Health 2.0 — the morning after…

October 24, 2022 - By Matthew Holt

The stage is down, the cameras are gone, more than 1,000 people have headed home (other than the 50 or so at the Healthcamp which is happening right now)

some reflections in stream of consciousness fashion….

I think I know why so many people at the un-conference were crowded around the topic “Pharma & Social Networking” (there’s a crowd of companies looking for support and a crowd of Rx companies….….in the breakouts I was amazed that Wellness 2.0, Gaming, & Social Networks had a couldn’t-get-in-the-door-crowd, while Genomics (with many more millions in VC) was much emptier……I loved the videos showing how wild people got at the IDEO session and it was fun to hear Doug Solomon tell the tale……we put our trust in James Mathews (as did his panelists) and, boy, was that repaid—what’s happening outside the US is amazing and James is too…..why is Jon Bush running Athenahealth and not a full-time stand-up comic (props to Chris Lawton for somehow managing to “interview” him!)….how come at the wrap up panel it was five guys all with beards?…..we did lots and lots of preparation for all our demos (thanks Jen!), but we could and should have done more—and demanded more from some presenters. But the ones who demanded the most from us had many of the best demos (yes, Yael & Elif, I do mean you!)…..the exhibit hall was indeed buzzing, rocking, and a hive of exchange—everyone I spoke with said that they had more partnership and customer leads than they could follow up with…..I was stopped by two people who had real live Health 2.0 experiences, their relatives went into hospital during the show, they sought out Health 2.0 companies (PharmaSurveyor was one, DoubleCheckMD another) and stopped mis-diagnoses in its tracks—this dam is bursting and will burst wide open as these clinical tools for consumers get better and better……and then I got this email “How do we keep a breast of H20 developments between conferences? It would be such a drag to miss out.” Can’t imagine what that’s referring to……..But the answer is to use the Health 2.0 Network to keep in touch with everyone else….and of course please remember to download the One Slide from Engage with Grace (we won’t mind you crying when you see the soon to be up Alex Drane’s speech, everyone else did….)

And we’re already ready for the next one April 22–23 in Boston a joint conference between Health 2.0 and the Center for Information Therapy. There’s a one week “conference afterglow special”. This one will only have 500 seats, so it will be sure to sell out early. Register here.

And a few from the press and bloggers. It was a pleasure to see Bill Crounse and on his blog HealthBlog he asks Health 2.0 What are we really building? The New York Times’ Claire Miller wrote about the social networks she saw in one breakout (but there were lots of great ones in the second half too which I hope she’ll write about soon……Craig Stoltz not only ran the search panel like a martinet but had a great article on THCB on the consumers tools panel. (Although due to entirely our bad we didn’t explicitly mention that the second automated call was from Eliza, while the first was from Silverlink)…….Lidija Davis writing in the NY Times and ReadWriteWeb focused on the big 3 and their rules of engagement…..here’s the Google News link to much more.

Much, much more also to come from us in terms of video, audio and replays. And thanks to everyone who came and of course to those who put so much work with me and Indu into the last 2 days and six months. I’m humbled and proud of you all.

And finally we teased our event manager Sara Walker who told us that she couldnt work for the last 3 weeks before the conference as her due date was in November. We said, come on, what could possibly happen? She said, “you never know” (and Ix’s Joi Hawkins stepped in as a great replacement).

Well I’m amused and delighted to report that last night Sara and Mark became the proud parents of Ellie—she came a touch earlier than we all expected but mum and baby are doing really well. Our love to both of them, and our love to Ellie—the newest member of the Health 2.0 community. May what we are all working on make her life and health better. Because, after all, that is the point.