Passion is a word you hear often when you talk to Robert Fraser, a Master of Nursing student at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto, and founder of Nursing Ideas. He's passionate about his chosen career, and equally so about how information sharing technologies like podcasts, videocasts, social media and "unconferences" can advance nursing research, create relationships and build new communities. A fairly novel development in his industry, he's devoted much of his free time to helping (another favourite word) usher nurses and nursing leaders into the new media world.

Dressed in a suit jacket, pressed shirt and jeans and with a professional demeanor that belies his 24 years, Fraser sits down in his small dorm room in Massey College to talk about the creation of Nursing Ideas. The room is unequally split into mostly an office, with a small closet-like space for sleeping. There's a couch for guests, video equipment sits at-the-ready on his desk, and there's a white board outlining his future plans for the Nursing Ideas portal. There's also plenty of books and quite a nice collection of liquor (Patron tequila is obviously also a passion).

"When I got to grad school I thought I'd try and be a bit classier," he says.  It seems to have worked, and as he starts talking it's easy to understand that Fraser is driven to excel, not just in his post-graduate work, but in various projects that keep him and his industry moving forward. Already his resume is diverse and at least twice as long as most his age. He's been a youth leader, a teaching assistant, a research assistant, a research analyst, a camp counsellor and volunteer caregiver in Calcutta, a delegate and speaker at conferences, a multi-media editor, a student representative to the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO), and an Isuma Fellow (a program that helps young professionals become leaders in their communities).

Nursing Ideas grew out of Fraser's desire to share the stories and experiences of the nursing professionals he has had access to through various events and conferences at U of T and Ryerson, where he completed his undergraduate degree, and his association with the RNAO.  "Through the interviews I post, nurses can understand who the real people are behind the research they're reading in their courses; how they got into it, why they're passionate about it, and how they want to see their research applied."  He fashioned it after the University Health Network and Harvard Business Review which both feature informational video interviews with successful, innovative professionals. 

Fraser has interviewed professors, administrators, medical journalists, Cathy Crowe (the street nurse turned politician), and in one such video Marla E Salmon, a current Dean & Professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing and former U.S. Chief Nurse chats with Rob about how her career evolved from practicing nurse to professor to helping shape and write the policy that would be part of President Bill Clinton's healthcare plan. One piece of advice she offers is to reach outside of nursing to other interests, educational or otherwise, and for Rob that has meant technology, where his own curiosity as well as many of his friends and social media contacts have led him.

He agrees with Salmon, saying, "I spend a little too much time on outside interests!" A funny exchange occurs when he asks her what books she might have read early on that helped her and she answers, "a copy of Emily Post's Etiquette," saying that she was a rural kid and never dreamed she'd be attending formal dinners. It's this kind of unguarded "real" moment that Fraser looks for to prove that nursing leaders are "human" and accessible.  His interviews also show the range of careers available through nursing and how one sector or area of interest leads into the next. At the end of each interview Fraser asks his interviewee for a question aimed at the nurses and nursing students that comprise his audience. Marla Salmon takes the opportunity to ask them to figure out how to use technology not yet available to her generation to advance nursing to a new realm; music to Rob Fraser's ears.

Fraser chose nursing after some pivotal volunteering experiences in Trinidad at sixteen and in Calcutta, India at 18. He says, "I was really interested in international humanitarian and community development projects, so going to university I wanted something hands-on but also scientifically based so I chose nursing and I fell in love with it. And, I always had a passion for technology. When I got my first iPod I downloaded physics lectures by Richard Feynman rather than music.

As well as video interviews, the Nursing Ideas site features a blog, where Fraser explains the ins and outs of technology to his audience -- those nurses who are either late adopters to social media or who have yet to find the time or energy after their marathon work shifts to take advantage, or indeed, even see the advantage of new media.  He discusses the value of blogging, using an iPad, tells what an "unconference" is, how to install an editor tool on a website, and he'll eventually provide screen cast tutorials on anything from how to sign up to Twitter and how to create a group page on Facebook, to how to email or tweet a photo from a smart phone. He also has plans to bring in some collaborators and guest bloggers. "I can't convince them they have to use these tools, but I can help them learn how."

Fraser does nothing beyond using social media to promote the site, so is often surprised when people find it, not just in Canada but around the world, in places like Korea, Yemen and Colombia.  "I'll get Facebook messages from friends in nursing school in Alberta saying that they watched my videos in class because the professors have found the website, " he says. "It's exciting that at such an early point in my career I can start reaching and sharing information with an audience larger than most teachers' classrooms."

"Ultimately I want to show people that technology has the ability to change relationships," he explains, "It can encourage research, collaboration, the sharing of knowledge and information. It's the relationships that are built that will change nursing, the technology is the facilitator."

However, he emphasizes that "offline" relationships are important too. Asked about his plans for the future he says, "I would love to work with hospitals in smaller cities, or rural and remote locations, to create research programs in those locations. So I'm going to apply to work at St. Michaels during my final year to learn from the work they have recently done developing their nursing research program."

Right now though, he's keeping busy working on a book he's been commissioned by Sigma Theta Tau International to write called 'Social Media the Nurses Advantage.'   One way or another Robert Fraser, RN, is determined to get those nurses online.

Carla Lucchetta is a Toronto based writer and TV producer.