Like everybody else I struggle with information
overload. It seems I just can’t
keep up with what’s important. Too
much information and too little time.
And way too much noise. Yet
I find myself drawn to Twitter, potentially the greatest source of health and medical noise
imaginable.
How could that be?
As it turns out, Twitter has the capacity to serve as a
remarkable filter for stuff in the infosphere. And you can tune that filter based on who’s feed you choose
to follow.
I empower a group of
individuals to decide for me what’s worth hearing about. I select people in my ‘areas of
influence (medicine, pediatrics, parenting, writing, social media)’. And I entrust these individuals to
bring me helpful links, information and commentary when they find it. While they may also bring me information
about their elimination patterns, I figure that only helps me to understand them better.
Perhaps more importantly, as I learn what my network likes
I’m better able to feed them what they need.
I stumbled across this figure from SM genius David Armano which sums
up how I’ve grown to view Twitter. I choose who to listen to, they keep their ears open to the noise of the infosphere, and they feed me what I need. Simple really.
For physicians or any busy professional, you can tune your feed
for what you need. Be it research
or the goings on of your state medical society, you can make of it what you
wish.
I’ll add that the ‘I follow you, you follow
me’ gimmick corrupts the idea
of a functional human filter. Just
as we’re judged by the company we keep, the value of the information we’re fed
is determined by who we follow and the human filter we create.
Image via David Armano's Visual Thinking Archive
Dr. V -- I also follow a few "useful idiots" to see which way the wind is blowing in some areas of interest.
Posted by: Liz D | 04/10/2009 at 06:08 PM