Atlanta, GA — Let’s kick off this week with a ton of the great finds our contributors have sent in. This week’s picks include original art, incredible new inventions, personal experiences with actue and chronic disease, and, well, a really cool beer vending machine. Here we go:
This image was spotted on Pinterest. It’s part of a collection called the “Little People Project,” started in 2006. The artist, Slinkachu, paints miniature model train set characters to create and photograph street art installations. This one brought to mind the real struggles of living with chronic disease.
GoodChime! Lets Celebrities Challenge YOU
Stacy Richard spotted this clever new social health platform that lets users join 80+ major celebrities and athletes in health challenges. It also synthesizes all your mHealth data (from any platform) into an integrated look at your total health and fitness.
For all you Saved by the Bell fans out there, Mario Lopez is one of the celeb challengers.
2014: Year of the Digitally Native HCP
Alex Brock shared this compelling graphic and the news that in 2014, the number of digitally native HCPs in Europe will outnumber the immigrants. Other regions are close behind. That has big implications for the new normal in information seeking/sharing, content creation, device adoption, social media participation, etc.
Tim Manley is the author and illustrator of Fairy Tales For Twenty-Somethings. He recently told his health story at one of The Moth’s story slam events. When Tim was very young, he faced an incredibly scary diagnosis that included a collapsed lung and likely leukemia. He shares how he remembers it and then what really happened. He says, he had no idea what his mother went through having a child so sick in the hospital and “she was like an umbrella” protecting him from all the scary things that really happened. His story.
Molson’s World-Traveling Beer Fridge Can Be Opened Only With a Canadian Passport
Our friends at Adfreak spotted this clever and community building installation advertisement from Molson. The Canadian beer company placed fully-stocked beer fridges around several European cities. The fridges could be opened only by scanning a Canadian passport. Footage from the sites was then cut into great ads founded in the sense of identify and community that lives in the tagline “I am Canadian.” Full Article.
Magnetic Shirts Offer Independence to People with Disabilities
Another find from Stacy shows just how easy it is to improve everyday experience. “MagnaReady,” a line of dress shirts embedded with magnets so that the wearer doesn’t have to fumble with buttons. CEO Maura Horton is married to former NC State Football Coach Don Horton, who lives with Parkinsons Disease. She says “the inspiration came four years ago when her husband returned from a game feeling embarrassed. The disease had affected his hand movement so much that he had to ask one of his players to button his shirt.” Full article.
See also: Libre’s clothing line with special access points that improves the treatment experience for infusion patients.
In multiple sclerosis – and many other kinds of chronic, life-changing disease – the diagnosis story is part of the identify people carry. It’s the moment their life changed – often for both the worse (the burden of the disease) and the better (the perspective on what matters). We’ve read a ton of them. They help focus us on real life and real experiences. Jodi’s isn’t unique, but it is incredibly well told and reflective of so many of the experiences of others, including that long jouney that comes down to this one moment:
He says, “You have MS.”
John Hofmeister spotted Dove’s latest self esteem video just before it went viral. Dove “created Camera Shy to ask women why they hide from the camera as an adult but loved the camera as a little girl. What happened along the way? We’re inviting women to reflect on the point in their lives when they became their own worst beauty critics and encouraging them to be their own beautiful self.”
The Wearable, Implantable, Personalized Future Of Medicine
Nick Bartlett sent us this trend convergence piece about just what happens when all the aspects of innovative healthcare come together in one super solution.
“The consumerization of IT will drive the final, sweeping change in participatory health care. Smartphone apps that measure lung function by listening to breathing and that assess blood pressure and heart rate via cameras are just the first wave. The emerging Internet of Things–ubiquitous, inexpensive wireless sensors that unobtrusively capture environmental, behavioral and physiological data–will provide lifestyle context that complements on-board medical diagnostics. The Star Trek tricorder is in sight.” Full article.
Good Companies Are Storytellers. Great Companies Are Storydoers
Awesome find from our own Joy Hart: True Story is a new book by Ty Montague about how brands can advance their narrative through action, not communication. Montague looks at companies like Red Bull, TOMS shoes, Warby Parker, and Tory Burch to illustrate how their creation of compelling and useful experiences advance their narrative by lighting up the medium of people. These storydoing companies are the ones people most want to tell all their friends about it. Full article. Book.
AT&T Files Patent for Self-Destructing Email
One of our readers spotted a new answer for how to handle proprietary information sent from the field, a solution that may have been inspired by Mission Impossible.
AT&T filed a patent for an email self-destruct tool that would let senders specify when the message should be permanently deleted (SnapChat for text!) “The e-mail message will be destroyed by the e-mail client application whether or not the message has been read,” AT&T wrote in the patent application. “Alternatively, if the e-mail message specifies that it should be deleted after it has been read, the e-mail client application will destroy the e-mail message once it has been opened and closed by the recipient. All instances of the e-mail message are deleted from the recipient’s computer.” Full article.
How Medtronic Uses iPad Games to Train Surgeons
A great little mini case over at MobiHealthNews shows how one salesforce used scored, simulated surgery tools to increase the number of doctors willing to schedule cases or educational events with the brand. Full story.
