I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the convergence of mobile devices and consumer healthcare. I believe there are three changes happening that are creating a perfect storm for a new wave of mobile medical devices.

1. Standardized Mobile Operating Systems (OS)
Before android or iOS came along, engineers that wanted to build a mobile medical device had to develop the software and the hardware. There were no standard, mobile operating systems in place that made software development scalable for medical devices. Sure there was MS Windows, Linux and other OS in existence, but none of these worked really well for small, mobile hardware. Engineers were required to use Programable Micro Controllers (PICs) and related devices. With the advent of android and iOS, it is now possible to write software without having to worry about the underlying supporting architecture and hardware.

2. Wireless … Read More »

This post originally appeared on Forbes.com.

Our society celebrates the buzzy and bubbly – acquisitions, funding events, mergers, new hires. As entrepreneurs, most of the buzzy stories we read are rather useless. They serve no practical application to help grow our respective businesses. This is why great entrepreneurs get out in the field and engage in as many conversations as they can with those they respect. They want to hear firsthand how people have succeeded and how people have failed. They search for tried and true lessons so that they can apply the takeaways to their own ventures. And in this process entrepreneurs uncover key insights that may lead to a critical pivot in a business model or perhaps may lead to a simple validation of an already held mindset. From my vantage point, all of these little stories serve as an important backdrop for anyone looking to build a great business.

So … Read More »

The world will never be the same. Our society used to build machines and parts, in factories and in assembly lines. Today, our society builds computer programs and data bases, on laptops and in many cases, from anywhere around the world. People and businesses are becoming more efficient. They are working smarter, not harder, because they are beginning to leverage the most valuable employee of all: Data.

Take for example the airline industry. Consider all those times you got bumped off of a flight, rescheduled, canceled, or offered money to take a different flight. We’ve all been there and it always happens for a reason. This reason is that airlines try to prevent the loss of business and in doing so, they look at dozens of consumer driven behaviors such as how long you travel for, how many weekend flights you … Read More »

When it comes to Social Media, Obama just gets it. This is how he won his campaign and this is how he will remain intimately connected to the people.

He will be addressing the nation on a weekly basis at http://www.change.gov/ through short videos which will be syndicated elsewhere. Here is the first:

With the economy declining, one thing is certain: Innovation will lead to good products and services, and good products and services will lead to revenue. This could not be more true in the technology world.

It doesn’t matter what you are doing, as long as you continue to innovate and prove value in a market (good or bad), you can and will succeed. 

This is a great presentation that outlines the harsh reality of our current economy as it relates to technology. Financials meet Tech. Great stuff.

Mary Meeker Web 2.0 Presentation

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: advertising web)

Jonathan Zittrain defines Generativity in the following manner:

“Generativity is a system’s capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences”

Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It

In reality, this description somewhat defines the nature of a social networking sites. If you look at social networking sites today, users are able to participate in 3 ways, all of which contribute to the generative nature of a social network: Users are able to:

Generate self identifying content (their profile, blog, homepage)
Generate and consume bi-directional content (messaging, statuses)
Generate and consume multi-directional content (groups, discussion boards, forums)

These three methods of participation allow the internet and social networking sites to grow at the staggering rate they are today. However, as these sites grow, keeping the content organized so that it remains relevant and meaningful to the … Read More »

I’d like to say that Thomas Friedman said it best when he said,

“What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi.”

I think I can improve.

Shai Agassi is a hero.

Bottom line. (Read Thomas’s book, The World is Flat, and you might think he is one as well)

The plain reality is that our civilization is experiencing harsh consequences directly resulting from our own innovations. The most highly debated and discusses innovation being automobiles and oil.

But, when you look at how oil has effected the socioeconomics of almost every culture worldwide, you would immediately understand how it is going to take a lot more then alternative energy to fix the oil problem. Because within the oil problem, there exist an entire set of other connected issue, from technology, to economy, and even religion. Being able to solve … Read More »

Intel’s announcement with Yahoo to bring widgets to the living room is not a real shocker.

I have seen this image 2 years ago, while I was in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show. (The widgets appeared on a 42″ LCD, hanging behind a 1 way reflective piece of glass. This was hanging in the bathroom, allowing people to check stocks and weather while brushing their teeth. It was also a prototype by Yahoo).

The idea is simple: make the Internet available in and on more mediums.

Television is clearly the most logical place to start.

But does it require hardware modifications on a television? Couldn’t the same be accomplished with a console or set box top provider like Microsoft or Scientific Atlanta?

Either way, its nice to see that companies are taking real strides to get Internet in the living room. Or … Read More »

How great would that be? For those of you that are not familiar with Microsoft Exchange, the idea is this: Being able to sync your phone with Facebook. Everyone in your Facebook social graph becomes a contact in your phone.

Some things you could do with such a solution:

Anytime your friend buys a new phone or changes their number, they simply make the edits themselves in their Facebook account, and the number becomes available in your phone.
If you add a new friend on Facebook, you can choose to include them in your “Mobile Sync” setting allowing you to choose, whether or not you’d like this new “Facebook Friend” as a contact in your phone.
Text messages becomes Facebook messages.
Your Facebook newsfeed becomes a newsfeed on your phone.

I’m probably going to buy the new iPhone when it comes out. In the past, I’ve … Read More »

Of all the doctor’s offices I’ve ever been in, I can undoubtedly say they all have one thing in common: The overwhelming amounts of patient files and folders. Next time you go see the doctor, take a look behind the front desk. You will most likely find the sea of colored tabbed, manila folders, each one corresponding to a different patient.

Think about this for a second. Each medical office or facility has huge amounts of patient data that exist in isolated silos. If I were to visit two different general physicians, I would get two different examinations, with two different diagnoses, two different perspectives, and two different data sets on my health. Although they may be very similar, they will most certainly be different to some degree.

With the advent of the internet, the social web, search optimization, and relational databases, it … Read More »