Uncovering Ostomy with about.me

Guest writer Jessica Grossman is the founder of Uncover Ostomy, an online campaign focused on raising awareness towards the ostomy and defeating the negative stigma surrounding the surgery.

What do you think of when you hear the word “ostomy”?
Yeah, “ostomy.”
Have you ever even heard that word before?
Don’t worry, neither have they.

An ostomy is a surgically created opening from an internal organ such as the intestines or ureters to an external point in the abdomen where waste exits the body into a special bag is worn on top.

Ok – so an ostomy has never been the most glamorous of things. In fact, it is often stigmatized in the media and by the public. Those is need of ostomy surgery often refuse to have it, fearing how others may think of them knowing that the stigma exists. As someone who was facing death head-on at only 13 years-old due to severe Crohn’s disease, however, I have quite the different opinion. My ostomy saved my life and I couldn’t be happier.

I created the online awareness campaign called Uncover Ostomy to show how grateful I am to be alive after ostomy surgery. I’ve used different social channels to bring up discussions on the topic and use my about.me page as a hub to bring them all together. The campaign features a blog where I write about living life like everyone else; trying to build a career, having crazy romances, and even losing loved ones. It also highlights some pretty racy pictures that show that the ostomy can still be sexy.

Uncover Ostomy also wants to show that the idea of ostomy surgery doesn’t have to be so serious. We actually launched a pretty funny new video where you can see first hand how few people actually understand the surgery and it’s necessity. And, there’s an iguana. Watch, laugh, enjoy, and please share it with everyone you know.

I’ve met some amazing people and have had some incredible experiences related to ostomy surgery all because of my about.me page. I was even flown to Italy to be a keynote speaker at a conference from an organization who found me through it! Check out a few more pages raising Ostomy awareness.

Posted by

about.me goes independent

The new year is a great time for fresh beginnings, something the about.me team learned early in our history. Just a few short days after our public launch in December 2010, we shared the exciting news that we’d been acquired by AOL. We committed ourselves then to building the best product to make it easy for people to learn about you and to find your content on the web.

Twenty-four months and several million about.me pages later, we continue our commitment to building the best personal identity service on the web. During the past two years, we’ve been thankful for the tremendous resources and support of our friends and partners at AOL.

Today, we’re thrilled to announce that we’ll be spinning about.me back out, returning to life as an independent company that is financially backed by our management team and a truly amazing group of investors who have backed companies such as WordPress and Google. Our team will remain the same for the most part, and we’ll continue our roles as co-founders.

Our commitment is to make about.me the web’s starting point for identity – we believe everyone will eventually have an about.me page they integrate into their email signature, add to their Twitter Bio or embed in one of their blogs. Very few products have a legitimate shot at becoming ubiquitous and we think building about.me as an independent company is the best way to get us there.

For those who ask, “what comes next?” we can only promise that many things our users have been asking for (in our forums, on Twitter, and when we meet them face to face) are on our roadmap. To allay any anxiety about what we’ve got planned, we’ve updated our original TOS and Privacy Policy, updated for 2013. You can update your account settings here.

Thanks to everyone for helping make this happen. We are really excited about this change, and hope you are as well. More good news to come…stay tuned!

Ryan Freitas & Tony Conrad

Posted by

No more posts.

Like this:

Posted by aboutdotme

Like this:

Posted by aboutdotme

Like this:

Posted by aboutdotme

Like this:

Posted by aboutdotme

Like this:

Posted by aboutdotme

Like this:

Posted by

Like this:

Posted by aboutdotme

Like this:

Posted by aboutdotme

Like this:

Posted by

Like this:

Posted by aboutdotme