… healthy conversation
- Dilbert as Health and Wellness Prophet
Fresh off keynoting a conference for large employers, and keynoting another much larger one in a couple of months, here’s a couple of thoughts.
Employers are really getting into the health game. But despite a good deal of discussion about innovation, cool products and great experiences, they are largely do the same stuff health plans and disease management companies have been doing. They are, however, hoping it will work better if they deliver it themselves or at least position it to their employees that way (gluing vendors together themselves or hiring someone to do it for them and place their company label on everything).
Employers are trying different things on the financial end and meeting a wide range of reactions from their employees. But in terms of wowing their employees with a fantastic experience or delivering a killer product there’s really not too much there and the user experience typically offers little to excite folks.
So what does Sprigley have to say, and more importantly show, employers who want to help their employees to lead happier, healthier lives?
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First off, a bit of context.
For those that don’t know, in the US employers have typically paid or contributed to their employees’ health insurance.
Yes, at first glance, that’s kind of weird. When you think about it, virtually every other 1-st world country provides health care as a basic government service or else folks pay for private policies (think auto-insurance or life-insurance) or some combination of the both (send your kids to public school or pay for private).
Obviously, this makes things kind of complex as your employer really isn’t in the business of managing all the stuff for your insurance or even your health.
Most recently, some really smart employers have started getting into wellness programs with the idea of helping their employees avoid getting sick in the first place, and avoid using insurance for expensive sickness-related things.
While that’s cool, it’s still the employer managing a bunch of stuff. It’s like asking your plumber to also decorate your house and balance your checkbook. Or expecting your dentist to help choose your auto insurance and clean out your gutters. This is an awful lot to ask and it goes without saying, doesn’t tend to work so well.
In fact, by the time criticism starts making it into the Dilbert comic strip (see picture above) it’s all but recognized by the mainstream.
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Okay - so what to do?
Well we went through this about 25 years ago with something called a “pension” (that’s pronounced “pen-shun” - for Gen-X-ers like us go ask your parents about it or check out the wikipedia entry).
Basically, with these things called “pensions,” an employer would take care of their employees’ retirement funds.
Just like with health and well-being, employers weren’t really in the business of doing that and it created a host of complicated issues.
So, with the help of some tax law stuff, they moved to 401ks, funds that individuals own, manage, control and that follow them when they move from job to job.
Yes, that placed more responsibility on individuals, and there were some growing pains, but a whole industry of trusted-third parties, some of whom build some very cool tools, popped up to help employers and individuals manage stuff.
That’s kind of where Sprigley fits in.
As we’re moving more towards individual responsibility, Sprigley does three things:
1) We give individuals a kick-ass experience that meets people where they’re at and keeps them engaged.
2) We give individuals real value for interacting with us — so we can move them from external incentives to intrinsic rewards like the personalized recommendations they get from their financial brokers or from www.Amazon.com.
3) We help individuals acquire the skills they need to navigate the new responsibility that’s being placed upon them.
- Sprigley to Keynote Employer Health & Human Capital Congress
This just in…
Sprigley will be keynoting a couple of major get-togethers for employers interested in the health, wellness and potential of their employees.
First up is the 2009 “Employer Health & Human Capital Congress” in Washington DC (Feb 3rd - 5th).
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This is put together by the Health & Human Capital Management Series and includes partners and sponsors like The Wall Street Journal, Healthways, HMC, Cigna and a cast of others.
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As a kind of prep event, Sprigley will also be keynoting the “Advanced Care Management & Health Prevention Strategies” in Atlanta (Oct 28th - 29th) put on by the same folks and others like Hewitt, Pfizer and The American Journal of Managed Care.
To actually see what we’re talking about, (stuff far, far beyond the early beta at www.Sprigley.com), swing by one of these conferences we’ll be key-noting.
You may want to wear some special hosiery because what we’re going to demo will blow your socks off.
- Killing Us Softly: SXSW 2009
It’s that time of year again boys and girls.
South by Southwest Interactive is picking panels for its 2009 conference.
True to name, SXSW is making the selection process interactive, asking folks to vote and leave comments.
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Click here to vote
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Sprigley’s proposed a panel:
“Killing Us Softly: The Failure of Technology in Health Care
It’s a feature not a bug, health and well-being are social and communal while our technology in this space is sterile and mechanical. How do we bring health technology into our communities?”
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After we spoke at Health 2.0, we stopped by SXSW 2008 and had a blast. Check out our write up of the experience on Read Write Web, a major Web 2.0 blog, where we talked about health and well-being getting hot with consumer technology and design folks and Microsoft and Google making waves.
SXSW 2009 promises to be even more fun. Less about consumer technology companies building the “pipes,” more about how to use them to create a value layer on top that provides a killer consumer experience.
- Sprigley on TV
Local WB television station in Louisville, KY (WBKI-TV), kicked off it’s inaugural “Urban Forum.”
The Louisville African-American Think Tank hosts a series of round table discussions.
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Click here for more pictures
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Their first issue was “Health, Technology & Disparity” and they invited Sprigley, who previously spoke at their Health Summit and is kicking off a project with them at their newly launched Learning & Technology Center.
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Click here for more pictures
-Discussions focused on racial and economic disparity in the delivery and quality of health care - as well as potential solutions including community-based programs and technology using local learning centers and cell phone as access points.
The audience included community leaders, health care folks and policy makers such as Democratic Senatorial Candidate Greg Fischer.
Swing by www.Sprigley.com and check it out.
- New Features and Feel for Sprigley
Howdy folks!
Sprigley has a bunch of new features and a new look:
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New Sprigley Features and Look from Sprigley on Vimeo.
-Click on the picture above for a tour.
