Hi folks! Well I am really excited because I will be on Jonny’s Partay tomorrow evening. The Partay is a popular Web show where individuals are highlighted for what they are doing in the realm of social media and I am honored to have been picked to be on the show with 2 other awesome friends of mine.

The focus of the show will be on using communication and marketing tactics to bring about positive social change. Of course I will be speaking to how social media and emerging technologies are intersecting with health education, promotion and communications. My other to friends joining me will be Alex Rampy of the SocialButterfly blog as well as Qui Diaz of the Evange.list blog - both are talented individuals who love to use social media to bring to light the things that matter.

The awesome Jonny Goldstein has written a post about the event taking place tomorrow evening, check it out here.

What: Jonny’s Par-tay, the live interactive online talk show
Who: Join special guests Andre Blackman, Qui Diaz, and Alexandra Rampy, with host Jonny Goldstein and super producer Scott Stead.
Where: jonnyspartay.com
When: Weds., July 16, Weds, 9-10PM

Hope to see you there!

If you have spent any amount of time swimming around in the social media ocean, I’m pretty sure you have heard of at least one of these guys. Robert Scoble is the popular blogger and new media personality who writes at Scobleizer and was recently brought on board at Fast Company. Gary V is most notably known for his innovative promotion/review of wine over at Wine Library TV.

Last night I headed over to the event where these two were hosting an event for all DC social media lovers.

I got to say hi to great buddies of mine including Alex Rampy, James Walker, Ryan Moede, Jill Foster, Leslie Bradshaw and Jesse Thomas.

Lots of new faces as well. Robert and Gary are cool people and I’m glad they were able to make it to the city to bring together the DC socialites!

Here is a video put together of the event from the good people over at DC Piazza:

For more videos on the event check out the rest of the site here.

I was recently invited to speak on a webinar panel with distinguished leaders from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and Howard University on getting tested for HIV. The main purpose of the program is to “to heighten awareness and understanding of HIV testing” and encourage this information to be shared throughout the blogosphere.

If you are at all interested in the prevention and elimination of HIV/AIDS, please join us on Tuesday to learn more.

We will be focusing on these questions during the webinar:

• Why should we care about HIV testing?
• Who should get tested for HIV?
• What happens when someone goes to get an HIV test?
• What are some of the reasons people don’t get tested for HIV?
• What are messages about HIV testing we can share with our blog readers?

Please spread the word with the invite here - also check out the main website for more promotional materials. One of the things I mentioned in the last post was about how important it is for us to get a grasp on these new social technologies to use in aiding in the healthy welfare of our society. This session will give some insight into that.

Do you know?

Yesterday morning, I had the great opportunity to attend the State of the Art of New Media in Health Care: Harnessing the Power of Digital Communication and Social Networking Tools conference held at the Newseum in downtown Washington, DC. The event was put on by Amplify Public Affairs, a “next generation in public affairs” firm integrating new media and traditional communications. Now of course the theme of this meeting is right up the alley of what gets covered on Pulse and Signal, so I was definitely happy to be able to attend. The question of how is new media affecting the health care world is popping up more and more, especially with the advent of Google Health, Microsoft’s Health Vault and the various online health social networks. I was eager to hear exactly what the panelists would be talking about - hopefully not just about their companies but to add some real thought to this growing landscape. Here were the people that spoke on the panel (in order of speaking):

» Elisabeth Goodridge, US News & World Report

» Joel Selzer, Ozmosis

» Matt Koll, Revolution Health

» Christopher Fleming, Health Affairs blog

» Ed Fishel, University of Maryland, News Bureau

Below I will touch upon some notes I took while listening to each presenter:

Elisabeth touched on a few items that showed how US News & World Report evolved from just a print publication to one that has integrated several elements of digital media including a list of affiliated bloggers, video, shareable articles and an upcoming widget library with embeddable content. I think one of the last times that I took a good hard look at what the publication could offer, it was when I was selecting colleges to attend. They also have a list of Best Hospitals that is very useful.

Joel has created a very interesting social networking platform for physicians, these include licensed MDs and DOs. A few reasons in which Joel created Ozmosis was because of the steadily increasing patient load for doctors (less time for them to interact with the patient), physicians having little time to find the answers for detailed patient questions and the fact that many physicians were turning to the Internet to locate information - trusted information is the top priority.

