Your brain on Re-Mission

March 14, 2012

When I joined HopeLab in 2005 the notion that gaming might actually be good for you was a radical idea.  Indeed, many viewed games with downright suspicion.  Today, games are everywhere, and a growing body of data and popular commentary are making the case that games have real power to improve lives in many ways.  Our own study of the positive effects of Re-Mission on health behaviors among young people with cancer provided scientific evidence for the potential for games to positively impact behavior and improve health.

But until recently, we haven’t understood exactly how game-based tools can achieve this.  What are the “active ingredients” in games that can be intentionally designed to elicit specific behaviors?  Over the past several years, HopeLab has been doing some deeper research to tackle this question.

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Tags:	behavior change, Ellen LaPointe, fMRI, game play, Re-Mission, Research, Stanford, video
Posted In:	Cancer, Notable News, Research, Social Impact, video

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A Playful Start to 2012

January 18, 2012

Did you ever fly a kite in bed?

Did you ever walk with ten cats on your head?

Did you ever milk this kind of cow?

Well, we can do it. We know how.

If you never did, you should.

These things are fun and fun is good.

- Dr. Seuss, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Dr. Seuss is a marvelous example of great impact through fun and experimentation. Using the power of storytelling, Seuss tackled both collective global challenges, from environmental destruction to genocide, and profound personal moments, like learning to read, experiencing resilience and practicing integrity.

At HopeLab, courageous experimentation and joy are in our DNA.  We believe in the power of play and science with heart. In fact, the introduction to our 2012 strategic plan we presented to our board was a riff on Horton Hears a Who, entitled HopeLab Hears a Hey. Delightful AND informative!

The images in this post are from our first staff meeting of the year, where our team gathered to share and discuss priorities for our work in 2012.

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Tags:	culture, Inspiration, photos
Posted In:	HL Culture, Photos, Social Impact, Values

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Zamzee’s First Day at School

October 5, 2011

Zamzee went back to school in September, unrolling their first school pilot program to over 600 students at Cupertino’s Kennedy Middle School (above). We left our lunchboxes and pencils, but we brought something better: the opportunity for 200 6th, 7th and 8th graders to get a Zamzee for themselves, plus the element of free invites for friends that we hoped would help Zamzee “go viral”.

Zamzee is a platform for fun that’s powered by young people’s movement. Wear the nifty 3-axis accelerometer to record how much you’re moving around, and upload your Pointz to the computer to track your progress, compete with friends, and complete challenges. Zamzee was researched and developed by HopeLab, then spun-off and run as an independent social enterprise at zamzee.com.

But do middle schoolers actually want it? After preparing a slideshow to introduce Zamzee to the students, and a competitive “move-off” to show them how it’s done, we were still not sure whether Zamzee would fly in a school gymnasium.

But these remarkable middle schoolers did not disappoint: they eagerly volunteered for the move-off—dancing, running, and even doing flips to see who could earn the most Activity Pointz. They listened avidly and asked specific questions (“Is it waterproof?” “Does it have a warranty?” “Will it work for spinning on ice skates?”). They even jumped out of their seats, making us feel like rock stars being surged by a crowd. In short, Zamzee soared.

In the two weeks since then, our 200 Kennedy Middle School users have put in over 27,000 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity, racked up over 161,000 Activity Pointz and inviting 247 of their friends to join them. In fact, we’re so impressed that we plan on taking Zamzee on the road to more schools soon. We hope Zamzee continues to get straight A’s from the users who matter: real live young people!

To find out more about Zamzee, check out our About page or visit zamzee.com.

Rose Garrett is content manager at Zamzee. She’s the one that writes the words that make using Zamzee fun and easy. She also makes sure that lots of good stuff is happening on zamzee.com. Rose has worked as a writer and editor in news, education and social enterprise. She’s super good at ping-pong.

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Posted In:	Zamzee

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Photo of the Month | SEPTEMBER | Behind-the-scenes of Team Zamzee

September 30, 2011

I had the immense privilege of shooting Zamzee Co’s team photo in September. Of the one photo that was selected of each person, there were plenty that had to be passed over and I just couldn’t let them collect dust in my photo archive. The photos are here, but I’ll be sharing about the process and some things I learned about creativity, vision, and execution in a follow-up post. In the meanwhile, click “Read More” to enjoy the behind-the-scenes photos of this wacky group of hard-working, talented, passionate people!

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Tags:	photo of the month, photos, Zamzee
Posted In:	Photos, Zamzee

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Burning Man = 3,177 Zamz

September 26, 2011

I recently returned from the Burning Man Festival, a huge arts and cultural gathering that takes place each year in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. While there I made an effort to carry my Zamzee with me, both to see how it survived the notoriously difficult conditions (dust storms, 100 degree days, rowdy mock protest marches) and to take a record of how much I moved.

