Delicious is simply delicious

Let's talk about something other than Twitter this week - let's talk about Delicious (formally del.icio.us*, pronounced "delicious"). Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for sharing, storing and discovering your bookmarks.

I don't know about you, but I don't like how browsers store bookmarks - those great web sites you find that you want to store end up getting lost when you buy a new laptop, or when you use more than one type of browser - so prior to social bookmarking sites, I would store my favorite web sites in a txt document on my hard-drive. Then came along social bookmarking web sites - leading social bookmark is Delicious, where I can not only store bookmarks, I can tag them with my own keywords, discover web sites bookmarked by others and share my bookmarks with the world.

Delicious is also clever enough to track how many times a particular Web site gets tagged or bookmarked and it presents the most popular bookmarks on its homepage, which is a great way to

It's definitely worth giving Delicious a try - visit the site, scroll down the homepage and read the headlines on the most popular bookmarks, click on the "Explore Tags" tab and see what's there, search a keyword from your industry (heck put in your company name), set up an account, add some bookmarks, and add some bookmarks (click on the save a new bookmark tool from the top right of every page).

Social bookmarking is worth exploring and Delicious is a great way to dip your toes into this Web 2.0 feature.

* The "del.icio.us" domain name was a well-known example of a domain hack, an unconventional combination of letters to form a word or phrase. Del.icio.us and delicio.us now redirect to the new domain, delicious.com.

Get Linked with LinkedIn

Most people I know who work in the consulting, technology or the internet sectors are members – although not all are active members – of LinkedIn.

What is LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social network for business people – a social network to help business people keep, make and build connections.

At it's basic, LinkedIn can be used as your virtual resume and at it's most complex, LinkedIn can become a major pipeline for business intelligence, client acquisition, business news and/or finding a job (if you are looking for a job)

How to get the most out of LinkedIn

1. Join
2. Fill out 100% of your profile, including your personal picture (corporate logos, although allowed initially, can be removed by LinkedIn). The profile is easy to update don't worry that you have to get every word just right the first time.
3. Make your profile public – this applies to almost everyone, of course there are a few special high-profile individuals who may not want the whole LinkedIn-verse to see their profile but still want a profile that they can share with specific individuals. Since most of us aren't those types of people – just make your profile public.
4. Use LinkedIn's applications to include your blog, twitter and slideshare accounts to your public profile
5. Add contacts by searching for current and past co-workers, employees, employers, associates, and alumni
6. Recommend some of people. If you know of a superstar, tell the world about it.
7. Join a group or two.
8. Spend a few minutes each day participating in your groups – lurking, reading, and answering questions.

Cautionary Note

Don't write anything you don't want your employers or clients knowing about. Changes made to your profile can be delivered to members of your contact list every week. So if you are currently employed yet you are looking for a job, you may not change your profile to "desperately seeking new employment". Remember almost 8 million people visited LinkedIN in January 2009 – you can bet someone you know is among those millions.

Should you and your have a LinkedIn Profile:

Absolutely yes.

Wiki, Wacki, Woo!

We've all heard of Wikipedia – the world's largest web site. I'm sure almost everyone who uses the internet has read an article or two on Wikipedia, thanks to their incredible search engine ranking. Let's take a look at exactly what Wikipedia and wikis are.

From the "kettle calling the pot black" file, here is Wikipedia's definition of itself:

Wikipedia (pronounced /ˌwiːkiˈpiːdiə/ or /ˌwɪkəˈpiːdiə/) is a multilingual, Web-based, free-content encyclopedia project. The name "Wikipedia" is a portmanteau (a combination of portions of two words and their meanings) of the words wiki (a type of collaborative Web site) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information. from wikipedia

We all know what an encyclopedia is, but the definition of a wiki might not be quite as familiar.

A Wiki
A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language (a set of annotation that tell text how to displayed. Example: Mircosoft WORD showing bolded text). Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis. Wikis are used in business to provide intranet and Knowledge Management systems". from wikipedia.

The word "Wiki" is a Hawaiian word for "fast".

The first web site that could call itself a wiki is WikiWikiWeb, started in 1994 by Ward Cunningham. The largest and most familiar wiki is Wikipedia.

So, a wiki is easy to use (very easy to use) knowledge management and distribution system that can be completely private, semi-private or public. Are there applications for a wiki in healthcare? Absolutely – from department-level intranets to a professional-level wiki where doctors share cutting-edge research.

Wiki's and HealthCare

Here is a list of different applications of a wiki in healthcare. This is not a comprehensive list nor is it a list of the best healthcare wikis, it's just a list of some of the good ones.

AskDrWiki
"Dr Wiki is a nonprofit educational web site made by physicians for physicians, medical students, and healthcare providers. Its purpose is to serve as a online repository of medical information that can be accessed by anyone."

MedPedia
"In association with Harvard Medical School, Stanford School of Medicine, Berkeley School of Public Health, University of Michigan Medical School and other leading global health organizations, Medpedia will be a commons for the gathering of the information and people critical to health care."

Clinfowiki
"The Clinical Informatics Wiki." "The Clinical Informatics Wiki is an implementation of a wiki devoted to topics in clinical informatics.

Consumer Health Information service - Toronto Public Library
"This site, created and maintained by the Consumer Health Information Service (CHIS) of the Toronto Public Library, is designed to help you find reliable, understandable health information for you and your family. The information on this site is constantly being revised as changes or new information comes to light."

Diabetes Wiki
"A consumer-focused diabetes education site. Allows anyone to tell their story and share their knowledge."

ECG-pedia
"A wiki electrocardiography (ECG) course and textbook designed for medical professionals such as cardiac care nurses and physicians."

Journal of Medical Internet Research e-health Wiki
"This is a platform for the eHealth research community to collaboratively develop eHealth and Internet research ideas and observations into papers, proposals, research protocols, projects and programs."

FluWiki
"The purpose of the Flu Wiki is to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a task previously ceded to local, state and national governmental public health agencies."

Ganfyd
"Welcome to ganfyd.org - The free medical knowledge base that anyone can read and any registered medical practitioner may edit. "

WiserWiki
"WiserWiki is a wiki that will allow accredited physicians to comment, collaborate and update medical information online and is viewable by everyone. The site was originally seeded with content from John Noble's 'Textbook of Primary Care Medicine' (3rd Edition)"

Do You Do Social Media?

Whether you call it social media, Web 2.0 or social networking, its 2009, so if you aren't putting your toe into the world of social media, you'd better get started and soon. Let's start with some basics like a definition.

Just what is "Social Media"? If we tap the world's largest encyclopedia, Wikipedia, for a definition of social media, this is what we get:

"Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories and experiences."

Huh? ... "depends on the varied perspectives and "building" of shared meaning among communities". Okay, enough of the consultant-speak-garblely-gook. Let's try again.

Social media are online communications in which individuals move seamlessly between reading and creating content (content could be words, images or video). They use social software that enables anyone without knowledge of coding, to post, comment on, share or mash up* content and to form communities around shared interests.

*Tomorrow I'll cover what a mashup is.

More definitions:

Robert Scoble: What is Social Media?

Bryan Eisenberg: Understanding and Aligning the Value of Social Media.

Brian Solis: What's Wrong with Social Media.