So last week I had the honor and opportunity to be on Jonny Goldstein’s Partay - along with two wonderful friends of mine, Qui Diaz and Alex Rampy. We were there to talk about the benefits, innovations and overall understanding of social marketing. Much of the evening was spent highlighting our respective passions within the “marketing for good” landscape - Qui with Nonprofits, Alex with a deep knowledge of social marketing practices and myself with a focus on health and social media.

Earlier in the day as I was getting ready for the Partay, my body felt like it was time to not feel well. Of course, this wasn’t the ideal situation to not feel at my peak but with the help of my most excellent co-speakers, I readied myself for the evening. As the Partay started, I became aware that many of my friends (much of whom met through social media interaction) were logging in to watch! Needless to say, as I began talking about my passions and getting in the zone of the chat, I began to feel better. Just the fact that there was friendly support from people I knew online, along with the friendly environment of the conversation, added up to a better evening for me.

Despite the inherent needle in a haystack feeling that one may feel when navigating through the Web, I feel as though there is strong potential in building relationships that reinforce positive mental health. So next time someone tells you that the Internet has no soul (yes, I’ve heard that before), let them know there is a whole world out there waiting to inspire and encourage you!

So here we have the latest definition of Health 2.0, I’m pretty satisfied about this latest iteration from Dr. Ted Eytan:

Health 2.0 is participatory healthcare. Enabled by information, software, and community that we collect or create, we the patients can be effective partners in our own healthcare, and we the people can participate in reshaping the health system itself.

I weighed in on the definition in the comments section mentioning that the three words that i was happy to see in this definition were: participation, information and community.

I’m sure it will change as we explore this field more but I just wanted to share the latest

Do you have anything you would add to the definition of Health 2.0?

(Due to Internet technical difficulties, this first tip is a day late - look for the second tip later today)

Whether you are newly pregnant or are thinking about starting a family, getting the proper nutrition is vital to maintaining a healthy pregnancy. One of the important nutrients in a healthy pregnancy is folic acid.

Get 400 micrograms (or 0.4 mg) of folic acid daily. Eat foods fortified with folic acid, take a multivitamin, or take a folic acid pill to get your daily dose. Taking folic acid in a pill is the best way to be sure you’re getting enough. Including 0.4 mgof folic acid (or folate) in your diet before you get pregnant and in the first three months of pregnancy can help prevent some birth defects. If you don’t get enough folic acid, your baby’s spine may not form right. This is called spina bifida (spy-nuh bif-uh-duh). Also, your baby needs folic acid to develop a healthy brain. Many doctors will prescribe a vitamin with folic acid. But you also can buy vitamins or folic acid pills at drug and grocery stores. Some foods rich in folate include: leafy green vegetables, kidney beans, orange juice and other citrus fruits, peanuts, broccoli, asparagus, peas, lentils, and whole-grain products. Folic acid is also added to some foods like enriched breads, pastas, rice and cereals.

Enjoy National Women’s Health Week! For more information, please see the National Women’s Health Information Center

I am extremely excited to know that one of my favorite Health 2.0 bloggers, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn who writes over at Health Populi, has just come out with a document highlighting how the future of health is being affected by social media. I plan to really dig into this document over the next few days as this is pretty much the focus of my interest regarding the advancement of health.

No longer are consumers tied down to a single option regarding their personal health. You all know that I love information and the Web is certainly the place to get your fill - that includes health information. With sites like WebMD for details on disease and conditions, Healia Communities for interaction with others on health issues and even tools like Qwitter, to help stop smoking - it’s easy to see that the Web is transforming how we get informed about our health.

You can find the document here

The Perils of Twitter and Social Networking: A PSA
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm5QQF4GULU]
This was absolutely too funny to pass up. Despite serious concerns about addictions to the Internet, you have to admit, this makes you chuckle.

Thanks for bringing it to our attention Beth!

Remember when computers were really clunky objects that you only knew existed in your classroom (5th grade for me)? I mean, I knew at that young age that I wanted to get involved somehow with technology. Ah yes…I remember now…hours upon hours of time spent playing Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego and and [insert inappropriately excited voice here] the original Space Quest series! Oh, oh, but we CERTAINLY cannot leave out one of the greatest early games of all time….OREGON TRAIL!! That’s right folks…Aunt Martha just got dysentery after drinking river water. Ah yes, good times.

Well fortunately for us, time has zoomed by and we now have great personal computers that have gone into our homes and then everywhere we go - the undisputed mobile technology culture is in full swing! Which brings me to the recent news of a Taiwanese computer company that just produced their Eee PC. The Eee PC is small in dimension and just looking at it makes you wonder if it’s a toy or actual computing device!

But for any practical purposes, this is a great step forward for devices that can be set up in the classroom (came back full circle!). From the CNET site where I saw the news, one of the pictures shows a group of young students huddled around an area where there are a few of these Eee PC. Is it a coincidence that young kids are drawn to this? With computing technology getting smaller and smaller, it becomes an automatic draw to children and teens. Portability is the theme of today. Who has time to sit at home in order to communicate or send emails? I rather send that when I’m shopping at Target…err, Banana Republic.

From CNET:

At the U.S. launch of the Eee PC, plenty of school children were on hand to test out the tiny kid-friendly laptop. The Linux-based computer has an entirely graphical interface, a short boot-up time, a solid-state drive, and a variety of educational applications and games intended to grab kids’ attention.

Bottom line is, with these technologies coming out that allow for internet access and other computing abilities in such a compact manner - how can this translate into benefits for the public health and education world? Portability should be the best thing going for health education! Think about it, one of the main issues with health education is getting into places that need help the most and just spreading the word - with portable devices, we can show people and carry on presentations on the fly! The possibilities are becoming even more endless.