Pioneering Ideas

RWJF's Wii Workout

Following on Theresa's post...

Though we might not be as edgy as the Game Developers Conference (yet), RWJF is making strides (and swings, punches, serves, strikes and spares).  We thought you might like to check out a few photos from the recent "getting to know Wii" sessions that the Foundation held for staff.  Thanks to all who graciously gave us the OK to share these (and who pull it off with such style in their business-gamer attire).

	Linda and Lois duke it out in the boxing ring.
	Jasmine and James have the crowd on their feet.
	And Wilson shows off his left hook as Jasmine plans her next move.

There's even talk that they may break out the Wii for our trustees to play during their upcoming board meeting.  In a few weeks I'll check in with Kristine Nasto, who oversees our facilities including the fitness center, to see whether and how the games are influencing people's workout preferences.

Gaming a Go-Go at GDC

I was at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco last month.  It’s always a whirlwind experience for a novice gamer like myself, but I loved seeing the new game trends and learning about new advances.  Here’s a snapshot. . .

Mobile games

It’s funny; while technology is driving games to be bigger and more visually encompassing, technology is also allowing for a high fidelity game experience on mobile devices, cell phones in particular.  Nokia sponsored the GDC Mobile conference and talked about transferring console games to cell phone.  Nokia also alluded to their work on developing mobile games that would allow the player to interact with the environment.  Maybe next year Nokia will demo or release those games.
 

At the Microsoft-sponsored keynote, a troupe of Microsoft VIPs and assorted game designers unveiled souped-up new games and some basic, simple games from the Xbox community.  At one point, the Microsoft VP tempted the audience with, “How would you like to take your favorite game with you?  To play your favorite game while listening to best tunes?”  It seemed as if the entire audience leaned forward and a collective thought bubble with “iPod” emerged above our heads.  “That’s right,” Mr. Microsoft VP said, “you can now play Xbox games on your Zune!.”  What’s that?  Short answer, the Microsoft iPod.  But another sign that video games are unplugging from stationary consoles and becoming more personalized to the user.

Let them see you sweat

Gaming is for sure getting more active.  This year’s expo included more demos of wearable sensors to detect movement.  Game designers have been using the wearable sensors to develop more realistic movement on screen, but I predict we’re going to hear more about players who wear the sensors to play.  As players get into the game play, I hope the technology for the sensors is waterproof!  In the example on the left, the reflective sensors play out as screen motion for the soldier.

As this guy picks up his hat, the character on the screen bends over in the same way.

No hands!

A woman at the Holland booth demonstrates a computer-based video game that has a 3D camera which captures your movement to play a game.

I've heard of a few neurofeedback games, where the player controls the game with brain waves. The key technology improvement is around the headgear, I think. My first neurofeedback game required the sensors on the head to be wet, which I thought was a bit uncomfortable.  

This was technically not at GDC, but at the mall across the street there was a pressure-sensitive floor where shoppers could play mini-games with their feet.

It's amazing to see how the technology is developing and how creative game designers can be.  While sometimes I find it daunting to keep up with everything, I love that is part of my job to learn what's new. 

Going to GDC helps, as will going to the Games for Health conference in Baltimore in May.  The organizers are planning a demo hall to bring the latest game ideas to the attendees.  Also in the demo hall, you'll find some of the finalists from the Why Games Matter competition showcasing their game ideas.

Engaging end users

I was a judge in the Grand Prize round for the Ruckus Nation competition.  And I have to say, the selection process they used felt a lot different than the selection process we use.  One of the reasons was that we were looking to select just one winner, instead of a slate of 10-15 as usually happens with RWJF national programs.  This meant that as we ruled some entrants out, the remaining ideas got additional focus.  When we were down to the final two, we had covered a lot of ground and were able to have a conversation that easily moved between granular operational issues, e.g., “Would this thing break if you threw it?,” and values positions, e.g., “This one cuts the link to the screen and gets kids outside.”

But I think the biggest influence was the addition of youth to the judging panel.  Three pretty fearless kids, aged 11-15, poised and articulate, kept us grounded with their frank observations.  It reminded me that keeping end users in mind when designing a program is a good starting point, but that engaging them in more aspects of programming—from planning to selection—can make for a richer, more authentic program.

