though Brad is unique, the limitations of connection through the digital is not. I’ve experienced a decrease in other relationships as well too where our only connection is through the digital wires. I’ve tried for years to stay connected with my parents, but it hasn’t really worked as much as I hoped for. It will never replace spending time with them in person.

To compensate, my sibling’s and I even went in and bought my parents iPhones so that we might stay more in touch. We setup a family blog. I was about the only one that would post consistently. We grew a part. In a sense, the digital connection heightened our frustrations of not being able to truly connect with each other. It was if we knew more information about each other’s lives, but it didn’t taste the same. It didn’t feel the same. That’s it, I realized, the feeling wasn’t the same. At this point, I’ve just had to accept this. And the same goes for Brad. I’ve had to accept our relationship can’t be the same unless we spend more time face to face. We’ve frustrated each other, as most friends do, and even hurt each other’s feelings through emails or other online comments. When you can’t witness the other person listening, it’s hard to know if they really are. We need to learn to trust each other again, and that will not happen at a distance. That will not happen through email. Trust will not be built over Facebook.

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Then notice the monk in the blue is holding an iPhone 4

Notice the Tibetan

monk in red is drooling

over an iPhone 3G

wrapped in a golden plastic

case

Twitter @JLSpradlin

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Through all of this, I’ve learned that the Online connections with other people are most healthy when set to serve the Analog world -- life without wires.

By now, some of you might be wondering why do I share such a personal details into such a topic? I thought we were talking about social information. Well, we are.

It is pertinent you know these things because at the heart of social technology is people. The essence of “changing the world” through the use of social technology is impacting people -- it’s less about the technology and more about the people. At least that’s what I believe.

Without people, this topic would be futile. I realize that may seem obvious, that people are ingrained in talks of anything social, but it seems for many people the temptation is to shift the focus to the technology. Often, that’s my temptation. Another common mistake is to focus more on the use of the technology than the connections provided. In the end, we lose site of what we were trying to do in the first place -- engage with other people.

As soon as I forget that, I’m disconnecting with others regardless how connected I think I am. As soon as we collectively forget that, we all suffer.

WHAT YOU WILL FIND NEXTOn the following pages I’ve attempted to answer four

questions proposed regarding social technology and social information. If you are interested in continuing further in dialog with me after reading, take a look at the last pages so you can find out how to contact me.

Or, maybe you even have some good suggestions for me to consider as I continue to work through this topic. That would be great. Thank you for your time and attention.

“It is pertinent you know these things because at the heart of social technology is people. The essence of “changing the world” through the use of social technology is impacting people -- it’s less about the technology and more about the people. At least that’s what I believe.”

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In the long run, I see human communication mostly remaining the same as it always has been. What I mean is that one person experiences something, say a thought or idea or desire or feeling or all of the above, and then they package that and transfer it and it is hopefully received by the intended audience with as accurate of the originally intended experience as possible. With that said, I see two variables in that equation continuing to change dramatically over the next 10 years and on for the rest of the World.

The two variables are speed and access. Yes, there are many other variables in the

equation that impact effective communication, but I believe what we are seeing change the most is speed of transmission and geographical accessibility to send and receive. Remember, I’m near instantaneously sending and receiving messages while having unfettered access on the plane.

When I think of speed, I think about being able to send a message from my email on my phone to my family back home regardless where I might be in the world -- all within a few seconds.

NOTE: Actually, the one of the most startling examples of the rate at which information is created socially just happened today on my last edit -- the 2011 Sendai Earthquake. The earthquake only happened a few hours ago, and yet the Wikipedia page is being updated in realtime. This blows my mind. We now live in a time where history is written as it is still happening.

My brother was recently visiting Thailand. He hadn’t travelled much in his life, but he had finished working on the movie “Avatar” in New Zealand and also another film in Australia -- and so he decided he needed to “see the [real] world”. Before visiting Thailand, he stopped in Singapore. During his travels, he was uploading his pictures to Facebook for friends and family to follow. Bill can be fairly introverted, and it’s just his style to let us know what country he was in by the pictures he was uploading to share with others.

