Gamification – OrgChanger.com

Innovation Management 2020 – Metrics and Success Factors

Join me for my guest lecture on “Innovation Management – Metrics and Success Factors” as part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship track in the MBA International Business Management and Leadership curriculum at the Hochschule Kempten, University of Applied Sciences, in Germany on June 01, 2019.

Join me for my upcoming guest lecture on “Innovation Management – Metrics and Success Factors” as part of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship track in the MBA International Business Management and Leadership curriculum at the Hochschule Kempten, University of Applied Sciences, in Germany on July 26, 2020.

In this track, we also discuss the teaching case study ‘Boehringer Ingelheim: Leading Innovation’ (available at Harvard Business Review) featuring Stephan Klaschka’s corporate career as an innovator and intrapreneur at Boehringer Ingelheim.
This case study was written by the Ivey Business School, University of Western Ontario, Canada, and is used for education by universities and colleges across Europe, America, and Asia.

Innovation Management – Metrics and Success Factors

Rethink Healthcare – Workshop – Berlin, Germany – April 11, 2017 #rethinkhealthcare17

Sign up for RETH!NK HEALTHCARE! – Big Data, Augmented Reality, Wearables
and visit my workshop “Digitale Disruption im Gesundheitssystem: Was sind die Risiken und Chancen für Pharmaunternehmen?” in the heart of Berlin, Germany, on April 11, 2017! – Follow the event on Twitter #rethinkhealthcare17

No need for doctors in the future?

Technological advances like Star Trek’s “Tricorder” affect healthcare faster and deeper than we seem to be aware of. It poses the legitimate (and serious) question whether we will need physicians anymore in the future!

This post is inspired by recent events, when I was approached to moderate a controversial discussion with an expert panel at an international health innovation event in Europe. The topic featured: “Disruptive Innovation in Medicine: Will physicians soon be obsolete?”

Science Fiction – for real?

50 years ago the original TV series “Star Trek” introduced a most fascinating and visionary healthcare device, the ‘Tricorder.’ Remember how Doctor McCoy (and his successors in more recent Start Trek versions) perform comprehensive medical examinations by simply moving the device over the patient’s body to diagnose their condition?

This technology is now becoming reality, user test are scheduled to start in September 2016. – The question is, how will it influence the medical profession? Will we need physicians in the future and if so, will their work be different for what they do today?

Stuck in today’s medical factory model

Let’s take a quick step back to look at why the Tricorder changes the paradigm of the past centuries as well as our current healthcare system, where the physician plays a key role to diagnose and treat our illnesses.

The internet led to a decline of our reliance on the medical experts around us (at least for the bulk of non-emergency care). Patients and caregivers discovered the abundance of online content to gain broader and deeper insights into health topics, to find up-to-date research information or to explore new treatment options. Global online communities of patients and caregivers form around numerous illnesses to share and exchange information and individual experiences across disciplines and borders.

Nowadays patients often enter a doctor’s office armed with research results and specific therapy options as well as a keen awareness of their own economic power pushing the physician towards delivering on the patient’s specific requests. From a patient’s perspective, in many cases, the physician degraded from a consulting health professional to a dispenser for prescriptions.

The physician on the other hand is limited by what diagnosis and treatment options the payers allow, i.e. are willing to pay for, and remains trapped spending much time to navigate a bureaucracy established by the various insurers and payers. Not being able to focus on practicing medicine but distracted by administration is frustrating also for physicians, who have stepped up to improve the patients’ health to the best of their abilities.

Frustration with today’s health factory model (image: whatsnext.nuance.com)

It does not surprise that a typical medical practice -from a patient’s perspective- looks like a factory: the patients get lined-up while the doctor hops from one to another in an efficient flow spending minimum time on each individual.

Overall, we already know our healthcare system being not overly efficient and way too expensive. From a patient’s perspective, it’s focus feels far off their individual health and care.

