From time to time (well, about every half an hour) we sit around the PO office throwing around ideas about how our site needs to develop now. What's the next leap forwards?
One idea that comes up a lot goes something like: "Wouldn't it be great if people could use the site to find other people who face the same challenges/have the same condition/live nearby/use the same hospital?"
And it is a great idea. And I suppose, because of the enormous myFace hype, everyone thinks everything has to be a social network.
But the last time we had this conversation, I realised something: that doesn't really excite me. I can see how helpful it can be to find other "people like me" and support one another. But somehow, I don't want to build one myself.
What did excite me was when we went to the HQ of Which? in London a few months ago. In their reception they have a big slogan on the wall that says something like "The aim of Which? is to make consumers as powerful as the organisations they have to deal with".
Now that does excite me. For me, the aim of Patient Opinion is to help the voices of patients and service users become as powerful as those of NHS organisations. After all, it is our NHS, and it means a lot to us.
What are we building anyway?
What are we building anyway? https://patientopinion.blob.core.windows.net/profile-pictures/657ea709-7097-4125-bba0-046aa4473e1c.jpeg Care Opinion 0114 281 6256 https://www.careopinion.org.uk /content/uk/images/logos/co-header-logo-2020-default.pngUpdate from Care Opinion
Posted by James Munro, Chief executive, Care Opinion, on
Thanks for your feedback.
Response from PaulH on 10 Jun 2008 at 14:55
Clay Shirky makes a similar point in his great new book Here Comes Everybody http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/. He's talking about work he did with his class of web design students and a project was critised because it used the web but it wouldnt scale. Or rather it didnt need to scale - it was just a local fix it gizmo that happened to be web based. The point for Shirky was that just kind of expect that because the web is great for scaling to cover the world its some how a failure if we dont use this wonderous ability in every application. So you comment James is in the same vein - Yes, the web is great for putting people in touch with each other (in Shirky's terms again "its just ridiculously easy to form groups on the web"). But just 'cause that's true doesnt necessarily mean we have to keep doing it all the time if it isnt what turns us on here at Patient Opinion Paul