During one point in his trip, we scheduled a phone call. Despite not having access to Asian cellular networks, using wifi and the Skype app on his iPhone, we had a call that was significantly clearer in quality than most phone calls I engage in with people across town -- and it was free of charge. Twenty years ago most of this was mostly unheard of for people like us -- VoiP, digital cameras, sharing pictures on a trip as they are taken, and Google

Earth image access to his surroundings to map out his trip -- all the way around the other side of the world.

This is access plus speed. You might take this for granted, but I’ve watched this stunning shift in communication change over the last 30 years.

I take a picture, upload it, and seconds later someone “likes” it. Never in human history has this been possible until now.

Over time, we should see the speeds increase, as well as more and more people around the world will have access to faster and faster speeds.

Ethiopia is another good personal example. About two and a half years ago, I was traveling with Professor Reisinger and a few other friends through Northern Ethiopia. We were literally in the middle of nowhere as we were riding through the rocky and barren lands from one town to another when we saw something odd ahead.

In front of us was a group of about twenty or so men and boys with shovels. As we got closer we saw what they were doing. They were being organized by a Chinese man wearing slacks, a collared shirt, and a white hard hat.

Behind them was a large spool of thick cable. We stopped for a few moments and our guide asked what they were doing. In the middle of Northern Ethiopia, these men and children were laying fiber optic cable through some of the roughest terrain I’d ever seen.

Fast forward to last Fall, and one of the strangest things I saw on a recent trip to Tibet was not what you’d expect. Up until the last 100 or so years, Tibet has been fairly isolated from the rest of the world. Things are certainly changing.

When I was visiting the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet, I noticed one of the Buddhist monks was carrying something in his left hand that looked

How do you See Human Communication Evolving in Light of Technology?The First Question

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To see pictures and video of Tibet visit my blog @ www.Aftifi.com or go straight to Flickr.com/JLSpradlin & vimeo.com/JLSpradlin

Twitter @JLSpradlin

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fairly familiar. I questioned myself, and then it was confirmed as I took a second look Yep, I thought, that monk is definitely carrying an iPhone. And not just any iPhone, he had the newest iPhone 4 -- one model newer than mine.

Where is the biggest shift in Human Communication Happening Digitally?

Regarding the actual messages within communication, the biggest shift seems to be in length of transmission. What I have no idea about is whether our messages have gotten shorter because our attention has been dwindling or if because our attention is shriveling up -- so that our transmissions are in turn impacted. Or, maybe we have less time than before? At least that’s what I think in 140 characters or less.

Have you wondered yet why you’re reading all of this in this particular format? I want your attention. I don’t want to compete with your inability to resist the temptation to click on a siren-like link enticing you to take a peek at what’s behind it. Of course, I figure I lost about 30% of you as soon as you were handed a document that was more than a page long. Or, maybe you are reading this on your computer or even Ipad? Maybe you are not even the intended audience and stumbled upon this through Scribd.com?

This shift in attention is challenging for all kinds of people. It doesn’t just impact our day to day lives, but it impacts our ability to process information -- you know, learning. It impacts our relationships too. I’ve been married for three years as of last week, and you know how many times I’ve heard, “You aren’t listening to me.” Regardless if I could repeat back what was being said verbatim, it was true -- I wasn’t in fact listening. I was only listening to the facts -- only hearing the “data”. I was rarely taking into consideration the context, or the emotion, or the tone, or what was being implied. Thankfully, I have an extremely patient wife and she’s not just waited for me to re-learn how to have a conversation with another human being, but she’s also helped me grow in this by encouraging me with positive feedback. Also most importantly she helps me by being able to forgive me quickly.

