We have been talking up how to create economic development opportunities in Sarasota through mobile health C&D (connect and develop) activities that emerge from partnerships with companies in this space and local assets to create a laboratory and model for a mobile (or wireless) health community. So we are very interested in what the Big Apple is doing with their Roadmap for a Digital City.  Already the New York City government engages over 25 million people a year through more than 200 digital channels including nyc.gov, mobile applications and social media. Over 4,000 points of enagagement in their mapping exercise found among public interests were calls for expanded Internet access, a refreshed nyc.gov interface, real-time information and more digital 311 tools. Businesses and technologists sought greater broadband connectivity, a deeper engineering employment pool and read/write API access to City information. And City employees proposed ideas for next generation strategy, new coordination tools and shared resources to enhance digital communications efforts.

Some of the concreate next steps outlined in their road map include:

• Connecting high needs individuals to the internet
  
• Increasing broadband internet options and adoption
  
• Wi-fi in more public spaces
  
• Develop nyc Platform, an Open Government framework featuring APIs for City data.
• Launch a central hub for engaging and cultivating feedback from the developer community
• Introduce visualization tools that make data more accessible to the public
• Expand 311 Online through smartphone apps, Twitter and live chat
• Launch a Foursquare badge that encourages use of New York City’s free public places
• Integrate crowdsourcing tools for emergency situations
• IIntroduce digital Citizen Toolkits for engaging with New York City government online
• Introduce smart, a team of the City’s social media leaders

Many of these are directions Sarasota County could take if we uncover what the 'wish lists' for various groups are here. We also believe that with our demographic assets we could also take a leadership role in showing how communities become digital health communities too.

1. What if we lived in a county where anyone of any age could have access to apps, places, services and products to be physically active and make better food choices at home, shopping and dining out?
   
2. What if our family and health care providers could have access to our up-to-date medical records from whwere ever they are – provided we gave them permission of course? 
   
3. What if people could live longer in their homes because the technology was in place to monitor their needs and safety and connect them to caregivers, loved ones and their passions?
   

There are many what-ifs...we encourage more people to be asking "Why not?"

Contact us with your ideas and interests.

Craig just got back from the Mobile Health 2011 Conference at Stanford University where he was a member of the content team that developed the conference program and a chair for one of its opening sessions.

In the lead-off to his panel, Craig talked about the theory that underlies what we know works in mobile. The answer is 'contiguity.' Beginning with Aristotle, and tracing through learning theorists including Pavlov, Guthrie and Skinner, the idea that things that are in close relationship or proximity to each other are most likely to be associated with each other and affect learning is a foundational premise for mobile health. We talk about ubiquity and the 24/7 nature of mobile devices, but the secret sauce is when it provides a platform for introducing contiguity in new ways, whether it be by:

    •    spanning geographic boundaries by connecting people who ordinarily might not be near each other,
    •    bending time by making events more contemporaneous or asynchronous as needed,
    •    bringing new perspectives to situations as we are seeing with augmented reality applications or introducing highly localized ones,
    •    satisfying immediate needs for information through enhanced mobile search products and web experiences (as Bill Gates has said: Search is a verb),
    •    allowing people to seek ways of motivating themselves through digital record-keeping and other applications using self-change principles as well as increasing access to social support networks,
    •    developing co-presence among people whether it is through mobile social networks, digital coaches or connecting in real time with other agents, and
    •    increasing timely access to information not just through apps, but through better design of information that can be easily accessed and understood through the mobile web.

The research base for what works in mobile health is still in its early phases and there is a need to have some foundational principles for applying mobile technologies to health issues. Contiguity is one of those central ideas and can drive many types of innovation with a high degree of confidence.

For more about the conference, see a more complete report at On Social Marketing and Social Change, and also:

Kevin Clauson - Mobile Health 2011: A Look Back at What Really Worked
Katie Malbon - Lessons, home runs and more from Mobile Health 2011 (Stanford)

Stay tuned for more from socialShift about mobile health. And feel free to contact us with questions and comments.

Craig was recently interviewed for two podcasts by The Path of the Blue Eye Project. The project is a set of online and offline initiatives designed to foster more knowledge sharing and collaboration among colleagues in the health marketing industry.

This 'provative and intriguing' series of interviews starts with the topic of Why Social Media Myths Abound in Public Health Communications (and many other types of marketing communications programs as well).  It probes more deeply into his recent post 5 Fictions about Social Media for Public Health and Healthcare.

The second podcast in the series concludes the look at '5 Fictions' and then shifts to how we bring social marketing into the 21st century, using another of his posts, 10 What-Ifs for Social Marketing as a starting point.

It's an insightful look at the strategic thinking that goes into fitting social media and social marketing into relevant programs that facilitate social shifts. We hope you enjoy them and let us know what you think!

The first installment of what is described as an "intriguing and provocative interview series with one of the world's most respected social marketing experts" (that's Craig), is featured at fyi:health marcomms at the Path of the Blue Eye Project. The first 10 minute podcast is devoted to an in-depth discussion of his recent post, 5 Fictions About Social Media for Public Health and Healthcare. He talks about the pervasiveness of the 'reach and engage' strategy rather than an 'attract and join' one that leverages the power of social media; old models of targeting and directive behavior change (or persuasion) that don't fit with the nature of the social media space; the fears that interfere with 'best use' of social media; the current state of the science for effectively using social media in public health and healthcare (and how the lack of an empirical base allows for the spread of even more myths); and what are alternative outcomes to behavior change that we should focus on in our work using social media.

