Share, Listen, and Learn

Last week, the New Media Expo took place in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Expo brought together 2,000 attendees, including individual media makers, companies, schools, and organizations wanting to learn how to create audio and video content that will educate, inform, and inspire their audiences. The AIDS.gov team was there to learn, listen, and share our own stories.

"Engage and Deliver" But Don't Forget to "Listen and Learn"

Last week, 1,000 people from the fields of public health, social marketing, health communication, health education, and other fields gathered in Atlanta for the CDC’s 2nd Annual National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media. Miguel Gomez, AIDS.gov Director, and Jennie Anderson, AIDS.gov Communications Director, attended the conference. We also participated in a panel called “Social Networks and Online Resources for Health Professionals” and shared the lessons we’ve learned from this blog.

International AIDS Conference: New Media and the AIDS Community - Some Good News

Last week, we "twittered" from the International AIDS Conference (IAC) , and we planned to talk about that this week. We were struck, however, by our conversations on new media with IAC delegates and we decided to write about what we learned at the conference instead. (Stay tuned for more on Twitter soon!)

From the plenary on the future of the global pandemic to AIDS.gov's conversations with a cross-section of the 23,000+ IAC delegates in Mexico City, the topic of new media kept popping up. In that plenary session, Dr. Peter Piot , director of UNAIDS (and one of the leading voices in developing HIV/AIDS policy worldwide), acknowledged the importance of new media in meeting the challenge of HIV/AIDS. Dr. Piot explicitly mentioned Facebook and text messaging as important tools in carrying messages about HIV/AIDS--but he was one of the few who did.

A Wake-up Call for All of Us: How Can New Media Help?

“The estimates from our nation’s new HIV incidence surveillance system reveal that the HIV epidemic is- and has been- worse than previously known. The recent U.S. HIV statistics are a wake-up call to all of us in the United States to have authentic conversations about what we need to be doing to end this epidemic within our lifetimes.” said Kevin Fenton, M.D., Director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.