Short for "Good Experience Live", Gel is a conference, and community, exploring good experience in all its forms -- in business, technology, art, society, and life.
Instead of focusing on just one thing (design, technology, user experience, business, etc.) like many conferences, Gel touches on many things. This challenges attendees to find, and learn from, the patterns that underlie good experience, even in disciplines vastly different from their own.
There are two Gel events each year in New York:
The best way to understand the Gel experience is to attend. Past that, either watch Gel videos or read the attendee comments below.
We asked attendees to fill in the blank: "Gel is..." and they wrote these responses.
Read all "Gel is..." answers. To get a sense of who these attendees are, check out the Gel 2009 attendee list, showing organizations and titles.
Attendees of the first Gel Health conference (October 2009) described the event in these words:
A place to be re-energized about the possibilities of what patient-centric healthcare delivery would and could look like, through real-life examples.
Captivating, profound. Has raised the bar dramatically for all future health care conferences. - Steve Dean
Lets you see and hear about the issues wrapped up in our healthcare system from many different angles.
This is a must-attend event for anyone who is professionally or personally interested in dynamic, positive, creative solutions to today's current health mess; Gel addresses wellness as top priority, prevention of illness and disease second, and wraps up with innovative ideas to improve the treatment experience. It considers ill people as whole and complicated individual lives as well as patients; doctors and hospitals as affecting whole patients' and their families' lives, not coldly considering them solely as malfunctioning organs or tissues. The day leaves attendees with an uplifting sense of optimism, hope, motivation, commitment, and revitalization with a joyful quality.
It's an emotially intense event. But what else can it be? Patient experience isn't about duckies and bunnies. One thing is for sure - it is gratifying to be in a roomful with people who represent the biggest threat to The Way Things Are.
It's a conference for people who are interested in thinking about how to improve the patient's healthcare experience.
This is the only healthcare conference I know where the focus is on real people's needs and how they've been met. It doesn't lead with a technology solution.
Irreplaceable, tangible insight into the patient perspective.
Gel Health provides a terrific opportunity to be inspired in ideas and purpose toward transforming the patient experience. The breadth of viewpoints underscores the scope of the work for all of us as well as provokes you to think in new and different ways.
A creative energizing day of presentations about the flaws and challenges in health care, focused on introducing the problem to the 'uninitiated'.
I would describe it as an event worth attending if
* you have ever felt frustrated about an experience with the healthcare system, whether as a patient or a provider
* you like being among and meet like-minded people who have had similar experiences
* if nothing else you will perhaps come away feeling reassured that there are people out there who think it is worth the effort to tackle the problems of the current system, but
* you may come away motivated to do something yourself, and have the opportunity to connect with others that may be able to help you
Gel Health puts into context what it means to have health and by contrast what it means for you, your family and support community when you have a health challenge. It puts a personal, intimate face on the "healthcare debate." It allowed me to experience from a broad range of practioners, patients and families what health means and how it impacts everyone. It paints a picture for where we are - what we do well and what we don't, who we serve and who we don't - and has enhanced my sense for the importance of my leadership, the opportunity to create a new vision and the importance of doing the hard work that it will take to achieve that vision.
Gel Health was, by far, the best conference I have ever attended.
Uplifting and eye-opening.
A multidisciplinary group of passionate presenters dedicated to improving the healthcare environment.
A unique conference highlighting inspirational stories by thought provoking speakers who shared their ideas (and how they made them reality!) for creating positive experiences for various healthcare stakeholders.
The Gel Videos page contains clips of past conferences. This is probably the best way to understand the range of speakers... however, many first-time attendees have said that the videos don't do justice to the actual in-person Gel experience.
Gel was founded by Mark Hurst, who ran the first Gel in 2003 in New York City. Since then Gel has run every year in New York in late April or early May. (2006 was an especially busy year, as we ran a second event - euroGel 2006, in Copenhagen, Denmark - that September.)
The spring Gel event is a two-day event, taking place on a Thursday and Friday:
• Thursday, also known as "Day 1," is full of direct experiences - tours, seminars, workshops - all across New York City.
• Friday is the "theater day," when attendees convene in the theater to hear over a dozen speakers present on-stage. (The standard presentation is between 15 and 20 minutes long.)
You can see the speaker lists from all past events on the Past Gels page, and video clips of all speakers since 2005 on the Gel Videos page.
Our next event is Gel 2010, coming up in April 2009 in New York City.