Motorcycle Guy

Usually at various events, I introduce myself as a Standards Geek for GE Healthcare. It gets a lot of laughs, puts the audience at ease, and it also describes very well what I do. However, I felt I couldn't use "StandardsGeek.blogspot.com" for this blog, becauge John Halamaka already has the Geek-o-sphere covered with GeekDoctor -- Life as a Healthcare CIO. Since I don't aspire to be a CIO, and I'm not a Doctor, I don't want to compete with John. So, I needed a different name for this blog.
About two years ago I attended a meeting sponsored by eHealthConnecticut and the Connecticut Health Information Security and Privacy Initiative (CT-HISPI) to explain several implementation guides developed by Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise that would be applicable to a health information exchange such as they were architecting. A friend of mine from Canada attended to explain some of the security profiles IHE had built -- on her 30th birthday. I rode my motorcycle down to Hartford to attend this meeting, and brought an extra helmet so I could give her a ride from the hotel to the meeting as a birthday present.
The presentation went very well, and I heard feedback from some folks who attended the architectural meetings the next day (that I couldn't attend due to scheduling). At that meeting, the leader of eHealth Connecticut described me to the group that hadn't been at the previous meeting.

You should have seen this guy. He showed up to the meeting in a motorcycle helmet and leathers. He gets up on stage and talks about how IHE is going to solve all of our problems. When he get's done, he throws a helmet to this chick, and rides off with her.

Later that year, I was talking to others (including the gentleman describing me) on a teleconference. The introduction that he gave me was simply this:

You remember Keith, he's that "Motorcycle Guy".

I've never had a better introduction than that, and so that's the introduction I'm giving all of you. The purpose of this blog is for me to expound upon standards, including many of those that I work on in HL7, ISO, ASTM, IHE or ANSI/HITSP.

Those of you who know me, know that I have a lot of opinions on these topics, and here is where I will express them. Please remember that all opinions that I express in this blog are my own, and not those of my employer, or any of the various standards organizations that I am involved with.

For those of you who are interested, here is a picture of my bike (and my friend from Canada)