And I see the same thing happen online. I’ve done the same thing online. It’s weird because online it allows me to take a piece of text written by someone else and much more easily isolate it out of the context of that a person. I don’t see their smile. I don’t see their body language. I typically don’t remember what they posted a month ago that may or may not be related. Or even if I do, is it helpful to assume there is a connection between this post and any of the previous ones? It gets worse if I have no idea what happened earlier in their day. I lose much of the context. And I make a lot of assumptions.

And my attention tends to be short. I don’t want to have a 17 day conversation engaging in normal back and forth dialog that can be take place offline in less than 10 minutes. Yet, I’ve fell often for the deception that talking online in this format is more efficient. It can be efficient, but for many things, it’s not.

Rarely it is more efficient in crucial conversations. And so I’ve learned. I’ve learned to take this into consideration. I’ve made it an effort now to avoid having lengthy conversations online than utterly necessary. Sometimes I do, but at least going in I consider if digital is the most effective format for communicating.

Much of communication is non-verbal, somewhere in the range of 80% or more depending on who you read. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been misunderstood from an online message. This means that whenever a person is reading another person’s message, all they have to do is to focus on the text. This is great in urgent situations, but in others, it can prove to be a disadvantage.

Most of us have experienced it. Someone is engaging with us, and we really don’t have their attention. I’ve been wonder if this attention dwindles as we replace faces with screens?

Frequently when I’m at breakfast, lunch, or dinner with someone, they check their phone multiple times in the conversation. You know, because those absolutely urgent texts about nothing urgent just have to be read and answered immediately. And we do it to each other, we expect quick feedback. We get frustrated if we haven’t heard back.

In the corporate world, this gets worse. Besides just being rude and indirectly communicating that the person in front of you is not worth of your attention (take a quick look at your phone and see how many of the messages were truly time sensitive) -- being constantly connected has been one of the great de-railers of my ability to be effective.

We live in a society where knowledge is power, and if you aren’t in the know, you might be socially more and more of a nobody. We feel good when we know something someone else doesn’t. Some people take it so far as to say with a smirk, “Oh you didn’t know?” Yes, really, I didn’t know.

Another impact of access that I’ve been considering is the difference between information and wisdom. Personally, there are many things in life that I’ve known, but once I experienced them they took a much different shape. It’s as if the information was transmuted into part of me as a person. Before, it was just a thought I fancied in my head, but afterwards, it is now a part of who I am or who I am not.

And so I wonder, what happens when we can get access to answers to nearly any question in a matter of seconds? Is this always beneficial? Sometimes I forget to apply what I read.

I’ve met too many people that when asked the big questions of life, as far as why they think they exist, their answers reflect that they haven’t really spent much time thinking through and growing through these things. It’s not that people don’t give answers, it’s that many of the answers sound memorized. They sound distant from what they are saying, as if it’s really a part of another person’s story. And so I wonder why. I wonder why so many people say with their mouth what their hands and feet say differently.

In the end, I’m concerned. I wonder how this all impacts our ability to communicate. Does true connectedness increase with our ability to always be connected? And what is true connectedness, by the way? Regardless of my concern, I am hopeful -- because I think we are seeing change. Even my 16 year old nephew is realizing that there is something severely destructive with “too much Facebook”. I’m proud of him for seeing this at such a young age. I’m hopeful you see it too.

“Hey, this is not a real tweet. Follow me @JLSpradlin for real tweets. I have a grand total of 16 followers.”

Twitter @JLSpradlin

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The world has always been changing, and it will always continue to change -- regardless of technology. When cultures connect, they influence each other, of course some more than others. When people interact, change happens if even only a subtle fashion. And so I want to make that clear, it’s not the technology that is generating something entirely new, it’s simply that what has always happened. Change is happening at an exponentially rapid rate and this started as soon as messages were able to be delivered at a fast rate. Maybe it was carrier pigeons, or a foreigner arriving on horseback from a distant land with a never before sacred text -- but this is nothing new.

