Rebranding Twitter Account

I wasn't able to repost this from the old Doctor Anonymous blog.  The entire rebranding process was an interesting one. I was very hesitant that I was going to lose all of my followers, and maybe even have to start over from zero followers - Yeesh.

After finding a new home for the blog/website, the next step was to rebrand the twitter account from @DoctorAnonymous to @DrMikeSevilla. I thought that this was going to be a tough process, but actually, it isn't. Of course, I googled the term and came up with a couple of good articles to walk me through the process. Thanks to hubspot and digital inspiration for their useful articles.

Thankfully, I did not have to start over from zero followers. All my followers (including the spam ones - sheesh) came over to the new account. Probably the most important thing to remember when switching twitter IDs is to immediately sign up for your former twitter name so that someone doesn't try to take it and try to pretend to be you. Good tips.

I have really enjoyed the rebranding journey. And, if people have questions about my rebranding story, please feel free to use the contact tab above to ask questions. I'll try to help out if I can.

Goodbye Doctor Anonymous

This will be my last post on the Dr. A blog. The Doctor Anonymous blog started on June 19, 2006 with the four line post called "Does This Thing Work?" And now, this being the 1,323rd post, it is time to say goodbye.

When I started this blog, it was kind of a joke. I really didn't think that anyone would read this stuff. I mean, who would read this stuff? As of this writing, there have been 388,465 visitors to the blog and 543,436 page views. There are also over 1000 subscribers to this blog. I am just humbled by those numbers. The success of this blog and the success of me could not have been without all of you out there.

I remember when I received my first comment and I was amazed. Then, I received my first comment from overeas. Then, I started a podcast and I interviewed people from all around the world. During one show, there were people from three continents on my show at the same time. I could have never imagined that.

And, the opportunities that have emerged from those beginnings. They just boggle my mind thinking back. Now, it's time to take a risk. To emerge from the shadow of Doctor Anonymous and see if I can really stand on my own as Mike Sevilla, MD - Family Physician and Social Media Enthusiast. Doctor Anonymous was a gimmick, and now it's time to be more transparent.

The new website is called "Family Medicine Rocks." Don't worry, I will still talk about my two passions of medicine and social media. I will still have commentary on these two subjects and interview people who I think are interesting in these two spheres. I'm inspired by people like the diabetes social media community and the EMS social media community who have also added an advocacy component to their communities.

I really think that Family Medicine is a calling and I think that we as Family Medicine docs can do a better job of letting everyone know how we can help the US healthcare system. I'll talk about it more in a future post, but reading the works of Dr. Jay Lee, Family Doc in California, in his post, "Jay W Lee: #FMRevolution - Family Medicine Revolution," I think the time is now to really share the Family Medicine story with as many people as possible.

So, I hope you join me over at "Family Medicine Rocks." My podcast will be continuing there as well. I also encourage you to join the facebook fan page, and to follow me on twitter. Thanks again to all of you out there on the internet who have supported me and this blog for (almost) five years. Til we meet again, Au Revoir, Doctor Anonymous...

The Goal Is To Fail

I have to tell ya that this has been the most refreshing week in a long time when it comes to my social media life. In looking for a new place to go after this blogger blog, it has been a lot of fun just to bounce around a lot of possibilities.

Looking back, I know that I lost a little passion to write blog posts. I lost the excitement to do a regular podcast. I lost the courage to try to innovate. Too often, I would worry about "rocking the boat" or to change the status quo.

What happened to me was one of my biggest fears in social media: Yes, I was taking myself a little too seriously. I thought I was one of those guys who got half a million hits a month - when in reality, I was getting less than one percent of that.

It's kind of fun thinking about starting over (to a point). The topics to talk about and to write about have got my creative brain working to a point where it hasn't been in a few months - really. Why? Because I have set such low expectations for myself, it's not even funny.

Not only do I expect to fail in some of these ideas, the goal is to fail, and I expect to be really embarrassed and humilated about some of the ideas that I'm going to try to get done. Why? Because I want to learn from them and do it better the next time.

