I think I’ve found a new career option: Digital Coach. According to Seth Godin digital coaches are…

“…people who charge $100 an hour to hear what you do and how you do it and then show you how to do it better. People who organize data and put it in the right place. People who overhaul the way small groups use technology so they can use it dramatically better.”

And what better place to start than in the health care environment, where I see countless examples of where technology should be used, but is not. Unfortunately there are barriers. Last year when I was still in the Medical Intensive Care Unit, I proposed the idea of building a website for the unit. I was inspired by the fact that the walls were filled with random notes that someone had taped up because they didn’t know how else to get their info across. Things like, “When the MICU Social worker is on call, this is the number you should use…” And “The lab is no longer accepting form 23c so it must be replaced with form 25c.” The walls were covered, even in the employee bathrooms. It was truly a horror to such an aesthete as myself. My idea was to have an easy to navigate website that would contain every piece of information that was deemed worthy of being taped to the wall. My nurse manager, as well as my fellow co-workers seemed happy with the idea so I moved forward with it.

But then the problems started. Because it’s Hopkins, we had to have countless meetings before the website could even get off the ground, and out of these meetings arose an issue. Out of all the info that I wanted to include, there were things that should only be seen by Hopkins employees, and things that should only be seen by MICU employees, and things that we wanted the general public to be able to read. The idea of having 2 levels of password protection seemed too complicated for my skill level as a web designer. Also, I knew that if my coworkers needed to remember a password to get onto the site, they would never use it.

I struggled with some solutions until the final blow came. Johns Hopkins uses a Content Management System for all of their websites and this system is only compatible with Internet Explorer 7. Therefore, I was unable to use the CMS due to the fact that I use a Mac. (Internet Explorer stopped making Internet Exporer for the Mac after version 5.) I tried unsuccessfully to get my nurse manager to finagle a PC laptop for me, and eventually I had to drop the project.

What’s the take home here? I guess if I truly did want to be a digital coach it would be wise to start on a much smaller level. So on that note… anyone out there need a digital coach? Maybe I could come up with a plan to increase your blog productivity. Any takers? C’mon. Get me now while you can still afford me.. ( ;