My methods of Influence are quiet and patient. Keith wrote on his blog "On Influence" about the ways that he influences. All really good and classic methods of leading and influencing. I agree with everything said, but do things slightly different, some might say totally different. Keith likes to be seen and likes to socialize with the influential. This is shown with his Klout score of 61 today. Yeah, Klout is not that important, but it is recognized by those that like to recognize it.
I however have a Klout score of 47, which is rather high for me. I usually only have a score in the 30s. The difference is that I am less interested in being seen and recognized. I guess I am simply more of a classic geeky engineer. I prefer to act more like Larry Niven's Pierson's Puppeteers, lead from behind the scene. That is not to say that I don't speak with people that do like to be visible. I like to feed those who take on a visible role with information.
The most useful "Influencing" tool that I have, I learned from my Grandfather. My Grandpa Jake was a construction engineer and architect. He was the Superintendent on the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Johnson's Wax Building. One day when my brother-in-law asked "How come you are so quiet Grandpa?" He said "I never learned anything while I was talking." I take this to heart. I do know things about Healthcare Interoperability, Medical Device Safety, Privacy, Security, etc. But I don't know everything, so I try to do more listening than talking. I hope this comes through as better informed opinions when I do speak. I don't mind speaking, and will when asked. I just don't use it as a primary way of influencing.
I do agree with Keith on the importance of associating yourself with activities that will succeed, and also the importance of being willing to fail early. I too use my blog to throw ideas against the open world to see if they are possibly useful or good. It is always good to get positive reinforcement, but more useful to me to hear when I am wrong.
I will add that a very important aspect of Influence in Open Healthcare and Open Standards is a willingness to wait a long time for success. This is not a place for those that want results tomorrow or even this-year. If you are not willing to wait a very minimum of 5 years, and more likely 8 or 10 years; then you should not get excited about this line of work. The things I am working on this year are not likely to be successful for at best 5 years, and I am willing to see it through. During those 5 years lessons will be learned and tweaks will be made. Very little survives this 5 year 'trial implementation' phase unchanged. This goes back to the listening principle. One of the first blog posts I did in 2009 was on the IHE Access Control white paper that I helped write, the fundamentals of this are still being 'discovered' by people and organizations such as the HL7 Healthcare Classification System (HCS) and Data Segmentation for Privacy (DS4P)
I do hold a co-chair position in HL7 Security WG. Politically one must have a co-chair position to be seen as authoritative. Many people think that I am a co-chair in IHE, but I keep avoiding it.
Enough about me:
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