Featured Report: Holiday Buyers Make It Mobile

eMarketer.com
Oct,22,2012
The number of consumers planning a mobile purchase has nearly doubled With the holiday season on the horizon, retailers are gearing up for the rush of gift shopping that accompanies the last few months of the year. A September 2012 survey of US online buyers, conducted by market consultancy the e-tailing group and ecommerce service provider MarketLive, found that ecommerce will continue to siphon business away from traditional brick-and-mortar retailers, with mobile playing a growing role in that evolution.
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This Week's Mobile Marketing News
Mobile Marketer
QR codes key driver in 2012 holiday marketing efforts
Oct,22,2012
by: Rimma Kats
Many marketers are turning to various mediums to bolster their holiday marketing initiatives. However, QR codes will be the standout technology that will elevate those campaigns and take them to the next level. Brands such as Target and Tourneau are incorporating mobile bar codes into their holiday initiatives as a way to not only interact with consumers in a different way, but also help increase revenue. Although there is an ongoing love/hate relationship with QR codes, there is no doubt that the technology will play a big role this year.
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Eloqua
Everyone is Talking about Social CRM. Few are Doing It.
Oct,17,2012
by: Jesse Noyes
If your organization hasn’t adopted social CRM, don’t feel so bad. Most folks are in the same boat as you. Social CRM may seem like the topic du jour, but in reality most of the market isn’t adopting the principles or technology needed to truly make it work. More people don’t even know what it is. This is the current state of social CRM adoption – at least according to Awareness Inc., which recently covered the topic in its State of Social Marketing report. The survey found that 16% of respondents were using a “social CRM system”, while 17% didn’t know what social CRM was. 21% percent said they weren’t using social CRM, but planned to. But a whopping 46% simply said they didn’t use social CRM.
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Yankee Group
Search Giant Google Records 20 Percent Drop in Profit in Q3
Oct, 19, 2012
by: Carl Howe
Google accidentally released its Q3 earnings a few hours early, and the results were shocking to most; the tech giant reported a 20 percent drop in profits, resulting stock prices falling 9 percent in the minutes following the release. The Washington Post is reporting that the earnings releases were posted to the Securities and Exchange Commission Web site a few hours earlier than anticipated. Google ceased trading on NASDAQ following the release while it finalized the document, which was initially posted with a note stating it was “Pending Larry quote.” Google reported revenue of U.S.$11.3 billion in Q3, which was up 19 percent year-on-year, but net income fell to U.S.$2.18 billion. Part of the company’s decline is blamed on foreign currency exchange rates, while another part is blamed on Google’s Motorola unit, which reported an adjusted operating loss of U.S.$151 million.
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Health and Wellness Seminars Coming January 2013
Chicagoland Healthcare Professionals:
Are you concerned about your practice can meet the Meaningful Use 1 and 2 regulations? Are your still struggling to understand and complete your EHR network? Do you know if you even qualify for the over $20 billion dollar EHR Incentive program funds? If answered YES to any of these questions.

Then make plans this January, 19, 2013 to attend the Health and Wellness Seminar hosted by Chicago's Uptown Business Partners. These seminars will explain in clear English not tech speak how to understand and complete an EHR for your practice how fund it and real solutions on how to find and IT partner help you complete your EHR and qualify for the EHR Incentive program. The first seminar Understanding EHR will take you step by step on how EHR works and how to create an EHR network. We will be teaching this totally interactive seminar and giving you real solutions to your EHR problem.

So make plans to attend this seminar and get the answers you need to help your practice meet all of the Meaningful Use Rules.

If you need answers to your Healthcare IT needs now visit our Healthcare Managed Services page at Wirehead Technology

Social Media and Ageism

Social Media and Ageism
by: Howard Lee
CIO
Wirehead Technology

While social media is being used in business and doing quite well, I'd recently found that it has revealed how we look at age in understanding its usage.

I'd met up with a group of small business owners at a community mixer. While we were talking, the subject had come up. I'd told them that my business was using social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, etc. to attract new customers. They'd asked me about my business and also who had done my social media network for me. After I'd answered that I'd done it all myself, they'd become quite shocked and surprised. One man had said that he'd thought that I'd hired some young people to do my network and also that it is only they who can understand how social media works. I'd said to him that this is not true and anyone can learn how to use it for his or her business.