I think I've rambled on enough. Shout out to all my friends at SouthBySouthwest. I'm on call this weekend, so I couldn't fly down there right now, even if I wanted to. But, that's ok, because my new website will be launched on Monday and I'm super excited about it! Want to find out where it's at? Well, you just have to subscribe to my twitter feed to find out...

The Risk of Rebranding

Since the hugely popular South By Southwest conference starts later this week, this is probably a good topic to talk about. By the way, I'm not going to "SouthBy," although I really wanted to. But, the last few days have been very exciting, yet anxiety provoking for me.

I was in New York City last week working on a social media project with Dr Joseph Kim from Medical Communications Media, Dr. Enoch Choi, the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians and Einstein College of Medicine. I'll talk about it more in the future, but the project is about Medication Adherence and the use of technology like mobile and social media.

Following about 24 hours in New York, I flew to Baltimore to check out the EMS Today conference where I got to meet many of the social media superstars of the EMS community - and there are a lot of them. I even got to sit in as a guest during their final podcast of the conference. Oh, and did I mention that they VIDEO live streamed about 12 hours of podcasts over the course of 3 days. It was really good stuff.

Anyway during my 24 hours in NYC and my 24 hours in Baltimore, I've come to realize that I have probably hit the glass ceiling of success with the "Doctor Anonymous" internet identity. I have been told this in the past, but I really didn't believe it. I have gotten a lot of social media opportunities over the past few months. But in recent discussions with many people whom I've come to trust, to reach for an even higher potential, I have to let go of the whole Dr. A thing.

I have been very hesitant to do that for a number of reasons. I think that I've done a lot of work in the past (almost) five years in social media. Would that mean throwing all that away and starting over? That is something that I have been asking myself for a long time. The status quo has been screaming out in my mind for months. "Why risk this?" I kept asking myself.

So, I guess I'm announcing that I'm exploring my options to change the direction of my blog and to change the direction of my internet life. As I said on facebook yesterday, "After the last few inspirational days, thinking about building an entirely new social media plan from scratch. Will probably fail, but it's the challenge of innovating that drives me." Stay tuned to what happens, as this long time blog may not be here for much longer...

Dr. A Show Tonight

Monday, February 28th, 2011 at 7:00pm ET

Yes, I've been a social media slacker as of late. I admit it. Few blog posts and little podcasts. But, there will actually be a Doctor Anonymous Show tonight at the special time and on a special night. Doctor Anonymous Show 203 will be Monday, February 28, 2011 at 7pm Eastern Time on BlogTalkRadio.

My guest will be @MsParamedic who will be attending the EMS Today conference in Baltimore this week. This will be her first EMS Today, as well it will be mine as well. Yes, I am actually going to an EMS conference. I've never been to one before. But, I remember reading about it a lot last year, and I'm looking forward to meeting some EMS podcasters/bloggers whom I have never met before.

In the video above, you'll get a little preview of our chat. We talk about the upcoming conference, her podcast called GenMed, and at the end of the interview (not on the video above), MsParamedic will ask me the "Ask Doctor Anonymous" question. Isn't that exciting?

If you are new to the show, I encourage you to catch us live. There is a great chat room that also goes on. You can even see my shining face on the webcam. Can't catch us live? That's ok. You can listen anytime after the show as it is saved as a podcast so you can listen anytime!

For first time Blog Talk Radio listeners:
*Although it is not required to listen to the show, I encourage you to register on the BlogTalkRadio site prior to the show. I think it will make the process easier.

*To get to my show site, click here. As show time gets closer, keep hitting "refresh" on your browser until you see the "Play/Chat" button. Then, of course, press the "Play/Chat" button.

Cough And Cold Medicines

Want to try to avoid a visit to the doctor's visit for that cough or cold? Why not go to the pharmacy to get an over the counter medicine? In the video above from local TV news, I talk about the good and the bad about OTC cough and cold meds. And, will that medicine from the pharmacy actually help you get better faster? If you found the video helpful, I encourage you to check out other videos about health related topics at MikeSevilla.TV.

