Tuesday, May 3, 2016, 6:30 PM. (Note early start time!)
Danbury Hospital Auditorium
The presentation has been moved from the Robilotti Room to the newly-renovated Auditorium. Come check out the new renovations!
Presenter: Dr. John R. Patrick
DACS is pleased to announce that Dr. John R. Patrick will speak about Net Attitude on May 3. John has a long tradition of treating us to annual presentations, and this will be his 24th year!
John will discuss the new version of his book Net Attitude: What It is, How to get It, and Why It is More Important than Ever. He wrote most of this book in 2001, and he recently updated it.
John says he updated and republished the book because the concepts in it remain highly applicable. Back in 2001, he estimated that we were using 2% of the potential of the Internet. Now he estimates we are at 10-15%. “We have come a long way. But we’re not there yet!”
In his presentation to us last year, John discussed another book, Health Attitude. In that book, he focused on health issues. In Net Attitude, he looks at broader issues about how we use the Internet and how companies set up their websites.
John says some companies have net attitude. Others don’t have it. Amazon is an example of a company that indeed does have net attitude. Note that Amazon’s website works; it is reliable and fast; and it leads to a generally positive customer experience. This came about because Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, had net attitude; he wanted to make his customers happy.
What are the advantages of having net attitude? John says: “It makes your constituents happy, whether they’re customers, or employees, or vendors, or business partners, or investors.”
John thinks a lot about websites. “After all, a website is really your brand. Your brand isn’t the Coca-Cola image or the IBM 8-bar logo … it’s that homepage! That reflects your brand. And if you don’t have net attitude, it comes through.”
John goes further. He says net attitude is “a state of mind … It’s thinking about customers. It’s thinking about the web and how it works and how easy it can be. … It’s the cultural background of the Internet.” John thinks companies would even do well to expand their new business vocabulary around net attitude. He will tell us about this in his presentation on May 3.
John looks forward to future work on applications of the word “attitude” to many other areas of our lives. After net attitude and health attitude, he is now looking at “home automation attitude”, “robot attitude”, and even “election attitude”. He clearly tackles some of the big problems of our society!
Following the panel discussion, there will be a book signing opportunity. John has graciously donated 20 copies of his book, and we will give these copies to the first 20 DACS members who arrive. Additional copies will be for sale, and John will be available after the meeting to autograph books.
“John Patrick is one of my favorite thinkers. John is one of the Web’s original wise men, a bright spirit and intellect who shares his rare understanding of technology and the web, its many dimensions and limitless potential. In Net Attitude he lays out a clear path for anyone who is determined to succeed on the Internet and, as he demonstrates, it all begins with attitude.”
– Lou Dobbs, Host, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox Business Network
Dr. John R. Patrick is President of Attitude LLC and former VP of Internet Technology at IBM. Patrick was a founding member of the World Wide Web Consortium at MIT in 1994, a founding member and past chairman of the Global Internet Project, and a member of the Internet Society and of the American College of Healthcare Executives. He is a Fellow of the IEEE. Patrick has served on a number of boards, including Danbury Hospital from 2003 to 2013. He is currently a board member at Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) and a member of Western Connecticut Health Network’s Biomedical Research Institute Advisory Council. He has a Doctor of Health Administration degree.