65 Roses - Saving Someone I Love from Cystic Fibrosis

"65 Roses" is what some children with cystic fibrosis (CF) call their disease because the words are much easier for them to pronounce. Mary G. Weiss became a volunteer for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation in 1965 after learning that her three little boys had CF. Her duty was to call every civic club, social and service organization seeking financial support for CF research. Mary's 4-year-old son, Richard, listened closely to his mother as she made each call.
After several calls, Richard came into the room and told his Mom, "I know what you are working for." Mary was dumbstruck because Richard did not know what she was doing, nor did he know that he had cystic fibrosis. With some trepidation, Mary asked, "What am I working for, Richard?" He answered, "You are working for 65 Roses." Mary was speechless.
He could not see the tears running down Mary's cheeks as she stammered, "Yes Richard, I'm working for 65 Roses."
- From "65 Roses"

Once a year, I go online to support a cause that is dear to me. Cystic Fibrosis is a disease that affects relatively few people directly - approximately 30,000 children and adults in the United States have cystic fibrosis. But an additional ten million more—or about one in every 31 Americans—are carriers of the defective CF gene, but do not have the disease.

Someone I love has cystic fibrosis. I'm not going to name him here because he's too young to decide whether or not he wants to be a spokesperson. But I've learned enough about CF to know that we can do something meaningful about it. There is no cure - yet - for cystic fibrosis and the disease generally gets worse over time.

The life expectancy for people with cystic fibrosis has been steadily increasing over the past 40 years. The numbers can easily make you sad - but they can also inspire. This timeline shows how incredible the advancements have been in treating CF ... just imagine what could happen in only a few more years if we were able to focus on it!

GREAT STRIDES is the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's largest and most successful national fundraising event. My parents, brothers, and their families will be participating in the GREAT STRIDES walk at the Batchelor Middle School on May 19, 2012.

Please help us meet our fundraising goal by supporting Team Matthews. Your generous gift will be used efficiently and effectively, as nearly 90 cents of every dollar of revenue raised is available for investment in vital CF programs to support research, care and education.

Making an on-line donation is easy and secure.  Click the "Click to Donate" button on this page to make a donation. Any amount you can donate - even a few dollars - is greatly appreciated!

Research and care supported by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is making a huge difference in improving the quality of life for those with CF. Help is needed now more than ever to ensure that a cure is found. To learn more about CF and the CF Foundation, visit http://www.cff.org.

We believe we can make a difference in the lives of those with CF! Thank you for supporting the mission of the CF Foundation and GREAT STRIDES!

My One Day Email Experiment

Email has vexed me for the last several years.  It has transformed from being a useful communication tool to a corporate crutch - it seems that an ever-growing percentage of my emails are of the cover-my-ass variety.  [If that's unclear, what I mean is this: "Just to be sure nobody can say later that I didn't tell them about something, I'm going to tell everybody about it RIGHT NOW."]

So when I read this article in the Harvard Business Review (Coping with Email Overload by Peter Bregman), I decided to give his experiment a try.  The gist of this experiment is this:

• We allow email to distract us from work we don't want to do (GUILTY)
• We can be MUCH more efficient if we timebox our email.

SO … I am conducting a one-day experiment with my email [I will extend and tweak it as long as it works].  Here's how I'm doing my email:

I'll check it three times during my work day; morning, noon, and last thing before I leave.  More importantly, I will spend exactly 15 minutes in it each time.  No more, no less.  Peter spends 30 minutes at each interval if memory serves; I am going to start with 15 with a recognition that I may need to go up 5, 10 or 15 more minutes to cover my email volume.

Another interesting note here: I'm putting it on my calendar.  At a certain time.  If I "miss my meeting" with email, I miss it.  That's the way it's going to be during this disciplined experiment.  What this also means is that in order to do my last email-check before I leave, I am scheduling the time I leave the office.  That's something I NEVER do, but hey, for a one-day experiment I figure I can give it a shot.

Who wants to try it with me?

Innovating your Business Model - The Business Model Innovation Factory

When I was leaving Humana in 2010, I was lucky enough to have a lot of opportunities to engage the next phase of my career.  And though I didn't really plan it this way, business models wound up playing an important role in my decision.  What's that mean?

I'd spent the last several years working in Humana's innovation center, and focusing all of my efforts on creating new products, services and business models related to health as opposed to health insurance.  I was also seeing, on a daily basis, how social media was beginning to upend traditional business models (music, movies and publishing just to name a few).  And what it clued me into was that we haven't seen the last of business model upheaval.  There are going to be new business models emerging that we'd never imagined (Apple is making phones?) ... and I wanted to work for a company that had the foresight, courage and "organizational agility" to be able to spot and leverage opportunities to innovate their business model.  I definitely wasn't wrong (see WCG's recent announcements for just a tiny taste of what's ahead).

