Tag: Karos Health

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Randomly generated assessment: Mark designs better

At Karos Health we’re always trying to improve the way we work. To that end, we recently enjoyed some Agile coaching from Declan Whelan. Declan is well-known in the Waterloo Region and beyond for his deep knowledge and passion for all things Agile, and his presence Karos was a welcome one.

During a presentation/workshop, Declan shared some of his findings into his review of our development practices. One of the artifacts that he showed was a tag cloud created using Wordle, and which was based on notes that he took during one-on-one discussions with the team. I’m big fan of Wordle, for both the insights that it can provide into a source text as well as the aesthetic appeal.

In the case of Declan’s Wordle, an unexpected juxtaposition of words was particularly delightful for me. The first image shows the original image that Declan showed. The second image highlights the randomly-created, found phrase that caught my eye. Sometimes, little discoveries are a lot of fun.

A Wordle with various words including design, team, and work

(Declan’s Wordle)

A Wordle highting the words ‘Mark Designs Better’

(“Mark designs better”)

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Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose at Karos Health

I’ve written before about a book by Dan Pink called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates. I’m a big fan of the book, and the three simple things that Pink says matter to people who are working in creative positions, or positions that don’t just involve repeating the same kinds of tasks again and again.

  • Autonomy. Ideally, over what you do, when you do it, who you do it with, and how you do it.
  • Mastery. Your abilities are finite, but infinitely improvable; improvement demands effort; and mastery can never be fully attained, which is part of the allure.
  • Purpose. Within an organization, use profits to reach purpose, emphasize more than just self-interest, and allow people to pursue purpose on their own terms.

My experience at Karos Health has been one that delivers on all three.

  • We practice Scrum and other Agile product development techniques, which gives a lot of autonomy for team members.
  • We’re always looking for ways to improve on what we do and how we do it, both as a company and as individuals.
  • People find a sense of purpose in different places, but health care is an area that delivers on that for me.

We’re looking for people to join the Karos team and help build great products and a great company. Have a look at the positions that we currently have open and give some thought to how you might fit in. Feel free to get in touch with me directly if you want to learn more, or just send in an application. It’s a fun and rewarding place to work.

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Developing with gingerbread at Karos Health

Constructing a gingerbread house

No, not the new Android release.

Yesterday at Karos Health we spent time building something special and appropriate to the holiday season. We built several gingerbread houses. Happily, though we were inexperienced builders, we were able to bring in some expert consultants to help us get the job done. The children of various team members came to the office and actually did pretty much all of the heavy lifting in building the candy-encrusted homes. It was fun to watch, and I know my boys had a great time.

Here’s a big thanks to Gillian for organizing this.

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Conference strategy at Karos Health

The Karos Health kiosk at RSNA

I recently spent a week in Chicago at the annual conference put on by the Radiological Society of North America. I was there along with Rick, Michel, and Jeff, three of my colleagues from Karos Health (that’s Jeff in the picture). While it was my first visit to this conference, the others had all made the trip multiple times over the years. We had a great strategy for getting the most out of our visit, and I thought I’d share it here.

We had a minimal presence on the show floor, with just a tiny display as part of a booth organized by the Government of Ontario’s Ministry of Economic Development and Trade. It was perfect for us, though, as our strategy revolved around pre-arranged meetings and visits to specific companies rather than simply waiting for visitors to find us. Our display served as a place where people could find us if needed, with someone always present and ready to talk about our products and demonstrate our latest product, Rialto Consult.

We were able to provide demonstrations for a range of visitors. Some were people my colleagues knew who wanted to see our new product, some were existing customers, and some were new contacts that we made at the show. All were attentive while we showed what Rialto Consult can do and positive in their feedback. In fact, we were a little taken aback at the reception; we were pleased with what we were showing, but the response was even more than we could have hoped for.

There were a couple of highlights for me. One was prompted by a data issue, in which a customer noted that a sample document was missing from what we showed. I was able to add the document that evening, and when the customer returned the next day with some colleagues, the presence of the document did not go unnoticed.

The second was a visit to our booth by a colleague from one of our Karos Innovation Centers, who arrived while a demonstration was in progress. After we completed the demonstration, our colleague was able to answer some questions from the small audience relating to our work together. The timing was perfect!

RSNA 2010 was a successful conference with much positive feedback and a great response to Rialto Consult. In fact, on our return to Waterloo Rick characterized it as perhaps the most satisfying RSNA conference that he had attended. We’ll be there again next year.