Beyond the limits of human capability

Even the best trained physician remains a human being with biases and limitation just as everyone else. We can also not realistically expect a physician to keep up with the 5,000 latest research articles on heart disease alone, to digest and interpret them as well as translating them swiftly into their medical practice.

At the same time, computers with artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning algorithms are already becoming capable of providing better and more treatment options with fewer errors with quick access to the internet’s vast sources of medical data and the most recent healthcare information for all kinds of user groups.

The picture is not much different for the “self-informed patient.” It is in the nature of the (online) beast that some information sources are more credible than others, which induces significant risk for layman consumers of this information. Incomplete, cherry-picked and at times questionable, outright wrong or inapplicable medical information in untrained hands can do more ill than good for the patient.

It’s a race that humans cannot win anymore, neither patients nor doctors.

The next step: Fiction becoming reality

The Tricorder can be seen as a way as the next evolution of automation – scary as it might sound initially, freeing up the physician and medical staff for other tasks may not be a bad thing.

It is a big step towards ‘automating healthcare’ by building an affordable and mobile diagnostic device that can reliably detect the presence or absence of an array of common illnesses better than an individual physician. This is what the ongoing Qualcomm ‘Tricorder’ X-Prize challenge is about.

What the final design will look like, we will see. Here is a glimpse by two of the seven finalist teams.

Images: Scanadu (left), Dexter/Final Frontier (right)

It awards $10,000,000 for a mobile device that cover vital signs, consumer experience, and diagnostics across a set of 12 distinct diseases as well as their absence. In fact, the winning device needs to cover indications from a variety of medical fields (see below table, source: X-Prize) with its results beating ten board-certified physicians.

The winner(s) are to be announced in just a few months out. To my surprise, this groundbreaking innovation challenge goes widely unnoticed – at least in Europe, from my recent observation.

A new side of healthcare

The Tricorder will only be the first version of a new class of healthcare technology. The first Tricorders may become available at the entrance to hospitals, medical practices, workplaces or in public health kiosks already in place at Walgreen, CVS and there alike over the coming years. They may pop up everywhere you hang out and have a few minutes to spare. Perhaps, you will have to undergo a quick screen of your health status to ensure the absence of contagious diseases before entering areas with many or vulnerable people such as nurseries, retirement homes or entertainment events.

Imagine how fast the second and third version will aim high with added features, miniaturization, better portability, user convenience, lowering cost, and so on. Order your own Tricorder via Amazon or pick it up at BestBuy or the Apple store. Some of its functionality may become available part of your next ever-smarter smartphone, smartwatch or other wearable device.

As a bottom-line, you will no longer need to see your doctor for a diagnosis. You may even collect relevant vital signs or perform a laboratory test on your own device anytime and anywhere.

Medical doctors – a dying profession?

With technology delivering affordable quality results, the key question remains: what happens to the physicians and their staff if key responsibilities such as a reliable diagnosis and selecting the most promising treatment may no longer be in their job description?

It seems obvious that most of what doctors and their administrative helpers do today may not be needed in the future. We already see trends emerging that drive radiologists, for example, out of their diagnostics business:

Cancer Research UK crowd-sourced identifying cancer by asking citizens to participate and commissioning a Genes in Space game for mobile devices designed to actually map patterns that help scientists spot DNA faults.

In recent competitions artificial intelligence (AI) systems get “strikingly close” to humans in detecting breast cancer, for example.

Where did the medical doctors go?

Technology will take over triage, diagnosis and decision-making regarding treatment options. Much of the administrative staff becomes obsolete. Fewer doctors will be needed. Their focus shifts to delivering the much-needed empathetic human care – and this may not be a bad thing, since this critical field of care seemed to have lost its place in the medical practices today.

It will open a new competition with nurses who already occupy much of this care space today and at a more affordable cost. Where exactly the line will be drawn time will tell.

My question to you

– How do you envision the future of medical professionals to change?
Please share your thoughts!

Save 50% at the 6th Intrapreneurship Conference in NYC, Oct. 21-23, 2015!

