• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

33 Charts

  • About
    • What is 33 Charts?
    • Bryan Vartabedian MD
  • Blog
  • 33mail
  • Foci
    • Social/Public Media
    • Physicians
    • Patients
    • Hospitals
    • Information
    • Process/Flow
    • Technology
    • Digital culture
    • Future Medicine
  • The Public Physician
Social/Public Media

When Your Boss Mandates Twitter

April 8, 2015 By Bryan Vartabedian · Reading Time: < 1 minutes

iStock_000059219506SmallI had lunch with a surgeon recently. Salad, hummus and small talk. Then he announces, “My boss wants me to be on Twitter. He wants me to Tweet.  You know, become a Twitterer.” The sarcasm was palpable.

Here’s the problem: Nobody can make someone participate in a conversation. They can try, but it won’t work. We have to come into public dialog because we want something that’s there.

I’ve never met a physician who sustainably used a public network because they were told to. Conversely, I’ve never met a consistently engaged doctor who hadn’t found some kind of value in that public presence. If a superior were interested in his team going public, he might build the case for why Twitter, or any platform, might be good for an institution or one’s career. Better yet, he might build the case as a role model.

We often miss the mark in our presentations and workshops. Presentations from highly spirited evangelist physicians often focus on shiny objects. Yet the reason so few of these presentations convert listeners is that they fail to demonstrate how any of this can make things better. In our excitement, we fail to build the case in a way that our audience can relate to.

What you can do is good; what you can get is better.

So whether you’re a boss, speaker or friend at lunch, make your approach about value.

This hilarious/idiotic ‘stock photo’ is part of a promotional campaign for Unfinished Business.

Related Articles

  • Digital Smarts Twitter Summary
  • How Twitter has Changed
  • You Can't Stop Public Conversation

Tagged With: Twitter

Related Articles

  • Digital Smarts Twitter Summary
  • How Twitter has Changed
  • You Can't Stop Public Conversation

Primary Sidebar

Bryan Vartabedian, MD

Bryan Vartabedian, MD
Bryan Vartabedian is the Chief Pediatrics Officer at Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin and one of health care’s influential
voices on technology & medicine.
Learn More

Popular Articles

  • The Fate of Fired Cleveland Clinic Resident Lara Kollab
  • Cures Act Final Rule – How It Will Change Medicine
  • 12 Things About Doximity You Probably Didn’t Know
  • Should Physicians Give Their Cell Phone Number to Patients?
  • Doximity Dialer Video – Telemedicine’s Latest Power Player

Sign up for 33mail newsletter

Featured Articles

Doctors and social media: Damned if you engage, damned if you don’t

Yes, Doctor

The Rise of Medicine’s Creative Class

Doctors and the Endemic Culture of Permission

Context Collapse and the Public Physician

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Footer

What is 33 Charts?

With a mashup of curated and original content that crosses the spaces of digital health, media, communication, technology, patient experience, digital culture, and the humanities, 33 charts offers unique insight and analysis on the changing face of medicine.

Founded in 2009 as a center of community and thought leadership for the issues doctors face in a digital world, 33 charts was included in the National Library of Medicine permanent web archive in 2014.
Learn More

Foci

  • Digital culture
  • Digital Health
  • EHR/Health IT
  • Future Medicine
  • Hospitals
  • Information
  • Patients
  • Physicians
  • Process/Flow
  • Quality
  • Social/Public Media
  • Technology

Copyright © 2023 · 33 Charts · Privacy Policy