First up, you’ll notice that Sprigley has an animated sprite dancing about - after all, shouldn’t accomplishing your own goals for your health and well being be fun and delightful?
Sprigley now asks some tracking questions then gives you a My Day report that shows you how you’re doing, in different categories like exercise, nutrition, sleep, stress, productivity, kindness, etc.
When you click on any of those buttons in My Day, you’ll get personalized resources, picked for you based on how helpful they are for people like you!
My Portfolio has some ways to see how you’re doing at a glance, how you’re doing in various categories that make up your health and well-being, and a way to see your own patterns - for instance, how does your being kind to people affect your stress and nutrition?
There’s a way to send yourself reminders, a way to see community discussions involving people like you and discussions popular with people like you, as well as ways to see how people like you are doing, how they are making decisions and a way to find resources that work best for people just like you - as well as people completely different from you!
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The new look is a work in progress.
Over the next few weeks, you’ll see Sprigley progressively cleaned up, formatted, polished and made all pretty.
You’ll also be seeing new features and functions added all the time.
So swing by www.Sprigley.com and say hi!
- African-American Technology & Health Project
Earlier this year, Sprigley spoke at the Louisville African-American Think Tank’s 2008 Health Summit.
Since then, they have launched a Leaning and Technology Center in Louisville’s West End, the roughest part of the city where they provide free internet access and computer training to community members.
They’ve invited Sprigley to work with them on an African-American Health and Technology project.
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Click here for more pictures from the center
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Community members can now go the the Learning and Technology Center to access Sprigley and learn about their health and well-being and find personalized information. For those who need help, the center has dedicated personnel and is working with nursing students and nurses in the community.
- Meet Spriggan the Sprite
Health care is too intimidating, too unapproachable.
We thought a mascot was in order!
A character that’s cute, clumsy, a little sly and generally approachable:
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Click here for animated video
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His name is Spriggan
(Cornish for a type of sprite or elf).
Does it look like it’s something for kids?
Maybe.
But couldn’t we all use something to make us smile?
And shouldn’t accomplishing your own goals for your health and well-being be delightful?
- Tough Food?
What’s the toughest thing to do: quit smoking, get exercise or eat fruits and veggies?
For cancer survivors, folks who have stared down death and won, there’s nothing tougher than eating right.
Only 1 in 6 cancer survivors are able eat five servings of fruits and veggies according to a new study in May’s Journal of Clinical Oncology.
They had better success rates quitting smoking or exercising regularly than making healthy food choices!
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Surprised? Most people are. So why exactly is it so hard, for any of us, to eat right?
First off, a good number of folks simply can’t cook. One recent study found that over 8 out of 10 adults couldn’t boil an egg – almost equal rates among men and women.
And most of these folks aren’t relying on family members to do the cooking – they’re simply eating out – eating a lot of fast food. Most studies put the average American eating 3-4 meals at a fast food hut every week.
For folks who can cook, it can be tough to figure out what’s healthy and what’s not. Salads can have more fat than deserts – almost every product says low fat or organic and most of them don’t agree.
Even when people are highly motivated to eat better because their life or recovery depends on it, a good number simply have absolutely no clue where to begin.
So what to do?
We need support systems for basic lifestyle changes. We need personalized tools that empower us to make everyday, practical healthy choices that we need and want to make.
Tools that:
1) Recommend personalized recipes for you based on your preferences, the number of folks in your household, how much you want to spend, how tough a dish is to make, and what percentage of the ingredients meet the healthy nutritional standards. Give people something like this that shows them what’s healthy and how to make it – something that saves them time by learning what they like and recommending those things – something that’s fun and lets them explore.
2) Have nutritionists giving tips and basic how to.s – and recommends those links along with the recipes. Connect folks directly with nutritionists allowing them to see someone’s resources – what they’ve been reading, what’s they’ve been making, what they like and what works for them.
Stay tuned…
Photo courtesy of Gak, used under this Creative Commons license
- What Health Care Can Learn about Customer Service from the Airlines
Air travel is serious stuff. There’s nothing frivolous about hurdling through the skies at rocket speeds sitting on huge fuel tanks. Flight attendants issue dire warnings about paying attention and worst-case scenarios
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A couple of companies, noticeably Southwest, take a different tact. They don’t take themselves too seriously and the treat deadly serious subject matter with a light, jovial touch. Check out this post about April Fool’s Day on their blog featuring embedded YouTube videos. Even on the planes, they have fun; their flight attendants banter, tease, and jest.
And, amazingly, people don’t run shrieking from the plane. Instead, they’re tickled. Turns out people like to be treated like they’re human beings, like they’re intelligent enough to distinguish between what’s serious and what’s not and able to lift important information out of its humorous wrapper. Turns out they’re even more receptive to information - because - of a fun delivery.
Sprigley thinks that health care could take a page from this book. We work in health care and we can’t stand reading most of the materials. Want to engage people? Try delighting them. Part of that means writing in a conversational style. Check out www.Sprigley.com for our take on it.
Photo courtesy of M.V. Jantzen, used under this Creative Commons license
- Sprigley at SXSW
Health Care is getting hot with interaction, design & tech crowds.
South by Southwest is perhaps best known for music and film, but there’s no better tech festival than SXSW Interactive.
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Click here for more pictures from SXSW
-After speaking at Health 2.0, Sprigley took a little time to check out cutting edge tech, design & user experience at SXSW 2008.
SXSW sports a different culture than Health 2.0 - less blue blazers, more blue hair. But health care heating up and Microsoft’s session was standing room only.
Health care folks would be wise not to write off these kids clad in black and toting Macs. As they’re coming into the space, they’re making ‘crazy’ demands, like real value for interacting with a product and a great user experience.
For more, check our write up on ReadWriteWeb.
