Bob Lorsch seeks to lead health IT through his blog

By | May 25, 2010, 5:47am PDT

Summary: You may think I am making fun of Mr. Lorsch. I like him a lot. He’s supremely self-confident, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, he’s a real go-getter. We need more like him in health IT.

I last wrote about Bob Lorsch of MMR Information Systems (right) at SmartPlanet last year. He was helping China automate its medical records.

Well, he has a big new idea.

A blog.

Launched in March at multiple MMR sites, the Lorsch blog is part pep talk, part travelogue and part business adventure story, with its author always at the center as the hero, pulling the strings and bringing people together.

The blog has no graphics, no pictures, and the hyperlinks are all written-out, so you have to copy-and-paste them to use them, you can’t click them. All this makes the project seem more genuine, more personal, like the entrepreneur who comes to the big business meeting in a flowered shirt but is certain he’s going to charm you anyway. He usually does.

Lorsch is a special southern California type — informal, gregarious, self-confident, always selling, trophy wife by his side, hey look at me life is wonderful. He’s the kind of guy my dad always wanted to be, but my dad could never pull it off. Some can. Lorsch can.

I found Mr. Lorsch’s blog because he ordered a press release on it. It’s not a meeting I would like to have been in on.

But, Mr. Lorsch. You have no hyperlinks, no pictures.

That makes it genuine! That’s what people are looking for today, honesty. Heart!

But sir, we’ve barely started putting it on the servers.

And I want our other executives to blog too. That’s what the kids like. Blog, blog, blog.

Sir, can’t you just send it in to us and we’ll publish it for you?

What? You don’t trust me to do my own blogging? How long have you been working for me? Want to still be doing it tomorrow?

<cringe>Yes, sir. I’ll put out the press release today. </cringe>

From all this snark you may think I am making fun of Mr. Lorsch, that I find something repellent about him. I don’t. I like him a lot. He puts a smile on my face. He’s supremely self-confident, he doesn’t take himself too seriously, he’s a real go-getter.

We need more like him in health IT.

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily e-mail newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Topics

Disclosure

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a journalist, writer and part-time futurist for over 30 years. At the present moment I run only a personal blog in addition to my ZDNet open source blog. DanaBlankenhorn.Com has the subtitle The War Against Oil. In the past I have used it to write about political history, e-commerce, personal matters, some ideas related to open source, and The World of Always On, which is the idea of using sensors, motes and RFID to turn WiFi links into platforms for applications which live in the air. My IRA account at Schwab holds a few tech shares, most notably some Intel and Applied Materials, but there are no open source companies in it. I don’t even own any CBS stock.

Biography

Dana Blankenhorn

Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist since 1978, and has covered technology since 1982. He launched the Interactive Age Daily, the first daily coverage of the Internet to launch with a magazine, in September 1994.

Related Discussions on TechRepublic

Did you know you can take part in these discussions with your ZDNet membership?

The discussion hasn’t started yet. Why don’t you begin it?

Formatting +
BB Codes - Note: HTML is not supported in forums
  • [b] Bold [/b]
  • [i] Italic [/i]
  • [u] Underline [/u]
  • [s] Strikethrough [/s]
  • [q] "Quote" [/q]
  • [ol][*] 1. Ordered List [/ol]
  • [ul][*] · Unordered List [/ul]
  • [pre] Preformat [/pre]
  • [quote] "Blockquote" [/quote]
ie8 fix

The best of ZDNet, delivered

ZDNet Newsletters

Get the best of ZDNet delivered straight to your inbox

Facebook Activity

White Papers, Webcasts, & Resources
ie8 fix
ie8 fix