Hey, we all have opinions. If we always agreed, life wouldn’t be much fun.
The Global Education Group posted the following video on their video blog site (my apologies for getting the name wrong in my video!).
I did not agree with some of the conclusions, so here is my response (Having been forced to watch this video several times, I am reminded that I have a face [and voice] made for the written word.)
Love having a good debate! I’m looking forward to reading the Medical Meetings column and the research on CME and social media mentioned in Global Education Group’s video.
Confessions of a Medical Educator 
Derek,
Thanks for your thoughts. I would be one of those folks who believes social can actually replace live CME meetings. I’m the Director of Marketing for Medikly, LLC, a robust social media platform that, among other things, is being used for CME. If you’d like to know more, feel free to drop me a line at pjg@medikly.com or 610.745.6543.
Thanks!
Patrick
Thanks for sharing, Patrick. I certainly believe that there are instances when social can be substituted for traditional formats, such as a live CME program, but I wouldn’t be willing to go so far as to say it can entirely replace that medium. So while I strongly support using social tools like YouTube, SlideShare, Google+ Hangouts, etc as an alternative to more expensive, less dynamic traditional tools, I also don’t believe social media is CME’s panacea or “silver bullet”. Not yet, anyway…
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Derrick:
So it seems that this is much ado about nothing…
The more I listen to Steven’s vlog (and I have read a draft of his upcoming column) or read Patrick’s comments above it becomes clear that there is really very little nuance in what is being argued. Though unneeded rhetoric and poor logic may suggests a major controversy, I really don’t see any critical chasm here.
Steven seems to be arguing that the ‘medium is not the message’ but unfortunately presents a slightly disconnected series of nonexistent strawman arguments. I think I can understand his point even though his logic is flawed. As Derrick suggests, I too am not familiar with any (informed) social media advocates promoting a panacea, nor have I seen any ‘frenzy’ to replace traditional models of delivering CME with Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest. My guess is Steven might admit that he went a bit too far by discrediting the medium so completely…and as a result he comes off a bit crumudgeonly and perhaps uninformed. Two things that I can surely vouch to is that Steven is never crumundgeonly and rarely uninformed.
Also, knowing the Medikly platform quite well, Patrick (besides shamelessly plugging his business) is glossing over the fact that Medikly IS NOT a traditional social media model – it is not Fb, Tw, LI, G+ – it is a ‘social medium’ surely, but it was designed specifically to support medical education. And saying that it can replace live meetings is too simple of a statement to react to – sure it can support learning and it is a viable option for continuing education, but there are important aspects of live face-to-face learning which can not (and may never be) replicated through any existing digital, virtual activities or programming — and surely Patrick would agree w/ this. (I should add that many times the most critical elements of face-to-face learning is so poorly leveraged that Patrick’s boasts are not entirely baseless either.)
Finally, I imagine anyone reading this sees the irony that this valuable discussion is occurring via social media and that Steven used a form of social media to deliver his original message…so I think it safe to say that he does actually see value in medium.
I have chewed on this for the past 24 hours and talked w/ a few folks about what really lies at core of the matter…and it seems in this instance the important discussion (and the one that Derrick and I have been leading for nearly two years) was simply lost within some disjointed logic and rhetoric…so perhaps this may support one element of Steven’s original argument, perhaps his message would have come across more effectively in a face-to-face meeting, perhaps?
Brian- thanks for your wonderfully informed and thorough comment. I think we can all agree that there are several very good discussion points made in the Global Ed Group video, particularly regarding the need for face-to-face interaction and the problems with incorporating social media without a distinct reason or goal for using it. The main issue for me was the portrayal of the so-called “CME social media advocates” as being narrow-minded zealots more interested in their shiny new toy than the educational value of their CME programs. That has most definitely not been my experience. I’m looking forward to reading the column…