Goodbye Doctor Anonymous

This will be my last post on this blog. The Doctor Anonymous blog started on June 19, 2006 with the four line post called "Does This Thing Work?" And, now, this being the 1,323rd post, it is time to say goodbye.

When I started this blog, it was as kind of a joke. I really didn't think that anyone would read this stuff. I mean, who would read this stuff? As of this second, there have been 388,465 visitors to the blog and 543,436 page views. There are also over 1000 subscribers to this blog. I am just humbled by those numbers. The success of this blog and the success of me could not have been without all of you out there.

I remember when I received my first comment and I was amazed. Then, I received my first comment from overseas. Then, I started a podcast and I interviewed people from around the world. During one show, there were people from three continents on my show at the same time. I could have never imagined that.

And, the opportunities that have emerged from those beginnings. They just boggle my mind thinking back. Now, it's time to take a risk. To emerge from the shadow of Doctor Anonymous and see if I can really stand on my own as Mike Sevilla, MD - Family Physician and Social Media Enthusiast. Doctor Anonymous was a gimmick, and now it's time to be more transparent.

The new website is called "Family Medicine Rocks." Don't worry, I will still talk about my two passions of medicine and social media. I will still have commentary on these two subjects and interview people who I think are interesting in these two spheres. I'm inspired by people like the diabetes social media community and the EMS social media community, who have also added an advocacy component to their communications.

I really think that Family Medicine is a calling and I think that we as Family Medicine docs can do a better job of letting everyone know how we can help the US healthcare system. I'll talk about it more in a future post, but reading the words of Dr. Jay Lee, Family Doc in California, in his post, "Jay W. Lee: #FMRevolution = Family Medicine Revolution," I think the time is now to really share the Family Medicine story with as many people as possible.

So, I hope you join me over at "Family Medicine Rocks." My podcast will be continuing there as well. I also encourage you to follow me on twitter for the latest updates about me. Thanks again to all of you out there on the internet who have supported me and this blog for (almost) five years. Til we meet again, Au Revoir, Doctor Anonymous...

The Goal Is To Fail

I have to tell ya that this has been the most refreshing week in a long time when it comes to my social media life. In looking for a new place to go after this blogger blog, it has been a lot of fun just to bounce around a lot of possibilities.

Looking back, I know that I lost a little passion to write blog posts. I lost the excitement to do a regular podcast. I lost the courage to try to innovate. Too often, I would worry about "rocking the boat" or to change the status quo.

What happened to me was one of my biggest fears in social media: Yes, I was taking myself a little too seriously. I thought I was one of those guys who got half a million hits a month - when in reality, I was getting less than one percent of that.

It's kind of fun thinking about starting over (to a point). The topics to talk about and to write about have got my creative brain working to a point where it hasn't been in a few months - really. Why? Because I have set such low expectations for myself, it's not even funny.

Not only do I expect to fail in some of these ideas, the goal is to fail, and I expect to be really embarrassed and humilated about some of the ideas that I'm going to try to get done. Why? Because I want to learn from them and do it better the next time.

I think I've rambled on enough. Shout out to all my friends at SouthBySouthwest. I'm on call this weekend, so I couldn't fly down there right now, even if I wanted to. But, that's ok, because my new website will be launched on Monday and I'm super excited about it! Want to find out where it's at? Well, you just have to subscribe to my twitter feed to find out...

Rebranding Twitter Account

This is the next post in the process of "Rebranding Doctor Anonymous." I invite you to read the first post which has why I'm actually doing this. I'm still in the midst of finding a new blog/website home for me. The exploration and evaluation process has actually been fun. And, I'd like to thank all my friends out there who have given me feedback and advice about what is out there.

So, the next step in the process is to rebrand the twitter account - to - me. I thought that this was going to be a tough process, but it actually isn't. Of course, I just googled the term and came up with a couple of good articles to walk me through the process. Thanks to hubspot and digital inspiration for their useful articles.

Thankfully, I did not have to start over from zero followers. All my followers (including the spam ones - sheesh) came over to the new account. Probably the most important thing to remember when switching twitter IDs is to immediately signup for your former twitter name so that someone doesn't take it and try to pretend that you are you. Good tips.

I've really enjoyed sharing my rebranding journey with you. Next week - specifically - Monday, March 14th. 2011 - this is when I will announce - On My New Twitter Account - where this blog/website is going. So stay tuned there. Isn't it exciting?

The Risk of Rebranding

Since the hugely popular South By Southwest conference starts later this week, this is probably a good topic to talk about. By the way, I'm not going to "SouthBy," although I really wanted to. But, the last few days have been very exciting, yet anxiety provoking for me.

I was in New York City last week working on a social media project with Dr Joseph Kim from Medical Communications Media, Dr. Enoch Choi, the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians and Einstein College of Medicine. I'll talk about it more in the future, but the project is about Medication Adherence and the use of technology like mobile and social media.

Following about 24 hours in New York, I flew to Baltimore to check out the EMS Today conference where I got to meet many of the social media superstars of the EMS community - and there are a lot of them. I even got to sit in as a guest during their final podcast of the conference. Oh, and did I mention that they VIDEO live streamed about 12 hours of podcasts over the course of 3 days. It was really good stuff.

Anyway during my 24 hours in NYC and my 24 hours in Baltimore, I've come to realize that I have probably hit the glass ceiling of success with the "Doctor Anonymous" internet identity. I have been told this in the past, but I really didn't believe it. I have gotten a lot of social media opportunities over the past few months. But in recent discussions with many people whom I've come to trust, to reach for an even higher potential, I have to let go of the whole Dr. A thing.

I have been very hesitant to do that for a number of reasons. I think that I've done a lot of work in the past (almost) five years in social media. Would that mean throwing all that away and starting over? That is something that I have been asking myself for a long time. The status quo has been screaming out in my mind for months. "Why risk this?" I kept asking myself.

So, I guess I'm announcing that I'm exploring my options to change the direction of my blog and to change the direction of my internet life. As I said on facebook yesterday, "After the last few inspirational days, thinking about building an entirely new social media plan from scratch. Will probably fail, but it's the challenge of innovating that drives me." Stay tuned to what happens, as this long time blog may not be here for much longer...