This is part two of my interview with Manny Hernandez President of TuDiabetes.
Part one of this interview can be found at TuDiabetes Interview - Manny Hernandez
Do you see Doctors becoming more involved with patients' sites?
Absolutely! In the recent Health 2.0 conference, Dr. Greene (of drgreene.com fame) was making this point and I completely agree about its importance. We are beginning to work with more doctors on EsTuDiabetes.com, our Spanish community.
How much weight do people give to UGC information compared to professional/official content?
Patients trust UGC a lot because it comes straight from other patients: they don't perceive it to be biased.
Having said that, we always emphasize how critical it is to run ALL health decisions by your doctor before making ANY adjustment to their treatment. Also, when the patient brings to the doctor's office something s/he read online, it directs the doctor to investigate about it, further helping get new information out into the field.
Pharma companies seem to stay away from UGC sites, do you think that will change in the future?
It HAS to change: people talk among themselves, whether Pharma companies like it or not. Not partnering with UGC sites will not change this.
Mobile phones and Health Social Networks, does it work? Will it work?
Platforms such as Ning (which we use for both our networks) offer natively a mobile interface that works very well for mobile users. Certain groups (like US Hispanics, for instance) have embraced mobile access
more than they have internet access, so I think there's opportunity for mobile AND internet-based initiatives.
And a bit about you…
What blogs to you follow?
Diabetes: DiabetesMine, SixUntilMe, David Mendosa's Shareposts,
Technology: TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb,
Health: HealthcareVox, WSJ Health Blog, The Health 2.0 blog
Nonprofits: Netsquared Blog, Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media
Who's the person who influenced you most?
My father. He taught me the value of hard work and ethics. He was a great man and an immense inspiration for me.
Why did YOU choose to work in the health social network arena?
Having diabetes and seeing the power of social media really made it pretty compelling for me to take the plunge. I do not regret it, in spite of all the challenges.
What scares you most about the Health Social Network vertical?
I wouldn't say "scare" but I am concerned when I hear people in this vertical and Health 2.0 at large talking as much about "consumers" and not as much about "patients." As idealistic as this may sound, the message this conveys is one where profits are more important than people and their health, and I have a fundamental issue with that.
What would you like your next project to be? (in 10 years)
We will have developed a number of offline awareness initiatives to reach out to people and educate them
about diabetes and its grave consequences, along with its symptoms, so we can help revert the increasing incidence of diabetes and help those who have it to better manage it.
Do you dream?
I do: I dream of a cure for diabetes. In the meantime, I dream about people touched by diabetes not feeling alone.
How many hours of sleep do you get a night?
5-6
In one sentence – how would you like people to describe YOU?
I am an optimist: I am normally smiling and joking about things, in spite of the challenges we may be facing.
Thank you very much for this interview and GOOD LUCK.
I would like to thank Manny Hernandez President of TuDiabetes for this email interview.
I will publish the article in two parts as it was long and interesting ;-)
TuDiabetes is very different from the rest of the companies listed on our list of Health social networks, It's a nonprofit with a message rather than the rest who are for profit with a goal.
Can you introduce yourself and your site?
I am Manny Hernandez, the President of the Diabetes Hands Foundation, a nonprofit focused on connecting people touched by diabetes (people who have diabetes as well as their friends, family and others who ultimately are affected by it) and raising diabetes awareness.
We run two social networks, TuDiabetes.com (in English) and EsTuDiabetes.com (in Spanish), through which we currently reach out to more than 6,000 people worldwide, growing at a rate of about 10% every month.
How do you describe the Market your company is in?
As a nonprofit, I don't like to think of us as being in a "market". We cater to people WITH diabetes and the people around them, along with those who need to be aware of how critical the current situation is with diabetes.
How large is your team and what are their backgrounds?
Currently, we have a full-time staff of two: myself and a Creative Director, Andreina Davila. We have a board of five persons, a board of advisors made up of 6 professionals, a team of Administrators that helps us run the two social networks and a team of volunteers in the hundreds of people.
What is THE ONE thing you do better than all the rest?
One of the things that makes us unique is our emphasis on community-centric diabetes awareness initiatives.
What is THE ONE thing you wish you could do better?
We need to further our offline presence, so we can reach out to more people who cannot or prefer not to connect online with others touched by diabetes.
Please choose one competitor and say a few good words about them…
We work with many other groups that we share part of our goals with. One of the groups we work with closely is DiabetesTalkFest, our partners in offering chats about diabetes to our members and anybody else who wants to participate: they have weekly chats for people to jump in and learn from each other and periodically invite experts that touch on specific topics of interest.
Where do you see your company in 5-10 years?
That depends on whether there is a cure for diabetes in that timeframe. If it has been found, perhaps we may not be around... but until there is a cure for diabetes, we will continue to reach out to more people touched by diabetes, both online and offline while we also work to help people who do not have diabetes better understand what living with diabetes is like, what are the symptoms of diabetes, etc.
What is the greatest challenge to your success?
Today, it's gotta be resources (isn't it for eveybody?) We face a growing need for funding so we can grow our team to cater to the growing needs from our members and to be able to grow the way we know we need to grow. In the meantime, we are working on developing our volunteer program but we are open and looking for sponsors who may want to partner with us to help us underwrite some of the programs we conduct.
How will the current market crash influence the Health Social Networks?
There will be consolidations. There will also be some networks that may run out of fuel due to the current situation: I hope they are not lost in the midst of it all, and end up being absorbed by others. Ultimately, the most important thing is the patient and any health social network that goes away leaves patients hanging, patients that benefit from the interactions they have with other patients through the network.
Most Health Social Networks rely on Advertising (Everybody is using Adsense). Do you see anything different in the future? Will it be enough?
It not enough, unless you run a network that has hundreds of thousands of members, resulting in very large traffic figures (we currently get a combined 100K Visits and 500K+ Pageviews per month).
Also, AdSense doesn't really give publishers (networks, in our case) much control over the quality of the ads PRIOR to them appearing: you find yourself removing URLs from "miracle drugs" that are fairly insulting to patients. It would be ideal to have a greater degree of control over the quality of the ads, which is one of the areas where I see change coming: either Google offering it or more players entering this space (there are a few already) acknowledging the importance quality has.
That’s it for now… I will publish the second part soon.
If you are involved with a health social network and would like to do an email interview please contact me.
Sam
Posts