Ruckus Nation Celebration!

Ruckus Nation announced its grand prize winner today -- congratulations to Stacy Cho, a Seattle middle school teacher, for rising to the top of 429 entries with her "Dancing Craze" game idea and landing the top prize of $50,000! 

“Dancing Craze” is an interactive game with wearable motion sensors that make your virtual character come alive as you show off your real-world dance moves. It lets you pick your music, record your moves and share your virtual dance video online. With “Dancing Craze,” you can also create group dances or test your skills by mimicking videos from other players, and log on to the “Dancing Craze” website to see whose moves are voted number one.

Moments after finding out she won, Stacy said:  "I wake up every day and look for ways to motivate kids. I looked around at the games kids were playing and realized that the piece that was missing was physical activity. My idea is all about movement and music and fun to get kids moving." 

When she learned about Ruckus Nation, she encouraged her students at Island Middle School to enter, and then got inspired to enter herself.  The idea came to her in the middle of the night.  "You always think of the best things when you’re sleeping, right?  Kids are obsessed right now with games, with Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. We even have Rock Band at our house. I just started trying to think of what else I wish they had, and I thought, ‘Why can’t a game respond to my movements or actions?’"

HopeLab founder and board chair Pam Omidyar had this to say about the competition to find ingenious ideas to get kids more physically active -- "We learned from our experience with Re-Mission that if you lead with fun, health will follow...Ruckus Nation continues that tradition. HopeLab’s commitment to quality research and innovation will ensure that the creative thinking put forward in Ruckus Nation is put to great use to help kids.”  Indeed, the next step is for HopeLab to test the winning idea for its viability as a product that could be prototyped and brought to market.

The awards ceremony took place at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, and our own Paul Tarini was on hand to help judge finalist entries and speak at the ceremony.  Congratulations to the winners and to HopeLab -- it was exciting to see the creativity from so many teams around the world.  Ruckus Nation always challenged people to believe that "Your idea could start a movement."  Hopefully, the ideas it generated will help sustain a movement to direct innovation toward helping kids lead healthier lives.

Everything old is new again

I was at a meeting last week, called Caring for Aging Adults: The Future of Geriatric Care. It was hosted by HealthTech, a non-profit group founded by Molly Coye, MD, MPH, that develops technology forecasts, decision-making tools and facilitates a learning network of experts and health system leaders. They do this work for the exclusive benefit of its partner organizations, which include healthcare systems, hospitals, safety-net providers and government agencies.

For this meeting, HealthTech had convened a group of national experts in geriatrics to help them strengthen a scenario they are building about what the five- and 10-year future of geriatric care will look like in this country. The charge to the experts was to question, challenge, accept or reject a set of assertions on the basis of what they think is likely to happen, as opposed to what they think needs to happen. HealthTech had seven broad areas of focus to frame its scenario:

1. Clinical care
2. Care setting and facilities
3. IT & communications
4. Cost & coverage
5. Workforce
6. Patient experience; and
7. Regulations & standards

Given the proprietary nature of meeting, and the fact that I was there by invitation, I can’t get into exquisite details about the specific predictions. However, there were some themes that ran through the discussion that led me to want to pose four questions to our blog readers.

There was a lot of discussion about the role of social support as someone ages and the potential role for virtual social networks with this population. But in a discussion on robotics in care settings that touched briefly on whether you could use robots to regularly turn bed-ridden patients, one expert noted that the richness of human contact and conversation you could have while turning a patient was as important to long-term outcome as the physical turning. That led me to Question 1: Are there some social supports that cannot be delivered sufficiently through virtual networks or technological implements and need to be delivered in person?

Does ZipCar have lessons for health care? Maybe so

A recent article in Business Week spotlights the “Designers Accord,” the centerpiece of a growing grassroots movement to integrate environmental principles and sustainability into the design process. Designers are talking with their clients about using alternative environmentally-friendly materials and thinking of ways to use design to foster more environmentally-friendly behaviors. ZipCar is mentioned as an example. Its goal is to encourage not only the use of greener cars, but to change drivers’ behavior and to promote the sharing of scarce resources.

How does something like the “Designers Accord” translate to the health care sector? Can hospitals and health care systems incorporate environmentally-friendly practices that are sustainable, make good business sense, and improve the health of patients and health care workers?