Let us know what you think!

Every organization, product and service has a brand - whether is has been deliberately crafted or simply happened while you were busy doing other things. There has been plenty of interest in how corporations, nonprofit organizations and government agencies can use social media to revive and realign their brands among existing or new priority groups. In designing brands with social media, IDEO offers case studies from Ford, CBS, Pepsi, Best Buy and Proctor & Gamble. Their takeaways include:

1. Go where the people are - don't try and attract them to you.
2. Have a legitimate purpose - don't just feign interest.
3. Be real - it is a 2-way conversation.

These recommendations fit nicely with resolving some of the problems we have been seeing when organizations act on the fallacies of social media marketing.
 
1. The social media space is an 'atract and join' one, not just a new channel for 1-way communication.
2. People predominantly use these new media for social purposes, so identify and join with their passions.
3. People who use social media are not a homogeneous group - segmentation is still part of the process.
4. Social media is more about building communities than talking with individuals.
5. There is more to social media than a presence on Facebook and Twitter.

Many organizations become obsessed with the latest and greatest social technologies, new techniques such as transmedia storytelling, and other communication tactics without understanding that rhetoric and persuasion for improving health behaviors will lead to, at best, about a 5% change in behavior.

What else should you do? Well, we at socialShift suggest adding design and marketing to your toolkit.

Need a nudge? Read about the evidence on how adding a product to your health communication campaign can improve rates for adopting health behaviors from Craig at On Social Marketing and Social Change.

Craig recently conducted workshops on the use of stories to help community-based, grant-funded programs who are in search of becoming self-sustaining. Some of the elements he helped participants focus on in developing their own stories involved answering these questions:

    •    What is the favorite part of your program, or the most important, that if nothing else you would want to see institutionalized or sustained in the community?
    •    If this were a person, how would you describe him/her?
    •    Who else might be attracted to this person - and why?
    •    Would s/he make a good partner for life? Why and why not?
    •    What would this person do or say that would have other people fall in love with them?

You can read more about the workshop at On Social Marketing and Social Change.

Wirearchy takes a look at Alvin Toffler's PowerShift - Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century. Naturally, since we like 'shift' here, we had to take a look at the 25 core assumptions extracted from the book. Here are a few of our favorites:

1. Power is inherent in all social systems and in all human relationships.  It is not a thing but an aspect of any and all relationships among people. Hence it is inescapable and neutral, intrinsically neither good nor bad.

2. The 'power system' includes everyone - no one is free of it.  But one person's power loss is not always another's gain.

3. Because human relationships are constantly changing, power relationships are also in constant process.

4. Because people have needs and desires, those who can fulfill them hold potential power. Social power is exercised by supplying or withholding the desired or needed items and experiences.

5. Conflict is an inescapable social fact.

6. Power struggles are not necessarily bad.

7. When power systems are far-from-equilibrial, sudden, seemingly bizarre shifts may occur. This is because when a system or subsystem is highly unstable, nonlinear effects multiply. Big power inputs may yield small results. Small events can trigger the downfall of a regime. A slice of burnt toast can lead to a divorce.

8. Perfect equality implies changelessness, and is not only impossible but undesirable. In a world in which millions starve, the idea of stopping change is not only futile but immoral. The existence of some degree of inequality is not, therefore, inherently immoral; what is immoral is a system that freezes the maldistribution of those resources that give power. It is doubly immoral when that maldistribution is based on race, gender or other inborn traits.

Power is one of those words and concepts that many people shy away from; ignoring the reality does no one any good. Rather, it is understanding the nature of power, its inequalities and how new technologies are enabling people to address them that becomes the fulcrum for shift.

Just look at what is happening in the Middle East as social media in political and community reforms were recently discussed at the Dubai School of Government. And one of our other favorite books on the subject of 'power' is The Power Tactics of Jesus Christ by Jay Haley. Don't let the title mislead you. The lead essay is an analysis of Jesus as an organizer and leader: someone who certainly shifted the world.

Regulation of medical devices that "consist of a phone carried around by tens of millions of Americans and software that could have been written in a weekend" needs to be carefully approached writes Steve Downs of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He focuses on the evolving regulatory environment for health and medical app developers and how it will accelerate or throttle the use of personal health records (PHRs) and the ability of people to become more fully engaged in their health care..

Drawing from research supported by the Foundation, he lays out 3 key themes to help guide policymaking: separate the apps from the data, expand the definition of health information, and recognize the increasingly social nature of health care.

Read more….

Jasen Petersen writes about key indicators that it may be time to change the culture of your organization:

1. The results you need to achieve will be significantly more difficult to accomplish than past results.

2. The results you need to achieve will require a significant change in direction for the organization strategically.

3. The results you need to achieve will require a significant re-deployment or new deployment of people and/or resources.

4. The results you need to achieve will require significant changes in processes, systems, skills and/or structure.

We have found though, that organizations are not what changes - but the people in them. And the costs of fear may be your most significant hurdle.