Here is where ageism comes into play in social media and business. Many business owners feel that only young people ages 18 to early 30s can create social media networks for their businesses. So they hire these young people with the hope that they would get better results. Unfortunately, they create these networks only to look good for people mainly in their own age group. The business owners would unhappily find out that their business needs are not being fulfilled because their networks are not attracting enough new and appropriate customers. Business owners, regardless of age, must understand that it's not about how many 'likes' they may have on Facebook or 'followers' they may have on Twitter. They need to turn them all into business customers. This can and should be done only by people who truly understand social media and business and more importantly getting their messages and brands into the minds of the public. Neither time nor money should ever be wasted.

To illustrate my point, recently I'd read an article online written by a 26 year-old woman who had stated that if a business wanted to get into social media it should not hire anyone over 30 years old since a person that old could not do a good job. After thinking about how arrogant her statement was, I'd commented that I was using social media for business for ten years starting with Linkedin and am currently using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter since 2007. I truly hope she will rethink about her statement about social media and age and also change her attitude.

Another example: I'd gotten a call from a company telling me that my business could not really grow without social media and how I would be losing out if I don't use them to create my social media network. This young salesman probably in his mid 20s was talking about his experience in social media and why it is something I could not understand without his expert 'guidance'. After about ten minutes of this, I'd asked him long he has been using social media in business. He answered three years. That's when I'd told him that I'd been working with social media for ten years. He was quite surprised to hear that.

Then I went on to tell him that I was also working with companies since 2007 to put them on MySpace and YouTube to increase their businesses and had taught at a seminar on social media and mobility in business in 2010 at Illinois Institute of Technology here in Chicago and one of the guests was Luke Shepard from Facebook. Then I'd told him that he obviously didn't look at my business because if he did he would have seen very clearly that we are very social media connected and could probably teach him a thing or two about using it. Towards the end of the sales call, he'd asked me if I'd like to talk to their business development director about possibly partnering on future projects. I'd told him that he could pass on my info and I would take his call if he think we could possibly work together. I had not heard back from them since.

The aforementioned stories are just two of many similar stories I would hear from other older business owners who would get calls many times from younger so-called experts like that salesman who would 'talk down' to them about social media as if they are just too old to understand social media. The results are that most owners feel insulted by these 'helpers'. This may be why business owners don't take social media seriously because they themselves haven't been taken seriously. The solution to all of this is that younger social media companies should make sure that they truly understand that older business owners really want their experiences to be accounted for while talking with them. And more importantly, they should not treat the owners as if they're 'out of touch' and explain to them in plain English how social media can help their businesses. And also, just like traditional forms of advertising, social media can get their messages and brands across to attract new customers.

I'm happy to say that I have found that older business owners have responded very favorably to using social media when it is shown clearly as something that can truly help their businesses. It's just like in the early 2000s when business owners didn't think that websites could help their businesses. Now almost every business, large and small, has some type of online presence. Social media is now another means of getting businesses even better online presence.

Oh, in case you were wondering what my age is and why I wrote this article, I will proudly say that I am 58 years old and all this needs to be told and hopefully understood.