Matt spoke about how Revolution Health is transforming how social media is used in the consumer healthcare world. They also own CarePages and HealthTalk - both being focused on community health support. I felt that there was heavy discussion on advertising and business models, so I’m assuming that is where the organization is at this point in their growth. I’m looking forward to see what else comes from Revolution Health in the future.

Christopher also spoke from a once print only publication point of view. The Health Affairs journal, which recently celebrated its 25th year of being in print, has taken steps to embrace social media within its content production. The journal’s blog includes staff and guest bloggers. The staff members generally write about articles already printed in the journal while the guest bloggers create shorter, more advocacy based articles that usually correlate to a health policy issue. As the blog began expanding policy discussions to different areas, it helped to attract readers to the actual journal material. Currently, Chris and the Health Affairs team are looking to increase staff to assist in the growing and maintenance of the blog.

Finally, Ed touched on the changes involved in moving from old media and journalism to adopting new methods of disseminating news and information. I think that this will be an ongoing discussion (and struggle) for some time. Many people still do not see the value of this change in the media landscape but it’s good to know that there are a handful of people in certain professions willing to lead the charge.

Overall, I had a great time and picked up on a few thoughts regarding what exactly might need to be done regarding health communication efforts. It was nice hearing the various voices from different industries speak on what they are accomplishing - I really think that the aspects of Health 2.0 that were presented will be one of many to shape the way we stay healthy.

Last week was a great occasion for me because I got to meet one of the people that I hold in very high regard, the wonderful Nedra Weinreich! As a little background on Nedra, she has been involved in social marketing communications for over 10 years now with her own firm Weinreich Communications out in Los Angeles, CA. I have been a huge fan of Nedra’s ever since i began reading her Spare Change blog and learning more about social marketing.

I organized a meeting with Nedra since she was going to be in the Washington DC area for her Social Marketing University seminar that she is teaching. You can imagine how thrilled I was when I found out she wanted to meet up! Since she wanted to meet with some local bloggers, we decided to set up a Facebook page for the event to get the word out. We had some great people in attendance including Qui, James, the DC Social Butterfly, Tambra Stevenson of Creative Cause/Postcards for Katrina and even my colleague from NMS, Sam Huxley.

Apart from getting to know each other over appetizers and drinks, we delved into discussion about social marketing and creating changes in our community. The evening went extremely well and I couldn’t have asked for a better “real life” interaction with one of the greats!

Hello ladies! I wanted to let you know that today (Mother’s Day - how fitting) is the start of National Women’s Health Week! That’s right, an entire week devoted to ensuring that you stay healthy and knowledgeable about the things that impact your health.

To kick off this week’s event, the Department of Health and Human Services along with the National Women’s Health Information Center, is sponsoring the 5th Annual WOMAN Challenge! The 8 week challenge is designed to encourage women and girls to walk 10,000 steps or engage in 30 minutes of physical activity each day. Women can choose to walk one of six “virtual routes” across the country.

What I love about this challenge is that it really gives all who want to participate the tools to succeed and get encouraged - through emails and opportunities to share successes. Also there is the opportunity to join or create teams so that you have others around you to share in the motivation. That is what improving your health is all about, staying continually encouraged and motivated to do what’s best for yourself.

I want everyone to understand that it is always in your reach to attain goals of good health! They always say knowledge is power right? That’s why I absolutely love what can be achieved through the Web - it’s information at your fingertips that can be applied to our lives and that’s my aim with Pulse & Signal. This is especially true for all the women out there who are multitasking with all sorts of things to take care of - take time out for yourself and your well-being.

In honor of National Women’s Health Week and the WOMAN Challenge, I am going to post a series of women-focused health tips each day from Monday to Friday and do a wrap up on Saturday. Check back here everyday to get some information that you might not have known about women’s health.

For more information, please visit the websites for the WOMAN Challenge and National Women’s Health Week.

