This week we go “techie” and look at some technology innovations that are signals of big changes in how we will experience health, medical care and conduct our affairs of daily living.  There are 4 quick read articles and one short, excellent video for this week’s conversation.

First up, a small curation of new health innovations from a pill that allows a laser scan from inside your body, to advances in sensor technologies.  By the way, the source, PSFK, is a great resource to stay up to date on lots of great ideas from technology, to branding, to design.  Or, if you prefer your sensors in tattoo form, this solution is for you.  And technologies that started out as gaming interfaces may change how we experience health and treatment.

Secondly, take a look at a technology solution targeting older adults that may make aging in place an easier experience.

But, in the midst of all of this technology, we should be reminded of how important the people are and how crucial empathy is to our health and healing.

Questions to consider:  How can we better link technology solutions to our audiences and in our communities?  How can we use technology to achieve our mission?  What opportunities are there to integrate empathy into the new culture of health?

Please, share your insights and provocations.

Continuing to share some of the pre-thinking our team is doing to lead up to the TEDMED 2013 event.  Here was our week two provocation:

What role does art play in our ability to heal, in our well being, in our quality of life?  Here is an article that discuss the possibilities and an inventive approach to street art and urban planning.  This week’s journey is two-fold. 

• Review link(s) and comment on your own thoughts or experiences.  Does Art Heal?  http://bit.ly/Zo4jTD and Using Art to Heal Troubled Places http://bit.ly/13EmBWm .

• And supplement our resources with other examples of where art, nature, or other “non-clinical” factors are influencing our health.  Feel free to share pieces of art, music, or other artifacts that have meaning to you.

• How might these insights influence our work?

In April, we’re introducing some of our staff to the TEDMED experience LiveStream.  To put us in a new frame of mind for the event, we’ve started a Thinking Journey–a mindful series of experiences designed to provoke new thoughts, new perspectives and new questions.  Since the fun of a journey is all the people you meet along the way, I thought I’d share our activities with a larger audience.  Feel free to join us at any time and share your thoughts.

Week One (March1)–So I’m a bit late in getting to this, but jump on in anyway!

As of today we are just 9 weeks from our TEDMED 2013 event in Palo Alto!  Our friends at Institute for the Future (check out their great work here ) are busy organizing our day in their awesome facilities.  To get ready for some lively discussion and get our minds in gear for the event itself, we’ll be taking “Thinking Journey” over the next 9 weeks.  A “Thinking Journey” is a mindful series of experiences designed to provoke new thoughts, new perspectives and new questions that can improve how we tackle the opportunities we face in fulfilling the mission of the AHA.  And as with most journeys, the trip itself is as important as the destination.

This week, we’ll start with an easy introduction into the TEDMED world.  I ask each of you to take 16 minutes and 18 seconds to watch Dan Buettner in his 2011 talk on “What If It’s The Environment…”.  Click here to launch the video.  Heads up—you’re not going to agree with everything he says, you’re going to have at least a couple of “a ha”s  and you might even think of a new approach to something you’re doing right now.    After you watch the video, give it some thought and share 3 comments back to me (and, if you’re so inclined, back to the group) by March 1, in time for our next segment of the journey.  I’ll be building a “Thought Map” along our journey with your observations, questions and reactions.

Enjoy the experience.  As always if you have any questions, please let me know.

EVOKE

Join in the social innovation game for real world change. Designed by award winning reality gamer Jane McGonigal and announced during her TED2010 lecture, EVOKE let’s you become part of the solution.  Come join me at and we can explore together.

For more on Jane’s work with EVOKE and CryptoZoo take a look here.

via Sreejith K on Flickr

Thanks to a lead from Read, Write, Web another view as to the future of Geolocating.  According to Simple Geo, the start-up is indexing 1 MILLION locations, get this per HOUR.   Just as we’ve taken a peak at Gowalla, Foursquare and My Town (the site to first hit 1 Million users) it will be interesting to follow and perhaps many of you will create just exactly what we do with all of this data.  It does seem a new dimension both in time (real time) and space (location) is emerging.  What do you think it will mean for individuals, social good, business in general?  It will certainly give the term “search” a new meaning.

I look forward to your thoughts.

I proposed last week that we consider the currency of “time” as a medium for improving health.  I’ve been pleased to extend my exploration of that concept and find many further examples of how this idea might play out in our food and activity behaviors. Obviously, Jamie Oliver’s winning the TEDPrize was a wonderful venue to discuss the subject.

Then, in GOOD’s Transparency series, a video on how food consumption patterns have changed with industrialization and potential consequences here:

Now, I’ve gone back to re-read “French Women for All Season” .  While it certainly caters to an upper middle class sensibility, it emphasizes the same issues of good food and taking the time to savor moments.  Thanks also to Frank Spencer, who let me offer a few ideas on Health Transformation in his series at KedgeForward.

