Tierney Rocky's Blog

If you read Graeme Law’s blog,  you will read about the idea that social media marketing will not be as necessary in the business world as its recent progress has suggested. Instead, Graeme believes that communication mediums like linked in, twitter, and facebook have been overestimated in their abilities and have no intrinsic way of describing or measuring their value. However, I disagree.

Interestingly enough, I would like to back up my own views with… Grey’s Anatomy. After watching one of the latest episodes, I am convinced that social media will be increasingly valuable across even more businesses and industries, as a communication method. In season 7’s episode 13 (called ‘Don’t Deceive Me’ – watch it for a better idea!) twitter is used directly inside the operating room while surgeries are being worked on. In fact, the idea was initiated by one of the chief residents as a way to tweet to students the steps taken during surgeries she performed, like a high tech version of ‘in-class’ notes. Then, an intern took the idea one step further by bringing her Blackberry directly into the operating room, so she could tweet each step in real time . Quickly, many doctors from different schools were following the progress of Seattle West Hospital’s various surgeries, even suggesting advice and new methods to the working surgeons during times of complication. For example, when it was realized that the patient needed a heart transplant fast, someone from a different city responded to the tweet saying that her hospital had an available transplant with the proper characteristics, and that they could send it by air to get it to the patient in time. These actions were taken and of course the patient was saved. A little unrealistic? Maybe. Just a Hollywood production? Sure. But is it so hard to hope that the new-age word of mouth suggested by this show may actually progress into something real and life-saving?