July 2011
7 posts
Don't Compete on Features →
Andrew Chen writes about how startups should differentiate themselves from established competitors:
Make sure you’re creating a product that competes because it’s taking a fundamentally different position in the market. If the market is full of complex, enterprise tools, then make a simpler product aimed at individuals. If the market is made up of fancy, high-end wines, then create one that’s...
2000-Year-Old First Aid Kit Discovered on... →
You’ll flip when you read the ingredients in the pills these jars contained:
A wooden chest discovered on board the vessel contained pills made of ground-up vegetables, herbs and plants such as celery, onions, carrots, cabbage, alfalfa and chestnuts – all ingredients referred to in classical medical texts.
The tablets, which were so well sealed that they miraculously survived being...
Getting John Gruber's Simple Inbox Sweeper to Work... →
John Gruber (of Daring Fireball) has updated the script he wrote to sweep his Mail inbox clean. It is now compatible through Mac OS 10.7. The script assumes that all of the IMAP accounts in OS X Mail have “Archive” folders. Running the script moves all unread, unflagged messages to the Archive folders of the appropriate accounts. Since several of my accounts are Gmail accounts, I’ve had to make a...
The Ever-Blurring Line Between Trash TV and... →
Gin and Tacos writes:
When Trump was badgering Obama during the spring […] very few things were as depressing as watching the White House and media establishment respond in earnest. “This is a publicity stunt, and who the f*** is Donald Trump?” would have been the sum total of my response. However, a media, political system, and culture unable to distinguish the charlatans...
Read, Write, Web on a Seattle Design Firm's... →
The app, as yet unnamed, is designed to help doctors, administrators and patients manage patient care in a hospital. The colorful and eminently usable design is - I can only hope - a pointer to the hospital and doctor apps of the near future.
Doctors, administrators, and patients? Hospital and doctor apps? Awkward phrase constructions aside, why aren’t nurses included in these lists?...
Cerner to Release SDK for Consumer-Facing PHR Apps →
Chillmark Research analyst John Chillmark got the scoop via a telephone conference. He adds this comment [emphasis added]:
The big challenge for Cerner on the PHP front is soliciting [independent software vendors] to join. Many will perceive Cerner as a competitor to their own initiatives and one should not expect competing EHRs (Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, Epic, GE, Nextgen, etc.) to readily...
Great Bedside Software Design Begins with the... →
Mr. HIStalk in 2006:
The primary users of our clinical systems are nurses. Nerd-designed systems don’t make sense to them, even if slightly higher nerd-center developed nurses (a.k.a. informatics nurses) advised them.
Ahem.
Instead of the friendly audience of IT or management nurses, vendors and providers should seek counsel from the crustiest, most cynical night-shift nurse who just...