6 Digital Health Power Curators

Increasingly, my life is about finding signal. Noise grows by the day. So who I listen to has become important.

So I thought I’d share a few of the people who do a brilliant job creating a clean, valuable signal for me. This is not a ‘best of’ list, but rather a sampling of individuals who do a great job of finding and sharing great information on digital heatlh. I mean, a remarkably good job. Instead of looking at them through the lens of who to follow, think who to study. Personally, I’d kill to have a look at the information workflow of these folks.

So check ‘em out. I’ve added a few comments about what makes their work remarkable.

Dave Albert

If you’re in digital health and you can only follow one person, this is the guy. Dave is the founder of AliveCor and he curates around digital medicine and personal health technology. Beyond an inventor, he’s a tireless information consumer and he has an eye for what’s important. I don’t know how he does it. He selectively advances and promotes his remarkable AliveCor product but does it in a way that’s balanced. For entrepreneurs who want to understand how to build value while respectfully promoting what you’ve got, study Dave.

Eric Topol

Topol is the Dean of Digital Medicine. Beyond his visionary leadership and capacity for synthesis, his ability to find unusual bits of information related to digital medicine makes his contributions key. He shares little, but what he shares is really important. Super high signal to noise ratio. I read everything source he shares. Until you’ve read both of his books, you are risking irrelevance.

Joyce Lee

Of the several hundred I follow on Twitter, one of my fav and most valued is Joyce. An NIH-funded pediatrician scientist with a passion for design, what she shares has changed how I see my world. I have fallen in love with thinking about design and so much of what Joyce brings inspires me in this way. How she finds what she finds is beyond me. I’ll add that my best memory of Stanford MedicineX 2014 was spending some time in front of a whiteboard with Joyce.

John Nosta

Kingpin at NostaLab, John does a tremendous job of finding unique information related to digital health. He has the keen capacity for finding information in sources that are varied. I think part of the success stems from the fact that he is willing to look beyond the traditional sources. I think John understands that when you read whatever else is reading, you’ll think like everyone else. He thinks and curates differently. I’d like to learn more about John’s information workflow.

Paul Sonnier

Entrepreneur, advisor, and intellectual midwife of the digital health hashtag, Paul Sonnier is on his information game. While it’s conjecture on my part, I suspect that Paul thinks about digital health while in the shower. Like John, Paul has a nose for unusual sources. If it’s something important in digital health, Paul typically has his finger on it. He is the founder of a massive group of Digital health thinkers on LinkedIn. Paul actually promotes this list on his Twitter feed but he does it, like Dave Albert at a level that’s balanced and unobtrusive. I would suggest you join his group if you have any inclination toward digital health..

Brian Ahier

Brian’s the Director of Government Affairs at Medicity. If you have any connection to health information-technology you probably follow Brian. While I don’t consider myself an IT person, I can keep my finger on the pulse of what’s happening by simply checking in occasionally on the things he shares.

So there you have it..

People wonder how they can build an audience on Twitter or beyond. The recipe’s simple: create value for people much like these folks do. Give them something they can’t get anywhere else or deliver it in a way that’s unique. If you’re interested, I once shared 4 Ways to Create Value with Curation.

Remember that Twitter can be used for many things. In my world, Twitter is used to filter information from smart, resourceful people. For others, however, Twitter is a cocktail party or a convo tool. Some use Twitter for nothing other than to push notify new blog posts – a modern RSS. For many, Twitter is a combination of these things. In shaping this discussion I didn’t want to create the appearance that Twitter is only for information filtering.

So who’s on your list? More importantly, why? And how to do think about who you listen to?

These very pale learned men in the banner picture are the courtesy of the National Library of Medicine and Flickr.