Over the last few weeks, AxisPortals has been deeply impressed by the public health community’s embrace of the digital, particularly in the form of widgets, but also in the form of embeddable audio and video public service announcements and press conferences.
Initial fears of swine flu, and the accompanying gallows humor concerning the “aporkalypse” rapidly gave way to solid information and education about H1N1 influenze prevention and treatment.
Digitized, widgetized information–prepared by authorities and designed to be portable and shareable–largely accounts for that movement away from hysteria and toward the calm dispensing of useful information. Consider these examples:
Information spreads quickly online. Indeed, it spreads quickly enough that producing the bit of information that succeeds in becoming viral is every online marketer’s dream. Often, the most successfully viral information is either sensational or just plain silly, as was the case with the following picture of a toddler kissing a pig, which flew around the internet at record speed:
Public health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Health and Human Services are wise, indeed, to take advantage of social media and multimedia to promote education and awareness.
An awareness pandemic? That’s the one form of pandemic we can all happily embrace.
AxisPortals Aphorism: If you want to spread a message fast–and make it portable and engaging–digitize it, widgetize it, and certainly don’t hesitate to Twitter about it, too.
Posted by Kathy 
AxisPortals Aphorisms 