Move Your App!

May 28, 2010

I mentioned yesterday I’d be staying local for an event in San Francisco to announce winners in the Move Your App! Developer Challenge we’re cosponsoring with our friends at Snaptic. Great day, lots of fun – and there’s more to come! Read on for event photos, news on the winners, how HopeLab got involved, and what’s next.  

And the Winner Is …  

Read More »

Tags:	contest, Inspiration, Pam Omidyar, Pat Christen, Technology, Zamzee
Posted In:	Conferences & Events, Partners, Physical Activity, Uncategorized

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“Games for Good” Conferences

May 27, 2010

Every year this time a few of us from HopeLab leave homebase here in Redwood City for an East Coast swing through two game conferences we love: Games for Health and Games for Change. I didn’t make the trip this year – instead, I’m detailed to represent HL at the Move Your App! Developer Challenge we’re cosponsoring with Snaptic; more on that in another post – but our veteran road warrior Ellen LaPointe did. (On a side note, this year the Games for Health and Games for Change event schedules actually overlapped a bit – why not combine the two into one big “Games for Good” meetup? Now there’s an idea.)  

At Games for Health, Ellen took the stage with a few HL collaborators and colleagues to moderate a panel on “Designing for Impact,” a look at how game producers, researchers, healtchare businesses and designers think about creating products that have meaningful impact. Reporting from the road, Ellen tells me about 100 folks turned out for the session and the dialogue between panelists Sven Newman of Daylight Design, Andy Swanson of Bayer HealthCare, and Jason Langheier of Fitness Forward was rich and well-received. Later in the day, Ellen and Sven hosted a second session, walking attendees through the HopeLab-Daylight collaboration on Ruckus Research, our project to gather human factors insights on kids lives and their attitudes about physical activity – a key piece of work that continues to inform our development work with Zamzee (formerly gDitty). Given the growing interest in “active gaming” to get people moving (hello, Project Natal!), it was a great opportunity to share what we learned through in our Ruckus Research project.

So, another informative, inspiring trip to the Games for Good events – looking forward to next year!

Tags:	Daylight Design, Games for Change, Games for Health, Ruckus Research, Zamzee
Posted In:	Conferences & Events, Social Impact

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Introducing Zamzee

May 13, 2010

If you played our name game, you’re already in the know: gDitty is now Zamzee! Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest and our online surveys to help select the new name. Here’s a clip for some background on our process and what’s ahead. Enjoy!

Tags:	gDitty, Zamzee
Posted In:	Customers, Physical Activity, Product Development, video

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The Name Game

May 5, 2010

If you watched our GleeDitty video, then you know we’ve been thinking about changing the name of our gDitty product prototype. After hearing lots of input from kids and parents, scribbling on thousands of sticky notes, and considering hundreds of possibilities (everything from meego to raskle to zamogo), we’ve finally decided!

Now, if you can guess what it is, you could win a (very rare) HopeLab t-shirt. Read on for contest details!

Here’s how it works:

Starting Friday, May 7, we’ll be posting photos to our Facebook page that each contain a letter in our new product name. After all six photos are posted (there’s your first clue!) and you’ve identified the letters, just put them together, and you’ll have the name. To win, be one of the first five people to email us the correct name. It’s that simple!

Some Details:
1. If you want to participate, you must first “like” us on Facebook (in old-school terms, you must be a “fan” of ours on Facebook). If you don’t already like us, just click the thumbs up button at the top of our page.

2. On Friday May 7, we’ll post one photo every hour on our Facebook Page, beginning at 9 AM PST. The last photo will be posted at 2 PM PST on Friday, May 7. The contest will close at 5 PM PST, Friday, May 7.

3. The first five people to email us at communications@hopelab.org before 5 PM PST with the correct answer will win a special HopeLab t-shirt. (I don’t even have a HopeLab t-shirt!)

4. Winners will be announced Friday May 7 after 5 PM PST via a Facebook Page post.

5. We won’t offer hints or clues other than the photos, but as members of the HopeLab community, you can reach out to each other by posting comments on the photo to ask each other questions, make comments, source others for help. HopeLab employees, vendors and partners are not able to participate (sorry, folks – only fair!).

6. For links to contest clues, search Twitter for the #hopelab hashtag.

7. The letters are presented in order.

So be sure to wear your thinking caps on Friday! Should be fun. And be on the lookout for a blog post early next week confirming our new name and some of our thinking behind it.

Questions? Post them below.

Tags:	contest, Facebook, gDitty, hopelab
Posted In:	HL Culture, Physical Activity, Product Development, Values

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