Contact me for a 50%-off discount code for the 1-day Wednesday program (Oct. 21) at the upcoming Intrapreneurship Conference in New York City, Oct. 21-23, 2015!

Join me for my workshop on How to build a strong foundation for a sustainable Intrapreneuring program at 1:35pm to 3:30pm on Thursday, October 22, 2015:

As an intrapreneur you struggle with many visible and hidden innovation barriers in a large organization.
How do you get started to change the organization bottom up?
What does a sustainable innovation ecosystem look like and how can you set one up?
This workshop helps you to identify and overcome obstacles, to find allies and sponsors, and to measure and communicate success to upper management convincingly.
Learn from real-world case studies, practical hands-on experience and apply powerful tools!

Join me at “Wearable Technologies & Digital Health” Sep. 29, 2015

Join me for a discussion following my key note on “Disruption im Gesundheitssystem durch Wearable Devices” at the upcoming CeBIT EuroForum Konferenz Wearable Technologies & Digital Health in Bonn/Germany at 9:45 on September 29, 2015.

Save 15% with coupon code “7713R-15P1300007-15_D1501771” when you sign up for the conference here and stay tuned via Twitter #wetech15

~~~ Here is the official event information (in German) ~~~

CeBIT Konferenz
Wearable Technologies & Digital Health
29. und 30. September 2015, Bonn

Digitale Revolution des Gesundheitswesens – wird jetzt Alles anders? Wearables, Apps und digitale Services revolutionieren das Gesundheitswesen. Verlieren Sie nicht den Anschluss an den Markt, sondern erleben, diskutieren und erarbeiten Sie auf der CeBIT Konferenz Wearable Technologies & Digital Health neueste Health Care-Modelle für die Gesundheitsbranche. Die Konferenz bietet Ihnen: zahlreiche Praxisvorträge, Startup-Pitch, Wearables zum Anfassen, Diskussionen und Erarbeitung neuer Geschäftsmodelle im World-Café.

www.euroforum.de/wearables?sk

Don’t miss Gati Dharani on ‘Wearables for Health Intervention in Aging Population’ @APHA, Nov.17, New Orleans

It’s a billion dollar question: How can we use wearable mobile devices for better health outcomes in the aging population? Join my valued colleague and HITLAB innovator Gati Dharani and her team revealing newest research in sights on “Wearable fitness tracker intervention increases physical activity in Baby Boomers” at the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) HEALTHOGRAPHY 142nd Annual Meeting and Exposition on November 15-19, 2014, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Why is this a billion dollar question? – The traditional business model of the pharmaceutical industry is broken. The focus shifts to incentivize patient-centric outcomes, prevention and behavior change in the global battle against a mounting wave of chronic diseases such as diabetes. In search for a new business “beyond the pill” the pharmaceutical industry joins other stakeholders in the healthcare system to align and pull in this same direction. First data-driven results are highly anticipated – well, here they are, so don’t miss this milestone event!

Meet me at HxRefactored 2014 in NYC on May 13-14, 2014

HxRefactored 2014 in NYC on May 13-14 at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge.

HxRefactored is a revolutionary design and technology conference that will gather over 500 designers, developers and leaders in health for two days of thought provoking talks, workshops and discussions on how to improve the quality of the health experience. The conference fuses the technical and creative elements of Health 2.0’s Health:Refactored and Mad*Pow’s Healthcare Experience Design Conference.

Join me at the Customer Experience Summit 2014 in Princeton/NJ on March 6, 2014

Pharma Customer Experience Summit 2014 at The Nassau Inn Hotel, 10 Palmer Square, Princeton, NJ on March 6, 2014

What makes us happy

Some years back I read a book by two researchers in search of what makes people happy. Beyond general curiosity, my motives were somewhat selfish: I wanted to find out what the secret to happiness so to apply it to myself and be happy.

Finding the “happy people”

I still remember the researchers approach. It was different from what I expected and has stuck with me since then: they did not come from a nerdy angle that started with lengthy definition for “happiness” along with complex parameters and complicated metrics as you may expect. These two researchers went out to find “happy” people by hearsay and then interview them to identify commonalities or factors leading to their happiness – and the very secret to happiness I was after.

