Kill Passwords

One time I was attending the crazy SXSW conference in Austin. As part of the event, there was a startup company from Las Vegas (where I live) that had a small tower in the big Vegas Tech booth. Their startup was a method to use your phone as your password and a few other password related things. I’m not sure how they came up with this idea, but half way through the conference they switched their monitor which previously had their logo on it to just say “Kill Passwords” in big black letters with a white background. It was amazing how much traffic they drove to their small table because of that simple digital signage.

While this is a story in marketing that’s worthy of the Healthcare IT Marketing and PR Conference which I host, it also illustrated how much we hate passwords. Turns out that this is a universal truth, but it’s particularly poignant in healthcare because of absurd password policies that many healthcare organizations put in place in the name of security (even if many of the choices they make don’t actually improve security).

Doctors password frustration was illustrated well in the latest ZDoggMD video “Doc Vader on The Password Menace.” Check it out below:

I felt it was appropriate to use ZDoggMD’s latest video in today’s Fun Friday post, but I do it with some sadness. A couple days ago, ZDoggMD announced that his Turntable Health clinic in Las Vegas was shutting down. As a Vegas resident and former member of Turntable Health, I was sorry to see this happen. No doubt this is not the end for ZDoggMD. In fact, for those that are fans of his video and his message, I think this will give him more time to evangelize and inspire. So, that’s a good thing. Healthcare can use a shakeup that points out the challenges we face with a little lot of humor. Thanks ZDoggMD for all you do.

Now, I agree that passwords are a pain. Although, I think we’ve all learned to deal with them. I do look forward to the day when passwords will no longer exist in their current form. I’m not sure what it will look like, but it will be a welcome day!

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

Categories