For those of you unfamiliar with Zamzee, it’s a new product researched and developed by HopeLab that will be launching publicly in the fourth quarter of this year. Zamzee is now run as an independent social enterprise, partnering with HopeLab in ongoing research. The  Zamzee meter, a three-axis accelerometer,  records your movement, which powers your online account at zamzee.com.

The activity graph above is from the research version of the Zamzee site, where activity points are referred to as “Zamz.” The graph is a record of my movement from Tuesday August 30  to Monday September 5, which was our pack-down day, and though a lot of work, I wasn’t wearing my Zamzee unfortunately. But you can see how much I got around in the second half of the festival.  On Sunday morning I rode the nearly 10 miles to the far northern reaches of the festival site, and throughout the week I was regularly criss-crossing the desert in search of art and fun and friends.

To my chagrin the double-points day, which happen randomly, fell on my least active day of the festival, Wednesday, when I focused on rest and relaxation. No matter – Zamzee survived the conditions brilliantly and has given me a fantastic snap-shot of my unusually active week.

The commercial version of Zamzee, which is designed specifically for young teens, will be available in the coming months – you can sign up for email alerts at www.zamzee.com to be one of the first to know.

My Zamzee.com Avatar with dog (not allowed at Burning Man).

Tags:	Burning Man, Zams
Posted In:	Zamzee

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A Few Fun Things

September 21, 2011

There’s a lot going on at HopeLab at the moment as we approach the public launch of Zamzee, work on some exciting upcoming developments for Re-Mission and continue to explore all aspects of joy through the JOY Campaign.

Here’s a peek at a few fun things you may have missed and a couple of opportunities to support HopeLab:

Vote for Our Panel Submissions for NTC 2012

HopeLab submitted two panel concepts to the Nonprofit Technology Conference 2012. Want to see us there? Then we could use your vote! Here’s what we proposed to organizers:

Positively Inspired Change Campaigns

A proposed joint presentation by HopeLab Manager of Emerging Media Tom Dawkins and Epic Change founder/CEO Stacey Monk.

“Social change agents often use guilt, fear, pity, or outrage to rally an audience around a cause. But does tapping into negative emotions with the hope of creating positive change make sense?”

Read the full description and vote here.

Stealth Health: Scaling Gamified Systems for Good

A presentation by HopeLab VP of Communications and Marketing Richard Tate.

“Academics, nonprofits and independent developers have spent years and millions proving the potential for games to engage consumers in their own healthcare. Still, few titles have reached the kind of scale that can move the needle on the world’s most challenging – and costly – health problems.”

Read the full description and vote here.

To vote for either panel look for the “Vote this Session Up or Down” box alongside the “Takeaways” and click the up arrow.

Support HopeLab and Help Little Rue do a Little Good

Here’s another opportunity to show some love. Rue La La is a members-only shopping destination focused on top fashion brands. Not an obvious fit with our work at HopeLab, but the folks at Rue approached us about a campaign that tapped into the power and appeal of shopping to do some good. During the month of September Rue La La are giving 100% of profits from Little Rue, their new children’s site, to four children’s charities. We are grateful that they selected HopeLab as one of these charities, alongside three other wonderful organizations: First Book, Room to Read and the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

The proportion of funds each organization receives depends on how many votes it receives during the month. You can vote once each day here.

Click through to see more news and photos!

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Tags:	Epic Change, Little Rue, Nonprofit Technology Conference, NTC2012, photos, Richard Tate, Rue La La, Stacey Monk, Tom Dawkins, voting, Wisdom2.0 Youth
Posted In:	Notable News

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Wisdom2.0 Youth is this Weekend

September 14, 2011

We here at HopeLab are excited for the Wisdom2.0 Youth Conference taking place this weekend. The conference, an offshoot of the Wisdom2.0 conference also convened by Soren Gordhamer, asks the question “How do we support the ‘inner technologies’ of mindfulness and wisdom in young people amidst an increasingly technology-rich age?”

HopeLab and our sister company Zamzee will have a strong presence at the event. Our CEO Pat Christen is speaking alongside representatives from Twitter, Google and Zynga on the topic of “Mindful Parenting in the Technology Age: Lessons and Challenges” from 11.15-12 and at 5pm Zamzee CEO Jonathan Attwood is introducing  Zamzee (and doing giveaways!).

