Mediaboss Marketing

Facebook, Google+ and Twitter it's not hard to realise that social networking is an important part of today's environment.

Recently, there has been a push to expand the instant, always-on, real-time nature of social communication and collaboration directly into the enterprise so workers and team members can get a sense of what others are working on, what resources are available, who has expertise in what areas and so on.

If you're a CIO considering a social networking platform for your business, or you are on the committee tasked with finding good platforms to deploy, this article is for you.

It takes a look at what place social networking has in the enterprise and what features and requirements social platforms must have to be effective.

One caveat: Any discussion of enterprise social networking should be split into a couple different types of social awareness and engagement. There's "internal" social publication, where colleagues and team members can find each other, intersect and discuss relevant details of their business and work.

There's also "external" social engagement, where members of your sales, marketing and public relations teams come together to create conversations and interact with customers, prospects, vendors and others.

This article will discuss internal networking. There are a whole other sets of tools to cover the latter.

There is value in connecting people within your own company, especially as you have disparate locations and hundreds, if not thousands, of employees. Imagine needing to solve a problem, say, analysing a spreadsheet.

You don't know how a number was generated or where it came from. Head over to the intranet, type in the phrase "COGS for the Widget division" and instantly see the right people working on that number. Connect, and off you go. No travel expenses, no shared introductions just walls being knocked down.

Microsoft, for one, thought such a capability was so important that it bought an entire company for its product. The giant acquired Yammer, a 4-year-old social networking company, simply because it felt it was falling behind well-integrated social platforms such as Salesforce.com Chatter.

Read the original post:
5 Keys to Enterprise Social Networking Success

LIHUE The Kauai County Council landed a right hook against one of Hawaiis most lethal and undetected killers, the hepatitis B virus. The council on Wednesday unanimously approved a resolution supporting a nonprofits efforts to wipe hepatitis B off the island through the Hepatitis B Elimination Project.

The most common cause of liver cancer in Hawaii is hepatitis B, Malama Pono Executive Director DQ Jackson said. Hawaii has the highest rate of liver cancer in the United States.

Malama Pono Health Services mission is to use education to stop the spread of viral hepatitis and other sexually transmitted diseases on Kauai, and to serve people affected by those diseases, according to Jackson.

The nonprofit is launching a three-year, $400,000 education project aimed at eliminating hepatitis B as a transmissible disease on Kauai. Hepatitis B is incurable, but it is treatable and the vaccination is highly effective for decades, he said.

We are here today to ask your moral support for this project, Jackson told the council. We ask you to use your high standing in the community to encourage at-risk persons to be screened and to be vaccinated.

Resolution 2012-60, introduced by Councilman KipuKai Kualii, encourages people to get tested for hepatitis B. The resolution states the virus is transmitted through blood and infected bodily fluids, which can occur through direct blood-to-blood contact, unprotected sex, use of unsterile needles and from an infected mother to the newborn during delivery.

The liver is such an important organ that the human body can only survive one or two days if the liver were to shut down, the resolution states.

Malama Pono Board of Directors President and Medical Director Jimmy Yoon said, conservatively, approximately 400 million people in the world are infected with hepatitis B virus, translating to more than 5 percent of the entire worlds population. In the U.S. alone, there are at least 2 million people infected.

Unfortunately its a silent killer; people dont get sick or feel sick or has symptoms until its virtually too late, Yoon said.

Malama Ponos best estimate, through consultation with the federal Centers for Disease Control and the Hawaii Department of Health, is that there are about 1,000 people on Kauai who are infected with the virus, according to Yoon. Statewide, it is estimated that about 40,000 people live with the virus.

Continued here:
Council encourages testing for hepatitis B

Living with HIV/AIDS continues to be a stigma more than 30 years after the virus was first documented in the United States.

It helps make AIDS the silent killer, said Paul B. Goulet, director of the consumer office at the Massachusetts Department of Public Healths Office of HIV/AIDS.

Goulet, a Fall River native, spoke Thursday at the Cultural Center on South Main Street to help commemorate the local observance of the 25th annual World AIDS Day.

Saturday is World AIDS Day. The worldwide event is intended to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS by showing support for people living with HIV, as well as commemorating those who have died from AIDS-related causes.