For the record, people were narcissistic before Twitter and Facebook. People were helping others across the world before DoSomething.Org. Cultures, religions, and governments were melding before Mark Zuckerberg was in diapers.

With that said, the most simplistic answer to this is that it is making the world not just seem smaller through perception and awareness -- but is allowing individuals who would never have previously interacted with each other to now be able to provide mutually beneficial value.

When I was a kid growing up in Oklahoma, I never really thought about traveling to other countries much. What seemed like an adventurous long distance trip would be to a place like California or New York City. Other countries, let alone cities, weren't really on my radar. My mom, who is a 1st grade teacher in rural Oklahoma emailed me the other day and mentioned that her kids were studying distant lands. She showed them a video of my recent trip to Tibet -- instantly their horizons are now stretched. The teacher’s son saw these things, and maybe one day they will too. These kind of memories tend to stick with us.

But as I got older, just like for many people, this global awareness began to shift.

I first started getting online about 12, which was 1992. I remember when I got my first modem and I was so excited. Finally my friend Scott and I could dial each other’s computers to play Doom against each other, one of the original first person shooters. Luckily for my family, we had two phone lines so I didn’t have to bog down the family line. Then in 1993 and 1994 AOL started catching steam, and more and more people were going online as well too, especially to chat rooms. Before AOL, I was interacting through a service called Prodigy, which was similar to CompuServe. I remember how cool it

was that I was able to talk to someone through a chat window from somewhere else.

About a month ago, I sent a message to a photographer in India, who I've never met. One of my personal goals for the year is to get as good technically and creatively in photography as I can with as little time invested as possible. To do this, I signed up for a Flickr account and started uploading some of the pictures that I recently captured. But my intention for joining Flickr was more to get exposed to other photographers who were much more skilled and fortunate than I -- so I could not only be inspired by them, but also so that I could seek out learning opportunities with them. One of the pictures I was blown away by was a picture of a beggar at a festival in India. As the photographer Tuhin explains, the man was angry that some of the passerby’s were not giving him enough money -- and so he began shaking his fist at them and cursing them. So far, this is the most striking photo I've ever seen on Flickr, and I've seen many. I wanted to learn how to be prepared to capture such a moment if I too were blessed with the right time and the right eye -- and so I contacted the photographer. He said he would be glad to explain how he did it.

Recently I finished a book on leadership called "Leaders Who Last". The book addresses the premise that statistics show that about 70% of leaders do not finish strong -- they don’t last as leaders. This book has made a huge impact on my life, especially since in December of 2009 my father entered into a dark time in his life. Entering into January of 2010, though I was still dazed from the intensity of such an experience of helping him through that time, I knew one thing: I didn’t want to make the same mistakes. Not too long later, I read an article online, and then saw a plug for this book. Obviously it caught my attention.

About three weeks ago, I had some specific questions regarding the book, that I thought would be great to ask the author. On a whim, I decided to email the book publisher's website asking that they consider forwarding my questions on. In about five or so hours, I had an email in my inbox from the author of the book. He lives 3,086 miles away in Seattle. The next week, we had our first phone conversation. Tomorrow, my wife and I will be picking him up from his hotel and getting to know each other over dinner.

Let's quickly take a look at what happened here. First, I went online and was reading an article that a friend recommended. He had shared this link

How is this Social Information Revolution changing the World?The Second Question

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Twitter @JLSpradlin

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through his Facebook feed. I followed the trail and read what he had read. At the bottom of the article were comments of individuals separated by great geographical distances. I also saw a "Read More" link by this author. The link took me to a synopsis of his new book. I went to Amazon and read the user reviews. It sounded good. I emailed a few friends asking if they had read the book, which they hadn't, but also said they had heard it was worthwhile. I went back to Amazon and within a few days had the book on my door step. And right now, though we've never met, I'm sharing with you my experience. Some of you might even be influenced enough to read the book for yourself, and in turn impact others.

