I’ve just read about a “Call for mHealth Experts and Writers” from the mHealth Alliance via Mark Leon Goldberg at UN Despatch.
It appears that with the arrival of a new director the mHealth Alliance is “starting a new website and looking for writers to produce fresh content“. As such they are looking to “hire… …interesting, thought provoking and enthusiastic writers to write about mobile health as part of our guest blogger program” with an expectation to “write a minimum of 6 posts per year“.
“This position is for someone interested in writing thought/issue pieces, reviews (about research, programs and technologies) and profiles (of people and projects). We’re not just looking for good writing but also people with creative ideas and global reach. Each piece would be compensated (volunteers are also welcome) and your work will be seen by thousands of people per month. Selection will be competitive. The deadline to apply is Friday, April 22nd”
Amongst other things the “mHealth Alliance Guest Blogger Application” form asks applicants how they define mHealth, why they “believe mHealth is important” and to detail the topics they are “most interested in writing about“.
Good luck if you’re thinking of applying, and if you’ve got any hope of getting the post be sure to ignore my more considered definition of mHealth as the mHealth Alliance have adopted their own definition which you can cut and paste from here:
“mHealth stands for mobile-based or mobile-enhanced health solutions, or the idea that global wireless networks and mobile devices (cell phones, smartphones, mobile-enabled diagnostic devices) are powerful vehicles for delivering innovative medical and health services to the farthest reaches of the globe”
My thoughts: I’m always a little uneasy about the idea of someone paying someone else to blog for them as I think you’d nearly always find it easier to get the same results by running a “best essay” competition with a financial prize or by giving financial support to encourage the work of independent mHealth journalists (such as Neil Versal & Brian Dolan at MobiHealthNews or Sara Jackson at FierceMobileHealthcare)
But I can’t help but think that in the case of the mHealth Alliance this is a rather odd thing to have to do. Why would they feel the need to hire people to write about what you would presume they’re already passionate about? This is an organisation that’s been given the support of the worlds biggest PC manufacturer, largest mobile operator, the mobile industry association and the billion $ UN & Rockefeller Foundations to tackle things as moving as infant mortality in emerging markets. Surely with this level of support and such a worthwhile cause they’d have attracted enough passionate people already? Surely the leaders of these partner organisations have things they want to say?
It surprises me that the mHealth Alliance is behaving like so many big healthcare organisations by not encouraging and supporting its own staff to start posting their thoughts more openly.
At last years mHealth Summit in Washington DC I was fortunate enough to meet with a great bunch working on the mHealth Alliance stand that was next to ours. Over the 3 days I must have met with no less than 12 team members and at least 6 interns from whom I heard exactly the type of passionate well articulated stories that would have made for great blog posts.