Thursdays World AIDS Day events in Fall River included a candlelight vigil at Gromada Plaza, followed by a procession to the Cultural Center, where more than 100 people gathered to celebrate the advances made in battling HIV/AIDS but to also be reminded that considerable work remains to be done.

Were still fighting to bring this disease to zero, said Connie Rocha-Mimoso, the program director of HIV Services for Seven Hills Behavioral Health.

Rocha-Mimoso said HIV awareness and education are still drastically needed, especially given that youth and young adults continue to become infected with HIV.

We need to be advocates for the youth, she said. The numbers are going up. The numbers of youths being infected by the virus are outrageous.

More than 25 million people have died of HIV/AIDS since the disease was first documented in 1981, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history, according to UNAIDS, a program of the United Nations.

An estimated 34 million people across the world are HIV-positive, according to health statistics.

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World AIDS Day events in Fall River draw attention to disease

MANILA, Philippines --- The Pasay City government, alarmed by the report of the Department of Health (DOH) that the city is one of six cities in the country most risk for the spread of the Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Virus (AIDS), is conducting study to amend its existing ordinance on the fight against the "killer disease."

Pasay Mayor Antonino Calixto said that after the announcement made by DOH, the city needs to do more to strengthen its anti-AIDS campaign. He said there is a need to amend city ordinance of 2002 to strengthen the monitoring and implementation of the law as well as to allocate funds for its effective monitoring and implementation.

He said that at present, the city government is strictly requiring entertainers and others with similar occupations to attend AIDS/Sexually Transmitted Infection Awareness Seminar before they are issued a mayor's work permit/License or Occupational Health Permit, as required by the city ordinance of 1993.

The mayor said the ordinance also requires regular STI examination on entertainers and others with similar nature of occupation every two weeks by the Social Hygiene Clinic.

Calixto explained that operators and managers of entertainment establishments are also required to develop a set of their own health care policies and that prior to issuance of working permits, all applicants for employment in establishments are required to present an original copy of their birth certificates and other documents duly authenticated by City Health Office.

"We have to increase monitoring to effectively implement the ordinance. For this we need additional funding, thus we hope that the City Council will revisit the ordinance in light of the report of the DOH," Calixto said.

However, even if the city government has its own ordinance to be followed for the fight against the "killer disease," the effort is not enough and that more has to be done.

Calixto said the best tools in prevention and control of HIV/AIDS are education, information and communication.

"AIDS is a serious problem. The DOH said that in the Philippines nine persons are infected with HIV every day. That means every two to three hours one Filipino gets infected. Thus, we need to do more," Calixto stressed.

He already gave the assurance that the city government is reaching out to the people at the grassroots level to educate them on prevention as well as in addressing the spread of the virus through information campaign and proper coordination with the concerned government and NGOs.

See original here:
Pasay Intensifies Anti-AIDS Drive

Andy Bell from Erasure publicly announced he had HIV in 2004 (Reuters)

The number of gay men with HIV has reached a record high, with one in 20 men who have sex with men (MSM) living with the disease.

The figures, from the Health Protection Agency (HPA), were released in conjunction with national HIV testing week, which runs until 30 November.

According to the findings, the number of new diagnoses among MSM reached an all-time high of 3,010 in 2011.

London has most sufferers per head of population - one in 12 MSM have HIV in the capital. That equals 47 per 1,000.

The HPA also warns that the number of people living with HIV could be significantly higher than the 96,000 it can confirm, as a quarter of people with the disease are unaware of their status.

Findings showed that the black African community is at greater risk, with 37 per 1,000 living with the disease. Overall, HIV prevalence in the UK is 1.5 per 1,000.

The research also found that 2,990 heterosexual men and women were diagnosed with the disease last year.

Nick Partridge, chief executive of Terrence Higgins Trust, said: "Thirty years on from the start of the epidemic, public understanding of HIV has dropped to a worrying level. As a result, we are starting to see a significant increase in the number of heterosexuals acquiring the virus in the UK.

"It is important that everyone, no matter their age or background, understands that nobody is immune from infection. We all have a responsibility to get our understanding of the virus up to a basic level, and know how to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe."

Originally posted here:
Gay Men HIV Levels at All-Time High with 1 in 20 Infected