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Peggy McKee wrote an interesting piece on her Medical Sales Recruiter blog about personal branding and developing an online presence to find a job. For those of you who haven’t heard about personal branding, it is de rigueur and the hottest thing on the net these days. Put simply, you, the jobseeker, are the brand and to be successful (get a job), the brand must be vigorously promoted! Personal branding can be easily achieved by creating profiles on social networks like MySpace, Facebook or Linked In or creating your own promotional website using your name as the domain name.  However, there are a few things that you ought to consider before you embark on your personal branding campaign. Peggy offers a few pointers and recommendations when it comes to both personal branding and your online persona.

Employers and recruiters research prospective candidates online to get more information about them before an interview is scheduled or an offer is extended.  This can work against you if your MySpace page is filled with “party” pics (or worse), but it can work for you if you have an effective online persona. 

Web Worker Daily rounds up several tips for developing an effective online presence:

• Check your Google profile.  What comes up when your name gets typed in?  Know what’s out there so you don’t get suprised.

• Own your domain name.  Even if you don’t want to do something with it now, you might later.

• Develop your personal brand.  Set up a LinkedIn profile.  Write a blog.  Be a guest writer on blogs specific to your industry (maybe you could write a post for me - describing your job, etc).   If you’re not sure what personal branding is or how to do it, there’s a lot available out there.  Here’s 3 articles to get you started:

The 6 P’s of Personal Branding (Persona, Positioning, Packaging, Presentation, Promotion, and Passion)

Three Keys to Building a Strong Personal Brand.  “A good brand has 3 main features:  clarity, consistency, and constancy.”

Dan Schwabel’s podcast, Top Social Media Tools for Turning Your E-Brand into a Powerhouse.  Let Dan show you how to choose what to use.

 Until next time…

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting (personal branding can’t hurt)!!!!!!!

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Karen Ventii is a science/ medical writer and blogger—Science to Life blog—based in Atlanta GA. She is currently working on her Ph.D. in the field of cancer biochemistry at Emory University. Karen has posted some really cool stuff on her blog. I thought it would be fun to bring a younger perspective to my blog (especially on topics that I know very little about). So, let me know what you think about the following post!

Google Health, the latest service from Google, was launched about three weeks ago as a beta version. Online personal health services have been around for a while (including Revolution Health and Microsoft's HealthVault) but here's what Google says is different about theirs:

1. Portability: Through Google Health, you will be able to have access and control over your health data from anywhere. People who travel will be able to move health data between their various health providers seamlessly and with total control.

2. Ease of use: Clean, easy-to-use user experience that makes managing your health information straightforward and easy.

3. Partnerships: Due to the integration of third-party services you'll be able to automatically import information such as your doctors' records, your prescription history, and your test results into Google Health in order to easily access and control your data. In the future you will be able to do things like schedule appointments and refill prescriptions.

4. Security: Google Health will protect the privacy of your health information by giving you complete control over your data.

I was particularly curious about the security issue. Google Health is not regulated by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)-the national policy on health information privacy-because Google does not provide health care services.

In an Associated Press article, Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, said that by transferring records to an external service, patients could unwittingly make it easier for the government, a legal adversary or a marketing concern to obtain private information.

Google has provided a chart describing how their data confidentiality practices compare to those mandated by HIPAA. I am no expert on health information security but based on this chart, Google's policies appear fairly similar to HIPAA's.

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There was an alarming article in today’s New Times which reported that greater numbers of parents are rejecting vaccination for their children. You may ask, “How is this possible. Aren’t childhood vaccinations mandatory?  Well, yes and no. As it turns out, 20 states including California, Texas and Ohio allow some kind of personal belief exemption from otherwise mandatory childhood vaccinations. And, more and more parents are opting out every year. In 1991, less than 1% of children in states with personal belief exemptions went without vaccinations. By 2004, the most recent year for which data are available, the percentages swelled to over 2.5 %. Frighteningly, according to a 2006 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, exemption rates of 15% to 18% has been found in certain areas of Oregon, Washington and California.

So, what is responsible for this startling increase? Unfortunately, misinformation on the Internet promulgated by American news media outlets has caused some parents to question the safety of many childhood vaccines including those for measles, mumps, rubella, and diphtheria and whooping cough. Although parents who opt to not vaccinate their children believe that they are protecting them from serious vaccine-induced side effects, they are, in reality, increasing the risk that their children and others may contract these diseases. Surprisingly, many parents who choose not to vaccinate their children are aware hat they may be placing other children at risk. For instance, in the NY Times article, one mother chose not to vaccinate her child said, “I cannot deny that my child can put someone else at risk” 

The growing US anti-vaccination movement has caused serious alarm among many infectious disease specialists and public health officials– and with good reason. This year, there was an unusual outbreak of measles in California in which 12 unvaccinated children contracted the disease. In 2005, there was a mumps outbreak in Iowa that infected 239 people (many of whom were vaccinated) and in 2006 there was a measles outbreak in Indiana that affected 28 unvaccinated children. Ironically, the success of the US childhood vaccination program may be its “Achilles heel.” according to some epidemiologists. This is because most American parents, unlike their counterparts in developing countries where childhood disease like measles are rampant, have never seen measles and don’t understand the seriousness of the disease. According to one public health official “They do not perceive the risk of the disease but perceive risk of the vaccine”. Also, unvaccinated children can serve as disease reservoirs or carriers and unwittingly infect older people (whose immunity has waned over time), immunocompromised individuals (cancer, autoimmune and HIV/AIDS patients)
 and even vaccinated children who failed to develop sufficient immunity.

So what does the anti-vaccine movement have to do with American science education?  Simply put, most Americans don’t understand the basic principles or fundamental concepts of biology and medicine. This should come as no surprise. According to recent surveys, 40% of Americans don’t graduate from high school. .Further, many college-educated non-science professionals have trouble discerning fact from fiction when it comes to science. Their lack of concern or disdain for science is frequently expressed in financial terms. Why should I become a scientist (with an advanced degree) and make $65,000 to $75,000 when I can make $75,000 to $100,000 a year with an undergraduate degree in business or finance? I don’t know–call me crazy– but sometimes there are more important things in life to consider than money–like vaccinating our children so that they are protected against potentially life-threatening diseases!

Until next time….

Good Luck and Good Job Hunting!!!!!!!!!

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