Other scheduled speakers include Meng Tan (Jolly Good Fellow, Google); Daniel Siegel (Co-Director, Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA); Susan Kaiser Greenland (Author, The Mindful Child); Eric Schiermeyer (Co-founder of Zynga, creator of CityVille and FarmVille); Michelle Gale (Learning and Development, Twitter) and; Jennifer Aaker (co-Author, The Dragonfly Effect). As a lead-in to Jennifer’s presentation, which she will make with her son Cooper, be sure to check out her post on the JOY Campaign Blog.

Can’t make it to the event? Never fear, you can still join in via the live stream – check www.wisdom2youth.com for details.

If you are in attendance please say hello to any of the HopeLabers in attendance and be sure to visit the JOY Campaign photo booth during the lunch break – we’d love to share a moment of joy with you!

Tags:	Wisdom2.0, Wisdom2.0 Youth
Posted In:	Conferences & Events

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Level Up! Flash Umbrellas Are the Future

September 7, 2011

I spend a LOT of my time engrossed in games. They cater to my innate desire to have unimaginable power, to save the world, to fly – that sort of thing. Occasionally it’s nice to save the world with, say, an umbrella instead of a sword. Or to take it one step further and take over the world, then force everyone to carry my chosen brand of umbrellas. Or to fly. The point is, it’s exciting to find something unexpected and refreshing in a game.

The growing indie games space, and the Flash games market in particular, are making my future umbrella world possible. There are a lot of cool things happening in the field that are unexpected and sometimes completely awesome. Thanks to Flash and a lot of hungry developers (literally and figuratively; a career in games doesn’t always equal big paychecks), we’re seeing more small teams coming up with really fun, random, and interesting stuff.

What does that look like? Well it might be:

-        A game where you have to scare people out of a house by possessing a moose head. And other things.  (Haunt the House)

-        Or how about adventuring as a laser-shooting elephant on a quest to retrieve your bowler hat (Elephant Quest)

-        Not your thing? Maybe you’d prefer to be a bison escaping from a kingdom of evil gummi bears (Burrito Bison)

These games show you don’t need a huge budget to make a game that people will love, and players don’t need hundreds of dollars to enjoy them. The space – and technology – are opening up to provide opportunities to anyone with a good idea, some programming knowledge, and time.

This is great news for HopeLab because it allows us to look at games for health through a whole new lens. Online Flash games may be a way to develop, test, and distribute small, impactful play-based experiences specifically targeted at health issues facing young people. It also allows us to stay current with what young people love, evolving with the technology they access and making something positive and compelling for them.

Tags:	Austin Harley, customer, flash, gaming, Level Up!, Technology, tweens, videogames
Posted In:	Our People, Research

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Photo of the Month | AUGUST | ‘staches, bandanas and paper fish

August 30, 2011

Our IT Manager of 7.5 years, Mike, moved his family to Texas recently, so to send him off, we did a bit of a western themed photo shoot. I have to say that one of the best aspects of my job is that HopeLabbers will always put on their best game face when we have the occasional photo shoot. (And surely costumes help.)

I laughed so hard during this shoot and definitely had one very long #momentofjoy.

Tags:	culture, photo of the month
Posted In:	HL Culture, Our People, Photos

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Wisdom 2.0 Youth

August 26, 2011

Teens love tech. That’s not news. But the growing role of tech in the lives of teens does present great opportunities – and enormous challenges. The upcoming Wisdom 2.0 Youth conference asks, “How do we support the ‘inner technologies’ of mindfulness and wisdom in young people amidst an increasingly technology-rich age?”

We ask a similar question in our work here at HopeLab: “How might we promote positive, healthy behavior in young people by tapping into the power and appeal of technology?” So it’s no surprise we’re looking forward to Wisdom 2.0 Youth. There’s bound to be some thought-provoking conversation, as tech developers, parents, mindfulness practitioners and teens gather to share their experiences and insights.

HopeLab will be there – our experience at last year’s Wisdom 2.0 event continues to inspire us – along with Zamzee. We’ll even have a special opportunity for conference-goers to engage with our JOY Campaign.

Scheduled speakers include Meng Tan (Jolly Good Fellow, Google); Daniel Siegel (Co-Director, Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA); Pat Christen, (CEO, HopeLab); Susan Kaiser Greenland (Author, The Mindful Child); Eric Schiermeyer (Co-founder of Zynga, creator of CityVille and FarmVille); Michelle Gale (Learning and Development, Twitter); Jonathan Attwood (CEO, Zamzee); and many others.

Intrigued? Check out www.wisdom2youth.com for more information and to register. If you attend, look for us and say hello – we’d love to see you there!

Tags:	Conference, Pat Christen, Zamzee
Posted In:	Conferences & Events, Customers, Uncategorized, Values

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