Featured Report: Privatizing Medicare would raise premiums for 59% of members

Fierce Health Payer
Oct,17,2012
by: Dina Overland
Shifting Medicare to a privatized program, a proposal touted by Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan on the presidential campaign trail, would create large disparities in premium costs, many of which would rise dramatically, throughout the country, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. If that plan took effect two years ago, 59 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries, or about 25 million people, would have paid higher premiums unless they switched to a cheaper plan, and 88 percent of Medicare Advantage members would be paying higher premiums, Kaiser Health News reported. "If coupled with caps on the growth in Medicare spending, a premium support approach could make federal (spending) for the Medicare program more predictable but also increase costs and financial risks for beneficiaries over time," the report states.
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This Week's Healthcare News
iHealthbeat
About $7.7B in Meaningful Use Payments Doled Out, CMS Says
Oct,18,2012
On Wednesday, CMS officials provided an update on the meaningful use program, saying that about $7.7 billion in incentive payments had been distributed as of last month, Government Health IT reports. Under the 2009 federal economic stimulus package, health care providers who demonstrate meaningful use of certified EHR systems can qualify for Medicaid and Medicare incentive payments. The officials offered the update during the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's Government Health IT Virtual Briefing.
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ModernHealthcare.com
Mostashari urges CHIME crowd to be IT heroes
Oct,18,2012
by: Joseph Conn
Health information exchange, patient participation and population management are the three pillars of meaningful use of health information technology going forward, Dr. Farzad Mostashari said in a keynote speech and pep talk. “Every movement needs its heroes,” said Mostashari, who heads the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS, addressing the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives at their 2012 Fall CIO Forum in Indian Wells, Calif. “As best I can tell, you are the best candidates for filling the roles of heroes for this incredible journey that we're on.
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Health Data Management
HIT Policy Committee to Study EHR Overbilling
Oct, 17, 2012
by: Joseph Goedert
Farzad Mostashari, M.D., national coordinator for health information technology, has asked the advisory HIT Policy Committee to study if providers are using electronic health records to up-code billings to Medicare, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan investigative journalism organization. In an interview with the center, Mostashari said he wants to know if EHRs trigger higher billing codes when physicians cut-and-paste information from prior encounters with a patient when updating documentation. The center recently published a study that suggests overbilling is increasing as providers adopt EHRs. In part because of suspicions of up-coding, four powerful members of the U.S. House of Representatives recently sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius calling for an immediate halt to the electronic health records meaningful use incentive program, which they consider to be weak.
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Health and Wellness Seminars Coming in 2013
Chicagoland Healthcare Professionals:
Are you concerned about your practice can meet the Meaningful Use 1 and 2 regulations? Are your still struggling to understand and complete your EHR network? Do you know if you even qualify for the over $20 billion dollar EHR Incentive program funds? If answered YES to any of these questions.
Then make plans this January, 19, 2013 to attend the Health and Wellness Seminar hosted by Chicago's Uptown Business Partners. These seminars will explain in clear English not tech speak how to understand and complete an EHR for your practice how fund it and real solutions on how to find and IT partner help you complete your EHR and qualify for the EHR Incentive program. The first seminar Understanding EHR will take you step by step on how EHR works and how to create an EHR network. We will be teaching this totally interactive seminar and giving you real solutions to your EHR problem.
So make plans to attend this seminar and get the answers you need to help your practice meet all of the Meaningful Use Rules.

If you need answers to your Healthcare IT needs now visit our Healthcare Managed Services page at Wirehead Technology

Featured Report: FCC Cracks Down On Craigslist Signal Jammer Sales

Wireless Week
Oct,16,2012
by: Maisie Ramsay
The FCC Enforcement Bureau is cracking down on sales of illegal cell phone signal jammers on Craigslist. Six people were cited yesterday for advertising and selling the devices on the popular website, part of the commission's undercover effort to root out illegal signal jammer sales. “Merely posting a signal jammer ad on sites like craigslist.org violates federal law," FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Michele Ellison said in a statement. "Signal jammers are contraband for a reason. Simply put, jammers block all communications within range—not just the unwanted ones.”
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This Week's Wireless Industry News

RCR Wireless U. S.
Microsoft announces Surface RT pricing
Oct,16,2012
by: Martha DeGrasse
Microsoft and Apple are gearing up for what promises to be one of the fiercest battles in the tablet wars next week. The world’s largest software company will start shipping its Surface RT tablets with prices starting at $499, right in line with the price of a new iPad. Meanwhile Apple is expected to launch its “iPad mini” next week, promoting the smaller, thinner tablet in contrast to Microsoft’s 10.6-inch workhorse.
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Fierce Wireless
Report: Sprint has no plans to acquire Clearwire, for now
Oct,16,2012
by: Phil Goldstein
Following Softbank's announcement that it plans to purchase 70 percent of Sprint Nextel (NYSE:S) for $20.1 billion, speculation started to rapidly swirl about whether Sprint would buy partner Clearwire (NASDAQ:CLWR). According to a Bloomberg report citing unnamed sources, Sprint has no immediate plans to do so. The report said that Softbank and Sprint's priority at this point is getting their multi-stage deal finalized and approved, which is expected to happen by mid-2013. The report also said that until the deal is completed, Softbank and Sprint cannot take part in "extraordinary activities" such as further mergers or acquisitions.
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CIO Mobile
Why Using a BlackBerry Can Still Be 'Cool' (Seriously)
Oct, 16, 2012
by: Al Sacco
The perception that BlackBerry users are "uncool" is widespread today. And there's good reason for that. But in reality, the BlackBerry is becoming the phone for independent thinkers and non-conformists, which is a whole lot "cooler" than using an iPhone like everyone else. During the past few years, I've covered Research In Motion (RIM) and BlackBerry on CIO.com very closely. I am a BlackBerry user, by choice, but I've also been carrying an Android phone for a couple of years—I carry two phones almost everywhere I go, because my BlackBerry alone just doesn't cut it anymore.
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