healthcare epistemocrat: March 2009

Game Plan Academy (GPA) started well this past Sunday (see camp photo above).

GPA is a local effort by an awesome team of Sacramentans.

Here are links to the local press coverage pieces thus far:

"Game Plan Academy opens camp" by Jonathan Mendick

"Game Plan Academy (GPA) - Social Innovation Locally" by me

"GPA = Game Plan Academy" by Ron Hyde of Channel 13 News

"Sacramento's GPA Provides Positive Role Models" by Jonathan Mendick

I look forward to working with these students again this upcoming Sunday.

Also, in order to better understand the human condition in this Information Age, I created a Twitter account to observe this new social texture reflectively:

Twitter = epistemocrat

Friday, March 13, 2009

Power-Law Distribution of World's Banks, Healthcare Spending, and Health Insurance Companies

The distribution of banks resembles the distribution of health insurance companies (power-law): a few companies dominate the majority of the market share. This is a non-stable, far from robust distribution: when the giants fall, the entire system collapses (as we just saw with our banking system). The same collapse is around the corner for health insurance companies; the exponential growth of healthcare spending is simply not sustainable -- at some point, the system is going to crack, the ripple effects will spread, and United, Aetna, Blue Cross, and others will all come crumbling down.

What is an Epistemocrat?

Caveat: Individuality is the spice of life ... Cura Personalis.

History: In his book, The Black Swan, Nassim Taleb defines an epistemocrat as "someone of epistemic humility, who holds his own knowledge in greatest suspicion." For Jerome Groopman, this person continues to search for answers by asking, "What else could it be?" Richard Feynman recommends to "keep the door to the unknown ajar." From Chester Newland's perspective, an epistemocrat never stops "searching for human dignity." Like Socrates said, "Wisdom is knowing how little we know."

Epoche, a Greek word that translates as "suspending judgment," lies at the heart of an epistemocrat's quest.

Today, an epistemocrat is a person who, concerned with what he or she does not know, engages in life-long learning and erudition to hedge dynamically against and to embrace uncertainty.

Essentially, an epistemocrat is a practitioner (a thinker and a doer; a Jesuit-spirited "contemplative in action") who respects (via paradoxes) the humble limits of being human and searches (via thinkering) for practical, real-world solutions that help us live and grow together in our increasingly complex and recursive world: diversify.

What is m=1/n=1 thinkering?

Thinking + Tinkering = thinkering.

It's an approach to searching and acting that combines m=1 personal my-thology and n=1 self-experimentation. Personal my-thology encompasses all the unique thoughts, feelings, inklings, beliefs, and reflections that flow through your stream of consciousness each day: your m=1 thinking. Self-experimentation is awareness of all the feedback and insights perceived from daily experiences: your n=1 tinkering. Hybridizing these two activities produces the bimodal modus operandi of thinkering.

The m=1/n=1 notation captures and respects individuality when it comes to the art and science of living gracefully.

healthcare epistemocrat

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Game Plan Academy (GPA): Week One in the Books

Friday, March 13, 2009

Power-Law Distribution of World's Banks, Healthcare Spending, and Health Insurance Companies