WorldChanging also highlights how “Bright Green Cities” might battle childhood obesity and the important interplay of community and financial stability.  (Hat tip to Jody Ranck via FB).

As the search continues, I want to learn about how to use design thinking to make these the default choices rather than a burden, regardless of income levels, gender, race or ethnicity.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts and reflections.

Jamie Oliver wins the TEDPrize 2010 and wishes for a generation of kids who know how to cook and are empowered to eat right.  Join in the wish here. http://bit.ly/bUhlgA

Complex as the entire concept of behavior change from Part 1 is, I want to think about just one aspect for now:  rethinking our ChronoZones.  As long a “fast, quick” are the drivers, we will continue to make our financial, health and environmental decisions accordingly.  We want immediate growth in our  financial portfolio,  a magic bullet for cholesterol and take out food in handy containers.  But another answer may lie at the other end of the continuum—the slowing down side.

Case in point.  I have two sets of friends who have opted to get rid of one car in their two car family; one for financial reasons, one for environmental reasons.  The first adjustment they will tell you about is “time”.  For one friend who must commute from San Mateo County into Alameda, it means carpooling to the BART station, taking the train, and walking to the job site.  That takes almost twice as much time as driving.  For the other friends, they choose where they shop, eat and go for entertainment much more around what is walkable;  but they factor in the extra ½ hour or more on both ends of their outings for the walk time (and now have umbrellas and rain gear).   The “time” factor requires a mental adjustment—no “running to the store”, or “hitting the snooze”.  But the payoffs for them suit a more simplified lifestyle:  less financial pressure,  time to read on the train, the health benefits of walking, the pleasure of savoring moments and their contribution to the environment.

As I explore this idea more fully, I’ll be looking at time as it relates to:

How we eat:

via krash63 on flickr

• Slow Food
• Localvores
• Community
• Home Gardens
• Cooking at Home (actually from today’s Huffington Post)

How we move:

via krash63 on flickr

• Walkability/Bikability
• Mass Transit
• Distance Travel

How does “time” change how we socialize with our family, friends and strangers?  How can we view this idea through the lens of our desires to change our financial, health and environmental present and future vs. social norms that may push against change and how might technology make it better.  Is it scalable, sustainable?

And ultimately, how does the concept of “Patient Capital” play into not only our global philanthropy ideas, but into our lives.

I look forward to learning from your experiences and perspectives and to what we will find, if we take the time to adjust our ChronoZone.

I’m excited to see the topic of geo-locating picking up attention since the first of the year.  With Harvard announcing it’s relationship with Foursquare, the growth of Gowalla and local Twitter trends,  the issue of “Where’s Waldo and What’s He Up To” is going mainstream.  I’m looking forward to WhereCamp 2.0 and Augmented Reality Event on the docket as well.

via simpologist at Flickr

But since that topic is quite well covered these days, I thought I’d take a look at the other end of the “place/time” continuum and consider what I’ve named ChronoZones or our places in time and our time in places.  At one time or another we’ve all felt rushed, that there wasn’t enough time in the day.  However, as I considered how technology enables both the up and downsides of time compression, I wondered:  could technology also enable time decompression, the rethinking of slow to facilitate better choices for our health, our environment and our economic viability?   What if slower is the new “local” and how do they work together for good?

Consider for a moment (or more if time allows) a concept presented a week or so ago at IDEO’s Change+ event in San Francisco.  At a gathering of interested parties in the fields of  environmental sustainability, health viability and economic feasibility, the idea of behavior change was front and center.  But those in the field of behavior change realize that getting and maintaining results has been sporadic at best.  As a construct, IDEO presented what I dubbed the “Perfect Storm of Change”.   Highlighting the convergence of personal experiences in the financial crisis, the health crisis and the environmental crisis, they posit that we are feeling an unprecedented need and perhaps desire, to truly change our behaviors in radical ways to achieve equilibrium.   That change will necessarily require applying design thinking to our environments and experiences to support that change.

Complex as it that entire concept is, I want to explore just one facet of what I see as a fundamental shift required to facilitate success:  rethinking our Chronozones.  As long a “fast, quick” are the drivers, we will continue to make our financial, health and environmental decisions accordingly.  We want immediate growth in our  financial portfolio,  a magic bullet for cholesterol and take out food in handy containers.  But another answer may lie at the other end of the continuum—the slowing down side.

If I ride my bike to work, it takes longer, but I save money, don’t pollute and get healthier.    If I cook at home, it takes longer than the drive-through, but I can support local farmers, cut down on paper waste and eat a better diet.  It’s the economic exchange I make for my time.

In Part 2, we’ll take a look at more specifics.

Very interesting post from CitizenTube (highlighted in last week’s post below) on working through 24 years worth of Drone Video and how the military is using YouTube like tools to keep track of it all.