In a recent video that I watched on Ted.com, the presenter was speaking about the impact of Internet video on individual’s creating a collaborative learning network through sharing their skills -- particularly their break dancing moves. The concept is simple. By break dancers having exposure to other break dancers much more skilled then them, they were able to learn new moves. What then begins to happen is those moves are then improved upon, video’d, and then re-uploaded. Then, another person sees these improvements, and the cycle continues. This type of collaborative learning is penetrating every area from moms trading organic cookie recipes to terrorist groups recruiting the next generation of martyrs.

WHAT I’M MOST CONCERNED ABOUT is how social technology is changing us as individuals. Where I’m most concerned is how accountability, true transparency, and deep connections are made. Where I believe this is most seen is the shift in the definition of a “friend”. Go ahead, think about that for a second, what is a friend? What’s the difference between an acquaintance and a friend?

Concerning true transparency, I’ll just one of my friends as an example. Because I don’t one single person with this name, I’ll change his name to Marvin for now. Anyways, if you follow Marvin’s blog, Facebook updates, or Twitter streams you’ll begin to see a pattern of “personal” thoughts and

feelings shared. Some of these things are not the type of things you’d see anyone be willing to admit online, such as “I don’t like that I think less of poor people. I want to change.” In fact, Marvin has even been a personal inspiration for me to consider what true transparency looks like online. Sure, he says some things at times that doesn’t have the intended impact, or maybe even that he regrets later -- but at least he’s trying.

What I’ve learned through him, in addition to my own personal experiments in his realm is that you can create a false sense of accountability. Such as, you think well I shared this online, so I am a transparent person. But the thing that really makes you look bad, you don’t post. Well, why not?

Secondly, I think a level of online honesty can simply be an excuse to not have deep relationships offline. This happens because you get that quick fix from posting something personal -- and if people don’t like it, you don’t really have to deal with the follow through. So I question whether this is true transparency or not?

The conclusion I’ve come to is that 100% true transparency is not possible online or offline. Our own perception of reality is biased, so how in the world can we be transparent with others more than we are with ourselves?

So if that’s not possible, then do we scrap that idea? I don’t think so. Appropriate transparency is what works best. But, in my experience, this only works if I have accountability offline, as in a close friend who I’ve asked to help encourage me and hold me to what I value most.

How this impacts social technology is that to me, it still seems we are all not just trying to figure out how to relate to each other online, but also offline. To add to the challenge, work life and personal life are beginning to not just overlap, but they are also beginning to become intertwined.

As of writing this paragraph, it’s the week after the social media strategy conference I attended. During more than one of the Q&A sessions, an attender asked the speaker how they went about separating our their personal branding online with their professional branding. They were asking how they projected themselves differently to those different audiences.

The speaker said he didn’t project himself differently. He said that he had no problem with allowing people access to see all parts of his life -- letting his work colleagues see his personal digital stream, and his friends and family see his digital work life stream. Multiple people in the audience didn’t like this.

He summed up his answer by saying that he wasn’t willing to commit the time and energy to separating those two streams out entirely. Observing the reaction of a few others in the audience, they didn’t seem to get it.

I’ve asked those same questions. And I think it seems that the resistance to combining the two is more of a generational difference than anything else -- with the lack of understanding of how to go about this as the close second of preventatives.

Personally, I believe in being the same person regardless who is listening, though understand that also does not mean that I share everything with everybody. I still use discretion.

Even in person, it is impossible for me to communicate everything I possibly could to create this true “transparency” that is spoken about. The fact of the matter is that I don’t even have true transparency with myself as long as I have a subconscious mind. And I didn’t even realize that until I just said. There you go, that’s proof.

Instead of chasing unicorns, I will try to live somewhere in between.

Pictures @ Flickr.com/JLSpradlin

Twitter @JLSpradlin

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As information has become more and more accessible, what we've seen happen over the last twenty years is more and more people become more educated in medical issues. This is simply because of a shift in access -- again this is not just access to static information on the Internet, but it is access to dynamic conversations with others who’ve been through what another is going through.

Overall, this has helped contribute to the overall well being of seeking a solution for whatever health issue is at hand. This will continue and I expect resources available to patients prior to, during, and after being cared for will increase in quality.

When I was 17 and a senior in high school, our soccer team was a few weeks from going to Districts. I suffered my 2nd concussion within 30 days, experiencing amnesia both times for about 15-30 minutes. After spending a night in the hospital for monitoring, I had a follow-up appointment with a local neurologist. He came in with news we weren't expecting -- during examining the CT scan they had discovered a birth defect where my brainstem was exposed and if struck I would be killed instantly. He said he needed to operate the following week. We were floored.

As soon as my mom got home, she began searching the Internet, in the days before Google's dominate use. She learned as much as she could, and knew something was not quite right. I got a second opinion. Then, I received a third. It was conclusive, there was nothing wrong with me. I didn't end up having brain surgery, and even was able to play in the last game of my high school soccer career. I believe if my mom hadn't sought further information than the doctor was providing, this story might have ended up differently.

That was over 13 years ago, and much has changed.

As mentioned before regarding compounding learning opportunities, since healthcare providers are sharing much of their best practices online as well as creative new ways of serving their customers, the same enhanced rate of learning is taking place as is in other industries.

Medical records are all on their way to becoming digitized and standardized. To younger generations, this most likely seems like a no brainer and they wonder why this has taken so long to happen. I wondered the same thing until I began working for a larger healthcare system. In this world, everything tends to take longer -- simply because of the size. It’s easy to make a decision

amongst 5 people, but things change when it is amongst 5,000 people. I call it "hospital time". In "hospital time", soon can mean anything from a week to 3 to 4 months. This is both good and bad, sometimes very necessary and other times quite unnecessary -- but it is how it is for now..

Personally where I see one of the biggest shift in healthcare happening is capitalizing on the ease of use of social technology to enter into an ongoing dialogue with the community to form deeper relationships between the healthcare provider and those seeking help. At times, it is very important that a hierarchy of communication and authority be established from the physician to the patient, such as the operating room. As you can imagine, that is not the best place for the patient to be telling the surgeon where to make the cut and how to sew their chest back up after open heart surgery -- because they read a recent article on WebMD about it.

But a shift needs to happen in other spaces. One of those areas is community engagement.

Everyone who works at the hospital I am at also live in the community with everyone else. We are part of the community. We are also served by other members of the community. And so I think the hospital has an opportunity to appropriately step down from the ivory tower and stand next to other individuals in the community -- not in every situation, but appropriately. This is already happening, but we can certainly do better. Over the last 50 or so years, as information has become more accessible, it appears we are seeing this sort of shift take place across many aspects of life such as government, religion, and education.

The opportunity that I see happening is that a relationship can be put at the center of how we choose to use these tools. If we focus on relationship, on people, then trust is built prior to the need for greater trust. Then, if and when an unfortunate tragedy happens, we can naturally be trusted also when it matters most.

To accomplish this, this is more than just setting up a Facebook page and blasting out advertisements to our fans. It is re-thinking it from the ground up. Actually, it's by forgetting about the technology for a moment. That’s what I meant before. It's about breaking down what we do and what we care about as simply as possible.

Therefore if we focus on what we care most about with others who we live alongside in our community, we all win.

How do you see your specific field of Healthcare evolving?The Third Question

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Twitter @JLSpradlin

AFTIFIFor more links to more interesting things, visit me at www.AFTIFI.com

9

In addition to offering a few key pieces of wisdom that has shaped me over the years, I’d first like to invite you into dreaming big with me and maybe even tackling some of the great opportunities we have to have a massive impact on our local and global communities. I would love to hear your insight and ideas and plans of action -- so please use my contact information on the follow page to connect with me.

How can we use social technology in daily lives in a way that enhances our face to face interaction instead of detracting from them?

