These are Interesting Times: My Reflections On Visiting Downing Street

These are indeed interesting times. Not least of all because we are all expected to achieve more with less. I am one of many thousands of people who signed up to work for the health of this nation. It is a rewarding job. Often it is also a very challenging job. This evening some of us were invited to Downing Street where our efforts were honoured by the Prime Minister, David Cameron.

Today was about acknowledging these challenges but also celebrating the shared ambition to focus on 3 things:

1. Quality
2. Diversity & Equality
3. Leadership

I am by no means an expert on any of the above. But I feel I am in the thick of it when it comes to being part of the drive to promote each and every one of the above points. I am passionate and committed enough to know that to achieve more from less, we need to:

1. Capitalize on difference (Diversity)
2. Ensure fairness in all our endeavours (Equality)
3. Strive for excellence (Quality).

The essential vehicle needed to achieve the above is leadership. The speakers at this evening’s event made a good point when they said that disciplines such as the Military and indeed the Police are very comfortable with the notion of a leader: someone at the helm of the group’s efforts and inspiring through vision and example. In nursing, this is still somewhat a new and novel idea that needs nurturing through developing new nursing leaders who will not shy away from taking their rightful place alongside others striving to improve this nation.

Are you ready to take on this challenge and take up your rightful place?

How I Use Social Media To Compliment My Work

One of the biggest criticisms of social media is its potential to diminish performance by wasting time & encouraging procrastination. Whilst this is a potential risk, I am going to talk about my personal experience of using social media to compliment my work. I believe that smart use of social media can promote learning, collaboration and improve performance. This recent BBC article on the pitfalls of ignoring social media in any business strategy further affirms my beliefs. I am going to predominantly look at Twitter which I use more so than any other social network.

I signed up for  a personal account on Twitter (see @S_Amani) in 2009 but didn’t actually start to use it until November 2010. The reason being, I just didn’t get what it was about – why were people posting these short sentences – and links? And I couldn’t like their posts like on Facebook. And the whole followers thing. How can a person have 70, 000 followers – why were these people following this person? What are they gaining?? I was baffled.

That changed in 2010 after I signed up for a MSc in Health Care Management. I remember speaking to the professor who was leading the programme at the time and expressing my concern about the lack of time to read & analyse research papers due to my full time job. He had an amused look when I described my typical way of finding, reading & analysing papers. This used to typically involve a mix of library, google and Athens searches then printing papers out, highlighting sections with different colour highlighter markers…you get the gist.

He casually picked up his iPad and showed me his primary source of information: Twitter. This surprised me. At the time, I also remember thinking – this totally blows the whole argument of social media only being for certain generations. By following the right people and quickly scanning the timeline, I was soon able to find papers relevant to my studies. But that wasn’t what really sealed the deal for me – it was the ability to talk to the authors, the researchers and the very people affected by various policies, in real-time.

Another factor that drew me on to Twitter was a new part-time job as a Youth Mental Health Network Lead for the South East of England. I started this job in December 2011 and was tasked with mobilising people who are passionate about the mental health of adolescents and young adults across Surrey, Sussex & Kent. An exciting but challenging task. One of the more effective means of communicating across such a large geographical area has been via the Youth Mental Health Network Online Network (a social network for members) and via the Youth Mental Health Network Twitter account which has grown to 1100 followers in just 5 months (see @Time4Recovery).

My previous posts regards my Emerging Leader Award 2010, Mary Seacole Award 2011, TEDMED 2012 Scholarship etc are further testaments of the potential positive uses of social media – if used wisely & productively. I can honestly say that I would not have been fortunate enough to win these awards had it not been for me being able to access interactive information shared via Twitter.

Social media is not for everyone, but it is an option for those who enjoy working collaboratively and using less conventional means to communicate. For those still sitting on the fence, I say give it a try and lurk around a site or 2 – you might be pleasantly surprised.  Claire over at ClaireOT’s blog has a real handy quick start guide  for using Twitter.  Lastly, the most convincing element of social media for me have been the connections that I have made with a range of people from all sorts of backgrounds – some of whom I have been fortunate to meet in real life. This ability to network with thinkers and doers who pride themselves in making a difference by innovating has been the final selling point for me. I hope you find using social media as enlightening as I have.