Do we need a Public Health 2.0 Special Interest Group or eCop

I am wanting to engage with interested Public Health/Health Promotion colleagues around Australian and New Zealand and even around the globe about an idea of establishing a Special Interest Group (SIG) around professional practice and new communications technologies and ideas such as:

·        social media, (including tools such as Blogs, Social network media like Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, Webinars, Podcasts, Wikis, Skype, Social bookmarking, RSS and a long list of other tools/methods and settings),

·        mobile phones/smart phones and apps, and

·        changing public expectations for participation, co-creation and engagement linked to Web 2.0.

I think a Special Interest Group should aim to include Public Health/health promotion people from Australia and New Zealand but will obviously have very porous boundaries both geographically and professionally. I open to be persuaded we need a global group.

Rationale

I have come to realise that health promotion/public health practitioner face many challenges in mastering these newly emerged and emerging Web 2.0 technologies.

The incorporation of these new tools and ideas into our practice will shortly no longer be optional. The uptake of Web 2.0 by the general public continues at an extremely rapid pace and our professional practice lags behind. These new tools also give the people we formally called our 'target groups" new capacities and have been accompanied by new Web 2.0 expectations for opportunities for greater participation and engagement.

Increasingly our audience is no longer happy to go to a static health promotion web page and read our material. They now demand to comment on it, criticise it, improve it and share their ideas throughout their networks. 

As R. Craig Lefebvre, has said, our targets now carry guns.  See http://www.slideshare.net/rcraiglefebve/social-media-strategic-shift-or-tactical-tool-5360928 See Slide 10

These new technologies offer great potential for Health Promotion and Public Health. We are getting new ways of engaging with the public. Increasingly powerful and affordable smart phones give people new capacities. These new media tools potentially offer new ways of reaching and engaging with communities. They are also fantastic collaboration and partnering tools. We are only starting to glimpse the future implications of these changes for Public Health/Health Promotion

However for us as practitioners, the adopting these new tools means involves learning new skills, mastering new jargon and methods, overcoming many practical and organisational barriers, considering and managing novel risks, dealing with policies and procedures that are yet to be updated to take account of new technologies and public expectations.

Not least, adopting these new Web 2.0 tools will involve considering new methods and reconsidering established ideas, models and theories. These new tools have implications for our professional roles, competencies and our professional identities.

It is possible that the new Web 2.0 tools are not just a collection of tools. There collective impacts on out practice have a potential to reshape of our institutions and practice. Hence the terms, Public Health 2.0 and Health Promotion 2.0.

At present I feel that the early adopters of these new ideas are scattered across Australia and that many practitioners feel excited by the potential but daunted by the challenges. People are feeling isolated and are looking for a electronic community of practice (eCoP) to share information, share skills, ideas and solutions. Some people are sensing that this we need to talk how Web 2.0 will change profession.

What would a SIG or CoP do?

A Special Interest Group SIG or electronic Community of Practice (eCoP) could:

http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

• Set up an email based e-network for sharing news, ideas, tools, relevant literature, asking for help and feedback on project ideas and other documents such as organisational policies.
• Organise online events such as Webinars and Twitter chats (perhaps in conjunction with #hcsmanz (link http://bitethedust.com.au/bitingthedust/2010/12/04/healthcare-and-social-media-discussion-on-twitter/ )
• Share a group blog to share ideas.
• Share contact details and interests so people could make contact with each other for small group professional conversations using e-media and perhaps Skype.
• Organise face to face events and meet-up perhaps in conjunction with significant Public Health and Health Promotion conferences.
• Develop position and discussion papers on key issues.

It may be useful to align such a SIG with key professional bodies such as the Public Health Association Australia, Australian Health Promotion Association, and Environmental Health Australia.

http://www.healthpromotion.org.au/

http://www.phaa.net.au/

http://www.aieh.org.au/about/index.php

I am interested in your ideas. Please leave your comment and vote.

Please share this with your colleagues.

Questions that we need to think about.

Is this a good idea? Please vote on the poll to the right by date end of February.

Is the scope and purpose right or wrong?

How does health promotion in the context of community health or general practice fit in?

What would you change about as a rationale and purpose?

What do you think of the sort of activities that the SIG could undertake?

What do you think it should be called and what about a suggestion for a Twitter hashtag?

How does this relate to the wider worldwide set of #hcsm twitter tags?

Is the time right for a distinct Public Health group? A lot is happening already around Health 2.0 such in the #hcsmanz Titter group.

How doe we spread this to practitioners and the universities?

Risks, Barriers, Facilitators & the way forward to Online Communities

This is a Mindmap that I made up reflecting my understanding of some the Risks, Barriers, Facilitators that I might be facing.

It also Mindmaps other considerations such a return on investment (ROI), project management and adapting a host of F2F skills to the new online world we find ourselves in.

You might need to save the image and open on image software on your computer to view all the detail.

So many choices: What are the tangible steps

So many choices as to me learning needs and goals.

I might want to choose to develop the capacity to:

1. Cloudsource ideas and improvements to health promotion resources that I have been involved in developing such as The Connecting with Kids cards, SEEDS (Social and Emotional Early Development Strategy) and the Healthy Bodies Health Minds comprehensive framework.


2. Run a Community of Practice around using these resources/programs/approaches.


3. Using wikis to get comment on project plans and grant submissions and to register community. support for grant ideas. I think Google docs might be the tool for this.


4. Weaving together Youtube and Facebook, blogging and my email contacts to explain the strategic directions in my mental health promotion work and to engage people in a conversations about how we could work together in pursuit of common goals.


5. Organizing launches of health promotion resources/programs and do online familiarization sessions. Use social bookmarking for evidence brokering.


6. Deliver more inclusive online and interactive training particularly to rural and remote partners.


7. Use email list managers, Facebook, Twitter and SMS to organize F2F or virtual events.

So many options and decisions.

• But it is much clearer to me what I need to being doing now .




• Practice, Play, Explore, Trial, Checkout, Evaluate, Put aside, Adopt, Reflect.


• Master the software.


• Take reasonable and wise risks.


• Understand and manage the risks of these technologies. Understand identify, monitor, avoid, live with.


• Bring along my managers, peers and partners.


• Feed this into my professional association.


• Be enriched by the perspective and professional conversations about these tools and the emergent Health Promotion 2.0 paradigms.


• Share and discuss my learning with line managers and worm teams and key partners. Invite colleagues to my blog.


• Find allies and partners for new projects.


• Understand what resources are needed. (Time and money and IT resources are needed or these types of projects.).


• Work towards a project plan for small online project as a practice event. This is my sand pit -a safe play space for learning and development.


• Work towards a “Session Plan-Lesson Plan” with-in such a project. I need to set up accounts and manage all the passwords and log ins securely.

Do I need to find a buddy with someone who has mastered what I'm still to master about online facilitation?

Leaning Outcomes

At the end of this course the students will be able to:

1. describe the features of online communities and networks; (4/10)

2. describe the elements of skillful online facilitation; (5/10)

3. demonstrate an understanding of how online communication tools can be used to facilitate online; (4/10)

4. plan, facilitate and evaluate an online event. (7/10)

The danger of this self-rating is I don’t know what I don’t know I need to know yet but I think I’m seeing the new Health Promotion 2.0 paradigm at least in outline.

I’ve made a detailed list of my relevant skills but I’m not putting it up on the web. I’m not sure I understand the risks or the benefits.

I can see advantages about being very open but I’m also aware of some risks.