| Today is the first anniversary of this blog. Here's the link to the first post. There have been over 300 since then on every topic imaginable. My favorite posts used to be the ones where I thought I wrote something with great insight or excellent prose, but I have come to really enjoy the ones where people out there take the time to post comments. Also, there have been several that have actually led to real (i.e., not cyberspace) relationships with folks I would not have otherwise met. Some of those people are actually Yankees fans. Special thanks to Chris Rowland at the Boston Globe who really helped this site take off by publishing an article about it last fall. Until that moment, it was hard to detect this blog when I did a web search, and my friends were getting awfully tired of my reminding them to check in and spread the word so that Google would know I existed. Thanks, too, to all of you who have linked to this site on your own blogs and to the many writers with journals, magazines, and newspapers who have referenced this blog in their publications. Thanks to all of you for your readership, whether dedicated or sporadic. You are generous in sharing your precious time and your points of view with me and others. Special thanks, though, to those people who choose to post using their real names. Although I have always welcomed anonymous posts, I especially admire people who are willing to identify themselves when they put their views out there for all the world to see. America has always welcomed public and open commentary on matters of community interest. The tradition of the public soap box, upon which any person could rise and speak his or her mind, is inherent in our form of government (something we borrowed it from Great Britain). For those who like to post anonymously, please understand that your thoughts carry more import with readers when you identify yourself. Try it. It is a very freeing experience. Hey, if I can post the things I have with everybody knowing who I am, you can probably do the same most of the time. Of course, if you live in Boston and are one of those Yankees fans, it is probably wiser to retain your anonymity. |
This is a blog by a former CEO of a large Boston hospital to share thoughts about negotiation theory and practice, leadership training and mentoring, and teaching.
Hi Paul;
ReplyDeleteSincere congratulations on your first blog anniversary. I enjoy your blog every day and find you to be an engaging writer, humorist, and catalyst for some serious debate on real life issues, both in health care and life in general.
Your blog also gives some interesting insights into your personality (kind of like the main character in a good book) and I enjoy that too. I think you are making a difference, and that's the best one can hope for in this world.
I do want to address your comments about posting anonymously. I read and comment anonymously on several blogs, and do so deliberately for several reasons - to keep from being identified with a certain philosophy ("oh, there goes so-and-so on her favorite pet peeve again, I won't even read that"); to preserve confidentiality should I want to cite a relevant incident from my own work experience (I recommended this blog to my former CEO); and last, I am sad to say, because there are some real nuts out there and one never knows whom we might be inadvertantly inciting to what actions. I say this primarily about other, more combative blogs than this one, but it's a real issue.
Also, I think your employees, of which I am not one, should feel perfectly free to put comments here without the feeling of either sucking up or fearing the consequences - this would be an understandable feeling in ANY workplace and shouldn't be criticized.
So we "anons" can be just as loyal readers, even though dealing with our comments can be clunky at times. Again, congrats and keep up the good work!!!!
Happy Anniversary!
ReplyDeletePaul, Please keep up the good work. I check out this blog almost daily because of high quality posts on health care management and some entertaining posts. Please take blogging to the next level.
I admire your guts in writing this blog because it is riskier for people like you in high profile job to share their inner thoughts to the whole world. I dont think many people can do this. Thanks!
Happy Anniversary! And many thanks for writing, being my inspiration for blogging and always being encouraging to me.
ReplyDeleteHappy blogiversary, Paul!
ReplyDeleteI go to your blog everyday and enjoy it. Sometimes I identify myself with a comment, sometimes not. I don't give more weight to a signed comment than an unsigned one. So I assume others don't care, either. See? I am identifying myself with the idea that sometimes I like to be anonymous. Will this reflect on me somehow? Oh, never mind--keep up the good work!
ReplyDeletePaul,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your first aanniversary. I discovered your blog a few months ago and it has quickly beome one of the 3-4 blogs I make sure I read every day (I am in health care publishing). Please keep up the good work. Go Sox!
Jack Bruggeman
Vienna, VA
Thanks to all. Please keep 'em coming, anonymous or not!
ReplyDeleteThe baby is standing up and walking, if not running.
ReplyDeleteI'm a relative late-comer, not having discovered the blog until December, and, like those above, it's on my read list.
During my own blog hiatus, your blog, Paul, was, hmmmm, what's the right image, maybe like being one those docs in the viewing gallery watching surgery (can you tell I'm not in medicine - viewing gallery???). I read religiously here, along with a few other places, kept mental notes, noticed what posts seemed to get responses, and got variously elated, irritated, amused, thrilled, furious, LOL'd, and cried, near every emotion you'd want readers to have.
A great model for a glass-wall blog, where you take your readers around your work and sometimes your life. When a British IT newsletter asked me for a short piece on my fave sites, yours made the cut. Or set the bar for the inclusion of others. Many thanks for bravely stepping out - and for linking to me. What's next? You can't stop here.
In my short time as one of your readers, I've enjoyed every post, and enjoyed the dialogs in the comments section.
ReplyDeleteIt's nice for me, someone aspiring to be in hospital management, to gain insight from someone seasoned as yourself.
Congrats on your first year. I hope there are many more.
Thanks and congrats on the one year aniversary.
ReplyDelete-Rich / yankees fan? maybe maybe not
Congratulations from across the Atlantic ocean¡
ReplyDeleteJulio
You have posted some posts about Honora the american doctor in Kenya. Is he still there?
ReplyDeleteCongrats!
ReplyDelete....and a big thanks for taking student questions!
Anonymously Yours,
John Norris
Honora is back in the US.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on the first anniversary of your blog. You are an inspiration to everyone in the health care community.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your year of blogging. I wish more CEOs were as transparent as you are. Keep up the good work and enjoy your bike ride, Paul.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations! I don't often post comments but I read your blog regularly. I appreciate the honesty and insight you bring to the critical issues health care must face.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
Congratulations on your first year! I have enjoyed your blog and have find it very helpful. I am the Dean of a new (allopathic) medical school starting in northeastern Pennsylvania. We want to try to create a new community based model for medical education, training a physician who knows how to communicate with patients, use technology to the improve quality of care and how to work as a team member. The comments that you and others have made on your site have triggered ideas and thoughts in my mind on the culture we want to create and the curriculum we need to develop to reach our goal. I too have started a blog because so few medical schools get created, and we are freestanding not university based, I thought others might be interested in the process and offer needed advice. My blog is: http://newmedicalschool.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteAwesome. I'll add your link to this blog. Thanks for writing, and best of luck.
ReplyDelete