National Donor Day

February 14th is not only Valentine's Day, but also it is National Donor Day. Did you know that (as of this post) over 110,000 people are waiting for a donor organ? And talking about organ donation, don't forget about being a blood donor. Did you know that every two seconds, an American requires a blood transfusion? In the video above, I talk about National Donor Day on local TV news. If you found the video helpful, I encourage you to check out other videos about health related topics at MikeSevilla.TV.

People Power Revolution: Philippines 1986

With the events in Egypt over the past three weeks, it reminded me of thoughts when I was barely a teenager of a different type of revolution. If people didn't already know, my heritage is from the Philippines, even though I was born in the United States. The homeland of my parents took a lot of interest to me during the mid 1980s.

The story was similar to today in that the people rose up and, in essence, took over the government. What's really interesting is that when you search the term "People Power Revolution," in Wikipedia, it takes you to the nonviolent demonstrations and revolution that took place in the Philippines in 1986. Starring as the dictator at that time was Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos who was in power for two decades.

This story begins with the assassination of the president's chief rival at the airport in 1983. There were a lot of rumors that the Philippine president was involved. And, for the next two and a half years, the tension was building until presidental elections took place in 1986. Marcos was declared the winner, but there were accusations, especially from the international community, of election fraud.

Corazon Aquino was the leader of the opposition movement. It was her husband who was assassinated and she was the one running against Marcos. It was at this point, from February 22-25, 1986, when the peaceful demonstrations took place. Many remember the color yellow on television while watching the protests. It was estimated that 2 million Filipinos took part in the demonstrations.

The Wikipedia article gives a pretty good timeline of what happened during those few days. Yes, there was no twitter or facebook back then, but the article goes into how the rebels were able to use traditional media - like radio stations and television stations - to update the country on what was happening.

The transfer of power was peaceful and President Aquino became internationally known even to a point where she gave a speech in the US Congress and was named Time Magazine Woman Of The Year for 1986. What's interesting now is that there really has never been one person named as the "leader" of the Egyptian opposition. I find that interesting.

What people don't know about the Philippines and what people won't know about Egypt is what happens after the change in leadership. It's going to be pretty rough for a while. The graphic above outlines the multiple attempted coup attempts in the years following the 1986 People Power Revolution. What will happen in Egypt? It's hard to say. But one thing is certain, it definitely could get worse before it gets better...

Social Media Prepares Docs For Traditional Media

Thanks to KevinMD for mentioning me at the podium during his keynote address at the Texas Medical Association meeting over the weekend. Want to see the entire talk? Click here to review the session which runs about an hour. To see some small snippets, Kevin put some on his youtube page. In the video above, the first part shows Kevin's section of the talk about social media and traditional media. The second part of the video above is my interview with him talking about the same subject. Happy Monday everybody!

Dr. A Show 202 Wrap-up: KevinMD

Thanks again to KevinMD for being my guest on Doctor Anonymous Show 202. We talked about his upcoming keynote address at the Texas Medical Association meeting this weekend. You can catch his keynote live on ustream at around 9:30amET on Saturday, January 29, 2011. More details at the Texas Medical Association website.

We also talked about some issues having to do with health policy like health care reform/repeal and the Medicare SGR "doc fix." Other topics included the state of the medical blogsosphere and are blogs "dying." Finally, the tables were turned on me in the "Ask Doctor Anonymous" segment where he asked me how I balance my social media life along with my analog life. And, he asks me what advice I have for docs who are curious and who want to get involved in social media.

The video above has the key parts of my interview with KevinMD. You can listen to the entire audio podcast on the sidebar. Or, if you like, you can go to the show's iTunes page, download show 202, and listen at your leisure. I also invite you to check out the show's facebook page and hit the "Like" button at the top.

You can also check out my youtube page where there are interviews of me on local TV news talking about general health topics. Finally, if you listen to the very end of the audio podcast, you'll hear me singing and taking part in a parody song - Really! Thanks for your support of the show!