In The Four Steps to the Epiphany, Stephen Clark describes an “Earlyvangelist,” with the prefix “early” referring to a champion a the very early stage of a product adaptation cycle.
Since our emphasis is on problem and not the product, a different term might be more appropriate. I will refer to this person as The Visionary.
The Visionary comes from the “problem end” of informatics. The Visionary is observant and asks good questions. She has a pain point. She knows when things just don’t look quite right. She may not know what the solution looks like. She may not even know that a solution exists. Marketers like Visionaries because these people see problem and can see the potential of the new purchase.
The Visionary is what all radiologists interested in informatics should be. We see the clinical problem in a way that no software developer and no administrator can see. Sitting down and accepting the status quo runs the risk of burying the problem forever.