Looking back, the researchers used the power of crowd sourcing (long before it became a household buzzword) to find those happy people. In this practical yet somewhat fuzzy approach, they asked broadly who knew people that were “happy”. Then zeroed in on those reportedly happy individuals that several others pointed to. It may not be the most “scientific” approach I ever heard but intuitively it made sense enough for me to accept it and read on.

What happy people have in common

The researchers found and interviewed, asking if these people felt truly happy and to found out what exactly made them so happy.

The responses surprised me. Most of them, as I recall, did not consider themselves “happier” than others in a particular way despite the many people around them believing otherwise. Of these presumable happy people, most appeared modest and content with their lives. Their happiness came from within and somehow ‘radiated’ out to others.

Overall, they were happy with what they had and not driven by the longing for things they did not have. It seemed they were more resilient or less tempted in what is advertised and suggest making us more beautiful, happy, smart, sophisticated, loved, needed, sexy, admired, or whatever once we buy this or that.

No problems in life?

It got even more interesting for me when the researchers got to the real ‘meat’ probing the million-dollar question: where does this inner happiness come from? Was there an event, experience, or cause? Were these people luckier in life than others, did they win the lottery? Did they not face the same obstacles that most of us encounter; did they not experience pain or feel despair as much?

The answer was a surprise, again, from what I had expected and consistent across responders. What these reportedly happy people had in common were traumatic life experiences, some of the saddest I have ever heard. They had suffered the most painful challenges a human can ever go through; heart-wrenching life stories full of grief with loss and pain on every level imaginable. They had faced certain death, lost loved ones or their health, survived war, crime, assault or terrible disasters. They had lost everyone and everything important to them, everything that they had considered the center of their life at that time.

Gratitude

What they also had in common was a deep gratitude for having overcome these major losses and crises. They were grateful for what they had today starting with their own life. Their happiness truly came from within. They did not crave getting the newest gadget first or show off status symbols of sorts. They were happy being with their friends and family, and going about a simple life they enjoyed every minute. They found beauty again in a flower and took the time to sniff it when others rushed by.

As a learning from these ‘happy’ people for myself, their happiness resulted from enduring a deep and meaningful suffering, overcoming a life-changing trauma and then to truly appreciate that you survived or made it through in the end to live another day.

It even reminds of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, where to protagonist need to descend to Hell (suffering) and work its way up through Purgatory (transformation) to reach Paradise (happiness).

To this day, it serves me as a reminder to value and cherish what I have and can do, and not to become obsessed with what I do not have.

Looking into the abyss

Now we could leave it here to sit back, smile, and cozily reflecting on our lives feeling good for a little while. But why not take it further and ask the ultimate question: looking back when I die, what would I have done different, what would have made me happier?

Obviously, we do not want to wait to find an answer before it is too late. So, let’s crowd-source again and learn from other people at the end of their lives looking back. Thankfully, an Australian nurse recorded the regrets of the dying she worked with over a 12-year period. (The Guardian, Top five regrets of the dying, February 1, 2013)

Here are their top five regrets:

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. – This was the most common regret of all.
I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Read the list again. Take a minute and think about it. – Do any of these regrets resonate with you? What would be your greatest regret?

Now that you know what these soon-to-die people wished they had done differently in their lives, what will you do in the time you still have?

Synthesis

But how does this all come together? What is the change within us that in the end made the ‘happy people’ happy? I was still looking for answers, for a pattern and an explanation to this phenomenon.

Let’s take just one step back to look at the bigger picture and combine the path of hardship to happiness by the ‘happy people’ with the regrets of the dying. Is there a general formula that we can apply to ourselves to be happy?

Attempting an explanation

