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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

An App that is Changing Behavior for Safe Sex


The Sex Profile from ESTER on Vimeo.

Amazing Idea........how can we change similar behaviors towards Smoking, Drinking, Wearing seatbelts, Using low beam at night.


Neeraj 

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

I love thissssssssss



Love this talk.
I guess we should do more stuff similar projects here. Make people around you loosen up, laugh at themselves, meet each other, participate, have fun.
Being weird is good.  Is that spelling correct?


Neeraj 

Monday, October 17, 2011

Observing Spaces


We all shift from one space to the other during the entire day. By space i mean My room, My Bathroom, My breakfast table, My car, My office, My cabin, In the Atm, At the shop, In the elevator, At restaurant, At Canteen, In the bus, My Bedroom, At the Cafeteria, My study room,.........etc. 
In each of these spaces we perform various tasks, interact with with various things, 
...........how we interact changes, our behavior changes,  expectation changes, goals & needs changes.


Good starting point to understand what all spaces people shift during their day. What activities they perform, goals & what all interactions takes place.  
For eg: Commuting daily to office in a driver driven car for 40-60 mins.......what interactions takes place there, what are the needs, goals. 





Saturday, August 27, 2011

By the People




Policies of the people, for the people & BY the people. 
In a remarkable victory of Anna Hazare & millions of us there is one point which come across. 
Its the participation of people in forming policies.........totally reversing the entire model. 


May be in the future consumers will tell companies what to make instead of viceversa.
How would that happen? What Business model we will have? 


Just some thoughts


Neeraj   
Image source - msnbc.msn.com http://tinyurl.com/3gzenk5

Monday, August 8, 2011

Searching for Meaning



Why is that people who stay & serve at a Holy place like Golden Temple have found a meaning to what they are doing............found a couple of them with interesting stories on a recent visit to Golden Temple.  
Met this guy over there.........a B.Tech who worked at a Top Indian IT firm...........left it & now stays over there...........said over here i have found meaning & peace. 
I sometime wonder


How can Education & Work Environment provide Meaning to people?  


Neeraj 





Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Upcoming Documentary on Design Thinking

Hey everybody
check out the trailer of Design & Thinking .....an upcoming documentary on Design Thinking.
Its still in the making & the unit is looking for donations to complete this project. Help them if you can..........http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1472557232/design-and-thinking-a-documentary


here's the trailer




Neeraj

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Standup comedians

Hey Everybody
Just rewatched Jaspal Bhatti's Flop Show (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flop_Show) ..........was watching Russel Peters the other day..........wow........comedians are amazing observers.....their great talent lies in picking up great insights of the society they are part of. Look at Russel Peters ..........how he picks up insights of different culture........after watching his show u think like wow man....we are like that.......
Too much to learn from these guys.........need to spend more time understanding how they notice behavior & pick up insights.
Was also wondering how can Comedy as a tool be used in organisations............ How can HR people in organisations use comedy to create an environment within organisation wherein an employee is Destressed, Feels Connected to each other & is more imaginative (enhanced creativity).


Too much to learn from these guys.







Tc
Neeraj

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Mhealth - Role & Opportunities in India

Hi everybody
So here are some questions


- How can we extend the reach of our basic healthcare facilities? – Considering India has less than 7lakh functional hospital beds of which more than 40% are located in top 20 cities & we have less than 6.5 lakh qualified doctors.


- How can we detect & control the availability of adulterated medicines? - Considering we have high incidence of adulterated & expired medicines in the market estimated approx 20%


- How can people be empowered with information to stay healthy? – Considering a rise in Lifestyle diseases in urban cities (diabetes, depression, etc)


- Can being healthy be made sexy, aspirational & be incentivized?


- How to change behavior of people to be more health conscious? & above all
What role Mobile devices play in addressing all of the above


Barcamp is always a great place to gather & discuss ideas. Recently me & my friend Bhavya (check her blog - http://bhavyavoice.blogspot.com/) presented about Mhealth at Barcamp Bangalore.


We spoke on Mhealth - Role, Challenges & Opportunities in India


A lot is being said about Mhealth. It is being described as the next big thing after Mobile entertainment & Mobile Finance. So what exactly is Mhealth. Well, according to UN foundation Mhealth stands for Provision of health related services via mobile communications.
A lot is being done in the field of medicine.


Check out Daniel Kraft TEDx talk about upcoming Innovations in the field of healthcare. Includes lot of examples on how Mobile Devices are also being used.





As we searched around, we found a plethora of applications on the app store. However as we prepared our talk ....focused on Indian context, some questions remained –


Do Mobile Devices have a significant role to play in India & more importantly what role considering low awareness & attention being paid to health. Also low use of smartphones if we take the entire 750 million phones or so. Majority of people still have the basic mobile phones……so apps are out of question.


Some what are the possible roles that mobile devices can play in India in health domain:
Mobile devices can play the following roles in Indian context.




Extend reach - Considering India has less than 7 lakh functional hospital beds of which more than 40% are located in top 20 cities & we have less than 6.5 lakh qualified doctors, mobile devices can be used extend reach of basic health related information.
Mobile devices can play two important roles to address a issue like this. First how to enable people to prevent diseases instead of fighting diseases. If people are able to prevent diseases then the burden of patients on the health infrastructure will be a lot lesser. Can SMS be a method .Can the devices be used to make people aware on how to stay healthy.
The second role could be to extend the reach of already available healthcare professionals & facilities. ……Imagine the role that mobile devices can play in helping Asha & Anganwadi workers to update their skills regularly & learn about how to treat… Can there be possibility to empower people in villages to have the knowledge of a doctor in the city …Can upcoming technologies like 3D be used to help in simulating the treatment process.
Can there be a new business opportunity for Mobile Service Networks to link a doctor & patient who are at different places.


Check & Control - How can every person purchasing a medicine know that he his not purchasing an adulterated medicine. What role mobile devices can play to address these issues. What kind of services are we talking about. Which technology can be used.


Detection – Can we detect epidemics early & restrict their spread. How can mobile devices play a role here.


Change Behavior – How to change behavior of people to being aware & knowledgeable about being healthy. Can being healthy be made inspirational & incentivized. Can people share how healthy they are. How to empower people with the knowledge of what is good health. Can metrics be made available for them to keep a track of how they are doing. Can we take some inspirations from gamefication trend & incentivize people.


I think although mobile devices can play a very important role, still I think we will face some issues like Authenticity of information being provided (Can we trust the information), Accountability on the information being shared (Who will be accountable – will mobile service providers be accountable for information they provide) & Affordability. Going ahead this area promises to offer a huge market & a lot of Business opportunities. However there has be a collaboration between Hospitals (for Authentic Information), Service Providers (for building the platform) & Government (for making it affordable).


I guess there is enough reasons to believe that Mobile devices can play an important role in addressing healthcare issues.


Check out the recent Coca Cola commercial reasons to believe – pretty cool







Tc
Neeraj


Statistics Sources – Business Standard - http://tinyurl.com/62jf52d
PWC - http://tinyurl.com/62klff3
mHealth for Development, UN Foundation - http://tinyurl.com/aptf7m
Coca Cola ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vKDOWAf5M8



Monday, April 4, 2011

Future of Design & Design thinking



Hey everybody
chk out this video of Tim Brown discussing Future of design & design thinking with Bruce Nussbaum. Interesting points there (particularly from 42 min).

Neeraj
video source : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D18Jyl-aWIY