Where I have been?

Yes, I haven't posted in quite some time. I've been in New Zealand with my family and a group of my college students. You can see all of our posts from NZ off our NZ blog. I used the time to not blog about technology, business or anything work related for 6 months. A true international experience to re-adjust. I did do some research on the knowledge transfer between academics and practitioners in NZ. I also taught a class. But a break from the normal is always good. I'm back!

Google wants your health records.

I'm all for solving problems. It's what I've been doing in business for almost 20 years. But Google solving the healthcare records problem by maintaining your records doesn't diagnose well for me. Google sees a future with people in charge of their own healthcare records. This part is good. The part where Google keeps feeding me ads based on my record is not so good. Google only gets revenue from ONE place, advertising. So it presumably has a better relationship with its advertisers than it has with me. Does this seem like the company you want to protect you're super-secret private medical records?

Don't get me wrong, I'm a communications professional and love advertising. But ads have their limits (at least to me). I don't envision a world where advertising revenue can be used to solve all of our social problems. I think our government, despite its methodical slowness, still has the best shot at this.

Certainly, Google's solution has its problems. Remember when MS wanted to keep all your passwords with Passport? Multiply that by 1000 when it comes to sensitive medical information. Maybe this trend of knowing everyone's personal stuff - blogging your personal stuff, people knowing where you're at, and all things celebrity - has an upshot. Possibly, by the time Google gets health records uncranked, people won't care if others see their medical records. They'll mash their medical records with their e-harmony dating profile, bank statement, and twitter GPS location. "Hi, I'm a mildly diabetic obsessive compulsive Leo who loves horses, kayaking, and books by James Paterson and I have a $351.42 in my bank checking account after my last check cleared for my car payment while I was sitting at Cyndi's House of Nails on 16th St." Maybe transparency isn't such a good thing...