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The Ecology of Innovation: Part 2 – Language
Posted on October 2, 2015
Although Innovation is about producing value through doing something new or different than before, the concept is far from simple when applied in practice by individuals and institutions. This second in a series of articles on innovation ecology looks at the way we speak of innovation and how what we talk about new ideas and […]
Attack on Anti-vac – Toronto Public Health vs. Jenny McCarthy
Posted on July 25, 2013 2 Comments
Originally posted on Public Health and Social Media:
I wanted to keep quiet on this issue, being the pioneer and former voice of Toronto Public Health’s Twitter for 3 years…but I think in the spirit of reflection – let’s blog on! Cameron Norman explains the issue really well in his post ‘Public Health and Social…
Public Health and Social Media: Catching Fire From Small Sparks
Posted on July 24, 2013 4 Comments
Public health is regrettably not a field that I often think of when I consider powerful examples of using social media for change and impact, but every so often something changes that. Monday something changed. Toronto Public Health, one of the largest health units of its kind in North America, took to Twitter to voice […]
Evaluating Health Promotion Social Media Strategies for Public Health Impact
Posted on April 11, 2013
I recently spoke at an interactive workshop presentation at the 2013 Ontario Public Health Convention (TOPHC) looking at social media use in public health and the strategies available for evaluating those strategies in practice. The talk was focused on the tools, methods and approaches and the inherent challenges in dealing with a dynamic social communication […]
Contemplating Better Public Health: Perspective is Everything
Posted on May 31, 2012 1 Comment
How might we apply the lessons from cigarette use to mental health promotion? How might we design programs, spaces, places, and social conventions that promote the quiet contemplative acts that come from taking that cigarette break and offer potentially great value to tobacco users without creating harmful effects for others?
Engaging design, complexity and imagining the systems that influence them both might yield considerable insight into how we manage other public health problems and how we might better promote mental health in the protection of physical well-being.
Social Media and Health: Leaders(hip) and Followers(hip)
Posted on May 18, 2012 2 Comments
Systems thinking, design thinking, developmental evaluation, creativity, networks and innovation: these are the keywords for health in the coming years. They are as author Eric Topol calls the dawning of the creative destruction of medicine. The public is already using social media for health and now the time has come for health (care, promotion and protection) systems to get on board and make the changes necessary to join them.
Have We Turned the Page on Social Science Research for Health?
Posted on May 15, 2012 2 Comments
What will our health landscape look like without the ability to take what we know and translate it into action? Worse yet, what if we simply are unable to even know what to do because the research and evidence isn’t there in the first place to translate into anything? Without another turn towards something more positive, we are about to find out.
Disruption by Design
Posted on March 13, 2012 1 Comment
If we are to expect that the fields most connected to social action and the promotion of wellbeing are to contribute to our betterment in the future, they need to change. Disruptive design for programs, services and the ways we fund such things is what is necessary if these fields are to have benefit beyond themselves. Long past are the days when doing good was something that belonged to those with a title (e.g., doctor, health promoter, social worker) or that what we called ourselves (e.g., teacher) meant we did something else unequivocally (e.g., educate). Now we are all teachers, all health promoters, all designers, and all entrepreneurs if we want to be. Some will be better than others and some will be more effective than others, but by disrupting these ideas we can design a better future.
Knowledge Hypocrites: Take Two!
Posted on February 4, 2012 3 Comments
Knowledge Hypocrites: Take Two!. The link above points to a great post by KMBeing that deserves some re-blogging here. It looks at the issue of hypocrisy in espousing the values of taking knowledge and putting it into practice, without practicing it. It’s worth a read. There are a lot of professions and practices where we […]
The Science of Design Thinking
Posted on August 27, 2011 10 Comments
Andrea Yip, a designer and health promoter, provides a bridge between the worlds of science, with its emphasis on evidence and strict adherence to protocols, and design, with its flexible, rapidly evolving, yet often non-specific methods. Indeed, Andrea’s blog showcases many examples of how design and fields like health promotion fit together and differ. It is time for both designers and scientists to listen more intently to this conversation.
By using methods, theories, analogies and conceptual models that extend our thinking beyond the realm of conventional design and science, we offer opportunities to make things, better — and in doing so shape our world for the greatest benefit for us all.
