Pharma 2.0 just reviewed TuDiabetes.com, a fantastic social network for people effected by diabetes. Its great to see so many things happening to the brand Manny Hernandez has worked so sincerely to grow. The main site, based upon the Ning framework, already has joined up 4000+ members to share stories, ideas, recipes and reviews of diabetic treatments. He has even launched a spanish language sister site called EstuDiabetes.com, showing his true understanding of building a global community of information sharing.
The Word in Your Hand project, where members wrote down one word on their hand, took a picture and shared with the community was truly a stroke of genious. I also appreciate the logo with red fingertips (even though hopefully with newer technologies that will be a sign of historical integrity only.)
Now, it is so great to hear that Lifescan who manufactures OneTouch Glucose meter and is part of the Johnson & Johnson family is partnering up with TuDiabetes community to help fund the sharing of information as opposed to the promotion of information. With so many people joining together in new and vast ways, promotion will have to give way to evangelism, like OneTouch's new sharing section. This is the new wave of business in this century, and this is a perfect example of this starting to happen.
However, this ends up restricting and hampering the educational opportunities for doctors. Legitimate educators find the regulations simply too daunting to continue providing the same quantity of information as they could just 5 years ago. Fortunately, TuDiabetes respresents the silver ling. It represents a new paradigm, a new community where patients, doctors and families are provided choice and free flowing knowledge. A true information exchange on something more important to them than sports and hollywood news. Their health and their life.
Together, their stories and friendships will define their treatment instead of their treatment defining them. In turn, drug manufacturers and researchers will win by learning more about their patients. They will have more exact information for testing and clinical trials. They will have the stories directly available at their fingertips to know how to better help not just the patient, but the person, their life and those around them. Its an exciting transformation coming to health education, where we will replace distant agencies with the stories of thousands, be it written online or if even just simply a word on their hand.
If you make your way over to TuDiabetes.com, add me on as a friend http://tudiabetes.com/profile/CheyenneJack