It's not necessarily easy to quantify what qualities, or through what processes, businesses can reinvent themselves.  That's one of the reasons that I think it's really cool that Saul Kaplan of the Business Innovation Factory has published a new book on exactly that.  The Business Model Innovation Factory is a book that helps companies to spot the signs of emerging business threats and opportunities - and more importantly, helps them to think through all of the massive change management that can be required to leverage them.

Saul and his team at the Business Innovation Factory have been thought leaders in this space for years, and have hosted (in my opinion) the best innovation conference in the world (BIF) since 2005.  You can learn more about this year's conference (BIF8) here; and for a little extra "eye candy" you can take a peek at my own BIF presentation from WAY BACK in 2009.



If you're in a business that seems to be surrounded by threats - or opportunities - to upend your business model and start something new, I encourage you to take a look at The Business Model Innovation Factory - I've no doubt that it'll set you on a good path to take advantage of your intuition and insight.

Note: I'm not getting anything in return for writing this piece, nor was I asked to do so ... I just have tremendous respect for Saul and his work - and believe in the value of what he's created here.

Play: For the Health of It. CrumpleItUp Redux

CrumpleItUp Redux is a series of repostings from the lamentably lost CrumpleItUp.com ... the insurance industry's first blog, and one of the first blogs anywhere devoted to health innovation.  For more background, check out Remembering CrumpleItUp.com.

The first post from my friend Paul Puopolo - an unsung revolutionary in the world of Games for Health. Paul is still at it - he's now the VP of Innovation at Highmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield.  This piece was originally published on December 18, 2008.

Play: For the Health of it!

by Paul Puopolo

Having just finished watching my daughter’s basketball practice, we got into the car and headed home. Not too long after we departed the parking lot, we started talking about practice (a typical coaching opportunity) but during our discussion my daughter broke out her Nintendo DS and began playing one of the titles in her “library” while simultaneously responding to my tips on how to best take the ball down the court.  I had to laugh a little. Here was my daughter, having just engaged in 60 minutes of physical activity yet enjoying her video game just as much. Two types of  play but in her eyes it was just fun.

Obesity rates in the U.S. are at an all time high, particularly for kids under 18 years old. No need to quote themhere. Not to get into a socio-economic debate but there are a variety of reasons that contribute to these numbers (Changes in our community and work environments and apparently the popularity of game technology are just a few).

 

An interesting article We’ll Get Fit if It’s Fun, based on a research study in England, states that 9 out of 10 kids want to play video games at the same time they exercise. Why? To reduce the boredom!  Is it odd that kids today find exercise boring? If you ever climbed on a treadmill, rode a stationary bike or slung some dumbbells, this should be no  surprise. When we launched the Horsepower Challenge – a pedometer based online game with 5 schools in Louisville, kids told us a similar story.  You can check it out on Humanagames.com. 

 

Game technology provides us a unique opportunity to motivate all generations to improve their health. But more importantly, to have fun doing so.

 

According to a recent Pew Internet Report over 53% of adults play video games. Are these the gamers like myself who grew up on Atari, with geometric shaped Space Invaders and Pac Man and now have kids who are avid gamers? Probably. But they are also moms who have taken on casual PC games and who Nintendo has captured with the Wii. Even seniors are increasingly getting into the “game”.

Video games provide us the ability to approach health differently. There is no reason that health has to be boring and monotonous. Our job is to focus on what's fun and make it healthy - not the reverse.

 

I don’t think my daughter is going to stop playing video games anytime soon (if her older siblings are any indication). But I don’t think she is going to stop playing hoops either.

To EMR I say TTTTHPBT - CrumpleItUp Redux

CrumpleItUp Redux is a series of repostings from the lamentably lost CrumpleItUp.com ... the insurance industry's first blog, and one of the first blogs anywhere devoted to health innovation.  For more background, check out Remembering CrumpleItUp.com.

This little gem was originally posted by my friend Gill Potter on December 16, 2008.  If I'm not mistaken, it was not only his first blog post on CrumpleItUp; it was his first blog post period.

To EMR I say TTTTHPBT

by Gill Potter

A couple months ago I went to the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco.  While I generally find these sorts of events to be worth only the new technologies you find, I was particularly disappointed by the presentations and the tone of the event.  Generally web 2.0 is acknowledged to be a collection of technologies that turn consumers into producers and connect people for conversation.  The conference was really just a compilation of electronic medical records companies and web enabled medical tracking in some form.
While I suppose electronic medical records will potentially result in some phantom savings, they are hardly anything that should be considered Web 2.0.  So far, my favorite example of Web 2.0 and health is Crossfit, a community of niche fitness aficionados.  This  is a great example of communicating, sharing and pushing each person to newer and higher goals.  Affiliates and members post videos of exercises, of personal records and different methods for laddering to higher results.
Interestingly they have made community a part of their business model.  Not only are there companion sites,againfaster.com is an example, but to be an affiliated gym you need not only certified trainers, but you also need to have a community website.  So, as Crossfit grows, so does their online community.
Take a look.  This is the sort of stuff that is health 2.0, not an EMR.