I attended the Mobile Health 2012 conference (@texting4health and #MH2012) at Stanford, again, this year, 16-17 May 2012. It was the primary health conference that I planned to attend. Another great conference run by BJ Fogg (@bjfogg) et al. I wrote a trip report for last year’s Mobile Health 2011.
Some useful references for this conference:
- Presentation slides
- Videos: 16 May 2012 (Day 1) and 17 May 2012 (Day 2)
- Symplur log of tweets with #MH2012 hashtag from 15 May 2012–15 July 2012.
- Chantal Botana’s (@om_chanti) write-up.
- Martin Adler’s (@MartinAdler) Cliff Notes from Mobile Health 2012.
I had some good conversations with a variety of folk. Talked with Jason Hessing (@jhessing), Charlotte Smith, and Miriam Beecham of Healthwise in Boise, Idaho about their work, especially on the mobile side. Jean Kanerva of Charter Life Sciences invests in medical technology companies. Chantal Botana (@om_chanti) was taking photos with an Olympus film camera, causing a conversation to begin since I was a professional photographer (of performing musicians) in a past life, shooting high-speed film, at concerts and in rock clubs, without a flash. Talked with Hwee Chong (@hweechong) of Premera about their plans for mobile and integration of other tools. Jim Jeffers (@jimjeffers) showed his IdeaBucket iPad app.
With Kirsikka Kaipainen of VTT Technical Research Center of Finland about her research in behaviour change. Lisa Nugent, Creative Director of Johnson & Johnson, was looking for good UX and design folk, as I recall. Nice to see good design folk. Had good conversations with Erin Macartney (@emacartney) of PAMF; later, found overlap in our pasts. Talked with Julia Hu of LARK about an open data API, as I do with all medical device companies.
Some of the items that caught my ear are below:
- BJ Fogg (@bjfogg) introduced the theme of the conference: “Baby Steps for Big Results.”
- Start small and super simple.
- 25 4-hour experiments are greater than one 100-hour experiment.
- “many crummy trials beats deep thinking.” (paraphrased, later in the conference)
- Panel on Baby Steps Done Quickly [video: 1:20:30]
- Robert Scoble (@scobleizer)
- Each photo you take is worth about 15 Facebook likes.
- Placeme—tracking all movement: “beyond freaky.”
- Highlight—showing people within 100 yards.
- Nikhil Arora (@NikhilArora) of Back to the Roots (@BTTRVentures) [presentation]
- Mushroom farms/boxes.
- Diverted 1M pounds of coffee ground waste in 2011. Mentioned to Red Rock Coffee (@redrockcoffee) since it seems to fit with their philosophies.
- Box will have vegetable seeds embedded within. When done growing mushrooms, cut up box and plant.
- Eric Hekler (@ehekler) [presentation]
- Slides from his Designing Health Lab class.
- Rapid Iteration “Agile Science” beta. Values & Principles draft.
- Slides from Society of Behavioral Medicine Conference, April 2012, arguing for Agile Science.
- Let’s Get Hands On [video: 17 minutes]
- Neema Moraveji (@moraveji), Director of Stanford Calming Technology Lab (@calmingtech).
- How does stress impact your users?
- Mantra: Address the stress!
- Create a model of calm.
- Simplicity Changes Behavior [video: 1:25:53]
- BJ on teaching habits/triggers/behavior.
- Bernie Knobbe of Yahoo! Benefits talked about using gamification to increase engagement during benefits enrollment.
- Reman Child of OhLife (@TeamOhLife) (chronicle your life via email) [presentation]
- “Interactive email”
- Michael Wu (@mich8elwu) of Lithium Technologies — gamification [presentation]
- Gus Tai (@gustai) of Trinity Ventures gave a moving talk on grieving. [presentation]
- Instead of asking “when should I stop grieving?” ask yourself “when should I stop loving?“
- Nike Labs donated 40 Nike+ Fuel Bands for research. [video: 12 minutes]
- Contact BJ Fogg to borrow them for research. Linda Fogg Phillips of FamilyHealth360 talked about the Nike+ Fuelband research results.
- Launch and Iterate in Baby Steps [video: 1:12:23]
- Vinay Gidwaney (@vgidwaney) of Daily Feats mentioned various tools for running user experiments and did a live test for UX for stretching.
- Cristina Cordova (@cjc) of Pulse (@pulsepad) talked about using user data to change design. [presentation]
- Rahim Fazal (@rahimthedream) of Involver [presentation]
- What you need to know
- Better on-ramps (build)
- Generate demand by co-creating with customers.
- Land & expand.
- Baby Steps to a Healthy Future [video: 1:09:50]
- BJ on Habit Formation. Focus on tiny habits (e.g., floss one tooth) instead of big habit (over 21 days). Attach new tiny habit to eisting routine/habit.
- Emily Knight & Melanie Stuckey (@mistuckey) of Western University Canada talked about a personalized approach for health behavior.
- David Kirchoff (@dkirchhoff), Weight Watchers CEO gave a great talk.
- How do you do massive population weight change?
- Decision fatigue.
- Biggest mistake: doing something artificial.
- Food diary very helpful—keeps one mindful.
- Health has a huge impact on health??? FIXME: or was it something else?
- The “Why” and “How” of Small Collaborations [video: 1:07:48]
- Leslie Ziegler (@lesliejz) of Rock Health gave a nice presentation about the work they do. Incubator, events, and research.
- Ellen Levy (@EllenLevy) of Silicon Valley Connect
- Tech is changing access in many ways:
- time
- physical
- information
- people
- Mentioned Victorian Internet book
- One rule of collaborations: Wishbone test: Who gets the fat end?
- Julia Hu of LARK (@ourLARK). [presentation]
These were just some of the notes I sketched; I didn’t always take notes. There were other good sessions that can be seen in the presentations and videos (days 1 and 2). If you know of other write-ups or posted presentations, let me know. On to writing up the next trip report (for TypeCon 2012).
—Jeff Kellem (@slantedhall / @composerjk)
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