I don’t claim to have scientific evidence, nor did I mull through endless scientific literature, or study medicine or psychology; to me the answer I found appears quite apparent and not new either. It is known as “post-traumatic growth” in the medical world and defined as “a positive change experienced as a result of the struggle with a major life crisis or a traumatic event.”

Transformation

A change takes place in individuals during post-traumatic growth that transforms mind, attitude, and behavior:

Priorities change – they are not afraid to do what makes them happy
Feeling close to others – they seek and value closeness with people that are important in their lives
Knowing oneself better – they are awareness of their own needs and limitations
Living with meaning and purpose – they enjoy each day to the fullest, carpe diem!
Better focus on goals and dreams – actively seeking to making changes

This transformation changed the ‘happy people’ consciously or unconsciously, and it is this behavior and mindset that others see or sense, which leads them to the conclusion they are happy.

How to be happy

Now, wouldn’t it be great if you could replicate this this transformation and become happy without having to go through the hardship and suffering these happy-after-tragedy people all had to go through? – The good news is you can!

From what I learned from Jane McDonigal, a famous game designer, the favorable result of post-traumatic growth can build four specific individual changes:

Physical resilience – to not give in to sedentary behavior, meaning to get up and active, physically move!
Mental resilience – build up your willpower to persist in reaching for your goals
Emotional resilience – provoke your positive emotions to offset negativity (ideally in a ratio of 3:1, no kidding!)
Social resilience – draw strength from other people; as a practical approach, genuinely thank one person a day or touch another person for at least 6 seconds.

Everyone can benefit for this simply by choosing to do so. It gets even better: over 1,000 peer-reviewed studies confirm that applying these changes can prolong your life by up to 10 years! Amazingly, not only are the ‘happy people’ obviously happy, they also live longer!

So if you are in search for your happiness, as I was, chose to make these personal choices and start your transformation to happiness today!

A Splash of Innovation!

A Splash of Innovation!

Gamification became a simple solution for a long-standing sanitation problem… observations of innovative toilet technology from around the world – or how an innovative fly solves the plaguing problem.

The Problem

When you travel to different countries, you can learn a lot. For example, how other cultures deal with common problems we share as humans and what solutions they find. One of these all-time problems is, for example, the cleanliness of urinals in men rest-rooms in high-traffic public restrooms (toilets) such as in airports and train stations.

Without diving deeper into the real mess that meets the eye, let’s just say that men sometimes seem to lack aim causing spatter and leading to an unpleasant sanitary situation in the surrounding area – you get the idea. This mess needs to be cleaned up several times a day. It is a job nobody likes at a cost that operators of restrooms would prefer not to spend.

So, how can the mess and the resulting cost be avoided in the first place?

Some background information

Did you know that urinals are actually designed to minimize unwanted splashing? Now, this works best if the stream is aimed to a certain area of the urinal bowl. While the designers go through great length to create this feature, their best effort does not seem to be communicated to the users effectively (or have you ever seen a user manual…?)

It is also hard to tell where exactly this ‘sweet spot’ is located since urinals come in a surprising variety of shapes and sizes. Therefore, even with the best intention the user lacks the necessary information to use the urinal in an as clean way as possible.

In summary, there are many aspects to consider in tackling the resulting problem. Think about it for a moment, how would you approach solving the problem? What ideas do you have?

A solution on the fly

Here is a solution that used gamification to reduce cost and favorably cleaner facilities as a by-product to the approach.

Instead of launching an educational campaign, print user manuals, enforce fines, or negotiate lower salaries of cleaning staff, the Dutch came up with an ingeniously simple idea: they put the picture of a common housefly right on the sweet spot in the urinal bowls in male restrooms at the busy Schiphol airport in Amsterdam/Netherlands!

The urinal 'fly' — The ‘fly’ from the Netherlands

The ‘fly’ started out as a low-cost peel-and-paste decal and is now also available already etched right into new bowls by the manufacturer.

Gamify it!

This little fly turns the ‘aiming’ handicap into an engaging little game challenge: It seems to appeal to a man’s inner child as well as waking deep-rooted hunter instincts. It also becomes a welcome pastime during an otherwise boring routine. It becomes a very personal and fun activity ‘shooting the fly’!

FlyToilet as Game design — Fly-in-the-Toilet as Game design

We discussed “Collective Intelligence: The Genomics of Crowds”, i.e. gamification from a crowd-sourcing perspective and that a well-designed game works by combining a basic set of ‘game genomes’ (strategy, staffing, structure/process, and rewards) successfully.

Interestingly, these same genomes can also be applied to this very personal ‘fly shooting’ game. Strategy relates to the aiming challenge and pastime as a goal. One person alone decides and does the ‘work’ of aiming with an immaterial reward that remains known only to the player.

University of Illinois’ Professor Mary Berenbaum confirms that men apparently have “a deep-seated instinct to aim at targets” that the fly satisfies and catches their attention.

Did it work? It does, according to Aad Keiboom, the manager at Schiphol Airport: the “spillage” reduced by 80% after applying ‘the fly’. The spreading and commercial success of urinals with etched-in flies is solid proof.

80pct spillage reduction — 80% less spillage at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport

Does it have to be a fly?

Reportedly, the idea to use a fly to reduce “misdirected flow” is not new. It was traced back to maintenance man Jos Van Bedoff during his time with the Dutch Army in the 1960s. He noticed a similar result after red dots were applied in the barracks urinals.

Yet, neither Schiphol Airport nor the Dutch Army was the first to use ‘special targets’ in this sanitary context. The idea originated in Britain over a century ago. Back then, the picture of a honeybee was used in toilet bowls; however, we don’t see them anymore. It seems a ‘target’ with a stinger is less appealing a fly… and if only, perhaps, for the imaginary fear of being stung back…

What is new in one industry or setting may be an innovation in another (“Imitators beat Innovators!“). This principal also applies for “lost innovations” that get re-invented at a later time, like the bee that vanished and then re-emerged as a fly in a different country over a century later.

As a variation of the ‘fly target’, I recently found a candle with a flame that serves the same purpose as the fly in Germany – perhaps, the Germans have more empathy for insects?

The 'candle' in Germany — Putting out the ‘candle’ in Germany

Why not everywhere?

I noticed this gamified innovation in three countries: the Netherlands, Germany, and Japan.
– Why don’t we see the fly more in densely populated Asian countries or the USA?

While it is safe to assume that the sanitary issue is rather universal, what these three countries have in common is high labor cost. Therefore, they prefer solutions that build on automation technology and process over having a squad of cleaners attend to the mess several times a day.

Perhaps, airports help to spread this innovation internationally ‑ the ‘fly’ made it to Terminal 4 of John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Let’s see where it lands next…

Not an arcade game but sparking the challenge: I recently found this “target pad” in Buenos Aires, Argentina:

Gamification with a competitive edge – the target pad I saw in Argentina

If you want to try it out and start a low-cost experiment of your own, just get some ‘fly’ stickers!

toilet-marksman-sticker — Do-it-yourself toilet ‘marksman’ stickers

More gamification in restrooms…?

So far, I found most advanced restroom technology in Japan at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Aside from being as clean and inviting as a restroom can ever be, a number of buttons on the wall next to the toilet bowl allow a person to regulate not only warm water showers for different body areas built right into the toilet bowl.

To me, one particular function ranks somewhere between functional and entertainment. There is a button to generate flushing noises without actually flushing water! You can even regulate the volume of the flushing soundscapes! I am not sure what the practical need is for having this unique feature, but it’s fun to play with anyway.

Japanese toilet flush sound button — Japanese toilet “flushing sound” button?

I can’t wait to see what the next generation of gamification and innovation brings to what was a boring and messier place in the past…

Category: Gamification

Innovation Management 2020 – Metrics and Success Factors

Innovation Management – Metrics and Success Factors

Rethink Healthcare – Workshop – Berlin, Germany – April 11, 2017 #rethinkhealthcare17