The Pioneer team recently awarded a grant to Health Care Without Harm (HCWH), an international coalition that is doing just that - working to make the health care sector environmentally sustainable in ways that improve peoples’ health. They want to transform the design, construction and operations of health care facilities to minimize their impact on the environment and foster healthy, healing settings for care.

To date, HCHW has been successful in helping eliminate mercury-based medical equipment in the US and promoting safer waste management practices around the world. HCWH aims to tap the purchasing power of the health care system as a lever to create policies and move market supply and demand toward sustainable food production, waste reduction, and safer products, materials and chemicals for use in the health care setting.

The Pioneer grant to HCWH will support a collaborative of 25 hospitals and health care systems that will research and adopt environmentally sound practices that promote the health and safety of patients and workers. The collaborative will consider opportunities where policy or code changes might have widespread impact and their findings will be shared through a series of best practices and case studies. Pioneer is particularly interested in the benefits to human health. Hospitals on the forefront of this issue have taken measures to install green flooring systems that have resulted in fewer falls and accidents among patients and staff, and other hospitals are exploring new options in ventilation systems that use energy more efficiently and might prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Just as the “Designers Accord” fosters a bottom-up approach, there is an emerging network of hospitals and health systems around the country that are already thinking about the question of sustainability. And as demand for sustainable practices and products increases, the work of these hospitals and the work of HCWH will lead the field.

Keep watching the blog for further updates about Health Care Without Harm and the work of the design collaborative.

Who'll Make the Biggest Ruckus? Stay Tuned.

Ruckus Nation, the international online idea competition we sponsored with HopeLab to get kids moving, announced its semifinalists today.  Of the 429 entries from 37 countries, 56 teams won $250 semifinalist prizes.  Check out some of the ideas behind "Artillery Dodgeball," "Txt It!," "The Poof Suit," "Pulse Force," "QuikChange Inline," "Snag Tag" and all the other winning concepts on the Ruckus Nation site. 

This is all leading up to next Monday's announcement of the 10 finalists across the competition's four age categories (middle school kids, high school, college/university, and all others) and the grand prize winner.  Finalist teams will receive $25,000 and the grand prize-winning team will receive $75,000 for coming up with the most innovative product idea that will inject a healthy and cool dose of physical activity in to kids' lives.

Paul Tarini will be at the grand prize event at the de Young Museum in SF's Golden Gate Park on Monday, and we'll post the final competition results as soon as we learn them.  In the meantime, congrats to the  semifinalists!

Sports4Kids -- Winning Through Play

We've written a lot about competitions that RWJF has sponsored with Ashoka's Changemakers, but here's a great piece of news coming out of a  competition that was not tied to us.  Yesterday, Sports4Kids, a Bay Area-based program supported by RWJF's Vulnerable Populations Portfolio, was voted by the Changemakers online community to be one of  three winners in the "Sports for a Better World" competition, sponsored by Nike. 

I've lucked out by getting to work with Sports4Kids in the past, and their model is revolutionizing recess and reintroducing play in to the lives of low-income kids.  Founder and Ashoka Fellow Jill Vialet is a dynamic force in bringing the power of play to change kids' lives, improve school environments, and build family and community engagement.  Check out the video to get a sense of the program's impact and why it's exciting to see this program gain wider recognition. 

Congrats to Sports4Kids, and to Changemakers for another successful competition that has elevated the efforts of leading social entrepreneurs throughout the world.

Wii are excited...

Every Tuesday morning, RWJF program staff gather for a meeting to review proposed grants, policies and other foundation matters.  There's usually a few minutes at the start when announcements, staff birthdays, etc. flash on the screen at the front of the room.  Today we found out that RWJF's fitness center is adding the Nintendo Wii to the array of fitness services that are available to staff and guests. 

I was surprised at first that they made the move, but think it's great that the facility is so forward-thinking in its approach to fitness.  It may be the trick to get me in there one more day a week, which I've been pledging to do for ages now, but with no real conviction. 

I'll try to follow up with our fitness center staff to see whether and how staff incorporate the Wii in to their workouts, and report back to the blog.  In the meantime, have you heard of other workplaces that are trying this out?