How can we communicate with each other more effectively digitally when so much of our non-verbal communication is lost?

How can we use social technology to engage in collaborative learning? How do we become transparent, but also appropriate?

How can we use social technology in the work place to be more effective with our team members?

What are you meant to uniquely offer the world? And how can you use social technology to do that?

What are creatively effective ways of sharing our life stories of hope and inspiration with others digitally?

How do we effectively engage with others when digitally dialoging through tough topics such as politics, religion, and other things we are most passionate and most sensitive about?

How do we go about developing the discretion of being too connected?

And how might we teach our children all of these things? What will they inherit from watching us?

CLICHEADVICE THAT WORKS.

Know what you want. Know why you want it. Know what you don’t want -- and why you don’t want it.

Strategy is intentionally saying “yes” to a few things while intentionally saying “no” to many things.

Everyone is an influencer -- a leader is someone who influences effectively.

Consider the limitations of the medium.

Seek multiple mentors who specialize in areas you seek to grow in. Pick at least one that will advise and hold you accountable across your entire life.

It’s better to be effective than to be efficient at something ineffective.

If you want to think and do big, surround yourself with others who not just think big, but get big things done.

Consider collaborative learning -- sharing with others what you’re learning, what mistakes you’re making, and where you are experiencing success.

Mentor someone younger than you. Don’t wait till you know everything because you never will. If you think you know everything, please don’t mentor anyone. You can’t learn how to be a mentor unless you try.

Don’t forget to laugh.

BOOKS THAT I RECOMMEND.

Influencerby multiple authors -- too many to list!If you can get past the marketing crap on the cover and first chapter, you won’t regret it. This is proven structure for producing massive change efforts in individuals and societies. It works.

Crucial Conversationsby Patterson, Grenny, McMillan, and SwitzlerThe structure for successfully engaging in conversations that turn crucial.

Don’t Waste Your Lifeby John PiperLike the title says, taught me how to not waste my life. Don’t waste yours, please.

LINKS THAT I RECOMMEND.

On Being Productivethe99percent.com [translating ideas into action]

On Being Exposed to Innovatorswww.TED.com [all things innovation]

On All Things Social Technologywww.Mashable.com

AFTIFIFor many many many more links to more interesting things such as videos, articles, quotes, pictures, etc, visit me at www.AFTIFI.com

What ideas do you think that college Sophomores should consider? The Fourth and Last Question

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I heard something funny today. When asked, "So what do you do?" another man replied, "About what?"

Every time I answer that question, regarding work, I feel as if it is too good to be true. In the summer of 2009, I got the opportunity of starting a new career path while staying in healthcare. I do strategic planning for one of the best children’s hospitals in the U.S. that is located in Orlando, Florida.

What does strategic planning mean? This means that I work with many gifted individuals who have the vision for continually improving the quality and care we provide to children and their families -- and my privilege is to help them plan strategically how to see that vision form. We dream as big and as often as possible

Yet, that is all only a sliver of how I spend my time.My personal life is not separate from my work life. Yes,

there are boundaries that I am very strict about. But what I am

most passionate about outside work is the same inside of work. I strive to be the most effective I can be in helping people with influence be as effective as possible in helping others.

The way I figure is if I can positively impact a few people who have the potential to impact hundreds, thousands, or even millions, then by helping them be even more effective I can make an even greater impact than I could ever dream of on my own.

Ways to Contact or Follow Me?Email: contact@JamesSpradlin.comFacebook: Facebook.com/JLSpradlinTwitter me @ JLSpradlin Flickr @ Flickr.com/JLSpradlin

AFTIFI: A BlogFor more links to more interesting things, visit me at www.AFTIFI.com or jump straight to Vimeo.com/JLSpradlin

Helpful things to know. About me.personal branding junk goes here

“Some people say that as a child, I strongly resembled my father. Yet, I’ve never seen a connection.”

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The end.