I will have to post more later, because I am traveling and don't have any resources to link or have some footnotes.

But as I am traveling, I am thinking about how integrated we all are and how our specialization has enabled us to create some great things. We are all dependent on each other to keep this modern life moving. Truck drivers, physicians, miners, etc... None of us can really produce all the goods and services by ourselves.

Great talk that is worth the watch, about networks and the organized chaos- or organized complexity in which we live. I think a lot of hidden insights are available in our data that can release a lot of these insights- if we can stop and take a moment to look for them.

Is data visualisation the answer to everything? no, of course not. Often you need to see the underlying data to create some actions. But the data visualisation can help you understand relationships and put the data into context. Check out this presentation about data visualisation. Very awesome. 

Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of “story basics” over the past month and a half — guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories:

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

I just finished watching the movie "Something Ventured" a documentary of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley. It has caused me to stop and think about what we are doing with Bern Medical.

I want to create a company that merges business and technology. I believe that the specialties that most people have today in their careers does not equip them to respond well to things outside of that domain. Accountants and business people have a tough time tracking and seeing technological innovations. They have a tough time understanding technology, its uses, its pitfalls and the people that specialize in technology. People that specialize in technology don't get business people. They find them as demanding, don't know what they want, and often ignorant.

We have been using technology to help make our jobs easier. But we know there is still more that we can do. But now, as we collect more data, for example, there are great opportunities to perform better. We can use technology to understand the data and improve. We can always use technology for constant improvement. There will be no end to the improvements that we can make in using technology. Each step in technology will provide for more improvements and can touch all aspects of life. 

I don't want to necessarily develop new technology. Because there are people that are better at that. I can take the existing technology and use it to help make improvements. We can use markets to vet out good technology, apply it to new uses, apply it to industries where they can benefit but for which it was not developed. 

"Radiologists need to double their efficiency and demonstrate their value..." a quote by Dr. Paul Chang at SIIM. Chang, vice chair of radiology informatics at the University of Chicago, argued that radiology needs next-generation technology to survive further commoditization of the specialty.


When we look around at what other industries are doing and how they are using technology, it isn't so much that radiology, or medicine in general needs to adopt cutting edge technology. Of course IBM's Watson offers some interesting possibilities. But there are other things, such as Walmart's famous use of technology as well as Target's predictive analytics. 

We need to use the data better. We need to demand that we capture more data than ever before. Make the data cleaner, so that we can answer questions at first and then start asking questions through our use of data to be able to operate better.

Great video showing some of the cool capabilities available on the iphone and the ipad. Check it out: