“Lance Armstrong was dealt one of life’s most difficult hands. He has managed to survive to ride for an incredible eighth Tour de France title. Win or lose, he’s already won just by being there. No matter what life throws at you. No matter what obstacles are in your path. No matter if the voices in your head are telling you that you can’t go on. Live every minute of your life with every ounce of your being. Unite and help us fight cancer. Because whatever you face, you can Livestrong.”

From today until the climb at the Mont Ventoux later on this week, the top-10 will be made in the Tour de France. And no matter Lance Armstrong will win for the eight time, he is already this year’s winner in Social Marketing.

Livestrong, the Lance Armstrong Foundation fighting for a world without cancer, already did an amazing job the past few years. Livestrong became one of the most well known health organisations worldwide with the third race cycling life of Lance.

Credits ad above:
Agency:
Marmalade, Melbourne, Australia
Additional credits:
Art Director: Tim Forte
Copywriter: Dan Forestal
Photographer: Chris von Menge
Retouching: Imagenation

Add a Livestrong wristband to your Twitter avatar.
The foundation made a very easy to use Twitter application for changing your Twitter avatar with an Livestrong wristband overlay.

——————————————————–

Marc van Gurp is the founder of the globally renowned Osocio blog which examines the world of advetising in the social change/non-profit landscape. Marc resides in Amsterdam.
Osocio @Twitter

Greg Matthews of Humana and Crumple It Up, gets interviewed by Justin Levy of New Marketing Labs to discuss the innovative health initiatives going on at Humana. They are transforming from a health benefits company to a health enabling company. I admire that. In the past I’ve written about some of the great initiatives that the Innovation team has come up with – including the Horsepower Challenge and the Insert Coin contest.

You can also find Greg on Twitter as @chimoose.

This article was originally written for the PopTech blog earlier this week. I’m really interested in how mobile technology is transforming public health and have written about it before with some of the key players mentioned below.

cc image from JonJon on Flickr

For the past several years, our mobile technology has become smaller, smarter and more capable of doing things beyond its initial intention. Right now we are being inundated with choices of cell phone and endless options for texting or data plans. Companies are clamoring to be ahead of the game regarding mobile marketing tactics and how to better interact with the consumer on one of their most sacred and prized possessions.

Seriously, I’m sure you know right now where your cell phone is.

Despite all of the technological advancement surrounding these portable command centers of communication – all the bells and whistles that come equipped – we are at a point in the public/global health world hardly any of it matters.

Right now there is a hotbed of activity surrounding the use of cell phones in the public health space that have nothing to do with touch screen technology or installing the latest Twitter application. This application of mobile technology to health is currently known as mHealth.

A large amount of mHealth’s impact is being focused into developing, low-resource countries where there are numerous health issues needing to be addressed. The helpful technology that comes into play is SMS (Short Messaging Service). Fondly referred to as texting, SMS is one of the most basic aspects of the cell phone where data entered can be sent back and forth between phones. This service has been wildly useful in the implementation of more effective health initiatives around the world.

One of the projects that has been making extensive use of SMS and text messaging in the global health scene is Ken Banks’ FrontlineSMS software. In the spirit of true open source innovation, a team of young innovators created FrontlineSMS:Medic in order to improve communication and collaboration among rural health clinics in the developing world. According to their mission, they hope to “advance healthcare networks in the developing world by building and distributing innovative, appropriate mobile technologies.”

In addition to creating this hub of innovation, the FrontlineSMS:Medic team helped put together an initiative to foster the generation of equipment to help implement their goals – the HopePhones project. By donating and recycling your unused cell phones, the proceeds are transferred into the HopePhones program, allowing for the purchase of appropriate mobile technology to aid in the healthcare of these clinics.

It is this sort of innovation on a basic level that truly yields great results, something Clay Shirky touched upon during his recent TED@State talk on how technology is being made useful today by citizens, especially in repressive regimes, around the world.

I really feel that as we continue to see more innovation come about in public health, we will begin to visualize a whole different perspective on how to create solutions.

On how to prevent disease.

On improving healthier behaviors.

On changing the world.

Raise You Hand is a brand new campaign from WorkSafeBC dedicated to promote workplace health and safety for the workers and employers in British Columbia, Canada.

Raise Your Hand is a young worker movement focused around worker rights: the right to know about hazards at your job and how to protect yourself, the right to participate in making sure your job and workplace are safe and healthy, the right to the right to refuse unsafe work. Unlike many young worker safety campaigns, which take a ‘shock and awe’ approach to scare young workers from being unsafe on the job, Raise Your Hand focuses on the positive steps young workers can take to prevent injury and death at work.

The campaign is found where the target audience – youth aged 18-25 – gather, at summer festivals and online.  Key elements of the campaign are the Raise Your Hand anthem (see above) and buttons that people can customize and either wear or create digital versions to put online. The creative theme is inspired by 70s movements – psychedelic album covers, peace, love.
The 70’s inspiration came about because of the affiliation of grassroots movement with that decade. RYH is very much about empowerment and participation to join this movement to make a difference.

View the Raise Your Hand Anthem.

The Raise Your Hand campaign contains many features as seen in this post and very important is the online strategy including a Button Generator, anthem video, ringtones and mp3 downloads, mashup of event anthem videos, Raise Your Hand Blog (currently features Nick Perry, a young worker who was injured on the job and is now a WorkSafeBC representative who visits schools around BC to discuss young worker safety) and of course educational information about the 3 rights, key statistics and tips on staying safe.

Social Media is also important to reach the target audience. For each event they will send a young person who acts as the Raise Your Hand correspondent to capture video and images to share on YouTube, a Facebook Fan page, Flickr and Twitter.

“Traditional media — like TV, radio and magazines — are not typically where young people get their information anymore,” explains Scott McCloy, WorkSafeBC’s director of Communications, who oversaw development of the campaign. “We knew we had to reach young workers where they spend most of their time — online. And we needed to present the information in an authentic and engaging way.”

Raise Your Hand will be at major festivals throughout BC this summer: Virgin Fest, Rock the Bells, the Dragon Boat Festival, Merritt Mountain Music Festival, Crankworx, and Nakusp. In September they will participate in Campus Crawls at universities and colleges throughout BC. Raise You Hand will have a branded tent and ambassadors at the events.
The three key activities will be the opportunity to have your photo taken and a create a customized button, participate in an anthem contest to create mashup music videos for each event, or play the Know Your Rights Plinko Board game for a chance to win Tshirts and trucker hats. These will be supported by other activities and displays. Their open guitar cases will have Raise Your Hand buttons for people to take, rather than asking for money.

Campaign posters:

Agency:
Wasserman + Partners
Additional credits:
Account Team: Pauline Hadley-Beauregard, Maxine Wu
Creative: Liam Greenlaw, Terry Lin, Allen Forbes
Brand Activation: Oliver Flaser, Anne Buch
Interactive: Liv Hung
Media: Antonella Frustaci
Production: Claire Khan, Kylie Kumar

——————————————————–

Marc van Gurp is the founder of the globally renowned Osocio blog which examines the world of advetising in the social change/non-profit landscape. Marc resides in Amsterdam.

Robotic science promises to give us some of the most fundamental advances in healthcare that we are likely to see arising out of any technology sector over the next decade. Its use is particularly important for telemedicine because it can enable physicians to extend their ‘physical presence’ to remote locations and even augment their standard capabilities.

A few recent examples include a robotic hand developed at the Michigan State University that allows physicians to perform remote breast cancer checks. The system uses a ‘haptic glove’ to allow the physician to control the robotic hand and even receive back sensory information giving the physician the “artificial sensation of touch”. This system extends the capabilities of the physician with built in ultrasound allowing them to both look at the ultrasound image and feel what they are seeing simultaneously.

Going one step further is InTouch Health with their RP-7 robot system which attempts to re-create the entire presence of the physician through a remote-controlled robot. The robot is untethered so that it could potentially move around an entire hospital freely and has built-in video-conferencing capabilities through a large screen mounted on the robots head, giving the patient the known feeling of seeing and talking to the physician. The system connects to a wide range of medical devices such as electronic stethoscopes, otoscopes, ECG machines, ultrasound and other devices that allow the physician to perform all of the standard checks that they would do in person.