This post originally ran, in a slightly different form, on the Karos Health blog.

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Marshmallows at Karos Health

A closeup of hands working with dried spaghetti and tape

Several weeks back I reported on the results of running two editions of the Marshmallow Challenge. Yesterday I tried it out with my colleagues at Karos Health. Three teams completed three towers — a 100% completion rate, a higher rate than at the previous two events that I wrote about. It was good fun, though after facilitating three of these events it would be fun to build something as well.

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A visit to a Karos Innovation Center in Boston

I visited Boston last week along with Karos Health’s Rick Stroobosscher to meet with our partners in the Department of Radiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, a recently announced Karos Innovation Center. We’ve been working closely with the team there on a project, and the time had come for an on-site visit.

In addition to very productive meetings, I was able spend time with some of the department’s radiologists during an overnight shift in the Brigham emergency department. It was an eye-opening experience to observe how they do their jobs. Their knowledge, skill, and dedication in providing timely readings of the imaging studies that came to them was striking. Beyond that, knowing that there were real medical emergencies being handled with such calm expertise was quite humbling. I also appreciated the team’s gracious accommodation of my presence and their interest in the work that Karos is doing.

I’ve written previously about the sense of purpose that working at Karos provides. Seeing the radiologists at work brought that purpose to life in an unambiguous way. I’m excited by what we’re doing and looking forward to a long and fruitful partnership with the Brigham team.

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Scary pumpkins at Karos Health

A desk covered with Jack o Lanterns

We had a fun end-of-day session at Karos on Wednesday this week, carving pumpkins into Jack-o’-lanterns in anticipation of this weekends’s Hallowe’en holiday. This was the first time that some our team had ever carved one before, which made the session special. We had children from some of the team come to the office, as well, to contribute their scary carvings. I managed to let my four-year-old work on his own carving without too much interference, and he did a great job without losing any of his fingers! As the photo shows, the results make for a fine display.

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Karos Health is hiring

Logo: Karos Health

I’ve been at Karos Health for several months now, and I’m excited by what we’re building here.

Our team is doing innovative work to connect health care records to the stakeholders that need them, supporting collaboration that improves the quality of patient care. It’s a huge area in which to work, there’s a lot to do, and our products make a meaningful and positive impact on people’s lives.

We’re building not just great products, though, but a great company. While we’re a small startup with a great team, we’re growing to ensure that we can continue our success and take it even further. We currently have a two full-time developer positions open, as well as a co-op/intern position for the Winter 2011 term.

Have a look at our careers page and get in touch if you see a fit.

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Hiring at Karos Health

I haven’t really written much about Karos Health since joining the company a while back. I’m not sure why that’s the case, but I do have something to share today.

Last night Karos Health’s Rick Stroobosscher and I attended a job fair in Milton, Ontario. Organized by Communitech, the event brought several Waterloo Region companies together to meet with job seekers. We were in very fine company with respected stars like Christie Digital, Desire2Learn, and Research In Motion, as well as fellow startups like Kik Interactive.

Rick and I really weren’t sure what to expect at the event. What we found was a well-organized venue with helpful Communitech folks there to help us get oriented. The space was relatively small, which made it easy for job seekers to get to see everyone. And there were a great many job seekers there, with a range of skills, experiences, and interests. Rick and I were busy all night talking with people about what they are looking for and what Karos is about. Happily, we even talked to a few software developers who may be able to help us. We’re looking forward to future Communitech events like this one.

We’re looking for developers at Karos, and down the road perhaps other people. Have a look at our careers page and let us know if you think there’s there’s a fit.

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A whole new adventure at Karos Health

As occasional readers of this blog may know, I embarked on a bit of a career exploration some months back after leaving Primal Fusion. I enjoyed many fine conversations, flirted with creating a product with some friends, and generally learned a lot. There were a few intriguing opportunities along the way, too.

The opportunity that has emerged as the right fit is with Karos Health, a startup company here in Waterloo. As the website says:

Our mission is to advance the quality of patient care through collaboration and information sharing. Operating in an industry where systems are complex and no single vendor can provide one solution for all aspects of healthcare, Karos strives to enable vendor collaboration. Toward this goal, we work with partners and vendors to build information technology solutions that support collaboration between healthcare providers and the patient.

That’s lofty stuff, and I’m excited to have joined the team to drive user experience for Karos Health products.