One of the people I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know in the world of social marketing (applying marketing principles to behavior change) is Nedra Weinreich. She has been successfully operating Weinreich Communications for over 12 years. Her wisdom and experience continue to inspire and motivate me, so I am more than pleased to announce her annual Social Marketing University training series coming to the Washington, DC area this June - here are the details:

“This is a great introduction to using social marketing to bring about health and social change.

The training lasts 2-1/2 days, with the last half-day focusing on Next Generation Social Marketing. If you are a social marketer who already knows the basics and are interested in expanding your bag of tricks to include newer marketing methods using social media and other technologies — many of the things I write about on [Spare Change] — you can register just for the last day.

Social Marketing University
June 2-4, 2008
George Washington University
Washington, DC

Next Generation Social Marketing Seminar
June 4, 2008, 9:00 am - 12:30 pm
included in registration for SMU
OR register separately for seminar only

Complete information about the topics to be covered, hotel reservations, registration fees and what past participants have said can be found on the Social Marketing University information page.”

Unfortunately the early bird special cutoff date has recently passed HOWEVER, I spoke with Nedra and she has graciously offered readers of this blog a $50 discount toward the full training, using the code: PULSE

I am definitely looking forward to meeting Nedra when she comes to the East Coast next month!

Since next week looks a little empty, I decided to do a 2 week radar posting:

NetSquared DC March Meetup [link]
When: Tuesday, March 18th 7pm - 9pm (they usually have a large crowd so get there promptly at 7pm)

Where: Affinity Lab
2451 18th Street NW 2nd Floor(above The Diner in Adams Morgan) [map]

Details: Learn about APIs (application programming interface) with Greg Elin and Josh Ruihley from Sunlight Labs.

Washington Blogger February Meetup [link]

When: Wednesday, March 19th 7pm - 9pm

Where: Regional Food and Drink
810 7th St. NW
Washington , DC 20001
202-289-2030 [map]

Details: Local Washington area bloggers meetup for good times and good conversation.

Digital Democracy Panel Discussion:Politics, Privacy & Creativity in the Age of the Internet

When: Wednesday, March 26th 6:30pm - 9:30pm

Where: National Press Club
529 14th Street NW, 13th Floor
Washington, DC 20045
(Metro Center Metro Stop)

Details: A cocktail reception and panel discussion where expert alumni and professors from the Boston University community will examine the implications of digital media on political communication, news reporting and expression of opinion during the 2008 campaign season. (This last one might not be open to the general public, a former colleague of mine is a BU graduate and invited me to come.)

Most likely I will only attend the last event since this week is getting kind of busy for me. But I highly encourage those of you in the Washington DC area to attend these events! It is a great way to meet folks who are passionate about social media and plus you never know what ideas/connections can spark!

After finally getting out to the great social media events in the Washington DC area, I have become increasingly more “connected” with the people and ideas that are surely blooming in the city. I caught myself jotting down upcoming events and came across one that I am definitely looking forward to attending.

Although the official website is still under construction, registration for the BlogPotomac event is open to the general public! Chairman of the event, Geoff Livingston lets us know that “BlogPotomac is this year’s premiere social media marketing event for greater Washington DC. Attendees can expect a one-day event with nationally renown speakers and advanced discussion of best social media marketing practices.” The event is to be held on June 13 at the State Theater, in Falls Church, VA.

Speakers lined up for the event include:

• KD Paine, who writes a great blog on measuring social media
• Lionel Menchaca, digital media manager and head blogger at Direct2Dell
• Frank Gruber, community manager, AOL and author of Somewhat Frank
• Social Media Group’s Maggie Fox
• …among a few others!

If you’re in the DC area and want to get some great information on what’s going on in the digital marketplace, consider attending!

Updates to come as more details roll in.

Yeah…I know, I know. If you’re like me you are moping around because you are where you are instead of being in Austin, TX hanging out with other bloggers and social media mavens at SXSW, the big event for film, music and social media. Well hopefully I can deliver a piece of happiness!

It seems like Mashable.com (shout out to Adam Hirsch from last week’s MashMeet DC!) is trying to include us outsiders by giving us the opportunity to grab some SXSW goodies!

And you can join the legion of Rock Band game fans if you win the grand prize. Awesome.

Check here for the link to the Mashable Rocks contest. Hat tip to Jess3 for the knowledge!