Probably the ultimate example of robotics in healthcare today is the ‘da Vinci Surgical System’ developed by Intuitive Surgical that allows surgeons to remotely perform the most invasive of all medical procedures, open heart surgery. The da Vinci robot system is more ‘sterile, precise and flexible’ than a human hand and with the latest upgrades developed by researchers at Waseda University, can even perform coronary artery bypass surgery on a beating heart , something considered impossible to do by human hand alone.
The future of robotics in healthcare is both bright and fast-paced. Within the next decade, robots will become indispensable tools for advanced telemedicine. They will be commonplace in hospitals, which themselves will form a global grid of telemedicine connections that will allow specialist physicians and surgeons to help patients well beyond the scope of their own hospital and geographic location.

——————————–

Alex Savic is the CEO of Alensa AG, a Swiss healtchare company active in the fields of generic medicines and eHealth. Alensa has just launched the NextWidgets platform that allows pharmacies and other health shops to retail their products on the internet. Also, follow him on Twitter!

Recently, the website NextGenWeb relaunched with amazing new interactive features and information for those interested in how broadband affects our lives. Some of the main categories that NextGenWeb looks at are education, public safety, policy and health IT (e-Health, mHealth, etc.). Obviously Health IT is a hot topic now in the health care world and NextGenWeb aims to provide a forum for interaction and learning around this area.

Just taking a look at the calendar of events, the site listed some pretty interesting ones such as the DLC Policy Forum on Health and Education Reform where White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel spoke. Many of these events, including the recent talk at NIH on broadband technologies and health care reform, will most likely be added to Pulse + Signal’s calendar.

The innovative new site reinforces key themes to help drive broadband deployment and adoption: Connect, Innovate and Collaborate.” said Shana Glickfield – official blogger and Online Community Director. “As we blog, livestream, podcast, and tweet from policy and industry events taking place in Washington and across the country, NextGenWeb will serve as a central resource for the latest news on how broadband is transforming lives and a place for honest debate.

The website is being brought to the public by USTelecom, which is the nation’s premiere trade association representing broadband service providers, manufacturers and suppliers providing advanced applications and entertainment.

Finally, here is a video featuring my good friend Shana and Regina Hopper (Executive VP of USTelecom) discussing the relaunch of NextGenWeb.

This is what I call leading by example. This is what I call actions speak louder than words. This is what I call understanding your role as a leader and a responsible citizen for positive change.

Today is National HIV Testing Day and President Barack Obama, via the White House blog, has unveiled a video illustrating his view on today’s (and the activity behind the day) event.

One in five Americans currently living with HIV doesn’t know it.  If our President and First Lady can get tested — you can too.

From the TED page:

Hans Rosling unveils new data visuals that untangle the complex risk factors of one of the world’s deadliest (and most misunderstood) diseases: HIV. He argues that preventing transmissions — not drug treatments — is the key to ending the epidemic.

This is an amazing way to visualize important data that has to do with how HIV has affected the entire globe. I will definitely be following more of Hans’ work. This is exactly what we need in public health to create compelling narratives and consequently giving others a reason to care and take action.

This theatre experience with the provocative title “Eye of the Cervix” comes from the BC Cancer Agency (Canada). The aim is promote their Cervical Cancer Screening Program.

“It doesn’t take long to prevent Cervical Cancer. Remember to have regular Pap tests.”

Regular screening with a Pap test is important for protecting you from cervical cancer. Pap tests can find abnormal cells on the cervix. Treating these cells early can stop cancer from developing.

The BC Cancer Agency’s Cervical Cancer Screening Program is working to ensure all BC women get the screening they need to prevent cervical cancer.

Agency: Cossette, Vancouver

——————————————————–

Marc van Gurp is the founder of the globally renowned Osocio blog which examines the world of advetising in the social change/non-profit landscape. Marc resides in Amsterdam.

June is flying by isn’t it? Happy Father’s Day weekend!

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

- E.E. Cummings

• Top 10 Most Creative People in Healthcare
  • Fast Company includes Healthcare in their ongoing Top 10 listings
• Los Angeles Unveils New Campaign to Fight STDs
  • The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is offering free in-home testing kits through a new mail-in service.
• Congress Passes Tobacco Regulation Bill
  • President Obama: The measure would “protect our kids and improve our public health.”
• Health on the GO
  • More coverage on the rising use of cell phones in health care
• Americans Say Disease Prevention is Top Priority
  • Huffington Post article on a recent poll indicating how Americans feel about disease prevention (aka…Public Health!)